http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/189289610

The Psychology of Human Differences

"The Psychology of Human Differences is a book for thoughtful students--in and out of college classrooms. Because I teach such a class each year, I have had in mind particularly the students who sign up for courses labeled Individual Differences, Differential Psychology, or Human Variability. In presenting the material, I have been constantly aware of the fact that popular opinions on the topics discussed have to a large extent been determined by factors having nothing to do with scientific research. It is rare indeed to encounter an individual who can begin the study of any one of these problems with a completely open mind. Therefore, in planning the book, I have tried wherever possible to gauge what the prevailing beliefs are and relate the research findings to these initial attitudes. I have also emphasized the methods by which dependable information can be obtained as much as the information itself, in the hope that a fundamental change in the habits of thinking about human psychological characteristics may be brought about. Persons who have undergone this training program should have a touchstone for evaluating things they hear and read in subsequent years. This aim has necessitated a thorough discussion of the basic statistical concepts, such as variability, correlation, and the significance of differences. In order to make these ideas less difficult for students, I have presented them in separate sections in connection with the research problems to which they apply, concentrating on the logic and interpretation rather than on formulas and computation, and including exercises in which the reader is given opportunity to draw conclusions from statistical results. Thus mastery of these essential skills has been brought within the intellectual range of the average college student. I have attempted wherever possible to synthesize and reconcile opposing points of view rather than to perpetuate old arguments. In each controversial area, from the all-inclusive heredity-environment issue to the highly specialized question of general vs. specific mental abilities, I have attempted to sort out the findings which stand up under critical statistical analysis from those which are in error or ambiguous, and to separate actual results from interpretations. Data surviving this sifting process often fit together much more closely than did the original conclusions of the psychologists who first presented them. It is inevitable that from such a procedure there should emerge many undecided issues and tentative conclusions as well as some established principles. In such cases I have pointed out such uncertainty and attempted to clarify the questions still remaining, in the hope that students who show research talent may thus be stimulated to begin work on significant and challenging problems"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

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