ABSTRACT
T his volume is about personality and social behavior. It surveys a wide vari-ety of research domains with roots in the two disciplines in an attempt to understand the transactions between persons and their social worlds. The organizing questions are (a) How do characteristics of the person drive and shape interpersonal behavior? and (b) How do features of the social environment constrain and elicit behaviors from the individual? These are not new questions. However, there are new and evolving answers. It can be argued that the “emerging symbiosis” (Swann & Selye, 2005) between the disciplines of social and personality psychology is evidenced in the new and exciting approaches to addressing the personality and social behavior questions put forth in the following chapters.
