Drawing on cutting-edge scientific research, classic personality theories, and stirring examples from biography and literature, The Person presents a lively and integrative introduction to the science of personality psychology. Author, Dan McAdams, organizes the field according to a broad conceptual perspective that has emerged in personality psychology over the past 10 years. According to this perspective, personality is made up of three levels of psychological individuality - dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations (such as motives and goals), and integrative life stories. Traits, adaptations, and stories comprise the three most recognizable variations on psychological human nature, grounded in the human evolutionary heritage and situated in cultural and historical context. The fifth edition of this beautifully written text expands and updates research on the neuroscience of personality traits and introduces new material on personality disorders, evolution and religion, attachment in adulthood, continuity and change in personality over the life course, and the development of narrative identity.

Table of Contents:
Preface xix Part I The Background: Persons, Human Nature, and Culture 1 Chapter 1 Studying the Person 2 What Do We Know When We Know a Person? 3 SKETCHING AN OUTLINE: DISPOSITIONAL TRAITS 4 FILLING IN THE DETAILS: CHARACTERISTIC ADAPTATIONS 6 CONSTRUCTING A STORY: INTEGRATIVE LIFE NARRATIVES 9 Science and the Person 11 STEP 1: UNSYSTEMATIC OBSERVATION 12 STEP 2: BUILDING THEORIES 13 STEP 3: EVALUATING PROPOSITIONS 15 Setting Up an Empirical Study 16 The Correlational Design 18 The Experimental Design 20 Personality Psychology 21 THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 22 Feature 1.A: Gordon Allport and the Origins of Personality Psychology 25 ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK 27 Summary 28 Chapter 2 Evolution and Human Nature 31 On Human Nature: Our Evolutionary Heritage 32 PRINCIPLES OF EVOLUTION 32 THE ENVIRONMENT OF EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTEDNESS 35 Feature 2.A: The Evolution of Religion 37 THE ADAPTED MIND 39 MATING 42 GETTING ALONG AND GETTING AHEAD 47 Feature 2.B: Some Women (and Men) Are Choosier Than Others: Sociosexuality 48 Hurting, Helping, and Loving: Three Faces of Human Nature 50 AGGRESSION 51 ALTRUISM 54 ATTACHMENT 57 Summary 65 Chapter 3 Social Learning and Culture 67 Behaviorism and Social-Learning Theory 68 AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM: THE BEHAVIORIST TRADITION 68 EXPECTANCIES AND VALUES 74 BANDURA’S SOCIAL-LEARNING THEORY 76 Observational Learning 76 Self-Efficacy 78 The Social Ecology of Human Behavior 80 Feature 3.A: How Should Parents Raise Their Children? 81 MICROCONTEXTS: THE SOCIAL SITUATION 83 MACROCONTEXTS: SOCIAL STRUCTURE 85 GENDER AS A MACROCONTEXT 87 CULTURE 90 Individualism and Collectivism 92 Modernity 96 Feature 3.B: Race and Personality in the United States 97 HISTORY 99 Summary 102 Part II Sketching the Outline: Dispositional Traits and the Prediction of Behavior 105 Chapter 4 Personality Traits: Fundamental Concepts and Issues 106 The Idea of Trait 108 WHAT IS A TRAIT? 108 A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRAITS 111 Gordon Allport 113 Raymond B. Cattell 115 Hans Eysenck 116 THE BIG FIVE AND RELATED MODELS 119 Feature 4.A: What is Your Type? The Scientific Status of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator 124 Measuring Traits 125 CONSTRUCTING A TRAIT MEASURE 125 CRITERIA OF A GOOD MEASURE 128 TRAIT INVENTORIES 130 Feature 4.B: Narcissism: The Trait of Excessive Self-Love 131 PERSONALITY TRAITS AND PERSONALITY DISORDERS 136 The Controversy Over Traits 142 MISCHEL’S CRITIQUE 143 AGGREGATING BEHAVIORS 145 INTERACTIONISM 148 Persons versus Situations versus Interactions 148 Reciprocal Interactionism 149 Traits as Conditional Statements 150 CONCLUSION 152 Summary 153 Chapter 5 Five Basic Traits—In the Brain and in Behavior 155 E: Extraversion 157 SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE 157 FEELING GOOD 159 N: Neuroticism 163 Feature 5.A: Extreme Sports and the Sensation-Seeking Trait 164 THE MANY WAYS TO FEEL BAD 166 STRESS AND COPING 169 Feature 5.B: Are We Living in the Age of Anxiety? 170 Extraversion and Neuroticism in the Brain 172 EYSENCK AND THE THEORY OF AROUSAL 172 THE BEHAVIORAL APPROACH SYSTEM 175 THE BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION SYSTEM 177 LEFT AND RIGHT 181 O: Openness to Experience 183 CORRELATES OF O 185 THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 190 C and A: Conscientiousness and Agreeableness 192 WORK 193 LOVE 195 LIFE 197 Feature 5.C: Eysenck’s Psychoticism: Low A, Low C, and Some Other Bad Things 198 Summary 201 Chapter 6 Continuity and Change in Traits: The Roles of Genes, Environments, and Time 205 The Continuity of Traits 207 TWO KINDS OF CONTINUITY 207 DIFFERENTIAL CONTINUITY IN THE ADULT YEARS 210 CHILDHOOD PRECURSORS: FROM TEMPERAMENT TO TRAITS 213 The Origins of Traits: Genes and Environments 218 THE LOGIC OF TWIN AND ADOPTION STUDIES 219 HERITABILITY ESTIMATES OF TRAITS 222 SHARED ENVIRONMENT 225 NONSHARED ENVIRONMENT 227 Feature 6.A: Birth Order: A Nonshared Environmental Effect 228 HOW GENES SHAPE ENVIRONMENTS 229 GENE × ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS: NEW FINDINGS FROM NEUROSCIENCE 232 Change and Complexity 236 DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF CHANGE 236 TRAIT CHANGE IN THE ADULT YEARS 238 PATTERNS OF TRAITS OVER TIME 244 WHAT ELSE MIGHT CHANGE? 246 Feature 6.B: Happiness Over the Human Lifespan 247 Summary 249 Part III Filling in the Details: Characteristic Adaptations to Life Tasks 253 Chapter 7 Motives and Goals: What Do We Want in Life? 254 The Psychoanalytic View 255 THE UNCONSCIOUS 256 Feature 7.A: Sigmund Freud and the Birth of Psychoanalysis 258 REPRESSION AND REPRESSORS 261 THE EGO’S DEFENSES 265 The Humanistic View 271 CARL ROGERS’S THEORY 271 ABRAHAM MASLOW’S PSYCHOLOGY OF BEING 273 INTRINSIC MOTIVATION AND SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 275 The Diversity View 279 HENRY MURRAY’S THEORY OF NEEDS 279 THE TAT AND THE PSE 281 ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION 282 POWER MOTIVATION 286 INTIMACY MOTIVATION 290 IMPLICIT AND SELF-ATTRIBUTED MOTIVES 292 PERSONALIZED GOALS 295 Summary 298 Chapter 8 Self and Other: Social-Cognitive Aspects of Personality 301 The Psychology of Personal Constructs 302 GEORGE KELLY’S THEORY 303 EXPLORING PERSONAL CONSTRUCTS: THE REP TEST 305 Cognitive Styles and Personality 308 FIELD INDEPENDENCE–DEPENDENCE 309 INTEGRATIVE COMPLEXITY 312 Social-Cognitive Theory and the Person 315 Feature 8.A: Religious Values and Personality 316 SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE 317 SELF-SCHEMAS 321 POSSIBLE SELVES: WHAT I MIGHT BE; WHAT I MIGHT HAVE BEEN 323 DISCREPANCIES AMONG SELVES 326 SCHEMAS, ATTRIBUTIONS, AND EXPLANATORY STYLE: THE CASE OF DEPRESSION 328 Feature 8.B: The Positive Psychology of Virtue: Gratitude as an Example 332 MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS OF OTHERS: ATTACHMENT IN ADULTHOOD 334 Summary 342 Chapter 9 Developmental Stages and Tasks 345 Martin Luther’s Identity Crisis 346 Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development 350 DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES IN CHILDHOOD 350 Feature 9.A: Early Object Relations 353 THE PROBLEM OF IDENTITY 355 Adolescence and Young Adulthood 355 Identity Statuses 357 Identity and Intimacy 360 GENERATIVITY AND ADULT DEVELOPMENT 363 A Model of Generativity 363 Individual Differences in Generativity 368 Integrity 370 Jane Loevinger’s Theory of Ego Development 371 STAGES OF THE EGO 372 The Infant 374 The Child 375 The Adolescent 376 The Adult 377 MEASURING EGO DEVELOPMENT 378 CONCLUSION 381 Summary 382 Part IV Making a Life: The Stories We Live By 385 Chapter 10 Life Scripts, Life Stories 386 The Meaning of Stories 390 THE NARRATING MIND 390 HEALING AND INTEGRATION 392 Feeling and Story: Tomkins’s Script Theory 396 AFFECTS 397 SCENES AND SCRIPTS 400 Basic Concepts 400 Types of Scripts 402 Narrative Identity 403 DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIFE STORY 404 Feature 10.A: Time and Story in Bali 405 CULTURE AND NARRATIVE 409 STORY THEMES AND EPISODES 411 TYPES OF STORIES 416 WHAT IS A GOOD STORY? 423 Feature 10.B: When Did Identity Become a Problem? 424 Summary 426 Chapter 11 The Interpretation of Stories: From Freud to Today 429 Freudian Interpretation 431 THE STORY OF OEDIPUS 431 A CASE OF OEDIPAL DYNAMICS: THE DEATH OF YUKIO MISHIMA 434 THE CASE OF DORA 437 Feature 11.A: An Alternative Take on Oedipus: Chodorow’s Gender Theory 439 Two Traumatic Events 441 The Dream of the Jewel-Case 442 Dora Revisited 445 PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION 446 Text and Treaty 446 Manifest and Latent 447 Symptoms and Everyday Life 449 The Jungian Approach:Myth and Symbol 451 A COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS 451 INDIVIDUATION AND THE HEROIC QUEST 452 INTERPRETING A DREAM SERIES 455 Adler: Beginnings and Endings 458 INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY 458 THE EARLIEST MEMORY 459 FICTIONAL FINALISM 460 Lives as Texts 462 HERMANS’S DIALOGICAL SELF 463 MUSIC AND STORY: GREGG’S APPROACH 467 THE POSTMODERN SELF 469 FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES 471 Summary 473 Chapter 12 Writing Stories of Lives: Biography and Life Course 475 Icarus: An Ancient Story 476 Personology and the Study of Lives 480 MURRAY AND THE HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 480 THE PERSONOLOGICAL TRADITION 484 SCIENCE AND THE SINGLE CASE 488 Biography, Narrative, and Lives 492 PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY 492 Feature 12.A: Studying Famous People in History 493 Feature 12.B: Why Did van Gogh Cut Off His Ear? 500 THE SEASONS OF ADULT LIFE 501 THE LIFE COURSE 506 Summary 509 Glossary 511 References 525 Credits 575 Name Index 579 Subject Index 588