42 books like Personality

This book starts with an interesting premise, that the U.S. is a society that favors Extroverts over Introverts. 

The author cites academic research and data from her own experiences to demonstrate how we moved from a society that valued character over personality, to one that lauds the Extroversion Ideal…at school, at work, and other public venues. This book made me think hard about how my perceptions of others might be influenced by my assumptions about what Extroverts and Introverts bring to the table.

Full confession: the author is my son, Jake Jabbour. This is a memoir written in 2017 about the death of my father, his grandfather. They were close. My father died in October 2016, three weeks before the election of Donald Trump as POTUS. Subsequently, in the spring of 2017, we had a service for The Colonel. That's when this story begins.

After the service, Jake broke up with his girlfriend and embarked on a train trip across America. The reason was to teach and perform Improvisation Comedy. During that sixteen-day journey, Jake attempts to make sense of all that has happened. Moreover, to reflect on who he is. It's beautifully written, heartbreaking, and inspiring.

Jake identifies as an INFJ. Which stands for Introvert, Intuition, Feeling, Judging. It designates one of sixteen personality types per the Myers-Briggs Personality Type indicator test. My doctor doesn't give the MBTI much credence. However, a… show more.

I like this book because it's a case study of what can go wrong. If one doesn't know who they are. The consequences can have harmful effects. Not only for the person but for others as well. That is the definition of pathology - having a harmful impact.

The authors do a masterful job of explaining Bergdahl's personality. He was diagnosed as having a schizotypal personality disorder and never sought treatment. Using Daniel Nettle's Big Five personality indicators descriptors, Bergdahl can be described as a Worried, out-of-control, Wanderer.

This is a novel published by Ken Kesey in 1964. Not only is it one of the best books to understand personality, but it is one of the best novels ever. It tells the story of an American family whose patriarch, Henry Stamper, is a classic narcissist. Stamper could be described as a confident, callous, Controlling Wanderer. He is an independent logger and owns his home and business on a river on the central coast of Oregon. He defies the small town, his neighbors, and the national union. His behavior ultimately leads to much pain and suffering. However, Henry has a good time.

The writing is poetic and insightful. All the characters' personalities are well fleshed out. It is the story of America coming of age in the '50s and '60s. Today, sixty years later, America's culture is changing; but personalities remain as they've always been. Personality is the bedrock… show more.

The author is a psychology professor and a leading populariser of personality psychology. His book will give you a great overview of the most widely endorsed model of personality, which is based on the so-called Big Five traits, including extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness. Little is also renowned for his research into 'personal projects' – the goals you have that are meaningful to you. What I particularly took away from this book is how these projects feedback and shape your personality. So, if you want to have more control over who you are and will become, it is worth thinking about the goals that you are pursuing in life – whether they are satisfying and how they might be influencing you.

I stumbled upon this book when I researched the psychology behind my first novel (the protagonist goes to therapy sessions). Although most psychologists follow Jung, I decided to make the therapist in my book an Adlerian psychologist. Why? Because Adler studied the criminal mind and posed interesting theories of how we follow a “faulty pattern of life” set forth from the time we are children. Kids develop defense mechanisms that allow them to cope with a given situation (violent parent, cloying parent, bullying at school, etc.) The problem is, as the kids grow up, they forget that these “patterns” they’ve cultivated were based on survival and may not guide them in the right direction. To be happy, people may have to rewire their brains. Good stuff! And I used the heck out of it. 

In the late 1960s, Eugene Gendlin teamed up with pioneer psychologist Carl Rogers to try to figure out why some people got better with therapy while others did not.

After screening for all the factors that might explain this phenomenon, they identified the most important one, and it was something people either came into therapy already doing (and they got better) or didn’t do (and they didn’t improve). Gendlin created Focusing to teach us all this simple, powerful technique. It’s the best self-help tool I know.

Along with meditation, Focusing is at the heart of my personal and professional life.

Erich Fromm isn’t so well known nowadays, but I am a great admirer of his. He developed a wide-ranging vision of individual and collective well-being. He investigated the whole spectrum of human nature, from the cruelty and brutality of Nazi Germany (which he personally experienced, as a German Jew who escaped to the United States) to love and altruism. This book is his last major work, in which he decries modern society’s emphasis on having and suggests that the only authentic and fulfilling mode of life is being. He develops a concept of a new type of human being who lives in harmony with themselves and the world. Fromm rarely wrote explicitly about spirituality, but it’s an underlying theme of almost everything he wrote. 

This book gives an excellent overview of Freud’s thoughts about human psychology, and also shows the way he thought. Freud’s brilliance shines through. I hasten to say most, though not by any means all of his hypotheses are wrong. I read this book at 15 and knew when I finished it I was going to be a psychologist. Some of my work gives strong support to a few of his hypotheses about the unconscious. Ironically, Freud himself didn’t believe his ideas could be tested by psychology experiments.

We neuroscientists know a lot about how brains are, but not how they come to be. This book fills that huge hole: it explains how genetics and development shape the growing brain, and the consequences this has for our personalities and our mental disorders. Mitchell’s thesis is that the stochastic nature of development is key to understanding much of the variation between brains, and it has changed the way I think about the wiring of brains.