Psychological Research: The Ideas Behind the Methods (Hardcover)

by Douglas G. Mook (Author), Douglas Mook (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Personal, Informal Writing Style: Professor Mook has written a book that undergraduates will want to read. Written with an informal voice and casual style, Psychological Research confronts students' fears and misconceptions while covering a full range of topics.

Studies and Applications from All Fields of Psychology: Psychological Research presents examples from different branches of pschology and establishes that the methods and principles are the same throughout the discipline.

Real Examples with Real Implications: In order to dispel the misconception that research is narrow in scope, Professor Mook emphasizes both the immediate consequences of experimental results and the broader contexts in which results can be applied.

Intuitive Approach: Every chapter reinforces the belief that psychological research builds on a familiar core of ideas, and emphasizes that the standard procedures of good research are not mysterious or esoteric.

Making Friends With Statistics: Psychological Research includes abbreviated coverage of statistics. Building on the intuitive approach featured throughout the book, Professor Mook emphasizes the value of learning how to use statistics over the memorization of formulas and equations. He demonstrates the role of statistics in designing an experiment, interpreting results, and presenting findings while keeping mathematical calculations to a minimum. "Making Friends with Statistics" sections appear at the end of each chapter for clarity and flexibility.

About the Author
Douglas G. Mook is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Virginia. He has published widely in leading professional journals, including Psychological Research, American Psychologist, and the Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, on such diverse topics as the nature of preferences, the problem of external validity in research, and the neuroendocrine control of ingestion in rats. Professor Mook is also the author of Motivation: The Organization of Action (Norton, Second Edition, 1999). He lives in New York City, where he teaches regularly at local colleges while cultivating his interest in operatic performance.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; 1st edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393976203
• ISBN-13: 978-0393976205
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #501,530 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Crystal-Clear Methods Book that Teaches Larger Issues, April 8, 2005

By	Gordon Bear (Ramsey, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I’ve been teaching Research Methods in Psychology from this text for three years now and am so satisfied I plan to continue using it indefinitely. Some virtues of the book:

Except in certain of the sections on statistics, the writing is accessible to my state-college students and crystal clear. Mook delivers information superbly well, even on highly technical matters. The frequent diagrams help; the one on p. 225 knocked me over, it’s so good. Mook also uses the occasional footnote well—on p. 193, for example. He has a genius for explication.

I applaud his strategy for achieving gender neutrality in the writing (varying between “she” and “he”), and it’s executed well.

The examples come from a wonderful variety of areas, and almost all are interesting to my students. As a social psychologist, I’m especially glad he chose to illustrate the power of the situation and employed it to illustrate the ladder of principles.

The emphasis on experimentation is most welcome in my course; I share his prejudice in favor of this method and lament its decline in social psychology.

Pp. 25-26 are a stellar introduction to the experimental testing of a theory.

Mook offers considerable information on practitioners, whose epistemological problems constitute a topic of special concern to my students and me. According to a list I made as I read the book the first time, he makes reference to practitioners on pp. 3, 7, 9, 10, 44-47, 59-61, 74, 81, 258-261+266, 277-278, 279-280, 357-362, and 473-476, plus the section on “The Intuitive Psychologist” (pp. 476-490). Wow!

Mook covers almost everything my students need to know for their personal projects. (I ask them to design, conduct, analyze, and report an empirical investigation and encourage all to use an experimental method.) I wish he had more on measurement, though.

And he addresses larger issues. There’s much more to the book than the nuts and bolts of methodology. The treatment of the topics covered in Keith Stanovich’s book “How To Think Straight About Psychology” is so thorough that I’ve stopped assigning it.

“Making Friends with Statistics” is a great title for the sections on quantification: warm, inviting. My only important complaint about the book is that some of these sections are too brief to be clear. So let’s hope they get expanded in a second edition.

Gordon Bear, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
School of Science
Ramapo College of New Jersey

(This is an unsolicited review.)

5.0 out of 5 stars Psychologica Research: The Ideas Behind the Methods, September 10, 2008

By	S. Dewitt - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

this book is very easy to read and understand. The author uses lots of examples and puts every thing in laymens terms.

5.0 out of 5 stars It's like Mook is there talking to you..., February 6, 2008

By	Sara Kazemi "Sarie" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This text is the best written text I've read in all my years at college. It was required for an advanced research methods course in experimental psychology. The course was very fast-paced and required reading 2 chapters per week on average so that we'd finish the book mid-semester and allocate the rest of the semester to designing and implementing our own research designs. I am thankful that Mook's writing style is so fluid and that his way of conveying ideas is so clear that it is almost as if he is sitting right there next to you and explaining it to you face-to-face. It is for this reason that it was so effortless to keep up with the readings and do well on quizzes and to later show the competency to implement scientific design and methods in a final psychological experiment of my own.