Mark R. Rosenzweig

(Publisher-supplied data) The 'scientific' aspects of psychology are a concern to many undergraduates, especially those with an arts background. As a result courses in biological psychology tend to be perceived as difficult, and are thus unpopular. However, biological psychology forms part of almost all first year undergraduate courses - so students must study it, and need a textbook that is both accessible and comprehensive. By combining cartoons with traditional text, the authors of this book have produced just that - an engaging, readable text that introduces key topics in biological psychology to those with no prior knowledge of the subject. The comic format will give a veneer of 'simplicity' that will help to alleviate students' anxiety about the material, and also encourage memorability of the material. Cartoons also allow for a level of involvement and interaction with the material, especially when it comes to case studies and experiments, and are ideal for showing the diagrammatic elements of biology by becoming part of the dialogue rather than an image beside it. The more traditional text sections of each chapter will consolidate the key learning topics, and can be used as a revision tool. It will also allow for full referencing, further readings recommendations and chapter summaries.

In anschaulicher Weise und prägnant informiert dieses Buch über den Gegenstandsbereich der Psychophysiologie. Die Autoren erläutern die Grundlagen, Methoden und Konzepte dieses Fachs, sie beschreiben die wissenschaftlichen Anwendungen und nehmen eine Einbettung in die Logik experimentell orientierter Wissenschaften vor. Zielgruppen/Target groups: Studenten der Psychologie

"In this paper we use a new data set describing households with and without twin children in China to quantify the trade-off between the quality and quantity of children using the incidence of twins that for the first time takes into account effects associated with the lower birthweight and closer-spacing of twins compared to singleton births. We show that examining the effects of twinning by birth order, net of the effects stemming from the birthweight deficit of twins, can provide upper and lower bounds on the trade-off between family size and average child quality. Our estimates indicate that, at least in one area of China, an extra child at parity one or at parity two, net of birthweight effects, significantly decreases the schooling progress, the expected college enrollment, grades in school and the assessed health of all children in the family. We also show that estimates of the effects of twinning at higher parities on the outcomes of older children in prior studies do not identify family size effects but are confounded by inter-child allocation effects because of the birthweight deficit of twins. Despite the evident significant trade-off between number of children and child quality in China, however, the findings suggest that the contribution of the one-child policy in China to the development of its human capital was modest"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.