I have also dropped some material from the previous edition. I no longer
discuss self-esteem stability in depth, although I do include some of the con-
cepts taken from that research in the section on contingencies of self-worth
in Chapter 12. I have dropped research on gender schema from Chapter 14,
and replaced the research on cognitive interpretations of Freudian concepts
found in Chapter 16 of the previous edition. Finally, feedback from users per-
suaded me to drop the Appendix. The Appendix in the seventh edition summa-
rized various places in the book where culture and gender were mentioned. Ofcourse, those two topics are still discussed frequently throughout the book.
WHAT ’ST H ES A M E ?
The philosophy that guided the organization and writing of the first seveneditions remains. I wrote this book to organize within one textbook the twoapproaches typically taken by instructors of undergraduate personality courses.
Many instructors focus on the great theories and theorists —including Freud,
Jung, Rogers, and Skinner. Students in these classes gain insight into the struc-
ture of the mind and issues of human nature, as well as a background for
understanding psychological disorders and psychotherapy. However, these
students are likely to be puzzled when they pick up a current journal of person-ality research only to find they recognize few, if any, of the topics. Other
instructors emphasize personality research. Students learn about current studies
on individual differences and personality processes. But they probably see littlerelationship between the abstract theories they may touch upon in class and the
research topics that are the focus of the course.
However, these two approaches to teaching the course do not represent
separate disciplines that happen to share the word personality in their titles.
Indeed, the structure of this book is designed to demonstrate that the classic
theories stimulate research and that the research findings often shape the devel-opment and acceptance of the theories. Limiting a student ’s attention to either
theory or research provides an unfortunately narrow view of the field.
Something else that remains from the earlier editions is my belief that stu-
dents learn about research best by seeing programs of research rather than a
few isolated examples. Twenty-six research programs are covered in the seven
research chapters in this edition. In each case I have tried to illustrate how the
questions being investigated are connected to a larger theory, how early
researchers developed their initial hypotheses and investigations, and how
experimental findings led to new questions, refined hypotheses, and ultimately
a greater understanding of the topic. Through this process, students are
exposed to some of the problems that researchers encounter, the fact that ex-
perimental results are often equivocal, and a realistic picture of researcherswho don’ t always agree on how to interpret findings.
I have also retained and expanded many of the features of the previous
editions in this eighth edition. Each of the theory chapters contains a sectionon application and a section on assessment. These sections demonstrate how
the sometimes abstract theories relate to everyday concerns and issues and
how each approach to understanding personality brings with it uniquePREFACE xvii