The Rough Guide to Psychology: An Introduction to Human Behaviour and the Mind (Rough Guides) Paperback – March 21, 2011

Great book overall. Very helpful information

Very nice tour of the psychology landscape with a nice emphasis on pointing out what's evidenced based without necessarily putting down those that are less tested. I like that it contains the latest and most current thinking. Because of the broadness of the scope, it is indeed a rough guide,...but nonetheless a smooth read. Well done.

Obviously, a subject as complex as psychology isn't something you can learn from one book. This is a good get started source, and especially useful for those who work with people and don't have the time to become PhD's on the topic.

The Rough Guide to Psychology offers a summary of the discipline of human psychology, as that field has traditionally been defined. The text is organized into six sections: (1) Welcome to You (a very brief introduction to the brain, sense organs, memories, decisions, and emotions); (2) You and Me (personal and romantic relationships); (3) Same Difference (personality; intelligence; gender; nature- nurture); (4) All of Us (prejudice and racism; beliefs and morals; crowd behavior; (5) Psychology at Large (psychology as applied to business, crime, politics, money and shopping, school, sports, health); and (6) Psychological Problems (development; depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, therapy). The text is followed by a list of references (books magazines, multimedia, and internet).Although I am quite a fan of Rough Guides, I found this one disappointing. Its coverage of traditional topics is adequate enough, and readers will find much useful information. Nevertheless, in my view the book is too limited in scope and fails to capture the full range of modern psychology. First, the book almost entirely ignores the biological basis for psychological phenomena and behavior. Structure and function of the human brain is alluded to (and very poorly) in five brief pages, and sense organs are given even less attention. Without a basic understanding of how sense organs transduce stimuli into nerve impulses, how can we begin to understand sensory input to the brain? We are never told what neurotransmitters are -- and how can one understand brain function and mental illnesses without them? As for functions of neurons and the various types of glial elements that enhance their functions, readers will search in vain through text and index. With such information being a staple of any quality introductory psychology course, its absence in this book is most puzzling.Second, the major impact of neuroscience on the field of psychology never figures into this account, nor does the wealth of relevant information that has come from experimental work on brain and neural function. Psychology is a different field than it was in the 1950s- 1980s, and neuroscience continues to subsume aspects of the subject as traditionally defined. Third, very little information is provided on non-human animals. Nerve cells and nervous systems are nearly universal among animals, and our understanding of how they work and fail to work comes from their study in various key species. Meanwhile, most of the basic features of the human brain are shared with our primate relatives, along with most characteristic human behaviors. The section on "other species" is brief and superficial. Even if one overlooks the important sub-discipline of animal psychology for a limited focus on humans, why would one want to give short shrift to the insights to be gained from comparative and evolutionary approaches?To put these issues in historical perspective: psychology gained autonomy as a field at great cost, by ignoring anatomy, physiology, cell biology, biochemistry, and evolution, and by ignoring the many animals who share functional and structural attributes with humans. Even for his day, Freud was scientifically outmoded, and he and his successors led the field into many a blind alley (remember the Oedipal complex and castration anxiety? Jung's "racial memory" theory? Wilhelm Reich's ridiculous "orgone boxes"?). BF Skinner's behaviorist approach was a step in the right direction, but only a small one, and one that introduced its own problems. Meanwhile, in partial reaction to past sins of racism and sexism, the reigning ideology came to be one in which nurture mattered far more than nature. And so, the physical substrate of behavior became ignored in favor of the "black - box approach," and the questionnaire -- so easy to administer and quantify! -- became a chief tool of research. Most of the studies cited in this guide come from such questionnaires, and from trivial behavioral manipulations. That a guide to the field in 2011 would so heavily reflect such approaches presumably reflects the parochial training or traditional outlook of its author. Fortunately, there is more to modern psychology, and more to the behavior of humans and other animals, than this this guide would suggest.

It's always been funny to me how defensive people get when they hear psychological explanations for behavior. Guess we all crave being unique, and don't want our behavior to be so easily explained or worse yet, predicted, by anyone. However what is funny about our cultural skepticism of psychology is that in reality, we would have a hard time finding a bigger skeptic than a research psychologist! They never want to hear your instinctual explanations for behavior - they always want to know EXACTLY how you know something about behavior is true. This book will tell you exactly that - how psychologist know something about behavior is true and/or predictable. Dr. Jarrett presents the research behind the main body of work of psychology. He tells you HOW we know. He begins by describing and defining what a scientific experiment is - really just an expansion on what you learned in preparing your grade school science fair experiment, this time applied to behavior. Are you interested in how psychologists define and measure different types of intelligence? The answer is here. Do you want to know how to "boost your happiness"? The fact and experimentally proven answer is here. Are you interested in what it means to "fall in love" and specifically what happens? Here's the research. Want to know about sexual responses? Yep, it's here too. Some other interesting topics covered are crime, religion, politics (why do you vote the way you do?), shopping (why do you cave in and buy that unneeded item?).As a retired psychology professor I highly recommend this book. It is not "pop psych" as you find in some popular books and magazines, but research based, evidence based psychology. This is solid information presented in an easily understood and interesting format.

This is great little psychology book that mixes both classical with contemporary research. Indeed much of the contemporary research is bang up to date, which is not usually the case with many similar introductions to the subject. Nonetheless, I would have preferred it if there was more depth within some of the topics discussed and if there were more topics covered in the book. However the book is very well written and is very useful as an introduction to the subject. I hope you find my review useful.

May I just say what a relief it is to read a beginner's book on psychology that doesn't divide the subject into boring 'perspectives' and 'approaches' as happens in University and college texts. This book simply explains what psychologists are trying to achieve with their research, and brings every subject it covers bang up-to-date. I'm so impressed that I am recommending this as a textbook both for my A2 students and my groups of International Foundation students. I'm sure the latter in particular will appreciate its use of simple, direct language and lack of unnecessary jargon.(Other textbook writers beware!)

Great book.

Fascinating overview packed with up to date references to current research. More please.

Excellent read.

We chose this book to use with a U3A psychology group. We are enjoying it and finding it clear and interesting

I am currently doing my undergrad in psychology and have found that this book covers a lot if the topics I've been studying, perhaps in less depth, but with a more applied focus, relating the theories to everyday life. It's super for my short commute in the morning as it is easy to dip in and out of.There's plenty of pictures and diagrams, the language is clear and easy to understand. Would be super for someone in secondary school wondering if they want to do psychology or not and what it involves.

For a few years I've had a casual interest in psychology and the mind, but I never wanted to devote the necessary time to formal, academic study of the discipline, since it's never been a particularly strong interest of mine. So, I bought this book hoping that it would provide a brief introduction to the subject without being too in-depth and textbook-like, like some of the other books available on the market.I wasn't disappointed. Dr. Christian Jarrett presents (what I'm guessing are) most of the main branches of contemporary psychology in easy to read, bite-size chunks. He doesn't go into too much detail, nor does he gloss over the topic with merely a few sentences, leaving the reader bewildered and confused. He gets the balance just right. Jarrett presents the key theories in each discipline, and occasional boxes are to be found on pages that give a bit more detail, should the reader want it.Importantly, I feel, Jarrett also presents the criticisms of each theory, and the phrase "XYZ is not without it's critics..." appears several times throughout the book, giving it a well balanced, impartial feel. This is important since several competing theories about psychological phenomena exist at once, and only giving page space to a particular one can skew the perceptions of potential readers.Overall, this book provided an interesting, engaging, well rounded introduction to the main arguments in psychology, and after having read it, I would feel more confident about reading more advanced material. I would thoroughly recommend it to any psychological novice; more advanced readers may find some of the book a little basic, but on the whole I feel that everyone can learn something from the book.

I bought this book as an introduction to psychology and it didn't disappoint. It covers a wide range of topics in enough depth to give you an understanding,but with out going into too much detail. Concepts are explained with example research, which helps a lot.