This edition incorporates a significant amount of new and updated information, reflecting the advances in the field and the suggestions of reviewers. Well over 1000 new citations have been added, and most of them refer to articles and books published after 2000. For instance, studies in aggression and modeling from media and computer games, brain and behavior, human genome mapping, cognition, emotions, and cultural approaches to psychological phenomena receive expanded coverage. Additionally, this edition incorporates a wide range of new topics. The following sample of new and revised topics provides a good indication of the book’s currency.

Chap 1 Introduction to Psychology

• Historical forces (e.g., Locke and tabula rasa)
• Barriers faced by women
• Counseling psychology
• Functionalism
• Ebbinghaus and Wertheimer
• New Prologue on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath
• New material on “psychology matters”
• New Rethink questions relating to careers (in every module in book)

• Drawbacks to case studies
• Implicit Association Test
• New prologue on bystander intervention
• Extended example of scientific method
• Scientific method and communication of results
• Statistically-significant difference
• Revised research methods summary table

• TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)
• fMRI scans
• Evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics
• Gene therapy and genetic counseling
• Stem cell research and controversy
• Evolution, behavioral genetics, molecular genetics
• Neuroplasticity
• Oxytocin and trust
• Neuroforensics

• Individual without pain sensations
• Technologies for restoring sight and sound
• Revamped moon illusion explanation
• Gender differences in pain perception
• Genetic causes of pain sensitivity
• Umami taste
• Interaction of senses
• Synesthesia

• New prologue on sleep
• Caveats on use of forensic hypnosis
• Methamphetamine use
• Expanded sleep and drug sections
• Therapy for insomnia

• Positive and negative punishment
• Extended examples of negative reinforcement
• Stimulus discrimination
• PTSD and classical conditioning
• Evolved fear module in brain for learning specific associations
• Allergic reactions as a conditioned response
• Habituation
• learned taste aversion term
• “Scalloping effect” for fixed-interval schedules
• Application of conditioning in rats to discover land mines
• Table comparing classical and operant conditioning
• New prologue on helper monkey

• False memory material
• Implicit memory
• Semantic memory
• Stress and working memory
• Biological aspects of memory
• Use of drugs to eliminate traumatic memories

• Representativeness heuristic
• Artificial intelligence
• Neuroscientific approach to language
• New prologue on inventiveness
• Neuropsychology of creativity
• Cross-cultural evidence on linguistic relativity hypothesis

• Fetal alcohol syndrome
• Sternberg three-part conception of intelligence
• Web-based testing and importance of reliability, validity

• Fat cells and obesity
• set point
• Dialect theory of emotional expressivity
• Television viewing and obesity

• Transgenderism and transexuality
• Sexually transmitted infections
• Imaging studies of brain during sexual arousal
• Stereotypes regarding working mothers

• In vitro fertilization
• GIFT and ZIFT
• gene therapy
• cloning
• sensitive periods
• fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects
• cultural differences in children’s play
• medical consensus on use of hormone therapy for menopause symptoms

• Horney
• Jung
• Reconciliation of Freud and neuroscientific evidence
• Use of tests in employment decisions
• Downside of high self-esteem

• Health and loneliness in college students
• Hostility in Type A behavior pattern in relationship with coronary heart disease
• Stress module reorganization
• Positive illusions
• Career-related information on health psychology
• Individual differences in coping
• Emotions and immune system response

• Terrorist suicide bombers
• Definition of abnormal behavior
• Onset of schizophrenia
• Glutamate and schizophrenia
• Brain scans of depressives
• Type I and Type II schizophrenia

• Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
• Gestalt therapy
• Dialectical behavior therapy
• Gene therapy and psychological disorders

• Collectivistic/individualistic orientation
• Thin slices of behavior and impression formation
• Stereotype threat

Students first: The bottom line. Based on extensive student feedback, systematic research involving a wide range of instructors, and endorsements received from reviewers at a variety of schools, I am confident that this edition reflects what instructors want and need: a book that motivates students to understand and apply psychology to their own lives. Understanding Psychology, Eighth Edition, is designed to expose readers to the content—and promise—of psychology, and to do so in a way that will nurture students’ excitement about psychology and keep their enthusiasm alive for a lifetime.