Psychology textbooks are set module by module, and module lists move more slowly than publishers. The University of York's second-year research methods module recommends Andy Field's statistics textbook in its "Fourth or Fifth Edition"; Sage published the sixth in February 2024. At Southern Utah University, two sections of one Fall 2026 lifespan course set different editions of the same book.
EdCitation publishes this guide. It takes the books a psychology degree reads from the 2026 descriptors and syllabi of York, whose BSc is accredited by the British Psychological Society, Southern Utah and Edinburgh, each read on 23 September 2026. It covers editions, the free open textbook and citing in APA 7 with Cite a source, then shows the books together in EdCitation's Library.
What is on a first-year psychology reading list?
A first-year psychology reading list names one or two books for each strand at York, and one large introductory textbook at Southern Utah, with a statistics text at both. Few lists set many books, and some set none.
York: a book for each strand
York's first year has five core modules, from Brain and Behaviour to Research Methods (University of York, n.d.). Perception and Cognition 1 lists Memory by Baddeley, Eysenck and Anderson, Basic Vision by Snowden, Thompson and Troscianko, and Quinlan and Dyson's Cognitive Psychology (University of York, 2026d). Research Methods 1 lists Katie Slocombe's custom textbook and Christine Dancey's Statistics Without Maths for Psychology, recommended as a gentle first step into statistics (University of York, 2026e).
The other strands name Trevor Harley's The Psychology of Language and An Introduction to Developmental Psychology, edited by Alan Slater and Gavin Bremner (University of York, 2026c); Hogg and Vaughan's Social Psychology and Ann Kring's Abnormal Psychology, "two of the most useful textbooks for this strand" (University of York, 2026g); and chapters from cognitive neuroscience textbooks by Dale Purves and Jamie Ward (University of York, 2026a).
Southern Utah: one introductory textbook
Southern Utah's General Psychology is built on one introductory text. Its Spring 2026 online section set OpenStax's Psychology 2e and required APA 7 throughout (Southern Utah University, 2026d); a Fall 2026 face-to-face section sets Exploring Psychology, 13th edition, by Myers, DeWall and Gruber (Southern Utah University, 2026c). Lifespan Development, another 1000-level course, sets Janet Belsky's Experiencing the Lifespan.
When the descriptor lists nothing
Edinburgh's Psychology 1A descriptor for 2026/27 gives its reading list as "None" (University of Edinburgh, 2026), and York's third-year clinical module says it uses mainly journal articles and has no core texts (University of York, 2026b). The books then sit in the course's online reading list, and the articles come from a search, such as EdCitation's Find sources, which covers about 300 million published works.
Which psychology textbooks do students need, area by area?
Psychology students need books in eight areas: introductory psychology, research methods and statistics, biological psychology, cognition, development, social psychology, clinical psychology, and the style manual.
| Area | University of York, 2026/27 | Southern Utah University, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory psychology | No single text; each strand sets its own | Psychology 2e (OpenStax); Exploring Psychology, 13th ed. |
| Research methods and statistics | Slocombe, 2010, and Dancey, 2007 (year 1); Field, fourth or fifth edition (year 2) | Privitera, Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, 4th ed.; Creswell and Creswell, Research Design, 5th ed. |
| Biological psychology and neuroscience | Purves, 2nd ed., 2013; Ward, 2010 | Not set in the syllabi read |
| Cognition and perception | Quinlan and Dyson, 2008; Snowden, Thompson and Troscianko, 2012; Baddeley, Eysenck and Anderson, 2015 | Reisberg, Cognition, 8th ed. |
| Language and development | Harley, 3rd ed., 2008; Slater and Bremner, 2nd ed., 2011 | Belsky, Experiencing the Lifespan, 4th and 6th eds |
| Social psychology | Hogg and Vaughan, 6th ed., 2011 | Not set in the syllabi read |
| Clinical and abnormal psychology | Kring, 13th ed., 2016; Davey, 2nd ed., 2014; Kennerley, Kirk and Westbrook, 3rd ed., 2017 | Oltmanns and colleagues, Psychopathology and Mental Health, 10th ed., ©2025 |
| The style manual | Not named in the descriptors | Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed. |
| Every title above, together | EdCitation's Library, searched by title, author or ISBN | Each reference built in Cite a source |
The US column draws on seven Southern Utah syllabi (Southern Utah University, 2026a, 2026b, 2026c, 2026e, 2026f, 2026g, 2026h).
The Publication Manual is a set text
Psychology's style guide comes from its own association, and Southern Utah's Research Design Lab sets it beside the methods textbook (Southern Utah University, 2026g). APA's own page presents the seventh edition (American Psychological Association, 2020c) as the official source for APA Style, dates the paperback October 2019, and lists sample student papers, guidance on citing course materials and more than 100 new reference examples (American Psychological Association, n.d.). The book carries 2020, and 2020 is the year to cite: APA dates a book by its copyright page, not by the day it went on sale (American Psychological Association, 2020a).
Is there a free psychology textbook?
Yes. OpenStax, based at Rice University, publishes Psychology 2e, for a one-semester introductory course, free to read online under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (Spielman et al., 2020). Published on 22 April 2020, it runs to 16 chapters, from an introduction to psychology to therapy and treatment. Its preface says the second edition added or updated over 210 research references and added coverage of replication, in the research chapter and wherever a key study is discussed.
Two cautions. It covers the DSM-5, by its own description, not the 2022 DSM-5-TR a clinical module will expect. And Southern Utah's syllabus lists thirteen authors, while OpenStax's citation fields name three, Spielman, Jenkins and Lovett: those three go in the reference. More open textbooks, subject by subject: free textbooks you can use legally.
Which edition of a psychology textbook should I use?
Stay with the edition your module sets unless a newer one changes something you are assessed on, and ask the module lead before switching. Four of the textbooks York names, and at least one of Southern Utah's, have a newer edition than the one on the list.
| Book | On the list | Latest edition | What is new, according to the publisher or author |
|---|---|---|---|
| Field, Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics | 4th or 5th (York, year 2) | 6th, February 2024, 1,144 pages | Written for SPSS version 29; the multilevel models chapter rewritten; growth models and multinomial logistic regression taken out |
| Hogg and Vaughan, Social Psychology | 6th, 2011 (York) | 9th, 2021 | New material on the replication crisis of the 2010s and the Open Science Movement; populism, COVID-19 and climate change |
| Kring, Abnormal Psychology | 13th, 2016 (York) | 15th, DSM-5-TR update, July 2022 | Updated for the DSM-5-TR, published in March 2022 |
| Slater and Bremner, An Introduction to Developmental Psychology | 2nd, 2011 (York) | 3rd, April 2017 | New chapters on social development in infancy and on self and gender; more from neuroscience |
| Creswell and Creswell, Research Design | 5th (Southern Utah) | 6th, October 2022 | Revised to follow the seventh edition of the APA Publication Manual |
Sources: the lists above, Field (n.d.), Hogg and Vaughan (2021), Kring and Johnson (2022), Slater et al. (2017) and Sage (n.d.).
What moves a psychology textbook between editions
Three things, mostly. The diagnostic manual: Kring's fifteenth edition follows the DSM-5-TR, which York's 2016 edition predates. The replication debate: Hogg and Vaughan's ninth edition and Psychology 2e both added it. And software: Field wrote his sixth edition using SPSS version 29 (Field, n.d.).
A newer edition can also lose something. Field took out multinomial logistic regression and growth models to make room, so a module teaching those from the fifth edition is right to keep it. He also removed a worked example built on research by Nicolas Guéguen, citing concerns about Guéguen's research practices and the retraction of some of his other studies. Check the papers you cite from a textbook against the record: EdCitation's Verify references does it for a whole list and flags retractions, as retracted papers in your reference list explains.
One course, two editions
In Fall 2026, Southern Utah's face-to-face Lifespan Development section sets Belsky's fourth edition, dated 2013, and its online section sets the sixth (Southern Utah University, 2026e, 2026f). Buy from your own section's syllabus, and cite the edition you read.
How do I cite a psychology textbook in APA 7?
A psychology textbook's APA 7 reference gives who wrote or edited it, the year on its copyright page, its title in sentence-case italics followed by the edition in brackets, then the publisher and any DOI, and leaves out the place of publication (American Psychological Association, 2020a). A chapter gets its own reference only when the book is edited and the chapter has its own authors (American Psychological Association, 2020b).
- Take the details from the title and copyright pages, not the reading list or the cover.
- Give EdCitation's Cite a source the ISBN, or the book's DOI; it is free with no account, and it finds the book in the publisher's record rather than writing the entry itself.
- Check the entry against the title page: edition, editors, sentence case, publisher.
- For a chapter of an edited book, add its authors, title and pages from the contents page.
- Run the finished list through Verify references.
The Publication Manual, from its ISBN and from its DOI
The paperback's ISBN, 9781433832161, went into Cite a source for this guide. It returned:
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).
The association is named once, as author, with the copyright year and the edition; the title is in sentence case and only the DOI is missing. The DOI, 10.1037/0000165-000, returned the entry APA itself gives for the book:
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
The publisher's record behind that DOI names no author at all, so EdCitation took the author from the book's own ISBN record rather than guess it, and set the edition apart from the title, outside the italics, where APA puts it. When a book has a DOI, give Cite a source the DOI.
Citing one chapter of an edited book
An Introduction to Developmental Psychology is edited, each chapter with its own authors, so a chapter goes under them. Chapter 1 of the third edition:
Slater, A., Johnson, S. P., & Muir, D. (2017). The scope and methods of developmental psychology. In A. Slater & J. G. Bremner (Eds.), An introduction to developmental psychology (3rd ed., pp. 3–40). Wiley.
In the text: (Slater et al., 2017). From ISBN 9781118767207, Cite a source returned Slater, A., & Bremner, J. G. (2017). An introduction to developmental psychology. BPS Blackwell: the editors as authors, with no "(Eds.)" and no edition. The publisher is the one detail we could not read at source: the record says BPS Blackwell, Wiley sells the book in its BPS Textbooks in Psychology series, and the copyright page decides. Where it names two publishers, APA lists both in its order, separated by a semicolon (Adams, 2019).
Copy names and years from the book
Lists carry errors. York's clinical module spells an editor of Clinical Psychology in Practice "Beinhart" (University of York, 2026b); Wiley's page gives Helen Beinart (Wiley, n.d.). Southern Utah's Research Design Lab dates the seventh edition of the Publication Manual 2009 (Southern Utah University, 2026g); APA dates it 2020.
For more, see a whole book in four styles, every kind of textbook chapter, and, for the DSM-5-TR, tests and measures, APA 7 for psychology students.
Where can I find all my psychology books together?
EdCitation's Library is the best place to gather a psychology reading list, because the list itself is scattered: York's eleven first-year titles come from at least five publishers, and tracing this guide's editions meant three universities' pages and five publishers' sites. The Library answers with a single catalogue. Searching Hogg and Vaughan's Social Psychology, sorted newest first, brought up the 2021 ninth edition at the top and York's 2011 edition lower in the same results, both with publisher and year.
What the searches turned up
Field's statistics textbook returned eleven records, the 2013 fourth edition among them; Belsky's Experiencing the Lifespan returned 53, from 2022 sixth-edition packages back to the fourth; Kring's Abnormal Psychology 69. Psychology is one of the Library's 31 disciplines, alongside Statistics and Research methods. Browsing Psychology with the kind set to Textbook returned 6,097 books on 23 September 2026; other kinds include handbooks and manuals, study guides and case studies, and language, length and year narrow any search.
A result gives the cover, the authors, the publisher and the year, and says whether the book opens in the Library or has to be bought. Every result offers the same moves: buy a paid book, see which libraries near you hold it, save it to My Books, or cite it in one click. Max adds the largest part, more than 5 million books to read or borrow, compiled by EdCitation for students and readers, so a psychology degree's reading is searched, kept, read and cited without changing tools.
What an account brings, and what needs Max
An EdCitation account, which costs nothing, brings the catalogue, My Books, the buying links and the search for a library copy. Reading and borrowing come with Max at $24 a month, or $216 for a year, together with Theoretics QA. No account at all is needed for Cite a source or Verify references; the plans are compared on Pricing.
Quick questions
What books do first-year psychology students need?
The books their module list sets. York's first-year strands name eleven, from Dancey's statistics primer to Hogg and Vaughan's Social Psychology; Southern Utah sets one introductory textbook, such as OpenStax's Psychology 2e.
Which edition of Discovering Statistics should I use?
The one your module names. York recommends the fourth or fifth; the sixth, from February 2024, was written for SPSS version 29 and dropped growth models and multinomial logistic regression.
Is OpenStax Psychology 2e really free?
Yes. OpenStax publishes Psychology 2e free to read online under a Creative Commons licence. It follows the DSM-5 rather than the DSM-5-TR.
How do I cite the APA Publication Manual in APA 7?
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000. The association is named once, as author, and 2020 is the copyright year.
Where can I find all my psychology books in one place?
EdCitation's Library holds them in one catalogue you can narrow by discipline, kind, language and year. Keep what you need in My Books, and with Max read or borrow from over 5 million books.
References
- Adams, A. (2019, October 8). Book and book chapter references: No location required. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/publisher-locations-in-book-references
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Publication manual (official) 7th edition of the American Psychological Association [Paperback]. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/publication-manual-7th-edition-paperback
- American Psychological Association. (2020a). Book/ebook references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references
- American Psychological Association. (2020b). Chapter in an edited book/ebook references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/edited-book-chapter-references
- American Psychological Association. (2020c). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
- Field, A. (n.d.). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics. Discovering Statistics. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://profandyfield.com/discoverse/dsus/
- Hogg, M. A., & Vaughan, G. M. (2021). Social psychology (9th ed.). Pearson. https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/subject-catalog/p/social-psychology/P200000004473/9781292741949
- Kring, A. M., & Johnson, S. L. (2022). Abnormal psychology: The science and treatment of psychological disorders (15th ed., DSM-5-TR update). Wiley. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Abnormal+Psychology:+The+Science+and+Treatment+of+Psychological+Disorders,+DSM+5+TR+Update,+15th+Edition-p-9781119933427
- Sage. (n.d.). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (6th ed.). Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/research-design/book270550
- Slater, A., Johnson, S. P., & Muir, D. (2017). The scope and methods of developmental psychology. In A. Slater & J. G. Bremner (Eds.), An introduction to developmental psychology (3rd ed., pp. 3–40). Wiley. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/An+Introduction+to+Developmental+Psychology,+3rd+Edition-p-9781118767207
- Southern Utah University. (2026a). PSY 2300-32I: Abnormal psychology [Syllabus, Spring 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202610/PSY-2300-32I/
- Southern Utah University. (2026b). PSY 3320-30I: Cognitive psychology [Syllabus, Fall 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202630/PSY-3320-30I/
- Southern Utah University. (2026c). PSY 1010-04: General psychology [Syllabus, Fall 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202630/PSY-1010-04/
- Southern Utah University. (2026d). PSY 1010-31I: General psychology [Syllabus, Spring 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202610/PSY-1010-31I/
- Southern Utah University. (2026e). PSY 1100-01: Lifespan development [Syllabus, Fall 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202630/PSY-1100-01/
- Southern Utah University. (2026f). PSY 1100-30I: Lifespan development [Syllabus, Fall 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202630/PSY-1100-30I/
- Southern Utah University. (2026g). PSY 3415-01: Research design lab [Syllabus, Fall 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202630/PSY-3415-01/
- Southern Utah University. (2026h). PSY 3010-01: Statistics in psychology [Syllabus, Fall 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202630/PSY-3010-01/
- Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). Psychology 2e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction
- University of Edinburgh. (2026). Psychology 1A (PSYL08009) [Course descriptor, 2026/27]. Degree Regulations and Programmes of Study. https://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/26-27/dpt/cxpsyl08009.htm
- University of York. (n.d.). Psychology (BSc). Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://www.york.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/bsc-psychology/
- University of York. (2026a). Brain & behaviour 1 (PSY00019C) 2026-27. https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PSY00019C/2026-27
- University of York. (2026b). Clinical psychology & applications of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) (PSY00011H) 2026-27. https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PSY00011H/2026-27
- University of York. (2026c). Language & development 1 (PSY00018C) 2026-27. https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PSY00018C/2026-27
- University of York. (2026d). Perception & cognition 1 (PSY00017C) 2026-27. https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PSY00017C/2026-27
- University of York. (2026e). Research methods in psychology I (PSY00015C) 2026-27. https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PSY00015C/2026-27
- University of York. (2026f). Research methods in psychology 2 (PSY00022I) 2026-27. https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PSY00022I/2026-27
- University of York. (2026g). Social psychology & individual differences 1 (PSY00016C) 2026-27. https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PSY00016C/2026-27
- Wiley. (n.d.). Clinical psychology in practice. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Clinical+Psychology+in+Practice-p-9781405167673