After reading the brief autobiographical discussion about Jim, and the issues that he raised in terms of his inability to have a satisfying relationship, and his feelings about being a "failure since high school," the first theory area that came to mind for me was that of social-cognitive.
As the text discusses in chapter 1, the social cognitive perspective looks at how people develop based on reciprocal interactions and the role of self-regulation (Cervone & Pervin, 2013). As a social psychologist, this area is obviously of great interest to me, and I can see how Jim would fall into this perspective.
For me, I can see how Jim is constantly looking at his successes and failures, and is judging his behavior and actions based on what has happened. I am attaching a link to an article by Bandura that I think does a great job of talking about the role of self-regulation in terms of social cognitive theory:
https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/BanduraPubs/Bandura1991OBHDP.pdf
After reading the article and thinking about Jim in terms of this perspective, what comments do you all have? How do you see the role of self-regulation potentially playing a role in terms of his behavior and actions?
Reference:
Cervone, P. & Pervin, L. (2013). Personality: Theory and Research (12th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.