Zlatan Križan - Sleep, Personality, and Social Behavior

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Every book is a product of hard work and happenstance, and this volume is no different. Sleeping is a fundamental organismic process, providing a relief from our waking hours that define most of our life. Daily cycles in energy, consciousness, and enthusiasm color every aspect of human functioning, which is why they deserve center stage in science of human behavior. Thus, understanding sleep is an essential component of understanding what it means to be awake, so a full account of human psychology must address this primordial rhythm in sleep-wake states. Although many may agree with this claim, many domains of psychology and behavioral science are still relatively ignorant about the nature of sleep, its importance for how people function while awake, and the challenges sleep is undergoing in the modern technological age. That sleep is important for learning and physical health is broadly accepted, but the fact that sleep-wake processes wiggle their way into virtually every aspect of human behavior is less appreciated. In fact, how we sleep may be a core aspect of our personal constitution.

As a personality-social psychologist who focuses on sleep-wake processes, I was shocked at the paucity of scholarly work on the intersection of sleep, social processes, and personality. Humans are social beings that love, play, work, and fight, activities that define both individual lives and entire cultural eras. Is sleep relevant to these perennial aspects of human interaction? If so how? What about daily circadian variation in physiology and emotion? This volume is the first to tackle these questions directly, pulling on wide swath of interdisciplinary research to oust the social and personal side of sleep and circadian processes. Contributions in this volume from experts spanning psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, organizational behavior, and behavioral medicine all underscore that social processes are integral to understanding sleep and that any full account of human behavior needs to accommodate sleep-wake and circadian processes. Moreover, sleep is a constitutional characteristic of individuals, speaking to nature of their lives and character. The chapters in this volume stress both the potential of this nascent field and highlight urgent needs to harness behavioral science in service of understanding what role sleep does, could, and should play in our lives together.

Many people deserve thanks for helping this effort come to conclusion. The love and support of my family provided the constant fuel to complete this ambitious project, as well as patience for my rants regarding its progress. This volume ultimately exists because of numerous and dedicated contributors who have invested time to form this book. Many other scholars have also provided input to this volume or words of encouragement while it was being formed, including Susan Cross, Carolyn Cutrona, Tica Hall, Heidi Kane, Richard Smith, Antonio Terracciano, and many others. Finally, this book will only reach the readers due to the efforts from the Springer Nature editorial staff. I owe much gratitude to Ms. Morgan Ryan, who saw the potential of this topic and approached me at a psychology convention about preparing a volume on it during May of 2016. Thanks also go to Ms. Sofia Geck who oversaw the final submission. As always, it takes a village.