Features

New to This Edition

Major Updates
Hundreds of new references. New sections on important research developments and trends in a wide range of areas such as sleep stages, impacts of the “gig economy,” “learning styles,” autism spectrum disorder, animal personality, increasing access to mental health care, and the use of social media for diagnosis.

Curating Psychology: Streamlining Coverage for Effective Instruction
As part of the significant updates in this edition, Sandra Hockenbury and Susan Nolan have taken very seriously their role as curators of psychology, helping the instructor of introductory psychology to survey the vast field without overwhelming beginning students in details and data. Just as important as choosing what new studies to add and which research trends to emphasize is choosing which topics to condense, reorganize, or deemphasize. In Discovering Psychology 8e, the authors have carefully asked themselves again and again, “What does the introductory student need to know?” The end result: Despite significant new material, each chapter in the 8th edition is pages shorter than in the previous edition, and even more effectively focused for an introductory audience.

Pedagogical System
Carefully designed to help students identify important information, test for retention, and learn how to learn. Sandra Hockenbury and Susan Nolan continue to adapt and improve Discovering Psychology’s proven system; in this edition,  replacing the Key Points section, new visual end-of-chapter Concept Maps show the relationships among concepts and help students consolidate memory of new information. And, in recognition of the far more effective self-testing opportunity available in LearningCurve, the static, in-text Concept Reviews of previous editions have been dropped. Now, at the end of major sections, there is more emphasis on prompting students to test their understanding with LearningCurve’s adaptive quizzing.

Increased Integration of Successful Digital Package
In addition to Discovering Psychology’s unique, acclaimed Think Like a Scientist feature, highlighted in the margins of each chapter is an all-new array of LaunchPad videos and activities that have been carefully selected by Sandra Hockenbury and Susan Nolan for precise relevance to specific topics as they are covered in this edition.