Social Psychology : Understanding Human Interaction

This text aims to provide a broad and balanced introduction to social psychology. This edition places emphasis on individual and social diversity and includes coverage of contemporary research on gender and self, pro-social behaviour - including altruistic personality, AIDS, volunteerism, defence mechanisms, and blaming the victim - and applications of social psychology to health, politics, law, business and environmental issues.

ROBERT S. FELDMAN is a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, where he is Director of Undergraduate Studies, former head of the Personality and Social Psychology Division, and winner of the College Distinguished Teacher Award. He was educated as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, where he graduated with High Honors, and at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, from which he earned a Masters and Ph.D.

Author of More than 100 books, chapters, and articles, his books include the editor volumes Applications of Nonverbal Behavioral Theory and Research (Erlbaum), Fundamentals of Nonverbal Behavior (Cambridge University Press, with Bernard Rime), and Social Aspects of Nonverbal Behavior (Cambridge University Press, with Pierre Philippot and Erik Coats). He is a recipient of grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of the Disabilities and Rehabilitation Research, which have supported his research on nonverbal behavior and emotional development. He is also a former Fulbright lecturer and research scholar.

During the course of his two decades as a college teacher, he has taught social psychology numerous times at a wide range of institutions, including Mount Holyoke College, Wesleyan University, and Virginia Commonwealth University. An excellent cook, a passionate music lover, but a lapsed pianist, he lives with his wife and three children in Amherst, Massachusetts, overlooking the Holyoke mountain range.