Personality: Determinants, Dynamics, and Potentials

This book, first published in 2000, is a comprehensive survey of research and theory in personality psychology.

Gian Vittorio Caprara (Author), Daniel Cervone (Author)

9780521583107, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 August 2000

506 pages, 9 b/w illus. 3 tables
26 x 18.5 x 3.5 cm, 1.05 kg

'This is a big book. In every sense … It is the scope of the book that provides the main 'bigness'. … There is no other book like it in the field. Psychological Medicine

Personality: Determinants, Dynamics and Potentials, first published in 2000, is a comprehensive survey of 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. The volume is designed as a textbook for advanced-level courses and as a reference for professionals in psychology and related disciplines. The book meets personality psychology's need for an integrative analysis of the field that reviews recent advances, places them in their historical context, and identifies particularly promising avenues for the discipline's future development.

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.

Subject Areas: The self, ego, identity, personality [JMS]