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Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature cover

Psychology

Psychology

Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature

Randy J. Larsen; David M. Buss

An undergraduate personality textbook organised not by grand theorists but by six domains of knowledge: dispositional, biological, intrapsychic, cognitive-experiential, social and cultural, and adjustment. Within each domain it reviews the main theories and the empirical evidence, giving unusual weight to evolutionary, genetic and cross-cultural research on individual differences.

Prerequisites: An introductory psychology course; familiarity with correlation helps when reading the measurement chapters.

Difficulty Level
Intermediate
Academic Level
Undergraduate
personality psychologytraitsevolutionary psychologyindividual differencesTextbook

01 / Reading Guide

Reading Guide

Citation

Larsen, R. J., & Buss, D. M. (2024). Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature (8th ed.). McGraw Hill.

Chapter Summary

The eighth edition has twenty chapters arranged in six parts, one for each of the "domains of knowledge" that give the book its subtitle, framed by two opening chapters and a closing one. McGraw Hill explains that, instead of organising the text around the traditional grand theories of personality, Larsen and Buss use six domains of knowledge about personality functioning, and that they place particular importance on culture, gender and biology. The summaries below follow the titles in the publisher's contents list.

Chapters 1–2: Introduction to Personality Psychology; Personality Assessment, Measurement, and Research Design

Two opening chapters that set out the field and then how personality is assessed, measured and studied, giving the vocabulary used in the later parts.

Part 1, Chapters 3–5: The Dispositional Domain

Traits and Trait Taxonomies; Theoretical and Measurement Issues in Trait Psychology; and Personality Dispositions over Time: Stability, Coherence, and Change. These chapters cover how traits are described and organised, the questions that arise in measuring them, and whether they hold steady over time.

Part 2, Chapters 6–8: The Biological Domain

Genetics and Personality; Physiological Approaches to Personality; and Evolutionary Perspectives on Personality. Three chapters give genetic, physiological and evolutionary accounts of why people differ.

Part 3, Chapters 9–11: The Intrapsychic Domain

Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality; Psychoanalytic Approaches: Contemporary Issues; and Motives and Personality. Psychoanalysis receives two chapters, one on the approach and one on contemporary issues, followed by a chapter on motives.

Part 4, Chapters 12–14: The Cognitive/Experiential Domain

Cognitive Topics in Personality; Emotion and Personality; and Approaches to the Self. These chapters link personality to thinking, emotion and the self.

Part 5, Chapters 15–17: The Social and Cultural Domain

Personality and Social Interaction; Sex, Gender, and Personality; and Culture and Personality. The domain moves from interpersonal behaviour to gender and then to cultural variation.

Part 6, Chapters 18–19: The Adjustment Domain

Stress, Coping, Adjustment, and Health; and Disorders of Personality. The book's applied domain deals with how personality bears on coping and health and with personality disorders.

Chapter 20: Summary and Future Directions

A concluding chapter that draws the domains together.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–5: foundations and the dispositional domain

  • Domains of knowledge: the book's framework, replacing a sequence of grand theories.
  • Trait taxonomies: the systems for organising traits treated in Chapter 3.
  • Stability, coherence and change: the three ways of describing personality over time in Chapter 5.

Chapters 6–11: biological and intrapsychic domains

  • Genetic, physiological and evolutionary perspectives: the three biological approaches.
  • Psychoanalytic approaches and their contemporary issues: the two-chapter treatment of the intrapsychic tradition.
  • Motives: the subject of Chapter 11.

Chapters 12–20: cognitive, social and adjustment domains

  • Self: the subject of Chapter 14.
  • Sex, gender and culture: the topics of Chapters 16 and 17.
  • Stress, coping and health: the subject of Chapter 18.
  • Personality disorders: the subject of Chapter 19.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

  • A framework based on questions, not theorists. The publisher says the six domains organise the key theories in the field and reflect research, so a reader learns what each kind of evidence (traits, biology, motives, cognition, culture, adjustment) shows about personality, not only what each theorist claimed.
  • Biology, gender and culture get their own chapters. Genetics, physiology and evolution fill Part 2, and sex and gender and culture each have a chapter in Part 5, in line with the publisher's statement that these areas are emphasised.
  • Methods before theory. Chapter 2 on assessment, measurement and research design sits before the domains, and Chapter 4 returns to measurement issues in trait psychology.
  • Applied closing section. Part 6 treats stress, coping and health, and personality disorders, so the book ends on practical outcomes of personality.

Limitations

  • No chapter per tradition. Because the book is organised by domain, not by grand theory, the chapter titles show two chapters for psychoanalysis but none named for the humanistic or learning traditions; a reader who wants those in dedicated chapters will find them in Funder's contents instead.
  • Length and breadth. Twenty chapters and a conclusion are more than a single semester easily absorbs, so a course will need to select domains.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is one of two main textbooks in the course, alongside Funder's The Personality Puzzle. Both are full-length personality textbooks; Larsen and Buss organise by six domains, while Funder's seventeen chapters (in the ninth edition) run from research methods and assessment through traits, biology, psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, culture, personality processes and the self to relationships, work and health. The choice is mostly about structure: domains here, a tour through the major approaches there.

Gaines's Personality Psychology: The Basics is a brief introduction suitable before either textbook. Nettle's Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are is an accessible, Big Five-centred introduction for a general reader. For greater depth, Matthews, Deary and Whiteman's Personality Traits is a research-based account of traits, and Jung's Psychological Types is a primary text for readers interested in the history of ideas about personality types.

How to Use This Book

A full-length text for an undergraduate personality course. Begin with Chapters 1–2 for the field and its methods, then read the domains in order or choose the ones the course emphasises: Part 1 for traits, Part 2 for biology, Part 3 for psychoanalysis and motives.

For a one-term course, Chapters 1–5 and 6–8 form a natural core, with Chapters 9–10 for the psychoanalytic tradition and one or two chapters from Parts 4–6 chosen to fit the syllabus. Finish with Chapter 20 to see the domains together. Readers who want a first look at the field can start with the shorter introductions named above.