Abstract
Introductory textbooks may be considered as testimonials to the level of a science at a given time. Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology has been published in 13 editions, the first in 1953 and the last in the year 2000. The analysis of the successive editions of this text provides information regarding the changes that have taken place within the field of psychology during the last half of the 20th century. The contents of the text that are analyzed in this study include the definition of psychology that appears throughout this period, the emphasis that is given to the various psychological processes and the areas of psychology, and the presence of authors with a larg e number of works cited in the successive editions.
