Applying Psychology to Everyday Life - A Beginners Guide

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Applying Psychology to Everyday Life - A Beginners Guide



John Wiley & Sons | ISBN-13: 978-0-470-86988-8 | Author: Kenneth T. Strongman | English | PDF | 301 Pages | 2.73 MB

Preface
I began by wanting to write a book entitled something like Where Psychology Has Gone Wrong. The reason for this desire came from thinking that psychology is a far more interesting and stimulating subject than it would appear to be from a glance at some academic texts and journal articles. Also, many students begin their psychological studies with enthusiasm and then rapidly have to come to terms with the subject not being quite as they thought that it might be. Somehow, it all seems rather remote from everyday issues and problems, in fact, not to put too fi ne a point on it, rather remote from people and what they do. However, those close enough to me to receive my confi dences about the proposed book gently suggested that it seemed a hint negative. So, instead I thought of writing something not only about where psychology had lost its way, but also about more positive and interesting directions it had taken and where it might go more positively in the future. This still seemed somewhat negative. Finally,
then, came the idea of picking the eyes out of psychology, of amassing in one place all of those aspects of psychology which have been developed in an interesting and practically useful way. When it came to looking for them, then there they were. There was also the further consideration of identifying the potential readership. This was an easier problem. The book is intended generally for any person who wishes to fi nd out a little about psychology in a way that would be useful to them in their everyday world, be it at work or at home, when alone or in the company of others. The book is also intended specifi cally for any student who is required (or wishes) to study psychology for one year as part of some other training (teaching, medicine, paramedical services, police work, and so on). It will give them a reasonably thorough grounding in many (but not all) aspects of psychology, but will also ensure that this grounding occurs in the everyday world. In the end, this is not a didactic book. It has a much more practical set of aims – to be useful and stimulating and, above all, to communicate and engage. Psychology can be both surprising and fascinating. Returning to the point made at the start of this preface, I am now in a position of easily identifying those aspects of psychological research that (in my view) have been, let us say, less than riveting. They are simply all of those parts of psychology not included in Applying Psychology to Everyday Life, but the thought of writing a book about them is also less than riveting. This was the better way to do it.


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