New and noteworthy books – Autumn 2023
This is the third installment of Mindwise’s “new and noteworthy books” feature: an overview of interesting new psychology books and resources that have become available recently in our library collection. Feedback is very welcome! You can send your comments, acquisition suggestions or questions to a.w.sprik@rug.nl or leave a comment below.
Psychology’s WEIRD problems – Guilherme Sanches de Oliveira & Edward Baggs (link)
“Psychology has a WEIRD problem. It is overly reliant on participants from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Over the last decade this problem has come to be widely acknowledged, yet there has been little progress toward making psychology more diverse. This book proposes that the lack of progress can be explained by the fact that the original WEIRD critique was too narrow in scope. Rather than a single problem of a lack of diversity among research participants, there are at least four overlapping problems. Psychology is WEIRD not only in terms of who makes up its participant pool, but also in terms of its theoretical commitments, methodological assumptions, and institutional structures. Psychology as currently constituted is a fundamentally WEIRD enterprise.” (from the summary)
The experience machine: how our minds predict and shape reality – Andy Clark (link):
“For as long as we’ve studied human cognition, we’ve believed that our senses give us direct access to the world. What we see is what’s really there—or so the thinking goes. But new discoveries in neuroscience and psychology have turned this assumption on its head. What if rather than perceiving reality passively, your mind actively predicts it? Philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark unpacks this provocative new theory that the brain is a powerful, dynamic prediction engine, mediating our experience of both body and world.” (from the book cover)
Foolproof: why we fall for misinformation and how to build immunity – Sander van der Linden (link1, Dutch version: link2)
“From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. In Foolproof, one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. As Van der Linden shows, we can cultivate immunity through the innovative science of “prebunking”: inoculating people against false information by preemptively exposing them to a weakened dose, thus empowering them to identify and fend off its manipulative tactics.” (from the publisher)
The Cambridge handbook of the Development of Coping – Ellen A. Skinner & Melanie J. Zimmer-Gembeck (eds.) (link)
“Despite broad interest in how children and youth cope with stress and how others can support their coping, this is the first Handbook to consolidate the many theories and large bodies of research that contribute to the study of the development of coping. The Handbook‘s goal is field building – it brings together theory and research from across the spectrum of psychological, developmental, and related sciences to inform our understanding of coping and its development across the lifespan.” (from the publisher)
Also of interest
- Psychonauts: drugs and the making of the modern mind – Mike Jay (link)
- Generations: the real differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents–and what they mean for America’s future – Jean Twenge (link)
- Oxford handbook of Self-Determination Theory – Richard M. Ryan (ed.) (link)
- Understanding self-injury: a Person-Centered Approach – Stephen P. Lewis & Penelope A. Hasking (link)
- Pseudoscience in therapy: a skeptical field guide – Stephen Hupp & Cara Santa Maria (link)
- Career psychology: models, concepts, and counseling for meaningful employment – W. Bruce Walsh, Lisa Y. Flores, Paul J. Hartung & Frederick T. L. Leong (eds.) (link)
- Feeling unreal: Depersonalization and the loss of the Self (new edition) – Daphne Simeon & Jeffrey Abugel (link)
- The real work: on the mystery of mastery – Adam Gopnik (link)
Sander is the subject specialist for psychology at the main university library.
