You are a member of a social world on a planet containing about 7 billion people. This social world is filled with paradox, mystery, suspense, and outright absurdity. Explore how social psychology can help you make sense of your own social world with this engaging and accessible book. Roy F. Baumeister and Brad J. Bushman's SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE, 2ND EDITION can help you understand one of the most interesting topics of all—the sometimes bizarre and baffling but always fascinating diversity of human behavior, and how and why people act the way they do. More Reviews and Recommendations

Roy F. Baumeister holds the Eppes Eminent Professorship in Psychology at Florida State University, where he is the head of the social psychology graduate program and teaches social psychology to students at all levels. He has taught introductory social psychology to thousands of undergraduate students. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1978, and his teaching and research activities have included appointments at the University of California at Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, the Max Planck Institute in Munich (Germany), and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Baumeister is an active researcher whose work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and by the Templeton Foundation. He has done research on the self (including self-esteem and self-control), the need to belong, sexuality, aggression, and how people find meaning in life. In 2005, the Institute for Scientific Information concluded from a survey of published bibliographies that he was among the most influential psychologists in the world. His publications have been cited over 5,000 times. Baumeister lives with his wife and daughter by a small lake in Tallahassee, Florida. In his (very rare) spare time, he likes to play guitar and piano or go windsurfing.Brad J. Bushman is Professor of Psychology and Communication Studies at University of Michigan. He is also a professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), where he teaches and does research two months per year. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 1989 and has taught introductory social psychology coursesfor 15 years. Bushman's research, which has challenged several societal myths (e.g., violent media have a trivial effect on aggression, venting anger reduces aggression, violent people suffer from low self-esteem, violence and sex on TV sell products, warning labels repel consumers), earned him the nickname of the "Myth Buster" by one colleague. His research has been published in the top scientific journals (e.g., Science) and has been featured on television (e.g., ABC News 20/20, Discovery Channel), on radio (e.g., NPR, BBC, CBC), in magazines (e.g., Newsweek, Sports Illustrated), and in newspapers (e.g., The New York Times, Wall Street Journal). Bushman lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife Tammy Stafford and their three children. In his spare time, he likes to ride his mountain bike and listen to jazz music.

Tags: social psychology and human nature