Personality A Systems Approach

A lively new textbook that reflects the renaissance in the field of Personality Psychology by addressing in sequence: Human personality, its parts, organization, and development. The discipline of personality psychology can be viewed as responsible for explaining how a person's major psychological subsystems - motives, emotion, cognition, self, and more - work together. Today personality psychology is undergoing a renaissance in which new research and theory is emerging. This textbook helps students keep up with those emerging trends. Personality: A Systems Approach employs a new organization that integrates the best intellectual traditions within Personality Psychology. Over its four parts, the book examines what personality is, what personality's major subsystems (e.g., motives, the self) are, how personality's parts are organized, and how personality develops. Students will finish the course with an understanding of how personality systems work together and how personality develops from birth to the conclusion of life.Personality: A Systems Approach is based on a new, peer-reviewed outline for the field. That outline has been classroom tested over three trial editions of the book by multiple instructors - all before this exciting first edition by Allyn & Bacon. Personality perspectives are introduced early and are later drawn on in an integrative treatment of how personality functions. Chapters open with a real-life example or experience (e.g., Jon Krakauer's climb of Mount Everest as an example of motivated behavior), providing a concrete example with which to introduce the topics of the chapter. Key terms are defined in the margins of the book as those terms are introduced. Boxes focus on case studies, interdisciplinary connections, inside news of the field, and research studies Study questions appear at the end of every chapter. Short quotations appear in the margins to stimulate thinking and discussion. Further real life case appear in Case Study boxes. Disciplinary Crossroads boxes connect Personality Psychology to adjoining fields such as Literature, Artificial Intelligence, Political Science and Biology. Inside the Field boxes take the student behind the scenes -- to experience the discipline of personality psychology from the inside. Research in Focus boxes cover individual research issues or particular studies in detail. Connecting Windows link related topics across the book. For example, Freud's theory of motives is introduced in Chapter 3's coverage of theoretical perspectives; a connecting window there links it to current thinking on motives in Chapter 4. Facts at a Glance tables provide interesting statistics related to the subject matter. Over 1400 original sources of theory and research are cited, many of which are recently published. The Instructors Preface includes a section on how to use the book, allowing instructors to re-order their lectures accordingly. An extensive on-line instructor's manual includes sample lectures, demonstrations, recommended films, practice quizzes, and other teaching tools. Go to: www.ablongman.com/mayer1e. An accompanying book of readings provides further support for the classroom.