ISBN0073107263

Shelley Taylor may be a well-respected researcher, but her skills as a textbook writer/educator leave much to be desired. She is primarily an academic social psychologist, and it shows-- there are very few clinical applications of the theory in the text. The book is very, very dry, repetitive, and (perhaps most importantly) it occasionally gives somewhat dated information. (This despite the fact that there was a delay in receiving my text because it was brand new!). I found the text to be somewhat condescending-- it attempts to make the information relevant to college/university students by discussing issues that our age group might identify with-- but I personally felt that Dr. Taylor has underestimated what undergraduates are capable of understanding. I also know that many, many other students in my health psych course disliked this text, and our instructor was even motivated enough to change texts for her next course!

Although the coverage of typical behavioral medicine topics like stress, pain, and chronic diseaseis adequate, INJURY is the leading cause of death to children, adolescents and young adults and is poorly represented in examples and literature. The CDC recently released a bibliography of scientific literature on behavioral science approaches to unintentional injuries (accidents) that lists 800+ scientific articles addressing injury prevention interventions (cdc.gov/injury). This textbook does not discuss these studies or cite case examples of health psychology applied to injury prevention. Chronic disease and pain are not the only maladies helped by health psycholgists.

I have not received this book yet, it was sent out to my dad's address, but returned to Amazon since I have a forwarding at the post office to my new address, and when re-ordered, it still hasn't shipped again.

Not only are the chapters of Taylor's book of ridiculous length (ch.3 is nearly 40 pages) The information provided as "case studies" is dated and boring. My largest qualm with this book is that is extremely repetitive. It's almost like when you have a long paper to write over a topic with little previous research, and you write the same things over and over in different ways just to lengthen it. This book is a great example of that. Some of the info in it is good but there's no need for the repitition. Also, the book is expensive ($124.55 at my university) but is very bland in appearance- No Color! Not even the pictures. Don't buy this book unless you have to.

The book is just as described and in great condition. I received it very quickly and am happy with the transaction. I would recommend this seller.