Psychology can be deadly. It can be disjointed， hypertechnical， irrelevant，<br >and dull. At the other extreme， it can be sensational. Like a Sunday supple-<br >ment， it can tease us and leave us with nothing.<br > What psychology ought to be is something in between. First， it should be<br >sound pedagogy. What we ask students to learn and teachers to teach ought<br >to be educationally valuable and worth the time and effort to pursue it. There<br >is no need to sacrifice scholarship for popularity， to trade rigor for large audi-<br >ences. At the same time， what we learn and what we teach ought to be inter-<br >esting， especially in the beginning courses. There is no requirement that rigor<br >and scholarship be dry and dusty.<br > The trick is to find this middle ground where pedagogy is not dull， where<br >interest is not vain. One possibility might be general human psychology.<br >This is certainly an area of natural human interest--there is nothing more<br >fascinating to you and me than me and you. And even more important， gen-<br >eral human psychology furnishes a literature that can illustrate sound psycho-<br >logical principles， precise methodology， and fine exposition. We have chosen<br >general human psychology as the scope of this collection.<br > II<br >How can we choose articles for a collection of readings in general human<br >psychology? We can search the literature for those that meet selected criteria.<br >As we have already stressed， each selection must be substantive， competently<br >describing or illustrating at least one important principle， point， or concept.<br >Each must also be stimulating， both in the sense of general appeal and in the<br >sense of being just different enough， just difficult enough， to pique the read-<br >er s interest. At the same time， each article must be readable and intelligible<br >and sufficiently pertinent and current to describe psychology today and its<br >growing responsiveness to present-day questions. Finally， the collection as a<br >