Lesson 02 Commentary: The Goals of Personality Psychology
Funder defines personality in terms of the psychological triad. He say that personality is "an individual's characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms—hidden or not—behind those patterns." Striving to understand personality is essentially trying to understand the whole person. Funder admits that personality psychology's goal of understanding the whole person all at once is such an enormous task that it is virtually impossible. Because the task is so overwhelming, personality psychology has tackled the job from different angles, which Funder calls basic approaches. Each approach asks a different question and focuses on a limited part of personality.
The trait approach asks how people differ and has devised ways of measuring these differences. Historically, psychologists who developed of trait measures had no interest in grand personality theories such as Freud's. So, the trait approach went on for decades, basically disconnected from the more theoretical approaches, concerned only with measuring personality.
The biological approach asks how biological structures such as genes, neurotransmitters, hormones, and specific areas of the brain affect personality. This approach also studies how these structures have evolved over human history. The biological approach has made great progress recently due to new technologies for studying the brain, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and to advances in molecular genetics that led to the identification of all of the approximately 25,000 genes in human DNA.
The psychoanalytic approach asks how the unconscious—the part of our mind of which we are unaware—influences our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Freud argued that the unconscious is primarily responsible for everything we do. If that is true, then most of the time we are unaware of the real reasons for our behavior. This leads to a pessimistic view that free will is an illusion and that we have little conscious control over our life, a conclusion that European psychologists seem to accept more than American psychologists. Perhaps Europe's much longer history of ethnic conflict and war is partly responsible for this pessimism.
The phenomenological approach asks how conscious choices influence our lives. In contrast to the psychoanalytic approach, the phenomenological approach assumes that we are usually aware of our reasons for doing what we do. Gordon Allport, perhaps the most influential American personality psychologist, once said, "If you want to know something about a person, why not first ask him?" Psychologists who use the phenomenological approach believe that people can make free choices, and this leads to the optimistic view that we have the creative control to make our lives more satisfying and meaningful over time. Perhaps Americans are more inclined toward this approach than Europeans because America is traditionally seen as the land of opportunity where everyone can achieve the American dream.
The learning and cognitive processes approach asks how experiences with environments affect our personality. This approach, like the phenomenological approach, concerns itself with personality change, especially change that comes about when we change the way we interpret events. This approach is also very popular in America.
Funder points out that many psychologists who work from one of these approaches regard their approach as superior to the others. In particular, those following the psychoanalytic approach think that unconscious influences are more numerous and important than conscious influences, while those following the phenomenological approach believe the opposite is true. Trait psychologists, who study stable personality traits, often find themselves in conflict with learning psychologists, who study how environments change people. But Funder believes that this conflict is an illusion, because each approach is asking different questions and focusing on different aspects of personality. This brings to mind the story of the blind men and the elephant.
When the circus came to town, five blind men who had heard of elephants but had never been near one joined the townspeople who were swarming around one of the elephants to find out what it was like. After the blind men had each touched part of the elephant, they returned to a house where one of them lived to talk about it. The man who had felt an ear said, "The elephant is like a rough leather fan." "No," said the second, who had felt the trunk. "It is like a long hose." The others disagreed in turn. "It is like a mighty pillar," said the man who felt a leg." "Like a huge wall," said the man who felt the elephant's side. "It is like a long, sharp saber," said the main who felt a tusk.
This story should serve as a warning to those who believe that one basic approach allows one to see personality more accurately than the others. Perhaps the truth is that each approach is a different way of seeing a part of the whole person. Perhaps someday someone will put together all of the approaches into what Funder calls the One Big Theory (OBT). But for now, we have five different approaches, each of which is good at addressing certain kinds of questions but not good for addressing others. Funder notes that in many areas of life, a great strength is also a great weakness. Each basic approach is strong for some questions, but weak for others.