Introductory Psychology in Modules: Understanding Our Heads, Hearts, and Hands is a unique and comprehensive introduction to psychology. It consists of 36 short modules that keep students engaged with humor, a narrative style, and hands-on activities that facilitate interactive learning and critical thinking.
Each stand-alone module focuses on a major topic in psychology, from the brain, sensation, memory, and cognition to human development, personality, social psychology, and clinical psychology. The modular format also allows a deep dive into important topics that have less coverage in other introductory psychology textbooks. This includes cross-cultural psychology, stereotypes and discrimination, evolutionary psychology, sex and gender, climate change, health psychology, and sport psychology. This truly modular format – ideal for both face to face and virtual learning – makes it easy for instructors to customize their readings and assign exactly what they wish to emphasize. The book also contains an abundance of pedagogical features, including numerous hands-on activities and/or group discussion activities, multiple-choice practice quizzes, and an instructor exam bank written by the authors.
By covering both classic and contemporary topics, this book will delight students and instructors alike. The modular format also makes this a useful supplementary text for classes in nursing, medicine, social work, policing, and sociology.
Table of Contents:
I. History of and Methods in Psychology:
1) Psychology and the Four Ways of Knowing
2) Seven Windows on the History of Psychology
3) Doing Good Science: Internal Validity in Psychological Research
4) Doing Relevant Science: External Validity and Archival Research
II. The Brain:
5) Six Important Features of the Human Brain
6) The Structure and Function of Key Brain Regions
III. Genetics & Evolution:
7) Genetics – Our Biological Origins
8) Evolutionary Psychology: How the Past Informs the Present
IV. Sensation & Perception:
9) How the World Gets Inside You: Sensation and Perception
10) Four Windows on Human Perception
V. Learning:
11) Classical Conditioning: Learning by Association
12) Operant Conditioning: Learning the Consequences of Our Behavior
VI. Motivation, Emotion, and More:
13) Motivation: The Psychology of Wants and Needs
14) Emotions: Are You Feeling It?
15) Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
VII. Memory and Cognition:
16) Memory: Making the Past the Present
17) Consciousness (or the Lack Thereof)
18) Exploring the "Snap" in Snap Judgment: Judgment and Decision Making
19) Look Who’s Talking: Language and Reasoning
20) Intelligence and the Insularity of Genius
VIII. Lifespan Human Development:
21) Human Prenatal Development and Birth
22) Critical and Sensitive Periods in Human Development
23) Cognitive Development: Going from the Concrete to the Abstract
24) Psychosocial Development: Navigating Challenges Across the Lifespan
25) Adult Development: Getting There – and then Hanging in There
IX. Social, Personality, and Cultural Psychology:
26) Social Psychology: The Power of the Situation
27) Stereotypes and Social Perception
28) Six Lenses on Human Aggression
29) Is there an "I" in Altruism? Human Prosocial Behavior
30) Personality: Our Uniqueness and Why it Matters
31) Culture: How Psychology Varies with Geography
X. Clinical Psychology:
32) Everybody Hurts: Understanding Psychological Disorders
33) Getting Well: Treatment of Psychological Disorders
XI. Applied Psychology:
34) Health Psychology: How the Psychological Becomes the Physical
35) Mind Games, in a Good Way: Sport Psychology
36) Saving the Planet: Psychology and Climate Change
