The best psychology book

Facultyadjutant

Sweden1876 Posts

October 14 2012 12:36 GMT

My friend has struggled a large part of her life and is the most wonderful person.

She has always had a dream of becoming a psychologist, so 'i wanted to surprise her for christmas with a book about psychology.
I want to help her not give up her dream because of the hardships of life. I want to help her reach her goal. I gave up on a dream of when I was little and I to this day get down thinking about it.

What book do you recommend that isn´t too beginner but isn´t too advanced, yet encompassing many aspects of psychology and captivates your interest. In my head I imagine a giant book with the title being ''psychology'' where you can find everything;
Where it´s easy to look up psychology terms and ideas aswell as generally reading about it, something to cheer up my friend for christmas!

Frits

11782 Posts

October 14 2012 13:14 GMT

Peter Gray - Psychology

Used as an introductionary book at many of the best universities in the world, covers the complete spectrum of psychology and is easy to grasp, while being university level stuff. It's also a really fun read. Peter Grey went to my university last year, pretty rad dude. You'll probably want to get it 2nd hand though, unless you can get a big discount at college.

Only thing that it doesn't cover is statistics, if you're gonna become a psychologist, you're going to be doing a lot of it. Simple stuff though, nothing fancy mostly really simple formulae, calculating probabilities and testing statistics for their validity.

Jerubaal

United States7684 Posts

October 14 2012 13:31 GMT

It's not quite 'psychology' but The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker is an amazing book about cognitive science and thinking in general.

bonifaceviii

Canada2890 Posts

October 14 2012 14:50 GMT

Get her some kooky Freudian pop psychology book like Games People Play. Tell her that this is not the kind of psychologist she should become.

Split.

Switzerland234 Posts

October 14 2012 17:48 GMT

Atkinson & Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology. Used at my University and covers pretty much everything, also very accessible

Dagobert

Netherlands1858 Posts

October 14 2012 20:21 GMT

On October 14 2012 22:14 Frits wrote:
Peter Gray - Psychology

Used as an introductionary book at many of the best universities in the world, covers the complete spectrum of psychology and is easy to grasp, while being university level stuff. It's also a really fun read. Peter Grey went to my university last year, pretty rad dude. You'll probably want to get it 2nd hand though, unless you can get a big discount at college.

Only thing that it doesn't cover is statistics, if you're gonna become a psychologist, you're going to be doing a lot of it. Simple stuff though, nothing fancy mostly really simple formulae, calculating probabilities and testing statistics for their validity.

Then I wonder why so many psy students (BSc-PhD and even active researchers) are unable to
1) choose the correct 'simple formulae'
2) interpret the results accordingly.

Chef

10810 Posts

October 14 2012 20:52 GMT

On October 15 2012 05:21 Dagobert wrote:

Show nested quote +

Then I wonder why so many psy students (BSc-PhD and even active researchers) are unable to
1) choose the correct 'simple formulae'
2) interpret the results accordingly.

Sadly the psychology undergrad programs of many universities do seem like a huge money grab and have woefully low standards. HOWEVER, I will say that when one of those students do want to continue their education and get a masters in psych, they have to compete with a really stupid bell curve and get high 90s since there are so many people in that degree. Just by the sheer number of people in that degree, whether mostly lazy or not, creates stiff competition for someone trying to stand out.

But yeah, any university intro to psych text would be fun. A textbook on motivation and emotions is also a good choice, if you want to narrow the interests. They tend to be in really simple language and explain things from the very basics. It doesn't hurt to have a little background in basic philosophy if you really want to understand it though (that is, not familiarity with philosophers, but familiarity with logical fallacies and the basics of argument, so that you don't misinterpret the data you read in the text).

http://www.amazon.ca/Understanding-Motivation-Emotion-Johnmarshall-Reeve/dp/0470392231/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350248197&sr=8-1-spell

^ Decent and practical. Lots of stuff that makes sense with lots of other stuff that's really insightful and dispels a few myths.

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