58 Nick Atlas
world around us” (p. 194). The authors then take the further, useful step of
explaining that “the term consciousness has multiple meanings” (p. 194).
Using sub-headers to delineate between “Consciousness as Variations in
Alertness,” “Consciousness as an Awareness of Ongoing Sensations,” and
“Consciousness as Self-Awareness,” the authors succeed in orienting
readers toward this expanded perspective (p. 195). The authors even
invoke William James (1890), the father of American psychology, who
coined the term “stream of consciousness” in his attempt to describe the
workings of conscious awareness, which he believed is perpetually in flux.
James’s contributions to the study of consciousness are noticeably absent
from the other chapters reviewed herein.
In summation, each textbook has its strengths and weaknesses when it
comes to defining consciousness and, as with most things, an integrative
approach would be ideal. The lack of consensus among the authors is
particularly troubling seeing as instructors often choose introductory
psychology textbooks, of which there are countless versions and editions,
arbitrarily. Thus, students exposed to one textbook may potentially proceed
with a different though, in most cases, equally substandard understanding
of what consciousness means versus comparable students exposed to
another textbook. One would hope that, at the very least, future textbooks
will acknowledge the difficulties in defining consciousness, similar to
Coon and Mitterer’s (2015) approach, while also providing nuanced,
alternative examples, such as in the case of Cacioppo and Freberg (2016).
Additionally, ample attention ought to be paid to representing alternative
perspectives on consciousness as have been espoused by marginalized
branches of psychology and, specifically, non-Western groups, some of
whom have been studying consciousness for thousands of years. This
approach will be revisited later in this chapter.
Presupposing “Normal Waking Consciousness”
Along with the complications that arise via a widespread deficiency in
the ways that consciousness is defined, are the consequences that result