Have you ever had trouble teaching the various topics of social psychology and fitting them together to form a coherent field?
Dr. Stangor said he felt like he was presenting a laundry list of ideas, research studies, and phenomena, rather than an integrated set of principles and knowledge. He felt like this was not only hard for him, but even more challenging for his students. He wondered how they could be expected to remember and understand all of the many phenomena that we social psychologists study? And how could they tell what was most important? It was then that he realized a fresh approach to a Social Psychology textbook was was needed to structure and integrate their learning; thus, Principles of Social Psychology was born.
This text is based on a critical thinking approach – its aim is to get your students thinking actively and conceptually – with more of a focus on the forest than on the trees. Although there are right and wrong answers, the answers are not the only thing. What is perhaps even more important is how we get to those answers – the thinking process itself.