APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology

This four-volume handbook summarizes the current state of knowledge on major topics within the fields of personality and social psychology. Coverage is contemporary, is provocative, and sets an agenda for future work in the area.

Volume 1 focuses on attitudes and social cognition, describing the two main directions in which this domain has moved over the past quarter century. First, there is increasing focus on the phenomenology of daily life, with emphasis on the contents and drivers of mundane daily life. These include emotional experience, religious beliefs, feelings of control and agency, the function of conscious thought, and how all of these underpin our sense of self and important social behaviors. The second trend has been toward a deeper understanding of basic human nature, with increasing focus on unconscious or implicit cognitive processes that influence virtually all facets of daily life (e.g., how power transforms how we think about others and what qualities we associate with leadership).

Volumes 2 and 3 provide a broad framework to guide theorizing and research with respect to group processes and interpersonal relations in social psychology. Topics of discussion include theory and research on prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination; intergroup and intragroup processes; and the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of relationships. Together, the chapters reflect a wide range of theoretical perspectives at different levels of analysis, including perspectives from disciplines outside of psychology (e.g., biology, neuroscience, health sciences, sociology).

Volume 4 contains sections on personality processes and individual differences as well as sections on more holistic approaches, such as The Person in Context and The Person as a Whole.

Authors provide not only the foundational material on their topic but also discuss the big issues or bones of contention and what they see as the ways forward to resolve these issues.

Mario Mikulincer, PhD, is professor of psychology and dean of the School of Psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel. He has coauthored and coedited numerous books and more than 320 scholarly journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Mikulincer’s main research interests are attachment theory, terror management theory, personality processes in interpersonal relationships, coping with stress and trauma, grief-related processes, and prosocial motives and behavior. He is a member of the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Inquiry, and Personality and Social Psychology Review and has served as associate editor of two journals, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Personal Relationships. Currently, he acts as chief editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. He is a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Association for Psychological Sciences. He received the EMET Prize in Social Science for his contributions to psychology and the Berscheid-Hatfield Award for Distinguished Midcareer Achievement from the International Association for Relationship Research.

Phillip R. Shaver, PhD, is a social and personality psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Before moving there, he served on the faculties of Columbia University, New York University, University of Denver, and State University of New York at Buffalo. He has coauthored and coedited numerous books and has published more than 300 scholarly journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Shaver’s research focuses on attachment, human motivation and emotion, close relationships, personality development, and the effects of meditation on behavior and the brain. He is a member of the editorial boards of Attachment and Human Development, Personal Relationships, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Emotion and has served on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He has been executive officer of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and is a fellow of both APA and the Association for Psychological Science. Dr. Shaver received a Distinguished Career Award from the International Association for Relationship Research and has served as president of that organization.