More Examples, Less Theory : Historical Studies of Writing Psychology

This easy-to-read book contains studies of key psychologists from the past, throwing new light on Freud, William James, Kurt Lewin and others. Written for psychologists, social scientists and students, Michael Billig uses the past to argue for the continuing importance of examples and the comparative unimportance of theory.

In his new book, Michael Billig uses psychology''s past to argue that nowadays, when we write about the mind, we should use more examples and less theory. He provides a series of historical studies, analysing how key psychological writers used examples. Billig offers new insights about famous analysts of the mind, such as Locke, James, Freud, Tajfel and Lewin. He also champions unfairly forgotten figures, like the Earl of Shaftesbury and the eccentric Abraham Tucker. There is a cautionary chapter on Lacan, warning what can happen when examples are ignored. Marie Jahoda is praised as the ultimate example: a psychologist from the twentieth century with a social and rhetorical imagination fit for the twenty-first. More Examples, Less Theory is an easy-to-read book that will inform and entertain academics and their students. It will particularly appeal to those who enjoy the details of examples rather than the simplifications of big theory.