Customer Reviews

Psychology

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an Intro Psych instructor, I reviewed dozens of psychology texts. Gray's "Psychology" is clearly the best.

First, because it is written by a single author, it maintains a consistent style and viewpoint throughout--that is, the application of evolutionary biology and cognitive science to the study of the mind and behavior. Consequently, he does not shy away from putting forward strong arguments where they are needed. On this, see especially his superb discussion of the fall of behaviorism and the rise of cognitivism.

Second, the author has a powerful command of several lines of important research, and he uses this to "smarten up" the text to make it *more* understandable. As an example, see particularly his discussions of the heritability of intelligence.

Third, the text is beautifully organized.

The text does, however, suffer from two small weaknesses: the discussion of self-esteem owes too much to James, with James' errors especially, and the discussion of mental health and happiness needlessly bore little imprint from the chapters on cognition.

Still, Gray produced a superlative volume.

I thought this text was great--it provides information in a very clear and well-explained manner for the student who has never taken a psychology course before. Gray proves he has a sense of humor as well, injecting funny lines every now and then. It provides a lot of pertinent information in an interesting manner, and covers everything from theories on development and society to cognition and neuroscience. After finishing my intro psych class I even found myself wishing I could still use the text for my other classes (in fact I still refer to it every now and then).

The book gives you in comprehensive English a good introduction of nowadays psychology. We (psychology students, RUG) use it in the first year as an introduction and I liked it very much. It is not going too deep but gives you a good impression of what psychology is and means!

If truth be told, I do not even like psychology, and feel contemt of some sort for it.I took it this semester to fulfill my humanity requirement.Nevertheless, I cannot deny that this book is wonderfully written, and it was a true pleasure reading it ! Peter Gray is obviously very fond of psychology, as well as of teaching it.It was much fun reading a book written so sensitively and with so much enthusiasm. I know many universities assign this book and am therefore surprised only one person reviewed it so far.

I took some psychology courses back in my college days, but that was in the early 90s. Since science is always changing, I wanted to brush up on some basics before pursuing graduate studies. This textbook did a good job of refreshing my memory and bringing me more up to date with more current science and research. Not only that, it went into more detail than some other similar textbooks without being overwhelming or hard to follow. I would highly recommend it as an introductory psychology textbook for someone new to the subject, or for someone looking to refresh their memory after a number of years after college before pursuing further studies. I feel more prepared now to tackle some more detailed study in the field.

This book came less than a week. The book was in good quality, no messed up or wet pages, very complete. Fast and efficent overall.

The book has interesting visuals, set-up for taking notes, and covers a wide range of what is contained in the history and present of the study of the mind in relation to the body.
I think it will definitely help me in my entry-level Psychology course.

good book in good shape, fast shipping, but it is the 2nd edition and the add was for the 4th edition. that is dissapointing and decieving.