Book Title: Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition

Authors: Charles Stangor and Jennifer Walinga

Book Description: A new edition of this book was published on August 22, 2024. You can find it here: Introduction to Psychology: Moving Towards Diversity and Inclusion.

This book is designed to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. The focus on behaviour and empiricism has produced a text that is better organized, has fewer chapters, and is somewhat shorter than many of the leading books. The beginning of each section includes learning objectives; throughout the body of each section are key terms in bold followed by their definitions in italics; key takeaways, and exercises and critical thinking activities end each section.

License:
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike

Contents

Book Information

Book Description

This book is designed to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. The focus on behaviour and empiricism has produced a text that is better organized, has fewer chapters, and is somewhat shorter than many of the leading books. The beginning of each section includes learning objectives; throughout the body of each section are key terms in bold followed by their definitions in italics; key takeaways, and exercises and critical thinking activities end each section.

To facilitate learning outcomes, three techniques have been used:

  1. Chapter openers.The focus on behaviour begins each chapter with an opener showcasing an interesting real-world example of people who are dealing with behavioural questions and who can use psychology to help them answer those questions. The opener is designed to draw the student into the chapter and create an interest in learning about the topic.
  2. Psychology in everyday life.Each chapter contains one or two features designed to link the principles from the chapter to real-world applications in business, environment, health, law, learning, and other relevant domains. For instance, the application in Chapter 7 “Growing and Developing” — “What Makes a Good Parent?” — applies the concepts of parenting styles in a mini handbook about parenting, and the application in Chapter 4, “Brains, Bodies, and Behaviour,” is about the difficulties that left-handed people face performing everyday tasks in a right-handed world.
  3. Research focus.Empiricism is also emphasized throughout, but without making it a distraction from the main story line. Each chapter presents one or more close-ups on research — well-articulated and specific examples of research within the content area, each including a summary of the hypotheses, methods, results, and interpretations. This feature provides a continuous thread that reminds students of the importance of empirical research. The research foci also emphasize the fact that findings are not always predictable ahead of time (dispelling the myth of hindsight bias) and help students understand how research really works.

In short, the authors  have attempted to bring psychology to life in ways that really matter to students while, at the same time, maintaining content and conceptual rigor, with a strong focus on the fundamental principles of empiricism and the scientific method.

Authors

Charles Stangor and Jennifer Walinga

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Introduction to Psychology - 1st Canadian Edition Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Walinga and Charles Stangor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Subject

Psychology

Metadata

Title
Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition
Authors
Charles Stangor and Jennifer Walinga
License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Introduction to Psychology - 1st Canadian Edition Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Walinga and Charles Stangor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

This book is an adaptation of Introduction to Psychology © 2010 by Charles Stangor, which is under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Licence. This adaptation includes the following changes and additions which are © 2014 by Jennifer Walinga and are licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence.

The following changes were made to this book as a whole:

  • Canadian spellings were used
  • Imperial measurements were changed to metric
  • Added or changed content and references to reflect a Canadian perspective
  • Where appropriate, changed images to reflect Canadian specific content and references
  • Replaced copyrighted images with openly licensed images; if no replacement found, copyrighted images were removed.
  • For most existing videos, videos were embedded and QR codes added
Chapter 2: NEW
  • Introduction to Major Perspectives
Chapter 3:
  • Replaced “Consent Form: Interactions” with “Sample Research Consent Form”
  • Replaced “APA Guidelines on Human Care and Use of Animals in Research” with the Canadian Psychological Association guidelines

Chapter 6:

  • Replaced National Sleep Foundation guidelines with those from the Canadian Sleep Society

Chapter 9:

  • Added Thomas Sophonow and Michael Kliman examples to opening case study about Jennifer Thompson
  • Replaced States and Capital Cities table with Provinces and Capital Cities
  • Added Kent Cochrane example to section on severe amnesia
  • Added Gold Mountain Blues copyright case
Chapter 10:
  • Added Vingilis-Jeremko & Vingilis 2006 researcher on gender differences in STEM performance to opening case study
  • Expanded section on bilingualism to include Canadian relevance
Chapter 11:
  • Added Gavin England story to opening case study
Chapter 12:
  •  Changed text and images to Canadian content in Psychology in Everyday Life: Leaders and Leadership text box
Chapter 13:
  • Added information on Romeo Dallaire to PSTD section
Chapter 14:
  • Replaced ethical principles by the American Psychological Association with those from the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association in the Psychology in Everyday Life text box
Chapter 15:
  • Sam Spady opening case study replaced with Jonathan Andrews story
  • Research Focus: The Culture of Honour was rewritten with an international perspective

Chapter 16 – NEW

  • Stress, Health, and Coping

The CC licence permits you to retain, reuse, copy, redistribute, and revise this book—in whole or in part—for free providing the author is attributed as follows:

Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition by Jennifer Walinga and Charles Stangor is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence.

You may not use the material for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. Additionally, if you redistribute all or part of this book, it is recommended the following statement be added to the copyright page so readers can access the original book at no cost:

Download for free from the B.C. Open Collection.

This textbook can be referenced. In APA citation style, it would appear as follows:

Stangor, C. and Walinga, J. (2014). Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition. Victoria, B.C.: BCcampus. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/

Cover image attribution: Another hand mirror reflection by Frank Kovalchek is used under a CC BY 2.0 Licence.

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-77420-005-6

Print ISBN: 978-1-77420-004-9

Visit BCcampus Open Education to learn about open education in British Columbia.

Primary Subject
Psychology
Publisher
BCcampus
Publication Date
October 17, 2014
Ebook ISBN
978-1-77420-005-6
Print ISBN
978-1-77420-004-9