GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY

By Richard Wellington Husband '26. Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.,New York, 1940. 502 pp. #2.75.

For those who were acquainted at Dartmouth just prior to 1926 and who knew the smiling "Dick" as he was so familiarly known in Hanover, or his father who had given such efficient service to the College just prior to that time, there will be more than ordinary interest in this text in general psychology. After the completion of the author's major work in psychology at Dartmouth, Professor Husband pursued his graduate work at Stanford and received from that University his M.A. (1927) and his doctorate (1929). He now occupies a chair as Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin.

The book is projected into the highly competitive field of first texts in psychology on the college level. In content and treatment of terial it merits success. The organization is particularly commendable. Integration of the wide scope of subject matter has been achieved through the combination of the usual and diverse topics and chapters into organized sections; Genetic Background; Neural and Sensory Processes; Motivation, Emotions and Personality; Individual Differences in Intelligence; and Learning, Memory and Thought. In such an organization he has coherently included not only the topics usually presented in such a text, but also unusual chapters dealing with Child Development; Educational and Vocational Guidance (a fuller treatment of which is recommended); and Unconscious and Automatic Processes.

In other respects the work is abreast also of more recent trends. It is written from the genetic point of view and stresses the social factors in personality development. Its material follows rather closely to experimental material and is inconspicuously documented. It avoids the extremes both of mechanistic psychology and those of Gestalt Psychology; it is commendably a "middle-of-the-road" text. Rather than merely assuming the appearance of "practicality," it has to some extent at least tried to achieve this end. Its subject matter is substantial.

Accordingly, the book should prove of value and interest not only to students for whom it was primarily written, but also to the adult lay reader who wishes to re-examine a modern presentation of a study of general psychology,—a study of the behavior of the normal, human adult.