Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology

Jeff Greenberg editor Sander L Koole editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Guilford Publications

Published:15th Jul '04

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology cover

Social and personality psychologists traditionally have focused their attention on the most basic building blocks of human thought and behavior, while existential psychologists pursued broader, more abstract questions regarding the nature of existence and the meaning of life. This volume bridges this longstanding divide by demonstrating how rigorous experimental methods can be applied to understanding key existential concerns, including death, uncertainty, identity, meaning, morality, isolation, determinism, and freedom. Bringing together leading scholars and investigators, the Handbook presents the influential theories and research findings that collectively are helping to define the emerging field of experimental existential psychology.

Handbooks are often about the past. They integrate what's known. The Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology is about the future. It creates a new field that speaks to the fundamental question of how human beings confront the reality of their lives. It is original in placing 'experimental' next to 'existential.' Heidegger and Sartre will smile. - Mahzarin R. Banaji, Harvard University

Like many other academics, I was drawn to psychology because I wanted to know more about the fundamental properties of existence - love, death, religion, pain, sex, morality, and the meaning of life. And, like others, I was soon lost in the details of far more circumscribed questions. This handbook reminds me why I love psychology. The authors dare to tackle some of the most basic questions about human existence, using sophisticated scientific methods and theories. The writing is crisp and the topics are bold and exciting. This is the finest edited book that I have seen in many, many years. - James W. Pennebaker, University of Texas at Austin

How do ordinary people struggle with profound existential issues such as the certainty of death and the problem of finding meaning in life?... Psychologists historically have viewed such questions as too abstract or too difficult to address with the scientific method. In contrast, this volume shows that the marriage of experimental and existential psychology is not only possible, but immensely fruitful. The contributing authors - experts in social and personality psychology - address such core existential issues as people's attempts to find meaning in life, and search for love... all in a scientifically rigorous and theoretically rich way. This handbook is a 'must read' for graduate students in psychology; scholars in sociology, anthropology, and other disciplines; and others concerned with issues of mortality and meaning. Kudos to Greenberg et al. for having the insight and courage to unite existential and experimental psychology. - Lyn Y. Abramson, University of Wisconsin, Madison

This remarkably wide-ranging and informative collection of essays offers the best refutation yet of the common charge that, the more precise a psychology's research methods, the more trivial its findings are likely to be. Drawing on fundamental themes from clinic-derived existential psychology - authenticity, choice, awareness, meaning, anxiety, temporality, and death, among others - but largely setting aside its abstruse philosophical underpinnings, the authors demonstrate that rigorous empirical methods can take us far in illuminating the complex contours of the human condition. This book gathers together a scattered but surprisingly voluminous and coherent literature, providing a vade mecum for an emerging subject area that we can only hope will gain increasing attention among researchers in psychology and related fields. - David M. Wulff, Wheaton College, Massachusetts

ISBN: 9781593850401

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 1200g

528 pages