In Pathways to Individuality, veteran researcher and scholar Arnold Buss examines the personality traits we share with other animals-and those that set us apart from other animals, the social traits that make us distinctly human. Within those general social traits, there's much variability, as Buss explains in this new book, usually differentiated during the crucial periods of human development-and that's what makes us individuals. Humans make up the only species that has an extended period of childhood-we play and explore more than other animals-during which our human traits become canalized and differentiated: Our early interactions with our social environment influence and sharpen the neural and behavioral pathways that distinguish our distinct individuality. In turn, we seek to influence those environments we are drawn to and that help shape our individuality. Drawing from his own published research over a half-century of teaching and writing on personality, Buss masterfully summarizes key theories and recent advances in the study of temperament (aggression, dominance, etc.), the self (self-conscious shyness, self-esteem, identity), and abnormal behavior and style as crucial dimensions in understanding personality and individual differences.

"This book is about the development of personality from an evolutionary perspective. The focus is mainly on personality traits, so let me start by discussing basic issues involving traits. This book consists mainly of my perspectives on various aspects of personality. For example, I have a particular approach to the role of evolution in personality, to temperament, and to the self. However, other perspectives must be respected, and they are offered in summary form at the end of chapters, starting with Chapter 3. My conceptions and those of others are complementary and therefore offer a more complete understanding of major areas of personality. The book closes with an epilogue, a summing up and integration of what has gone before"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

In this wide-ranging and fascinating book, Leonard Doob explores what we know about human action and interaction in order to show how people succeed or fail in their constant attempts to understand each other. He organizes our ways of knowing each other into two sorts of "pathways to people.” The first pathways are those that have been investigated by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social scientists. Mr. Doob offers a critical summary of our systematic knowledge in the area of what is sometimes called "person perception.” By and large, he is dissatisfied with what we think we know, because too much of the research stems from a convenient, but not typical, sample of mankind - the college student. The second set of pathways are those intended to improve judgment or avoid error, and they come not only from the scientific disciplines but also from the humanities, along with common sense. Together, the pathways constitute the factors or variables that determine how and why human judgments are made - and how they should be made. The exposition is occasionally interrupted by a devil’s advocate offering lively and cutting criticism of what is being said. In this manner, Leonard Doob opens another pathway - between reader and author - which makes reading this book a rich and provocative experience.

The 8th edition of Theories of Personality follows in the tradition of the previous versions, by centering on the premise that personality theories are a reflection of the unique cultural background, family experiences, personalities, and professional training of their originators. The book begins by acquainting students with the meaning of personality and providing them with a solid foundation for understanding the nature of theory, as well as its crucial contributions to science. The chapters that follow present twenty-three major theories: coverage of each theory also encompasses a biographical sketch of each theorist, related research, and applications to real life. Changes in the 8th edition included a new chapter 8 on evolutionary personality theory, focusing on the work of David Buss. The Related Research sections in each chapter have also been updated.

Introduction: working together on individuality / Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- The work of biological individuality: concepts and contexts / Scott Lidgard and Lynn K. Nyhart -- Cells, colonies, and clones: individuality in the volvocine algae / Matthew D. Herron -- Individuality and the control of life cycles / Beckett Sterner -- Discovering the ties that bind: cell-cell communication and the development of cell sociology / Andrew S. Reynolds -- Alternation of generations and individuality, 1851 / Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- Spencer's evolutionary entanglement: from liminal individuals to implicit collectivities / Snait Gissis -- Biological individuality and enkapsis: from Martin Heidenhain's synthesiology to the völkisch national community / Olivier Rieppel -- Parasitology, zoology, and society in France, ca. 1880-1920 / Michael A. Osborne -- Metabolism, autonomy, and individuality / Hannah Landecker -- Bodily parts in the structure-function dialectic / Ingo Brigandt -- Commentaries: historical, biological, and philosophical perspectives -- Distrust that particular intuition: resilient essentialisms and empirical challenges in the history of biological individuality / James Elwick -- Biological individuality: a relational reading / Scott F. Gilbert -- Philosophical dimensions of individuality / Alan C. Love and Ingo Brigandt

This key work exposes international studies from leading social sciences researchers who use various theoretical perspectives and methodological orientations to depict deviant drug and crime-related pathways. The chapters have been grouped into four sections. The first section, Deviance, Set and Setting, discusses a new basis for the understanding of deviant pathways. The second section, Youth, Drug and Delinquency Pathways, presents empirical studies which help to understand the drug-crime relationship. The third section discusses Adult, Drug and Crime Pathways adopted by drug users, flexers , traders or dealers, and traffickers. Finally, the fourth section, Ways Out of deviant pathways, explores approaches for controlling drug use and criminality socially or individually, with or without legal intervention or formal help. In short, this book presents an invaluable overview of the most advanced research in the field of deviant drug-and crime-related pathways.

Are you above average? Is your child an A student? Is your employee an introvert or an extrovert? Every day we are measured against the yardstick of averages, judged according to how closely we come to it or how far we deviate from it. The assumption that metrics comparing us to an average—like GPAs, personality test results, and performance review ratings—reveal something meaningful about our potential is so ingrained in our consciousness that we don’t even question it. That assumption, says Harvard’s Todd Rose, is spectacularly—and scientifically—wrong. In The End of Average, Rose, a rising star in the new field of the science of the individual shows that no one is average. Not you. Not your kids. Not your employees. This isn’t hollow sloganeering—it’s a mathematical fact with enormous practical consequences. But while we know people learn and develop in distinctive ways, these unique patterns of behaviors are lost in our schools and businesses which have been designed around the mythical “average person.” This average-size-fits-all model ignores our differences and fails at recognizing talent. It’s time to change it. Weaving science, history, and his personal experiences as a high school dropout, Rose offers a powerful alternative to understanding individuals through averages: the three principles of individuality. The jaggedness principle (talent is always jagged), the context principle (traits are a myth), and the pathways principle (we all walk the road less traveled) help us understand our true uniqueness—and that of others—and how to take full advantage of individuality to gain an edge in life. Read this powerful manifesto in the ranks of Drive, Quiet, and Mindset—and you won’t see averages or talent in the same way again.

In the past fifty years, scholars of human development have been moving from studying change in humans within sharply defined periods, to seeing many more of these phenomenon as more profitably studied over time and in relation to other processes. The Handbook of Life-Span Development, Volume 2: Social and Emotional Development presents the study of human development conducted by the best scholars in the 21st century. Social workers, counselors and public health workers will receive coverage of the social and emotional aspects of human change across the lifespan.

Dominant governance theories are drawn primarily from Euro-American sources, including emergent theories of network and collaborative governance. The authors contest this narrow view and seek a more globally inclusive and transdisciplinary perspective, arguing such an approach is more fruitful in addressing the wicked problems of sustainability—including social, economic, and environmental crises. This book thus offers and affirms an innovative governance approach that may hold more promise as a "universal" framework that is not colonizing in nature due to its grounding in relational process assumptions and practices. Using a comprehensive Governance Typology that encompasses ontological assumptions, psychosocial theory, epistemological concepts, belief systems, ethical concepts, political theory, economic theory, and administrative theory, the authors delve deeply into underlying philosophical commitments and carry them into practice through an approach they call Integrative Governance. The authors consider ways this approach to radical self-governance is already being implemented in the prefigurative politics of contemporary social movements, and they invite scholars and activists to: imagine governance in contexts of social, economic, and environmental interconnectedness; to use the ideal-type as an evaluative tool against which to measure practice; and to pursue paradigmatic change through collaborative praxis.

Care Pathways are being developed throughout the health service to improve the quality and effectiveness of care. Are they being developed efficiently and making the most of the latest clinical computing systems? This is the first practical guide on how Information Technology and systems methods can support the development, implementation and maintenance of Care Pathways. Case studies throughout highlight team approaches to facilitation, clinical knowledge management, process analysis and redesign, and computerisation - providing insights into how e-Pathways can be used to support high quality patient care. The information is presented in an easy-to-read style, and requires no prior knowledge of IT systems. Doctors, nurses and managers throughout primary and secondary care, as well as healthcare information technology specialists and suppliers will find this to be essential reading.