Classic personality theories, although intriguing, are outdated. The five-factor model of personality traits reinvigorated personality research, and the resulting findings spurred a new generation of personality theories. These theories assign a central place to traits and acknowledge the crucial role of evolved biology in shaping human psychology; they also address the modifying influences of the social and cultural environment. Teachers can and should teach “personality theories” as a science course, not a history course.
AllenB. P. (2006). Personality theories: Development, growth, and diversity (5th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
2.
American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.).
Washington, DC: Author.
3.
BarrickM. R.MountM. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1–26.
4.
BlockJ. (1977). Advancing the psychology of personality: Paradigmatic shift or improving the quality of research? In MagnussonD.EndlerN. S. (Eds.), Personality at the cross-roads: Current issues in interactional psychology (pp. 37–64). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
5.
BouchardT. J.LoehlinJ. C. (2001). Genes, evolution, and personality. Behavior Genetics, 31, 243–273.
6.
CaspiA. (2000). The child is father of the man: Personality continuities from childhood to adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 158–172.
7.
CattellR. B. (1973). Personality and mood by questionnaire. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
8.
CervoneD.ShodaY. (Eds.). (1999). The coherence of personality: Social-cognitive bases of consistency, variability, and organization. New York, NY: Guilford.
9.
CostaP. T.Jr.McCraeR. R. (1992, August). “Set like plaster”? Evidence for the stability of adult personality. In WeinbergerJ.(Chair), Personality in the life course. Symposium presented at the American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, DC.
10.
CostaP. T.Jr.McCraeR. R. (2011). The five-factor model, five-factor theory, and interpersonal psychology. In StrackS.HorowitzL. M. (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal psychology (pp. 118–136). New York: Guilford.
11.
CraikK. H. (2009). Reputation: A network interpretation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
12.
DomhoffG. W. (1999). Drawing theoretical implications from descriptive empirical findings on dream content. Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams, 9, 201–210.
13.
EpsteinS. (1979). The stability of behavior: I. On predicting most of the people much of the time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1097–1126.
14.
EysenckH. J.EysenckS. B. G. (1975). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. San Diego, CA: EdITS.
15.
EysenckM. W.EysenckH. J. (1980). Mischel and the concept of personality. British Journal of Psychology, 71, 191–204.
16.
FeistG. J.FeistJ. (2006). Theories of personality (6th ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
17.
FunderD. C. (1991). Global traits: A Neo-Allportian approach to personality. Psychological Science, 2, 31–39.
18.
FunderD. C.KolarD. C.BlackmanM. C. (1995). Agreement among judges of personality: Interpersonal relations, similarity, and acquaintanceship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 656–672.
19.
GoughH. G. (1987). California Psychological Inventory administrator’s guide. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
20.
HarknessA. R.McNultyJ. L. (2002). Implications of personality individual differences science for clinical work on personality disorders. In CostaP. T.Jr.WidigerT. A. (Eds.), Personality disorders and the five-factor model of personality (pp. 391–403). 2nd ed.Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
21.
HarrisJ. R. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do. New York, NY: Free Press.
22.
HoganR. (1983). Socioanalytic theory of personality. In PageM. M. (Ed.), 1982 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Personality—current theory and research (pp. 55–89). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
23.
HoganR. (1996). A socioanalytic perspective on the five-factor model. In WigginsJ. S. (Ed.), The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 163–179). New York, NY: Guilford.
24.
JohnO. P.NaumannL.SotoC. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five taxonomy: Discovery, measurement, and conceptual issues. In JohnO. P.RobinsR. W.PervinL. A. (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 114–158).
New York, NY: Guilford.
25.
JungC. G. (1971). Psychological types (BaynesH. G., Trans.; revised by HullR. F. C.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1923).
26.
KenrickD. T.FunderD. C. (1988). Profiting from controversy: Lessons from the person-situation debate. American Psychologist, 43, 23–34.
27.
LearyT. (1957). Interpersonal diagnosis of personality. New York, NY: Ronald Press.
28.
MaddiS. R. (1980). Personality theories: A comparative analysis (4th ed.).
Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.
29.
MayerJ. D. (1993-1994). A system-topics framework for the study of personality. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 13, 99–123.
30.
McAdamsD. P. (1992, August). Levels of stability and growth in personality across the lifespan. In WeinbergerJ.(Chair) , Personality in the life course. Symposium presented at the American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, DC.
31.
McAdamsD. P.PalsJ. L. (2006). A new Big Five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality. American Psychologist, 61, 204–217.
32.
McCraeR. R. (1989). Why I advocate the five-factor model: Joint analyses of the NEO-PI and other instruments. In BussD. M.CantorN. (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions (pp. 237–245). New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
33.
McCraeR. R. (2010). The place of the FFM in personality psychology. Psychological Inquiry, 21, 57–64.
34.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr. (1988). Recalled parent–child relations and adult personality. Journal of Personality, 56, 417–434.
35.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr. (1989). Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator from the perspective of the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Personality, 57, 17–40.
36.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr. (1994). The paradox of parental influence: Understanding retrospective studies of parent–child relations and adult personality. In PerrisC.ArrindellW. A.EisemannM. (Eds.), Parenting and psychopathology (pp. 107–125). New York, NY: Wiley.
37.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr. (1996). Toward a new generation of personality theories: Theoretical contexts for the five-factor model. In WigginsJ. S. (Ed.), The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 51–87). New York, NY: Guilford.
38.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr. (2003). Personality in adulthood: A five-factor theory perspective (2nd. ed.).
New York, NY: Guilford.
39.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr. (2008). The five-factor theory of personality. In JohnO. P.RobinsR. W.PervinL. A. (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 159–181).
New York, NY: Guilford.
40.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr.MartinT. A.OryolV. E.RukavishnikovA. A.SeninI. G.UrbánekT. (2004). Consensual validation of personality traits across cultures. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 179–201.
41.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr.OstendorfF.AngleitnerA.HřebíčkováM.AviaM. D.SmithP. B. (2000). Nature over nurture: Temperament, personality, and lifespan development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 173–186.
42.
McCraeR. R.JohnO. P. (1992). An introduction to the five-factor model and its applications. Journal of Personality, 60, 175–215.
43.
McCraeR. R.KurtzJ. E.YamagataS.TerraccianoA. (2011). Internal consistency, retest reliability, and their implications for personality scale validity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 28–50.
44.
McCraeR. R.LöckenhoffC. E.CostaP. T.Jr. (2005). A step towards DSM-V: Cataloging personality-related problems in living. European Journal of Personality, 19, 269–270.
45.
McCraeR. R.TerraccianoA.78 Members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project. (2005). Universal features of personality traits from the observer’s perspective: Data from 50 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 547–561.
46.
MendelsohnG. A. (1993). It’s time to put theories of personality in their place, or, Allport and Stagner got it right, why can’t we? In CraikK. H.HoganR.WolfeR. N. (Eds.), Fifty years of personality psychology (pp. 103–115). New York, NY: Plenum.
47.
MillonT. (1981). Disorders of personality: DSM III. Axis II. New York, NY: Wiley.
48.
MischelW. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York, NY: Wiley.
49.
MischelW. (1999). Personality coherence and dispositions in a Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) approach. In CervoneD.ShodaY. (Eds.), The coherence of personality: Social-cognitive bases of consistency, variability, and organization (pp. 37–60). New York, NY: Guilford.
50.
MischelW.ShodaY. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102, 246–268.
51.
MurrayH. A. (1938). Explorations in personality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
52.
OzerD. J.Benet-MartínezV. (2006). Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 401–421.
53.
PlominR.DanielsD. (1987). Why are children in the same family so different from one another?Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10, 1–16.
54.
RobertsB. W.WoodD. (2006). Personality development in the context of neo-socioanalytic theory. In MroczekD. K.LittleT. D. (Eds.), Handbook of personality development (pp. 11–39). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
55.
SaroglouV. (2002). Religion and the five factors of personality: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 15–25.
56.
SchmittD. P.AllikJ.McCraeR. R.Benet-MartínezV.AlcalayL.AultL.ZupanćićA. (2007). The geographic distribution of Big Five personality traits: Patterns and profiles of human self-description across 56 nations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38, 173–212.
57.
SheldonK. M. (2004). Optimal human being: An integrated multi-level perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
58.
StrackS.HorowitzL.M. (Eds.) (2011). Handbook of interpersonal psychology. New York, NY: Guilford.
59.
TerraccianoA.CostaP. T.Jr.McCraeR. R. (2006). Personality plasticity after age 30. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 999–1009.
60.
TupesE. C.ChristalR. E. (1992). Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings. Journal of Personality, 60, 225–251. (Original work published 1961).
