In the past few decades, personality psychology has made considerable
progress in raising new questions about human nature--and providing some
provocative answers. New scientific research has transformed old ideas
about personality based on the theories of Freud, Jung, and the
humanistic psychologies of the nineteen sixties, which gave rise to the
simplistic categorizations of the Meyer-Briggs Inventory and the
"enneagream." But the general public still knows little about the new
science and what it reveals about who we are.
In Me, Myself, and Us, Brian Little, Ph.D., one of the psychologists
who helped re-shape the field, provides the first in-depth exploration
of the new personality science and its provocative findings for general
readers. The book explores questions that are rooted in the origins of
human consciousness but are as commonplace as yesterday's breakfast
conversation. Are our first impressions of other people's personalities
usually fallacious? Are creative individuals essentially maladjusted?
Are our personality traits, as William James put it, "set like plaster"
by the age of thirty? Is a belief that we are in control of our lives an
unmitigated good? Do our singular personalities comprise one unified
self or a confederacy of selves, and if the latter, which of our
mini-mes do we offer up in marriage or mergers? Are some individuals
genetically hard-wired for happiness? Which is the more viable path
toward human flourishing, the pursuit of happiness or the happiness of
pursuit?
Little provides a resource for answering such questions, and a framework
through which readers can explore the personal implications of the new
science of personality. Questionnaires and interactive assessments
throughout the book facilitate self-exploration, and clarify some of the
stranger aspects of our own conduct and that of others. Brian Little
helps us see ourselves, and other selves, as somewhat less perplexing
and definitely more intriguing.
This is not a self-help book, but students at Harvard who took the
lecture course on which it is based claim that it changed their lives.
