Edition 1.5 Revisions

Overview of the Edition 1.5 Revision

This page goes over the revisions that were made to Edition 1.5 of Personality: A Systems Approach. On this page you can find the overall aims of the revision and a great deal of point-by-point information. You can also find out about the revision to the book’s boxes here, and about the book’s advisory board here.

Aims of the Edition 1.5 Revision

I had three aims in mind for Edition 1.5 of Personality: A Systems Approach. These include (a) to update the scientific coverage, (b) to improve the readability of the book, and (c) to make the book friendlier for e-reading.

To meet those goals, the book has both been reformatted, re-edited, and updated.

At the same time, the book’s central character remains—the core ideas and most the coverage is the same—it has just been improved. For that reason, let me start with what is the same.

What Stayed the Same

  •  The four parts of the book: Personality’s (a) definition and location, (b) parts, (c) organization, and (d) development remain the same. The overall organization of Personality: A Systems Approach (2nd edition) follows the same 4-part outline of the discipline as before, following the central topics of the personality systems framework. The systems framework has been a touchstone work for people interested in integrating the field. The framework was featured in a 2013 special issue of the Review of General Psychology on integrating the discipline of psychology, and a further exposition of the framework is planned for the forthcoming  Journal of Research in Personality special issue on the integration personality psychology (see Mayer, 2014; Mayer & Korogodsky, 2011; Mayer & Allen, 2013).
  • The 12 chapters within the four parts of the books remain the same. They all have the same order, titles and overall coverage as before. My students and I find that the chapter divisions work well in teaching the course.
  • The subsections within the 12 chapters also remain the same

This stability of the book’s overall organization has allowed me to focus on improving the book design, readability, and on updating material for the 2nd edition.

What Changed

The Book is e-Reader Friendly

The book has been redesigned with an eye to make it more e-book friendly:

  • The best material in the book’s boxes have been integrated with the text and the boxes themselves are deleted. For details as to which boxes were integrated and which were removed, see (for details, see “What happened to my favorite box?“).
  • The “Notable Quotes” are reduced in number from about five per chapter to three per chapter and are now in-line rather than in the margins
  • Each table and each figure has been be edited where needed to ensure that it can fit on a single page
  • Glossaries now appear at the end of each chapter rather than in the margins
The Reading Experience is Improved
  • All text in the tables and figures has been reviewed and, where useful, edited to improve the readability of the material
  • Chapters 1 through 3 have been re-edited to improve flow, style, clarity, and readability.
  • All materials from the boxes that were integrated into the main text of the book have been re-edited to improve their readability
  • Certain sections have been pared down to make the reading experience flow more smoothly. These include:
    • The concluding section of Chapter 1 that provides an overview of the book’s organization.
    • The beginning of Chapter 2 that discusses Olympic athletes
Key Material is Updated

As the above changes were implemented, key material also was updated. In specific:

  • Information in the tables and figures were updated where new data was available. For example, in Chapter 1, Figure 1-4 “Rising Research Levels in Personality Psychology” now shows the rising number of research reports in the discipline through 2010.
  • Chapter 1, “What is Personality,” was updated with new references and the website of the  Association for Research in Personality has been added.
  • In Chapter 2, “Research in Personality Psychology,” the section on test validity has been rewritten to reflect the forthcoming Standards for Educational and Psychological Tests. To reflect the new standards, I have deemphasized the use of terms such as “content validity” and “criterion validity.” The Standards now recommend using phraseology such as “evidence for validity from the test’s content,” and “evidence for validity from the test’s correlations with criteria.” I have transitioned partway to that new phraseology.
  • In Chapter 5 , “Interior Selves; Interior Worlds,” the section on archetypes has been revised to reflect new research in the area.
  • In Chapter 6, the material on emotional intelligence has been updated to reflect new research.
  • In Chapter 6, a new section introducing “personal intelligence”—a newly proposed intelligence that concerns reasoning about personality—has been added.
  • In Chapter 8, material on the Big Six (HEXACO) model has been very slightly updated and expanded
  • In Chapter 12, the section “Personality and health” has been completely revised to reflect new understandings in the area. More specifically, the focus of the section has been shifted to the known personality factors that predict longevity.
Changes Due to the Transfer of Rights from Pearson to the Author

As part of the transfer of rights from Pearson Education back to me (as of July, 2014) I have:

  • Redesigned and reformatted all the figures and tables
  • Removed or re-edited a small number of tables and figures to avoid copyright issues. If a figure or table was removed, the material was then described in the text.
  • Removed all photographs from the original edition for the time being, as I focus on the text.
  • Removed the test-yourself features. Instead, I’ll recommend some online tests that students can use as part of the on-line instructors manual.
Summary  of Changes this Far

All together, the change to the book’s format and narrative should make for an easier, more streamlined learning experience for students.