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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Collective of Disciplines under one Roof, October 29, 2007
This review is from: Psychology (Hardcover)
Psychology is no longer a discipline with a few sub-disciplines that need to be examined. Now there are branches of cognitive psychology that need to be discussed with more clarity, the growing ideation concealed beneath the umbrella term "positive psychology" that needs to be introduced sooner and with more zeal, and there are so many other themes that need to be looked out but just don't seem to be "important" to people trying to prime future students. When you look at the 8th edition of Myers Psychology you can see how all of this can be looked addressed by an instructor without overloading students in the process, and you can also see how the author(s) took the time to look deeper than the average creator of books. This doesn't cover the instructor resources, either, which are well worth the time and attention of anyone looking for newer researcher to discuss.
If you are a teacher looking at this, check out the resources and the DVD that comes in the mix because the video library they provide certainly is beyond the mundane norm.
The 8th edition is 18 chapters in length, covering: A Prologue on Psychology, 1 - Thinking Critically, 2 - NeuroScience and Behavior, 3 - Nature Nurture and Human Behavior, 4 - Development through the Lifespan, 5 - Sensation, 6 - Perception, 7 - States of Consciousness, 8 - Learning, 9 - Memory, 10 - Thinking and Language, 11 - Intelligence, 12 - Motivation and Work, 13 - Emotion, 14 - Stress and Health, 15 - Personality, 16 - Psychological Disorders, 17 - Therapy, 18 - Social Psychology, and an Appendix on Careers in Psychology.
In these I liked a few things, including:
(1) The fact that many of these ask a student to "think critically," not just presenting information but allowing the student to interject their opinion on the subject. I thought that was a rewarding thing to see because, above anything else, too many introductory classes leave the student out of the equation.
(2) The fact that some of the chapters treat new ground not covered by most introductory books and do so interestingly. This means that the book gives the students some interesting topics to look at and not just the background of Freud, Erickson, Maslow, and the other well-known names.
(3) The book discusses issues separately that should be separated. Therapy and Psychological Disorders is one of those, and Chapters 5 - 10 are others that also fall in that realm.
(4) The book looks into issues that are not normally covered without delving into some sort of Developmental Psychology, some Cognitive Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, and a few other classes. Basically, you have a lot of mini classes cocealed within this one book, allowing the instructor to design their own approach to teaching.
While this may not be the most favored book for students who want a continuum from their high school highs, it is a great book to introduce people to the disciplines of Psychology and allows for a lot of deviation by the teacher. I would certainly recommend it as a primer for Psychology majors, allowing them to see just what the field has to offer. Too often that isn't expressed, with careers in Counseling or Mental Health always taking precedent over Research careers or hose in the Industrial sector.
It really is nice to see something that showcases just how broad the world really is.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
for 101, it's a 100., August 1, 2007
This review is from: Psychology (Hardcover)
This is a fantastic General Psych, Psych 101, or AP Psych textbook. My experience with it gave me the notion that this might just be the best Gen Psych textbook available. I got a 5 on the AP exam using this book, but more importantly, i learned so much from it, i cannot even begin to explain. I recommend this to students as well as teachers (for their class) because, simply, it just doesn't get much better.
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30 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Going overboard, January 20, 2007
This review is from: Psychology (Hardcover)
I took a general psych course at college this past summer, where we used Wayne Weiten's "Psychology: Themes & Variations". Half-way into the term, health problems conspired to force my withdrawal. Lather, rinse, repeat; new semester, new book (of course) - Myers' 8th edition of "Psychology". This gives me "special" insight into two vastly different approaches to the teaching of the science of psychology. Whereas Weiten's approach was Words, Facts, Reinforcement, Myers' approach seems merely to be Words, Words, Words.
A good example of the differences between the two can be found in their descriptions of psychology's founder, Wilhelm Wundt. With Weiten, Wundt comes off as a figure in abstract. Myers, however, introduces him thus:
"...on a December day in 1879, in a small room on the third floor of a shabby building at Germany's University of Leipzig. There, two young men were helping an austere, middle-aged professor, Wilhelm Wundt, create an experimental apparatus."
What, that's all? What was the barometric pressure? Was it sunny, cloudy, or snowing outside? Was the floor made of tile or wood? And, please, I must know: were either of his grad students having a bad hair day? The history of psychology lies in the balance.
His description of Wundt might seem fascinating, but keep in mind that this book is 772 pages of similarly irrelevant asides. It grows tedious and even hazardous to your learning. Such verbose descriptions of historical figures in psychology serve to distract from the main subject - the science of psychology itself. Furthermore, I am an unreformed outliner. I've found that the best way for me to strengthen my learning and understanding of a subject is to outline the text. But, while Weiten's text seemed specifically designed to make that easy, Myers' approach makes it practically impossible.
Both books are thoroughly up-to-date, and both are amply filled with the staples of modern texts: pictures, charts, diagrams, etc. But Myers lacks what Weiten has in spades: review. Every chapter in Weiten has 4-5 "Concept Checks": brief quizzes reinforcing your understanding of the concepts under consideration. The end of every chapter has a "Practical Learning" section and a "Critical Applications" segment, as well as a thorough, 2 page quiz and review of the chapter. For review, Myers has about 5 questions at the end of the chapter and a list of important terms - and that's it. I think psychology - the subject under study, after all - has pretty much settled the debate over which is the better approach to learning.
I am not totally flaming Myers, however. The man has a clear grasp (and love) of his subject. Some people may even find his approach useful. My own personal experience, however, is to prefer that texts be texts and avoid the distracting verbal diarreah. My astronomy text, for example, took a fairly spartan approach to the subject (by modern standards, anyway). But I found that the text, combined with Timothy Ferris's "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" was a perfect approach to my understanding and retention - far better than if the two had somehow been combined.
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