Personality and coping

Abstract

Human beings have always developed theories about what people are like. The theories of personality which we know about go back to the ancient Greeks and beyond, and some of these have formed the basis for modern psychological theories of personality. Strangely, however, many of these theories appear to have a relatively limited range of applications outside of the narrow therapeutic contexts in which they were first developed. General theories about what ordinary people are like do not seem to have proved themselves all that useful in everyday living.