Designed for upper level undergraduate and graduate level students inquiring about the psychology of personality and individual differences, this textbook focuses on the personality traits and related characteristics that make each person unique. Basic principles of personality measurement are explained and crucial scientific questions of personality psychology are examined via a reader-friendly style and various boxes of interesting asides to keep students' attention.

Unlike lower-level texts written from a historical perspective that concentrate solely on theory, this textbook summarizes and integrates the contemporary research available about individual differences.