For The Love of Social Psychology: Essays on The Study of Human Nature

Our suppositions about human nature colour everything from the way we bargain with a used-car dealer to our expectations about further conflict in the Middle East. Our assumptions about human nature underlie our reactions to specific events. Wrightsman designed this second edition of his book to enhance our understanding of many significant issues about human nature, including the relationship of attitudes to behaviour, the unidimensionality of attitudes and the influence of social movements on beliefs.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE, 4th Edition, offers a remarkably fresh and compelling exploration of the fascinating field of social psychology. Respected researchers, teachers, and authors Roy Baumeister and Brad Bushman give students integrated and accessible insight into the ways that nature, the social environment, and culture interact to influence social behavior. While giving essential insight to the power of situations, the text's contemporary approach also emphasizes the role of human nature -- viewing people as highly complex, exquisitely designed, and variously inclined cultural animals who respond to myriad situations. With strong visual appeal, an engaging writing style, and the best of classic and current research, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE helps students make sense of the sometimes baffling -- but always interesting -- diversity of human behavior. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

From the influential New York Times columnist and best-selling author of Bobos in Paradise comes a landmark exploration of how human beings and communities succeed. Reprint. A #1 best-seller.

Presents a selected group of influential articles dealing specifically with the social aspects of sexuality, topics covered include differences between male and female sexuality, virginity, harassment, rape and coercion and jealousy.

This book provides a coherent explanation of human nature, which is to say how people think, act, and feel, what they want, and how they interact with each other. The central idea is that the human psyche was designed by evolution to `nable people to create and sustain culture.

The notion that maternal care and love will determine a child’s emotional well-being and future personality has become ubiquitous. In countless stories and movies we find that the problems of the protagonists—anything from the fear of romantic commitment to serial killing—stem from their troubled relationships with their mothers during childhood. How did we come to hold these views about the determinant power of mother love over an individual’s emotional development? And what does this vision of mother love entail for children and mothers? In The Nature and Nurture of Love, Marga Vicedo examines scientific views about children’s emotional needs and mother love from World War II until the 1970s, paying particular attention to John Bowlby’s ethological theory of attachment behavior. Vicedo tracks the development of Bowlby’s work as well as the interdisciplinary research that he used to support his theory, including Konrad Lorenz’s studies of imprinting in geese, Harry Harlow’s experiments with monkeys, and Mary Ainsworth’s observations of children and mothers in Uganda and the United States. Vicedo’s historical analysis reveals that important psychoanalysts and animal researchers opposed the project of turning emotions into biological instincts. Despite those criticisms, she argues that attachment theory was paramount in turning mother love into a biological need. This shift introduced a new justification for the prescriptive role of biology in human affairs and had profound—and negative—consequences for mothers and for the valuation of mother love.

A brilliant inquiry into the origins of human nature from the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now. "Sweeping, erudite, sharply argued, and fun to read..also highly persuasive." --Time Now updated with a new afterword One of the world's leading experts on language and the mind explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts. Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.

This book captures the essence of a never-to-be-repeated glimpse at the history of media research. It offers a unique examination of the origins, meaning, and impact of media and communication research in America, with links to European antecedents. Based on a high-level seminar series at Columbia University's Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, the book features work by leading scholars, researchers, and media executives. Participants in the series have called the program "heroic and unprecedented." The book encompasses essays, commentaries, and reports by such leading figures as William McGuire, Elihu Katz, and Leo Bogart, plus posthumous reports by Wilbur Schramm, Malcolm Beville, and Hilde Himmelweit. It also contains original insights on the collaboration of Frank Stanton, Paul Lazarfeld, and Robert K. Merton.

"This is an excellent textbook that should be compulsory reading for any undergraduate student of Social Psychology. Wendy Stainton Rogers has done a remarkable job of synthesising theories within these broad approaches. She has used her vast experience in distance learning to write a book that draws students in and has them reading, simply because the material is so very interesting. Although Stainton Rogers outlines the British Psychological Society’s requirements for an undergraduate course in Social Psychology at the beginning of the book, this textbook is relevant far beyond the context of the United Kingdom." Catriona Macleod, Professor of Psychology, Rhodes University, South Africa In the brave new world of Facebook and Twitter, our social, political and personal worlds are all profoundly changing. To be relevant to our lives today, Social Psychology needs to be transformed. This popular book has been radically revised to do just that. Extensively updated and expanded, this new edition contains a broad grounding in traditional experimental work and a thorough treatment of the different 'logics of inquiry' adopted for empirical research. The book also: Introduces two completely new chapters, one on relationships and another on prejudiceUpdates and reformulates all the other material, introducing chapters on quantitative and qualitative methods, critical psychology and valuesIncludes a wide array of critical approaches - community, feminist, postcolonial, psychoanalytic social psychologiesAddresses social psychology from an international perspective, drawing on work from Africa, Australia, Europe, North and South America, New Zealand, Asia Includes section summaries, further reading, online resources and questionsShowcases the work of a new and vibrant generation of social psychologists Covers the BPS recommendations for the social psychology syllabusThe book breaks new ground in the topics it covers and in the innovative approach it takes to assessing them. For students and their teachers alike, the book brings a 'breath of fresh air', making it not just a valuable resource, but an intriguing and enjoyable read.

Explores the origins and characteristics of compassionate love in those who care for the disabled.

What will humans be like in the future? According to science fiction author Sylvia Engdahl, they will be no different from what they're like now. There will be many innovations in technology and ways of daily life, but people are people, wherever and whenever they happen to live, and that's not going to change. In this book Engdahl departs from the theme of space colonization on which her past essays (available in her book From This Green Earth) have focused, and discusses such topics as artificial intelligence, "paranormal" psi powers, healthcare policy, and the coming loss of personal privacy. Her controversial views on these subjects will inspire thought about what the future is likely to bring.

It is motivation that drives all our daily endeavors, and it is motivation, or the lack of it, that accounts for most of our successes and failures. Motivation, however, needs to be carefully controlled and regulated to be effective. This book surveys the most recent psychological research on how motivational processes are regulated in daily life to achieve desired outcomes. Contributors are all leading international investigators, and they explore such exciting questions as: What is the relationship between motivation and self-control? What is the role of affect and cognition in regulating motivation? How do conscious and unconscious motivational processes interact? What role do physiological processes play in controlling motivation? How can we regulate aggressive impulses? How do affective states control motivation? Can motivation distort perception and attention? What are the social, cultural and interpersonal effects of motivational control? Understanding human motivation is not only of theoretical interest, but is also fundamental to applied fields such as clinical, counseling, educational, organizational, marketing and industrial psychology. The book is also suitable as an advanced textbook in courses in motivational sciences, and is recommended to students, teachers, researchers and applied professionals as well as laypersons interested in the psychology of human motivation and self-control.

For much of human evolution, the natural world was one of the most important contexts of children's maturation. Indeed, the experience of nature was, and still may be, a critical component of human physical, emotional, intellectual, and even moral development. Yet scientific knowledge of the significance of nature during the different stages of childhood is sparse. This book provides scientific investigations and thought-provoking essays on children and nature. Children and Nature incorporates research from cognitive science, developmental psychology, ecology, education, environmental studies, evolutionary psychology, political science, primatology, psychiatry, and social psychology. The authors examine the evolutionary significance of nature during childhood; the formation of children's conceptions, values, and sympathies toward the natural world; how contact with nature affects children's physical and mental development; and the educational and political consequences of the weakened childhood experience of nature in modern society.

Modern interpersonal psychology is now at a point where recent advances need to be organized so that researchers, practitioners, and students can understand what is new, different, and state-of-the art. This field-defining volume examines the history of interpersonal psychology and explores influential theories of normal-abnormal behaviors, widely-used assessment measures, recent methodological advances, and current interpersonal strategies for changing problematic behaviors. Featuring original contributions from field luminaries including Aaron Pincus, John Clarkin, David Buss, Louis Castonguay, and Theodore Millon, this cutting-edge volume will appeal to academicians, professionals, and students interested in the study of normal and abnormal interpersonal behavior.

The term "Inclusive Communities" has increasingly featured in recent years, at policy, practice and theoretical levels, drawing from different disciplinary standpoints. Much of this has been spurred by efforts at understanding the exclusions confronted by certain populations, to develop the notion of and mechanisms by which communities can include those who are marginalised and/or oppressed, and in some contexts to 'bring back' community as something real or imagined. In spite of this, this deceptive term remains shrouded in epistemological darkness, conveniently endorsed but often little theorised and less understood. This text provides an exciting introductory textbook, drawing academics, policy makers and activists from various fields to theorise, create new and innovative conceptual platforms and develop further the hybrid idea of inclusive communities.

This book brings together Erich Fromm’s basic statements on the application of psychoanalytic theory to social dynamics. At the same time it offers an image of man consonant with the hopes of radical humanism. The Crisis of Psychoanalysis is a collection of nine brilliant essays. Although his work is deeply rooted in Freudian theory, Fromm further develops Freud’s doctrines by including both social and ethical dimensions and applies his discoveries and insights to address the problems we face in society at large.

Presents a controversial history of violence which argues that today's world is the most peaceful time in human existence, drawing on psychological insights into intrinsic values that are causing people to condemn violence as an acceptable measure.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Some scientific studies suggest that human beings are innately selfish and that Christian virtues like self-sacrifice are a delusion. In this intriguing volume, esteemed theologian Thomas Jay Oord interprets the scientific research and responds from a theological and philosophical standpoint, providing a state-of-the-art overview of love and altruism studies. He offers a definition of love that is scientifically, theologically, and philosophically adequate. As Oord helps readers arrive at a clearer understanding of the definition, recipients, and forms of love, he mounts a case for Christian agape and ultimately for a loving God.