An Introduction to Theories of Personality

7th Edition

Robert B. Ewen

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317740711
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Personality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This 7th Edition helps students unravel the mysteries of human behavior through its highly readable introduction to the ideas of the most significant personality theorists.

Engaging biographical sketches begin each chapter, and unique capsule summaries help students review key concepts. Theories come alive through the inclusion of quotations from the theorists' writings and numerous applications such as dream interpretation, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.

Significant changes in the 7th edition include an extended discussion of the practical applications of personality theory, with an emphasis on guidelines that can help people increase their self-knowledge, make better decisions, and live more fulfilling lives.

Fictionalized but true-to-life examples illustrating the perils of inadequate self-knowledge include college students, parents, terrorists, business executives, and politicians, while other examples show the positive outcomes that can result from a better understanding of one's unconscious.

This 7th edition also includes a more extensive discussion of how a lack of self-understanding caused difficulties for such noted theorists as Freud and Erikson, and a new section that explains how behavior can be strongly influenced by the situation as well as by one's personality.

Finally, a new interactive web site provides practice test questions and other topics of interest.

PART I

The Psychodynamic Perspective

Overview	Psychodynamic theories emphasize the unconscious: Many important aspects of personality are beyond our awareness and can be brought to consciousness only with great difficulty, if at all. Sigmund Freud Devised the first theory of personality (and the first psychotherapy), psychoanalysis. Most of personality is unconscious: We hide many unpleasant truths about ourselves from ourselves by using defense mechanisms, and we are driven by wishes, beliefs, fears, conflicts, and memories of which we are totally unaware. Human nature is entirely malignant; our only instincts are sexual and aggressive, and these inborn impulses include powerful desires for the parent of the opposite sex and intense jealousy toward the parent of the same sex (the Oedipus complex). Personality is often a house divided against itself, torn by conflicting wishes and goals, and this is best explained by using the concepts of id, ego, and superego. Personality develops through a series of psychosexual stages and is firmly established by about age 5 to 6 years. Dreams are a “royal road” to understanding the unconscious. Psychopathology occurs when we can't find ways to channel (sublimate) our malignant instincts into behavior that society will accept.
Carl Jung	At first a supporter of psychoanalysis, then broke with Freud to establish his own theory. Believed that the unconscious is extremely important but disagreed with Freud in many respects: Human nature is both good and bad. There are important instincts in addition to sexuality and aggressiveness (including individuation, the forerunner of the humanistic concept of self-actualization). There is a collective unconscious that contains archetypes, or inherited predispositions to perceive the world in certain ways. Introversion—extraversion is a major aspect of personality. Psychopathology occurs when personality becomes too one-sided, as when we fail to develop important aspects of personality or overemphasize aspects that are contrary to our true (inborn) nature.
Alfred Adler	Adler's inclusion among the psychodynamic theorists is controversial because he did not believe that the unconscious is important. Personality is shaped by the child's relationship with his/her parents and by our consciously chosen life goals, rather than by instincts. The most important motive is striving for self-perfection (superiority). Cooperation with others is essential for our survival, and we have an inborn tendency to do so. Psychopathology occurs when pathogenic parenting causes the child to develop an inferiority complex and refuse to cooperate with others.
Karen Horney	Combined Freud's belief that the unconscious is extremely important with Adler's belief that personality is shaped by the child's relationship with his/her parents. Psychopathology involves a personality that is torn by inner conflicts (but concepts such as the id, ego, and superego are not necessary to explain this); self-hate, which is often concealed by an idealized self-image; and painful anxiety that causes the healthy quest for personal growth to be replaced by an all-out drive for safety and a compulsive desire to be protected, to dominate others, or to be alone.
Erich Fromm	Because humans don't have inborn instincts that program our behavior, we are more isolated and anxious than any other species, and we find freedom and independence desirable but threatening. Psychopathology is caused by pathogenic parenting and by our poorly designed society, of which Fromm was severely critical, and it occurs when we use our freedom to choose unwisely (as by being selfish instead of loving others). Devised important methods of dream interpretation.
Harry Stack Sullivan	Defined personality in terms of our relationships with other people. Stages beyond early childhood, including adolescence, are important for personality development. Psychopathology is caused by pathogenic parenting that leads to intense anxiety and damaged interpersonal relationships. Made significant contributions to our understanding of the causes and treatment of schizophrenia.
Erik Erikson	Became the leader of the psychoanalytic movement after Freud because he was able to revise psychoanalytic theory in ways that did not offend the establishment. Corrected some of Freud's major errors: Human nature is both good and bad, and the rational ego is stronger than Freud believed. Personality is shaped much more by the child's relationship with his/her parents than by instincts and sexuality, and it develops through a series of psychosocial stages that go from infancy to old age. These stages include adolescence and the identity crisis, and there are criteria for determining whether development is successful at each stage. Devised techniques of play therapy for use with children.

Introduction Theories of Personality

1

This book is about one of the most fascinating of all topics: the human personality. There is as yet no one best theory of personality, and the great psychologists whose views we will examine frequently disagree with one another, so any reader who is seeking a field with clear-cut answers will be disappointed. But if you are intrigued by the challenge of trying to understand human nature, and by comparing and evaluating different and thought-provoking ideas, you should find this field to be highly rewarding.

THE MEANING OF PERSONALITY

Personality refers to important and relatively stable aspects of behavior. Consider a young woman whose personality includes the trait of “painfully shy.” She will behave shyly in many different situations, and over a significant period of time. There are likely to be exceptions: She may be more outgoing with her family or a close friend, or at her own birthday party. But she will often have difficulty dealing with other people, which will continue for months or even years and will have a significant effect on her general well-being.

Some theorists contend that personality can be studied only by observing external, social behavior. However, the majority of psychologists define personality as originating within the individual. These theorists emphasize that personality may exist in the absence of other people, and may have aspects that are not visible.

Personality deals with a wide range of human behavior. To most theorists, personality includes virtually everything about a person—mental, emotional, social, and physical. Some aspects of personality are unobservable, such as thoughts, memories, and dreams, whereas others are observable, such as overt actions. Personality also includes aspects that are concealed from yourself, or unconscious, as well as those that are conscious and well within your awareness.

THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

Theories and Constructs

A theory is an unproved speculation about reality. Established facts are often lacking in scientific work, and a theory offers guidelines that will serve us in the absence of more precise information.

A theory consists of a set of terms and principles constructed or applied by the theorist, which are referred to as constructs. Like the author or inventor, the theorist is a creator (of constructs); and like creators in other disciplines, the theorist borrows from and builds upon the work of his or her predecessors.

Finally, constructs must be interrelated so that a theory is logically consistent. In addition to defining and explaining the terms and principles, the theorist must show how they fit together into a coherent whole.

Dimensions for Comparing Theories of Personality

Ideally, there are four criteria that a theory of personality should satisfy: description, explanation, prediction, and control.

Human behavior can be bewilderingly complicated, and a useful theory helps bring order out of chaos. A theory provides convenient descriptions, establishes a framework for organizing substantial amounts of data, and focuses attention on matters that are of greater importance. In addition, a good personality theory explains the phenomena under study. It offers answers to such significant questions as the causes of individual differences in personality, why some people are more pathological than others, and so forth. A theory should also generate predictions, so that it may be evaluated and improved (or discarded). To many psychologists, the acid test of any theory is its ability to predict future events. Finally, a valuable theory usually leads to important practical applications. It facilitates control and change of the environment—for example, by bringing about better techniques of parenting, education, or psychotherapy.

These criteria may seem unambiguous, yet there is often considerable disagreement about how to apply them. Some psychologists emphasize that a scientific theory should generate formal, objective predictions that can be tested under the controlled conditions of the research laboratory. By these lights, a theory with many constructs that are difficult to evaluate empirically (such as the Freudian id, ego, and superego), or one that does not stimulate a considerable amount of research, would be regarded as inferior. Other psychologists view the research laboratory as artificial. They prefer to derive their theories of personality from informal clinical observations, an approach they regard as scientific:

---

CAPSULE SUMMARY

Some Important Basic Terminology

Construct	A term or principle that is created (or adopted) by a theorist. A theory consists of a set of constructs that are related to each other in a logical and consistent way.
Personality	Important and relatively stable characteristics within a person that account for consistent patterns of behavior. Aspects of personality may be observable or unobservable, and conscious or unconscious.
Theory	An unproved speculation about certain phenomena, which provides us with descriptions and explanations when more factual information is not available.
Theory of personality	An “educated guess” about important aspects of human behavior, which may be based on clinical observation or empirical research (or both).

---

In point of fact psychoanalysis is a method of research, an impartial instrument, like the infinitesimal calculus…. The use of analysis for the treatment of the neuroses is only one of its applications; the future will perhaps show that it is not the most important one…. It is only by carrying on our analytic pastoral work that we can deepen our dawning comprehension of the human mind. This prospect of scientific gain has been the proudest and happiest feature of analytic work. (Freud, 1927/1961c, p. 36; 1926/1969b, pp. 97, 109–110.)¹

If laboratory research methods in psychology were as effective as those of other sciences, this approach might well be superior. Clinical observation is subjective and uncontrolled, and the power of suggestion may influence the patient's behavior in ways that support the therapist's theory of personality. Or the therapist may more readily perceive evidence that supports the theory and disregard contradictory data. Therefore, the prospect of objective validation through laboratory research is highly appealing.

Unfortunately, psychology is a much younger science than physics or chemistry, its subject matter is quite different, and its techniques are less well refined. Practical and financial limitations often require the use of small and/or atypical samples, such as college students, laboratory animals, or volunteers. Experimental procedures are often too insensitive to measure unobservable or unconscious processes with any accuracy, or to ensure that the effects intended by the experimenter are created within the minds of the participants. And human beings differ significantly from chemical elements or inert physical objects. For these reasons, the insights available from experiences of real importance to people (such as psychotherapy) are extremely valuable, and both approaches are essential to present-day psychology:

[In our study, we found that] clinical judgments provided information about mental health that was, apparently, not available from “objective” mental health scales. Qualitative clinical methods have long ago f...