Personality, Values, Culture
An Evolutionary Approach
Culture and Psychology Series

Humans are complex social beings. To understand human behaviour, an integrated perspective is required - one which considers both what we regularly do (our personality traits) and what motivates us (our values). Personality, Values, Culture uses an evolutionary perspective to look at the similarities and differences in personality and values across modern societies. Integrating research on personality and human values into a functional framework that highlights their underlying compatibilities (driven by shared genetic and brain mechanisms), Fischer describes how personality is shaped by the complex interplay between genes and the environment, both over the course of human evolution and within the lifespan of individuals. He proposes a gene-culture coevolution model of personality and values to explain how and why people differ around the world and how genes, economics, social conditions, and climate jointly shape personality.

1. Introduction: the quest to understand the person; 2. Everything is change: a primer to evolution; 3. The big five personality traits and human values; 4. Examining the common structure of traits and values; 5. Explaining personality structures: the relative importance of genetic; 6. Searching for the underlying mechanisms in the brain and the situation and cultural differences in values and traits; 7. Is the personality world two-dimensional? The (in)stability of the trait-value structure across cultures; 8. Understanding structural variation: resources, threats and the power of the situation; 9. Values and traits as adaptive strategies; 10. Traits and values across the lifespan; 11. Evolutionary genetics of personality; 12. Why should we care about personality, culture and evolution?

Ronald Fischer is a Reader at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is Associate Editor of Applied Psychology: An International Review, and serves on the editorial boards of a number of psychology and business journals. He has published more than 100 articles in psychology and related disciplines. He co-authored the second edition of Understanding Social Psychology across Cultures (2013) and has received a number of awards and prizes, including the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award, the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Award, and the Best Paper with International Application Award from the Academy of Management.