Psychology - general introduction book for future student?

[Sherbert37]

DD is thinking of studying psychology at university in 2012. Can anyone recommend a good introductory book so she can check it is what she thinks it is?! She is not doing sciences at Higher so she is thinking behavioural at this stage. Also any info about psychology at uni as I know it is heavily oversubscribed.
Thanks in advance.

Twas a long time ago that I studied psych, but Introduction to Psychology, by Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith Bem & Hilguard is a reasonable introduction. However,courses vary enormously, so worth looking at a course prospectus from different institutions. Some are more science based, and give you a BScience not a BA. My course was quite science based, whilst still a BA, but its a joke among some of my set that I am the Rat Psychologist, as I always said we studied more rat behaviour than human!Hth.

Thanks for your reply sloggies. I'll have a look for that book.

Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour by Richard Gross is my psychology bible, but its not really an introduction, but it does start with the basics. Its very very good, covers everything.

Both ordered so many thanks.

I'm a psychology graduate and I agree that Richard Gross' book is a great starter. I'd also recommend his 'studies in psychology' book as this covers the major studies that your DD is likely to cover so it'll give her a head start. There's a strong statistical component to psychology which a lot of students struggle with so I'd recommend looking into beginners stats books as well, especially those by Hugh Coolican who got me through my stats course!

I have my old pyschology textbook from AS level (about 4 yrs old). It gives information about different experiments, why they were done, adv and disadv etc. Its broken into cognitive, behavioral etc.

If she would like it PM me and I'll send it to you.

Second the Atkinson et al book, my dad had an old copy that I used to look through when I was about 14 (not precocious, just not much to do at his house...crap telly). Easy enough to read then and got me interested in psychology. At uni a more up to date version was on the reading list.

Good luck to your DD!