Lesson 02 Commentary: The Place of Personality Psychology Among All of the Subfields of Psychology
Because you have probably taken a general, introductory course in psychology before this one, you know that psychology has many subfields devoted to basic research on different aspects of the mind, brain and behavior. Some of these subfields include perception, memory, learning, emotion and motivation, neurophysiology, social psychology, and developmental psychology. Psychology also contains a number of areas of applied practice, such as clinical and counseling psychology, educational psychology, sport psychology, and industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology. One goal of this lesson and the accompanying chapter in the textbook is to show how personality psychology fits into the overall field of psychology.
At the heart of personality psychology is an interest in individual differences—any pattern of thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior that distinguishes individuals from one another. Because some of these differences include differences in the way people perceive, think, learn, strive, relate, and develop, personality psychologists draw upon basic research from the subfields that specialize in these topics: perception, cognitive psychology, motivation, and so forth. Personality psychology also has many links to applied psychologies such as clinical, educational, and I/O psychology. The most famous personality theorist, Sigmund Freud, developed his ideas while working with patients in his clinical practice. Educational psychologists and I/O psychologists, like many personality psychologists, have long been interested in developing psychological tests that predict behavior. What is unique about personality psychology among all subfields of psychology is that we try to put together the pieces of the person—perceptions, thoughts, motives, emotions, relationships—into one unified picture of the whole person. David Funder named our text The Personality Puzzle precisely because studying personality is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
The three major kinds of puzzle pieces—thinking, feelings, and behavior—are called the psychological triad. Normally, consistencies in behavior are what personality psychologists are trying to explain, and we do this by referring to consistent patterns of thoughts and feelings that give rise to the behaviors. Let's look at an example. Amy consistently gives out compliments, so most people consider her to be generally kind and thoughtful. Why does she behave this way? Perhaps passing out compliments simply makes her feel good. Or maybe she wants people to like her, and she thinks that complimenting people will accomplish that. Or maybe she is more devious, flattering people to in order to manipulate them. We need to identify the right pieces in order to put together this puzzle.
This example shows that the relations between behaviors, thinking, and feeling are not always straightforward. People can show similar behaviors for many different reasons. In one of my own studies (Nolan, Johnson, & Pincus, 1994), our research team identified five distinctly different clusters of people who were arrested for driving while intoxicated. While individuals from all five groups clearly had problems with alcohol, none of the personality profiles of the groups matched the profile of a group of alcoholics, and individuals in different groups showed different levels of impairment that were related to personality. Two groups, which we labeled Neurotic Introverts and Neurotic Hostiles, showed the highest risk factors. Their personality profiles resembled a group of clinically depressed patients and a group of incarcerated criminals, respectively. The drunk driving of the Neurotic Introverts was potentially suicidal. The drunk driving of the Neurotic Hostiles was part of a pattern of breaking laws and defying authority. In contrast, the profiles of groups we called Impulsive Extraverts and Normals resembled those of law-abiding social drinkers. The Impulsive Extraverts were somewhat more risk-taking and careless than the Normals, but both seemed simply to show poor judgment about driving after having too much to drink. Finally, a group we called Unassertive Conformists were distinguished by their extremely low levels of ambition and intellect. Not very bright, these individuals probably often went along with what others were doing, even if it meant copying stupid behavior such as drunk driving. In short, the same behavior—drunk driving—occurs for different reasons that are related to personality differences.
Another important point about the psychological triad is that we are not always perfectly consistent. We might act friendly around some people and shy around others. We sometimes notice inconsistencies between our thinking, feeling, and behavior. We think we are going to finish an assignment after dinner and find ourselves doing something else like watching TV. We find ourselves attracted to and desiring activities that we know, intellectually, are not good for us. We can possess feelings that pull us in opposite directions and hold thoughts that contradict each other. Again, relations between behaviors, thinking, and feeling are not always straightforward. The inconsistencies among our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are a particularly puzzling part of the personality puzzle.
Reference
Nolan, Y., Johnson, J. A., & Pincus, A. (1994). Personality and drunk driving: Identification of DUI types using the Hogan Personality Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 6, 33-40.