Only the very rare among us are completely unscathed by the effects of addiction - our own, that of a family member, friend, or coworker. Even the addictions of strangers - from the drunk driver or drug addict, to gambling, food, spending, or violence-addicted people - may subject us to dangers, threaten our well-being, and drain money from our pockets. Recent national estimates in just the US show that substance abuse and addiction alone cost taxpayers a total of nearly $500 billion a year. In these volumes, experts from around the world present the newest issues, research, and insights into addictions of all kinds. Led by Angela Browne-Miller, Director of the Metaxis Compulsive and Habitual Behaviors Institute in California, this team of contributors includes scholars and practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Thailand, Africa, and Russia. Topics range from drug addiction among male, female, teen, and aging populations, and among White, Hispanic, Black, Asian, Native American, and other groups, using liquor, cocaine, methamphetamine, khat, and/or other lesser known drugs, to behavioral addictions including online gaming, excessive buying, and eating disorders. Chapters also address issues including addiction as a public health problem and the politics of drug treatment policies. Treatment methods for addictions, from electrotherapy to holistic approaches are addressed, as are spiritual, psychological, and cross-cultural issues involved. The experts behind these chapters include those from the University of California, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Purdue University, to McGill University, Nottingham Trent University, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Comer and Gould's Psychology Around Us demonstrates the many-often surprising, always fascinating-intersections of psychology with students' day-to-day lives. Every chapter includes sections on human development, brain function, individual differences and abnormal psychology that occur in that area. These "cut-across" sections highlight how the different fields of psychology are connected to each other and how they connect to everyday life. Every chapter begins with a vignette that shows the power of psychology in understanding a whole range of human behavior. This theme is reinforced throughout the chapter in boxed readings and margin notes that celebrate the extraordinary processes that make the everyday possible and make psychology both meaningful and relevant. The text presents psychology as a unified field the understanding of which flows from connecting its multiple subfields and reinforces the fact that psychology is a science with all that this implies (research methodology, cutting edge studies, the application of critical thinking).

Substance and Behavioral Addictions: Concepts, Causes, and Cures presents the concepts, etiology, assessment, prevention, and cessation of substance (tobacco, alcohol, other drugs, and food) and behavioral (gambling, Internet, shopping, love, sex, exercise, and work) addictions. The text provides a novel and integrative appetitive motivation framework of addiction, while acknowledging and referencing multi-level influences on addiction, such as neurobiological, cognitive, and micro-social and macro-social/physical environmental. The book discusses concurrent and substitute addiction, and offers prevention and treatment solutions, which are presented from a more integrative perspective than traditional presentations. This is an ideal text for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, practitioners, and researchers.

Provides an interdisciplinary overview and critical examination of how individuals are affected by mass media There are few areas of modern social science that are as fiercely debated as media psychology. Written by one of the foremost experts on the topic, this is a concise overview of what is knownóand not knownóabout how individuals are affected by and interact with various forms of mass media. The book critically examines research from cognitive, social, developmental, biological, and evolutionary approaches to psychology and addresses the interplay between media consumption and viewer behavior in such realms as advertising, body image, sex, and violence. Distinguished by its examination of research from a scientifically objective position, the book offers students not only current knowledge of media psychology but also the tools to challenge commonly held assumptions from popular advocacy and ideology. This text cuts across different psychological approaches to studying how individuals are affected by mass media and includes research from criminal justice and sociology. It considers critical debates in media psychology and how debates in science themselves can be influenced by processes such as ìmoral panic.î Written in a lively, accessible manner, the book draws upon engaging examples such as Photoshopped model controversies, dubious advertising practices, and attempts to blame violent crimes on media to illustrate scholarly principles. Throughout, data from research studies is related back toreal-world phenomena such as violence rates, advertising dollars spent, or changes in the news media. Written for upper level undergraduate and graduate students studying media psychology, the text will also be of value to professionals in psychology, sociology and criminal justice as well as individuals involved in public policy as it relates to media effects. Key Features: Offers an objective, interdisciplinary approach to understanding media and behavior Draws from cognitive, social, developmental, and biological psychology, as well as criminal justice research and sociology Challenges the conclusions drawn from research to foster critical thinking Written in a lively, accessible writing style with engaging examples grounded in research About the Author Christopher J. Ferguson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and department chair of psychology at Stetson University in DeLand, FL. He has done extensive research on the effects of media in realms ranging from video game and television violence effects, to body image to advertising effects. He has also examined how methodological issues, researcher expectancies and questionable researcher practices, and societal pressures and incentives can create false positives in media psychology. Clinically, he has done extensive work with criminal justice populations including juvenile offenders, adult inmates and child protective services. Aside from his academic work, Chris is the author of a mystery novel, Suicide Kings, which follows a young woman in Renaissance Florence investigating her motherís death. He has also published a number of short stories, mainly in speculative fiction. He lives near Orlando with his wife and young son.