Concepts of Personality

Joseph M. Wepman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351526920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The psychologist who pursues an interest in personality is constantly faced by a dilemma. He seeks to investigate what is to him the most intriguing and interesting subject--the multifaceted operations of man in his natural environment. The predicament lies in the discrepancy between the complexity and richness of man's subjective experience, and the pallid analog of these experiences the psychologist is able to study effectively with the research procedures available to him. In Concepts of Personality Joseph M. Wepman and Ralph W. Heine offer a comprehensive survey of classical and contemporary personality theory, including a wide array of examples of these two trends.

If the psychologist holds to the premises of strict objectivity through controlled observations, he finds himself driven to the periphery of the very problem he seeks to understand. This is a place where the reliability of measurement and the validity and predictability of his instruments can often be specified, but only at the cost of abandoning the goal of useful generality or of application to the individual in his ordinary life circumstances. Concepts of Personality, unlike most books on the subject, is not limited to broad, general theories. It includes chapters on basic processes--learning, perception, genetics, and drive theory; on the major analytical approaches of psychology and psychiatry; on anthropological and sociological contributions; and on the problems of measurement and assessment. Each chapter is by an authority on the point of view expressed.

The editors' introduction, itself a major essay on the complex and divergent patterns and themes of contemporary views of personality, carefully leads the reader through the information at hand. The book as a whole constitutes an encyclopedic summary of the state of the science.

I

Basic Processes

1

Learning Theory and Personality

Janet Taylor Spence

In the present chapter we will be concerned with what one kind of psychological theory may have to contribute to another. The two types of theories, of learning and of personality, provide many contrasts that will be profitable to consider if attempts to integrate them are to be understood in proper perspective.

One obvious difference between learning theories and theories of personality may be found in the particular empirical phenomena on which each is based. Personality theorists have focused their attention on complex patterns of human behavior that occur in real life, particularly those with social and motivational overtones.¹ Of fundamental concern are the persistent reaction patterns that characterize a given individual and, typically, differentiate him from other individuals, i.e., define his uniqueness.

In contrast, learning theorists have traditionally been concerned with relatively simple, controlled situations within the laboratory, often using animals as subjects. While not completely ignoring the individual differences among their subjects and never denying their importance, learning theorists, in common with other experimentalists, have nonetheless been primarily interested in determining the functional relations between their experimental stimulus variables and behavior, or, to express the matter more concretely, in systematic differences among groups of subjects tested under various stimulus conditions. The specific experimental arrangements that have occupied the attention of these theorists are, of course, those in which behavior change takes place with practice, i.e., learning and extinction.

With few exceptions, learning theories have not been concerned merely with the variables contributing to the hypothetical learning process but with all of the other variables relevant to the behavior being measured (e.g., motivational variables). Thus, they might more accurately be described as behavior theories about situations in which learning takes place. Even here, however, learning theorists have tended to be limited in the empirical phenomena with which they have been concerned. As an example, consider that class of variables designated as positive rewards. Many objects or events can serve as positive rewards, even for the white rat. Learning theorists typically have not been at all interested in cataloguing and investigating all of these specific examples. Rather they have chosen to introduce only a few of them into their experimental situations, selecting them primarily on the basis of convenience. This procedure reflects the intent of the theorist to provide general and fairly abstract laws, i.e., laws that will apply to the whole range of specific variables that could or would fall into a given class, should anyone be interested in enumerating them. Here, then, is another difference in emphasis between the learning and the personality theorist; while both may seek to develop general laws, the latter is forced, by the very nature of his interests, to pay attention to specifics, e.g., the variety of events that may serve to reward and motivate man’s behavior.

All in all, the empirical events that learning theorists have attempted to explain have little resemblance to those phenomena that we commonly refer to as reflecting “personality.” What bearing, then, do contemporary learning theories have on personality? In the strictest sense, little or none. While learning theories are in such a form that testable predictions may be logically derived from them, none of these predictions are directly related to the type of behavioral events that are the immediate concern of the personality theorist.

Nonetheless, there has been an increasing number of attempts, particularly within the last decade, to apply empirical principles or theoretical constructs from the learning laboratory to the kinds of problems to which students of personality have addressed themselves. That such applications should be attempted should not be too surprising. Personality theorists have, after all, devoted much of their effort toward identifying the kinds of life experiences that lead to subsequent patterns of behavior (“personality”) and the conditions that lead to change in these patterns, as in the therapeutic process. In short, many theorists are committed to the position that personality is to some degree—perhaps even to a large degree—learned and that personality change, i.e., relearning or extinction, is possible. Whether or not the empirical laws and theoretical notions that have to date been developed by the experimentalist are relevant to these latter types of phenomena is, of course, another question. In the absence of equally well developed learning theories that were specifically devised to account for complex, real life phenomena, the temptation to try them out is strong.

The many psychologists who have attempted to blend an amalgam of learning theory and personality have often drawn upon a common set of theoretical constructs, particularly those of the Hull-Spence system. Nonetheless, their contributions have been diverse. They differ, first of all, in the specific empirical phenomena that they consider, some limiting themselves to fairly circumscribed problem areas and others being more comprehensive. More important, each psychologist chooses for himself the particular empirical learning principles and, out .of a given theory, the particular constructs that he believes to be applicable. These must then be combined with additional empirical or theoretical assumptions about the nature of the events to-be-explained. In part these assumptions consist of statements, which are often unverified guesses, as to the empirical variables that influence behavior (e.g., the childhood experiences that determine certain adult characteristics). But they also involve decisions as to the technical manner in which learning principles are to be used to derive these presumed empirical relationships and as to whether additional explanatory principles are also required to permit this derivation. Nothing in any contemporary learning theory dictates or demands what assumptions these should be.

The further one gets from simple laboratory situations, the greater the number of assumptions that must be made. Since our scientific knowledge about complexly determined patterns of behavior is less exact than about simple ones, comprehensiveness in these theoretical accounts is thus gained at the expense of empirical confirmation, i.e., they become more and more a series of untested and occasionally, untestable speculations.

Rarely are these additional assumptions completely novel. As in most scientific endeavors, they are heavily influenced by existing knowledge, provided in this instance by such sources as clinical observation, the results of formal investigations of personality phenomena, and the speculations of personality theorists (e.g., Freudian psychoanalysts). Thus, it is possible to have quite contradictory “learning theories of personality,” even among those who subscribe to the same conceptual system. At the same time, one may find essential agreement at many points between a given learning theory approach and long established personality theories which include no explicit statements about learning.

This state of affairs creates a dilemma for anyone who is charged with discussing learning theory approaches to personality. Summarizations of the views of even the major contributors to this general enterprise are almost impossible to accomplish within realistic limitations of time or space. The task becomes even more formidable if attempts are first made to explain the empirical learning principles and theoretical constructs employed in various analyses of personality phenomena. In resolving this dilemma, one can, at one extreme, make a series of abstract statements that are applicable to all of the various approaches but never get down to the specifics of any one in particular. At the other extreme, it is possible to concentrate on reviewing one particular set of views and to ignore the rest. Although leaning toward the former, the present chapter represents a kind of compromise solution. For reasons that will shortly be made apparent, certain methodological and empirical orientations that the various learning theory approaches have in common will be considered on an abstract level in subsequent sections. This discussion will be followed by illustrations of several different kinds of attempts to bring learning principles and personality phenomena together.

The Methodological Orientation of Learning Theory Approaches to Personality

In searching for communalities among the various integrations of learning theory and personality, one is struck by the similarity of the views about the nature of science and the scientific method that they reflect. The methodological position these contributions represent is most commonly identified philosophically with the positivist tradition and, within psychology, with methodological behaviorism. The predilection of those psychologists identified as behaviorists for focusing their attention on certain kinds of empirical laws has led to an alternate label for the contributions of this group: stimulus-response or S-R psychology.

While the methodological views accepted by S-R behaviorists have been extensively treated by philosophers of science (e.g., Bergmann, 1957; Feigl, 1945; Hempel, 1949) and, as these views affect their own scientific discipline, by psychologists (e.g., Pratt, 1939; K. W. Spence, 1948), restatement of certain basic tenets seems to be in order. Although many psychologists, particularly experimentalists, adhere to the behaviorist position, its acceptance is far from universal, especially perhaps among those concerned with personality. Examination of the methodological orientation of the S-R behaviorist may thus serve as an introduction to the contributions of those who find value in the principles of learning in understanding personality and to distinguish them in several basic respects from certain other types of approaches.²

Psychology as a Scientific Discipline

One of the fundamental commitments of the behaviorist is that science, of which psychology is conceived to be a part, is a public endeavor. Its basic data are provided by observations of objects and events that may be made by all with the requisite sensory capacities and technical skills; its basic task is to establish interrelationships among these publicly observable data, i.e., to formulate empirical laws and theories which permit their integration. These laws and theories, of course, are what constitute for science the “explanation” of the events to which they refer, and which permit prediction. One of the most crucial—and technically complex—aspects of this endeavor concerns the rules governing the language of science. In broad and oversimplified terms, these rules are aimed toward achieving unambiguous communication among scientists. Not only must there be a high degree of actual or potential interobserver agreement about the description of any given empirical datum, but proposed laws interrelating classes of events must be stated in such a form that their implications are clear and susceptible to empirical test.

Restriction of the raw data of science to publicly observable events implies that there are other classes of data, including those falling into the realm of private experience, that are excluded from scientific consideration. In like manner, insistence that all postulated explanations of these events be capable of empirical confirmation or disconfirmation implies that scientific knowledge is but one of many forms that man’s knowledge of himself and his universe may take. There is nothing implicit or explicit in the methodological tradition of behaviorism that denies the existence or the importance of non-scientific knowledge about man, e.g., denial that man has a rich inner life or that knowledge about it is not a legitimate concern of the non-scientist. The behaviorist is, however, committed to the assumption that scientific knowledge of the behavior of living organisms is possible, i.e., is at least in part lawful, and merely asks that, like other scientists, he be allowed to restrict his activities to this single pursuit.

These brief statements concerning the conception of the nature of science and of scientific methodology accepted by behaviorists contain no rules that will guarantee that one’s hunches or hypotheses will be confirmed when subjected to empirical test and no prohibitions that state, for example, that one cannot introspect, empathize or be stimulated by the speculative insights of the poet or philosopher in arriving at these hypotheses. Although the context of discovery, as Meehl (1954) has put it, is poorly understood, it is probable that such sources are often used. If one is interested in the source of ideas that lead to the formulation of useful hypotheses or that scientists actually utilize, one must investigate these matters empirically rather than seeking answers from metatheoretical analyses.

Nor are there any prescriptions that will allow one to decide, a priori, the most useful starting point in any scientific enterprise, e.g., with molecular descriptions of behavior or molar ones, with simple phenomena or complex ones. Implicit in these latter statements, however, is a commitment to a set of standards by which any given scientific contribution may be judged. Many psychologists, particularly those whose empirical interests are in complex, real life phenomena, assess the importance of psychological theories and research in terms of their immediate practical significance, the degree to which they contribute to the solution of the pressing problems of everyday life. The reasons for adopting these standards are varied and may include a conviction that what is important to understand about man involves an emergent set of principles that can be discovered only by direct investigation of the phenomena themselves.

A quite different standard of evaluation is more likely to be adopted by behaviorists. As Spence (1957) has expressed it, scientific significance is judged by the extent to which an activity leads to the discovery of empirical laws or to the formulation of comprehensive theories that serve to integrate them. The preference of many behaviorists for investigating simple rather than complex phenomena rests on the belief that scientific progress will be more rapid in these areas. Assuming that many of the variables and laws governing simple forms of behavior will, in combination with additional factors, also be operative in more complex forms of behavior, understanding the latter may well be achieved more rapidly and more effectively if investigation proceeds from the simple to the complex.

The conviction that there is some continuity in the laws and variables governing situations of varying degrees of complexity, is, of course, what underlies learning theory approaches to personality. In passing, it might be noted that those who attempt to apply the principles of learning discovered in the laboratory to real life are often caught in a cross-fire of criticism. On the one hand, personality theorists who are unsympathetic to S-R behaviorism and its products are likely to regard any efforts to find continuity between the phenomena of the laboratory and the “important” aspects of real life as a useless attempt at best, and at worst, as an affront to the true nature of man. On the other hand, there are experimental psychologists, perhaps made uneasy by speculations too far in advance of empirical data, who also doubt the usefulness of these attempts, at least at the moment.

The Empirical Data of Psychology

The empirical data among which psychologists attempt to establish interrelationships may be grouped into three major classes:

1) Response variables: the overt behavior of living organisms.

2) Stimulus variables : events in the social or physical environment of the organism that are contemporaneous with the behavior being observed or that have occurred in the past.

3) O-variables: anatomical and physiological properties of the organism.

Before proceeding further it should perhaps be emphasized that among the kinds of events labeled as “responses” is verbal behavior, including verbalizations elicited by instructions to an individual to introspect and report his feelings and thought processes. In principle, such verbal behavior is, of course, just as publicly observable as non-verbal behavior. Behaviorists, however, deny that introspective reports have any unique methodological status: that one is able to assume that they, or any hypothetical state of the organism defined in terms of them, are necessarily isomorphic to the private world of the individual or that, in principle, they yield a kind of information about the individual that is unobtainable by other means. Whether or not a given psychologist or group of psychologists believes that verbal reports will prove to be more useful than non-verbal behavior in understanding a particular type of phenomena is, like so many matters that divide psychologists, an empirical issue, having to do, if you will, with the tactics rather than the strategy of acquiring scientific knowledge.

The Empirical Laws of Psychology

Scientific laws basically consist of statements concerning the interrelationships holding between independently measured sets of empirical events. Interrelationships can, of course, be investigated within or among any of the three classes of variables described above.³ However, the interests of most psychologists, as well as the relative lack of physiological knowledge about complex phenomena, have led to primary emphasis on the discovery of two major classes of laws: those involving the relations between stimulus and response variables (S-R laws) and between independent sets of response variables (R-R laws). Examples of the former run all the way from the effects of magnitude of reward on the running speed of the white rat in a straight alley to such phenomena as the effects of certain childhood experiences on adult personality patterns and the relations between various psychotherapeutic procedures and therapeutic outcome.

The R-R type of correlational law, it will be recognized, forms the basis of diagnostic testing, as well as providing the empirical data for the theories of the field theorist and phenomenologist. Since these latter theorists often c...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I Basic Processes
• Part II Theories of Personality
• Part III Social Process and Personality
• Part IV Methods of Personality Assessment
• Index