WHAT SHOULD YOU READ

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To get selected for JRF, you need to score very high and that would require an in-depth study, therefore, each topic should be read in great detail. Below I have provided the list of books that I have used during my preparation. In some of these books I studied end to end and in others, I focused on particular topics. Please note that if you want to get your JRF, then you have to go through these books religiously and there is no shortcut or skipping. Note: You can find these books in your University Library too. Please buy only if you can afford them.

Basic Readings

1. If you have not done a serious study until now, then read and reread Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology. After reading this, don’t waste your time on NCERTS. This will help you in going through the basic concepts. Please go through this entire book and skip nothing.

In-depth Reading List

1. For the first Chapter Emergence of Psychology read The Comprehensive History of Psychology by Arun Kumar Singh. You can find this book at any bookshop. Read the relevant portions only.
2. To study the physiological basis of behaviour, refer to Pinel’s Biopsychology or Carlson’s Foundations of Physiological Psychology. (Entire Book).
3. For ‘Learning Processes ‘for that I would recommend Mazur’s Learning and Behavior (Relevant parts only)
4. For Personality consult “Theories of Personality” by either Schultz or Hall and Lindzeys. (Entire book)
5. For Research Methodology, Measurement and Testing consult A K Singh or Coolicon Research Methods and Statistics (Coolicon comprises both Research Methodology and Statistics) (Read the Entire Book).
6. For Psychological Testing please go through Psychological Testing: A Practical Approach by Leslie Miller. It’s an excellent introduction and will cover all your syllabus.
7. In my view, Hogg and Vaughan’s Social Psychology is better than Baron. Social Psychology dominates the question paper every year, so please go through this entire book.
8. Matlin’s book Cognition and Sternberg’s Cognitive Psychology give a detailed account of Perceptual Processes, Working Memory, Long-term Memory, Problem Solving and Creativity. (Read the entire book, including chapters on language development).
9. Siegel’s Nonparametric Statistics is one of the best for Nonparametric tests. (Entire Book).
10. Developmental Psychology goes through Theories of Developmental Psychology by Patricia H. Miller (Entire book).
11. For Clinical Psychology (Psychological Interventions) Go through Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice by Andrew M. Pomerantz. (Entire Book)
12. For Emerging Areas (Gender Psychology, Peace Psychology, Health Psychology and CyberPsychology). There is no one book for this topic, and the ones present in the market don’t cover the entire syllabus. You can go through Applied Psychology by IRS Smark Swain (Relevant parts only) but I would rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

Please note that the books sold in the market published by the editorial boards of different publishing houses won’t do any help. They are totally useless books and won’t help you with even scoring 5% marks in the exam (Books published by Arihant, Tata McGraw Hill or any publishing house). Our team of scholars has prepared study material for the UGC NET JRF exam which cover both the Basics and Advanced levels of topics and at the end of each chapter, we have added questions asked by UGC from those topics (for the last 17 years).