Theories of Personality [Paperback]

Jess Feist (Author), Gregory J Feist (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0072316799 | ISBN-13: 978-0072316797 | Publication Date: May 29, 2001 | Edition: 5

Accurate and authoritative, Theories of Personality by Jess and Gregory Feist presents 23 leading theories of personality in a thorough, interesting and logical manner. The book begins with an introductory chapter designed to acquaint students with the meaning of personality and provide them with a solid foundation for understanding the nature of theory and its crucial contributions to science. The next seventeen chapters present twenty-three major theories with a fresh approach and a more complete view encompassing, a biographical sketch of each theorist, related research and applications to real life. When appropriate, the authors point out ways in which the theorists' life experiences may have helped shape her or his theory.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gregory J. Feist has taught at San Jose State University in California. He received his Ph.D. in Personality Psychology from the University of California - Berkeley and is Undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. He is widely published in personality and creativity, scientific eminence, and the psychology of science. His research in creativitiy has been recognized by receipt of an Erly Career Award from Division for Psychology and the Arts (Division 10) of the American Psychological Association. He is also on the Editorial Board of Review of General Psychology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 5 edition (May 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072316799
• ISBN-13: 978-0072316797
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #979,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great intro to some important psychological theories, March 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Theories of Personality (Brown & Benchmark) (Paperback)

This is a great book. It covers many different theories on how personality works from different psychological perspectives. Each section helps the reader understand the different views of each theory of personality and how it functions within the mind. One comes away from this book understanding a little bit more about the hows and whys of personality. A great introduction to psychology in general for anybody ranging from student to non-student, specialist to non-specialist. I highly recommend it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, Easy to Read!, September 7, 2008

By 

Ms_Ladi "...just wandering the world." - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Theories of Personality with PowerWeb (Paperback)

I actually liked this text. Each chapter is broken into bios of the theorists and elements of their practice. They also combine various theorists if they have something in common or worked together.

I would definitely keep this text to use as a reference in future Psychology classes.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lack of real world perspective, November 1, 2004

By 

S. A. Kashmarek (Davenport, IA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Theories of Personality (Paperback)

I would agree with the other reviews in that this book is an easy to read text with easy to understand explanations. However, there is no real world applicability. There are no case studies about real life people and how their personalities fit into their lives (i.e. type of career, choice of mate, type of friends they choose, how they view money etc.) not to mention that I think it would be interesting to see what other famous people have the same personality traits that we do (as in other texts in this subject area). In an abnormal psychology class I took, the text would refer to real studies of individuals and their psychopathologies that create their persona. To me this is what makes a great text - real life stories with real life people, what a revelation!!

This text also reminds me of a general psychology class, sans the history of psych. in that it covers many famous psychologists, i.e. Freud, Jung, Horney, Fromm etc. but it reads like a historiography of each psychologist, I know all about Freud and his theories, tell me how his view of personality is different than the other psychologists with real case studies, this text lacks the case study depth that other Psych. of Personality texts cover.. From a students point of view; teachers, choose a different text!