Approaches to Personality Theory

David Peck,David Whitlow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429639982
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie en psychologie

Originally published in 1975, this book reviews the major personality theories influential at the time, including those of Freud, Kelly, Cattell, and Eysenck, and presents the main assessment techniques associated with them. It also discusses their application in such fields as abnormal psychology, diagnosis, psychotherapy, education and criminology.

The authors find none of the theories completely satisfactory, but pinpoint important successes and suggest a promising new approach.

1
Introduction to personality theory

In everyday language we often refer to another person by saying ‘He has no personality’, or that ‘she has a strong personality’. We would understand this to mean that he is boring, unimaginative and predictable, and that she is domineering, rigid, reluctant to change her mind and so on. Psychologists, however, use the term ‘personality’ in a much more restricted and technical sense. In a psychological sense, a strong person has no more personality than a weak one, in the same way that a bright red coat has no more colour than a drab brown one. All things have colour; all people have a personality. They differ not in the amount they have, but in the type they have. The general use of the term personality is, therefore, very different from that of psychologists.

What then do psychologists mean by the term personality? Here we immediately get on to difficult ground. There is no single, generally accepted use of the term amongst psychologists; indeed, some would maintain that in the sense that it is ordinarily used by psychologists there is no such thing as personality (as we shall see in later chapters). Psychologists have adopted a bewildering variety of approaches to, and an inevitably equally bewildering array of definitions of, the concept of personality. Before we go on to examine the reasons for this, let us first form at least a rough idea of what psychologists mean by the term.

Most theorists accept that the major, if not the only, way to study personality is by observing what people actually do or say that they do; either directly by watching someone behave, and tallying what he does, or indirectly by counting up his responses to questionnaire items. A basic assumption is that the term personality relates to what people do or what they experience. A second frequent assumption is that personality is an entity; that is, it really exists and is not just a convenient short-hand way of summarizing a person’s behaviour. A third assumption is that personality is relatively fixed and enduring, so that the ‘core’ remains relatively immutable, while only its more surface features are modifiable. Due acknowledgement is sometimes, but not always, paid to the moderating influence of the situation in which the behaviour takes place.

Armed with these assumptions, most personality theorists have been content with such definitions of personality as ‘those structural and dynamic properties of an individual as they reflect themselves in characteristic responses to situations’ (Pervin, 1970); or ‘those relatively stable and enduring aspects of the individual which distinguish him from other people and, at the same time, form the basis of our predictions concerning his future behaviour’ (Wright et al., 1970); or ‘a dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his characteristic behaviour and thought’ (Allport, 1961). Some psychologists have defined ‘personality’ very widely so that it covers virtually everything and anything that a person does, from how he solves problems and how he deals with incompatible thoughts, to changes in physiological functioning in response to emotion-arousing situations. Although it may be reasonable to adopt such positions, most psychologists would concur with the type of definitions given above, emphasizing the individual’s patterns of behaviour within a social or interpersonal context. Personality theorists have maintained that for any behaviour to be of interest it must be characteristic of the person (i.e. differentiate him from other people) and it should manifest itself in a variety of situations and be consistent over time.

Given that personality theorists have the same subject matter (man), are interested in the same aspects (man’s behaviour), and are largely interested in the same goals (description, understanding and prediction), let us now consider why psychologists have produced so many different definitions and approaches. The main reason must surely be that human behaviour is enormously complex, and is determined by not one factor or even one set of factors, but by a vast number of determinants at many different levels. With such a complex sphere of investigation, each different approach has emphasized different kinds of observations about people, which are inevitably reflected in different kinds of personality theories.

This complexity of subject is revealed by a glance at the different areas of personality which have been detailed (sometimes quite arbitrarily) by psychologists, such as personality development, personality dynamics, personality assessment, personality structure, personality change, personality adjustment, and so on. It is rather as if ten blind men surrounding an elephant were reaching out and touching the nearest part, then theorizing about what it was. Each individual’s description and theorizing might be perfectly adequate, but would tell us little about the overall function and structure of the complete elephant.

Not only do personality theorists sample different aspects of human behaviour, but they also use different tools to do so. Some theorists have used samples of unstructured speech as a major investigatory tool; others have used sophisticated mathematical analyses of responses to paper-and-pencil questionnaires; some have simply counted items of behaviour, and still others have used the size and shape of the body. There is, therefore, no such thing as a theory of personality, in the sense that a theory covers all aspects of human behaviour, but there are many theories whose main area of interest lies within the domain of personality.

What determines the aspects examined and tools adopted by any particular theorist may result in part from his own implicit ideas of what human behaviour is all about. What one believes man to be will determine which aspects of human behaviour are important and are to be studied, and which are unimportant and can be safely ignored. A related topic is, what are the functions of a personality theory, and it is to this that we shall now turn our attention.

Functions of personality theories

One function of scientific theories is to organize accumulated knowledge in a given area into a form which renders it usable and communicable to other people. Theories are useful ways of fitting facts together, permitting one to generate hypotheses and to apply the organized knowledge to new circumstances and problems as they arise. Theories should enable one to predict the future and explain the past and present by reference to the propositions contained within them. What is a useful theory at one period may not be so at a later period; a theory may have to be abandoned and replaced by a new one which better accounts for the observed facts (see F7 of Essential Psychology). However, to abandon a theory is not to deny the validity of the observations upon which the theory was based. The theoretical foundations of physics have undergone enormous re-thinking of late, such that the whole theoretical structure is being constantly undermined; however, when we turn a lightswitch, the light still comes on. Essentially, a theory is only a useful way of ordering and simplifying facts into general laws or propositions.

Personality theories serve the same general purposes as other types of scientific theories. The specific functions of a theory of personality are broadly agreed upon by different theorists. Most would maintain that the theory must be based on important phenomena, that it should parsimoniously account for the facts, should stimulate further research, should incorporate known empirical findings, should simplify the complexities of human behaviour and so on. Levy (1970) considers that all these criteria fall into three broad overlapping categories, the importance attached to each being largely a matter of personal judgement. His criteria were grouped as follows: subjective-judgemental, logical-epistemic and empirical.

Subjective-judgemental criteria

As the title suggests, such criteria may vary from one person to another; no objective standard can be applied, but this does not necessarily reduce the importance of the criteria.

Personality theories vary, for example, in the ‘extensiveness of the domain’ of the phenomena covered, and in the ‘importance of the domain’, and these can be used as bases upon which to judge a theory. There is, however, no final arbiter of extensiveness or importance. Thus, some theories of personality have been taken to task because they may not incorporate thinking, cognitive styles, drive states, and so on; whereas other theories have been criticized because they have offered few practical solutions to important human problems. Clearly these criteria are applied according to the personal preference of the judges, and the subjective basis of such judgements should be recognized. In addition, these criteria should be viewed in the context of what the personality theorist is trying to do. To criticize a theorist who is interested in the physical basis of personality on the grounds that his theory has little to say about speed of learning is perhaps unfair; whereas to lodge the same criticism against a theorist who is interested in speed as an aspect of personality would be more justifiable. Thus we must distinguish between criticisms of what a theory is claimed to be about, and criticisms of what it is believed a theory ought to be about.

Logical-epistemic criteria

Such criteria demand that a theory be stated in sufficiently explicit terms to enable testable predictions to be made. A well-constructed theory should enable logical deductions to be made, and empirical answers to be found. Accordingly, the theory should not be such that contrary hypotheses about the same phenomena are derivable from it, but should be logically consistent, with each proposition or law being fully compatible with every other.

If testable deductions can be made, it follows that in the event of incompatible findings, the theory must be capable of modification; that is, it must be responsive to data. It is the essence of theories that they should change in the light of new facts. The theory is embellished, enriched or abandoned according to these new facts and its usefulness depends in part upon its ability to incorporate new evidence.

A further criterion is the amount of research which is stimulated by a theory. Indeed, to quote Hall and Lindzey’s (1957) influential textbook Theories of Personality, ‘the fruitfulness of (personality) theories is to be judged primarily by how effectively they serve as a spur to research’ (p. 27).

Empirical criteria

A theory may be extensive, cover important areas, be internally consistent, and lead to testable predictions; but it is argued here that the acid test is whether the theory can fulfil empirical criteria. If it cannot, then it is interesting but rather pointless. What do we mean by empirical criteria? Basically, we mean how well does the theory work, in two main respects – its validity and its utility. We assess validity when an attempt is made to support a concept or deduction from a theory by comparison with information obtained from another independent source such as an experiment. We may, for example, predict from a theory that there is a positive relationship between extraversion and susceptibility to the effects of alcohol. To test this, we could give a standard amount of alcohol to people with different degrees of extraversion, and assess the effects of alcohol on, for example, the ability to perform mental arithmetic or a hand-eye co-ordination task. If the theory is correct, intoxicated extraverts should produce fewer correct answers to the arithmetic problems, and should display poorer hand-eye co-ordination. When such investigations are supportive of a theory, it should not be assumed that the theory as a whole has been shown to be valid, but merely that the prediction has been upheld in a certain area. Furthermore, if the prediction is not upheld, this does not mean that the whole theory is untenable, but that the one aspect of it may require some modification.

Utility refers to the value of the theory to the user. Personality theories might reasonably be expected to provide information useful in the treatment of mental disorders, in the selection of personnel, in understanding the behaviour of schoolchildren, or in the assessment of criminals; that is, they are expected to be useful in the resolution of practical problems. Utility is obviously partly a function of most, if not all, of the preceding criteria, but these alone do not guarantee the theory’s utility. A theory may, for example, predict with acceptable degrees of accuracy the job most suitable for a person with a particular personality type. However, simply asking the person might have produced the same information much more quickly and at a fraction of the cost. In other words, the value or utility of a theory should be judged in relation to alternative ways of arriving at the same decision.

All of these criteria for the evaluation of a personality theory are important. However, if a theory is to be taken seriously, and not regarded as a purely academic exercise far removed from the exigencies of the real world, then its validity and utility are of paramount importance. Psychologists should not indulge in the rather incestuous practice of devising and refining personality theories for consumption by other psychologists, without consideration of how the theory can be applied. After all, personality is about human behaviour, which typically takes place outside psychological laboratories. The importance of applying theories derived in the laboratory to outside situations is neatly illustrated in the following experiments: A series of laboratory studies by Asch (1958) (see B1) demonstrated that about 30 per cent of his subjects conformed to, and agreed with, the clearly incorrect judgements of a number of ‘stooges’ in an experiment concerned with estimation of the comparative lengths of lines. Later studies by Luchins and Luchins (1967), however, were unable to produce the same amount of conformity when the experiment was repeated in a more ‘natural setting’, such as an airport terminal. Thus, unless theories are tested in more realistic and natural settings, psychologists could well end up with a series of experiments providing us with knowledge of human behaviour in the laboratory, which relates little to human behaviour elsewhere (see F8).

A compelling reason for using utility as a major criterion in assessing personality theories is that most theorists make extensive claims for the practical utility of their theories; it is important to assess how far these claims are justified. It is, of course, possible that although a theory may be of little current utility, useful applications may well be found at a later date.

Naïve theories of personality

Why is it necessary for psychologists to devise personality theories? People are continually making assessments of other people, judging from personal appearance and mannerisms, listening to what others say and watching what they do in various contexts, and then relating such observations to their own implicit theories of personality, inferring enduring dispositions and underlying motivation. There is, however, a body of evidence indicating that subjective assessments of another’s behaviour are extremely liable to error, and that even in a reasonably well-structured situation, such as an interview, the accuracy of assessments is quite minimal.

For example, our subtle expectations about another person may have a marked effect on our assessment of him and on our own behaviour towards him. Kelley (1950) demonstrated this in the following experiment: a male lecturer was introduced to a class of male students as ‘Mr ......... is a graduate student in the Department of Economics and Social Science. He had three semesters of teaching experience in psychology at another college. He is 26 years old, a veteran, and married. People who know him consider him to be a rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical and determined.’ Half of the students received the above description, half of them a similar description, except that the words ‘rather warm’ were substituted for ‘rather cold’. Afterwards, the students were required to rate the lecturer; more favourable ratings were made by the students who expected him to be ‘warm’; in addition 56 per cent of the students given the ‘warm’ expectation joined in the discussion after the lecture, whereas only 32 per cent of the ‘cold’ expectation students joined in.

It has also been shown that our friendship choices are not normally based upon a fully impartial assessment of the other’s qualities and behaviour. A very important determinant of whom we shall like seems to be how often we interact with that person. For example, Festinger, Schachter and Back (1950) examined friendship formations in a housing estate, and found, as one might expect, a high relationship between friendship choice and physical distance. But physical distance was not the only important factor; the precise situation of an apartment was also important, in that people on the ground floor were likely to have friends on the upper floor if their apartment was near the foot of the stairs, but not if it was nearer the centre of the row of apartments. This seemed to be because people in apartments near the stairs had many more opportunities to meet and make ‘passive contacts’; they concluded ‘the relationships between ecological and sociometric (i.e. friendship choice) structures is so very marked that there can be little doubt that in these communities passive contacts are a major determinant of friendship and group formation’. Warr (1964) has replicated some of these findings in a British university men’s hall of residence.

Not only do we sometimes use imprecise and possibly misleading criteria in judging others, but we are also prone to accept as useful and valid descriptions of behaviour which are so general that they could apply to anyone. In one study (Ulrich, Stachnik and Stainton, 1963) university students were given personality tests, followed by a written interpretation allegedly based on the test results. In fact, each interpretation was identical, containing such statements as ‘you prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by limitations and restrictions … You pride yourself as being an independent thinker and do not accept others’ opinions without satisfactory proof … Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic’. Almost all the students reported that the interpretations were accurate descriptions of their behaviour, some of them claiming that their personal problems had been helped. Subsequent studies have shown a similar degree of acceptance of generalized personality descriptions, even when given by a non-creditable source, and when the descriptions were unfavourable. These experiments on the ‘Barnum effect’, as it is called, are not important as demonstrations of credulity, but are important in illuminating the dangers of vague personality descriptions and naïve interpretations. Clearly if psychological descriptions of personality are to be taken seriously, they must do better than this.

Psychologists have devised many personality theories; some theories have stood the test of time, others have had a short but explosive life, only to fade away, and some have been taken up and modified by other theorists so that the original forms are barely recognizable; many are of purely historical interest. It is impossible to survey all the personality theories put forward by psychologists, and some criteria has to be adopted for selection. It is intended that the theories discussed in this book should be r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Editor’s Introduction
• 1 Introduction to personality theory
• 2 Psychoanalytic personality theory
• 3 Interpersonal theories
• 4 Type and trait theories
• 5 Narrow band theories (1)
• 6 Narrow band theories (2)
• 7 A social learning approach
• 8 Conclusions
• Further Reading
• References and Name Index
• Subject Index