Introduction: secrets for surviving college : how to improve your grades -- 1. The science of psychology -- Wundt, introspection, and the laboratory -- Titchener and structuralism in America -- William James and functionalism -- Psychology's African American roots -- Gestalt psychology -- Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis -- Pavlov, Watson, and the dawn of behaviorism -- Psychodynamic perspective -- Behavioral perspective -- Humanistic perspective -- Cognitive perspective -- Sociocultural perspective -- Biopsychological perspective -- Evolutionary perspective -- Psychological professionals and areas of specialization -- Psychology : the scientific methodology -- Stereotypes, athletes, and college test performance -- Ethics of psychological research -- 2. The biological perspective -- An overview of the nervous system -- Neurons and nerves -- Neurotransmitters -- Synapse -- Central nervous system -- The brain -- The spinal cord -- Peripheral nervous system-- Somatic nervous system -- Autonomic nervous system -- Endocrine glands -- The pituitary -- Pineal gland -- Thyroid gland -- Pancreas -- The gonads -- Adrenal glands -- Inside the living brain -- Lesioning studies -- Brain stimulation -- Mapping -- Structures of the brain -- The hindbrain -- The cortex -- Association areas of the cortex -- Cerebral hemispheres -- Causes of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder -- 3. Sensation and perception -- Sensory thresholds -- Habituation and sensory adaptation -- Science of seeing -- Perceptual properties of light -- Structure of the eye -- Perception of color -- Hearing sense -- Perception of sound -- Structure of the ear -- Types of hearing impairment -- Chemical senses -- Gustation -- Olfaction -- Somesthetic senses -- Touch, pressure, and temperature -- Pain : gate-control theory -- Kinesthetic sense -- Vestibular sense -- Perception -- The constancies : size, shape and brightness -- Gestalt principles -- Depth perception-- Perceptual illusions -- The psychological science and neuroscience of magic -- 4. Learning -- Classical conditioning -- Pavlov's canine classic -- Conditioned emotional responses -- Watson and "little Albert" -- Other conditioned responses in humans -- Operant conditioning -- Thorndike's puzzle box and the law of effect -- B.F. Skinner -- Concept of reinforcement -- Positive and negative reinforcement -- Schedules of reinforcement -- Variable ratio schedule of reinforcement -- Role of punishment in operant conditioning -- Link between spanking and aggression in young children -- Stimulus control -- Biological constraints on operant conditioning -- Behavior modification -- Cognitive learning theory -- Tolman's maze-running rats : latent learning -- Köhler's smart chimp : insight learning -- Seligman's depressed dogs : learned helplessness -- Observational learning -- Bandura and the Bodo doll.

5. Memory -- Encoding -- Storage -- Retrieval -- Models of memory -- Information-processing model -- Sensory memory -- Short-term and working memory -- Long-term memory -- Retrieval of long-term memories -- Retrieval cues -- Recall -- Recognition -- Elizabeth Loftus and eyewitnesses -- Automatic encoding : flashbulb memories -- Reconstructive nature of long-term memory retrieval -- Forgetting -- Ebbinghaus and the forgetting curve -- Encoding failure -- Memory trace decay theory -- Interference theory -- Neuroscience of memory -- Neural activity and structure in memory function -- The hippocampus and memory -- Organic amnesia -- Alzheimer's disease -- 6. Consciousness and cognition -- Altered states of consciousness -- Altered states : sleep -- Biology of sleep -- Stages of sleep -- REM sleep -- Sleep disorders -- Murder while sleepwalking -- How people think -- Mental imagery -- Concepts -- Problem solving and decision making -- Creativity -- Language-- Levels of language analysis -- Relationship between language and thought -- 7. Development across the life span -- Issues in studying human development -- Research designs -- Nature versus nurture -- Basic building blocks of development -- Genetic and chromosome problems -- Prenatal development -- Fertilization, the zygote and twinning -- The germinal period -- The embryonic period -- The fetal period -- Infancy and childhood development -- Physical development -- Sensory development -- Cognitive development -- Autism spectrum disorder -- Psychosocial development -- Harlow and contact comfort -- Gender development -- Gender roles -- Adolescence -- Physical development -- Cognitive development -- Psychosocial development -- Adulthood -- Physical development -- Cognitive development -- Psychosocial development -- Theories of physical and psychological aging -- Stages of death and dying -- Cross-cultural views on death -- 8. Motivation and emotion -- Instinct approaches-- Drive-reduction approaches -- Personality and nAch : Carol Dweck's self-theory of motivation -- Arousal approaches -- Incentive approaches -- Humanistic approaches : Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- Self-determination theory -- Psychoactive drugs and addiction -- Physical dependence -- Psychological dependence -- Sexual motivation -- Sexual orientation -- Evolutionary purpose of homosexuality -- Elements of emotion.

9. Stress and health -- Stress and stressors -- Environmental stressors -- Psychological stressors : stress and the mind -- Physiological factors : stress and health -- General adaptation syndrome -- Immune system and stress -- Health psychology and stress -- Influence of cognition and personality on stress -- Personality factors in stress -- Social factors in stress -- Stress, hunger, and eating -- Physiology of hunger -- Social components of hunger -- Maladaptive eating problems -- Stress and sexual dysfunction -- Problem-focused coping -- Emotion-focused coping -- Meditation -- How culture affects coping -- How religion affects coping -- Exercising for mental health -- 10. Social psychology -- Conformity -- Compliance -- Obedience -- social cognition : attitudes -- ABC model of attitudes -- Attitude formation -- Attitude change : the art of persuasion -- Cognitive dissonance -- Impression formation and attribution -- Social categorization -- Implicit personality theories-- Attribution -- Fundamental attribution error -- Prejudice, love, and aggression -- Prejudice and discrimination -- How people learn prejudice -- Overcoming prejudice -- Liking and loving : interpersonal attraction -- Facing Facebook : the social nature of online networking -- Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love -- Aggression and prosocial behavior -- Aggression and biology -- Power of social roles -- Violence in the media and aggression -- Anatomy of a cult -- 11. Theories of personality and intelligence -- Sigmund Freud and the psychodynamic perspective -- The unconscious mind -- Divisions of the personality -- Superego : the moral watchdog -- Stages of personality development -- The Neo-Freudians -- The behaviorist and social cognitive views of personality -- Bandura's reciprocal determinism and self-efficacy -- Rotter's social learning theory -- Humanism and personality -- Carl Rogers and self-concept -- Trait theories -- Allport -- Cattell and the 16PF-- OCEAN, or the five-factor model of personality -- Assessment of personality -- Interviews -- Projective tests -- Behavioral assessments -- Personality inventories -- Intelligence -- Measuring intelligence -- Individual differences in intelligence : intellectual disability and giftedness -- Biology of personality and intelligence : behavioral genetics -- Twin studies -- Geert Hofstede's four dimensions of cultural personality -- 12. Psychological disorders -- Abnormality -- Abnormality versus insanity -- Models of abnormality -- Biological model : medical causes for psychological disorders -- Psychological models -- Biopsychosocial perspective -- Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR) -- Categories -- How common are psychological disorders? -- Pros and cons of labels -- Anxiety disorders -- Phobic disorders -- Panic disorder -- Obsessive-compulsive disorder-- Acute stress disorder (ASD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- Generalized anxiety disorder -- Mood disorders -- Major depression -- Bipolar disorders -- Eating disorders -- Anorexia nervosa -- Bulimia nervosa -- Schizophrenia : altered reality -- Symptoms -- Categories -- Causes -- Personality disorders -- Antisocial personality disorder -- Borderline personality disorder -- 13. Psychological therapies -- Psychotherapy -- Biomedical therapy -- Ice-water baths and electric shocks -- Pinel's reforms -- Psychoanalysis -- Dream interpretation -- Free association -- Evaluation of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic approaches -- Interpersonal psychotherapy -- Humanistic therapy -- Roger's person-centered therapy -- Gestalt therapy -- Behavior therapies -- classical conditioning -- Operant conditioning -- Cognitive therapies -- Beck's cognitive therapy -- Ellis and rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) -- Group therapies -- Mental health on campus-- Cultural, ethnic, and gender concerns in psychotherapy -- Cybertherapy : therapy in the computer age -- Biomedical therapies -- Psychopharmacology -- Electroconvulsive therapy -- Psychosurgery -- Virtual realities -- Appendix A. Statistics in psychology -- Appendix B. Applied psychology and psychology careers.