Social and Abnormal Psychology Textbooks: An Objective Analysis

Abstract

Given the increased demand for undergraduate psychology courses beyond the introductory level, research on textbooks for such courses is surprisingly sparse. This study partially rectifies this problem. Because social and abnormal psychology are the two most frequently listed advanced courses in college catalogs (Perlman & McCann, 1999), we provide feature and content analyses of the 14 social psychology and 17 abnormal psychology survey texts published from 1995 to 1998. We also furnish comparisons between these two types of tesxts and introductory psychology texts. These analyses and comparisons should greatly facilitate the text selection process for teachers of social and abnormal psychology courses.