Review of Psychological foundations of personality

Abstract

Reviews the book, Psychological foundations of personality by Louis P. Thorpe (1938). It is a little difficult to decide exactly what audience was expected to receive this book. From the preface, one would infer that Dr. Thorpe was writing for undergraduate college students, particularly in the field of education, who were going to become school teachers. On the contrary, I found the book to be written in a very technical fashion with only one chapter, about one tenth of the book, which could be called practical in its approach. Considered as a whole, the book suffers from excessive documentation. Further, the introductory material is heavily loaded in the direction of a biological viewpoint. I found myself most dissatisfied with the treatment accorded to such very fundamental problems as feelings, emotions, and motives. Overall, this evaluation may suggest that the book has no value at all, an impression which I did not intend to give. It does contain a wealth of material, but is presented in such fashion that graduate students will probably find it difficult enough and the average undergraduate student will probably find it impossible. I should say that it would be useful as a handbook of psychological literature, particularly on the biological approach to many of these problems, because of its remarkable completeness of documentation. However, a poor job of proof reading makes it a bit exasperating to read. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)