Social Psychology: (Critical Thinking in Psychology Series)

About the Book

This introductory social psychology text addresses the core knowledge domains of the subject, with key chapters on understanding identities, attribution theory, attitudinal research, social influence, racism and prejudice, class and exclusions, methodologies of social psychology and discursive psychology. It provides concise and focused coverage of the central concepts, research and debates in this key area, while developing students' higher level skills.

Activities help readers build the underpinning generic critical thinking and transferable skills they need in order to become independent learners, and to meet the relevant requirements of their programme of study.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Attitudes Attributions Stereotypes, Prejudice and Racism Social Influence: Persuasion Social Influence: Conformity, Compliance and Group Processes Pro-Social Behaviour Gender and Social Psychology Close Relationships Methodologies Keeping the Social in Social Psychology: The Importance of Context

About the Author :
Dr Jane Callaghan is a senior lecturer in critical developmental psychology, qualitative research, and the study of mental health. A South African trained psychologist, she has published in the areas of domestic violence, political identities, professionalization, race, class and gender. Dr Lisa Lazard is a senior lecturer in critical social psychology at the University of Northampton. She has written extensively in the area of sexual violence and harassment and is an expert in qualitative research methodologies (particularly IPA, Q methodology and discursive approaches).

Review :
Accessible text and not an unwieldy monolith like some of the other social psychology texts! Nice accessible small book!
Good range of questions and topic areas. The book gives a good understanding of critical thinking in social psychology for new students to the subject area. It is well written and recommended reading. The book is good, but I mainly teach developmental psychology. It will still be useful though. Excellent book. It covers all the main areas in social psychology clearly and concisely. Excellent to see social representations theory and discursive psychology explained so well. This book gives a good basic overview of mainly mainstream social psychology and asks some interesting questions. As would be expected from a book on social psychology, limited to 250 pages, it can only present the bare basics but it does this well for the mainstream part. Critical social psychology should feature a bit more and with more up-to-date references, in my view. As such this book is probably not comprehensive enough to be recommended as essential reading but may provide the student with a good overview and the bare bones of social psychology, and as such will serve them well as additional, supplementary reading. The sections covered are appropriately broad for a Social Psychology text book. My biggest concern with the content is that there tends to be a focus on discussing the particulars of debates in field without citing the relevant resource material; a college-level text book should heavily cite ongoing research. This is another interesting overview of a topic in the "Critical Thinking" series. It gives a good flavour of "old" and "new" social psychology. The illustrative case studies are especially helpful.
I would not adopt this as a core text for a number of reasons.
The topics covered reflect particular interests in social psychology; some of these topics would either not be taught in an undergraduate degree, or would be taught in a different way, depending on the curriculum.
The chapter on "Methodologies" is rather short on detail.
It is not clear which level of study this book is aimed at; undergraduate, yes, but which level of undergraduate? Not a suitable scholarly level for our students Like- critical thinking activities. Limited depth (is say Hoff and Vaughan) Not essential as the level of content is in between what they need at each level - i.e. too much to buy for Level 3, but not in depth enough to see them through the core module at Level 5.
Good focused further reading (at the end of each chapter) for this level. This book is useful particularly when used in conjunction with the ′test questions′ edition. A good book to help 3rd students gain a more universal perspective on the subject Clearly laid out and very relevant to SW students both as an academic text and as an aid to practice. One thing that could be improved and that is possibly suggestions for seminar tasks. (But maybe I′m lazy?!). This book will be useful reading for students following aspects of psychology within their programme. A useful book to provide additional reading for students who choose to pursue this optional aspect of the course. Other text chosen A very useful book which provides essential detail on key issues within social psychology.

Will be recommending to all students and the college library. A very useful book which provides essential detail on key issues within social psychology.

Will be recommending to all students and the college library.