Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Why You Are Who You Are

  • Investigations into Human Personality
  • By: Mark Leary, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: Mark Leary
  • Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (316 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Why You Are Who You Are cover art

Why You Are Who You Are

By: Mark Leary, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Mark Leary
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £25.99

Buy Now for £25.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior cover art
Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills cover art
The Learning Brain cover art
Introduction to Psychology cover art
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Daily Life cover art
Neuroscience of Everyday Life cover art
Understanding the Dark Side of Human Nature cover art
The Brain-Based Guide to Communicating Better cover art
Your Public Persona: Self-Presentation in Everyday Life cover art
The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions cover art
Think like a Stoic cover art
The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World cover art
The Story of Human Language cover art
Understanding Complexity cover art
Food: A Cultural Culinary History cover art
Macroeconomics Made Clear cover art

Summary

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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2018 The Teaching Company, LLC; 2018 The Great Courses

What listeners say about Why You Are Who You Are

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    246
  • 4 Stars
    61
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    221
  • 4 Stars
    47
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    199
  • 4 Stars
    57
  • 3 Stars
    10
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

buy is now

100% recommend if anyone is interested in psychology. The narration is fantastic and highly addictive. This is one of the best courses I have listened to so far.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not Great Courses Quality

This course felt more like a TED talk and suffers from the "on average" statistical nature of the subject.

Was hoping for a more interdisciplinary approach with more linkage between psychology and neuroscience as well as more depth on both.

Have listened to more than 60 great courses. this is my lowest rating ever

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Wrong title

A robust story, nicely told and covering an interesting subject. In the series of the great coarses however, this is the least interesting coarse I followed. The explaining of the evident is extensive. For example, the professor keeps explaining what variability is, and what a bell-shaped curve comprises. And this same subject kept coming back through the chapters. Once would have been fine, if not superfluous already. The course is not an explanation “why”, as the titel suggests, but merely a description of “what” people can be like. I would have liked it to be more profound.It would have been nice to have covered some studies that support answers to the “why” or to have mentioned some ideas. Or change the titel in, for example: How to describe who you are”.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great content, simply explained

This is my second audio book narrated by Prof. Mark Leary. Some great insights helping to understand why we behave the way we do, explained in a simple and easy to understand way. Thank you.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

interesting up to a point

Didn't tell me anything I didn't know really but an easy listen. Really wanted to know more about the origins and treatment of personality disorders.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A serie of very interesting lectures

Interesting insights into people behavior. This is a collection of kind of separate lectures. Only in the end of it there is a link between the different things one learn. It is a bit hard to remember and one should listen multiple times.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely brilliant!

The voice acting is perfect and keeps the listener well engaged. Comprehensive coverage of the topic. A must read for everyone.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

So far not impressed

I'm not done with the course yet, but so far I find it difficult to listen to the lectures. They are extremely slow paced, individual points are repeated many times in a row and often the reasoning is unclear to me.

I've learned the "big 5" personality traits in many, many words (2 full lectures for listing 5 simple concepts), but in fact they seem to just be an abstraction that mixes large groups of what I'd have considered "actual personality traits" together with factors of the environment, the personal life and current state of the mind of people. Why are they "personality traits"? No idea. How does grouping a lot of factors into "agreeableness" help me understand people? Unclear. Instead I learn that 5*5*5*5*5 is a large number, but I think I knew that already.

In a later lecture I'm presented with seemingly unfounded reasoning as for why a certain internal motivation, e.g., for limiting cognitive dissonance, couldn't have developed, followed by an explanation for exactly why it could have developed: social benefits of consistent behaviour. The actual point (external vs. internal definition) is not clearly motivated and actual evidence only presented as a side note.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great Overview

Going to give it a second listen for sure. Would have liked more info on the therapies that are available.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A thinkers read for people watching

Enlightening and informative... Great for thinkers and people watchers wanting more tools to calibrate their perception of the people around them...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful