Personality Psychology: A Student-Centered Approach

NEW TO THIS EDITION: A new chapter on research methods (Chapter 2) facilitates students’ understanding of contemporary personality research and helps them evaluate the various approaches to understanding personality. A new chapter on disorders of personality (Chapter 8) offers a unique approach to understanding disorders of personality by directly comparing the traditional medical syndrome counting method with current psychological research that conceptualizes disorders in terms of extreme positions on personality traits. Up-to-date research—with the majority of citations from 2010 to 2016—reflects the most recent scholarship in the field. A focus on student-relevant research includes scholarship on such topics as Facebook, “hook-ups,” procrastination, and coping with stress. Two additional theoretical orientations—trait theory and evolutionary theory—broaden the book’s scope. Motives especially interesting to students, including mating, belonging to a group, and the dark triad, have been added to Chapter 6. Chapter-ending Internet Resources allow students to take various personality tests online, encouraging engagement with the material. New graphics, including a photograph of a major theorist, tables, graphs, illustrations, and two to three cartoons in every chapter, engage visual learners and highlight key concepts. New coverage of the Identity Fusion Theory (e.g., suicide bombers) introduces students to a topic extremely relevant to today’s world. KEY FEATURES: A question-and-answer format invites students to approach personality psychology with an active attitude of critical inquiry in their search for knowledge and self-discovery. Extensive coverage of evolutionary psychology helps students understand this important contemporary theory. Real-world examples in each chapter help students relate to the material on a personal level. Easy-to-understand coverage of five major theoretical orientations to personality—including psychodynamic, trait theory, cognitive/social learning, humanistic/existential/narrative, and evolutionary—helps students evaluate each theory in terms of how much it contributes to an understanding of their own personalities and lives and come to a deeper understanding of the personality theories.

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