Personality: A Topical Approach: Theories, Research, Major Controversies, and Emerging Findings

Many texts attempt to bridge the areas of theory and research. They include one or two pages dealing with important theorists - Jung, Adler, Freud, etc - inserted into chapters focusing on academic research. In most cases, the discussion fails to do justice to these theorists and the relationship between theory and research is often tenuous at best. This book takes a different approach. An alternative to, not a replacement for, the author's text on theories of personality ("An Introduction to Theories of Personality", 1993), this book describes and discusses an example of each major type of theory in its own chapter. Each chapter is followed by a seperate chapter that discusses research, controversies and emerging findings dealing with that theory. Although this book incorporates a considerable amount of material from the previous text, there are substantial differences. "Personality: a Topical Approach" devotes more attention to psychological research, and considerably less attention to the more minor and abstract aspects of various theories. Chapters are devoted to the following theories: psychoanalytically-oriented, trait, cognitive, self-humanistic, and behaviourism. While the book focuses appropriate emphasis on major research topics (the "Big Five" personality factors, self-efficacy, self-esteem and more), it also includes a chapter on research methods and contains discussions on material that is often omitted from other texts including dream interpretation, cognitions and the Holocaust, scientific inquiry and near-death experiences. The book also provides study questions, a "help" section and a glossary.

Table of Contents:

Contents: Preface. Introduction. Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory. Psychoanalytic Theory: Controversies and Emerging Findings. Allport's Trait Theory. Trait Theory: Controversies and Emerging Findings. Cognitive Theory. Rogers's Humanistic/Self Theory. Humanistic/Self Theory: Controversies and Emerging Findings. Skinner's Radical Behaviorism. Behaviorism: Controversies and Emerging Findings. Research Methods. Conclusion.

"The book's strength is its integration of theory and research, which is difficult to achieve in personality psychology because most books in the field are focused on only one side of the theory-research connection. The presentation is very accessible for the introductory student, and each chapter includes a helpful set of study questions."
—CHOICE

"This book clearly illustrates the author's command of the field and the abbreviated treatment of the theories in no way comes at a loss of accuracy or readability."
—Contemporary Psychology