Psychology: The Science of Behavior

The major goals for this textbook are to demonstrate to students how the science of psychology has evolved and how it continues to develop. We wanted to create a textbook that engages students in the scientific process by asking stimulating questions and demonstrates how scientific research proceeds in order to answer them. In addition, we wanted to introduce students to several contemporary and influential psychologists in order to show them how researchers think about important issues, as well as to illustrate how controversy still surrounds much of this important discipline. These introductions are presented as dialogs between the author and influential researchers at the end of several chapters. We believe that it is important to show students how we know what we know by discussing principles of psychology in terms of the scientific context in which they are demonstrated.