Reading around areas of interest with ‘popular’ books can often help you to connect psychological science to wider social and cultural matters. There are plenty of ‘list’ sites on the web to help you such as 100 Greatest Psychology Books of All Time.

• Allan Pease, Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It
• Anil Ananthaswamy, The Man who Wasn't There: Investigations Into the Strange New Science of the Self. Penguin.
• Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
• Carol Tavris, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
• David Buss, Evolutionary psychology: the new science of the mind.
• Geoff Rolls, Classic Case Studies in Psychology
• John Colapinto, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
• John Kounios and Mark Beeman. The Eureka Factor: Aha Moments, Creative Insight, and the Brain. Random House,
• Lauren Slater, Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
• Lone Frank, Mindfield: How Brain Science is Changing Our World.
• Malcolm Gladwell, Blink; The Tipping Point
• Matt Ridley, Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
• Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
• Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat
• Paul Broks, Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology 
• Powell, John. Why You Love Music: From Mozart to Metallica--The Emotional Power of Beautiful Sounds. Hachette UK, 2016.
• Robert Wright, The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
• Russ Rymer, Genie: A Scientific Tragedy
• Steve Silberman, Neurotribes: The legacy of autism and the future of neurodiversity. Penguin,
• Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything
• Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works; The Blank Slate; The Stuff of Thought
• Sue Gerhardt, Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain
• Susan R. Barry, Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist’s Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions,
• V.S. Ramachandran, Phantoms in the Brain: Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind

You will study 3 modules across your first year:

• Research Design and Analysis
• Psychology of the individual: Development, Personality, Brain and Cognition
• Self and Society

We suggest that you do not need to purchase any specific textbooks prior to starting with us as you might want to see what’s in the library, and in addition some books are available as ‘e’ books from the library. Also as books are published across the year and some areas of teaching will not begin until January, lecturers may review and change which textbook best fits their teaching.

To give you an idea of the textbooks used on these modules you could lookout for the following:

Research Design and Analysis

• Langdridge & Hagger-Johnson (2013) Introduction to Research Methods and Data Analysis in Psychology 3rd ed, Pearson

Self and Society

• Hogg, M.A. & Vaughan, G.M. (2014) (7th edition). Social Psychology. Harlow: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Psychology of the individual: Development, Personality, Brain and Cognition

• Maltby, J., Day, L., & Macaskill, A. (2013). Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence (3rd ed.) Harlow: Pearson.
• Breedlove, S.M. & Watson, N.V. (2013). Biological Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral, Cognitive, and Clinical Neuroscience (7th ed.). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates Inc.
• Eysenck, M.W. & Keane, M.T. (2015). Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook 7th ed.  Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

If popular psychology material doesn’t hit the right note it’s worth trying an old classic or two. Many such readings can be found online. For example at Classics in the History of Psychology. Reading this type of material can help you understand how psychology has developed and how some of the key questions in the field have developed. Again these are just suggestions – go with your interest.

• Andreasen, N. C. (1985). The broken brain. Harper Collins.
• Bandura A. (1977) Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice-Hall.
• Barondes, S. H. (1993). Molecules and mental illness. Scientific American Library. Nueva York.
• Berger P. and Luckman T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
• Darwin, C. (1872). The origin of species. Lulu. com.
• Freud S. (1991) New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. (Translated by James Strachey) London. Penguin.
• Freud S. (1999) The interpretation of dreams. (Translated by Joyce Crick) Oxford. Oxford University Press.
• Garfinkel H. (1967) Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs N.J. Prentice-Hall.
• Goffman E. (1969) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London. Allen Lane.
• Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man.
• Gregory, R. L. (1973). Eye and brain: The psychology of seeing.
• Maslow A.H. (1970) Motivation and Personality. New York. Harper and Row. 2nd ed
• Maslow A.H. (1999) Toward a psychology of being. New York, Chichester. Wiley. (Originally published 1968)
• Milgram, S., & Gudehus, C. (1978). Obedience to authority.
• Murray, C., & Herrnstein, R. (1994). The bell curve.
• Peterson C., Maler S.F. and Seligman M.E.P. (1993) Learned Helplessness: A theory for the age of personal control. New York. Oxford University Press.
• Rogers C.R. (1965) Client Centred Therapy: Its current practice. Implications and theory. London. Constable.
• Rogers C.R. (1980) A Way of Being. Boston. Houghton Mifflin.
• Sacks O. (1985) The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, And Other Clinical Tales. Simon and Schuster.
• Shotter, J. (1975) Images of Man in Psychological Research. London: Methuen.
• Skinner B.F. (1953) Science and human behavior. New York. Macmillan.
• Squire, L. R. (1987). Memory and brain. New York.
• Watson J.B. (1929) Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. Philadelphia. Lippincott. 3rd ed.
• Watson J.B. (1998) Behaviorism. New Brunswick N.J. Transaction. (Originally published 1924)
• Winnicott D.W. (1964) The Child the Family and the Outside World. London. Pelican.

Psychology is embedded in all films, but there are many films with specific psychological orientations which can be useful to watch for entertainment value but also for the cultural and historical references they offer. There are plenty of crime/thriller/horror/fantasy films which tap into psychological themes and ideas.

Some films which take up specific ‘psychological themes, or provide cultural reference points include:

• A beautiful mind. 2001
• A Clockwork Orange, 1971
• A Dangerous Method. 2012
• As Good As It Gets. 1997
• Black Swan 2010
• Girl, Interrupted. 1999
• Memento 2000
• My Left Foot 1989
• One flew over the cuckoo's nest. 1975
• Ordinary People 1980
• Rain Man 1988
• Requiem for a Dream 2000
• Still Alice 2014
• Sybil 1976 Mini-Series
• The Breakfast Club 1985
• The Deer Hunter 1978
• The Stanford Prison Experiment 2015
• Trainspotting 1996

On the web

There are of zillions of sites on the web, if you want to dip into some interesting material try…

https://www.psychologytoday.com/

http://www.apa.org/

https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/

…and of course there is plenty of other media such as TED talks, many of which cover Psychology - https://www.ted.com/topics/psychology.