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      Preface: Why Another Social Psychology Textbook?

      Social Psychology: Core Concepts and Emerging Trends provides a focused survey of social psychology’s essential theories, principles, concepts, and research, and limits attention given to those at the margins. This tailored approach reflects my philosophy of teaching, which emphasizes deep, meaningful learning. Over the years I have developed my version of the so-called inverted or flipped classroom, in which students are exposed to the primary content outside of class via readings and videos and engage in what has traditionally been homework—solving problems, applying concepts, and so forth—during class. The overwhelming majority of class time is devoted to discussion, critical inquiry, application, and related class activities. I have been able to cut my lectures down to no more than 20% of class time for any given section and often even less. My students appreciate my strategy and commonly tell me that they have learned more and remembered better the material from my class than from most of their college courses and, at the same time, have greatly enjoyed the classroom experience. Perhaps more importantly, they really seem to “get” the core concepts in social psychology as well as key emerging trends. Core Concepts is designed for introductory courses in social psychology offered at institutions of higher education across the nation, from large universities to small liberal arts schools to community colleges.

      I have written this text in part to share my teaching philosophy and pedagogy with other social psychology instructors. Core Concepts is intentionally moderate in length in order to facilitate this focused approach for both faculty and students. To accomplish this, I needed to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff in the ever-expanding field of social psychology and, consequently, omit some theory and research coverage that you would expect to find in a more comprehensive text. Although instructors may not concur with all of my choices, I hope that they will agree that I have captured the essence of social psychology. Moreover, Core Concepts—like my social psychology class—is friendly, accessible, and application focused yet rigorous and challenging.

      A second motive for writing Core Concepts was to address what I saw as a lack of a substantive unifying framework in most modern textbooks. The unfortunate by-product is that students come to understand social psychology as an assortment of loosely related theories, concepts, and studies that resembles a random list of “must see” historical sites rather than a carefully planned, thematic tour of the landscape. Core Concepts presents a thematic, principle-based framework that thoughtfully guides students on their journey through the topography of social psychology. Please see below for a detailed accounting of the themes that will serve as a guide for students throughout this text.

      The third major impetus for Core Concepts was to address what I saw as the failure of other texts to present the true nature of science. Most traditional texts paint an incomplete picture of the scientific enterprise, tending to portray science as a set of outcomes and static “facts.” Science, however, is more appropriately characterized as a self-correcting process of asking questions, developing hypotheses, and designing research in an attempt to answer these questions.

      This misunderstanding of science seems to be partially the result of the relegation of the scientific method to a free standing, often ponderously boring chapter, as if methodology were not integral to the science of social psychology. Chapters and large sections devoted to research methods are probably the most poorly received and misunderstood parts of social psychology textbooks. The impression that students are left with is that research methods are just one more set of “facts” to be memorized for an exam and then forgotten.

      In contrast, Core Concepts offers a more dynamic depiction of the scientific method and distributes discussion of research methods across all of the chapters. My text incorporates methods in situ and, by doing so, both increases their perceived relevance to a thorough understanding of the field and enhances their interest value. After reading Core Concepts, students should be able to demonstrate meaningful advances in their overall scientific literacy, a skill that is becoming increasingly critical in college and in the life beyond.

      Thematic Highlights

      Grounding in Life’s Fundamental Questions.

      Core Concepts casts social psychology in terms of fundamental questions about human existence

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