Exploring Psychology

Far and away the bestselling brief introduction to psychology, David Myers'Exploring Psychologydoesn't just present the story of the psychology. It involves students deeply in that story, as they learning to think critically about psychology's core ideas, breakthrough research findings, and wide-ranging applications to their lives and the world around them. The new Eighth Edition is both classic Myers and cutting-edge psychological science, a rich presentation more than ever before, helps students develop the critical thinking skills they need to make their encounters with psychological science successful and personally enriching. The most extensively revision to date, the Eighth Edition features many hundreds of new research citations, over 40% new photos, and state-of-the-art media and supplements--plus an all new critical thinking feature, Test for Success: Critical Thinking Exercises. Still, with the book's continual evolution, one constant remains: the inimitable writing of David Myers, who continues to show an uncanny ability to engage the curiosities of all kinds of students as they explore both the scientific and human aspects of the field of psychology.

ANNOTATED CONTENTS Chapter 1 Thinking Critically With Psychological Science
• “Cognitive neuroscience” and “behaviorism” are now key terms.
• New cross-cultural data updates the discussion of psychology’s worldwide expansion.
• Updated with new current events.
• “Naturalistic Observation” section includes new research examples, with two new photos.
• New examples clarify the important concept of “operational definitions.”
• Now includes a clearer discussion of the limitations of naturalistic observation.
Chapter 2 The Biology of Mind
• New chapter title reflects greater emphasis on our dual processing.
• New introduction provides immediate relevancy for the content to follow.
• New research demonstrates “neurogenesis,” which is now a key term.
• New research expands discussion of right-left differences in the intact brain.
Chapter 3 Consciousness and the Two-Track Mind
• Now contains an extensive new discussion of dual processing, as reflected in the new title and new placement directly following the neuroscience chapter. Supported by cognitive neuroscience and other new research, with two new figures. New key terms include cognitive neuroscience, dual processing, and change blindness.
• New figure details our states of consciousness.
• New cross-cultural research updates average sleep times.
• New research relates sleep deprivation to unwanted weight gain, and also provides data on high school students’ sleepiness.
• “Sleep Theories” section updated with new data on animal sleep, inspirational dreams,  and the benefits of sleep in general on memory and learning.
• “What We Dream” section updated with new dream content research.
• New medical research updates discussion of hypnosis for pain relief.
• New neuroscience research supports discussion of hypnosis as divided consciousness.
• “Dependence and Addiction” section enhanced with new neuroscience research and new prevalence data.
• New research analyses explore links between drinking and risky sex, and between drinking and emotional pain.
• Expanded methamphetamine discussion now has its own subsection.
• Discussion of caffeine expanded into its own new subsection.
• New research highlights the value of cluster quitting for smokers.
• New cross-cultural table compares alcohol consumption.
• New genetics research expands discussion of biological influences on drug use.
• New table highlights alcohol use in colleges and universities.
Chapter 4 Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity
• Now emphasizes the concept that genes may or may not be “expressed” (active).
• Includes new neuroscience research related to temperament.
• New research guides a revised presentation of natural selection.
• New evolutionary psychology research illuminates the discussion of mating preferences.
• New research examples and ideas enhance the discussion of “Culture and the Self.”
• Includes new gender-based research on social networking sites and work motivation.
• New research, with new figure, demonstrates gender similarities.
• New gender research sheds light on aggression and power issues.
• “Gender and Social Connectedness” section enhanced with new global research and ideas.
• New research illustrates increasing numbers of women earning advanced degrees.
• New cross-cultural research updates gender equity discussion.
• New research and ideas update “Reflections on Nature and Nurture” discussion.
Chapter 5 Developing Through the Life Span
• New data updates discussion of back-to-sleep program and SIDS.
• New research suggests that pregnant women’s drinking primes the children for greater risk later of heavy drinking and alcohol dependence.
• Fun new “try-this” style activity illustrates new research linking power and sensitivity to others.
• Autism discussion recast based on new research. Includes new coverage of “transporters” experiment success in “systemizing empathy,” with new illustrations.
• Includes new research that extends long-term effects of attachment styles.
• New primate research supports the abuse-breeds-abuse phenomenon, and new genetics research helps explain abuse victims’ risk of depression.
• New research updates parenting styles discussion.
• New research suggests link between stress and early menarche.
• Teen risk assessment updated with new research.
• New discussion explains how our “social identity” often forms around the distinctiveness of our group identities.
• “Emerging adulthood” is now a key term.
• New research updates discussion of aging and sexuality.
• Now includes evolutionary psychology explanation of menopause, with new research.
• “Sensory Abilities” section now includes new research on pitches only teens can hear.
• Includes new neuroscience research on the effects of atrophying frontal lobes later in life and the benefits of exercising.
• New research suggests lessened effects of negative emotions later in life, and updates discussion of “Age and Life Satisfaction.”
• Now includes discussion of the “terminal decline.”
• New figure compares the stage theories of Kohlberg, Erikson, and Piaget.
Chapter 6 Sensation and Perception
• New story of prosopagnosia (face blindness) opens the chapter, and is used later in the chapter as an illustration of new neuroscience research on our face perception.
• New figure demonstrates how our eyes jump around as we view an image.
• New gender research enhances discussion of noise exposure differences.
• New research supports sensory compensation.
• New research examples enhance discussion of “Touch.”
• Pain discussion now includes “nociceptors” with new figure, new genetic research results, and new research results supporting the placebo effect.
• New table outlines “Survival Functions of Basic Tastes.”
• New research enhances discussion of emotional associations with smells.
• New research examples enhance discussion of sensory adaptation.
• Now includes discussion of the horizontal-vertical illusion with new photo example.
• “Context Effects” discussion revised, including a new photo example.
Chapter 7 Learning
• New research suggests that learned associations feed our habitual behaviors.
• New evolutionary psychology research, with a new figure, suggests why men so easily learn an association between the color red and romance.
• “Primary and Conditioned Reinforcers” section updated with new research on the money-hunger link.
• New comparison table provides applications to help students understand the schedules of reinforcement.
• New “Close-Up” box covers “Training our Mates.”
• Discussion of role of mirror neurons and imitation in observational learning has been recast with new research and new examples.
• “Applications of Observational Learning” section includes new research related to work.
Chapter 8 Memory
• New research outlines the strength of even ordinary memory ability, with an accompanying visual “try-this” activity.
• New research applies memory principles to everyday learning, including the benefits of spacing learning time, repeated quizzing, and meaningful encoding.
• New research examples and ideas enhance discussion of memory’s synaptic changes.
• “Stress Hormones and Memory” discussion now includes evolutionary psychology explanation.
• New research explains function of a memory-blunting drug.
• New neuroscience and other research updates discussion of implicit and explicit memories.
• New research example and photo highlights value of not remembering everything.
• New research, quotes, and stories enhance discussion of “Memory Construction.”
• Sleep is now promoted as an important factor in memory improvement.
Chapter 9 Thinking, Language, and Intelligence
• Dramatic new examples illustrate the idea that emotion-laden images can make ideas more fearfully memorable.
• New research sheds light on how our brains process concrete nouns.
• Includes new research examples of impressive animal thinking, and chimpanzees’ ability to read intent.
• New research examples and a new figure enhance discussion of risk assessment and emotional reasoning.
• Intuition discussion enhanced with new research and new ideas.
• New research expands and clarifies language development discussion; includes mention of a “universal moral grammar” and new neuroscience research on division of language functions in the brain.
• New cross-cultural research introduces the idea of a personality change as people shift between the different languages they speak.
• New research examples, with a new figure, enhance discussion of animal thinking and language.
• New research example provides window into the world of a savant, with new photo.
• Discussion of Sternberg’s theories enhanced with new research to include his new measures of creativity and practical thinking.
• New research studies underscore the need to provide the right environment for creativity to occur, and suggest that exposure to different cultures fosters creativity.
• “Emotional Intelligence” discussion revised with new research, and new applications to work settings.
• New cross-cultural research expands discussion of the genetic basis of intelligence.
• New research example, with new illustration, demonstrates the connection between intelligence and income.
• New research enhances discussion of the high extreme of intelligence.
• New cross-cultural and gender-based research studies, with two new figures, enhance discussion of cultural, ethnic, and gender similarities and differences in intelligence; includes update on “stereotype threat.”
Chapter 10 Motivation
• Now includes “self-transcendence needs” in Maslow’s hierarchy.
• Includes new discussion of how activated motives can hijack our consciousness, with new research.
• Discussion of “appetite hormones” expanded with new research to include ghrelin and obestatin.
• Eating Disorders section now includes “binge eating disorders” as a key term, along with new research on prevalence and genetic factors.
• New research analyzes successful eating disorder prevention programs.
• New global statistics update the obesity prevalence data.
• New research suggests a connection between obesity and mental health, and obesity and social perception.
• New research updates discussion of genetic factors in obesity.
• Now includes discussion of key environmental factors influencing obesity rates: sleep loss, social influence, and cultural effects on the changing food consumption and activity levels.
• Now includes coverage of the new World Health Organization’s anti-obesity charter to help reverse the environmental factors that have led to worldwide obesity, and other new  cross-cultural obesity-reduction programs.
• New research enhances discussion of hormones, genetics, and sexual behavior.
• New research updates and enhances Adolescent Sexuality discussion.
• “Sexually Transmitted Infections” section updated with new research.
• “Sexual Orientation” section updated and enhanced with new cross-cultural and other research on tolerance, mental health and orientation, bisexual arousal response, gender differences in arousal, same-sex civil unions, and biological influences on orientation (with a new figures).
• “The Need to Belong” section now outlines three basic psychological needs: relatedness, autonomy, and competence, with new research.
• New research updates ostracism discussion.
Chapter 11 Emotions, Stress, and Health
• “Cognition and Emotion” section now includes a new discussion, with new research, of the way our two-track mind (automatic emotion and conscious thinking) creates our emotional experience.
• New research supports our remarkable ability to recognize distinct emotions quickly.
• Includes new research by Bond and DePaulo that suggests no one detects lies very well—not even trained detectors.
• “Cognition and Emotion” section updated with new research on the stronger effects of liking a candidate emotionally versus agreeing with his/her positions.
• “Gender and Emotion” discussion now includes new research, with a new “try this” style figure, about anger and its perception as masculine.
• New research suggests that relationship quality may be as important to happiness levels as heredity.
• New research demonstrates the value of stable marriages in stress-reduction while facing threats.
• “Stress,” “stressor,” and “stress reaction” are now distinguished with a memorable new story of Ben’s wild wheelchair ride (stuck to the grill of a truck for miles after crossing the road).
• “The Stress Response System” section now includes a discussion of Taylor’s work on men’s and women’s differing responses to stress, and the effects of oxytocin.
• “Stressful Life Events” section now includes Hurricane Katrina’s effect on suicide rates and more research on daily hassles and frustrations.
• Includes additional new research supporting the consistency and magnitude of the optimism and positive emotions factors in health.
• Includes new research on the effects of regular exercise to reduce risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and to treat mild depression.
• Includes new research suggesting that increased depression rates may be linked to today’s more sedentary lifestyles.
Chapter 12 Personality
• Now includes discussion of the defense mechanism “denial,” which is a key term.
• New research results enhances the Rorschach inkblot discussion.
• Includes additional new research, with global data, that questions the validity of the concept of “repression.”
• Maslow discussion now includes “self-transcendence” as well as “self-actualization.”
• New research story highlights Rogers’ “unconditional positive regard.”
• New research highlights the effects of selective breeding on personality traits in the animal kingdom.
• Additional new, global research supports the strength of the “big five” personality factors.
• Includes new research that supports the predictive value of rating personality based on emails.
• New research forms a new subsection discussing what depletes and what strengthens personal control, and why it matters.
• New research explains the value of optimism in successful relationships.
• Includes new discussion of “Blindness to One’s Own Incompetence.”
• Added emphasis on the self in the field is reflected by increased emphasis here, with “the self” as a key term.
• “Self-Esteem” discussion enhanced with new research related to benefits as well as concerns, including increased narcissism.
Chapter 13 Psychological Disorders
• ADHD discussion updated with brain imaging research suggesting delayed brain maturation.
• Classifying Psychological Disorders section now includes data on increased diagnoses in children.
• Includes new research suggesting that mental disorders seldom lead to violence.
• New research links anxiety to poorer quality of life and less happiness.
• Includes new research on age-related development and anxiety disorders.
• New opening example, new research data, and new photo from the Iraq War structures the revised Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) section, which also includes a new key term—“post-traumatic growth”—and a discussion of Staub’s “altruism born of suffering.”
• New research enhances discussion of genetic factors in PTSD and other anxiety disorders.
• Now includes a page-long discussion of the somatoform disorders, including conversion disorder and hypochondriasis.
• Discussion of personality disorders now includes the histrionic and narcissistic disorders, and the expressed need for the next DSM to define the categories more sharply.
• New research explains link between genes for antisocial disorder risk and drug and alcohol dependence risk.
• New research enhances discussion of prevalence rates of depression among college students.
• New research expands the discussion of bipolar disorder to include diagnoses among adolescents experiencing prolonged mood swings, and simulated mania in the lab.
• Includes additional new research that supports genetic factors in major depression.
• New research expands the discussion of depression to include simulated depression in the lab, updated statistics on suicide, the correlation between body type and suicide rate, new data on social suggestion’s and barriers’ effects on suicide, the effects of close relationships and mental health, and gender-depression links.
• Includes new research on schizophrenia risk factors related to infant nutrition.
• New research updates discussion of prevalence of disorders in various countries.
• Prevalence table now also includes social phobia, PTSD, and ADHD.
Chapter 14 Therapy
• “Psychodynamic therapy” receives additional emphasis as a new key term.
• “Unconditional positive regard” is now a key term.
• Includes new emphasis on the concept of “insight therapies,” which is now a key term.
• Includes more new research supporting the efficacy of cognitive-behavior therapy.
• New research updates the coverage of group and family therapies.
• New table compares the major psychotherapies based on assumed problem, therapy aims, and methods.
• “The Relative Effectiveness of Different Therapies” section now warns of therapies with little or no research support (energy therapies, recovered memory therapies, rebirthing therapies, social facilitation, and crisis debriefing).
• Includes new discussion of “evidence-based practice,” which is a key term, with a new figure demonstrating “evidence-based clinical decision making.”
• Discussion of light therapy for seasonal affective disorder (SAD) now suggests an evolutionary psychology explanation of SAD, and includes new research support.
• “Antipsychotic Drugs” section includes two new emphasized terms—“antipsychotic” and “tardive dyskinesia”—and research support for a new drug that stimulates receptors for glutamate.
• “Antianxiety Drugs” section now covers D-cycloserine, with new research support.
• Many research updates enhance the discussion of antidepressants, including more support for the power of placebos; the hopes for genetic screening that may help therapists prescribe the most effective, individualized treatments; and support for the idea that fewer patients (including adolescents) attempt suicides if treated with antidepressants.
• Kay Redfield-Jamison and her own treatment for bipolar disorder provides a powerful new example for the mood-stabilizing medication discussion.
• New neuroscience and other research prompted creation of a new subsection within the brain stimulation discussion to provide coverage of alternative neurostimulation therapies, including a new figure.
• Includes additional new research support for ECT.
• New section on “Therapeutic Lifestyle Change” provides research support for the mental health benefits of engaging in a healthier life style (more sleep, exercise, socializing, and light; better nutrition; less rumination).
Chapter 15 Social Psychology
• New chapter introduction highlights current events.
• New research examples and a new current events photo highlight actor and observer perspectives in attribution.
• Includes a new discussion of “central route” and “peripheral route” persuasion, with current event examples and new research.
• New research enhances the discussion of role-playing to emphasize the power of the individual in each situation.
• New research examples enhance the discussion of automatic mimicry and empathy in social relations.
• “Reasons for Conforming” section now offers new research related to college student populations, and cultural backgrounds.
• Group Polarization section updated with new research related to current world issues, including global climate change and terrorism.
• New research examples, with a new figure, enhance discussion of automatic (implicit) prejudice.
• Discussion of ingroup/outgroup enhanced with new research and an emphasis on the weird way our animosities form around smaller rather than larger differences.
• “Other-race effect” is now a key term and a new, cross-cultural discussion within the “Categorization” section.
• Frustration-aggression principle discussion is enhanced with new research examples (baseball and suicide bombers).
• New research updates the discussion of media models (Internet, TV, music, video games) of sexual aggression, and their detrimental effects.
• “Mirror-image perceptions” is now a key term within the “Enemy Perceptions” section, with new research highlighting the way this phenomenon can lead to greater conflict.
• “Mere Exposure Effect” section now includes a figure representing new research on voter tendencies.
• New research examples, and a new figure, support the strength of similarity in attraction.
• “Companionate Love” discussion enhanced with new research on the importance of equity.
• New cognitive neuroscience research and new examples enhance the discussion of norms for helping.
• New photo and research examples highlights the problems that result from imbalanced population sex ratios, such as more males in China as a result of the one-child policy.
• Global research updates and expands the discussion of the importance of contact in resolving conflicts.
Appendix A Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life
Appendix B  Psychology at Work
• New research supports the benefits of employee satisfaction and engagement.
• “Leadership Style” discussion enhanced with new gender-based research.
• Includes new boxed essay on “Doing Well While Doing Good.”
• New examples, with photos, of “good designs” update “Human Factors” discussion.
Appendix C  Careers in Psychology, by Jennifer Zwolinski
• Includes expanded discussion of what graduates with a B.A. in Psychology may do, and the general benefits of a psychology degree.
• Includes expanded discussion of tips for getting a job after graduation. Appendix D Answers to Test Yourself Questions