"Character" has become a front-and-center topic in contemporary discourse, but this term does not have a fixed meaning. Character may be simply defined by what someone does not do, but a more active and thorough definition is necessary, one that addresses certain vital questions. Is character a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character--however we define it--exist in degrees, or is it simply something one happens to have? How can character be developed? Can it be learned? Relatedly, can it be taught, and who might be the most effective teacher? What roles are played by family, schools, the media, religion, and the larger culture? This groundbreaking handbook of character strengths and virtues is the first progress report from a prestigious group of researchers who have undertaken the systematic classification and measurement of widely valued positive traits. They approach good character in terms of separate strengths-authenticity, persistence, kindness, gratitude, hope, humor, and so on-each of which exists in degrees. Character Strengths and Virtues classifies twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Each strength is thoroughly examined in its own chapter, with special attention to its meaning, explanation, measurement, causes, correlates, consequences, and development across the life span, as well as to strategies for its deliberate cultivation. This book demands the attention of anyone interested in psychology and what it can teach about the good life.

Analyzing the American presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush

An accurate and accessible survey of modern psychological theory and practice, this reference offers professional writers practical advice for incorporating psychological elements into their work. With easy-to-understand explanations and definitions, this book is an invaluable resource for any writer wishing to add realistic details to scenes that depict psychologists, mental illnesses and disorders, and psychotherapeutic treatments. Designed around the needs of professional fiction and nonfiction writers, this is an easy-to-use resource that includes historical and modern psychological treatments and terms and refutes popularly held misconceptions.

Phillip Maciak examines filmic depictions of Jesus to argue that cinema developed as a model technology of secularism, training viewers for belief in a secular age. Cinematic depictions of an appearing and disappearing Christ became a powerful vehicle for Americans to navigate a rapidly modernizing society.

ARE YOU A JERRY OR AN ELAINE? Or maybe you've been living life as a compulsive Monica, when all along there's a carefree Phoebe just waiting to get out? Now's your chance to learn the truth, without having to step foot inside a single comedy club or coffeehouse. Who's Your TV Alter Ego?will help you unearth your Simpsonssoul mate, inner desperate housewife, OCBFF, and much, much more. This is no trivia book: Who's Your TV Alter Ego?is like Mad Libs, the Cosmo Quiz, and a Rorschach blot all rolled into one, and can be played alone or with a live studio audience. More than fifty classic and contemporary hit TV shows are featured, each with a list of ten questions designed to playfully probe your innermost thoughts. Each quiz will match you -- or someone you know -- with a TV character and reveal the personality traits you share: the good, the bad, and the hilariously ugly. So put down the remote and pick up a pencil. This may well be the most important test you ever take. 52 tests in all, including the characters from: 52 TESTS IN ALL, INCLUDING THE CHARACTERS FROM: •Grey's Anatomy •Friends •Heroes •Project Runway •Sex and the City •24 •The Cosby Show •The Brady Bunch •The Sopranos •Star Trek •Gilligan's Island •Lost •Seinfeld ...AND ALL THE REST OF YOUR FAVORITES!

The basis for the new HBO Max documentary, Persona *A New York Times Critics' Best Book of 2018* *An Economist Best Book of 2018* *A Spectator Best Book of 2018* *A Mental Floss Best Book of 2018* An unprecedented history of the personality test conceived a century ago by a mother and her daughter--fiction writers with no formal training in psychology--and how it insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It is used regularly by Fortune 500 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military. Its language of personality types--extraversion and introversion, sensing and intuiting, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving--has inspired television shows, online dating platforms, and Buzzfeed quizzes. Yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $2 billion industry, have struggled to validate its results--no less account for its success. How did Myers-Briggs, a homegrown multiple choice questionnaire, infiltrate our workplaces, our relationships, our Internet, our lives? First conceived in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a pair of devoted homemakers, novelists, and amateur psychoanalysts, Myers-Briggs was designed to bring the gospel of Carl Jung to the masses. But it would take on a life entirely its own, reaching from the smoke-filled boardrooms of mid-century New York to Berkeley, California, where it was administered to some of the twentieth century's greatest creative minds. It would travel across the world to London, Zurich, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Tokyo, until it could be found just as easily in elementary schools, nunneries, and wellness retreats as in shadowy political consultancies and on social networks. Drawing from original reporting and never-before-published documents, The Personality Brokers takes a critical look at the personality indicator that became a cultural icon. Along the way it examines nothing less than the definition of the self--our attempts to grasp, categorize, and quantify our personalities. Surprising and absorbing, the book, like the test at its heart, considers the timeless question: What makes you, you?

How does your personality shape your life and what, if anything, can you do about it? Are you hardwired for happiness, or born to brood? Do you think you're in charge of your future, or do you surf the waves of unknowable fate? Would you be happier, or just less socially adept, if you were less concerned about what other people thought of you? And what about your "Type A" spouse: is he or she destined to have a heart attack, or just drive you to drink? In the past few decades, new scientific research has transformed old ideas about the nature of human personality. Neuroscientists, biologists, and psychological scientists have reexamined the theories of Freud and Jung as well as the humanistic psychologies of the 1960s, upending the simplistic categorizations of personality "types," and developing new tools and methods for exploring who we are. Renowned professor and pioneering research psychologist Brian R. Little has been at the leading edge of this new science. In this wise and witty book he shares a wealth of new data and provocative insights about who we are, why we act the way we do, what we can -- and can't -- change, and how we can best thrive in light of our "nature." Me, Myself, and Us explores questions that are rooted in the origins of human consciousness but are as commonplace as yesterday's breakfast conversation, such as whether our personality traits are "set" by age thirty or whether our brains and selves are more plastic. He considers what our personalities portend for our health and success, and the extent to which our well-being depends on the personal projects we pursue. Through stories, studies, personal experiences, and entertaining interactive assessments, Me, Myself, and Us provides a lively, thought-provoking, and ultimately optimistic look at the possibilities and perils of being uniquely ourselves, while illuminating the selves of the familiar strangers we encounter, work with, and love.