An Intercountry Comparison of Textbooks Used for Introductory Psychology Courses

Abstract

The preliminary results seem to indicate that the content areas emphasized by different countries in their textbooks or lectures reflect their interests and development in the field of psychology. It seems that Japan, South Africa, Germany, and to some extent the United States, place high emphasis on areas of experimental such as learning, perception, motivation, emotion, and thinking. Probably the United States is the leader in teaching abnormal, guidance and therapy, and personality areas in the introductory course. France stands unique with her philosophical orientation while Russia stands out with her emphasis on conditioning. Germany, of course, places high emphasis on theoretical, however, this emphasis is not as high at it was at one time.