Lesson 02: Learning Objectives and Reading Assignment The Study of the Person (Printer Friendly Format)

Lesson 02 Summary

I. The Place of Personality Psychology Among All of the Subfields of Psychology

Unlike most subfields of psychology, which study specific topics such as perception, memory, emotions, or relationships, personality psychology strives to study the whole person.
Personality psychology addresses both consistencies and inconsistencies in what is called the psychological triad: how people think, feel, and behave.
Personality psychology is most closely aligned with clinical psychology, which studies abnormalities within the whole person, but also integrates material from social, cognitive, developmental, and biological psychology.

II. The Goals of Personality Psychology

The textbook defines personality as "an individual's characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms—hidden or not—behind those patterns."
Trying to understand everything about the whole person at once is a virtually impossible mission, so personality psychologists have specialized into basic areas that ask limited questions.

The trait approach asks how people differ and how we can measure these differences.
The biological approach asks how genes, neurotransmitters, hormones, and brain structure evolved and how they affect personality.
The psychoanalytic approach asks how the unconscious—the part of our mind of which we are unaware—influences our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
The phenomenological approach asks how our conscious choices and interpretations of reality lead to creativity, freedom, happiness, and a meaningful life.
The learning and cognitive processes approach asks how experiences change us and how we adapt to new situations.

Because the founders and followers of each approach argue that their approach is the best, the five approaches seem competitive. But in reality they ask different questions and are complementary.
To date no psychologist has come up with the One Big Theory (OBT) that integrates all of the approaches.
Just as a person's greatest strength can also be his or her greatest weakness, the advantages of personality psychology as a whole over other subfields and the advantages of each approach are also disadvantages.

III. The Plan of the Textbook and This Course

A. After this introductory chapter, the book is divided into six parts. Part I (chapters 2 and 3) cover research methods. Parts II through VI cover the five basic approaches to personality psychology. Chapters 8 (anatomy and physiology) and 16 (personality processes) will not be assigned in the course, although you are certainly welcome to read these chapters.

B. Following the sections on the five basic approaches, two final chapters are presented as a way of summing up what we have learned in the course. Chapter 18 considers a topic that can be viewed from all five approaches: the extreme and problematic personality disorders. Chapter 19 revisits the need for different approaches to personality and reviews the major contributions each has made.

C. In addition to highlighting each chapter's main points, the commentary for each chapter will also provide insights and examples from the instructor's experience as a professional personality psychologist. These insights will include:

The difficulty in being objective about personality and the way in which the cultural background, personal experiences, and needs of psychologists can affect their thinking.
The "root ideas" (motivation, personality development, self-knowledge, unconscious processes, psychological health, and the relationship between the individual and society) are issues that every major personality theory has something to say about, although theories from the different approaches tend to emphasize some root ideas and ignore others.
Personality theories shape our perceptions of facts about personality.
Taking personality tests favored by the different approaches and engaging in other activities will help you better understand personality psychology. Therefore some of the assignments will include taking tests and engaging in activities as well as writing out answers to questions.

IV. Pigeonholing versus Appreciation of Individual Differences

Some feel uncomfortable with the idea of measuring personality and describing people with trait or type labels because it seems to pigeonhole and dehumanize people.
Yet the potential weakness of categorizing and labeling people can be seen as a strength in its sensitivity to the fact that people differ from one another. Other subfields of psychology assume that people are basically the same and regard differences as measurement error.

Lesson 02Commentary : 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.

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.

Lesson 02 Commentary: The Plan of the Textbook and This Course

Funder organizes the text into six major sections. The first section contains two chapters on research methods, and the next five cover the five major approaches to personality. The text ends with two chapters that wrap up and bring together our examination of personality psychology. Chapter 18 covers the extreme and problematic personality patterns that we call personality disorders. This is a topic that can be viewed from all five basic approaches to personality. Chapter 19 reviews the basic approaches, the questions each one addresses, and why we need all five approaches.

In psychology courses, instructors often have their own material that they teach in addition to the material in the textbook, and this course is no exception. Therefore, these commentaries both summarize the main points from assigned chapters and also provide additional examples, perspectives, and information from the instructor's own experience as a professional personality psychologist. Too make room for this additional material, two chapters from the text are not assigned: Chapter 8 (anatomy and physiology) and Chapter 16 (personality processes). Although these chapters are not formally assigned, they do contain interesting and important information, so you are encouraged to read them if you are inclined.

One topic that Funder intentionally avoids, except in his discussion of Freud, is the influence of a personality psychologist's own personality, upbringing, and culture on his or her theorizing. In contrast, the instructor believes that this is an important and interesting topic. It is a fact that all of us, without taking a single course on personality, are already amateur personality psychologists. We all use personality traits to describe people we know. We notice how certain personality traits run in families. We have ideas about what makes people tick, how their thinking affects their behavior, and how much people's behavior varies from situation to situation and how much it changes over time. We get these ideas about personality from our parents and the larger culture around us as we grow up. Many of our ideas about personality are accurate enough, or else we would not be able to get along with other people! But some of our ideas may be based on misinformation from our culture and some may reflect our own needs—what we would like to believe rather than what is true. Professional personality psychologists are in the same boat as all of us. They live in a particular culture with its own biases and have unique experiences and personal needs, all of which can affect their thinking about personality. Because personality is such a personal matter, it is difficult to be objective about the topic. We will therefore examine some of the biographical details of personality psychologists' lives to see how their unique experiences might have affected their thinking.

This course will talk about the five basic approaches to personality in terms of what has been called the root ideas of personality psychology. The root ideas of any field are topics that are so important that every theory has something to say about them. Psychologist Robert Hogan has suggested that the six root ideas of personality psychology are motivation, personality development, self-knowledge, unconscious processes, psychological adjustment, and the relationship between the individual and society. We will see that theories from the five different approaches tend to emphasize some root ideas and ignore others. We will of course get into the details of where the approaches stand on the root ideas when we get to them, but for now consider some questions on the root ideas that each approach must answer.

On the topic of motivation, how much are we driven by enduring, biological instincts shared by all human beings, and how much of our behavior is guided by our own unique plans and goals that we set for ourselves? For personality development, are early experiences more important than later ones, and is there a point at which personality is basically set for life? For self-knowledge, is there really a "true self" behind all the acts we put on for different people, and how would we know when we are being authentic or genuine? If we can't directly experience our unconscious, how can we tell what is in the unconscious and how much it is really affecting our personality? How important are the following to a definition of psychological health: adjusting to the environment, developing one's potentials, achieving moral maturity, maximizing personal happiness, and getting along with others? When people misbehave in society, is it because some people are born with anti-social impulses, because some people never learned to control an anti-social streak that we all share, or because certain living conditions corrupt some individuals into behaving criminally? Think about how you might answer these questions. We will eventually see how personality psychologists from the five basic approaches answer them.

One final comment on the five approaches worth emphasizing is that the theories within the approaches shape psychologists' perceptions of facts about personality. To see the way in which theories shape our perceptions about facts, consider a figure below called the Necker Cube.

When you stare at the Necker Cube long enough, it seems to flip back and forth between two different three-dimensional cubes. Try it.

This is actually a visual illusion because the Necker Cube is a two-dimensional drawing, not a three-dimensional cube. But the portion of our brain that creates our perceptions has a built-in expectation that the world is three-dimensional and therefore tries to interpret flat drawings with certain features as three-dimensional objects. It doesn't quite know what to do with the Necker Cube. It entertains two different theories about what kind of three-dimensional cube it could be, and as it flips back and forth between the two theories, you see two different cubes.

What happens with the Necker Cube is similar to what happened to the five blind men who encountered the elephant. Each jumped to a conclusion that the elephant was like something they were already familiar with. We tend to perceive the world in terms of theories that we already hold about the world. To an extent, the five basic approaches work this way. Each shapes our perceptions of what personality is like by having us focus on particular facts about personality that the approach says are important.

A final comment on the plan for this course concerns taking personality tests and engaging in other personality-related activities. Personality tests do not all look like the quizzes that you can find on the Internet. Personality psychologists have devised many different ways of measuring personality, and you will have a chance to complete various measures during the section on research methods and when certain kinds of personality measures are associated with the personality theories under discussion. Completing these measures and engaging in other kinds of activities may help give you insight into yourself as well as help you to learn the course material.

Lesson 02 Commentary: Pigeonholing versus Appreciation of Individual Differences

One long-standing puzzle in personality concerns how we can describe the uniqueness of personality. Each of us is unique, but not totally unique. To paraphrase Harvard psychologists Clyde Kluckhohn and Henry Murray, each person is like
            all other people,
            some other people, and
            no other person.

When we talk about characteristics that are common to virtually all people, we are talking about what we call human nature. For example, when psychologists say that human beings are social animals, they mean that the disposition to live with other people is a part of human nature. When we talk about a group of individuals with similar traits, we are talking about a psychological type. For example, John Holland's theory of vocational personality types says that the Artistic type describes people who are complicated, emotional, expressive, imaginative, independent, intuitive, original, and, of course, interested in creative and artistic activities.

One objection often raised about describing people in terms of human nature or psychological types is that it pigeonholes people. That is, it puts labels on people and puts them into categories. Human beings may be social animals, but aren't some people more social than others? And even though creative artists might share many common traits, to classify all of them with the category Artistic type is to ignore the even more numerous unique aspects of these individuals. So how shall we describe the uniqueness of our personality, the ways in which we are like "no other person?"

You might think that the language of personality traits might do the job. But personality trait words are labels that compare similarities as well as differences. If I say that Bob is extremely sociable, I am distinguishing him from people who are unsociable, but also describing him as similar to other extremely sociable people.

One approximation to capturing uniqueness would be to consider a person's position on a set of traits rather than one trait. If you mapped the pattern of high, average, and low scores on a personality test that measured, say, 30 different traits, it would be unlikely that others would show the exact pattern. Consider below a hypothetical example of a graph of Bob's scores on 30 different traits. What are the odds that anyone else on the planet will have exactly the same personality profile?

example graph

This solution for representing the uniqueness of personality would satisfy some, but not all, personality psychologists. Personality psychologists such as Gordon Allport, who are extremely committed to the idea of the uniqueness of personality, would say that a scheme like the one above is inadequate because (1) it compares all people on the same 30 traits instead of unique sets of traits for each individual; and (2) it is limited to only 30 out of thousands of possible traits so it can't possible capture the complete picture of Bob's uniqueness.

Nonetheless, even the approximation to uniqueness suggested above goes much further toward appreciating individuality than subfields of psychology such as cognitive and social psychology that use experiments as their primary method of investigation. For hypotheses to be supported in an experiment, the research participants must react the same way to the experimental treatment.
Differences in reaction are referred to as "error." But from the standpoint of personality psychology, individual differences in the way people react to the same situation is exactly what we want to study. Therefore, even when we use a limited number of labels to describe personality, we are much closer to studying the differences between people that define their uniqueness than what occurs in a typical experiment.