(Part 2) Top products from r/AcademicPsychology

Hi! If you can, let us know a little more about what you think you're interested in already, or what you already know something about. Psychology covers a lot of very different things.


Here are a few broad books which I found interesting before I studied it formally, for if you're not yet sure where to focus:

• Psychology: A very short introduction - Covers the basics, easy to understand, and will give you a good idea of what you want to know more about! (There's also one of these 'very short introductions' to the brain, which you might also find interesting. It's more biology and neuroscience, but there's a lot of overlap to psychology.)
  
  
  
• The Man who mistook his wife for a hat, by Oliver Sacks - A very interesting selection of stories, about the bizarre and mysterious things that brains can do when they're not operating quite as normal. Very easy to read, and very personal and involved with the patients themselves.
  
  
• How the mind works, by Steven Pinker - A longer, slightly in depth book, although it still covers a wide range of material. Quite a lot of jokes, and it's well written!
  
  
  
  Anyway, I hope that helps, and let me know if you do have any particular interests, and I'll see what I can think of! Psychology is really great, and I think there's an area of it to keep almost anybody interested.

The book is geared towards using SPSS, but it does offer info on some calculations and theory. My BA psych stats class was all about stats by hand (no calculators allowed!) and it was immensely helpful! I used the 4th edition of this book. It was a while ago so I don't remember how great the book was, but I learned a lot in that class because our prof explained things very well and made us do everything by hand.

You'd do well to learn SPSS, but don't go nuts. It's a powerful program and even after taking a whole class in it, I probably know 10% of what it can do. Your RA position should help you get acquainted well enough for a bachelors level student. Grad programs aren't looking for experts in SPSS, they're looking for people who learn well and want to learn more.

If you want a research article, I would say look at the Christchurch Psychotherapy for Depression Research Study that's put out a few articles on their large and really recent study comparing CBT versus interpersonal psychotherapy, which is rooted in attachment theory and is sometimes lumped together with short-term psychodynamic therapy, for differential predictors of treatment response. One of the main ones is initial severity; read the article for full results though. The most recent article they've put out was in 2011 by Carter, Luty, Joyce and colleagues I believe (off the top of my head).

As for how to search for this info, honestly google scholar has been a pretty phenomenal academic resource. Its flexibility, power and ability to integrate with both bibliographic programs and university libraries to allow pulling of articles is pretty awesome. You can use normal google search skills (e.g., phrases, different boolean code) when searching for articles, which makes it a lot better than what used to be available. Just add "review" as one of your search phrases and that should pull up some good summaries of the field.

And lastly, one book worth checking out if your library carries it/you wanna purchase it is: http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Therapeutic-Change-Clinical-Psychology/dp/0195156846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313214923&sr=8-1
Look at the chapter on dysphoric disorder treatment (1st section of the book).

Let me know if you have any more questions and I can provide more info/detail if you need.

The Feeling Good Handbook

Dr Spock's Baby and Childcare

The Dance of Intimacy

Getting Together and Staying Together

I hope these are interesting. They are much cheaper on eBay and your local library probably has them to borrow free. Libraries are great because if you look up the book, when you find it in the stacks there are similar books right next to them. Hope this is helpful.

Five years after graduating, these are the books I still open up:

• Theories of Personality
  
  A great chronological overview of psychological theories beginning with William James. Shows the development and shifts in ideas involving personality while also going fairly in depth with each theory.
  
  
• The Amazing Brain
  
  Beautifully illustrated book on the structure and development of the human brain. Starts with the basal ganglia and the limbic system and describes how newer and more complex structures were added over time. Helps show that the brain was almost jerry-rigged over time as opposed to being a purposefully constructed organ.

This might be a little too accessible for your purposes, but it's pretty cheap and it's an easy read:

If Your Adolescent Has Schizophrenia: An Essential Resource for Parents

There's a partner book for adolescents and young adults with schizophrenia called Me, Myself, and Them: A Firsthand Account of One Young Person's Experience with Schizophrenia.

Those are good starting places.

If anyone prefers a Physical edition.

I explain why the prices are so different in a blog.

Update: Due to popular feedback, I decided to make split versions of the ebook edition for anyone who found 2554 pages too daunting but are still interested in reading my book. In case any of you are still interested.

Part I Only.

Part II Only.

Explanation on pricing can be read here.

It sounds like this might be of interest to you: The Farther Reaches of Human Nature by Maslow.

I guess it can be hard from an external point of view. I would suggest getting a copy of Wickens et al. (2012) Engineer Psychology http://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Psychology-Human-Performance-Edition/dp/0205021980

Take a read through and find some of the areas which you take an interest to. Google around for universities in your area and see if there are in professors doing any of the resarch you are interested in. At the very least, they might be able to point you in the right directino for how to get to where you want to be.

In terms of outcomes, consulting work is a big place for industrial psychs.

I'm not sure about a megabook kind of deal. I just collect books and articles along the way. I'll just list some of the basics in case you don't have those already.


Books from Skinner:

About Behaviorism

The Behavior of Organisms

Schedules of Reinforcement

Contingencies of Reinforcement

Cumulative Record

Walden 2 - Interesting application of behaviorism, although fiction is not his strongest skillset! A behaviorist actually made a community based off of Walden 2 in Michigan....that's a fun story too! Read a book about that here: http://www.amazon.com/Living-Walden-Two-Behaviorist-Experimental/dp/0252029623/ref=sr_1_68?ie=UTF8&qid=1411460394&sr=8-68&keywords=experimental+behaviorism




Some classic reads:

Premack: Reversibility of the Reinforcement Relation (from Science, 1962)
Toward empirical Behavior Laws - Premack, Psychological review 1959

Response Deprivation - Timberlake & Allison 1974 Psychological Review

The Importance of Herrnstein's Mathematical Statement of the Law of Effect for Behavior Therapy - McDowell, American Psychologist 1982 (This is particularly relevant to your interests!)

The Temporal Triangle: Response Substitution in Instrumental Conditioning - Rachlin & Burkhard 1978 Psychological Review

Economic Concepts for the Analysis of Behavior - Hursh, 1980, Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Gazmu & Williams - 1971 Science - Classical Conditioning of a Complex Skeletal Response

Rescorla has a ton of relevant articles as well...too lazy to list them all!

Other books I keep handy on the shelf:

Cognition, Evolution, and Behavior by Sara Shettleworth

History of Psychology - David Hothersall

The only book I ever really liked is out of print:
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Cognitive-Psychology-Reed-Hunt/dp/0072858958/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Nunnally is our one true psychometrics 'bible' so to speak. http://www.amazon.com/Psychometric-Theory-Jum-C-Nunnally/dp/007047849X/ref=la_B000APJN0I_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463073949&sr=1-1

In addition to the names already mentioned, I'd check out Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

I always recommend Steve Luck's An Introduction to the Event Related Potential Technique to my students, and still dip into it myself frequently.

Try This by Stephen Pinker.

This: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0205827195/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?qid=1374999187&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX110_SY190 and this: http://www.mftlicense.com/Main/StudyGuide.aspx. Know your models!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Influence-Psychology-Robert-PhD-Cialdini/dp/006124189X

Theres a book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdCzN7RYbw

Theres a talk on the topic

This is what we suggest for first years at our university. It is very accessible and while maybe not inspiring as a whole (abstract_brotha is right; textbooks are rarely inspiring), a good overview of the area with some 'inspiring' research in there too.

Dan Ariely is relatively well known for his work on lying and deception.