This book presents a contemporary approach to personality psychology by integrating current methods, theoretical paradigms, and empirical findings in a manner that is both accessible and relevant to undergraduate-level readers. Throughout the book, the focus is upon normal personality functioning and how personality research relates to everyday lives. The book presents the major traditional theories, but goes beyond restating the theory's content, to emphasize how it conceptualizes personality. It integrates the heuristically-rich concepts of traditional theories with current empirical research on the personality dimensions which evolved from them and emphasizes the relevance of findings to readers' experiences.
