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This course is a broad introduction to the field of psychology from a historical and socio-cultural perspective. It explores how psychic, social and historical forces have shaped our knowledge of human behavior and psychology. Students explore diverse theoretical frameworks, debates and research findings that have shaped some of the major areas of contemporary psychology from a local and global perspective. This course also examines the research methods used by psychologists across these areas to study the origins and variations in the behaviour of individuals and groups.
This is an introductory level textbook on psychology and human behavior with an Asian focus. The book begins with the historical origins of psychology as an independent field of study and the scientific method used to generate and refine the existing body of knowledge in psychology. Then it turns to the discussion of the Asian context. The book covers essential topics of psychology such as personality, human development, psychological disorders, gender and sexuality, emotion, and positive psychology. Finally, the tenets of Asian psychology, the professional application of psychology, and the future of psychology are discussed.
This textbook, aimed at developing critical thinking and scientific literacy skills through the analysis of prominent studies and ideas in psychology, presents overviews of landmark studies in psychology from diverse areas of research, such as consciousness, developmental psychology, learning, memory, social psychology, and psychopathology. Each chapter provides an overview of the studies or theory and includes a section that considers how the study has aged and how contemporary research has confirmed or failed to confirm the findings. Each study or theory addressed will offer a critical thinking section related to methodological and theoretical questions, and the aforementioned cognitive biases and logical fallacies.
This book approaches ideas in psychology from considering historical controversies. It argues that the discipline is shaped by the ways in which it interrelates with society, and that positions taken towards fundamental issues in psychology are reflections of that social context. After the introduction of the notion of psychology as a reflexive discipline shaped by society, examples of specific issues are organized into chapters, including intelligence and IQ, race, women, the nature-nurture debate, state service, ethical standards, personality, mental health, Freud, parapsychology, psychology in everyday life, etc. Further issues are discussed at the end of the book as well.
The book begins with an exploration of the influence of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism on the Chinese culture. Then the book examines some major themes in Chinese psychology, including social-psychological characteristics of the Chinese, the concept of filial piety, fatalistic determinism, the significance of face in the management of interpersonal relationships, female gender roles and gender equality, emotions of the Chinese, the landscape of psychopathology in China, and the values, beliefs, and causal attribution of the Chinese outlined in classical literature. One more theme is added in this second edition, and that is Chinese learning.
This book starts from reviewing the history of social psychology and outlining a contemporary orientation for the social psychology of everyday life. The discussion is then extended to how knowledge is constructed in everyday settings, what indigenous psychologies can contribute to developing understandings of people in social settings, how the cultivation of place-based identities can increase social participation, how human displacement affects individuals and the receiving communities, how the social influences on health and illness disrupts lifestyle choices, how the marginalized groups and everyday experience is overwhelmed with social injustice, how positive-focused traditions in social psychology can be connected with critical humanism, how people have interacted with media.
This book introduces some new ideas current in critical social psychology. Chapters One and Two examine and critique existing practices within social psychology. Chapters Three and Four lays the philosophical groundwork for an alternative way of thinking about social life and sketches an alternative, language-based orientation to research within social psychology, Chapters Five and Six includes material that offers a contrast between the way selected topics have traditionally been studied and how they have been examined by critical social psychologists. The book concludes with an Epilogue, restating the shame of social psychology, the relationship between critical and traditional social psychology, and aspects of criticality.
This book contains 13 chapters that examine psychology’s development through ancient times, mid-millennium transitions, the age of modernity, and through the 20th century. The main emphasis of the book is psychology’s formative experiences during the past 150 years. Psychological science is presented here as increasingly interdisciplinary. A serious cross-cultural and cross-national focus brings diversity to this book. Besides, the book focuses on the interaction between scientific psychology and society in different periods of history. The book also pays attention to critical thinking, the relevance of yesterday’s knowledge to students’ diverse experience today, and psychology’s progressive mission.
This book explores the interplay between psychology, science, and pseudoscience. It is organized around three main sections. The opening section comprises four chapters that consider the overall scope of the problem, including the nature of science, the nature of pseudoscience, the nature of psychology, and the nature of reasoning. The second section examines practical examples, containing three chapters that look at the way pseudoscientific reasoning has been applied to psychological subject matter. The final section attempts to locate the overall discussion within a social context, comprising three chapters that examine the biases and influences that lead to pseudoscientific thinking.
This book explores fundamental issues inherent in the study of human beings from the perspective of cultural and social differences. The approach is termed “multicultural” because it is multiculturalism that draws attention to the opportunities and dangers of a world of differences. Solipsism, Atomism, Holism, Perspectivism, Rationalism, Interpretivism, Intentionalism, Nomologicalism, Narrative Realism, and Objectivism are subsequently examined chapter by chapter, and each chapter title poses a question that is intended to arise out of typical multicultural experiences and that raises an important philosophical problem. The book concludes with a reflection on what’s to be learned from a multicultural philosophy of social science- beyond pernicious dualisms, interactionism, and recruitability and engagement.
