Open Learning Units offer a very flexible approach to the teaching of psychology. They are designed to be more than sufficient for the purposes of A/S and A-Level psychology, and the applied emphasis will appeal to various vocational courses such as those offered by BTEC and also to mature students on Access courses.

Their primary use will be in the classroom with a tutor's guidance, but the interactive style makes them equally appropriate for the purposes of self-study. More advanced students might want to use the Units to learn at their own pace, and in all cases, the careful structure of the writing and the extensive use of Examples, Open Questions and Self-Assessment Questions make them ideal revision guides.

Ben R. Slugoski is the editor of Social Cognition, published by Wiley. Michael Argyle was one of the best known English social psychologists of the twentieth century. He spent most of his career at the University of Oxford, and worked on numerous topics.