Individual Differences and Personality

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How do we come to be who we are? Why do we differ in our personalities? How do these differences matter in life? This textbook on Individual Differences and Personality aims to describe how and why personality varies between one person and the next. Unlike books that focus on individual theorists, this book focuses on current research and theory on the nature of personality and related individual differences. The book begins by discussing how personality is measured, the concept of a personality trait, and the basic dimensions of personality. This leads to a discussion of the origins of personality, with descriptions of its developmental course, its biological causes, its genetic and environmental influences, and its evolutionary function. The concept of a personality disorder is then described, followed by a discussion of the influence of personality on life outcomes in relationships, work, and health. Finally, the book examines in detail the important differences between individuals in the realms of mental abilities, of beliefs and attitudes, and of sexuality.

Intended for courses in personality and individual differences, this book may also serve as a useful overview of personality research for academics in related fields. Singly authored for consistency of breadth, depth, and presentation, Individual Differences and Personality will engage students with its interesting boxed asides. Sample boxes describe a wide variety of topics, including such issues as cross-generational differences, personality in animals, personality and occupational choice, the role of the womb environment, and many others. In addition to covering the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality structure, the book also includes topics often left out of other personality books, including individual differences in mental abilities, religion, politics, and sexuality. There is also deep coverage of the biological bases of personality, including discussions of neurotransmitters, brain structures, and hormones. The explanation of genetic and environmental influences is made clear and straightforward, and the discussion of evolutionary function is unique among personality texts.

Table of Contents: Introduction; Basic Concepts in Psychological Measurement; Personality Traits and the Inventories That Measure Them; Personality Structure: Classifying Traits; Developmental Change and Stability of Personality; Biological Bases of Personality; Genetic and Environmental Influences on Personality; The Evolutionary Function of Personality; Personality Disorders; Personality and Life Outcomes; Mental Ability; Religion and Politics; Sexuality; Conclusion.


*Emphasizes current research and major theoretical issues
*Provides integrated treatment of wide range of topics related to the personality and individual differences
*Explains crucial concepts in clear and straightforward manner

Individual Differences and Personality Review

This is the best introduction to the scientific study of personality that I remember seeing. Although the blurb on the cover presents it as "intended for upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in personality and individual differences", it does not seem to me beyond the grasp of an intelligent fourteen-year-old. It is well organised, systematic, clear, concise, and panoramic in that it discusses the spectrum of scientific theories on its subject, and not merely the author's favourite ones. Conversely, unscientific theories are eliminated, with Freud and Adler getting merely one passing mention each.

Since Amazon's contents listing only give the barest outline, I give a fuller one below:

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CHAPTER 1 — Basic concepts in Psychological Measurement

Basic statistical ideas are discussed, such as reliability and validity, standard scores, normal distribution, correlation coefficient, self-reports, observer reports and biodata.

CHAPTER 2 — Personality Traits and Inventories that measure them.

The nature of traits is discussed along with strategies for measuring them (empirical/factor analytic/rational). The following personality inventories are briefly described:

- CPI
- Hogan
- 16PF
- Eysenck
- Myers-Briggs
- TCI
- MPQ
- Jackson
- NPQ
- Big Five
- NEO
- HEXACO
- IPIP

The Rorschach is also discussed and its limitation described.

CHAPTER 3 — Personality Structure: Classifying Traits

The topic of how to achieve complete description without redundancy (i.e. orthogonality of dimensions) is addressed, and a gentle introduction to factor analysis is presented. The lexical approach to finding personality factors is described, with more information of the Big Five and HEXACO inventories.

CHAPTER 4 —- Developmental Change and Stability of Personality

Here we have a good summary of available data on how personality characteristics change through the lifespan.

CHAPTER 5 — Biological bases of Personality

Early ideas, the Four Humours, Physique and Personality, Cloninger's theory, Gray's theory, Eysenck's theory, comparison of Gray & Eysenck and the relevant empirical evidence, Zuckerman's model, effect of various hormones.

CHAPTER 6 — Genetic and Environmental Influences on Personality

I was glad to see that this section stuck carefully to the science and didn't succumb to political correctness, going carefully through the consequences of twin and adoptive studies, distinguishing between additive and nonadditive heredity and so forth. Assortative mating and birth order are also touched on.

CHAPTER 7 — The Evolutionary Function of Personality

Under the rubric of Why We Are Not All the Same, here we have material effectively taken from Evolutionary Biology: the concept of evolution by natural selection, fluctuating optimum and frequency dependence, adaptive trade-offs, and some examples. There are also notes on cross-generational and cross-national personality differences, and animal personality.

CHAPTER 8 — Personality Disorders

The idea of a personality disorder, and various kinds:

- The DSM-IV Disorders (schizoid, schizotypal, paranoid, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic*, avoidant, dependent & obsessive-compulsive)
- DSM-IV clusters
- Disorders not included in the DSM-IV (depressive, passive aggressive, self-defeating, sadistic, ADHD, separation anxiety, oppositional defiant, phobias)
- Problems with the concept of personality disorders
- Alternative systems of diagnosis
- Origins & biological bases

*including a brief note explaining for the uninformed who Narcissus was!

CHAPTER 9 — Personality and Life Outcomes

- Relationships and Marriage (are spouses similar, satisfaction, attachment styles, parenting styles)
- Peer relationships: friendship and status
- Health-related outcomes (substance use, longevity, heart disease)
- Academic performance
- Job performance
- Criminality (self- control, psychopathy)
- Life satisfaction

CHAPTER 10 — Mental Ability

- The structure of mental ability (one dimension or many?)
- Developmental change and stability in mental abilities
- Biological bases of mental ability
- Genetic and environmental influences
- Mental ability and life outcomes
- Not all g-loaded tasks are the same (fluid & crystallised intelligence, Flynn effect, numerical v. verbal reasoning)
- Alternative ideas about mental abilities (Gardner, Sternberg, Goleman etc.)
- Emotional intelligence

I was most impressed by the way this section sorted out the wheat from the flood of chaff this subject has generated in recent years. Particularly clear are the sections on the oft-misunderstood complementarity of the contributions of Spearman and Thurstone

CHAPER 11 — Religion and Politics

- Is religion a personality characteristic?
- Religiosity and the major dimensions of personality
- Developmental change and stability in religiosity
- Religiosity and paranormal beliefs
- Religiosity and life outcomes

- Right-wing authoritarianism
- Social dominance orientation
- Relations between authoritarianism & dominance orientation
- Two dimensions of political attitudes
- Political attitudes and the major dimensions of personality
- Political attitudes, social values and religion
- Developmental change and stability in political attitudes

- Origins of religious beliefs and political attitudes (biological bases, genetic & environmental influences, evolutionary functions)

CHAPTER 12 — Sexuality

- Major dimensions of sexuality
- Sexuality & Personality (arousal, commitment & orientation)
- Origins of variation (genetic & environmental influences, biological bases, & evolution)
- Sexual orientation
- Sexual arousal

FINAL CHAPTER — Conclusions

- What we have learned so far
- What we have yet to learn
- Final Remarks

REFERENCES
INDEX

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SUMMARY

The above outline of course only gives a taste of the diverse information included in this book. I feel that it does a remarkable job of accurately compressing so much information and providing a springboard for further reading, while maintaining readability (although perhaps the references could have been a little more comprehensive), and I thoroughly recommend it.

UPDATE 2013

There is now a new edition. The author was kind enough, in answer to my enquiry, to summarise the revisions. I reproduce his comments (with his permission) below.

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There's a new chapter on Vocational Interests. It's one of the shorter chapters and has a somewhat more practical emphasis than most of the others do, but it gives much more coverage to this topic than was given in the 1st edition.

The chapter on Personality Disorders is about half rewritten*, to coincide with the reconceptualization in the forthcoming DSM5. (I think the DSM5 framework is an improvement, and it makes the structure of the chapter simpler than it previously had been.)

The descriptions of several of the more "technical" issues (especially reliability and validity in Chapter 2, and heritability studies in Chapter 6) are being somewhat streamlined and reorganized, and thereby (I think) clarified and improved.

Throughout the book there are several new boxes and subsections and paragraphs to incorporate new research findings from the past six years, including some topics not really covered in the 1st edition (e.g., the (non-)existence of personality "types"; rater biases in self- and observer reports; personality similarity in friends; "games" as illustrations of frequency-dependent selection), and some topics where new findings have emerged (e.g., IQ and birth order; heritability of sexual orientation; personality stability between childhood and adulthood).

I would think that the overall scale of revisions is somewhat larger than in the usual "next edition" of a textbook, but the basic structure and content of the 1st edition will remain, so it isn't a radically new book.

*What happened was that the DSM5 people decided at the last minute to abandon their new system for personality disorder diagnosis; instead it's being included only as an appendix within the DSM5. I'm still giving that new system a lot of space in the book (because I think it makes more sense), but I'm now keeping some description of the old system simply because it's still the one that clinicians will be using.

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