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Theories of Personality
Feist and Feist
Board Exam Reviewer Nino-Mhar Malana, RPm
Psychologists differ among themselves as to the meaning of personality. Most agree that the word “ personality ” originated from the Latin persona , which referred to a theatrical mask worn by Roman actors in Greek dramas. However, personality theorists have not agreed on a single definition of personality. Indeed, they evolved unique and vital theories because they lacked agreement as to the nature of humanity, and because each saw personality from an individual reference point. Many have drawn on their experiences as psychotherapists ; others have relied more on empirical research to gather data on human personality.
Although no single definition is acceptable to all personality theorists, we can say that personality is a
pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior.
Traits contribute to individual differences in behavior , consistency of behavior over time , and stability
of behavior across situations. Traits may be unique , common to some group , or shared by the entire species , but their pattern is different for each individual. Thus each person, though like others in some ways, has a unique personality.
Characteristics are unique qualities of an individual that include such attributes as temperament ,
physique , and intelligence.
A scientific theory is a set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive
reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses. First, a theory is a set of assumptions. A single assumption can never fill all the requirements of an adequate theory. A single assumption, for example, could not serve to integrate several observations, something a useful theory should do. Second, a theory is a set of related assumptions. Isolated assumptions can neither generate meaningful hypotheses nor possess internal consistency—two criteria of a useful theory.
A third key word in the definition is assumptions. The components of a theory are not proven facts in the sense that their validity has been absolutely established. They are, however, accepted as if they were true. This is a practical step, taken so that scientists can conduct useful research, the results of which continue to build and reshape the original theory. Fourth, logical deductive reasoning is used by the researcher to formulate hypotheses. The tenets of a theory must be stated with sufficient precision and logical consistency to permit scientists to deduce clearly stated hypotheses. The hypotheses are not components of the theory, but flow from it. It is the job of an imaginative scientist to begin with the general theory and, through deductive reasoning , arrive at a particular hypothesis that can be tested. The final part of the definition includes the qualifier testable. Unless a hypothesis can be tested in some way, it is worthless. The hypothesis need not be tested immediately , but it must suggest the possibility that scientists in the future might develop the necessary means to test it.
Theory and Its Relatives
Philosophy
Theory is related to philosophy, but it is a much narrower term. Philosophy means love of wisdom , and philosophers are people who pursue wisdom through thinking and reasoning. Philosophers are not scientists ; they do not ordinarily conduct controlled studies in their pursuit of wisdom. Philosophy encompasses several branches, one of which is epistemology , or the nature of knowledge. Theory relates most closely to this branch of philosophy, because it is a tool used by scientists in their pursuit of knowledge. Theories do not deal with “oughts” and “shoulds.” Therefore, a set of principles about how one should live one’s life cannot be a theory. Thus, there are no theories on why society should help homeless people or on what constitutes great art.
Philosophy deals with what ought to be or what should be; theory does not. Theory deals with
broad sets of if-then statements , but the goodness or badness of the outcomes of these statements is beyond the realm of theory.
Speculation
Second, theories rely on speculation , but they are much more than mere armchair speculation. They do not flow forth from the mind of a great thinker isolated from empirical observations. They are closely tied to empirically gathered data and to science.
The psychology of science studies both science and the behavior of scientists ; that is, it investigates the impact of an individual scientist’s psychological processes and personal characteristics on the development of her or his scientific theories and research. In other words, the psychology of science examines how scientists’ personalities, cognitive processes, developmental histories, and social experience affect the kind of science they conduct and the theories they create. Indeed, personality differences among theorists account for fundamental disagreements between those who lean toward the quantitative side of psychology (behaviorists, social learning theorists, and trait theorists) and those inclined toward the clinical and qualitative side of psychology (psychoanalysts, humanists, and existentialists). Some observers have distinguished between science as process and science as product. The scientific process may be influenced by the personal characteristics of the scientist , but the ultimate usefulness of the scientific product is and must be evaluated independently of the process. Thus, your evaluation of each of the theories presented in this book should rest more on objective criteria than on your subjective likes and dislikes.
What Makes a Theory Useful?
A useful theory has a mutual and dynamic interaction with research data. First, a theory generates a number of hypotheses that can be investigated through research, thus yielding research data. Second, a useful theory organizes research data into a meaningful structure and provides an explanation for the results of scientific research. (^) When a theory is no longer able to generate additional research or to explain related research data, it loses its usefulness and is set aside in favor of a more useful one. In addition to sparking research and explaining research data, a useful theory must lend itself to confirmation or disconfirmation , provide the practitioner with a guide to action , be consistent with itself , and be as simple as possible.
6 Criteria of a Useful Theory
1. Generates Research
The most important criterion of a useful theory is its ability to stimulate and guide further research. Without an adequate theory to point the way, many of science’s present empirical findings would have remained undiscovered.
Descriptive research , which can expand an existing theory, is concerned with the measurement, labeling, and categorization of the units employed in theory building. The second kind of research generated by a useful theory, hypothesis testing , leads to an indirect verification of the usefulness of the theory. As we have noted, a useful theory will generate many hypotheses that, when tested, add to a database that may reshape and enlarge the theory.
2. Is Falsifiable
A theory must also be evaluated on its ability to be confirmed or disconfirmed ; that is, it must be falsifiable. If a theory is so vague and nebulous that both positive and negative research results can be interpreted as support, then that theory is not falsifiable and ceases to be useful. Falsifiability, however, is not the same as false ; it simply means that negative research results will refute the theory and force the theorist to either discard it or modify it. Theories that rely heavily on unobservable transformations in the unconscious are exceedingly difficult to either verify or falsify.
3. Organizes Data
Without some organization or classification , research findings would remain isolated and meaningless. Unless data are organized into some intelligible framework, scientists are left with no clear direction to follow in the pursuit of further knowledge. They cannot ask intelligent questions without a theoretical framework that organizes their information. Without intelligent questions, further research is severely curtailed. A useful theory of personality must be capable of integrating what is currently known about human behavior and personality development. It must be able to shape as many bits of information as possible into a meaningful arrangement.
4. Guides Action
A fourth criterion of a useful theory is its ability to guide the practitioner over the rough course of day-to-day problems. Without a useful theory , practitioners would stumble in the darkness of trial and error techniques ; with a sound theoretical orientation, they can discern a suitable course of action. Also included in this criterion is the extent to which the theory stimulates thought and action in other disciplines , such as art, literature (including movies and television dramas), law, sociology, philosophy, religion, education, business administration, and psychotherapy.
Do people act as they do because of what has happened to them in the past , or do they act as they do because they have certain expectations of what will happen in the future?
4. Conscious versus Unconscious Detreminants of Behavior
Are people ordinarily aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it , or do unconscious forces impinge on them and drive them to act without awareness of these underlying forces?
5. Biological versus Social Influences on Personality
Are people mostly creatures of biology , or are their personalities shaped largely by their social relationships? (^) A more specific element of this issue is heredity versus environment; that is, are personal characteristics more the result of heredity , or are they environmentally determined?
6. Uniqueness versus Similarities
Is the salient feature of people their individuality , or is it their common characteristics? Should the study of personality concentrate on those traits that make people alike , or should it look at those traits that make people different?
Research in Personality Theory
(^) The reliability of a measuring instrument is the extent to which it yields consistent results. Personality inventories may be reliable and yet lack validity or accuracy. Validity is the degree to which an instrument measures what it is supposed to measure.
Personality psychologists are primarily concerned with two types of validity— construct validity
and predictive validity.
Construct validity is the extent to which an instrument measures some hypothetical construct. Constructs such as extraversion, aggressiveness, intelligence, and emotional stability have no physical existence ; they are hypothetical constructs that should relate to observable behavior. Three important types of construct validity are convergent validity , divergent validity , and discriminant validity. A measuring instrument has convergent construct validity to the extent that scores on that instrument correlate highly (converge) with scores on a variety of valid measures of that same construct. An inventory has divergent construct validity if it has low or insignificant correlations with other inventories that do not measure that construct.
Finally, an inventory has discriminant validity if it discriminates between two groups of people known to be different. A second dimension of validity is predictive validity , or the extent that a test predicts some future behavior.
Evolutionary though it was, Freud insisted that psychoanalysis could not be subjected to eclecticism , and disciples who deviated from his basic ideas soon found themselves personally and professionally ostracized by Freud. Freud relied more on deductive reasoning than on rigorous research methods, and he made observations subjectively and on a relatively small sample of patients , most of whom were from the upper-middle and upper classes. He did not quantify his data , nor did he make observations under controlled conditions. He utilized the case study approach almost exclusively, typically formulating hypotheses after the facts of the case were known.
Biography of Sigmund Freud
Sigismund (Sigmund) Freud was born either on March 6 or May 6, 1856 , in Freiberg, Moravia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. Freud was the firstborn child of Jacob and Amalie Nathanson Freud, although his father had two grown sons, Emanuel and Philipp, from a previous marriage. Jacob and Amalie Freud had seven other children within 10 years, but Sigmund remained the favorite of his young, indulgent mother , which may have partially contributed to his lifelong self-confidence. A scholarly, serious-minded youth, Freud did not have a close friendship with any of his younger siblings. He did, however, enjoy a warm, indulgent relationship with his mother , leading him in later years to observe that the mother/son relationship was the most perfect , the most free from ambivalence of all human relationships. When Freud was about a year and a half old, his mother gave birth to a second son, Julius , an event that was to have a significant impact on Freud’s psychic development. Sigmund was filled with hostility toward his younger brother and harbored an unconscious wish for his death. When Julius died at 6 months of age, Sigmund was left with feelings of guilt at having caused his brother’s death. Freud reached middle age, he began to understand that his wish did not actually cause his brother’s death and that children often have a death wish for a younger sibling. Freud was drawn into medicine , not because he loved medical practice , but because he was intensely curious about human nature. He entered the University of Vienna Medical School with no intention of practicing medicine. Instead, he preferred teaching and doing research in physiology, which he continued even after he graduated from the university’s Physiological Institute. In 1885, he received a traveling grant from the University of Vienna and decided to study in Paris with the famous French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. He spent 4 months with Charcot, from whom he
learned the hypnotic technique for treating hysteria , a disorder typically characterized by paralysis or the improper functioning of certain parts of the body. While still a medical student, Freud developed a close professional association and a personal friendship with Josef Breuer , a well-known Viennese physician 14 years older than Freud and a man of considerable scientific reputation. Breuer taught Freud about catharsis , the process of removing hysterical symptoms through “talking them out.” While using catharsis, Freud gradually and laboriously discovered the free association technique , which soon replaced hypnosis as his principal therapeutic technique. Freud’s second opportunity for achieving some measure of fame came in 1886 after he returned from Paris, where he had learned about male hysteria from Charcot. Early physicians had believed that hysteria was strictly a female disorder because the very word had the same origins as uterus and was the result of a “ wandering womb ,” with the uterus traveling throughout women’s bodies and causing various parts to malfunction. He also could not accept Freud’s notion that childhood sexual experiences were the source of adult hysteria. Finally, and with some reluctance, Breuer agreed to publish with Freud Studies on Hysteria. In this book, Freud introduced the term “ psychical analysis ,” and during the following year, he began calling his approach “ psycho-analysis .” At about the time Studies on Hysteria was published, Freud and Breuer had a professional disagreement and became estranged personally. Freud then turned to his friend Wilhelm Fliess , a Berlin physician who served as a sounding board for Freud’s newly developing ideas. During the late 1890s, Freud suffered both professional isolation and personal crises. He had begun to analyze his own dreams, and after the death of his father in 1896, he initiated the practice of analyzing himself daily. Again he believed himself to be on the brink of an important breakthrough with his “discovery” that neuroses have their etiology in a child’s seduction by a parent. Freud’s official biographer , Ernest Jones , believed that Freud suffered from a severe psychoneurosis during the late 1890s, although Max Schur, Freud’s personal physician during the final decade of his life, contended that his illness was due to a cardiac lesion, aggravated by addiction to nicotine. Despite these difficulties, Freud completed his greatest work, Interpretation of Dreams , during this period. This book, finished in 1899, was an outgrowth of his self-analysis, much of which he had revealed to his friend Wilhelm Fliess. The book contained many of Freud’s own dreams, some disguised behind fictitious names. Almost immediately after the publication of Interpretation of Dreams, his friendship with Fliess began to cool , eventually to rupture in 1903. This breakup paralleled Freud’s earlier estrangement from Breuer,
Levels of Mental Life
To Freud, mental life is divided into two levels , the unconscious and the conscious. The unconscious , in turn, has two different levels, the unconscious proper and the preconscious.
Unconscious
The unconscious contains all those drives , urges , or instincts that are beyond our awareness but that nevertheless motivate most of our words, feelings, and actions. To him the unconscious is the explanation for the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and certain kinds of forgetting, called repression. Freud believed that childhood experiences can appear in adult dreams even though the dreamer has no conscious recollection of these experiences. To enter the conscious level of the mind , these unconscious images first must be sufficiently disguised to slip past the primary censor , and then they must elude a final censor that watches the passageway between the preconscious and the conscious. Punishment and suppression often create feelings of anxiety , and the anxiety in turn stimulates repression , that is, the forcing of unwanted, anxiety-ridden experiences into the unconscious as a defense against the pain of that anxiety. Not all unconscious processes, however, spring from repression of childhood events. Freud believed that a portion of our unconscious originates from the experiences of our early ancestors that have been passed on to us through hundreds of generations of repetition. He called these inherited unconscious
images our phylogenetic endowment.
Unconscious, of course, does not mean inactive or dormant. Forces in the unconscious constantly strive to become conscious , and many of them succeed, although they may no longer appear in their original form.
Preconscious
The preconscious level of the mind contains all those elements that are not conscious but can become conscious either quite readily or with some difficulty. The contents of the preconscious come from two sources : The first of which is conscious perception. What a person perceives is conscious for only a transitory period; it quickly passes into the preconscious when the focus of attention shifts to another idea. These ideas that alternate easily between being conscious and preconscious are largely free from anxiety and in reality are much more similar to the conscious images than to unconscious urges.
The second source of preconscious images is the unconscious. Freud believed that ideas can slip past the vigilant censor and enter into the preconscious in a disguised form. Some of these images never become conscious because if we recognized them as derivatives of the unconscious , we would experience increased levels of anxiety , which would activate the final censor to repress these anxiety-loaded images , forcing them back into the unconscious. Other images from the unconscious do gain admission to consciousness , but only because their true nature is cleverly disguised through the dream process , a slip of the tongue , or an elaborate defensive measure.
Conscious
Consciousness, which plays a relatively minor role in psychoanalytic theory, can be defined as those mental elements in awareness at any given point in time. It is the only level of mental life directly available to us. Ideas can reach consciousness from two different directions. The first is from the perceptual conscious system , which is turned toward the outer world and acts as a medium for the perception of external stimuli. In other words, what we perceive through our sense organs, if not too threatening, enters into consciousness. The second source of conscious elements is from within the mental structure and includes nonthreatening ideas from the preconscious as well as menacing but well-disguised images from the unconscious.
Provinces of the Mind
(^) To Freud, the most primitive part of the mind was das Es, or the “it,” which is almost always translated into English as id ; a second division was das Ich, or the “I,” translated as ego ; and a final province was das Uber-Ich, or the “over-I,” which is rendered into English as superego. These provinces or regions have no territorial existence, of course, but are merely hypothetical constructs. They interact with the three levels of mental life so that the ego cuts across the various topographic levels and has conscious, preconscious, and unconscious components superego is both preconscious and unconscious
In comparing the ego to the id, Freud used the analogy of a person on horseback. The rider checks and inhibits the greater strength of the horse but is ultimately at the mercy of the animal. Similarly, the ego must check and inhibit id impulses, but it is more or less constantly at the mercy of the stronger but more poorly organized id. The ego has no strength of its own but borrows energy from the id. In spite of this dependence on the id, the ego sometimes comes close to gaining complete control, for instance, during the prime of life of a psychologically mature person. As children begin to experience parental rewards and punishments, they learn what to do in order to gain pleasure and avoid pain. At this young age , pleasure and pain are ego functions because children have not yet developed a conscience and ego-ideal: that is, a superego.
The Superego
In Freudian psychology, the superego, or above-I , represents the moral and ideal aspects of personality and is guided by the moralistic and idealistic principles as opposed to the pleasure principle of the id and the realistic principle of the ego. The superego grows out of the ego , and like the ego, it has no energy of its own. However, the superego differs from the ego in one important respect—it has no contact with the outside world and therefore is unrealistic in its demands for perfection. The superego has two subsystems , the conscience and the ego-ideal. (^) Freud did not clearly distinguish between these two functions, but, in general, the conscience results from experiences with punishments for improper behavior and tells us what we should not do , whereas the ego-ideal develops from experiences with rewards for proper behavior and tells us what we should do. A well-developed superego acts to control sexual and aggressive impulses through the process of repression. It cannot produce repressions by itself , but it can order the ego to do so. The superego watches closely over the ego, judging its actions and intentions. Guilt is the result when the ego acts—or even intends to act—contrary to the moral standards of the superego. Feelings of inferiority arise when the ego is unable to meet the superego’s standards of perfection. Guilt , then, is a function of the conscience , whereas inferiority feelings stem from the ego-ideal. The superego is not concerned with the happiness of the ego. It strives blindly and unrealistically toward perfection. The superego, however, is like the id in that it is completely ignorant of, and unconcerned with, the practicability of its requirements.
Dynamics of Personality
Levels of mental life and provinces of the mind refer to the structure or composition of personality ; but personalities also do something. Thus, Freud postulated a dynamic, or motivational principle , to explain the driving forces behind people’s actions.
Drives
Freud used the German word Trieb to refer to a drive or a stimulus within the person. Freud’s official translators rendered this term as instinct , but more accurately the word should be “drive” or “impulse. ” According to Freud, the various drives can all be grouped under two major headings : sex or Eros and aggression, distraction, or Thanatos. These drives originate in the id , but they come under the control of the ego. Each drive has its own form of psychic energy: Freud used the word libido for the sex drive , but energy from the aggressive drive remains nameless. Every basic drive is characterized by an impetus, a source, an aim, and an object. A drive’s impetus is the amount of force it exerts ; its source is the region of the body in a state of excitation or tension ; its aim is to seek pleasure by removing that excitation or reducing the tension ; and its object is the person or thing that serves as the means through which the aim is satisfied.
Sex
The aim of the sexual drive is pleasure , but this pleasure is not limited to genital satisfaction. Freud believed that the entire body is invested with libido. Besides the genitals , the mouth and anus are especially capable of producing sexual pleasure and are called erogenous zones. The ultimate aim of the sexual drive (reduction of sexual tension) cannot be changed , but the path by which the aim is reached can be varied. Sex can take many forms , including narcissism , love , sadism , and masochism. The latter two also possess generous components of the aggressive drive. Infants are primarily self-centered , with their libido invested almost exclusively on their own ego. This condition, which is universal , is known as primary narcissism. During puberty , however, adolescents often redirect their libido back to the ego and become preoccupied with personal appearance and other self-interests. This pronounced secondary narcissism is not universal , but a moderate degree of self-love is common to nearly everyone.
Realistic anxiety , is closely related to fear. It is defined as an unpleasant, nonspecific feeling involving a possible danger. However, realistic anxiety is different from fear in that it does not involve a specific fearful object.
Defense Mechanisms
Although defense mechanisms are normal and universally used , when carried to an extreme they lead to compulsive, repetitive, and neurotic behavior.
Repression
The most basic defense mechanism , because it is involved in each of the others, is repression. Whenever the ego is threatened by undesirable id impulses , it protects itself by repressing those impulses; that is, it forces threatening feelings into the unconscious. What happens to these impulses after they have become unconscious? Freud believed that several possibilities exist. First, the impulses may remain unchanged in the unconscious. Second, they could force their way into consciousness in an unaltered form , in which case they would create more anxiety than the person could handle , and the person would be overwhelmed with anxiety. A third and much more common fate of repressed drives is that they are expressed in displaced or disguised forms. Repressed drives may be disguised as physical symptoms , for example, sexual impotency in a man troubled by sexual guilt. Repressed drives may also find an outlet in dreams, slips of the tongue, or one of the other defense mechanisms.
Reaction Formation
One of the ways in which a repressed impulse may become conscious is through adopting a disguise that is directly opposite its original form. An example of a reaction formation can be seen in a young woman who deeply resents and hates her mother. Because she knows that society demands affection toward parents , such conscious hatred for her mother would produce too much anxiety. To avoid painful anxiety , the young woman concentrates on the opposite impulse—love. Her “love” for her mother, however, is not genuine. Freud believed that reaction formations are limited to a single object ; for example, people with reactive love shower affection only on the person toward whom they feel unconscious hatred.
Displacement
In displacement, people can redirect their unacceptable urges onto a variety of people or objects so that the original impulse is disguised or concealed.
Fixation
The process of psychologically growing up, however, is not without stressful and anxious moments. When the prospect of taking the next step becomes too anxiety provoking, the ego may resort to the strategy of remaining at the present, more comfortable psychological stage. Technically, fixation is the permanent attachment of the libido onto an earlier, more primitive stage of development. People who continually derive pleasure from eating, smoking, or talking may have an oral fixation , whereas those who are obsessed with neatness and orderliness may possess an anal fixation.
Regression
Once the libido has passed a developmental stage, it may, during times of stress and anxiety, revert back to that earlier stage. A common way for adults to react to anxiety-producing situations is to revert to earlier, safer, more secure patterns of behavior and to invest their libido onto more primitive and familiar objects. (^) Under extreme stress one adult may adopt the fetal position , another may return home to mother , and still another may react by remaining all day in bed , well covered from the cold and threatening world. Regressive behavior is similar to fixated behavior in that it is rigid and infantile. Regressions, however, are usually temporary , whereas fixations demand a more or less permanent expenditure of psychic energy.
Projection
When an internal impulse provokes too much anxiety, the ego may reduce that anxiety by attributing the unwanted impulse to an external object, usually another person. This is the defense mechanism of projection, which can be defined as seeing in others unacceptable feelings or tendencies that actually reside in one’s own unconscious. For example, a man may consistently interpret the actions of older women as attempted seductions. Consciously, the thought of sexual intercourse with older women may be intensely repugnant to him, but buried in his unconscious is a strong erotic attraction to these women. In this example, the young man deludes himself into believing that he has no sexual feelings for older women. Although this projection erases most of his anxiety and guilt, it permits him to maintain a sexual interest in women who remind him of his mother.
