Life Lessons from Psychological Science: Understanding and Improving Interpersonal Dynamics

Life Lessons from Psychological Science: Understanding and Improving Interpersonal Dynamics provides students with a primer for developing self-awareness and insight through interpersonal conversation. The text focuses on human behavior in various situations—from educational settings to the workplace and the home—in order to help readers understand, appreciate, and enrich the human dynamics of their everyday lives.

This book features 50 life lessons grounded in contemporary research and relevant to improving interpersonal dynamics. Several life lessons reflect the behavioral science principles of positive versus negative reinforcement, observational learning, and behavior-based feedback. Other life lessons are founded on humanism, including empathy, interdependence, systems thinking, and self-transcendence. Still others are derived from social psychology, including six principles of social influence, the dynamics of group decision-making, and critical distinctions between discrimination and stereotyping. Domains of psychology such as sensation and perception, personality, health and stress, learning, and motivation are the foundation of other life lessons. The lessons are complemented by instructive and entertaining illustrations and discussion questions to initiate lively dialogue.

A dynamic, contemporary, and personal text, Life Lessons from Psychological Science is an ideal resource for introductory psychology courses.

E. Scott Geller, Ph.D. is an Alumni Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech, Cofounder of GellerAC4P, Inc., and Senior Partner of Safety Performance Solutions, Inc. For 50 years, he has taught and conducted research at Virginia Tech. Dr. Geller has authored, coauthored, or edited numerous books, book chapters, training manuals, magazine articles, and research articles addressing the development and evaluation of behavior-focused interventions to improve human welfare and life satisfaction. The College of Wooster awarded Dr. Geller an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. He has received lifetime achievement awards from the International Organizational Behavior Management Network and the American Psychological Foundation.