PSYCHOLOGY

by Ross Stagner and Prof.T. F. Karwoski '36h. McGraw-Hill BookCo., 1952, pp. xiii-582, $5.00.

The features of this new text for the first course in psychology are its biological approach, its excellent organization, its very inviting style, and its judicious choice of material.

In their opening remarks the authors wisely warn the student that since effective education is self-education, all he should expect from a text is a presentation of the facts which can organize into his own picture of human nature. They did not however leave this all-important objective to the student alone, hut have deliberately organized their book round the new and fruitful concept of homeostasis, or the elemental drive in every organism for the maintenance of its equilibrium.

The book opens with a very competent and useful presentation of the trends in the history of psychology and its scientific status today This is followed by a section of three chapters on Dynamics, covering biological drives, emotions and social motives. Eight chapters are then devoted to the subject of Cognition, namely, sensing, perceiving, association, conditioning, problem solving, remembering, and intelligence. The book closes with three chapters on Personality, which is defined, on the principle of homeostasis, as the maintenance of an elaborate system of traits and attitudes, organized around a self- image, with the traits of personality being "developments from the efforts of the individual to maintain equilibrium, using his resources of sensation, perception, learning, and thinking." (p. 545)

No mere descriptive, account of the book can do justice to the high quality of its material and style of presentation. The enthusiasm of the authors for their subject speaks out on every page, and they are to be complimented on their good judgment in not trying to cover the entire field of psychology in a book for beginners, and for not cluttering up their pages with a surfeit of experimental data that can only confuse the student and prevent him from seeing the woods for the trees.