Psychology and Capitalism is a critical and accessible account of the ideological and material role of psychology in supporting capitalist enterprise and holding individuals entirely responsible for their fate through the promotion of individualism.

An exploration of the effects of new technology on culture and psychology, this title demonstrates how society has been both enriched and challenged by these changes. It should be of interest to those who need to be aware of the psychological impact of new technology and responsive to issues of international communication and cooperation.

Social psychology is the scientific study of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, and implied presence of others. In this definition, scientific refers to the empirical investigation using the scientific method, while the terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors refer to the psychological variables that can be measured in humans. Moreover, the notion that the presence of others may be imagined or implied suggests that humans are malleable to social influences even when alone, such as when watching videos or quietly appreciating art. In such situations, people can be influenced to follow internalized cultural norms. Social psychology deals with social influence, social perception, and social interaction. The research in this field deals with what shapes our attitudes and how we develop prejudice. The Handbook of Research on Applied Social Psychology in Multiculturalism explores social psychology within the context of multiculturalism and the way society deals with cultural diversity at national and community levels. It will cover major topics of social psychology such as group behavior, social perception, leadership, non-verbal behavior, conformity, aggression, and prejudice. This book will deal with social psychology with a direct focus on how different cultures can coexist peacefully by preserving, respecting, and even encouraging cultural diversity, along with a focus on the psychology that is hindering these efforts. This book is essential for researchers in social psychology and the social sciences, activists, psychologists, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in how social psychology interacts with multiculturalism.

This original and engaging book advocates an unabashedly empirical approach to understanding human values: abstract ideals that we consider important, such as freedom, equality, achievement, helpfulness, security, tradition, and peace. Our values are relevant to everything we do, helping us choose between careers, schools, romantic partners, places to live, things to buy, who to vote for, and much more. There is enormous public interest in the psychology of values and a growing recognition of the need for a deeper understanding of the ways in which values are embedded in our attitudes and behavior. How do they affect our well-being, our relationships with other people, our prosperity, and our environment? In his examination of these questions, Maio focuses on tests of theories about values, through observations of what people actually think and do. In the past five decades, psychological research has learned a lot about values, and this book describes what we have learned and why it is important. It provides the first overview of psychological research looking at how we mentally represent and use our values, and constitutes important reading for psychology students at all levels, as well as academics in psychology and related social and health sciences.

Edited by three of the world's leading authorities on the psychology of technology, this new handbook provides a thoughtful and evidence-driven examination of contemporary technology's impact on society and human behavior. Includes contributions from an international array of experts in the field Features comprehensive coverage of hot button issues in the psychology of technology, such as social networking, Internet addiction and dependency, Internet credibility, multitasking, impression management, and audience reactions to media Reaches beyond the more established study of psychology and the Internet, to include varied analysis of a range of technologies, including video games, smart phones, tablet computing, etc. Provides analysis of the latest research on generational differences, Internet literacy, cyberbullying, sexting, Internet and cell phone dependency, and online risky behavior

The human is perhaps bestdubbed 'homo narrans', the story-teller. In our search for meanings we constantly tell stories and make accounts to explain events and frame relationships. This book presents the first systematic analysis from a psychological standpoint of this universal and fundamental human capacity. Nowhere is our account-making more evident that at times of acute personal stress. In divorce and separation, death of a spouse, redundancy or retirement, for example, we deal best with loss when we have worked through its meaning to close, empathic others. It is in the process of account-making that people look to create meaning out of loss. So fundamental an activity as account-making must, the authors believe, have evolutionary origins. Drawing on the work of Jaynes, they consider the process in relation to the origin of human consciousness and the beginnings of story-telling as a human activity. In arguing for the centrality of accounts to our psychology, the authors are careful to distinguish them from other processes of attribution and narratization. Nevertheless, the theories developed here will have a far-reaching impact on the development of social psychology and beyond the confines of the descipline too.

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development in his own words—collected and translated by an outstanding group of scholars. “A landmark book.” —Contemporary Psychology The great Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky has long been recognized as a pioneer in developmental psychology. But his theory of development has never been well understood in the West. Mind in Society corrects much of this misunderstanding. Carefully edited by a group of outstanding Vygotsky scholars, the book presents a unique selection of Vygotsky’s important essays, most of which have previously been unavailable in English. The mind, Vygotsky argues, cannot be understood in isolation from the surrounding society. Humans are the only animals who use tools to alter their own inner world as well as the world around them. Vygotsky characterizes the uniquely human aspects of behavior and offers hypotheses about the way these traits have been formed in the course of human history and the way they develop over an individual's lifetime. From the handkerchief knotted as a simple mnemonic device to the complexities of symbolic language, society provides the individual with technology that can be used to shape the private processes of the mind. In Mind in Society Vygotsky applies this theoretical framework to the development of perception, attention, memory, language, and play, and he examines its implications for education. The result is a remarkably interesting book that makes clear Vygotsky’s continuing influence in the areas of child development, cognitive psychology, education, and modern psychological thought. Chapters include: 1. Tool and Symbol in Child Development 2. The Development of Perception and Attention 3. Mastery of Memory and Thinking 4. Internalization of Higher Psychological Functions 5. Problems of Method 6. Interaction between Learning and Development 7. The Role of Play in Development 8. The Prehistory of Written Language

This book brings together social sciencists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics, language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social transitions to capitalism, among others contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal change.

A scientist integrates evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and more to explore the development and workings of human societies. “There is no good reason why human societies should not be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature.” Thus argues evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer in this uniquely innovative book. Integrating recent insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and other fields, Boyer offers precise models of why humans engage in social behaviors such as forming families, tribes, and nations, or creating gender roles. In fascinating, thought-provoking passages, he explores questions such as: Why is there conflict between groups? Why do people believe low-value information such as rumors? Why are there religions? What is social justice? What explains morality? Boyer provides a new picture of cultural transmission that draws on the pragmatics of human communication, the constructive nature of memory in human brains, and human motivation for group formation and cooperation. “Cool and captivating…It will change forever your understanding of society and culture.”—Dan Sperber, co-author of The Enigma of Reason “It is highly recommended…to researchers firmly settled within one of the many single disciplines in question. Not only will they encounter a wealth of information from the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences, but the book will also serve as an invitation to look beyond the horizons of their own fields.”—Eveline Seghers, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture