Personality : A Systems Approach

by Mayer, John D.

• ISBN13: 9780205389148
• ISBN10: 0205389147
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-04
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

The discipline of Personality Psychology is undergoing a renaissance. The new textbook, Personality: A Systems Approach, has been designed to help students keep up. The book is constructed according to an exciting new roadmap that draws on the fieldrs"s best and most longstanding intellectual traditions. By examining personality according to its defining qualities, parts, organization, and development, students understand human personality, including their own personalities, and the influence of personality on an individualrs"s life.

Author Biography

John D. Mayer received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the doctoral program in psychology at Case Western Reserve University. After obtaining his doctorate, he taught his first course in personality psychology at Case Western using Hall and Lindzey’s classic text, Theories of Personality. Although he loved the book, the problems of teaching personality psychology by studying various theories led him to a career-long search for a better way to teach–and more generally, think about–personality psychology.

 

Dr. Mayer examined the contributions of mental abilities to personality in his postdoctoral work at Case Western Reserve, and the interactions of emotion and thought within personality, as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. Dr. Mayer returned to teaching personality psychology with his first faculty position at the State University of New York at Purchase. There he resumed his search for a better way to teach the course. In 1989, Mayer moved to the University of New Hampshire and began to publish a series of articles on the “systems framework for personality,” a new approach to integrating the study of the discipline. The framework elaborated in those articles provides the basis for this new textbook. While developing the systems framework and this textbook,

 

Dr. Mayer published over ninety articles, chapters, books, and psychological tests. His 1990 articles on emotional intelligence, with Professor Peter Salovey of Yale University, are often credited with beginning scientific research on the topic. Dr. Mayer is coauthor of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), and coeditor, with J. Ciarrochi and J. P. Forgas of Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life: A Scientific Inquiry. Dr. Mayer has served on the editorial boards of Psychological Bulletin, the Journal of Personality, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Review of General Psychology. He has been the recipient of an Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, and has been a senior research fellow of the United States Army Research Institute. In addition to many years of teaching university classes, Professor Mayer also has lectured to diverse audiences throughout the United States and abroad on topics related to personality psychology.

Table of Contents

Preface for the Student	xiii
Preface for the Instructor	xv
About the Author	xxv
Acknowledgments	xxvii
Part 1 Examining Personality
What Is Personality?	2	(36)
What Are the Fundamental Questions Addressed by Personality Psychology?	3	(3)
Big Questions and Science	3	(1)
Questions and Inquiry	4	(1)
Who Am I?	4	(2)
Research in Focus Casual Thinking and Scientific Thinking about People	6	(3)
How and Why Are People Different?	7	(1)
What Will My Future Be?	8	(1)
Inside the Field Does Becoming a Personality Psychologist Influence How You View Others?	9	(2)
Different Kinds of Answers	11	(1)
What Is the Personality System?	11	(5)
A System of Systems	11	(3)
Defining Personality	14	(1)
Locating the Personality System	15	(1)
What Is the Field of Personality Psychology?	16	(8)
What Is a Field of Science?	16	(1)
The Emergence of Modern Personality Psychology (1890--1949)	17	(3)
Evolving Viewpoints on the Field (1950 to the Present)	20	(3)
Training and Research in Personality Psychology	23	(1)
Case Study The Careers of Two Personality Psychologists	24	(1)
Why Study Personality Psychology?	25	(4)
The ``Who Am I?'' Question---A Part of Scientific Inquiry	26	(1)
The ``How and Why Are People Different?'' Question---Asked in Personality Assessment	26	(1)
The ``What Is My Future?'' Question---Prediction, Selection, and Change	27	(2)
Disciplinary Crossroads What Does Personality Psychology Offer Other Fields?	29	(1)
How Is This Book Organized and What Will You Learn?	30	(8)
Some Cautions and a Beginning	30	(1)
Personality Psychology's Answers	30	(1)
Identifying Personality	31	(1)
Parts of Personality	32	(1)
Personality Organization	33	(1)
Personality Development	34	(4)
Research in Personality Psychology	38	(42)
Where Do Data Come From?	39	(5)
Olympian Issues	39	(2)
Observer Data	41	(1)
The Life Sphere and External (Life) Data	41	(1)
Personal-Report Data: Self-Judgments, Criterion-Convergence, and Thematic-Report	42	(2)
Research in Focus Are Self-Judgements or an Observer's Judgments More Accurate?	44	(1)
What Research Designs Are Used in Personality?	45	(5)
Types of Research Designs	45	(1)
The Case Study Method	45	(3)
The Method of Observationism	48	(2)
Case Study Freud's Case of Emmy von N.	50	(2)
Inside the Field Funder's Laws	52	(6)
The Correlational Research Design	53	(3)
Natural Experiments	56	(1)
True Experimental Designs	57	(1)
Disciplinary Crossroads The Measurement of Length in the Physical Sciences	58	(2)
What Does It Mean to Measure Personality?	60	(8)
The Psychometric Approach	60	(2)
Reliability	62	(2)
Validity	64	(4)
How Do Personality Psychologists Study So Many Variables?	68	(12)
Multiple Variables and Multivariate Techniques	68	(1)
The Logic of Factor Analysis	68	(4)
Reading the Results of a Factor Analysis	72	(4)
A Critique of Factor Analysis	76	(4)
Perspectives on Personality	80	(44)
What Are Perspectives on Personality?	81	(3)
Frameworks, Perspectives, and Theories	81	(1)
Perspectives on Personality	82	(1)
Personality Theories	82	(2)
Micro-Theories and Research	84	(1)
What Is the Biological Perspective?	84	(6)
Evolutionary Theory Views the Person	85	(1)
Natural and Sexual Selection	85	(1)
A Micro-Theory about Jealousy and Evolution	86	(1)
Biopsychology Views the Person	87	(1)
The Nervous System and Its Influences on Psychology	87	(3)
Disciplinary Crossroads The Use of Psychiatric Drugs to Improve Personality	90	(3)
A Micro-Theory That Traits Are Inherited	91	(2)
Case Study The Case of the Mathematician in the Guest Room	93	(1)
What Is the Intrapsychic Perspective?	94	(9)
The Trait Psychologist Views the Person	94	(1)
The Nature of Traits and Their Role in Personality	95	(2)
A Micro-Theory about Central Personality Traits	97	(1)
Psychodynamic Theory Views the Person	98	(1)
Defenses, Mental Models, and the Role of Dynamics	99	(1)
A Micro-Theory of Hidden Sexual Desire	100	(3)
What Is the Sociocultural Perspective?	103	(6)
The Social-Cognitive View of the Person	103	(1)
The Person and Environment in Interaction	103	(2)
A Micro-Theory of Conditional Aggression	105	(2)
The Cross-Cultural View of the Person	107	(1)
A Micro-Theory of Collectivism versus Individualism	107	(2)
What Is the Temporal-Developmental Perspective?	109	(4)
A Psychosocial Stage Theory and Development	109	(1)
A Micro-Theory of the Emergence of Traits	110	(1)
The Humanistic and Positive Psychology Views of the Person	110	(2)
A Micro-Theory of Empathy and Psychotherapy	112	(1)
How Does One Cope with Multiple Theories?	113	(1)
Which Theory Is Right?	113	(1)
Research in Focus Smith and Glass's Comparison of Psychotherapies Based on Different Perspectives	114	(4)
The Systems Approach	115	(3)
Inside the Field Translating One Perspective into Another	118	(6)
Part 2 Parts of Personality
Motivation and Emotion	124	(40)
What Are Motives?	125	(1)
Motives, Instincts, and Needs	125	(1)
Case Study Jon Krakauer and the Uneasy Fulfillment of a Boyhood Dream	126	(4)
Projective Measures of Motives	128	(1)
Types of Motives	129	(1)
Disciplinary Crossroads The Projective Hypothesis of Shakespeare	130	(5)
Self-Judgment of Motives	131	(4)
How Are Motives Expressed?	135	(2)
The Achievement Motive and Its Relation to Personality	135	(1)
The Power Motive and Personality	136	(1)
Disciplinary Crossroads Achievement Motivation and Economic Progress	137	(3)
The Affiliation Motive and Personality	138	(1)
The Sex Drive and Related Motives	139	(1)
Development and Personal Strivings	139	(1)
What Are Emotions and Why Are They Important?	140	(7)
The Motivation-Emotion Connection	140	(3)
Emotions as an Evolved Signal System	143	(1)
Cross-Cultural Issues	144	(2)
Emotional States, Moods, and Emotion-Related Traits	146	(1)
Inside the Field Replicating Ekman's Results	147	(1)
What Are Emotional Traits and How Are They Expressed?	148	(5)
The Two-Factor Approach to Measuring Emotion	148	(3)
Affect Intensity	151	(1)
From Emotional States to Emotion-Related Traits	151	(2)
Research in Focus Positioning the Emotional Dimensions of Inner Space	153	(5)
How Are Emotional Traits Expressed?	156	(2)
What Are Happy People Like?	158	(6)
Natural Happiness	158	(1)
Demographic Influences	158	(1)
The Most Happy Students	159	(5)
Interior Selves, Interior Worlds	164	(38)
What Are Mental Models?	165	(5)
Mental Models and Their Structure	166	(3)
Mental Models Are (Usually) Learned and Applied	169	(1)
Differences in Models across People	170	(1)
What Are Our Models of Ourselves?	170	(2)
The Self and Self-Models	170	(1)
Possible, Actual, and (Perhaps) Unconscious Selves	171	(1)
Inside the Field The International Society for Self and Identity (ISSI)	172	(3)
Research in Focus Markus and Nurius on Possible Selves among College Students	175	(4)
Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy	176	(3)
Stories of the Self	179	(1)
What Are Our Models of the World?	179	(3)
Formal Models and Implicit Models	179	(1)
Implicit Knowledge	180	(2)
Disciplinary Crossroads World Knowledge in the Field of Artificial Intelligence	182	(6)
Learning Personality Types	184	(3)
Implicit Theories of Personality	187	(1)
The Concept of the Archetype	187	(1)
What Are Our Models of Relationships?	188	(4)
Significant Other Models	188	(1)
Core Conflictual Relationship Themes	189	(2)
Roles and Role Playing	191	(1)
Case Study Playing a Role While Playing Basketball?	192	(4)
Morals and Values	194	(2)
How Good Are Our Mental Models?	196	(6)
Developing Constructive Models	196	(1)
Avoiding Irrational Models	197	(1)
Expressing Better Mental Models	197	(5)
Mental Abilities and Navigating the World	202	(38)
What Is a Mental Ability?	203	(2)
Questions about Mental Ability	203	(2)
Case Study Francis Galton's Own Intelligence	205	(3)
Mental Abilities and Society	206	(1)
The Range of Mental Abilities: Three Examples	206	(2)
What Are Some Major Mental Abilities?	208	(1)
Verbal-Propositional Intelligence and Mental Development	208	(1)
Inside the Field Alfred Binet's Rough Start	208	(5)
Uncovering More Cognitive Intelligences	211	(2)
Are There Additional Intelligences and Mental Abilities?	213	(5)
Social Abilities and Related Intelligences	213	(1)
Practical Intelligence	214	(1)
Emotional Intelligence	215	(2)
Measuring Creativity	217	(1)
Research in Focus Measuring Emotional Intelligence	218	(4)
The Theory of g	220	(2)
What Is the Relation between Personality and Intelligence?	222	(4)
Personality Calls on Abilities	222	(1)
The Relations among Mental Ability Traits and Other Traits	223	(2)
Personality, Mental Abilities, and the Construction of Mental Models	225	(1)
How Does Personality Express Its Abilities?	226	(4)
Intelligence in the Expression of Thought	226	(4)
Disciplinary Crossroads Valued Qualities and Social Meritocracies	230	(10)
Intelligences at School	231	(1)
Intelligences and Other Mental Abilities at Work	232	(2)
Mental Abilities in Relationships	234	(1)
Personality and Mental Abilities: The Big Picture	235	(5)
The Conscious Self	240	(32)
What Is the Conscious Self?	241	(3)
The Appearance of the Conscious Self	241	(1)
James's Self-as-Knower	242	(1)
Freud's Concept of the Ego	243	(1)
The Dialogical Self	243	(1)
What Does It Mean for the Self to Be Conscious?	244	(4)
What Is Consciousness?	244	(1)
Scientific Accounting for the Feeling of Consciousness	245	(1)
Is Consciousness of Recent Origin?	246	(1)
The Brain and Consciousness	247	(1)
Does the Self Possess Free Will?	248	(2)
The Appearance of Will	248	(1)
The Free Will--Determinism Debate	249	(1)
Disciplinary Crossroads The Idea of Free Will: Origins in Western Religious Thought	250	(2)
Freedom from the Free Will Debate	251	(1)
Voluntary Cause and Control	251	(1)
Disciplinary Crossroads Is There a Biophysics of Free Will?	252	(2)
Are There Alternatives to the Conscious Self?	254	(1)
Agencies	254	(1)
Inside the Field Some Personality Psychologists Really Don't Like the Denial of Free Will	255	(3)
Alters	256	(1)
The Unconscious, Id, and Superego	257	(1)
How Is the Conscious Self Expressed?	258	(5)
Contents of Consciousness	258	(2)
The Structure of Consciousness and Flow	260	(3)
Case Study An Example of Flow in Adolescence	263	(3)
Levels of Consciousness	264	(1)
Self-Determination Theory	264	(2)
Research in Focus Brain Correlates of Higher Consciousness	266	(6)
Self-Control: A First Look	267	(5)
Part 3 Personality Organization
How the Parts of Personality Fit Together	272	(44)
What Is Personality Structure?	273	(6)
Personality Structure Described	273	(3)
Why Is Personality Structure Important?	276	(1)
Multiple Personality Structures Exist	277	(1)
Case Study More on Christopher Langan and His Life	278	(1)
Personality Structure Provides Organization	279	(4)
How Are Personality Traits Structured?	281	(2)
The Big Two and the Big Three	283	(3)
The Big Five	283	(2)
Beyond the Big Five	285	(1)
Inside the Field Does the Big Five Count as a Personality Structure?	286	(1)
What Are Structural Models of Awareness and Why Do They Matter?	287	(3)
Rationale for Structural Models of Awareness	287	(1)
Consciousness and How Things Become Conscious	288	(1)
The ``No-Access'' Unconscious, or Unconscious Proper	289	(1)
Research in Focus If There Are Structural Areas, What Are the Boundaries between Them Like?	290	(4)
The Implicit or Automatic Unconscious	291	(1)
The Unnoticed Unconscious	292	(1)
The Dynamic Unconscious	293	(1)
Can Identifying Key Functions of Mind Lead to Structural Divisions?	294	(8)
The Id, Ego, and Superego as a Functional Model	294	(1)
The Trilogy and Quaternity of Mind	295	(1)
A Brain to Match?	296	(6)
Disciplinary Crossroads Was That Octopus You Saw Last Night Shy?	302	(2)
Integration in the Systems Set	303	(1)
What Are the Structural Connections between Personality and Environment?	304	(4)
Structures of Social Interaction	304	(2)
Using Structural Dimensions to Fill in Personality	306	(1)
Extending Personality to the Life Space	306	(2)
Do Structures Matter?	308	(8)
Revisiting the Organization of Traits	308	(1)
Traits of the Life Space	309	(2)
Structure and the Description of the Person	311	(2)
From Structures to Dynamics	313	(3)
Dynamics of Action	316	(36)
What Are Dynamics of Action?	317	(2)
Approaching Dynamics	317	(2)
Case Study The Mysterious Social Activities of Robert Leuci	319	(3)
Dynamic Traits and Micro-Dynamics	320	(1)
Mid-Level (Meso-) and Macro-Level Dynamics	321	(1)
Dynamics and Their Change	321	(1)
Research in Focus Computer Models of Personality Dynamics	322	(1)
Which Need Will Begin Action?	323	(4)
Urges, Needs, and Presses	323	(1)
Needs and Their Relative Strengths	324	(1)
Determinant Needs and Subsidiary Needs	325	(1)
Needs and Need Conflicts	326	(1)
Need Fusion	327	(1)
How Does Action Develop in the Mind?	327	(5)
Motivation, Emotion, and Mood-Congruent Thought	327	(2)
The Dynamic Lattice	329	(1)
From Thought to Action	330	(2)
Inside the Field Greenwald's Studies of Subliminal Perception and Motivation	332	(3)
Partial Expressions and Slips of the Tongue	333	(2)
How Are Acts Performed?	335	(8)
The Communication Channels	335	(3)
Conscious and Automatic Forms of Action	338	(1)
Latent versus Manifest Content	339	(2)
Stagecraft and Self-Presentation	341	(2)
Disciplinary Crossroads Deception in Myth and Literature	343	(9)
Symbolic Interactionism and Social Alignment	346	(2)
The Urge and the Situation	348	(4)
Dynamics of Self-Control	352	(38)
What Are Dynamics of Self-Control?	353	(3)
How Dynamics of Self-Control Are Distinctive	353	(2)
The Need for Self-Control	355	(1)
Aims of Self-Control	355	(1)
How Does Self-Control Occur?	356	(4)
The Self in Control	356	(4)
Disciplinary Crossroads Cybernetics, Personality, and Robots	360	(7)
Personal Control as a Hierarchy of Feedback Loops	360	(5)
The Search for---and Effect of---Feedback	365	(2)
Dynamic Self-Control	367	(1)
Is Self-Control Always Conscious?	367	(4)
Automatic Control and Dissociation	367	(1)
Dissociation and the Unconscious	368	(1)
Individual Differences in Dissociation	369	(2)
Case Study An Example of Divided Consciousness	371	(1)
Inside the Field A Brief History of Hypnosis	372	(6)
Nonconscious Personal Control: The Model of Hypnosis	374	(3)
Positive Affirmations	377	(1)
How Do We Deal with the Pain of Falling Short?	378	(5)
Falling Short and Mental Defense	378	(1)
Suppression	378	(1)
Repression	379	(1)
Specific Defense Mechanisms	380	(3)
How Is Self-Control (or Its Absence) Expressed?	383	(2)
The Search for Self-Control	383	(1)
Control versus Impulsiveness	384	(1)
Implications of Self-Control	384	(1)
Research in Focus The New Research on Developing Self-Control	385	(5)
Part 4 Personality Development
Personality Development in Childhood and Adolescence	390	(40)
What Is Personality Development?	391	(5)
Questions of Personality Development	391	(2)
Dividing the Life Span	393	(3)
Research Designs in Developmental Studies	396	(1)
Do Infants Have a Personality?	396	(7)
The Infant's Challenge	396	(2)
Infant Temperament	398	(2)
Attachment Patterns	400	(3)
How Does the Young Child's Personality Develop?	403	(2)
The Young Child's Self-Concept	403	(2)
Case Study Jay's Self-Understanding	405	(2)
Self-Control as a Part of Temperament	406	(1)
Parents and the Family Context	406	(1)
Disciplinary Crossroads Cultural Influences on Child Personality	407	(4)
Family Size and Birth Order	409	(2)
Inside the Field Does What Parents Do Matter?	411	(3)
The Gendered World	411	(3)
What Are the Challenges of Middle Childhood?	414	(5)
Middle Childhood's Challenges and Self-Concept	414	(1)
From Temperament to Traits	415	(1)
Overcontrolled, Undercontrolled, and Flexible Children	416	(2)
Friendship Patterns	418	(1)
What Are Adolescents Doing?	419	(2)
Puberty and the Changing Self-Concept	419	(2)
Research in Focus Childhood Patterns and Experimentation with Drugs	421	(9)
Sexual and Sex-Role Development	422	(2)
Establishing Identity in Adolescence	424	(6)
Personality Development in Adulthood	430	(40)
What Is the Nature of Adult Development?	431	(5)
Questions of Adult Development	431	(2)
The Transition to Adulthood	433	(1)
Temperament and Traits: From Childhood through Adulthood	433	(2)
Models of the Self and World	435	(1)
Case Study How Consistent Is Steven Reid's Personality?	436	(2)
What Are Young Adults Like?	438	(4)
The Tasks of Young Adulthood	438	(1)
Finding a Desirable Partner	438	(4)
Research in Focus Identical Twins Reared Apart	442	(3)
In Search of Good Work	444	(1)
How Does the Individual Traverse Middle Adulthood?	445	(1)
Disciplinary Crossroads Personality and the Future	446	(11)
Staying Married	446	(3)
Finding Occupational Success	449	(4)
Personality and Health	453	(2)
Who Adjusts Course?	455	(1)
No Regrets?	455	(1)
Helson's Typology of Growth	456	(1)
Where Is Personality Headed in the Concluding Parts of Life?	457	(7)
Optimal Personality and Values	459	(1)
Good Functioning	459	(1)
Adding Strengths: Positive Psychology	460	(1)
Strengths in Context	461	(1)
Optimal Types	461	(3)
Inside the Field Abraham Maslow's Early Life and His Theory of Self-Actualization	464	(6)
A Final Life Review	468	(2)
Postscript	470	(1)
References	471	(38)
Name Index	509	(11)
Subject Index	520