Social Sciences

140 Psychology

Also see Psychology OER in development.
Last update: Oct 27/23

Collections

Psychology as a Science (CC BY-SA)

A Pressbooks containing a collection of links to resources (textbooks, videos, activities, and more) organized by topic.

Teach Psych Science (CC BY)

A website devoted to peer-reviewed resources for teaching research, statistics, and writing for psychological science.

Courses

Introduction to Psychology (CC BY-NC-SA)

Introduction to Psychology offers students an engaging introduction to the essential topics in psychology. Throughout this study of human behavior and the mind, you will gain insight into the history of the field of psychology, as well as explore current theories and issues in areas such as cognition, motivation, and wellness. The importance of scientific methods and principles of research design is emphasized throughout this course and presented in a way that will enrich your study of individuals as thinking, feeling, and social beings.

Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective – 2nd Edition (CC BY)

An open textbook covering human development over a lifespan with accompanying lecture notes, power point slides, and other resources.

Supplemental Materials

Attention and Advertising Tactics (CC BY)

This resource covers examination of popular culture, the media, and peers, in addition to ones own attitudes and values, and how these can affect and impact an individuals actions.

Introduction to the Brain (CC BY)

This resource includes an introductory information pack for high school students and an activity with printable materials. It addresses the following learning outcomes: Name and locate the different lobes of the brain, understand the functions of each brain, and their real-life applications, actively work in a team with a common goal, and understand the implications of brain damage, such as the case of Phineas Gage.

This is a British Columbia created resource.Introduction to Psychology Study Guide (CC BY-NC)

This study guide is designed to accompany the Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition open text by Jennifer Walinga and Charles Stangor. For each chapter, it summarizes the learning objectives and presents multiple-choice, true-false, and fill-in-the-blank tests of the material covered. It provides links to resources to enable students to deepen their understanding of key topics and to explore related issues. Finally, it offers suggestions for hands-on activities relevant to each chapter.

Prejudice Reduction Strategies (CC BY)

This resource identifies stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, where they arise from, and how to recognise and respond to these types of behaviours and comments in a constructive way.

Scientific Reasoning MCAT Modules (CC BY)

A series of eight modules developed by Oregon State University and designed to be used by instructors teaching introductory psychology courses to teach scientific reasoning skills.

Textbooks

Culture and Psychology (CC BY-NC-SA)

Culture is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It shapes how we make sense of our world, how we express ourselves and how we understand and relate to others. In this textbook we introduce cultural universals and culturally specific constructs in psychology. This textbook was created for an undergraduate course that appeals to psychology majors and non-majors because it meets several general education and transfer credit requirements.

Essentials of Abnormal Psychology – 1st Edition (CC BY-NC-SA)

This textbook tackles the difficult topic of psychological disorders in eight chapters. After the first three foundational chapters, a discussion of psychological disorders ensues to include anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, mood disorders, schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, and personality disorders.

Introduction to Biological Psychology (CC BY-NC)

An open access textbook designed primarily for use by first and second year undergraduate students of British Psychological Society accredited Psychology degree courses in the UK.

This is a Canadian created resourceIntroduction to Psychology (CC BY-NC-SA)

From the University of Saskatchewan, this introductory text has been created from a combination of original content and materials compiled and adapted from a number of open text publications.

This is a Canadian created resourceIntroduction to Psychology & Neuroscience (CC BY)

The foundation of this book is built upon Psychology 2e from OpenStax. In addition to the core content from Psychology 2e from OpenStax, this book is a combination of original material and resources, and selected works from Introduction to Psychology by Cummings & Sanders (University of Saskatchewan), Discovery Psychology 2.0 from Noba Project, and various upper-level Psychology courses from Lumen Learning.

Introduction to Psychology (Stangor) (CC BY-NC-SA)

This textbook includes learning objectives, key takeaways, exercises and critical thinking activities, a marginal glossary of key terms, a student handbook, and final review PowerPoint slides. In short, I think that this book will provide a useful and productive synthesis between your goals and the goals of your students. I have tried to focus on the forest rather than the trees and to bring psychology to life—in ways that really matter—for the students. At the same time, the book maintains content and conceptual rigor, with a strong focus on the fundamental principles of empiricism and the scientific method.

This is a British Columbia created resource. Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

This book is designed to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. The focus on behaviour and empiricism has produced a text that is better organized, has fewer chapters, and is somewhat shorter than many of the leading books.  The beginning of each section includes learning objectives; throughout the body of each section are key terms in bold followed by their definitions in italics; key takeaways, and exercises and critical thinking activities end each section.

Introduction to Psychology: 1st Canadian Edition was adapted by Jennifer Walinga from Charles Stangor’s textbook Introduction to Psychology.

Learning Statistics with R: A tutorial for psychology students and other beginners (CC BY-SA)

This book covers the contents of an introductory statistics class, as typically taught to undergraduate psychology students, focusing on the use of the R statistical software. The book discusses how to get started in R as well as giving an introduction to data manipulation and writing scripts. From a statistical perspective, the book discusses descriptive statistics and graphing first, followed by chapters on probability theory, sampling and estimation, and null hypothesis testing. After introducing the theory, the book covers the analysis of contingency tables, t-tests, ANOVAs and regression. Bayesian statistics are covered at the end of the book.

Learning Statistics with Jamovi: A tutorial for psychology students and other beginners (CC BY-SA)

This book of learning statistics with jamovi covers the contents of an introductory statistics class, as typically taught to undergraduate psychology students. Descriptive statistics and graphing are followed by chapters on probability theory, sampling and estimation, and null hypothesis testing. The book covers the analysis of contingency tables, correlation, t-tests, regression, ANOVA and factor analysis.

Noba Project (CC BY-NC-SA)

A collection of psychology open textbooks. The Noba platform also allows you to customize textbooks or build your own. Many modules include instructor manuals, PowerPoint presentations, and test banks. One of the goals of Noba is “To present free, high-quality material written by a collection of experts and authorities in the field of psychology” – funded by The Diener Education Fund.

Personality Theory: A Multicultural Perspective (CC BY)

Personality Theory in a Cultural Context (CC BY)

Principles of Social Psychology (CC BY-NC-SA)

Have you ever had trouble teaching the various topics of social psychology and fitting them together to form a coherent field? Dr. Stangor felt like he was presenting a laundry list of ideas, research studies, and phenomena, rather than an integrated set of principles and knowledge. He wondered how his students could be expected to remember and understand the many phenomena that social psychologists study? How could they tell what was most important? It was then that he realized a fresh approach to a Social Psychology textbook was needed to structure and integrate student learning; thus, Principles of Social Psychology was born. This textbook is based on a critical thinking approach, and its aim is to get students thinking actively and conceptually – with a greater focus on the forest than the trees. Yes, there are right and wrong answers, but the answers are not the only thing. What is perhaps even more important is how students get to the answers – the thinking process itself.

This is a British Columbia created resource. Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International H5P Edition (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

The first International edition of this textbook provides students with an introduction to the basic concepts and principles of social psychology from an interactionist perspective. The presentation of classic studies and theories are balanced with insights from cutting-edge, contemporary research. An emphasis on real world examples and applications is intended to guide students to critically analyze their situations and social interactions in order to put their knowledge to effective use.

In 2022, 25 interactive H5P activities were added throughout the book.

Psychology as a Biological Science (CC BY-NC-SA)

This textbook provides standard introduction to psychology course content with a specific emphasis on biological aspects of psychology. This includes more content related to neuroscience methods, the brain and the nervous system.

The Psychology of Human Thought (CC BY-SA)

The book is intended to be used as a textbook in courses on higher processes, complex cognition, human thought, and related courses. Chapters include concept acquisition, knowledge representation, inductive and deductive reasoning, problem solving, metacognition, language, expertise, intelligence, creativity, wisdom, development of thought, affect and thought, culture, and sections about history and about methods.

This is a British Columbia created resource. Research Methods in Psychology – 4th Edition (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

A comprehensive textbook for research methods classes, geared towards undergraduates. A peer-reviewed inter-institutional project published by Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Tao of Positive Psychology (CC BY)

Workplace Psychology: Issues and Application (CC BY-NC-SA)

A compilation of open content for students of Psychology 104: Workplace Psychology at Chemeketa Community College.

Websites

R Psychologist (CC BY)

A blog about R, statistics, psychology, open science, and data visualization.

License

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