Synopses & Reviews
Personality: Determinants, Dynamics, and Potentials is a comprehensive survey of contemporary research and theory in personality psychology. The book provides balanced coverage of biological, cognitive, affective, social, and interpersonal determinants of personality functioning and individual differences. The authors organize these factors within an overarching theoretical framework that highlights the dynamic transactions between individuals and the sociocultural environment, and the human capacities for self-reflection and self-regulation. The book's broad, integrative approach to the study of personality reveals how advances throughout the psychological sciences illuminate the classic questions of personality psychology.
Review
"Personality: Determinants, Dynamics, and Potentials does a great service to personality psychology by providing an up-to-date summary and discussion of the current theory and research in the field." American Psychological Association Review of Books"It is simply the best book of its kind. Its lucid, deep, and interesting treatment of the core issues in personality psychology make it a real contribution to the field. Every student of personality should read it." Carol S. Dweck, Professor of Psychology, Columbia University"The new look in personality! For quite some time, we have been hoping for a text that goes beyond the separatism and bias favoring one or the other approach to the psychology of personality. With an elegant treatment of both individual differences and personality process research, Caprara and Cervone have succeeded admirably in joining these two traditions. Their powerful integration points the way to a new future for the psychology of personality. I congratulate the authors on this stunning achievement." Paul Baltes, Director of the Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max-Planck Institute for Human Development"Fifty years ago, Gordon Allport, a founder of personality psychology, implored: 'No door should be closed in the study of personality.' Now, Caprara and Cervone have written a book that opens doors onto this exciting field. The book is peerless in its breadth of scholarship and open-minded attitude toward psychological science. I recommend this remarkably informative book to fellow researchers and teachers; all of us will learn a great deal from it and so too will our students." Professor Avshalom Caspi Institute of Psychiatry, London, and University of Wisconsin-Madison""This volume is a masterful, integrative contribution to the field of personality." Albert Bandura, David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology, Stanford University"Personality psychology has undergone major changes in recent decades, and there is now a greater need than ever for new textbooks to provide an integrative analysis and review of this important field. Caprara and Cervone accomplish this in a stimulating book that represents an important contribution to the field, and that should find a ready audience among researchers as well as among students as an advanced textbook in courses on personality psychology." Joseph P. Forgas, Scientia Professor of Psychology, University of New South Wales
Synopsis
A comprehensive survey of contemporary research and theory in personality psychology.
Table of Contents
Part I. Introduction to Personality Psychology: Prologue: personality psychology as an integrative discipline; 1. The domain of personality psychology; 2. Origins, history, and progress; Part II. Description and Explanation: 3. Individual differences: traits, temperament, and intelligence; 4. Personality coherence and individual uniqueness: interactionism and social-cognitive systems; Part III. The Development of Personality: 5. Personality development across the course of life; 6. Genetics, brain systems, and personality; 7. Interpersonal relations; 8. Social contexts and social constructions: work, education, family, and gender; Part IV. The Dynamics of Personality: 9. Knowledge structures and interpretive processes; 10. Affective experience: emotions and mood; 11. Unconscious processes and conscious experience; 12. Motivation and self-regulation; Part V. Epilogue.