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Below are books from our collection that are recommended by the American Psychological Association to guide student interest on psychology topics. As stated by the APA, "the list does not exhaust all possible print resources. It includes classic and contemporary work in scientific and applied areas. The original list was derived from recommended readings compiled by Charles Morris, PhD, of the University of Michigan, and John Santrock, PhD, of the University of Texas at Dallas. Alan Feldman of Highland Park High School (Highland Park, NJ), Pat Mattimore of Saint Ignatius College Prep ( San Francisco, CA), and Jewel Beamon and Emily Leary of the APA Education Directorate contributed to the revision of this list."
An Alchemy of Mind
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Ackerman examines memory, emotion, dreams, and language acquisition, and also reports on the latest discoveries in neuroscience.
Intoxicating Minds
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Regan provides a wide-ranging account of how drugs affect human biology.
Learned Optimism
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Seligman focuses on optimism, pessimism, and positive thinking. Based on research and theory in cognitive psychology, the author’s position is that optimism and pessimism are learned explanatory styles and that these styles can be changed. It includes self-tests and practical advice.
The Man Who Tasted Shapes
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A collection of fascinating stories of synesthesia (experiencing colors as sounds, tastes as shapes, etc.). This book includes a discussion of how these strange phenomena might arise and draws implications for our understanding of reason, emotion, and perception.
Mind Hacks
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This book provides a collection of 100 experiments, tips, and tricks for understanding how the brain functions.
A Natural History of the Senses
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Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth.
Human Memory
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The author extensively reviews memory research to create a model for how memory works. The first edition was published at a time when there was intense interest in the role of consciousness in learning and memory, leading to considerable research and theoretical discussion, but comparatively little agreement. For that reason, the topic was regretfully omitted. Since that time the field has crystallised, making it possible to incorporate three additional chapters concerning this, the most active area of memory research over the last decade.
In the Theater of Consciousness
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Baards presents a fascinating overview of how top scientists understand the processes underlying conscious experience. This text is a valuable introduction to the field of consciousness.
Kinds of Minds
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Combining ideas from philosophy, artificial intelligence, and neurobiology, Daniel Dennett leads the reader on a fascinating journey of inquiry, exploring such intriguing possibilities as: Can any of us really know what is going on in someone else’s mind? What distinguishes the human mind from the minds of animals, especially those capable of complex behavior? If such animals, for instance, were magically given the power of language, would their communities evolve an intelligence as subtly discriminating as ours? Will robots, once they have been endowed with sensory systems like those that provide us with experience, ever exhibit the particular traits long thought to distinguish the human mind, including the ability to think about thinking? Dennett addresses these questions from an evolutionary perspective. Beginning with the macromolecules of DNA and RNA, the author shows how, step-by-step, animal life moved from the simple ability to respond to frequently recurring environmental conditions to much more powerful ways of beating the odds, ways of using patterns of past experience to predict the future in never-before-encountered situations. Whether talking about robots whose video-camera ”eyes” give us the powerful illusion that ”there is somebody in there” or asking us to consider whether spiders are just tiny robots mindlessly spinning their webs of elegant design, Dennett is a master at finding and posing questions sure to stimulate and even disturb.
The Mind at Night
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What neuroscience tells us about dreams and the very nature of consciousness. Over the past few decades, there has been a revolution in scientific knowledge about why we dream, what's actually happening to the brain when we do, and what the sleeping mind reveals about our waking hours. Beginning with the birth of dream research in the 1950s, award-winning science reporter Andrea Rock traces the brief but fascinating history of this emerging scientific field. She then takes us into modern sleep labs across the country, bringing the scientists to life as she interprets their intellectual breakthroughs and asks the questions that intrigue us all: Why do we remember only a fraction of our dreams? Why are dreams usually accompanied by intense emotion, such as fear or anxiety? Can we really control our dreams without waking up? Are universal dream interpretations valid? Is dreaming our way of consolidating long-term memories and filtering the day's mental detritus? Can dreams truly spark creative thought or help solve problems?
Intellectual Development in Adulthood
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K. Warner Schaie, a pioneer in the study of gerontology, has written a monumental work representing his life-time contribution to the study of aging. The book analyzes the Seattle Longitudinal Study, which Professor Schaie began as a graduate student in the 1950's. Schaie's early work indicated that the popular notion of intelligence was simplistic and that there are many variations in terms of when intelligence peaks and declines, as well as many different factors that affect a person's intelligence. Important practical questions are raised: at what age do developmental peaks occur, and what are the generational differences and within-generation age changes; how do you establish sufficient competence for independent living?
The Left-Hander Syndrome
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The title refers to handedness, but the author also describes other asymmetries (footedness, eyedness) and discusses their sources as well as their links to other things such as intelligence and creativity. The book also discusses coping strategies for left-handers’ world. Clear and entertaining with lots of good anecdotes, the book may overstate the negative effects of being left-handed.
The Mismeasure of Man
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This book offers a delightful discussion of the evolution of measurement devoted to capturing human individual differences.
Witness for the Defense
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Explains why eyewitness identifications, usually damning, can be unreliable and can result in the conviction of innocent people.
The Birth of the Mind
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This text illustrates how the human genome is intertwined with brain development.
Growing up with Language
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This title examines language development in children, and how to facilitate it.
Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities over the Lifespan: Psychological Perspectives
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This book contains chapters that cover the full range of developmental issues for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Chapters include multicultural issues, biological and social constructionist views of development, couples and families, adolescents, midlife, aging, and community issues. The chapter on bisexual identities will be especially useful to those having difficulty finding material on this topic, although bisexuality is addressed in many of the other chapters as well.
Makers of Psychology
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Makers of Psychology shows how the field of psychology has developed, from its beginnings to the present day, in the images of its makers, according to the needs and biases, characteristics and peculiarities, of its leaders. The leaders whose lives and works are examined to establish this thesis include Wilheim Wundt, William James, Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, B.F. Skinner, Carl Rogers and Milton H. Erickson.
The Scientist in the Crib
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Noting that children and scientists are the best learners “in the world,” the authors provide a readable, concise summary of recent research on early childhood development.
This book combines two worlds -- children and science -- in an entirely unique way that yields exciting discoveries about both.
Separate Lives
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This book explores the concept of “nonshared environments” that have a profound effect on people—environmental events that affect only certain individuals in a family and cause them to differ from others in the same family, often to a surprising degree. It includes a discussion of the practical implications of all this as well as many examples from real-life biographies.
The Wild Boy of Aveyron
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This is a scholarly account of a boy whose early life was spent in the wild forests of Aveyron in southern France in the late 1700s. He was eventually captured, institutionalized, and then sent to Paris for study and display. This book is a fascinating account, which also looks at the question of why he stirred such intense interest and the implications of what was learned for the distinction between humans and other animals.
Counseling American Minorities
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"Counseling American Minorities" provides information about the history and experiences, physical and mental health needs, and treatment preferences of African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans, as well as an examination of how psychological service providers might better provide mental health services to members of each group. Chapters were written by multicultural experts who have first-hand personal and professional exposure to the experiences and needs of members of each group.
Current Psychotherapies
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Now in its eleventh edition, Current Psychotherapies helps you learn, compare and apply the major systems of psychotherapy in a way that will be meaningful in your future practice. Every chapter is written by either an originator or a leading proponent of a system. Each of these distinguished figures describes the basic principles of the system and highlights how it differs from other systems. A case example in every theory chapter guides you through the problem, evaluation, treatment and follow-up process.
Love at Goon Park
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In this meticulously researched and masterfully written book, Pulitzer Prize-winner Deborah Blum examines the history of love through the lens of its strangest unsung hero: a brilliant, fearless, alcoholic psychologist named Harry Frederick Harlow. Pursuing the idea that human affection could be understood, studied, even measured, Harlow (1905-1981) arrived at his conclusions by conducting research-sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible-on the primates in his University of Wisconsin laboratory. Paradoxically, his darkest experiments may have the brightest legacy, for by studying "neglect" and its life-altering consequences, Harlow confirmed love's central role in shaping not only how we feel but also how we think. His work sparked a psychological revolution. The more children experience affection, he discovered, the more curious they become about the world: Love makes people smarter. The biography of both a man and an idea, The Measure of Love is a powerful and at times disturbing narrative that will forever alter our understanding of human relationships.
Nobody's Child
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Marie Balter spent 25 years in mental hospitals, then attended Harvard University and became a spokesperson for the mentally ill. This is a dramatic and moving story in the tradition of 'I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.'
The Social Animal
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This beautifully written and entertaining introduction to social psychology covers conformity, mass communication, propaganda, persuasion, social cognition, self-justification, aggression, prejudice, liking, and loving.
The Tales from a Traveling Couch
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This book details what happened when a New York psychotherapist set out to find his most memorable patients and discover what had become of their lives.
Understanding Depression
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When Understanding Depression was first published over ten years ago, it quickly became a trusted guide for the millions of Americans suffering from depression. Now the long awaited revised and expanded second edition of this definitive and readable book is available to a new generation. With the addition of the latest research on treatments for biological depression, the authors illustrate the importance of accurately diagnosing the disease and using tested research methods to treat it. The book provides the means of evaluating the benefits and disadvantages of both pharmaceutical and psychological treatment of depression. In explaining the different treatments available, the authors provide detailed information on the use of both old and new antidepressants and SSRIs, as well as herbal supplements like St. John's Wort. It also focuses on the environmental and hereditary causes of biological depression, about which there are still many misconceptions. Using excerpts from patient histories to show progress from the onset of depression through treatment and recovery, the authors put a human face on the specter of depression. They demonstrate how many of the afflicted fail to seek help or are misdiagnosed by doctors who do not recognize their symptoms. The book includes several simple tests which readers can use to determine the need to seek a psychological evaluation. Understanding Depression is an excellent source of support, providing a highly informed and readable guide to this much misunderstood disease.
Women and Madness
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Chesler proposes that sex-role stereotypes influence what is called mental illness and that there is a double standard of mental health.
Classic Experiments in Psychology
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The typical survey course in psychology has time for only limited presentation of the research on which our knowledge is based. As a result, many students come away with a limited understanding of the role of experiments in psychological science. Where do experiments come from and how are they conducted? What are the pitfalls and how can we avoid them? What advantages do they have over intuition, authority, and common sense as guides to knowing and acting? What distinguishes research-based psychology from psychobabble? What have we learned from experimentation in psychology? This book presents, in more depth than textbook treatment permits, the background, conduct, and implications of a selection of classic experiments in psychology. The selection is designed to be diverse, showing that even for research in vastly different areas of study, the logic of research remains the same--as do its traps and pitfalls. This book will broaden and deepen the understanding of experimental methods in psychological research, examining where the research questions come from, how questions can be turned into experiments, and how researchers have faced the problems presented by research in psychology.
Even the Rat Was White
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Guthrie suggests that psychology has systematically excluded important sociocultural factors and recommends ways to build a more inclusive science. Nine chapters discuss various aspects of psychology and racial differences and put the subject in the context of the role of racial considerations and Euro-American attitudes in the development of the social sciences since the 1870s.
Forty Studies That Changed Psychology
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On Our Minds
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There is no question more fundamental to human existence than that posed by the nature-versus-nurture debate. For much of the past century, it was widely believed that there was no essential human nature and that people could be educated or socialized to thrive in almost any imaginable culture. Today, that orthodoxy is being directly and forcefully challenged by a new science of the mind: evolutionary psychology. Like the theory of evolution itself, the implications of evolutionary psychology are provocative and unsettling. Rather than viewing the human mind as a mysterious black box or a blank slate, evolutionary psychologists see it as a physical organ that has evolved to process certain types of information in certain ways that enables us to thrive only in certain types of cultures. In On Our Minds, Eric M. Gander examines all sides of the public debate between evolutionary psychologists and their critics. Paying particularly close attention to the popular science writings of Steven Pinker, Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and Stephen Jay Gould, Gander traces the history of the controversy, succinctly summarizes the claims and theories of the evolutionary psychologists, dissects the various arguments deployed by each side, and considers in detail the far-reaching ramifications--social, cultural, and political--of this debate. Gander's lucid and highly readable account concludes that evolutionary psychology now holds the potential to answer our oldest and most profound moral and philosophical questions, fundamentally changing our self-perception as a species.
Thought and Knowledge
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This demonstrates an outstanding (although challenging) application of psychological principles to critical thinking, memory, thought and language, analysis, probability, decision making, problem solving, and creative thinking. It includes hundreds of exercises and suggested readings.
Untold Lives: the First Generation of American Women Psychologists
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The authors use historiographic methods to explore the lives of America’s earliest women psychologists.
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