In the Spring 2000, the Psi Chi officers asked our faculty to recommend books that all psychology students should read. The results are below.
  1. Allport, G. (1988) The Nature of Prejudice: 25th Anniversary. 537 Pages. Classic book explores how and why prejudice occurs and what can be done to change it.


  2. Armstrong, K. (1994) History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. New York: A.A. Knopf. 460 Pages. Describes how major religions have overlapped and influenced one another, challenging the secularist history of each of them. A great primer in religious studies from a psychological perspective.


  3. Barlow, D. H. (1988), Anxiety Disorders. New York: Guilford Press. 698 Pages.


  4. Beck, A. T. (1976) Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. New York: International Universities Press. 356 Pages.


  5. Beck, A. T. (1979) Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York, Guilford Press, 425 Pages. Early manual that set the standard for how different therapies should be presented with specific guidelines.


  6. Brehm, S. S., Kassin, S. M., & Fein, S. (1999) Social psychology (4th Ed). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Provides an excellent overview of social psychology.


  7. Brown, G., & Harris, T. (1978) The Social Origins of Depression: A Study of Psychiatric Disorder in Women. New York: Free Press. 399 Pages. Volume focuses on role of life stressors on etiology of depression; is based on most sophisticated techniques on life stressors.


  8. Buss, D. M. (1994) The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. New York: Basic Books. 262 Pages. Contains major views of leading evolutionary psychologist and presents data on the evolution of sex differences.


  9. Calvin, W. H., & Ojemann, G. A. (1994) Conversations with Neil's Brain: The Neural Nature of Thought and Language. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. 343 Pages.


  10. Carlson, N. R. (1994) Physiology of Behavior. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 704 Pages. Influential book discussing physiological processes that underlie behavior.


  11. Chess, S., and Thomas, A. (1999). Temperament in Clinical Practice. New York: The Guilford Press.


  12. Damasio, A. (1999) The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace. 386 Pages. Examines and makes deep insights on patients with disruptions and interruptions in consciousness. Offers explanation that sense of self arises from need to map relations between self and others. Rooted in medical and evolutionary research, but incorporating subjective self-examination.


  13. Dalton, H. L. (1995) Racial healing: Confronting the Fear between Blacks and Whites. New York, Anchor. Calls for openness and honesty between whites and African Americans in America to address real issues.


  14. Diamond, J. (1999) Guns, Germs, & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 480 Pages. Very readable book dealing with complex concepts of social evolution from biological and cultural perspectives.


  15. Fadiman, A. (1997) The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down - A Hmong Child, her American Doctors, and the Collision of two cultures. 288 Pages. Explores the relationship of Western Medicine and Eastern Spirituality in very deep, intimate, personal accounts.


  16. Gilligan, C. (1982) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 184 Pages. Attempts to correct psychology's misperceptions and refocus its view of female personality to reshape our understanding of the human condition.


  17. Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday. 255 Pages. Classic study of human behavior in social situations and the way we appear to others.


  18. Gottman, J. M. (1979) Marital Interaction: Experimental Investigations. New York, Academic Press. 315 Pages. A must read for those interested in the study of close relationships.


  19. Hackman, J. R. (1990). Groups that Work (and those that don't): Creating Conditions for Effective Teamwork. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass management series. 512 pages.


  20. Heider, F. (1958) The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York, Wiley. 322 Pages.


  21. James, W. (1890) The Principles of Psychology (Vol. 1 & 2). New York: Dover Publications. Classic psychology literature with great historical significance.


  22. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, P. F. (1999) Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills. Allyn & Bacon. 641 Pages. Introduces readers to the theory and research findings needed to understand how to make groups effective and to the skills required to apply that knowledge in practical situations.


  23. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Ed) (1982) Judgement under Uncertainty. Thirty-five chapters describe various judgmental heuristics and the biases they produce in laboratory experiments and in important social, medical, and political situations.


  24. Katzenbach, J., & Smith, D. (1994) Wisdom of teams: Creating the High Performance Organization. Harper Business. 336 Pages.


  25. Kelley, H. H. (1983) Close Relationships. New York, W. H. Freeman. 572 Pages. Takes a close look at close relationships, interpersonal relations, and intimacy.


  26. Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. New York: Harper Perennial. 272 Pages. Provoking book exploring the vast disparities in the quality of education that are caused by racism but are ever-present 40 years after Brown versus Board of Education.


  27. Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1983) Metaphors We Live By. 242 Pages. An influential book that offers insight into our basic understanding of the world by looking at our language.


  28. Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1998) Philosophy in the Flesh. 624 pages. Provocative book that challenges and rebuilds assumptions of western philosophy. Discusses topics central to cognitive science, like the mind as an entity, unconsciousness, and abstract concepts.


  29. LeVay, S. (1993) The Sexual Brain. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. 168 Pages. Controversial book dealing with neuropsychology and sex differences.


  30. Lind, E. A, & Tyler, T. R. (1988) Procedural justice in law: Legal attitudes and behavior (pp. 61-83), in The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice. New York: Plenum. Major book on procedural justice. Psychology underpinning of peoples perception of justice, and hence whether they will support authority. Very important implications in political psychology.


  31. Malstimoto, D. (2000) Culture and Psychology (2nd Ed). Wadsworth. 350 Pages. Uses cross-cultural research as a platform to evaluate psychology as we know it.


  32. Marlatt, G. A., & Gordon, J. R. (1985) Relapse Prevention: Maintenance Strategies in the Treatment of Addictive Behaviors. New York: Guilford Press. 558 Pages.


  33. Moghaddam, F. M., Taylor, D. M., Wright, S. C. (1993) Social Psychology in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Freeman. 197 Pages.


  34. Patterson, G.R., Reid, J.B., & Dishon, T. J. (1997). Antisocial Boys: A Social Interactionist View (Vol. 4). Eugene, OR: Castalia.


  35. Piaget, J. (1971) The Biology of Knowledge. Edmund University Press. An important book by the paragon developmental psychologist.


  36. Piaget, J. (1968). Six Psychological Studies. New York: Vintage. An important book by the paragon developmental psychologist.


  37. Pinker, S. (1999) How the Mind Works. W.W. Norton & Company. 660 Pages. From a leading cognitive scientist, this witty book explores many perspectives and synthesizes information to create comprehensive and authoritative analysis of how the mind works.


  38. Rubin, J. Z., Pruitt, D.G., & Kim. (1994) Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate, and Settlement (2nd Ed), Psychological perspective on the course of social conflict. Essays introduce and arrange ideas in novel ways.


  39. Sacks, O. W. (1996) An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales. New York: Knopf. 327 Pages.


  40. Sacks, O. W. (1998) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. Touchstone Books. 243 Pages. Book recounting the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders.


  41. Scarborough, E., & Furumoto, L. (1987). Untold lives: The First Generation of Women Psychologists. New York: Columbia University Press. Tells biographical stories of many female psychologists and discusses issues women must deal with in the discipline.


  42. Seligman, M. (1993) Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control. New York : Oxford University Press. 359 Pages.


  43. Skinner, B. F. (1953) Science of Human Behavior. McMahlan. 461 Pages. Influential book by the scientist at the forefront of the behavioral tradition.


  44. Teasdale, J., Barnard, P. J. (1993) Affect, Cognition, and Change: Remodeling Depressive Thought. Erlbaum. 285 Pages. Influential book that describes a model of cognitive processes that may be involved in depression.


  45. Thompson, L. (1995) The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher. 153 Pages. Draws connections between fascinating facts of biological life and the meaning of human life; makes science easy to understand.
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