Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations into Human Personality

3.4 3.4 out of 5 stars | 7 ratings

Price: 25

Last update: 01-30-2025


About this item

To understand the roots of personality is to understand motivations and influences that shape behavior, which in turn reflect how you deal with the opportunities and challenges of everyday life. That's the focus of these exciting 24 lectures, in which you examine the differences in people's personalities, where these differences come from, and how they shape our lives.

Drawing on information gleaned from psychology, neuroscience, and genetics, Professor Leary opens the door to understanding how personality works and why. Throughout his illuminating lectures, five important personality traits come into focus, traits that form the foundation of how psychologists approach the topic of personality: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness.

Combining psychology with neuroscience and behavioral genetics, this exploration will open your eyes to the myriad ways our traits, motives, emotions, beliefs, and values are shaped by things like our genes, environment, experiences, and evolutionary history. Why is it so hard to change our behavior? Why do people develop different values and morals? Does personality change as we age? Is personality passed down through genes?

Designed as a fascinating, accessible scientific inquiry, these lectures will have you thinking about personality in a way that enriches your understanding of the complex psychological processes that make you who you are.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Peter Rogers MD
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but I would have liked coverage of Dabrowski.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2018
    Author is good and he makes some interesting statements.

    Goes over the big 5 system of Introversion-extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism.

    I don't remember any discussion of Dabrowski's theory of personality disintegration and reintegration which is in my opinion, the most interesting thing in personality theory.

    Also, like a typical "great courses" the book is written at a level so the average 18 year old college air head could understand it.

    So each chapter starts out with some boring intro material and then becomes interesting.
  • Ronald S
    2.0 out of 5 stars Words/Content Ratio Too High
    Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2021
    Even for someone like me who has never taken a psychology course, Professor Leary's lectures are very basic, wordy, and repetitive. Listening at 150% speed helps but is ineffective at filtering out statements of the obvious. There is virtually no mention of the genetic basis of so much of human behavior, a glaring omission given the amazing discoveries from GWAS and twin studies that are revolutionizing the field.

    The interesting content could be summarized in two or three lectures and an additional dozen lectures with more interesting and timely material could be added.
  • Elisabeth Carey
    4.0 out of 5 stars Lively, interesting look at human personality
    Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2019
    Many of us want to understand personality, our own and other people's better, and in this Great Courses set of lectures, Mark Leary presents the current state of knowledge in psychology, neuroscience, and genetics, as it applies to human personality, how it develops, how it affects our choices and our relationships with others, and how much we can affect our own personalities so that we can improve those things if we're not satisfied currently.

    This isn't a self-help book. It's not a handbook to fixing yourself. It's intended to expand your knowledge and understanding, and I found that it does that.

    He covers the origins of the study of personality, the broadly agreed basics of personality, what's genetic, what's the result of life experience (most features of individual personality are affected by both), and how we've learned these things.

    It's really fascinating how much of ordinary personality features are in fact highly heritable. At the same time, very few things are entirely determined by genetics.

    He also discusses personality disorders, which have a large heritability component, but are also probably genetically complex. That is, they're not just one gene. They're likely to be a complex set of genes, creating an increased risk of developing a particular personality disorder.

    Leary is clear about when he's talking about broadly accepted scientific principles, and when he's expressing his own opinion or sharing his own opinion or scientific ideas that are still speculative. He's a very good, lively, interesting speaker, and I very much enjoyed listening to him.

    Recommended.

    I bought this audiobook.
  • Skye-writer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly insightful book
    Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2018
    As an author, I create characters every day and this series of lectures was full of good information for bringing my imaginary characters to life, to make them real and then to know how they should be reacting with and to the other characters and events in the plot I have put them into. My only wish was that there was a Cliff Notes, or even a printed version as it would be on my shelf as soon as it could be shipped for constant reference.
  • Piaw Na
    4.0 out of 5 stars Useful
    Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2018
    Why You Are Who You Are is the great courses introduction to personality. It takes the academic approach to personality and explains it (the big 5/6 HEXACO traits: conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and honest/humility). The lecturer explains why these are considered the most important, while also discussing minor traits.

    He then launches into a discussion of the heritable nature of these traits (most of them have been discovered to be 50% heritable), how upbringing and genetics interact so people express these traits differently at different times, and how the studies were made. Then there's a huge discussion of the various mental disorders, some of which I didn't know about, such as schzoid personality disorder, and narcissism.

    The lecture series ends up with a big discussion on what personality means, what it means to be "authentic" or "true to yourself", and how to grow resilient kids who are well adjusted (the answer to the latter is easy: read and apply the lessons in John Medina's book, Brain Rules for Baby).

    As someone who failed to take a single psychology course in college, I found this a useful introduction and different from the pop stuff that's out there. Recommended.
  • Eldon Edwards
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Course On Personality By Dr. Mark Leary Duke University! Must listening!
    Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2018
    Excellent course on Personality. Great PDF included with Audible version of the course. Great case studies and examples. Evidenced based course. Interesting and insightful and very important too. Excellent narration by Dr. Mark Leary. I recommend this course without qualifications for everyone! Superb information on personality.
  • Teresa S
    5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Interesting
    Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2019
    I purchased this through Audible. It is extremely interesting and it helped me better understand some members of my family.

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