The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View, 2nd Edition

How would you like to see your students' performance jump by a letter grade or more?

The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View 2e provides a flexible solution for the intro psych course. King's appreciative perspective - treating psych as an integrated science that places function before dysfunction - with its groundbreaking adaptive diagnostic tool helps students know what they know while guiding them to master what they don't know.

Building upon the much-lauded and widely-adopted 1st edition, the 2nd edition of The Science of Psychology effectively provides a flexible solution for any Introductory Psychology course. Recognising that today's students are different from the last generation as is the discipline of psychology, The Science of Psychology draws on thousands of hours of research into faculty and student behavior to provide course material students will actively engage with while allowing instructors to maximize the time they spend preparing and teaching the course. How has your course changed in the past 5-10 years?

From its adaptive questioning diagnostic tool and personalized study plan that gets students reading and studying more frequently, effectively and efficiently to the readable and lively prose that ensures students leave the course with an accurate and timely understanding of psychology as a science, The Science of Psychology is the right choice for today's classes, whether they be traditional face-to-face, hybrid, or entirely online.

Regardless of their study habits, preparation, and approach to your course, each of your students will find that The Science of Psychology adapts to them individually and provides a road map for success. For your students that complete the assigned reading and study in measured doses, The Science of Psychology offers a narrative that presents psychology as a science that addresses function as well as dysfunction and where the various subfields are interconnected. Those students who tend to “cram” before exams and/or seek the path of least resistance to their desired grade will be given an accurate assessment of how much or little they actually know prior to high stakes testing, and as a result, will spend more time reading and learning the assigned material than otherwise. How would fewer drops, failures, and withdrawals impact your course?

Laura King did her undergraduate work at Kenyon College, where, an English major, she declared a second major, in psychology, during the second semester of her junior year. She completed her A.B. in English with high honors and distinction and in psychology with distinction in 1986. Laura then did graduate work at Michigan State University and the University of California, Davis, receiving her Ph.D. in personality psychology in 1991.

Laura began her career at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, moving to the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 2001, where she is now a professor. In addition to seminars in the development of character, social psychology, and personality psychology, she has taught undergraduate lecture courses in introductory psychology, introduction to personality psychology, and social psychology. At SMU, she received six different teaching awards, including the “M” award for “sustained excellence” in 1999. At the University of Missouri, she received the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity in 2004.

Her research, which has been funded by the National Institutes for Mental Health, has focused on a variety of topics relevant to the question of what it is that makes for a good life. She has studied goals, life stories, happiness, well-being, and meaning in life. In general, her work reflects an enduring interest in studying what is good and healthy in people. In 2001, her research accomplishments were recognized by a Templeton Prize in positive psychology. Laura’s research (often in collaboration with undergraduate and graduate students) has been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Cognition and Emotion, the Journal of Personality, and other publications . A new paper on the place of regrets in maturity is forthcoming in the American Psychologist.

Currently editor-in-chief of the Journal of Research in Personality, Laura has also served as associate editor of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, as well as on numerous grant panels. She has edited or co-edited special sections of the Journal of Personality and the American Psychologist. In “real life,” Laura is an accomplished cook and enjoys listening to music (mostly jazz vocalists and singer-songwriters), gardening, and chasing Sam, her 3-year-old son.