Personality psychology is the study of how people differ. It attempts to identify the factors that cause one person to think, feel, and behave differently from another person within a given situation.
Unlike some of the others areas of psychology, personality psychology has no single accepted theoretical framework. There is, of course, a consensus within the field about the important questions (that's what makes it a field in the first place), but the kinds of answers that satisfy one personality researcher can, and often do, differ radically from the kinds of answers that satisfy another. Why is this? One reason may be that the goal of personality psychology--to make sense of the whole person--is inherently controversial.
The disparity in methods and theories in personality psychology is reflected in the fact that most classes and textbooks focus on four or five broad theoretical approaches to personality that have become popular over the course of the last century. Not all of these approaches are currently popular, but each of them has importantly influenced the way we think about personality today.
The approaches that we cover in this course are psychodynamic (Topic I), humanistic- existential (Topic II), trait theoretic and biological (Topic II), and behaviorist and social cognitive (Topic IV). The major differences between these approaches are briefly summarized in this general introduction, and covered in more depth in each of the individual Topics. In this general introduction, we also consider briefly the methods used in personality research.
Terms
behaviorism -Field of psychology that flourished in the middle part of the twentieth century in the United States. Attempted to explain all behavior through effect of the environmental contingencies of reward and punishment. For more detail, see Behaviorism.
dependent variable -A variable that is not directly manipulated in an experimental study.
experimental study -Study in which an independent variable is manipulated in order to determine its effects on a dependent variable.
factor analysis -A statistical technique whereby large numbers of self-report questionnaires (or other kinds of data) are reduced to a small number of "factors" that account for most of the variance across people (or other data sources).
humanistic-existential - Broad category of personality theories popular in the 1950s, '60s and '70s that focuses on the individual's phenomenology and ability to self-actualize
. For more detail, see Humanistic-Existential.
independent variable -A variable that is directly manipulated in an experimental study.
observational study -Study in which variables of interest are observed, not manipulated.
social cognitive theory -Approach to personality that focused on the role of modeling on behavior as well as the role of social influences, expectations, and interpretations on behavior. It is an offshoot of, and related to, behaviorism, but it differs with behaviorism in that it conceives different people as reacting differently (subjectively) to the exact same rewards or punishments.
trait theory -The branch of personality psychology that attempts to identify a small number of stable traits that can be used to distinguish between different people using self-report questionnaires. For more detail, see Trait Theory.
temperament -A broad characterization of personality, usually with strong assumption of biological influence.
Theoretical Approaches to Personality
There are a variety of ways of thinking about personality. The most prominent current approaches are the trait or temperament approaches, which usually have a strong biological component, and the motivational approaches, which follow in the footsteps of behavioristic and social cognitive approaches. The other approaches discussed in this Course--the psychodynamic and humanistic-existential approaches--are not widely practiced today, but have strongly influenced the history of the field and the kinds of questions that are now being asked. Each of these approaches is briefly summarized below; more detailed descriptions can be found in each Topic.
1.1 Psychodynamic
The paradigm example of a psychodynamic approach to personality is the approach that started the whole modern field: psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud, a Viennese neurologist, devised his system of psychology from clinical interviews with his patients, most of whom were women diagnosed with hysteria. He focused on basic instincts, specifically the sexual and aggressive drives, and the id, ego, and superego, mental structures that he believed interacted to produce human behavior. Freud influenced a great deal of later research on personality. Some of his basic assumptions--that our behavior is mostly determined by the unconscious, that early life events are important determinants of life-long behavior, and that humans are naturally violent and selfish--continue to undergird some modern theories of personality. Another important personality researcher in the psychodynamic tradition is Erik Erikson, who focused on the social drives that influence behavior over the life-span.
1.2 Humanistic and existential
The humanistic and existential approaches came into being in the 1950s and 1960s, and have mostly faded since. They are important, however, because they represented a break from the dominant paradigms of the time: psychoanalysis and behaviorism (see below). Instead of focusing on the unconscious, unpleasant determinants of behavior postulated by psychoanalysis, or the environmental factors emphasized by behaviorism, humanistic and existential personality researchers focused on human tendencies towards self-improvement, self- actualization, and autonomy. Important humanistic theorists include Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. One of the more influential existential theorists was Rollo May.
1.3 Behaviorist and social cognitive
Behaviorism was one of the dominant approaches to psychology in America for the middle half of the twentieth century. Although it was largely based on animal behavior, and tended to focus on basic behaviors, it was also extended to deal with human personality. Behaviorists like B. F. Skinner argued that human behavior is determined by learned environmental contingencies of reward and punishment, not by internal structures such as the "self" or the id, ego, and instincts described by psychoanalysis. Later researchers such as Albert Bandura rejected the radical behaviorist claim that internal structures were irrelevant, but they maintained behaviorism's emphasis on behavior and environmentally-influenced learning.
1.4 Trait and biological
Trait theory is a relatively unified set of postulates about the main dimensions along which human personalities differ. Trait theory got its start in the work of Gordon Allport and others in the 1940s and 1950s, who used a statistical technique called factor analysis to determine the minimum number of independent factors--groups of descriptive words--that could capture most of the variance in the ways people describe each other and themselves. Current trait theory postulates that there are approximately five such groups of descriptors: "openness," "conscientiousness," "extroversion," "agreeableness," and "neuroticism," with extroversion and neuroticism being the most important, accounting for the majority of the variance. Trait theorists often assume that such traits have biological components, but they are rarely specific about what such components might consist of. Jerome Kagan has offered a description of temperaments that complements the trait theoretic approach and is explicitly based on inherited biological differences.
Methods in Personality Research
2.1 Methodological Issues Common to all Areas of Psychology
There are some methodological issues that are common to all areas of psychology (and most areas of science) that are worth reviewing before plunging into the specific methodological issues of personality research. First is the difference between an observational study and an experimental study. In the former, the variables of interest (e.g. number of temper tantrums and a self-reported measure of irritability) are observed in a group of individuals so that correlations between the variables can be calculated. In the latter, one variable is designated the dependent variable (e.g. number of temper tantrums) and another is designated the independent variable (e.g. number of anger-management therapy sessions). The advantage of an experimental design is that the researcher can be confident that the changes seen in the dependent variable are actually due to changes in that dependent variable.
2.2 Clinical, Laboratory, and Questionnaire-based Methods
Most personality research is based on clinical interviews, laboratory experiments, or self-report questionnaires, or some combinations of these. The modern field began with Freud's clinical interviews of psychiatric patients. The advantage of clinical interviews is that they give the researcher a complex, rich view of the person's thoughts and feelings. When combined with behavioral observation, this can give the clinician insights into the personality of the subject that would be unavailable by any other means. The disadvantage is that the data is subject to the interpretive biases of the clinician. A further problem resides in that even with unbiased data it is difficult to reduce the results of the interview into a form suitable for scientific statistical analysis.
Another commonly used method is the laboratory experiment. In laboratory-based research, the variables of interest are precisely determined and the conditions under which experimental participants can behave are tightly controlled. As a consequence, the results of laboratory research are much easier to analyze and interpret than the results of interview-based research and are less subject to the influence of the experimenter's bias. An example of a laboratory-based study of personality is one in which subjects are shown an upsetting film and their physiological, subjective, and behavioral responses are measured. With some caveats, individual differences in response can then be attributed to differences in personality among the subjects.
The last major technique in personality psychology is the self-report questionnaire. Subjects are given a series of questions about their typical behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Answers to the questions are then scored to determine personality variables. The variables of interest can range from the very specific (e.g. current level of disgust) to the very broad (e.g. extroversion). Self-report questionnaires are used in almost every area of personality psychology, but they play a central role in trait theory. Trait theory is based on factor analysis of a large number of questionnaires about personality given to large numbers of subjects. The result of such factor analysis is a small set of composite variables that are supposed to reflect basic traits. Each individual's scores on these traits can then be correlated with various behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that those individuals may exhibit.
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