The third edition of this best-selling textbook provides students with a clear, concise account of what psychology is and how it came to be that way. Unlike many introductory texts which offer encyclopaedic but often unfocussed collections of facts, this book gives a coherent framework for understanding the discipline of psychology based on five major approaches or perspectives: biological;, behaviourist, cognitive, psychodynamic, and humanistic. Beginning with a discussion of perceptual processes, the origins of approaches within psychology and methods of research, the book goes on to look at the assumptions, methods and theories associated with each of the five approaches. In addition, it considers issues in developmental, social and abnormal behaviour in order to provide a better understanding of the similarities and differences between these approaches.
