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Below is a list of books which have been reviewed in the Quarterly, or recommended by members of PsyPAG. All recommended books include an Amazon link, and if you do decide to buy anything after following the link, PsyPAG will receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you!) to help us to help you.
If you would like to recommend a book, please send the details (including an Amazon link if possible!) to commsofficer@psypag.co.uk.
Clinical Psychology
Research Methods in Clinical Psychology: An Introduction for Students and Practitioners, 2nd Edition
A good all round text on research methods for clinical psychology.
Clinical Psychology in Practice
A good overview of clinical psychology and role of clinical psychologists
The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology: A Contextual Approach
The Handbook of Adult Clinical Psychology
Formulation in Psychology and Psychotherapy
A really useful book that gives an overview of formulation from the perspective of the main models
The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Psychology (Oxford Library of Psychology)
Consciousness and Experiential Psychology
The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness
Understanding Consciousness
The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates (Bradford Books)
Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
Developmental Psychology
Sharing Books and Stories as a Clinical Tool (Emergent and Early Literacy)
This book should be in the personal library of everyone interested in early book reading and its influence on children‘s language and literacy development!
Developmental Psychology: A Reader
This book provides a good overview of the six major areas of study in developmental psychology, presented here as starting off in life, language and communication, cognition and representation, literacy and numeracy, others and their influence and towards adulthood.
The Foundations of Child Development
This book is part of the Open University course on Child Development and provides a gentle introduction into the world of developmental psychology, written in an easy to understand manner, revealing the essential information.
Understanding Children’s Development (4th Edition) (Basic Psychology S.)
This book is a ‘classic’ and a very good comprehensive introduction to Developmental Psychology.
Disability and Disorders
A History of Autism: Conversations with the Pioneers
I wish it had come out during my BSc as I have found it invaluable during my MRes!
Assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorders
This is a really good book for a general background of research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Most books in this area focus on child research, but this one covers both children and adults.
Educational Psychology
The Psychology of Education
This is the second edition of Martyn Long’s Psychology of Education textbook. This book is a great starting point on all issues discussed in the field of educational psychology. It covers topics such as learning, assessment, individual differences and achievement, student engagement and motivation, the educational context, society and culture, language, literacy, inclusive education and special educational needs, behaviour problems and dealing with behaviour problems. The book is written in a reader friendly way with plenty of examples and evidence to help continue researching in an area. Therefore, whether you are looking to use this for your own studies, or for teaching purposes, I highly recommend this book!
Evolutionary Psychology
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition
A great popular science book that has been around for years now. Despite this, it’s still a ‘must read’ for anyone interested in evolution (and how a science book should be written so that anyone can read it).
The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped Human Nature
Rather than natural selection, this book tackles the lesser known idea of sexual selection, explaining how this theory may be able to account for various features of our appearance and also our mental faculties. Written in an amusing and accessible way, it’s aimed at both scientists and anyone interested in this area.
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
As he delves into what he considers to be the 10 greatest inventions of evolution, including DNA, sex, consciousness and death, Lane brings the science alive with the kind of beautiful prose that turns a book full of interesting information into a book you simply cannot put down.
Vision Revolution, The
Evolutionary Psychology: An Introduction
A great beginning Evolutionary Psychology text
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
Assessment and Treatment of Sex Offenders: A Handbook
This handbook offers a comprehensive overview and evaluation of the various tools and strategies used to assess and treat sex offenders. It also includes discussions on some of the key issues facing clinicians in the field.
The Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology)
Provides a very succinct yet extremely comprehensive overview of the field. Great as a starting point.
Investigative Psychology: Offender Profiling and the Analysis of Criminal Action
For students and researchers interested in the scientific study of offender profiling, crime scene analysis, and the investigative process, this textbook provides a detailed overview of the research that has amounted over the past few decades.
Introduction to Forensic and Criminal Psychology
Very good introduction to the field. It covers most, if not all, of the main topics and issues in the field. The fourth edition is set for publication soon, offering new chapters and up-to-date research.
Handbook of Forensic Mental Health
For those interested in the mental health side of the forensic psychology, this text offers a good overview, including the development of the forensic mental health system, key issues in the area, and the key skills needed for practice.
Theories of Sexual Offending (Wiley Series in Forensic Clinical Psychology)
This text is provides a detailed description and evaluation of the theories related to sexual offending, including both comprehensive theories and theories for more specific factors, such as deviant preferences and intimacy deficits.
General Science and Psychology
Bad Science
50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behavior
Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell: The Computer in Every Living Cell
God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
Health Psychology
Predicting Health Behaviour
This is an excellent book for anyone studying health psychology. This book offers an updated review of research that has concentrated on social cognition models and health behaviours with a special interest in process models and volitional influences on behaviour.
The Myth of Addiction
A book that challenges the traditional view of substance use as the product solely of pharmacological compulsion/disease. Very interesting but not too long, allowing easy access to a well established approach.
Drug, Set and Setting: Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use
Looks at the causes of substance use from a number of angles, covers a number of important theories and research findings in a user friendly way.
Language and Psycholinguistics
Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention
…probably my favourite science read of 2009.
Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics (Oxford Library of Psychology)
This book gives a very detailed and comprehensive review of the current knowledge of psycholinguistics. The author covers a huge range of research in this book including word recognition, discourse, language development, and the present perspectives in psycholinguistics. There are a huge number of contributors, and a massive number of important studies documented- it is a very good first port of call to help answer language based questions.
The Handbook of Psycholinguistic and Cognitive Processes: Perspectives in Communication Disorders
Talking the Talk
Automaticity and Control in Language Processing (Advances in Behavioural Brain Science)
This book gives a relatively broad, and easy to read, background of language processing. It gives valuable insight into language production, comprehension, bilingualism, working memory involvements, and some elements of neuropsychology. This is a brilliant book if you wish to gain some basic understanding of the processes involved in producing and comprehending language and what demands are involved.
Music, Language, and the Brain
Longman Pronunciation Dictionary
This is an invaluable reference book if you’re designing psycholinguistics studies, and comes with a CD-ROM so even if you’re shaky on phonetic symbols and diacritics, you can check pronunciations.
Memory and Cognition
Human Memory: Theory and Practice
Memory
Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition (Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction)
A good all-round introduction to work on emotion and social cognition, which outlines and discusses a range of findings , theories, and theoretical issues in the field.
Philosophy and the Emotions (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements)
A great book for those interested in the philosophy underlying work on emotion-cognition interaction, or emotion research more generally. A number of insightful and thought provoking essays on topics ranging from the nature and structure of emotional experiences to the rationality debate and back again.
How the Mind Forgets and Remembers: The Seven Sins of Memory
Memory for Action: A Distinct Form of Episodic Memory? (Counterpoints: Cognition, Memory, and Language)
Rhythms of the Brain
The Human Brain Colouring Book (Coloring Concepts Series)
If you want to brush up on neuroanatomy without frying your brain, this is a great way to do it! As frivolous as it sounds, the guided colouring exercises in this book are a really helpful way of learning the structures of the brain, from macro down to microscopic level, along with functions of the various regions. Relaxing, too!
Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind
Understanding Occupational & Organizational Psychology
Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Blackwell Handbooks of Research Methods in Psychology)
Peer Support and Counselling
Peer Support in Action: From Bystanding to Standing By
Cowie and Wallace provide an excellent review of the use of peer support in schools, where pupils support each other through formal systems. If you’re interested in the different types of peer support and especially how it actually works in practice this is where to start reading. Three years into my PhD on this topic this book is still an essential reference.
Social Psychology
Psychology of Self-regulation (Sydney Symposium in Social Psychology)
For a review, see the December 2009 issue of The Quarterly.
Sport and Exercise Psychology
Psychology of Physical Activity: Determinants, Well-being and Interventions
This is a very useful text for those early on their postgraduate career, whether it be at masters level or a doctorate. It provides an update to do account of the research into a range of topics including the psychological factors associated with physical activity/inactivity and interventions which can be used in applied practice. There are also supporting on-line materials provided with this edition.
Group Dynamics in Exercise and Sport Psychology: Contemporary Themes
Most books looking at group dynamics focus exclusively on sporting contexts, but this book also considers the impact of groups in exercise environments. While grounded in up to date research there is also an applied slant to the text, useful for trainees.
Statistics and Research Methods
Matlab: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving
SPSS for Psychologists (0)
For a review, see the December 2009 issue of The Quarterly.
Structural Equation Modeling with AMOS (Multivariate Applications Series)
Simple Statistics: A Course Book for the Social Sciences
Doesn’t deal with SPSS, but very good for getting to grips with stats theory.
Statistical Power Analysis
Despite the name, it explains the assumptions of almost every test used by psychologists. There is some maths in it, but the explanations are clear and focused on issues that matter to the applied researcher.
Using SPSS Syntax: A Beginner’s Guide
Despite being a beginner’s text, this accessible book gives invaluable advice for manipulating large data sets. Easy to dip in and out – takes a lot of the tedium out of SPSS!
Statistics without Maths for Psychology: Using SPSS for Windows
Christine Dancey and John Reidy have put together an excellent book for beginner psychologists, detailing how to input data for analysis into SPSS. The book presents the theory behind the stats in a very clear and non threatening format and gives excellent instruction in how to become competent at driving SPSS. If you feel a little overwhelmed by stats give this book a go (and Darren says it’s ace too!).
Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (Introducing Statistical Methods series)
If you only have one statistics book, it should probably be this one!
Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models (Analytical Methods for Social Research)
quite high level, but wonderful explanations of regression, simulation and multilevel modelling. The author also demonstrates how to perform all of his analyses in R, and supplies data sets so these can be tried out by the student.
Essential Mathematics for Political and Social Research (Analytical Methods for Social Research)
This is a book of mathematics, which if you are quantitively inclined will give you the basic maths knowledge needed to understand matrix algebra calculus and distributions. It also uses relevant examples, which is very useful.
Statistical Methods for Psychology
Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research Findings
I used this book to run meta-analyses as part of my PhD. Whilst it is not always straightforward to find the right section to read, this book is very helpful if, like me, you would like to understand and use meta-analysis and haven’t got much of an idea. Even trained users will find that this book gives great advice on how to deal with issues. The book also has an appendix in which the authors describe and give instructions for their own meta-analysis software.
SPSS 18 Made Simple: For IBM SPSS Statistics Software
Understanding and Using Statistics in Psychology: A Practical Introduction
SPSS Survival Manual: A Step by Step Guide to Data Analysis Using SPSS for Windows (Version 15)
Really useful for the very basics. I think it’s actually an Open University book, but I often recommend it to my students as a really basic book.
MATLAB for Behavioral Scientists
Statistics without Tears: An Introduction for Non-Mathematicians (Penguin Science)
Not specific to SPSS, but great for getting to grips with statistical theory at a slightly more sophisticated level.
Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics: Excel 2007 Edition
Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods
Using Multivariate Statistics
I found it useful for understanding higher level statistics in depth, plus data pre-processing etc.
SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology: 0 (Sage Handbook)
Study Skills and Academia
Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing and Publishing)
Are you fearful of putting your fingers to the keyboard and starting the writing process of your dissertation or thesis? Well this book will help rationalise your fears. A helpful guide of how writing and editing can be seen as productive even perhaps enjoyable task and not one of fright. After reading this book fears will be conquered to produce a brilliant dissertation/thesis (not guaranteed).
This is book is a worthwhile read though.
Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Handbook
The strengths of the book lie in its clear and direct style, its effective coverage of key topics in academic writing and its scholarly quality. I agree with one referee who describes Hartley’s work as ‘exceptional’ because he ‘speaks out to the reader quite personally, while at the same time conveying useful information, findings and thinking in a scholarly, rigorous and academic manner. This is a rare talent’.
How to Get a PhD – 4th edition: A Handbook for Students and their Supervisors (Study Skills)
The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research (Open Up Study Skills)
How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing
This is a seriously inspirational book; a lot of it is common sense, but it’s the sort of common sense that you forget about until it’s pointed out. Some really good tips on productivity, and it’s written in an accessible but not patronising style. This book has been reviewed in The Quarterly, March 2011
Writing with Style: Apa Style Made Easy
This book (and previous editions) taught me how to write for psychology academia. I discovered it during my master’s degree (I wouldn’t have got a distinction without it!) and as a final year PhD student, I still find it useful. I recommend it to all the undergrad students I teach and whose work I mark.
Rulebook for Arguments
A quick and easy read, this book gives great advice on constructing an argument.
Thinking and Reasoning
Human Reasoning: The Psychology of Deduction
This book provides a detailed and balanced review of the field of deductive reasoning; with a careful distinction between the main empirical findings and the major theoretical approaches to account for these findings.
It is an excellent postgraduate text, which has yet to be superceded, despite being written in 1992.
Analyze This / Analyze That [DVD]
