introduction into psychology

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hi there,

I am thinking about studying psychology. Are there any good introduction books.

And: Which subfields in psychology are most interesting? Which are less interesting?

thanks,
anton

It's hard to say which aspects are more interesting/less interesting, as that's incredibly subjective. I, for the most part, find the topic as a whole to be interesting.

Any sort of generic psychology book is the best place to start; that's usually where I start for any sort of academic subject I plan on teaching myself (genetics and philosophy are other examples in which I used such books.) You can usually find "Further Reading" at the back of such books, too. Browsing through Wikipedia pages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology) also helps me get the basic idea of things in general before reading further. There are certainly some parts of the articles that one may not understand without more advanced knowledge, but to get the basic idea, Wikipedia is usually a nice place to start.

Richard Gross' Psychology: Science of Mind and Behaviour isn't a bad introduction. It's very easy to read and covers most topics of psychology, it doesn't really go into a university/college level of detail though. Once you've read that then you'll have a better idea of which topics you find most interesting and you can pick up better books aimed at that area of the subject.

Sorry, I have no textbook to recommend either.

The link below will take you to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences section of MIT's OpenCourseWare website, where there are many hours of audio lectures, and notes. Often there are recommended reading examples mentioned in the lecture notes, if audio lectures are not to your liking.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-co ... -sciences/

My favourite website.

Anton,

I have only listened to most of the Introduction to Psychology lectures. I am not very good at taking notes, and find myself listening to them repeatedly. I think they are good, but would prefer if they were in video format as a lot of the time the lecturer is referencing visual experiments before the students, and it is hard to picture, unless I already know a little of the experiments. I found myself using google and wikipedia quite a bit for clarification, but it was okay.

I have also been using the site a little for studying computer science, the psychology resources seem far less extensive than for computer science and engineering. Were it not for my being encouraged by the government to take a vocational course on MS Office, to make myself more immediately employable, I would be using it now to study programming. I did a little programming in BASIC when I was younger, but lost interest, but I began following some lectures on Python, and was somewhat hooked. I dropped out of school with insufficient knowledge on maths, so I think I need to study the Mathematics for Programming course as well.

I hope you find something interesting.

Orr

I have to recommend human factors psychology, because that is my own field. Human factors psychology is kind of the intersection between psychology and engineering. It's closely related to biomedical engineering, industrial/organizational engineering, and ergonomics.

When you use a machine or a computer program or interact with your environment, you plus environment can be thought of as a system with interactions between its component parts. Human factors is the study of how that system works, how the brain works when it interacts with the environment, and how the environment can be designed to work best with the brain. In my specific case, I'm interested in rehabilitation technology--that is, assistive technology, from simple stuff like the deep dish and big-handled spoon that are easier to use to eat with, to the complex like a communication device meant to be used by a cognitively and physically disabled person.

I like studying the brain and I like thinking about how to design things, so this is a good fit for me. Maybe for you, too.

As for learning psychology, I'd suggest first picking up a general psychology textbook and paging through it to get an overview. No need to go in-depth; just make sure you know the general concepts being addressed. If you like, you can buy one to keep; old editions are often very cheap on sites like half.com or amazon.com, even though they're only one edition away from the modern one. Most basic psych texts have the same general information in them. Find one published after 2000 and designed for undergraduates and you should be fine.

You might also check out the webcasts at Berkeley. They have a lot of psychology stuff up there, though they are all basic classes (like, freshman and sophomore).

Then go to your public library and browse through the psychology section. A lot of them will be about abnormal psychology--all the different things that can go wrong with the human brain--but try to skip over those, unless they are using abnormal psych to explain how the brain works in the first place (Oliver Sacks is a great writer in this category; highly recommended. He's a neurologist.). Instead, read books about how we think and learn, about how we make decisions. Read about child development and aging, about social psychology. Dip into philosophy a bit to learn about the nature of consciousness and the self. Check the medicine section for stuff on neurology. Really just go exploring; find out what you like for yourself.

If you're interested in the history of psychology, you could read some of the classics, but don't bother with Freud; he's been discredited for ages. I'd recommend Man's Search for Meaning especially; it's quite short and still relevant in the modern age even though it was written shortly after WWII. Go to your psychology textbook and pick out interesting people, then check the library to see what they wrote.

The reason I say "avoid abnormal psych" is that most of these books will be about specific illnesses and how to cure them or survive them--they're more self-help books than anything else. But there are also useful general books about abnormal psych that try to examine the causes and mechanisms of mental disorders, and these are more useful. Reading about different methods of treatment--medication and psychotherapy--is useful. And lastly, I'd recommend you also read a little about the mental-health rights movement or the disability rights movement in general, because these topics are closely related to clinical psychology.

So yeah. Go forth and read. We'll see you in ten years.