Ken Sheldon's comprehensive new book addresses two questions: how can individuals best integrate the different facets of themselves to achieve "optimal human being," and how can researchers best integrate the different levels of analysis within the human sciences to understand "optimal human being" in general? In the process, the book supplies two new frameworks-one for viewing the human sciences as a group, and the other for viewing personality theory within that group.

Optimal Human Being features a multi-level model that moves from biologically based levels of analysis to...