The Personality Puzzle

by David C. Funder

Book Overview

For the Fifth Edition, every chapter has been updated. A new illustration program supports visual learners with updated versions of the book's much-loved cartoons and new in-text features to help students visualize and remember concepts. The text covers classic theories of personality as well as all the latest findings, including up-to-date coverage of the biological domain, new material on cross-cultural psychology, and expanded treatment of positive...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393933482
• ISBN13: 9780393933482
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 757 Pages
• Weight: 3.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.7" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Personality hard to understand but easy to read

I am starting upon my pursuit of a EdD or PsyD having obtained degrees outside the field of psychology and a 20 year career in a high tech (you grow : ) ). I am reading Dr. Funder's Personality Puzzle as part of a self designed program to prepare myself for graduate level course work in counseling psychology and my own self development. I have found the text an enjoyable, thorough, interesting, and most of the time, reasonably easy read especially if you have been exposed to a general psychology course. I especially enjoy Dr. Funder's remarks and clarifications. He often includes comments and discusses personal feelings and life experiences and sometimes you feel you are having a conversation with the man behind the text instead of reading a text. This is very rare, and for me, a highly enjoyable experience! Makes the text read more human, more personably, which validates and encourages my ideas and opinions. The text covers many areas so well that one might be tempted to believe this text is too easy, too fundamental for college level relevance or credit. I fell into that trap at first. I was reading a couple of other texts which were more pedantical and cumbersome to fathom, believing that this to be a sign of true rigor. I guess I have the habit from reading too many math, engineering and business texts and the academic stoicism advocated by the physical sciences. Gotten too use to reading fundamentals texts which seemingly are written not to assist those trying to assimulate new skills, but primarily to prove the scholarly merit and aid psychological fulfillment and satisfaction of the author. Texts by such like authors written for students who sadly endorse the philospohy "if there is no excrutiating pain from sorting through the nearly unreadable and nearly undeciperable then there can be no possibility of profound knowledge gain nor feelings of emotional and intellectual satisfaction". For me such texts (yes, still fight the habit of such an deeply ingrained attitude from my early academic world) ultimately resulted in much time consumption, much, much effort and needless frustration and "pain". Sadly my experience has been the gains made this way, when any, were only on a few rare occassions worth the cost. Back to Dr. Funder's text. As noted, I was reading two other texts on personality, which were not bad but noticed a curious pattern. In addition to being more cumbersome and a slower read, every time I became bored or the other texts bogged down, were unclear or ambivalent, I kept referring to Funder's text for clarification and understanding. Most of the time with very nice results. Hmmmm, ... Eventually the light remained on and Dr. Funder's text became my text of first choice using the others as references for contrast, occassional clarity and a sense of pedgogical gain and completeness. I have taught mathematics and statistcs as a part time instructor at community colleges and four year colleges in California to bu

Virtually the best personality textbook available.

Funder's book is a nice example of what a psychology textbook ought to be: entertaining, witty, objective, concise, and informative. Rather than being dry, technical, or long-winded, the book is fascinating and intelligent (and this is coming from someone who had no interest in personality psychology and used her textbooks as a quick way to fall asleep in the middle of the day). It takes boring or vague ideas and makes them clear, simple and interesting - I even enjoyed the chapters on test development and research methods. He also sprinkles the text with anecdotes, jokes, quips and cartoons to keep it from getting dull. It features: + Easy advantage/disadvantage info on the main concepts + Clear, understandable explanations of statistical concepts + Simple jargon-free definitions + Unique, memorable examples to demonstrate trickier concepts + A sense of humour mixed with a passion for being logical and scientific From a scientific perspective, Funder is willing to carefully explain and illuminate his own biases, he details the relative advantages and disadvantages of everything, and he never oversteps his liberties as a writer. I highly recommend it to any psychology student who wants a good read about personality. Well worth the money.

Excellent personality psyc textbook

I read this textbook as part of a course on personality psychology. It is excellent. It covers all the major topics of personality psychology very well, and gives many clear examples of the subject matter. Probably my favorite thing about this book is that it is highly interesting and readable. I would have read it even if it weren't part of a class - it was that good. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for an overview of personality. It was so good that I found myself sometimes skimming ahead and reading chapters before they were assigned. Great book. My only problem with this book was that it was rather expensive.

A fantastic easy-to-read book on personality psychology!

I recently took a class on personality psychology and Funder's "The Personality Puzzle" was the textbook for the class. The book clearly presents concepts and theories on personality psychology, and frequently provides real-life examples. Overall, an excellent read!

Excellent book!

This is probably one of the most interesting introductory personality books I have read. It is different than the typical book available for a course on the Psychology of Personality. The book (which I have used during the past two years in the university level Psychology of Personality course I teach) provides the student with a provocative blending of research, assessment, and theory. I highly recommend it.