Dan McAdams offers a clear and concise account of personality psychology in his book The Person: A New Introduction to Personality. Adams notes that personality psychology is the study of the whole person and that the ultimate goal of personality psychology is to construct a scientifically credible account of human individuality. As part of this quest individual differences in people are often studied and in doing so an attempt is made as Adam's puts it "To classify, categorize, and organize the diversity of human individuality."
Learn About Personality Psychology
Personality Theories e-text
Dr. George Boeree, professor in psychology at Shippensburg University has written an excellent electronic textbook created for undergraduate and graduate courses in Personality Theories. Dr Boeree has kindly made this publication freely available for educational purposes. This very useful resource includes informative accounts of the personality theories put forward by the most influential thinkers in the field. These include
Sigmund Freud
Erik Erikson
Carl Jung
Alfred Adler
Hans Eysenck
Abraham Maslow
Carl Rogers
Click Here To Access This Comprehensive Personality Theory Resource.
The Personality Project
Very thorough information portal provided courtesy of William Revelle, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, Illinois.
Click Here To Explore The Personality Project Website.
Personality Psychology 2.0
This part of the personality psychology page is dedicated to the move towards what is known as web 2.0. Web 2.0 links people, it's a place where people contribute, share, collaborate and learn. To access some of the links below, you may have to register and/or login.
Series of very informative videos taken from the lectures of Prof. Oliver John from the University of Berkeley, California.
Personality Theories
Engaging video profiling Nelson Mandela as a way of exploring major theories of personality.
The Person: A New Introduction to Personality Psychology by Dan P. McAdams
Book Description
Experience the story of a lifetime. When you want to truly get to know a person, dates and facts about their life will only tell you so much. You need to look at the stories that define that person's life, as well as their individual traits and characteristics, as defined by human nature and culture.
When it comes to studying personality, the larger story matters most of all. In The Person: An Integrated Introduction to Personality Psychology, Fourth Edition, Dan McAdams presents a bold and integrative vision for personality psychology that puts many different ideas into a meaningful structure. With this text, you can understand the larger story, and discover how powerful and useful studying personality psychology is today.