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I have been reading ‘Psychology A Very Short Introduction’ by Gillian Butler and Freda McManus.  It’s part of an interesting series published by Oxford University Press, which seek, via compact little books, to introduce readers to subjects as diverse as the fall of the Soviet Union and Indian philosophy. I’ve tried to tackle a few of them now, with varying levels of success.  The VSI books with which I’ve had the most success are the ones dealing with subjects with which I am most familiar and that I have chosen to read in order to brush up on my knowledge.  By contrast the VSI publication concerning fascism had defeated me by page 6.

‘Psychology A Very Short introduction’ starts off solidly: ‘What is psychology? How do you study it?’ is the title of the first chapter.  We are introduced to William James, American philosopher, physician and one of the founders of modern psychology who defined psychology as:

‘The science of mental life’

Early psychologists used introspection as a way to study psychological questions; James was unimpressed and displayed a talent for the epigram when he described this method as akin to ‘turning up the gas quickly to see how the darkness looks’.  In 1913 John Watson was even more sensible, when he stated that if psychology was to be treated as a science, the data on which its conclusions were based should be available for inspection. We’re taken through the methods used to study psychology and the main braches of the subject.  There’s a helpful bit on the difference between psychology and psychiatry which is quoted elsewhere on this site.

With this over the meat of the book starts with the subject ‘What gets into our minds? Perception’.  There’s a discussion of the Gestalt psychologists and some of those pictures that demonstrate their conclusions – the devil’s tuning fork, the Necker cube and Rubin’s vase.  Important to perception is attention and the discriminatory skills necessary to identify the things in which we are most interested and ignore the rest.

‘What Stays in the Mind Learning and Memory’ deals with what for many is the very embodiment of psychology: conditioning.  Classical conditioning, whereby associations are learnt between events was discovered by Pavlov.  Operant conditioning was first described by Skinner, who wrote about the role of reinforcement in learning.  Different flavours of memory such as short and long term memory are also dealt with.

‘How do we use what is in the mind? Thinking, Reasoning and Communicating’ is about no less a subject than how we ‘organize our perceptions so that they make sense, recall information when it is needed and use it to think, reason and communicate with, then we can make plans, have ideas, solve problems, imagine more or less fantastic possibilities and tell others about it’.  Discussed is different sorts of reasoning, alongside a number of tricky puzzles to illustrate concepts

The chapter entitled ‘Why do we do what we do? Motivation and Emotion’ concerns human drives and quickly mentions Maslow’s hierarchy of need before moving onto emotions, and the difficulties they present for psychologists. ‘Is there a set pattern? Developmental Psychology’ is concerned with psychological development and the way this is used to advise parents about the progress of their children.  Bowlby’s work is cited and there’s some inevitable talk about the effect of depriving monkeys.  The case of Genie gives some weight to the theory that there is a ‘critical period’ for language development.

‘How can we categorize people? Individual differences’ is concerned about ways in which psychologists seek to group people together in terms of their similarities and differences.  There’s intelligence and intelligence tests, and the problems inherent in these.  Also covered are assessments of personality, for example Eysenck’s personality types.

‘What happens when things go wrong? Abnormal psychology’ discusses what abnormal behaviour is and how we can classify it.  This is a thorny subject and several different approaches are mentioned.  This of the all chapters is the most psychiatric, and psychiatry’s attempts to classify abnormal behaviour using ICD-10 and DSM-IV are here.  Also covered is how psychodynamic and behavioural approaches both have their place in understanding and treating abnormal traits. ‘How do we influence each other? Social Psychology’ covers subjects like obedience/conformity and Miligram’s experiment, as well as whether ‘born leaders’ exist and the origins of prejudice.

Finally, the book ends with a chapter entitled ‘What is psychology for?’ Here we have a discussion of the many uses and abuses of psychology.  Clinical psychologists work in health care settings, whilst particular ire is reserved for those involved in corporate team building courses.  For this they quote:

‘Psychologists, past masters at convening conferences in order to state the obvious, have at last turned their attention to this most bizarre manifestation of late 20^th century corporate sadism’

Which makes me pleased that I don’t work in an office.  They finish with directions for possible psychological research and also a glossary of terms used in the book.

As you can tell from this quick run-through, this is an interesting little book which manages to cover a lot of ground over a relatively modest number pocket-sized pages.  For someone with a little bit of psychological knowledge it would be ideal consolidation material.  For a complete novice it is recommended, but there may be gentler introductions available.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Books Films Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.