(1)A Handbook of Social Psychology (2)The Growth and Distribution of Population

Abstract

(1)IF by a handbook is meant a small book such as may be held in the hand the original meaning of the word then this volume of some 1,200 closely printed pages is not a handbook; and if by social psychology is understood, for example, “the study of personality as it develops in relation to social environment” (Kimball Young), a large part of this book is not social psychology. The same applies if some other well-known definitions of social psychology are adopted; such as “the science of man in his social relationships” (Thouless), “the science which explains human social life” (Folsom), “the interpretation of the psychical processes manifested in the growth and functioning of a group as a unity” (Ellwood), “the study of the psychic planes and currents that come into existence among men in consequence of their association” (Ross). The only definition that possibly covers the scope of this book is Allport's “the science which studies the behavior of the individual in so far as his behavior stimulates other individuals or is itself a reaction to their behavior”. The individual, so far as this work is concerned, can be a man, a bacterial cell, a weed, an oyster, an ant, a bee or a monkey. The mechanical (using this word in no derogatory connotation) implications of this definition are evident in the treatment and arrangement of the whole work.

(1)A Handbook of Social Psychology

W. C. Allee Gordon W. Allport Friedrich Alverdes R. E. Buchanan Frederic E. Clements J. F. Dashiell Erwin A. Esper Herbert Fried-mann Edwin Deeks Harvey Melville J. Hers-kovits Catharine Cox Miles Walter R. Miles Gardner Murphy Lois Barclay Murphy O. E. Plath Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe Victor E. Shel-ford Warren S. Thompson W. D. Wallis F. L. Wells Raymond Royce Willoughby Clark Wissler Ada W. Yerkes Robert M. Yerkes. Carl Murchison. (International University Series in Psychology.) Pp. xii + 1195. (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1935.) 27s. net.

(2)The Growth and Distribution of Population

Dr. S. Vere Pearson. Pp. 448. London: George Alien and Unwin, Ltd., 1935.) 12s. 6d. net.