Bundled (ISBN 9780534633622) textbook with InfoTrac CD-ROM.

    No matter what brings students into the introductory course and regardless of their initial motivation, Essentials of Understanding Psychology, Seventh Edition, draws students into the field and stimulates their thinking. This revision integrates a variety of elements that foster students' understanding of psychology and its impact on their everyday lives. It also provides instructors with a fully integrated supplements package to objectively gauge their students' mastery of psychology's key principles and concepts and to create dynamic lectures.

    The authors take time to explain statistical procedures so that you can go beyond memorizing formulas and gain a conceptual understanding of statistics. The authors also take care to show you how having an understanding of statistical procedures will help you comprehend published findings and will lead you to become a savvy consumer of information. Known for its exceptional accuracy and examples, this text also has a complete supplements package to support your learning.

    In this edition, the author continues to utilize the effective combination of a friendly writing style, thorough research and a contextual approach that emphasizes adolescence in contemporary society. The text's careful organization ensures maximum teaching flexibility that allows the chapters to work together or be covered in sequence or stand alone. Ethnicity and minority issues are thoroughly discussed in a way that enables students to see how the adolescent experience is shaped by class and culture. The strong pedagogical framework helps students organize and integrate material. Adolescence, 8th Edition, is based on solid research and theory, yet it has a distinctively real world feel that emphasizes the reality of being an adolescent in today's society.

    From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched. Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death.Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.

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    Applying the same objective criteria to legal and illegal substances, an argument is made that legality is not a clear measure for harm. Tackling a variety of questions, such as Which is more harmful—Ecstasy or alcohol? Can addiction be cured? and Does the "War on Drugs" have serious unintended effects that can hurt children?, this analysis equips readers with the ability to make educated decisions regarding drugs both personally and in their communities. Broadening the scope of the discussion, a framework is explored for formulating national drug policies that will minimize a myriad of harms—social, medical, criminal, financial, and environmental.

    This comprehensive text, appropriate for courses in basic principles, applications, and behavioral research methods, helps students, educators, and practitioners appreciate and begin to acquire the conceptual and technical skills necessary to foster socially adaptive behavior in diverse individuals.

    But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for? In "Crazy Like Us," Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad. America has been the world leader in generating new mental health treatments and modern theories of the human psyche. We export our psychopharmaceuticals packaged with the certainty that our biomedical knowledge will relieve the suffering and stigma of mental illness. We categorize disorders, thereby defining mental illness and health, and then parade these seemingly scientific certainties in front of the world. The blowback from these efforts is just now coming to light: It turns out that we have not only been changing the way the world talks about and treats mental illness -- we have been changing the mental illnesses themselves.For millennia, local beliefs in different cultures have shaped the experience of mental illness into endless varieties." Crazy Like Us" documents how American interventions have discounted and worked to change those indigenous beliefs, often at a dizzying rate. Over the last decades, mental illnesses popularized in America have been spreading across the globe with the speed of contagious diseases. Watters travels from China to Tanzania to bring home the unsettling conclusion that the virus is us: As we introduce Americanized ways of treating mental illnesses, we are in fact spreading the diseases.In post-tsunami Sri Lanka, Watters reports on the Western trauma counselors who, in their rush to help, inadvertently trampled local expressions of grief, suffering, and healing. In Hong Kong, he retraces the last steps of the teenager whose death sparked an epidemic of the American version of anorexia nervosa. Watters reveals the truth about a multi-million-dollar campaign by one of the world's biggest drug companies to change the Japanese experience of depression -- literally marketing the disease along with the drug.But this book is not just about the damage we've caused in faraway places. Looking at our impact on the psyches of people in other cultures is a gut check, a way of forcing ourselves to take a fresh look at our own beliefs about mental health and healing. When we examine our assumptions from a farther shore, we begin to understand how our own culture constantly shapes and sometimes creates the mental illnesses of our time. By setting aside our role as the world's therapist, we may come to accept that we have as much to learn from other cultures' beliefs about the mind as we have to teach.

    Offers students with the tools necessary to do ethical research in psychology and to understand the research they learn about in psychology courses and in the media.

    This volume provides an integrated micro/macro perspective on human behaviour, insights into human behaviour from biological, psychological and spiritual perspectives, and an examination of various human environments, from families to social movements and institutions.

    Frances E. Jensen, a mother, teacher, researcher, and internationally known expert in neurology, introduces us to the mystery and magic of the teen brain. One of the first books to focus exclusively on the neurological development of adolescents, The Teenage Brain presents new findings, dispels widespread myths, and provides practical suggestions for negotiating this difficult and dynamic life stage for both adults and adolescents.Interweaving easy-to-follow scientific data with anecdotes drawn from her experiences as a parent, clinician, and public speaker, Dr. Jensen explores adolescent brain functioning and development, including learning and memory, and investigates the impact of influences such as drugs, multitasking, sleep, and stress. The Teenage Brain reveals how: Adolescents may not be as resilient to the effects of drugs as we previously thought. Occasional use of marijuana has been shown to cause lingering memory problems, and long-term use can affect later adulthood I.Q. Multi-tasking causes divided attention and can reduce learning ability. Emotionally stressful situations in adolescence can have permanent effects on mental health, and may lead to higher risk for certain neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression.Rigorous yet accessible, warm yet direct, The Teenage Brain sheds new light on young adults, and provides practical suggestions for how parents, schools, and even the legal system can better help them during this crucial period.

    With cases studies found throughout, you will easily learn to apply principles to real life.

    It is that firsthand knowledge of the concerns of students, the complexities of the disorders, and the real struggles of people with psychological disorders that makes Comer's text, Abnormal Psychology, so compelling. This Sixth Edition's new content and features, coupled with new study and teaching tools, all serve to keep the book's portrait of contemporary abnormal psychology as fresh and insightful as ever.

    It is thorough, research-based, theoretically sound, engaging, interesting, personable and compassionate in tone.....a very rare set of qualities..” *Dale Lund, University of Utah    “[I appreciate the]great use of concrete, real-life examples of the various concepts throughout the chapter.  This is incredibly helpful for students’ learning and retention of the material.”   *Tracie Blumentritt, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse    “One of the strengths of this book is a sense that we are learning from someone who is both a great scholar and a very wise and experienced person.  Berk has credibility on both a professional and personal level.”   *David Shwalb, Southeastern Louisiana University   “I was very impressed with this text…Chapter 8 on social and emotional development in early childhood is outstanding.” ”   *Byron, Egeland, University of Minnesota   “I especially like the way Dr. Berk addresses policy in this text… the social issues boxes are very useful in engaging students in topics of real-life importance that go beyond the individual.”   *Ashley Maynard, University of Hawaii   “Bravo! Boy, was I favorablyimpressed!  The photos are BEAUTIFUL.”   *Laura Thompson, New Mexico State University     Berk has written a phenomenal chapter [on death and dying]… It is through, sensitive, and well written.”   Cheryl Anagnopoulos, Black Hills State University     “The author has done a very good job of presenting critical issues in a straightforward, understandable manner.  Students have commented on the usefulness of the text, and stated they particularly like the milestone tables, vignettes, and end-of-chapter summaries.  Students have also commented that the author manages to make potentially difficult concepts easy to understand.”   *Marita Kloseck, University of Western Ontario