Take an online walkthrough of the many features of this book. Click on the highlighted text to see actual examples from the text.

A Clear, Engaging Writing Style
This textbook has received very positive responses from students, and the first and foremost response has been praise for its writing style. In fact, the feedback from classroom tests of previous editions at a range of schools was universally positive. The style is conversational, and the text uses numerous everyday examples and realistic analogies to help you grasp even the most complex concepts.

A chapter opening vignette draws you into each chapter's topics with a dramatic real-life story—one that is memorable and directly related to the chapter's content.

You'll be especially interested in the stories of the McCaughey septuplets, world champion chess player Garry Kasparov's loss to the supercomputer Deep Blue, and men arrested for crimes they did not commit because of faulty eyewitness testimony.

Interact with Your Textbook

What better way to learn new material—to make it fresh, interesting, and memorable—than to demonstrate for yourself the principles discussed? The unique Try It! boxes encourage you to learn by doing. The highly praised Try Its! provide simple experiments that you can perform without elaborate equipment, usually as you read.

Research has shown that checking your progress at key points as you study helps you remember what you have read. Another way you can interact with this textbook is by taking the Remember It! quizzes at the ends of the main text sections.

The Internet and the World Wide Web provide an opportunity for students and instructors to access and interact with an almost endless amount of information. Interact with an online study guide, chat with other students, or just browse. Link It! icons appear at appropriate places in the margins of this textbook to alert you that related or updated information is available at the book's web site or through related links.

Finally, you'll have a chance to relate psychological principles to your own life in the Apply It! section at the end of each chapter. Each Apply It! helps you apply psychology to problems and issues that may affect your personal life. Among the wide range of topics addressed are these:

• Handedness—Does It Make a Difference?
• How to Win the Battle against Procrastination
• Avoiding Bad Decisions
• Building a Good Relationship
• The Pursuit of Happiness
• Learning to Be Optimistic

A Formula for Success

This textbook is organized to help you maximize your learning by following five steps: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. You will learn and remember more if, instead of simply reading each chapter, you faithfully follow these steps. Here's how they work.

Survey  First, scan the chapter you are going to read. The chapter outline helps you preview the content and its organization.

Read the section headings and the learning objective questions, which are designed to focus your attention on key information that you should learn and remember.

Glance at the illustrations and tables, including the Review & Reflect tables, which organize, review, and summarize key concepts.

Then read the chapter's Summary and Review. This survey process gives you an overview of the chapter.

Question  Before you actually read each section in a chapter, turn its heading into one or more questions. Some sections provide a learning objective question, but you can also jot down questions of your own. For example, one heading in Chapter 1 is "The Goals of Psychology." The learning objective question is "What are the four goals of psychology?" You might add this question: "What is meant by 'control' as a goal of psychology?" Asking such questions helps focus your reading.

Read  Read the section. As you read, try to answer the learning objective question and your own question(s). After reading the section, stop. If the section is very long or if the material seems especially difficult or complex, you should stop after reading only one or two paragraphs.

Recite  After reading part or all of a section, try to answer the learning objective question and your own question(s). To better grasp each topic, write a short summary of the meterial. If you have trouble summarizing a topic or answering the questions, scan or read the section once more before trying again.

When you have mastered one section, move on to the next. If the text does not include a learning objective question, formulate your own. Then read and recite, answering your question or writing a brief summary as before.

Review  Each major section in the book ends with a Remember It! that consists of a few questions about the preceding topics. Interspersed throughout each chapter, these quizzes cover the material emphasized by the learning objective questions. Answer the Remember It! questions, and check your answers against those provided. If you make errors, quickly review the preceding material until you know the answers.

When you have finished a chapter, revisit the Remember Its! and then turn to the Summary and Review. Review the Key Terms. If you don't know the meaning of a term, turn to the page where that term is defined in the margin. The marginal definitions provide a ready reference for important key terms that appear in boldface print in the text. All of these terms and definitions also appear in the Glossary at the end of the book. Phonetic pronunciations are provided for more than 100 potentially hard-to-pronounce terms.

Next, review each learning objective question in the Summary and Review and answer it in your own words. The answers provided are only condensed reminders, and you should be able to expand on them.

Finally, consider the thought-provoking questions in the Thinking Critically section under the three headings Evaluation, Point/Counterpoint, and Psychology in Your Life. Answering these questions requires more than simple memorization. These critical thinking questions give you the chance to reassure yourself that you really understand the information presented in the chapter.