10 - Personality
ENDURING ISSUES IN PERSONALITY
The very concept of personality implies that our behavior differs in significant ways from that of other people (Diversity-Universality) and that our behavior in part reflects our personality as opposed to the situations in which we find ourselves (Person-Situation). We will also assess the extent to which personality is a result of inheritance, rather than a reflection of life experience (Nature-Nurture). Finally, we will consider the extent to which personality changes as we grow older (Stability-Change).
STUDYING PERSONALITY
Many psychologists define personality as an individual's unique pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that persist over time and across situations. There are two important parts to this definition. On the one hand, personality refers to unique differences - those aspects that distinguish a person from everyone else. On the other hand, the definition asserts that personality is relatively stable and enduring - that these unique differences persist through time and across situations.
Psychologists vary in their approach to the study of personality. Some set out to identify the most important characteristics of personality, whereas others seek to understand why there are differences in personality. Among the latter group, some consider the family to be the most important factor in personality development, whereas others emphasize the importance of influences outside the family. Still others see personality as the product of how we think about ourselves and our experiences. In this chapter, we explore representative theories of these various approaches. We see how each theoretical paradigm sheds light on the personality of Jaylene Smith. Finally, we will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and will see how psychologists go about assessing personality.
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES
Psychodynamic theories see behavior as the product of internal psychological forces that often operate outside our conscious awareness. Freud drew on the physics of his day to coin the term psychodynamics: As thermodynamics is the study of heat and mechanical energy and the way that one may be transformed into the other, psychodynamics is the study of psychic energy and the way that it is transformed and expressed in behavior. Although psychodynamic theorists disagree about the exact nature of this psychic energy, the following five propositions are central to all psychodynamic theories and have withstood the tests of time (Huprich & Keaschuk, 2006; Westen, 1998):
Much of mental life is unconscious; as a result, people may behave in ways that they themselves do not understand.
Mental processes (such as emotions, motivations, and thoughts) operate in parallel and thus may lead to conflicting feelings.
Not only do stable personality patterns begin to form in childhood, but early experiences also strongly affect personality development.
Our mental representations of ourselves, of others, and of our relationships tend to guide our interactions with other people.
Personality development involves learning to regulate sexual and aggressive feelings as well as becoming socially interdependent rather than dependent.
Sigmund Freud
To this day, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is the best known and most influential of the psychodynamic theorists. Freud created an entirely new perspective on the study of human behavior. Up to his time, the field of psychology had focused on thoughts and feelings of which we are aware. In a radical departure, Freud stressed the unconscious - the ideas, thoughts, and feelings of which we are not normally aware (Zwettler-Otte, 2008). Freud's ideas form the basis of psychoanalysis, a term that refers both to his particular psychodynamic theory of personality and to the form of therapy that he invented.
According to Freud, human behavior is based on unconscious instincts, or drives. Some instincts are aggressive and destructive; others, such as hunger, thirst, self-preservation, and sex, are necessary to the survival of the individual and the species. Freud used the term sexual instinct to refer not just to erotic sexuality, but to the craving for pleasure of all kinds. He used the term libido for the energy generated by the sexual instinct. Freud regarded the sexual instinct as the most critical factor in the development of personality.
How Personality is Structured
Freud theorized that personality is formed around three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego.
The id is the only structure of personality present at birth and is completely unconscious. Consisting of all the unconscious urges and desires that continually seek expression, it operates according to the pleasure principle - that is, it tries to obtain immediate pleasure and to avoid pain. As soon as an instinct arises, the id seeks to gratify it. Because the id is not in contact with the real world, however, it has only two ways of obtaining gratification. One way is by reflex actions, such as coughing, which immediately relieve unpleasant sensations. The other is through fantasy, or wish fulfillment: A person forms a mental image of an object or a situation that partially satisfies the instinct and relieves the uncomfortable feeling. This kind of thought occurs most often in dreams and daydreams, but it may take other forms. For instance, if someone insults you and you spend the next half hour imagining clever retorts, you are engaging in wish fulfillment.
Mental images of this kind provide fleeting relief, but they cannot fully satisfy most needs. For example, just thinking about being with someone you love is a poor substitute for actually being with that person. Therefore, the id by itself is not very effective at gratifying instincts. It must link to reality if it is to relieve its discomfort. The id's link to reality is the ego.
Freud conceived of the ego as the psychic mechanism that controls all thinking and reasoning activities. The ego operates partly preconsciously, and partly unconsciously. ("Preconscious" refers to material that is not currently in awareness but can easily be recalled.) The ego seeks to satisfy the id's drives in the external world. But instead of acting according to the pleasure principle, the ego operates by the reality principle: By means of intelligent reasoning, the ego tries to delay satisfying the id's desires until it can do so safely and successfully. For example, if you are thirsty, your ego will attempt to determine how effectively and safely to quench your thirst.
A personality consisting only of ego and id would be completely selfish. It would behave effectively, but unsociably. Fully adult behavior is governed not only by reality, but also by the individual's conscience or by the moral standards developed through interaction with parents and society. Freud called this moral watchdog the superego.
The superego is not present at birth. In fact, in Freud's view young children are amoral and do whatever is pleasurable. As we mature, however, we adopt as our own the judgments of our parents and what is "good" and "bad." In time, the external restraint applied by our parents gives way to our own internal self-restraint. The superego, eventually acting as our conscience, takes over the task of observing and guiding the ego, just as the parents once observed and guided the child. In addition, the superego compares the ego's actions with an ego ideal of perfection and then rewards or punishes the ego accordingly. Like the ego, the superego works at the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels.
Ideally, our id, ego, and superego work in harmony, with the ego satisfying the demands of the id in a reasonable manner that is approved by the superego. We are then free to love and hate and to express our emotions sensibly and without guilt. When our id is dominant, our instincts are unbridled and we are likely to endanger both ourselves and society. When our superego dominates, our behavior is checked too tightly and we are inclined to judge ourselves too harshly or too quickly, impairing our ability to act on our own behalf and enjoy ourselves.
How Personality Develops
Freud's theory of personality development focuses on the way in which we satisfy the sexual instinct during the course of life. As infants mature, their libido becomes focused on various sensitive parts of the body during sequential stages of development. If a child is deprived of pleasure (or allowed too much gratification) from the part of the body that dominates a certain stage, some sexual energy may remain permanently tied to that part of the body, instead of moving on in normal sequence to give the individual a fully integrated personality. This is called fixation and, as we shall see, Freud believed that it leads to immature forms of sexuality and to certain characteristic personality traits. Freud identified psychosexual stages and their presumed relationship to personality development.
In the oral stage (birth to 18 months), infants, who depend completely on other people to satisfy their needs, relieve sexual tension by sucking and swallowing; when their baby teeth come in, they obtain oral pleasure from chewing and biting. According to Freud, infants who receive too much oral gratification may turn into pessimistic and hostile people later in life who are sarcastic and argumentative.
During the anal stage (roughly 18 months to 3 1/2 years), the primary source of sexual pleasure shifts from the mouth to the anus. Just about the time children begin to derive pleasure from holding in and excreting feces, toilet training takes place, and they must learn to regulate this new pleasure in ways that are acceptable to their superego. In Freud's view, if parents are too strict in toilet training, some children throw temper tantrums and may live in self-destructive ways as adults. Others are likely to become obstinate, stingy, and excessively orderly. If parents are too lenient, their children may become messy, unorganized, and sloppy.
When children reach the phallic stage (after age 3), they discover their genitals and develop a marked attachment to the parent of the opposite sex while becoming jealous of the same-sex parent. In boys, Freud called this the Oedipus complex, after the character in Greek mythology who killed his father and married his mother. Girls go through a corresponding Electra complex, involving possessive love for their father and jealousy toward their mother. Most children eventually resolve these conflicts by identifying with the parent of the same sex. However, Freud contended that fixation at this stage leads to vanity and egotism in adult life, with men boasting of their sexual prowess and treating women with contempt, and with women becoming flirtatious and promiscuous. Phallic fixation may also prompt feelings of low self-esteem, shyness, and worthlessness.
At the end of the phallic period, Freud believed, children lose interest in sexual behavior and enter a latency period. During this period, which begins around the age of 5 or 6 and lasts until age 12 or 13, boys play with boys, girls play with girls, and neither sex takes much interest in the other.
At puberty, the individual enters the last psychosexual stage, the genital stage. Sexual impulses reawaken and, ideally, the quest for immediate gratification of these desires yields to mature sexuality in which postponed gratification, a sense of responsibility, and caring for others all play a part.
Freud's theories continue to have a significant influence on the field of psychology, though they are not without critics. Even members of Freud's own psychoanalytic school did not completely endorse his emphasis on sexuality. Contemporary psychodynamic theorists tend to put greater emphasis on the ego and its attempts to gain mastery over the world. Finally, some critics have suggested that male and female personality development occur in very different ways, and that Freud's male-centered theory sheds relatively little light on female personality development (Balsam, 2013; Zeedyk & Greemwood, 2008).
Carl Jung
Carl Jung (1875-1961) agreed with many of Freud's tenets, including his role on the emphasis of the unconscious in human behavior, but he expanded the role of the unconscious. Jung contended that libido represents all life forces, not just pleasure-seeking. And where Freud viewed the id as a "cauldron of seething excitations" that the ego had to control, Jung saw the unconscious as the ego's source of strength and vitality. He also believed that the unconscious consists of the personal unconscious and collective unconscious. The personal unconscious includes our repressed thoughts, forgotten experiences, and undeveloped ideas, which may enter consciousness if an incident or a sensation triggers their recall.
Jung felt that specific archetypes play special roles in shaping personality. The persona (an archetype whose meaning stems from the Latin word for "mask") is the element of our personality that we project to other people - a shell that grows around our inner self. For some people, the public self so predominates that they lose touch with their inner feelings, leading to personality maladjustments.
Jung also divided people into two general attitude types - introverts and extraverts. Extraverts turn their attention to the external world. They are "joiners" who take an active interest in other people and in the events going on around them. Introverts are more caught up in their own private worlds. They tend to be unsociable and lack confidence in dealing with other people. Everyone, Jung felt, possesses some aspects of both attitude types, but one is usually dominant.
Jung further divided people into rational individuals, who regulate their actions by thinking and feeling, and irrational individuals, who base their actions on perceptions, whether through the senses (sensation) or through unconscious processes (intuition). Most people exhibit all four psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting. Jung felt, however, that one or more of these functions is usually dominant. Thus, the thinking person is rational and logical, and decides on the basis of facts. The feeling person is sensitive to his or her surroundings, acts tactfully, and has a balanced sense of values. the sensing type relies primarily on surface perceptions and rarely uses imagination or deeper understanding. And the intuitive type sees beyond obvious solutions and facts to consider future possibilities.
While Freud emphasized the primacy of sexual instincts, Jung stressed people's rational and spiritual qualities. And while Freud considered development to be shaped in childhood, Jung thought that psychic development comes to fruition only during middle age. Jung brought a sense of historical continuity to his theories, tracing the roots of human personality back through our ancestral past; yet he also contended that a person moves constantly toward self-realization - toward blending all parts of the personality into a harmonious whole.
Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler (1870-1937) disagreed sharply with Freud's concept of the conflict between the selfish id and the morality-based superego. To Adler, people possess innate positive motives and they strive for personal and social perfection. One of his earliest theories grew out of personal experience: As a child, Adler was frail and almost died of pneumonia at the age of 5. This early brush with death led him to believe that personality develops through the individual's attempt to overcome physical weaknesses, an effort he called compensation.
Adler later modified and broadened his views, contending that people seek to overcome feelings of inferiority that may or may not have a basis in reality. he thought that such feelings often spark positive development and personal growth. Still, some people become so fixated on their feelings of inferiority that they become paralyzed and develop what Adler called an inferiority complex. Later in his life, Adler again shifted his theoretical emphasis in a more positive direction suggesting that people strive for both personal perfection and for the perfection of the society to which they belong.
The emphasis Adler placed on positive, socially constructive goals and on striving for perfection is in marked contrast to Freud's pessimistic vision of the selfish person locked into eternal conflict with society. Because of this emphasis, Adler has been hailed by many psychologists as the father of humanistic psychology (Cain, 2002; DeRobertis, 2011).
Karen Horney
Karen Horney (1885-1952), another psychodynamic personality theorist greatly indebted to Freud, nevertheless took issue with some of his most prominent ideas, especially his analysis of women and his emphasis on sexual instincts. Based on her experience as a practicing therapist in Germany and the United States, Horney concluded that environmental and social factors are the most important influences in shaping personality; and among these, the most pivotal are the human relationships we experience as children (W. B. Smith, 2007).
In Horney's view, Freud overemphasized the sex drive, resulting in a distorted picture of human relationships. Horney believed that sexuality does figure in the development of personality, but nonsexual factors - such as the need for a sense of basic security and the person's response to real or imagined threats - play an even larger role. For example, all people share the need to feel loved and nurtured by their parents, regardless of any sexual feelings they might have about them. Conversely, parents' protective feelings toward their children emerge not only from biological forces but also from the value that society places on the nurturance of children.
For Horney, anxiety - an individual's reaction to real or imagined dangers - is a powerful motivating force. Whereas Freud believed that anxiety usually emerges from unconscious sexual conflicts, Horney stressed that feelings of anxiety also originate in a variety of nonsexual contexts. For example, in childhood, anxiety arises because children depend on adults for their very survival. Insecure about receiving continued nurturance and protection, children develop inner protections, or defenses, that provide both satisfaction and security. They experience more anxiety when those defenses are threatened.
In adulthood, anxiety and insecurity can lead to neurotic lifestyles that may help to deal with emotional problems and ensure safety but only at the expense of personal independence (Horney, 1937). Some people developing an overriding need to give in or submit to others and feel safe only when receiving their protection and guidance. Others deal with basic feelings of insecurity and anxiety by adopting a hostile and domineering manner. Still others withdraw from other people, as if saying "If I withdraw, nothing can hurt me." In contrast, well-adjusted people deal with anxiety without becoming trapped in neurotic lifestyles because their childhood environment enabled them to satisfy their basic emotional needs.
Erik Erikson
Like Horney, Erik Erikson - a psychodynamic theorist who studied with Freud in Vienna - took a socially oriented view of personality development. While Erikson agreed with much of Freud's thinking on sexual development and the influence of libidinal needs on personality, he put much greater emphasis on the quality of parent-child relationships. According to Erikson, only if children feel competent and valuable, in their own eyes and in society's view, will they develop a secure sense of identity. In this way, Erikson shifted the focus of Freud's personality theory to ego development.
Whereas Freud's stages of personality development ended with adolescence, Erikson believed that personality continues to develop and change throughout life. But in contrast to Horney, he believed that the various stages of life present a variety of different challenges. Success in dealing with early challenges lays the groundwork for effective adjustment at later stages. Conversely, failure to resolve early crises makes later adjustment more difficult.
A Psychodynamic View of Jaylene Smith
According to Freud, personality characteristics such as insecurity, introversion, and feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness often arise from fixation at the phallic stage of development. Thus, had Freud been Jaylene's therapist, he would probably have concluded that Jay has not yet effectively resolved her Electra complex. Working from this premise, he would have hypothesized that Jay's relationship with her father was either very distant and unsatisfying or unusually close and gratifying. We know, of course, that it was the latter.
In all likelihood, Freud would have also asserted that around age 5 or 6, Jay had become aware that she could not actually marry her father and do away with her mother, as he would say she wished to do. This possibility might account for the fact that fights between Jay and her mother subsided when Jay was about 6 or 7 years of age. Moreover, we know that shortly thereafter, Jay began to experience "strong feelings of loneliness, depression, insecurity, and confusion." Clearly, something important happened in Jay's life when she was 6 or 7.
Finally, the continued coolness of Jay's relationship with her mother and the unusual closeness with her father would probably have confirmed Freud's suspicion that Jay has still not satisfactorily resolved her Electra complex. Freud would have predicted that Jay would have problems making the progression to mature sexual relationships with other men. Jay, of course, is very much aware that she has problems relating to men, at least when these relationships get "serious."
And what does Erikson's theory tell us about Jaylene Smith's personality? Recall that for Erikson, one's success in dealing with later developmental crises depends on how effectively one has resolved earlier crises. Because Jay is having great difficulty in dealing with intimacy (Stage 6), he would have suggested that she is still struggling with problems from earlier developmental stages. Erikson would have looked for the source of these problems in the quality of Jay's relationship with others. We know that her mother subtly communicated her own frustration and dissatisfaction to her children and spent little time on "nonessential" interactions with them.
These feelings and behavior patterns would not have instilled in a child the kind of basic trust and sense of security that Erikson believed are essential to the first stage of development. In addition, her relationship with her mother and brothers continued to be less than fully satisfactory. It is not surprising, then, that Jay had some difficulty working through subsequent developmental crises. Although she developed a close and caring relationship with her father, Jay was surely aware that his affection partly depended on her fulfilling the dreams, ambitions, and goals that he had for her.
Evaluating Psychodynamic Theories
Freud's emphasis on the fact that we are not always - or even often - aware of the real causes of our behavior has fundamentally changed the way people view themselves and others. Freud's ideas have also had a lasting impact on history, literature, and the arts as well as psychology (Katrios, 2009; Krugler, 2004). Yet, Freud was a product of his time and place. Critics who contend his theory reflects a sexist view of women have pointed out that he was apparently unable to imagine a connection between his female patients' sense of inferiority and their subordinate position in society. However, recent psychoanalytic theorists have made significant strides in updating psychoanalytic theory to account for gender differences (Buhle, 1998; Burack, 1998; Solomon, 2004; Quindeau, 2013).
Although it is sometimes difficult to translate psychodynamic personality theories into hypotheses that can be tested experimentally (Cloninger, 2003), Freud's theory has received some confirmation from research (Bornstein, 2005; Leichsenring, 2005). For example, people with eating disorders often have oral personalities (J. Perry, Silvera, & Rosenvinge, 2002). Orally fixated people generally eat and drink too much, tend to mention oral images when interpreting inkblot tests, and also seem to depend heavily on others, as Freud predicted (Fisher & Greenberg, 1985). Moreover, research confirms an association between specific personality types in childhood and later development of psychological problems. For example, a child with an inhibited temperament is more to develop social anxiety disorder as an adult (Gladstone, Parker, Mitchell, Wilhelm, & Mahli, 2005). The effectiveness of psychoanalysis as a therapy has also been cited as evidence in support of Freud's theories (Leichsenring, 2005). Still, psychoanalysis does not seem to be any more or less effective than therapies based on other theories (J. A. Carter, 2006).
Freud's theories have clearly had a profound effect on our understanding of personality, or they would not still be so vigorously debated today, more than 100 years after he proposed them. Psychodynamic theories attempt to explain the root causes of all human behavior. The sheer magnitude of this undertaking helps to account for their lasting attractiveness.
HUMANISTIC PERSONALITY THEORIES
Freud believed that personality grows out of the resolution of unconscious conflicts and developmental crises. Many of his followers - including some who modified his theory and others who broke away from his circle - also embraced this basic viewpoint. But in the theory of Alfred Adler, we glimpsed a very different view of human nature. Adler focused on forces that contribute to positive growth and a move toward personal perfection. For these reasons, Adler is sometimes called the first humanistic personality theorist.
Humanistic personality theory emphasizes that we are positively motivated and progress toward higher levels of functioning - in other words, there is more to human existence than dealing with hidden conflicts. Are there any circumstances in your life that seem to stand in the way of your personal growth? How have these circumstances influenced your behavior and affected your drive towards reaching your potential? We now turn to Roger's theory of self-actualization.
Carl Rogers
One of the most prominent humanistic theorists, Carl Rogers (1902-1987), contended that men and women develop their personalities in the service of positive goals. According to Rogers, every organism is born with certain innate capacities, capabilities, or potentialities - "a sort of genetic blueprint, to which substance is added as life progresses" (Maddi, 1989, p. 102). The goal of life, Rogers believed, is to fulfill this genetic blueprint, to become the best of whatever each of us is inherently capable of becoming. Rogers called this biological push toward fulfillment the actualizing tendency. Although Rogers maintained that the actualizing tendency characterizes all organisms - plants, animals, and humans - he noted that human beings also form images of themselves, or self-concepts. Just as we try to fulfill our inborn biological potential, so, too, we attempt to fulfill our self-concept, our conscious sense of who we are and what we want to do with our lives. Rogers called this striving the self-actualization tendency. If you think of yourself as "intelligent" and "athletic," for example, you will strive to live up to those images of yourself.
When our self-concept is closely matched with our inborn capacities, we are likely to become what Rogers called a fully functioning person. Such people are self-directed: They decide for themselves what it is they wish to do and to become, even though their choices may not always be sound ones. Fully functioning people are also open to experience - to their own feelings as well as to the world and other people around them - and thus find themselves "increasingly willing to be, with greater accuracy and depth, that self which [they] most truly [are]" (Rogers, 1961, pp. 175-176).
According to Rogers, people tend to become more fully functioning if they are brought up with unconditional positive regard, or the experience of being treated with warmth, respect, acceptance, and love regardless of their own feelings, attitudes, and behaviors. But often parents and other adults offer children what Rogers called conditional positive regard: They value and accept only certain aspects of the child. The acceptance, warmth, and love that the child receives from others then depend on the child's behaving on certain ways and fulfilling certain conditions. In the process, self-concept comes to resemble the inborn capacity less and less, and the child's life deviates from the genetic blueprint.
When people lose sight of their inborn potential, they become constricted, rigid, and defensive. They feel threatened and anxious, and experience considerable discomfort and uneasiness. Because their lives are directed toward what other people want and value, they are unlikely to experience much real satisfaction in life. At some point, they may realize that they don't really know who they are or what they want.
A Humanistic View of Jaylene Smith
Humanistic personality theory would focus on the discrepancy between Jay's self-concept and her inborn capacities. For example, Rogers would point out that Jay is intelligent and achievement-oriented but nevertheless feels that she doesn't "deserve to be a doctor," worries about whether she will ever be "truly happy," and remembers that when she was 13, she never was able to be herself and really express her feelings, even with a good friend. Her unhappiness, fearfulness, loneliness, insecurity, and other dissatisfactions similarly stem from Jay's inability to become what she "most truly is." Rogers would suspect that other people in Jay's life made acceptance and love conditional on her living up to their ideas of what she should become. We know that for most of her life, Jay's father was her primary source of positive regard. Very possibly, he conditioned his love for Jay on her living up to his goals for her.
Evaluating Humanistic Theories
The central tenet of most humanistic personality theories - that the overriding purpose of the human condition is to realize one's potential - is difficult if not impossible to verify scientifically. The resulting lack of scientific evidence and rigor is one of the major criticisms of these theories. In addition, some critics claim that humanistic theories present an overly optimistic view of human beings and fail to take into account the evil in human nature. Others contend that the humanistic view fosters self-centeredness and narcissism, and reflects Western values of individual achievement rather than universal human potential.
Nonetheless, Maslow and especially Rogers did attempt to test some aspects of their theories scientifically. For example, Rogers studied the discrepancy between the way people perceive themselves and the way they ideally wanted to be. He discovered that people whose real selves differed considerably from their ideal selves were more likely to be unhappy and dissatisfied.
TRAIT THEORIES
The personality theories that we have examined so far all emphasize early childhood experiences; and all attempt to explain the varieties of human personality. Other personality theorists focus on the present, describing the ways in which already-developed adult personalities differ from one another. These trait theorists assert that people differ according to the degree to which they possess certain personality traits, such as dependency, anxiety, aggressiveness, and sociability. We infer a trait from how a person behaves. If someone consistently throws parties, goes to great lengths to make friends, and travels in groups, we might safely conclude that this person possesses a high degree of sociability.
Our language has many words that describe personality traits. Gordon Allport, along with his colleague H. S. Odbert (1936), found nearly 18,000 dictionary entries that might refer to personality traits. However, only about 2,800 of the words on Allport and Odbert's list concern the kinds of stable or enduring characteristics that most psychologists would call personality traits; and when synonyms and near-synonyms are removed, the number of possible personality traits drops to around 200 - which is still a formidable list. Psychologist Raymond Cattell (1965) reduced the number of traits even further, to 16 dimensions.
The Big Five
Contemporary trait theorists have boiled down personality to five basic dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and culture (Costa & McCrae, 2006; McCrae et al., 2008). There is a growing consensus today that these Big Five personality dimensions, also known as the five-factor model, capture the most salient dimensions of human personality (Costa & McCrae, 2006), although there is some disagreement about whether the fifth dimension should be called "culture" or "openness to experience" or "intellect." In addition, each of the Big Five traits has been shown to have at least six facets, or components.
Research has shown that the Big Five dimensions of personality may have some important real-world applications - particularly as they relate to employment decisions (Alessandri & Vecchione, 2012; Guohua & Jiliang, 2005). For example, one study (Conte & Gintoft, 2005) found that the dimensions of extraversion and conscientiousness were reliable predictors of performance in sales. In another study, the measures of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability predicted employment burnout (Zeng & Shi, 2007). The Big Five personality traits have also been shown to be useful in predicting the job performance of police officers (Schneider, 2002). Research has also shown that absenteeism in the workplace is related to the conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism scales (Conte & Jacobs, 2003). In addition to predicting job performance, the emotional stability dimension of the Big Five has been found to correlate with measures of job and career satisfaction across a wide variety of occupations (Cook, 2006). In sum, the Big Five dimensions of personality show promise as reliable predictors of job performance and satisfaction, especially when other criteria (such as technical skills and experience) are also considered (Conte & Gintoft, 2005; R. Hogan, Hogan, & Roberts, 1996).
The Big Five personality traits have also proved useful in describing and predicting behavior across a wide range of age groups and social settings. For instance, longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have demonstrated the validity and consistency of the Big Five personality traits across the life span (Asendorpf & Van-Aken, 2003; Soto, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2010). Other studies have shown the Big Five can reliably predict alcohol consumption, grade point average, and academic motivation among college students (Paunonen, 2003; Komarraju, Karau, & Schmeck, 2009).
Are the Big Five Personality Traits Universal?
Most studies of the Big Five have been conducted in the United States. Would the same five personality dimensions be evident in other cultures? The answer appears to be yes. P. T. Costa and McCrae (1992) developed a test to measure the Big Five personality dimensions that has since been translated into numerous languages including German, Portuguese, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. McCrae and Costa (1997) then compared the results from the various questionnaires in an effort to determine whether the same Big Five personality dimensions would emerge. The results from the six foreign cultures were virtually identical to the data from American samples: The Big Five personality dimensions were clearly evident. As the authors noted, "The structure found in American volunteers was replicated in Japanese undergraduates and Israeli job applicants. A model of personality rooted in English-language trait adjectives could be meaningfully applied not only in a closely related language like German, but also in such utterly distinct languages as Chinese and Korean" (p. 514). Other researchers have reached the same conclusions using quite different techniques (Mlacic & Goldberg, 2007; Salgado, Moscoso & Lado, 2003; Schmitt, Allik, McCrae, & Benet-Martinez, 2007).
Surprisingly, many of these same personality traits apparently exist in a number of species besides humans. For example, studies have found that the Big Five, with the two added factors of dominance and activity, could be used to rate and describe personality characteristics in other species including gorillas, chimpanzees, rhesus and vervet monkeys, hyenas, dogs, cats, and pigs (Hirayoshi & Nakajima, 2009; King, Weiss, & Farmer, 2005).
How Might the Big Five Be Represented in the Brain?
Structural neuroimaging studies indicate that measures on at least some of the Big Five traits may be related to the size or volume of specific brain regions (DeYoung et al., 2010). For example, neuroticism scores correlate with the volume of the brain regions associated with threat, punishment, and negative emotions. Scores on the agreeableness trait correlate with the volume of the brain regions known to process information related to the awareness and intentions of others. Extraversion scores correlate with the volume of the brain region thought to be involved in processing reward information. And conscientiousness is related to the volume of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that plays a central role in planning, judgment, impulse control, and conscious awareness. One recent study however has questioned the assertion of a simple direct relationship between the volume of specific brain centers and personality traits, suggesting instead that the relationship between brain structure and personality traits is considerably more complex (Liu et al., 2013).
Do the Big Five Have a Genetic Basis?
Recent evidence shows that not only the Big Five but many of their individual facets are strongly influenced by heredity (W. Johnson & Krueger, 2004; Livesley, Jang, & Vernon, 2003). Although some early theorists (Eysenck, 1947) suggested that physiological mechanisms underlie basic personality traits, only recently has solid evidence from twin studies begun to support this idea (Briley & Tucker-Drob, 2012; Jang, Livesley, McCrae, Angleitner, & Riemann, 1998; Luciano, Wainwright, Wright, & Martin, 2006; Rushton, Bons, & Hur, 2008). For example, Jang and his colleagues (1998, 2002) tested almost 1,000 sets of twins from Germany and Canada on the 30 facets of the Big Five. They concluded that genetic effects accounted for a substantial portion of the differences between people's scores on 26 of the 30 facet scales. In addition, the genetic and environmental influences were similar for the Canadian and German samples.
Researchers have also confirmed that genetic factors play a significant role in shaping abnormal and dysfunctional personality traits. In one study comparing 128 pairs of identical and fraternal twins on both normal and abnormal personality traits, the influence of genetic factors were found to slightly outweigh the influence of the environment. In addition, the pattern of genetic and environmental influence was similar for both the abnormal traits and the normal ones (Markon, Krueger, Bouchard, & Gottesman, 2002). Other studies have confirmed that genetic factors also contribute to the personality traits that predispose individuals toward substance abuse (Kotov, Gamez, Schmidt, & Watson, 2010), eating disorders (Mazzeo & Bulik, 2009), narcissism and psychopathy (Vernon, Villani, Vickers, & Harris, 2008), depression, marijuana dependence, aggression, and antisocial personality disorder (Alia-Klein et al., 2008; Forsman, Lichtenstein, Andershed, & Larsson, 2008; Fu et al., 2002).
What are the implications of these findings? There are several, although it is important to keep in mind that saying a particular trait such as extraversion has a genetic component does not mean that researchers have found a gene for extraversion. Nor are they likely to, because genes represent a code for specific proteins, not complex personality traits. It does mean, however, that the Big Five traits and their facets may be hardwired into the human species rather than being cultural artifacts. Many genes - perhaps thousands of them - surely work in combination to account for such complex traits. Though the precise role that genes play in personality is still far from clear, most psychologists would agree that biological factors contribute significantly to the development of most personality traits.
A Trait View of Jaylene Smith
A psychologists working from the trait perspective would infer certain traits from Jay's behavior. Since Jay chose at an early age to become a doctor, did well academically year after year, and graduated first in her medical-school class, it seems reasonable to infer a trait of determination or persistence to account for her behavior. Taking the Big Five in perspective, it seems that Jaylene's personality is high in conscientiousness but perhaps low in emotional stability and extraversion. These relatively few traits provide a thumbnail sketch of what Jay is like. It is likely that there is some biological basis for her unique personality.
Evaluating Humanistic Theories
Traits are the language that we commonly sue to describe other people, such as when we say someone is shy or insecure or arrogant. Thus, the trait view of personality has considerable commonsense appeal. Moreover, it is scientifically easier to study personality traits than to study such things as self-actualization and unconscious motives. But trait theories have several shortcomings (Costa & McCrae, 2006). First, they are primarily descriptive: They seek to describe the basic dimensions of personality, but they generally do not try to explain causes. As you can see from the trait view of Jaylene Smith, trait theory tells us little about why she is the way she is.
In addition, some critics argue that it is dangerous to reduce human complexity to just a few traits (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Moreover, although the Big Five model is well supported by research, some disagreement remains among psychologists about whether a five-factor model is the best way to describe the basic traits of personality (Boyle, 2008).
The issue of consistency in human behavior has long intrigued personality theorists who are interested in the interaction between personality traits and the social environment. In the view of these theorists, behavior is a product of the person and the situation (Mischel, 2004). That interaction is the focus of cognitive-social learning theorists.
COGNITIVE-SOCIAL LEARNING THEORIES
In contrast to personality trait theories, cognitive-social learning theories hold that expectancies and values guide behavior. This set of personal standards is unique to each one of us, growing out of our own life history. Our behavior is the product of our cognitions (how we think about a situation and how we view our behavior in that situation), our learning and past experiences (including reinforcement, punishment, and modeling), and the immediate environment. Cognitive-social learning theories have their roots in behavioral theories of personality, which gained prominence in the 1950s largely due to the work of B. F. Skinner.
Skinner believed your personality will be shaped by your environment. Think about your own behavior and decisions. Do you feel that your personality is influenced by your environment or by other people?
Expectancies, Self-Efficacy, and Locus of Control
Albert Bandura (1977, 1997) asserts that people evaluate a situation according to certain internal expectancies, such as personal preferences, and this evaluation affects their behavior. Environmental feedback that follows the actual behavior, in turn, influences future expectancies. These experience-based expectancies lead people to conduct themselves according to unique performance standards, individually determined measures of excellence by which they judge their own behavior. Those who succeed in meeting their own internal performance standards develop an attitude that Bandura calls self-efficacy (Bandura & Locke, 2003). For example, two young women trying a video game for the first time may experience the situation quite differently, even if their scores are similarly low. One with a high sense of self-efficacy may find the experience fun and be eager to gain the skills necessary to go on to the next level, whereas the one with a lower sense of self-efficacy may be disheartened by getting a low score, assume she will never be any good at video games, and never play again.
In our example, the two young women approach the experience with different expectancies. To Rotter (1954), locus of control is an especially prevalent expectancy by which people evaluate situations. People with an internal locus of control are convinced they can control their own fate. They believe that through hard work, skill, and training, they can find reinforcements and avoid punishments. People with an external locus of control do not believe they control their fate. Instead, they are convinced that chance, luck, and the behavior of others determine their destiny and that they are helpless to change the course of their lives.
Both Bandura and Rotter have tried to combine personal variables (such as expectancies) with situational variables in an effort to understand the complexities of human behavior. Both theorists believe that expectancies become part of a person's explanatory style, which, in turn, greatly influences behavior. Explanatory style, for example, separates optimists from pessimists. It is what causes two beginners who get the same score on a video game to respond so differently. Moreover, studies have shown that a pessimistic explanatory style negatively impacts physical health, academic and career achievement, and many aspects of mental health including depression and anxiety disorders. Conversely, having a positive explanatory style appears to serve as a "protective factor" enhancing an individual's experience of well-being (K. K. Bennett & Elliott, 2005; Ryon & Gleason, 2014; Wise & Rosqvist, 2006).
In a now-famous study, researchers tracked 99 students from the Harvard graduation classes of 1939 to 1944. The men were interviewed about their experiences and underwent physical checkups every 5 years. When researchers analyzed the men's interviews for signs of pessimism or optimism, they found that the explanatory style demonstrated in those interviews predicted the state of an individual's health decades later. Those men who were optimists at age 25 tended to be healthier at age 65, whereas the health of the pessimists had begun to deteriorate at about age 45 (C. Peterson, Vaillant, & Seligman, 1988). Another study looked at insurance agents in their first 2 years on the job (Seligman & Schulman, 1986). Explanatory style predicted which agents would become excellent agents and which would quit the company (three-fourths of all agents quit within 3 years). Optimists sold 37% more insurance than pessimists in the first 2 years and persisted through the difficulties of the job.
How Consistent Are We?
We have seen that trait theorists tend to believe that behavior is relatively consistent across situations. "Agreeable" people tend to be agreeable in most situations most of the time. In contrast, cognitive-social learning theorists believe that our actions are influenced by the people around us, and by the way we think we are supposed to behave in a given situation. According to this latter view, although underlying personality is relatively stable, behavior is likely to be more inconsistent than consistent from one situation to another.
If behavior is relatively inconsistent across situations, why does it appear to be more consistent than it actually is? Why is the trait view of personality so compelling? One explanation is that, since we see a person only in those situations that tend to elicit the same behavior, we tend to assume that their behavior is similar across a wide range of situations. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that people need to find consistency and stability even in the face of inconsistency and unpredictability. We therefore may see consistency in the behavior of others even when there is none (Mischel, 2003; Mischel & Shoda, 1995).
A Cognitive-Social Learning View of Jaylene Smith
Jaylene developed extraordinarily high performance standards, no doubt because her father's goals for her were so high. Although she has succeeded academically and professionally, in the face of such high performance standards it is understandable that she might harbor some feelings of low self-efficacy, pessimism, insecurity, and uncertainty. She might have been genetically predisposed toward shyness and introversion, but it is also likely that she was rewarded for spending much time by herself studying. Moreover, long hours of studying helped her to avoid the discomfort that she felt being around other people for long periods. Reinforcement may also have been shaped by Jay's self-discipline and her need to achieve academically.
In addition, at least some aspects of Jaylene's personality were formed by watching her parents and brothers and by learning subtle lessons from these family interactions. As a young child, she observed that some people deal with conflict by means of outbursts. That might help to explain her aggressive behavior with boyfriends. Moreover, as Bandura's concept of self-efficacy would predict, Jay surely noticed that her father, a successful medical researcher, enjoyed and prospered in both his career and his family life, whereas her mother's two jobs as homemaker and store manager left her frustrated and tired. This contrast may have contributed to Jay's interest in medicine and to mixed feelings about establishing a close relationship that might lead to marriage.
Evaluating Cognitive-Social Learning Theories
Cognitive-social learning theories of personality seem to have great potential. They put mental processes back at the center of personality, and they focus on conscious behavior and experience. We can define and scientifically study the key concepts of these theories, such as self-efficacy and locus of control; that is not true of the key concepts of psychodynamic and humanistic theories. Moreover, cognitive-social learning theories help explain why people behave inconsistently, an area in which trait approaches fall short. Cognitive-social learning theories of personality have also spawned useful therapies that help people recognize and change a negative sense of self-efficacy or explanatory style. In particular, these therapies have helped people overcome depression. Self-efficacy theory has also been embraced by management theorists because of its practical implications for work performance. Many studies, conducted over more than 20 years, have shown a positive correlation between self-efficacy and performance in workplaces, schools, and clinical settings.
PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT
In some ways, testing personality is much like testing intelligence. In both cases, we are trying to measure something intangible and invisible. In both cases, we are trying to measure something intangible and invisible. And in both cases, a "good test" is one that is both reliable and valid: It gives dependable and consistent results, and it measures what it claims to measure. But there are special difficulties in measuring personality.
Because personality reflects characteristic behavior, we are not interested in someone's best behavior. We are interested in typical behavior. Further complicating the measurement process, such factors as fatigue, a desire to impress the examiner, and fear of being tested can profoundly affect a person's behavior in a personality assessment situation. For the intricate task of measuring personality, psychologists use four basic tools: the personal interview, direct observation of behavior, objective tests, and projective tests.
The Personal Interview
An interview is a conversation with a purpose to obtain information from the person being interviewed. Interviews are often used in clinical settings to learn, for example, why someone is seeking treatment to help diagnose the person's problem. Such interviews are generally unstructured - that is, the interviewer asks the client questions about any issues that arise and asks follow-up questions whenever appropriate. The interviewer may also pay attention to the person's manner of speaking, poise, or tenseness when certain topics are raised.
When conducting systematic research on personality, investigators more often rely on structured interviews. In these interviews, the order and content of the questions are fixed, and the interviewer adheres to the set format. Although less personal, this kind of interview allows the interviewer to obtain comparable information from everyone interviewed. Generally speaking, structured interviews elicit information about sensitive topics that might not come up in an unstructured interview.
Direct Observation
Another way to find out how a person usually behaves is to observe that person's actions in everyday situations over a long period. Behaviorists and social learning theorists prefer this method of assessing personality because it allows them to see how situation and environment influence behavior and to note a range of behaviors.
In direct observation, observers watch people's behavior firsthand. Systematic observation allows psychologists to look at aspects of personality (e.g., traits, moods, or motives) as they are expressed in real life (Back & Egloff, 2009). Ideally, the observers' unbiased accounts of behavior paint an accurate picture of that behavior, but an observer runs the risk of misinterpreting the true meaning of an act. For example, the observer may think that children are being hostile when they are merely protecting themselves from the class bully. Direct observation is expensive and time-consuming, and there is always the possibility that the presence of the observer will affect people's behavior.
Objective Tests
To avoid depending on the skills of an interviewer or the interpretive abilities of an observer in assessing personality, psychologists devised objective tests, or personality inventories. Generally, these are written tests that are administered and scored according to a standard procedure. The tests are usually constructed so that the person merely chooses a "yes" or "no" response, or selects one answer among many choices. Objective tests are the most widely used tools for assessing personality, but they have two serious drawbacks. First, they rely entirely on self-report. If people do not know themselves well, cannot be entirely objective about themselves, or want to paint a particular picture about themselves, self-report questionnaire results have limited usefulness (Bagby & Marshall, 2005; Marshall, De Fruyt, Rolland, & Bagby, 2005). In fact, some research indicates that peers who know you well often do a better job characterizing you than you do yourself (Funder, 1995). Second, if people have previously taken personality questionnaires, their familiarity with the test format may affect their responses to it.
Because of their interest in accurately measuring personality traits, trait theorists favor objective tests. Cattell, for example, developed a 374-question personality test called the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. The 16PF (as it is usually called) provides scores on each of the 16 traits originally identified by Cattell. More recently, objective tests such as the NEO-PI-R have been developed to assess the Big Five major personality traits (Costa & McCrae, 2006). The NEO-PI-R yields scores for each trait and its six facets. For each of over 200 questions, the test taker indicates to what degree he or she disagrees with the statement made. The primary use of the test is to assess personality of a normal adult, although recent studies suggest it may also prove useful in some clinical settings (Bagby, Selborn, Costa, & Widiger, 2008; Wright & Simms, 2014).
The most widely used and thoroughly researched objective personality test is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) (Hoelzle & Meyer, 2008). Originally developed as an aid in diagnosing psychiatric disorders, the MMPI-2 remains in use as an effective diagnostic tool (Egger, Delsing, & DeMey, 2003), for detecting malingering, or faking a psychiatric disorder (Kucharski, Johnsen, & Procell, 2004; Walters et al., 2008) and for the forensic (legal) evaluation of personality (Nelson, Hoelzle, Sweet, Arbisi, & Demakis, 2010).
Projective Tests
Owing to their belief that people are often unaware of the determinants of their behavior, psychodynamic theorists tend to discount self-report-based objective personality tests. Instead, they prefer projective tests of personality. Most projective tests consist of simple ambiguous stimuli. After looking at an essentially meaningless graphic image or at a vague picture, the test taker explains what the material means. Alternatively, the person may be asked to complete a sentence fragment, such as "When I see myself in the mirror, I..." The test offers no clues regarding the "best way" to interpret the material or to complete the sentence.
Projective tests have several advantages. Because they are flexible and can even be treated as games or puzzles, people can take them in a relaxed atmosphere, without the tension and self-consciousness that sometimes accompany objective tests. Often, the person doesn't even know the true purpose of the test, so responses are less likely to be faked. Some psychologist believe that the projective test can uncover unconscious thoughts and fantasies, such as latent sexual or family problems. In any event, the accuracy and usefulness of projective tests depend largely on the skill of the examiner in eliciting and interpreting responses.
The Rorschach test is perhaps the best known and one of the most frequently used projective personality tests (I. B. Weiner, 2006). It is named for Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist who, in 1921, published the results of his research on interpreting inkblots as a key to personality.
Somewhat more demanding is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). It consists of 20 cards picturing one or more human figures in deliberately ambiguous situations. A person is shown the cards one by one and asked to write a complete story about each picture, including what led up to the scene depicted, what the characters are doing at the moment, what their thoughts and feelings are, and what the outcome will be.
Although various scoring systems have been developed for the TAT (Aranow, Weiss, & Rezikoff, 2001), examiners usually interpret the stories in the light of their personal knowledge of the storyteller. One key in evaluating the TAT is determining who the test taker identifies with - the story's hero or heroine, or one of the minor characters. The examiner then determines what the attitudes and feelings of the character reveal about the storyteller. The examiner also assesses each story for content, language, originality, organization, consistency, and recurring themes such as the need for affection, repeated failure, or parental domination.
Both the Rorschach and the TAT may open up a conversation between a clinician and a patient who is reluctant or unable to talk about personal problems. Both tests may also provide insight into motives, events, or feelings of which the person is unaware. However, because projective tests are often not administered in a standard fashion, their validity and reliability, especially in cross-cultural settings, have been called into question (Hofer & Chasiotis, 2004; Wood et al., 2010). As a result, their use has declined since the 1970s. Still, when interpreted by a skilled examiner, these tests can offer insight into a person's attitude and feelings.