I original found this social psychology textbook on another site which has sadly gone paid. But, I was able to find another site offering this textbook by Allan Canfield, Ph.D. as a viewable PDF file. Be sure to update your bookmarks if you haven’t already done so. This link goes directly to the PDF file. [...]
Free Online Social Psychology Textbooks
Social psychology is an interdisciplinary field of study that bridges the gap between psychology and sociology. According to Wikipedia, “social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. It is a science that replies upon empirical methods and is often prone to vastly differing interpretations.
Even social psychologists working in different regions of the world disagree as to whether to focus on the individual or group dynamics. Americans tend to focus on the individual and European social psychologists seem to be more likely to focus on group level phenomena.
I’ll leave it up to folks who have done significantly more study on this topic to decide which focus is perhaps the greater predictor of behavior. Regardless of what your consider being the greater influence, we can all agree that the initiatives in open textbooks and free access to scholarly materials has made it easier than ever for students to study this field and researchers to exchange information.
I don’t have many social psychology textbooks to share here. I do suggest you check out the other Free Psychology Textbook categories as I have no doubt that I may have misfiled some things or that one or more of the larger sites could also have information on social psychology.
List of Free Online Social Psychology Textbooks
Body, Identity and Interaction: Interpreting Nonverbal Communication
Growth Groups
The author of this online textbook is Howard J. Clinebell, Jr., a Professor of Pastoral Counseling at the School of Theology at Claremont, CA. Clinebell discusses growth groups as “the most effective means for the maximum number of persons to experience enlivening within themselves and in their relationships with others.”