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Contents

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part 1: Getting Started with Psychology 5 Chapter 1: The Purpose of Psychology 7 Whys, Whats, and Hows of People 9 A useful metaphor: Building a person 10 Why? 11 What? 11 How? 12 Troubleshooting 13 Putting It All Back Together Again 14 Chapter 2: Thinking and Behaving as a Psychologist 15 The Core Activities of a Psychologist 17 Experimental and research psychologists 17 Applied psychologists 17 Teachers/educators/professors 18 Theoretical and philosophical psychologists 18 How Do I Become a Psychologist? 18 Getting Started with Metatheory and Frameworks 19 Biological 20 Behaviorism 20 Cognitive 20 Sociocultural 21 Developmental 21 Evolutionary 22 Humanistic and existential 22 Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic 22 Feminism 23 Postmodernism 23 A Unifying Model? Working with the Biopsychosocial Model 24 Feeling out the role of the body 24 Thinking about the role of the mind 24 Observing the role of the outside world 25 Developing a good theory 27 Seeking Truth 27 Applying the scientific method 29 Researching Matters 30 Understanding descriptive research 30 Doing experimental research 30 Measuring one, measuring all with statistics 31 Relating variables: Correlation versus causation 33 Being "Good": Ethics in Psychology 35 Part 2: Picking Your Brain (and Body) 37 Chapter 3: Brains, Genes, and Behavior 39 Believing in Biology 40 The Biological "Control Room" 42 Cells and Chemicals 44 Networking and crossing the divide 45 Branching out 47 Activating brain change 47 The Organization of the Brain 49 Forebrain 50 Midbrain 51 Hindbrain 51 Tiptoeing back and forth from the periphery 52 Finding Destiny with DNA 52 Understanding Psychopharmacology 53 Easing depression 55 Shushing the voices 55 Relaxing 56 Chapter 4: From Sensation to Perception 59 Building Blocks: Our Senses 60 The sensing process 61 Seeing 62 Hearing 65 Touching and feeling pain 66 Smelling and tasting 67 Balancing and moving 68 Finishing the Product: Perception 68 Organizing by Principles 70 Chapter 5: Exploring Consciousness 73 Carving Awareness and Being at Its Joints 74 Consciousness as an ability, skill, or process of the mind (and the brain) 74 Consciousness as a state or type of awareness 75 Catching some zzzzs 76 Understanding tired brains, slipping minds 78 Arriving at Work Naked: Dreams 79 Altering Your Consciousness 80 Getting high on conscious life 81 Being conscious of my mind (meditative states) 82 Falling into hypnosis 84 Part 3: Thinking and Feeling and Acting 85 Chapter 6: Thinking and Speaking 87 What's on Your Mind? 88 Thinking like a PC 89 Turing's challenge 89 Computing 90 Representing 91 Processing 91 Modules, Parts, and Processes 92 The attention process 93 The memory process 94 The knowing process 97 The reasoning process 100 The decision-making/choosing process 101 The problem-solving process 104 It's All about Connections 105 Bodies and Minds 106 Thinking You're Pretty Smart 108 Considering the factors of intelligence 108 Getting a closer look 109 Adding in street smarts 110 Excelling with multiple intelligences 111 Making the grade - on a curve 112 Figuring Out Language 114 Babel-On 114 Rules, syntax, and meaning 115 Chapter 7: Needing, Wanting, Feeling 117 What's My Motivation? 118 Would you like some adrenaline with that bear? 119 Feeling needy 120 Knowing who's the boss 121 Arousing interest in prime rib 123 Getting cheaper long distance is rewarding 124 Facing your opponent-process theory 125 Believing in yourself 125 Pleasure and pain 127 Escaping psychological pain 128 Launching Countless Bad Poems: Emotions 130 Watch out for that sabertooth! 132 Your brain on emotion 133 Which comes first, the body or the mind? 135 Expressing yourself 137 Acknowledging anger 138 Being happy 140 Discovering your smart heart: Emotional intelligence and styles 142 Being in Control 143 Chapter 8: Barking up the Learning Tree: Dogs, Cats, and Rats 147 Learning to Behave 149 Drooling like Pavlov's Dogs 149 Conditioning responses and stimuli 150 Becoming extinct 152 Classic generalizing and discriminating 153 Conditioning rules! 154 Battling theories: Why does conditioning work? 156 Studying Thorndike's Cats 157 Reinforcing the Rat Case 159 Finding the right reinforcer 159 Using punishment 161 Scheduling and timing reinforcement 163 Stimulus Control and Operant Generalization 165 Operant Discrimination 166 Part 4: Me, You, and Everything in Between 167 Chapter 9: Myself and I 169 Getting to the Magic Number 5 171 They Made Me This Way 173 Representing Ourselves 174 Schemas 174 Scripts 175 It Depends on the Situation 176 Feeling Self-Conscious 179 Becoming aware of your body 180 Keeping it private 180 Showing it off 181 Identifying Yourself 181 Forging a personal identity 182 Carving out a social identity 184 Mustering up some self-esteem 185 Chapter 10: Connecting 187 Getting Attached 188 Realizing even monkeys get the blues 188 Attaching with style 189 Cavorting with Family and Friends 191 Parenting with panache 192 Embracing your rival: Siblings 193 Getting chummy: Bridge building 194 Attraction, Romance, and Love 195 How we choose the ones we love 195 Love's expanse 196 Connecting to Thoughts and Action 198 Explaining others with person perception 198 Minding "you" with theory of mind 201 Dancing with others: Embodied social cognition theories 202 Communication Skills 202 Asking questions 203 Explaining 204 Listening 204 Asserting yourself 205 Chapter 11: Getting Along or Not 207 Playing Your Part 208 Ganging Up in a Group 209 Conforming 210 Doing better with help 212 Kicking back 213 Remaining anonymous 213 Thinking as one 214 Persuading 215 Credibility of communicator 216 Delivery approach 216 Audience engagement 217 Age of audience 217 Being Mean 218 Acting naturally 218 Being frustrated 219 Doing what's learned 219 Lending a Helping Hand 221 Why help? 221 When to help? 224 Who gives and receives help? 225 Birds of a Feather or Not 226 Examining isms 226 Understanding discrimination 227 Making contact 228 Chapter 12: Growing Up with Psychology 229 Beginning with Conception and Birth 230 Xs and Ys get together 230 Uniting and dividing all in one night 231 Going from Diapers to Drool 233 Survival instincts 233 Motoring about 234 Flexing their muscles 235 Scheduling time for schemata 235 Getting your sensorimotor running 237 Learning within the lines 238 Saying what you think 239 Blooming social butterflies 240 Getting on the Big Yellow Bus 241 Mastering the crayon 241 Being preoperational doesn't mean you're having surgery 242 In the zone 243 Becoming even more social 243 Agonizing over Adolescence 244 Pining over puberty 244 Moving away from parents 245 Existing as a Grown-Up 246 Looking at you 246 Connecting and working 246 Aging and Geropsychology 247 Chapter 13: Psychology in the Digital Age 249 Love and Robots 250 Talk to the box 251 Me and my friends 252 That perfect someone 253 Digitized (d)evolution 254 The Dark Side of the Digital World 256 Say that to my face 256 Hooked on the Internet 257 Bullying moves from the schoolyard to the desktop 258 Can Technology Make Us Better at Being Human? 260 Part 5: Adapting and Struggling 261 Chapter 14: Coping When Life Gets Rough 263 Stressing Out 264 Ways to think about stress 264 The causes of stress 268 The impact of stress 269 Crisis: Accumulated or overwhelming stress 271 Posttraumatic stress disorder 273 The stress of loss 274 Coping is No Gamble 275 Learning how to cope 276 Finding resources 276 Chapter 15: Modern Abnormal Psychology 279 What Is" Abnormal" Anyway? 280 Who decides what's normal? 281 Ryff's Psychological Well-Being Model 282 Defining Mental Disorders 283 Psychotic Disorders: Grasping for Reality 286 Schizophrenia 286 Other types of psychoses 290 Feeling Funky: Depression 292 Staying in the rut of major depression 292 Depression's causes 293 Treating depression 295 Bipolar Disorder: Riding the Waves 295 Bipolar disorder's causes 297 Treating bipolar disorder 297 Panic Disorders 297 Panic disorder's causes 300 Treating panic disorder 300 Mental Disorders in Young People 301 Dealing with ADHD 302 Autism: Living in a world of one's own 303 Let's Talk about Stigma 305 Part 6: Repairing, Healing, and Thriving 307 Chapter 16: Testing, Assessment, and Evaluation 309 Answering the Call 310 What kinds of tests and instruments are there? 311 What kind of evaluations do psychologists do? 312 The Interview and Evaluation Process 312 Interviewing and observing 313 History taking 317 Checking under the Hood with Psychological Testing 318 Standardization 318 Reliability 319 Validity 319 More Detail on Testing Types 320 Clinical testing 320 Educational/achievement testing 321 Personality testing 322 Intelligence testing 323 Neuropsychological and cognitive testing 323 Keeping Them Honest 325 Chapter 17: We Can Help! 327 Is It Time for Professional Help? 328 Types of help 330 The Crown Jewel of Therapy: Psychotherapy 333 Good ethics is good therapy 334 The common factors model 335 Major Schools of Therapy 337 Psychodynamic therapies 338 Behavior therapy 342 Exposure-based therapies 343 Cognitive therapy 344 Playing together nicely: Behavior and cognitive therapies 346 Acceptance and mindfulness-based therapies 347 Dialectical behavior therapy 348 Client-centered therapy 350 Emotion-focused therapy 354 Empirically Supported Treatments for Specific Problems 356 ESTs for depression 357 ESTs for anxiety and trauma 357 ESTs for disorders in children 358 Chapter 18: Be Positive! Fostering Wellness, Growth, and Strength 359 Going beyond Stress: The Psychology of Health 360 Preventing illness 360 Making changes 360 Intervening 362 Harnessing the Power of Positivity 363 Stepping Up! 365 High-performance skills 366 Choking versus being clutch 366 Acquiring the Bionic Brain 367 Doing smart drugs 368 Hitting the limits of the skull 369 Part 7: The Part of Tens 371 Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Maintaining Psychological Well-Being 373 Accept Yourself 375 Strive for Self-Determination 375 Stay Connected and Nurture Relationships 375 Lend a Helping Hand 376 Find Meaning and Purpose and Work toward Goals 376 Find Hope and Maintain Faith 377 Find Flow and Be Engaged 377 Enjoy the Beautiful Things in Life 377 Struggle to Overcome; Learn to Let Go 378 Don't Be Afraid to Change 378 Chapter 20: Ten Great Psychological Movies and Shows 379 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 380 A Clockwork Orange 380 Ordinary People 381 Girl, Interrupted 381 The Silence of the Lambs 382 Sybil 382 The Matrix 383 Black Mirror 384 True Detective (Seasons 1 and Season 3) 384 Psycho 385 Index 387

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