As the 21st Century opened, the discipline of psychology seemed to be separating into two radically distinct domains. Qualitative and Cultural Psychology focused on the discursive means for the management of meaning in a world of norms, while Neuropsychology and Neuroscience focused on the investigation of brain processes. These two domains can be reconciled in a hybrid science that brings them together into a synthesis more powerful than anything psychologists have achieved before. For the first time, there is the possibility of a general psychology in which the biological and the cultural aspects of human life coalesce into a unitas multiplex, unity in diversity.
This textbook ambitiously aims to and succeeds in providing this unity. Fathali M. Moghaddam and Rom Harre have designed a textbook brought together with additional voices that speak to the similarities and differences of these two seemingly distinctive domains. This bridge-building will encourage a new generation of undergraduate students studying psychology to more fully appreciate the real potential for the study of human behaviour, and as such it will represent a more provocative alternative to standard general psychology textbooks. It also support teaching in a host of courses, namely 2nd and 3rd courses on the conceptual and philosophical nature of psychology, social psychology, critical psychology and cognitive science. Selectively, it will also represent a very interesting and different choice for foundation level students too.
Industry Reviews
Overall Pscyhology for the Third Millennium: integrating cultural and neuroscience perspectives, in line with its aims, presents a less dualistic and more holistic and hybrid form of psychology....in part two the book comes into its own and the chapters present distinct topics and empirical examples, which are extremely useful for communicating the theoretical underpinnings to undergraduate students - Dawn Mannay Psychology Learning and Teaching With this important new book, we finally have a psychology that is adequate to its subject matter: Human beings as acting persons! Every psychologist, and every student of psychology, should read it and prepare for the third millennium. Svend Brinkmann Professor of Psychology, Director of the Center for Qualitative Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark In Psychology for the Third Millennium, Harre and Moghaddam provide a rich integration of neurological, cultural, and individual levels of analysis in psychology - the human actor as a biological organism, a social being, and a moral agent. Compelling reading! Winnifred Louis Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Australia This book presents a new scientific basis for psychology, based upon the integration of cutting-edge scholarship in two areas often seen as wholly opposed to each other: neuroscience, and cultural and discursive psychologies. The concepts and methods necessary to enable this integration are clearly explained at the outset, and the benefits of this new approach are then illustrated with respect to a range of relevant psychological topics. For the most part, psychology is riven by a series of dualisms (e.g. between mind and body, individual and society) that have fostered inadequate methods and helped prevent its development into a science that is adequate to its unique subject matter. This exciting book presents a basis for this kind of mature psychology in a way that will be wholly accessible to students Dr. John Cromby Psychology, SSEHS, Loughborough University Finally, a textbook for an alternative psychology, deeply rooted in the tradition of discursive and cultural psychology while simultaneously committed to recent developments in the neurosciences. It is both timely and welcome for those who have long sought to go beyond the received traditions in psychology Henderikus Stam University of Calgary, Canada
