DD is interested in Psychology

[TheFirstLady]

You don't get to do that till A-level, right? She is Y8 and wants to find out more - can anyone recommend any books? DH and I are Eng Lit/History type people and she is showing a bent for science-type things which I am not sure how best to encourage.

Well there are certainly plenty of popular Psychology books in any high street book store which give a good starting point. In our bookcase we have a couple of nice glossy picture type books about how the mind works that DS (year 8) finds quite accessible and in fact one of them regularly gets dragged into school for science club (its called "The Human Mind Explained").

We also have a very battered copy of "Your Memory: A User's Guide" by Alan Baddeley which seems to be the only one of my university textbooks that has survived. Even though it was used as a university textbook it is still easily readable and has lots of illustrations and pictures to support the text.I have just looked and there is a current edition on Amazon which maybe I should invest in before mine falls apart.

It's probably best to get as general a text as possible as Psychology is such a vast subject (I was firmly on the fluffy social side, whereas friends have ended up doing very hardcore neuroscience-type stuff). Thiss is quite general www.amazon.co.uk/Psychology-Neil-R-Carlson/dp/0130359114
My copy of Baddeley is in the downstairs loo, it's good but is obviously very focussed on one area of research rather than a broad overview.

not wildly academic but when I was a kid I absoloutely loved desmond morris' manwatching
really good for dipping in and out with fascinating information

I was going to suggest Manwatching too. I remember being fascinated by the copy a friend had. At my Dd's school GCSE Psychology has been introduced from next year along with Sociology.

I'd recommend Manwatching too. Funnily enough, I loved Manwatching at that age and ended up working in psychiatry!! Is she interested in the clinical side? The NHS website has explanatory info on what the role of a clinical psychologist is - training etc that she could investigate.

Funnily enough my Y8 dd also expressed an interest n psychology. I did the OU openings course in psychology a couple of years ago and she has been reading my course book as bedtime reading! It is fairly basic stuff but very interesting.