Psychology is not simply a body of fixed knowledge like some dead language, which we define, frame, package and pass on. Psychology is a living, evolving process of understanding which depends upon constant debate and discussion being actively entered into by researchers, teachers, practitioners and, yes, students, too. In order to learn about psychology we need to understand it, and in order to understand it we must actively engage with it.
This book aims to help students to think psychologically; to encourage them to think more creatively, analytically and critically about almost every type of theory, book or article they will come across in their course; to show them how to be an active learner; to help them understand and question the assumptions psychologists make about the world and the kind of knowledge we can have about it.

PATRICK MCGHEE is Dean of Cultural, Legal and Social Studies at the University of Central Lancashire. He has written, assessed and taught on several Open University courses, including writing a study guide for their Social Psychology: Personal Lives, Social Worlds course.