Personality

The purpose of this section is to introduce you to the concept of personality, the basic theories of personality, and different psychometrics used to measure or quantify personality characteristics.

Personality is defined as a person’s unique, relatively consistent patterns of responding across a broad cross-section of situations. A personality theory, then, is a way of explaining these general tendencies. We will cover psychoanalytic, humanistic, social-cognitive, and trait theories of personality, and to illustrate these points I will use my own personality within the framework of each theory. You may also do some personality work on your own by taking the Jung Type test or Cattell’s 16PF test, or any of the others located under Personality Tests.

 

Psychoanalytic Theories: Sigmund Freud’s Dynamic Personality

One of the earliest and most complex models of personality is Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective, which is based around his psychosexual theory of personality development. We will focus on the structure and function of personality here; for more information about the psychosexual stages in terms of personality development, please see the section on personality development in Lifespan Development.

Freud’s theory of personality was influenced by several factors. First of all, the work of Charcot and Janet, who were using hypnosis in the treatment of hysteria, and upon whose research Freud based his focus on the existence of an unconscious mind. Freud was also influenced by Joseph Breuer’s concept of catharsis, the resolution or insight into unconscious motivations and feelings. Lastly, Freud looked to his own experiences in childhood, forming the basic assumptions of his theory:

• personality is the result of the interaction between conscious and unconscious portions of the mind
• that friction between the conscious and unconscious mind causes fluctuations or blockages in psychic energy, or libido
• that blocked libido causes anxiety, stress, and conversion disorders
• that the psychologically healthy individual is able to express their libidinal energy in generative ways, while the psychologically unhealthy individual uses defense mechanisms to avoid contact with unpleasant unconscious anxieties and memories
• that childhood experiences create the framework for the relationships between those parts, and that these relationships are formed in distinct stages (the psychosexual stages) which represent critical developmental conflicts between one’s eros and the rules and constraints of society and morality.
• that adult relationships are often the conduit for the expression of these unconscious conflicts (transference), as well as dream interpretation and free-association.

Freud’s structure of personality involves three components, id, ego, and superego. Ego and superego straddle the borderline between conscious and unconscious, whereas the id is strictly below the waterline. The id is the oldest, most basic, and animalistic portion of the personality. It is ruled by the pleasure principle – the drive for immediate gratification of physical, sexual, and psychological needs. Think about the way a baby or very young child behaves; they are unable to delay gratification, so they are frequently in distress when their needs are not immediately met. “I want what I want when I want it” is the mantra of the id.

The id is also the source of psychic energy, the energy that drives (motivates) our behavior. This energy (libido) takes two forms: eros (sexual/creative/generative energy) and thanatos (destructive, violent, aggressive energy). As we age, these impulses are eventually filtered through the ego (the reality principle and self-awarenes) and superego (morality), meaning that we don’t often see overt examples of our animalistic impulses. This is because our animal natures can be unpleasant or threatening, so we engage in defense mechanisms. However, when people “lose control” and have “emotional breakdowns” or “rage attacks” we are seeing momentary lapses in the ego’s ability to rein in our deeper, more destructive impulses.

You can think of id and superego as the “devil” and “angel” on your shoulder, respectively. The id impulse will be filtered through an analysis of the circumstances of the situation and morality, norms, and values about how (and when) to respond to that impulse, resulting in some resolution of the conflict. The ego (which is your “self”) then chooses some behavior which effectively expresses the id instinct in a pro-social way.

Blocked libidinal energy (energy which is not or cannot be expressed) causes a buildup of anxiety and agitation, which the ego may respond to by engaging in defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are specific, patterned responses to anxiety that constitute avoidance of the actual drive, rather than a confrontation with something unpleasant. The ego wishes, above all else, to avoid anxiety and unpleasantness – but the unconscious mind is full of impulses, memories, wishes, and desires which might cause anxiety or cognitive dissonance. Here are examples of these mechanisms:

• repression – the unconscious process of keeping unpleasant and unwanted thoughts, memories, and impulses as deep in the unconscious mind as possible. For example, someone who has taken a vow of celibacy may exert tons of psychic energy trying to repress their sexual desires, because acknowledging those desires is threatening and uncomfortable.
• displacement – more or less, this is a form of transference which occurs when you cannot (or will not) have a confrontation with the source of your anxiety, so you throw that energy at something else. For example, if you are angry at your boss, but instead of confronting the actual cause of your anger, you come home and “take it out on” your spouse or dog. When people are engaging in displacement I like to say things like “don’t get any of that on me,” because most people don’t realize that transference is taking place.
• sublimation – this is “channeling” the impulse into something which is more socially appropriate or less threatening. For example, a celibate nun might sublimate her eros (sexual energy) by engaging in charitable work (which is generative, and metaphorically sexual); someone who is angry might go home and play GTA IV for six hours rather than take their thanatos out on people in real life.
• rationalization – this is a process of “making excuses” or rationalizing your behavior, rather than acknowledging your true motives. Essentially, a form of denial.
• projection – attributing your own bad motives or emotions to other people. For example, an unfaithful boyfriend might accuse YOU of cheating or being interested in cheating, rather than confront the impulse in themselves.
• reaction formation – acting or thinking in a way which is the exact opposite of the undesirable impulse. For an example, see the case of Ted Haggard, who (as a televangelist) opposed homosexuality, but was eventually accused of soliciting male prostitutes. This is sort of related to undoing, in a “make it true by living it” kind of way.
• denial – the failure to recognize or acknowledge the impulse at all. For example, someone may say they “don’t have a drinking problem,” or that “my child would never do drugs,” rather than admit that these things are possible and deal with the emotions associated with them.
• regression – a defense mechanism that involves fixation in an earlier developmental stage; for example, victims of childhood trauma may engage in behaviors which bring them back to that age; people with separation anxiety due to the loss of a parent or early separation from a parent may deal with this anxiety by sucking on their thumbs, or sublimating the impulse (smoking, biting fingernails, etc).

As a general rule, defense mechanisms only postpone the inevitable confrontation with the unconscious, strengthening the impulse until catharsis is achieved. Catharsis is only achieved when there is awareness of the internal conflict coupled with some strategy for processing through and resolving it. What you resist persists, and what you hold back holds you back. On the other hand, the use of defense mechanisms saps your libidinal energy and impedes your creativity and ability to express authentic emotions.

 

Psychoanalytic Theories: The Neo-Freudians

Some of the limitations of Freud’s basic framework were addressed by his own students and devotees, many of whom are now classified as Neo-Freudian. These theories maintained the emphasis on psychic energy and internal conflict as the source of personality, but dropped the emphasis on childhood experiences and the specific id-ego-superego breakdown. Freud’s theory also has an implicit focus on abnormal behavior – that is to say, it more effectively explains what goes wrong, rather than what goes right. This emphasis was also dropped by the Neo-Freudians, who attempted to be more balanced in their analysis.

Karen Horney, who was originally trained as a Freudian psychologist, emphasized that social and economic factors played an equal, if not greater role in personality than sexual and aggressive motives. She suggested that psychic energy was derived from basic anxiety, an innate sense of one’s insecurity and instability in the world. We then alter our behavior in response to feelings of anxiety and insecurity, and Horney outlined three basic patterns of responding: moving toward, away from, and against others. These patterns are ways of relating to others in a social context; people who move toward others foster symbiotic relationships so that they can rely on others for help if necessary. People who move against others are combative and critical, and bolster their security by acquiring power over others. People who move away from others bolster their feelings of security by developing independence and self-assurance.

Horney argued that psychologically healthy individuals are able to shift from one response to the next depending on which response is the most adaptive and appropriate, but in general most people will lean toward one response pattern or the other. For example, I have always preferred to work alone and see others as a liability, rather than an advantage. This “other people are the problem” orientation is typical of people whose pattern of responding is primarily moving away. These people will resist and reject help or aid from other people and insist on doing things themselves.

Horney also suggested that male insecurity is, in part, based on the inability of males to give birth. This “womb envy” is in contrast to Freud’s notion of “penis envy,” which suggested that women are motivated by a desire to compensate for the lack of a penis. Instead, Horney argues that all of men’s attempts to build things, win wars, conquer nations, and achieve renown can be boiled down to one simple insecurity: only women can actually “create” life, so men must create “things.” It’s certainly an interesting thing to think about.

Alfred Adler suggested that basic anxiety was really about inferiority, rather than insecurity. Adler was frequently sick and weak as a child, but overcame these limitations. He suggested that, as infants and children, we are vaguely aware that other people are stronger, smarter, faster, and more powerful than we are – so we tailor our interests and activities toward the development of skills and competencies which make us less inferior. This is called striving for superiority.

Two problems can arise here; feelings of inferiority can be s overwhelming that the individuals develops a general sense of incompetence, an inferiority complex. This person will have a difficult time motivating themselves to learn new skills because they believe, generally, that they are bad at everything they do. On the other hand, people with a superiority complex may over-compensate for their inferiorities by placing too much emphasis on their areas of skill and denying that they have weaknesses.

Lastly, there is Carl Jung. Jung’s theory is interesting because it is more metaphysical than any of the other personality theories. His notion of the collective unconscious suggests that not only are we influenced by unconscious internal desires and impulses, but that we are also influenced by emotions, memories, stories, and characters (archetypes) which are passed down through the generations and shared in the collective unconscious. This adds a new dimension to the personality which is shared, rather than individual.

Jung believed that these archetypal themes and characters explained similarities in many of the stories that form the basis of religions and cultures – for example, most religions have thematically similar creation myths, and themes such as the death and resurrection of a sun god or son of god are found in many diverse systems of belief. Nearly all religions also emphasize a process of conversion or purification – whether that is through baptism, meditation, a vision quest, or some other ceremonial process. Jung’s archetypes influenced Joseph Campbell, whose book The Hero With A Thousand Faces influenced many film-makers, including George Lucas (Star Wars).

The point here is that Jung’s archetypes represent common characters, and that these characters are often used as the basis for our myths and stories – Frodo Baggins, Luke Skywalker, and Harry Potter are, at their core, the same person. All of them go through a transformative process, all of them have a confrontation with an evil who is both their enemy and also related to them in some way (Darth Vader, Gollum, and Vold- I mean, he who must not be named), all of them are guided by a wise old mystic (Gandalf, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dumbledore), all of them have some kind of special quality which is both a gift and a curse, and all of them must forsake a normal, quiet, every-day life in order to achieve greatness.

Jung would look at these trends and say that all of this is just externalization of the internal drama of the personality, where all these parts (the self, the hero, the shadow, the persona, the wise old man) are in relation and in conflict with one another, and where the ultimate goal (and source of psychic energy) is the drive to achieve wholeness, as embodied in cultural images such as mandalas. Rejection of a facet of your personality (for example, your “dark side,” or shadow) means that you are fragmenting, rather than integrating, your personality. This results in psychological distress, anxiety, and instability of personality. The shadow is particularly illustrative of this, because it represents the “Evil” side of the self that most people try to either avoid or suppress. However, Jung also considered that the shadow is the place where creativity lives, and that suppressing or ignoring the shadow stifles creativity. Instead, you have to find a way to give the shadow space to breath and express itself in order to access the creativity that comes with it.

Another example of important archetypes are archetypal gender roles and expectations – male (animus) and female (anima), which Jung thought contained different personality traits. For example, as Wesley says in The Princess Bride, “we are men of action” – the animus possesses the instinct to move, to act, to decide, to externalize, and to behave aggressively. The anima, on the other hand, possesses the instinct to contemplate, consider, be present in the moment, and express mercy and forgiveness. Anima is fundamentally internal, and animus is fundamentally external.

These masculine/external and feminine/internal natures exist in both males and females, but our socialization and personal preference may lead us to express one more than the other. Jung suggested that men need to be in touch with their “feminine side” and women need to be in touch with their “masculine side” in order to achieve psychic balance and wholeness, but we can think about it without heteronormative rhetoric: a balanced personality has access to both internalizing and externalizing responses. This need for balance is sometimes depicted in film by a warrior male character who, no matter how physically strong, needs the mystical powers granted to him by a female princess or sorceress in order to defeat his enemies. I’m revealing something about myself here, but in Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal, the relationship between male and female is described as being like a sword and a sheathe. Both impulses are complementary and supportive, rather than antagonistic. So it is in the human psyche, and as described in one of the most awesome songs ever – it’s not so much about the relationship between men and women externally, but the relationship between one’s own opposing natures.

The idea of anima and animus as internal and external led to Jung’s development of the concepts of introversion and extraversion. When we explore the MBTI, we will look more closely at these concepts. But for now, think of introversion as the internal generation and direction of energy, and extraversion as the external direction and reception of energy.

 

Humanistic Personality Theories

Humanistic theories of personality emphasize a few important things: first, the human potential for growth, self-awareness, change, and self-actualization. Second, the existence of the self-concept (one’s subjective beliefs about who you are in terms of past, present, and future) and self-esteem (how you evaluate yourself). Humanistic psychologists emphasize the positive aspects of personality with an eye toward explaining how people can become better and more complete beings – this self-actualizing principle is the energy that motivates our attempts to maintain and improve ourselves.

In a nutshell, humanistic personality theory emphasizes the importance of the self-concept and self-esteem in light of behaviors which either conform to our self-concept or deviate from it, causing incongruence. We are motivated above all to maintain continuity of our self-concept, and any challenge to the integrity of the self-concept will cause distress, anxiety, or depression. When we behave in a way which is contrary to our self-concept, if causes incongruence, which forces us either to re-evaluate our self-concept to make it more accurate (painful, but promoting growth) or rationalize and distance ourselves from the offending part of our personality (disconnection) causing depression and lower self-esteem, as well as destabilizing our sense of self.

Disconnection is most often caused by self-imposed conditional positive regard/acceptance, where we judge ourselves for our failings rather than accepting that to be human is to make mistakes. Like Carl Rogers said, “it’s an awfully risky thing, to live” – and humanistic therapists focus on unconditional positive regard as a way to encourage clients to re-integrate and understand fragmented parts of their self-concept. Humanistic psychologists believe that the fully-functioning person is aware of their failings, but uses those failings as information to support growth while also avoiding judgement and rejection. A more complete discussion of this can be found under Psychotherapies.

 

The Social-Cognitive Perspective

The social-cognitive perspective focuses on the inter-relationship between cognitions, behaviors, and social contexts, a relationship which Albert Bandura called reciprocal determinism. Bandura’s social cognitive theory emphasized that when we observe other people’s behaviors and responses to our own behavior, we are able to understand the relationships between behavior and consequences and regulate our own behaviors. These observations are filtered through cognitions and schemas which Bandura called the self-system, and they include things such as self-efficacy, locus of control, attributions, and explanatory styles.

• Locus of control: in general, a belief system about the relationship between behaviors and consequences – who is in control of the consequences? You (internal)? or someone else (external)?
• self-efficacy: a general belief about competence. Our beliefs about our competence change depending on the task and the circumstances of the task, and those beliefs affect our choices.
• attributions: see the section on attributions in Social Psychology.
• explanatory styles: see the section on explanatory styles in Stress and Health.

All of these are flexible insofar as they change depending on the demands of the social/environmental context, although they may remain relatively stable – leading to patterned responses, such as an extreme internal locus of control.

 

The Trait Perspective

In contrast to the other perspectives, the trait perspective emphasizes an analysis of the differences between people, rather than trying to uncover the underlying processes which are the source of our personalities. Consider that psychoanalytic, humanistic, neo-Freudian and social-cognitive approaches all look at causes, whereas trait theories focus simply on the traits themselves. A trait is a relatively stable disposition to behave in a certain way – no more, and no less. We’re not concerned with where traits come from; instead, we’re interested in how different combinations of traits result in different combinations of behaviors.

The analysis of traits gives rise to an important problem: distinguishing surface traits from source traits. Gordon Allport’s list of traits included more than 4,000 entries – way too many to develop a useful model of personality. These are mostly surface traits – as opposed to source traits, which are fewer in number and are the “wellspring” of all other traits. Trait theorists have tried to identify the small number of source traits which are responsible for the expression of the wider array of surface traits. Raymond Cattell used a statistical method called factor analysis to come up with a list of 16 source traits or dimensions (see the 16PF test under Personality Tests). Hans Eysenck narrowed that list down to just three dimensions: introversion-extraversion, neuroticism-emotional stability, and psychoticism. But three personality dimensions seems like too few to explain the wider range of behaviors.

McCrae and Costa’s five factor model has gained a lot of traction as an acceptable middle ground between Cattell and Eysenck. It measures five dimensions on scales from low to high: openness (preference for new things), conscientiousness (motivation, ambition, and organization), extraversion (preference for social contact), agreeableness (being friendly or antagonistic), and neuroticism (emotional responsiveness and control). You can test you five factor dimensions by going to the Personality Tests tab.

Lastly, there is the MBTI. Based on Jung’s ideas about introversion and extraversion, the test adds four other dimensions: sensing-intuition, feeling-thinking, and perceiving-judging. Each dimension is an either-or evaluation (so you will score as more introverted or more extraverted), and taking the test generates a four-letter code summary of your personality. For example, my code is INFP: introverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving. Although the MBTI is regarded with some skepticism, it is still commonly used as a diagnostic tool in human resources and college admission processes.

Analysis of the MBTI can be superficial, or it can be fairly complex. Your four-letter code says a lot about you; for example, mine says that I have a preference for internalization of energy and that being around other people costs energy rather than generating it (introversion), that I have a tendency to see big-picture rather than being detail-oriented (intuitive), that my decisions are made primarily based on gut instinct and emotions rather than intellect (feeling), and that I have a preference for unstructured activities rather than structured ones (perceiving).

A deeper analysis might look at relationships between these variables; for example, the N-F-P construct is associated with people who are idealistic, curious, and sensitive. the I-P is what I call a “stable affinity” because introverts are able to maintain their preference for unstructured activity by being internal, whereas extraverts have to adapt their activities to external social structures (so E-P types are less stable, but E-J types are more stable). Other ways of looking at the MBTI involve dominant and subordinate functions; for example, I am I-P when I am in my dominant function, but if I am forced to be extraverted, then I tend toward an E-J as a way of protecting my introverted energy flow.

 

Personality Assessment: Psychometrics

Assessment of personality involves a variety of psychological tests which look to capture different dimensions of personality. Projective tests, such as the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Test use a neutral stimulus, such as an inkblot. The subject describes what they see, and their description yields clues about their motives, emotions, and personalities. These tests are highly interpretive measures, but there are standardized interpretive models for each that guide the examiner. Still, they are of dubious validity for most applications.

Self-report inventories such as the MMPI, CPI, MBTI, or 16PF rely on self-reported, forced-choice questions which are then tallied, scored, and (in the case of the MMPI) analysed for trends and correlations. There is less of an interpretive component, but there are still inherent problems with self-report tests; first of all, many people have a hard time assessing themselves and making a decision on a forced-choice question. People may also be inclined to falsify their results on the tests by answering dishonestly (as in the case of people who insist that they are INFP when they take the MBTI, not because they are, but because they want to be).