Psychology: Core Concepts

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Philip Zimbardo, PhD, Stanford University professor, has been teaching the introductory psychology course for 50 years and has been writing the basic text for this course, as well as the faculty guides and student workbooks, for the past 35 years. In addition, he has helped to develop and update the PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology, which is used in many high school and university courses both nationally and internationally. He has been called “The Face and Voice of Psychology” because of this popular series and his other media presentations. Phil also loves to conduct and publish research on a wide variety of subjects, as well as teach and engage in public and social service activities. He has published more than 400 professional and popular articles and chapters, including 50 books of all kinds. He recently published a trade book on the psychology of evil, The Lucifer Effect, that relates his classic Stanford Prison Experiment to the abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Prison. In addition, Phil is delighted by the new Hollywood movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) on which he actively consulted. His newest books are The Time Paradox, and The Time Cure, but his new passion is helping to create wise and effective everyday heroes as part of his Heroic Imagination Project.

Robert Johnson, PhD, taught introductory psychology for 28 years at Umpqua Community College. He acquired an interest in cross-cultural psychology during a Fulbright summer in Thailand, followed by many more trips abroad to Japan, Korea, Latin America, Britain, and, most recently, to Indonesia. Currently, he is working on a book on the psychology in Shakespeare. Bob is especially interested in applying psychological principles to the teaching of psychology and in encouraging linkages between psychology and other disciplines. In keeping with those interests, he founded the Pacific Northwest Great Teachers Seminar, of which he was the director for 20 years. Bob was also one of the founders of Psychology Teachers at Community Colleges (PT@CC), serving as its executive committee chair during 2004. That same year, he also received the Two-Year College Teaching Award given by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Bob has long been active in APA, APS, the Western Psychological Association, and the Council of Teachers of Undergraduate Psychology.

Vivian McCann, a senior faculty member in psychology at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon, teaches a wide variety of courses, including introductory psychology, human relations, intimate relationships, personality, and social psychology. Born and raised in the California desert just 10 miles from the Mexican border, she quickly learned the importance of understanding cultural backgrounds and values in effective communication, which laid the foundation for her lifelong interest in teaching and learning psychology from diverse cultural perspectives. Vivian loves to explore new cultures through travel, and to nurture the same interests in her students — even leading groups of her students on study trips abroad. In her own travels has visited 35 countries so far. Her most recent adventure took her to Africa for four months, where she volunteered with women in Tanzania, worked with elephants and endangered rhinos in Zimbabwe, and trekked into the mountains of Rwanda to observe gorillas in the wild. Vivian maintains a strong commitment to teaching excellence and has developed and taught numerous workshops in that area. She has served on the APA’s executive committee for Psychology Teachers at Community Colleges (PT@CC) and is an active member of the Western Psychological Association and APS. She is also the author of Human Relations: The Art and Science of Building Effective Relationships. Her most recent passion involves working with The Heroic Imagination Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching people of all ages to stand up, speak out, and develop their own inner heroes in pursuit of a more compassionate world.