Psychology: From Science and Practice

With a strong emphasis on application―without neglecting research and science―this text focuses on helping students use the findings and knowledge of psychology in their own lives and careers.

As the only introductory psychology text written by authors with extensive business experience, this book seeks the ideal balance between psychology's practical and scientific sides. It highlights psychology's scientific nature while simultaneously emphasizing its practical value―how students can actually use and apply the material they read on the job and outside of the classroom. Psychology: From Science to Practice emphasizes three key goals:

• Make it clear to students how they can actually use the findings and knowledge of psychology in their own lives and careers.

• Present psychology as a science.

• Discuss the major findings of psychology without overwhelming students with too much detail.

Robert A. Baron (Ph.D., Iowa, 1968) is the Dean R. Wellington Professor of Management and Professor of psychology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has held faculty appointments at Purdue University, University of Minnesota, University of Texas, University of South Carolina, University of Washington, Princeton University, and Oxford University (Visiting Fellow, 1982). He served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation(1979-1981), and was appointed as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow by the French Ministry of Research (2001-2002) at the Universite des Sciences Sociales, Toulouse. He has been a Department Chair (1987-1993) and  Interim Dean (2001-2002).  Baron is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and a Charter Fellow of Association for Psychological Science (APS). .  

Prof. Baron has published more than one hundred articles and forty chapters in edited volumes.  He is the author or co-author of more than forty books including Social Psychology (11th edition.), Behavior in Organizations (9th ed), and Entrepreneurship:  A Process Perspective (2nd ed.). Prof. Baron holds three U.S. patents and was founder, President, and CEO of Innovative Environmental Products, Inc. (1993-2000).  His current research focuses primarily on the social and cognitive factors that play a role in entrepreneurs’ success.  He is a long-time runner, and his hobbies include fine wood-working,  music and cooking..

Michael J. Kalsher is Associate Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  Kalsher served as Chair of the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer from 1997 through 2002.  He received his Ph.D. in 1988 from Virginia Tech.  Professor Kalsher is a member of both the American Psychological Society and American Psychological Association.  He is also a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society for which he currently serves as Chair of the Arnold M. Small Safety Lecture series.  Professor Kalsher has published more than fifty articles in professional journals, a number of chapters in edited books, and he has given more than one-hundred presentations at professional meetings. 

Kalsher’s company (Kalsher and Associates, L.L.C.) specializes in applying the principles of psychology to enhance human performance and workplace safety, including providing litigation support (e.g., as an expert witness) in product liability cases.  Professor Kalsher’s current research interests focus mainly on human factors issues, including development and evaluation of warnings and instructions, allocation of blame for consumer product injuries, and the use of emerging technologies to enhance communications in noisy environments (e.g., tanks, helicopters).  Kalsher is along-time runner and his hobbies include making fine wines.

Rebecca A. Henry is currently Visiting Associate Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  She received her Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Illinois and was on the faculty in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University for 14 years.  She has published articles in several journals, including Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (OBHDP).  Professor Henry supervised over a dozen doctoral and master’s students and served as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue.  While at Purdue she taught several undergraduate and graduate level courses and was honored as the Department’s undergraduate teaching award nominee several times.

Professor Henry’s research has spanned several topic areas in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, including group decision making, organizational citizenship, and ability testing.  She currently serves on the editorial boards of Psychology and Marketing and OBHDP.  Her hobbies include music and baking.