The Great Ideas of Psychology

By: Daniel N. Robinson, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Daniel N. Robinson

Length: 23 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

If you’ve ever wanted to delve more deeply into the mysteries of human emotion, perception, and cognition, and of why we do what we do, these 48 lectures offer a superb place to start. With them, you’ll see the entire history of psychology unfold. In the hands of Professor Robinson, these lectures encompass ideas, speculations, and point-blank moral questions that might just dismantle and rebuild everything you once thought you knew about psychology. In fact, you’ll not only learn what psychology is, but even if it is, as Professor Robinson discusses the constantly shifting debate over the nature of psychology itself.

Lecture by lecture, Professor Robinson navigates from one subject to the next, and you’ll follow along as he recreates a Platonic dialogue; explains brain physiology; or explores the intricacies of middle ear construction, the psychological underpinnings of the Salem witch trials, and the history of the insanity defense.

Among other things, you’ll learn:

• How a brilliant young scientist’s temporary blindness led to pioneering research in sensory psychology
• How the once-prestigious, now-derided, ”sciences” of phrenology and mesmerism contributed to psychological knowledge
• What happened when a Stanford psychologist and his students decided to study “being sane in insane places” by getting themselves committed to a mental institution
• How the brain is able to “rewire” itself to compensate for particular traumas at an early age
• If high heritability determines how much the environment influences the value of a trait, and more.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©1997 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1997 The Great Courses

great intro class

I really enjoyed this introductory psychology lecture series. Series covers basic information on everything from Aristotle to Neurological scidlence in a well laid out easy to follow format. some of the professors theories may be dated since it was originally recorded in the 90's but as an introduction they hold up just fine.

Great review!

A really great recording by Professor Daniel Robinson. You can tell listening to his lectures he has done some serious research.

Exceeded Expectations

If you could sum up The Great Ideas of Psychology in three words, what would they be?

Insightful, Useful, Enjoyable

What other book might you compare The Great Ideas of Psychology to and why?

Introduction to Psychology textbooks from college. It went in depth to the history and ideas of Psychology.

Which character – as performed by Professor Daniel N. Robinson – was your favorite?

Liked them all

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Awesome introduction to psychology.

This is a detailed overview on psychology presented in an entertaining, attention grabbing manner. This is definitely a good start to understanding the human mind.

Only if you like a lot of talk about the Greeks

Really informative and interesting. Overall it leans heavily into pholosophy and the history of thought with quite a few hours dedicated to (fawning over) aristotle. So quite different to any psych course focusing more on modern experimental theories, though they are in there too. Maybe not for everyone but I gave it full marks as it is a great listen, the speaker is engaging and I learned a lot.

Another fine course by Professor Daniel Robinson

An excellent and well thought out course of lectures that summarize many of human psychology's insights.

Wonderfully educational and entertaining!

Robinson is an expert lecturer with a firm grasp of all the relevant topics and concepts. his ability to render complexity into distilled and easily digestible prose seems effortless, but certainly comes from decades of experience and practice. I highly recommend this course!

Very Interesting

As someone who wants to learn more about psychology, this book has not only gave me food for thought, but also explained many ideas to me.

Absolutely outstanding

The presentation of the subject matter was always interesting and organized…. Makes me want to start college again and I graduated 65 years ago!

Very informative and enjoyable

Fantastic narrator, needs a bit of updating, and I would have liked to have heard a bit about transactional analysis by Eric Berne. Enjoyed the full production very much.