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Notes
NOTES TO PREFACE
1. I am a big believer in footnotes. In this I differ from the inimitable Professor Daniel Gilbert (2006), the author of Stumbling on Happiness, who, in his first footnote, suggested that it was the only important one to read of the several hundred following it. I want you to read most of mine because they allow me to add nuance, subtlety, and shading to the bolder assertions of the main text. This is not to say, whatsoever, that Professor Gilbert isn’t nuanced, subtle, or shady. After reading Chapter 2 you will have a better insight into why I prefer to write—and perhaps you prefer to read—the small print. We differ in predictable ways from those of you who are currently not reading this. Now for the reference you were seeking when you turned here:
For a recent authoritative treatment of the burgeoning field of positive psychology see Seligman (2011). I have written elsewhere on the relation between personality science and positive psychology in Little (2011).
1. The phrase “frames and cages” as applied to personal constructs is taken from Ryle (1975).
2. See Kelley and Michela (1980) for an early review of the attribution literature.
3. For this section on familiar strangers and frozen relationships, I have drawn heavily on Stanley Milgram’s (1970) original account.
4. Dan McAdams (1995) has presented a compelling case for viewing personality as a three-tiered structure with traits, personal concerns (or projects), and narratives representing the ascending tiers. He presents a fascinating and highly readable illustration of these levels in his analysis of George W. Bush (McAdams, 2010).
5. Kelly’s (1955) personal construct theory was an audacious and highly innovative approach to the study of personality. It anticipated by at least a decade the cognitive turn in psychology, and it remains influential in personality psychology, clinical psychology, and organizational studies. For comprehensive reviews of personal construct theory and its applications, see Fransella (2003) and Walker and Winter (2007). As an undergraduate I came across Kelly’s book when searching out a reference work on neuropsychology. Instead of finding the Stereotaxic Atlas of the Brain, a badly shelved copy of The Psychology of Personal Constructs appeared in its place. I started to look through it, sat down on the library floor, and, four hours later, emerged a Kellian and shifted my doctoral studies from neuropsychology into personality psychology. As we’ll discuss later, such chance encounters play a significant role in the course of our lives (Little, 2007).
6. For a recent helpful account of the role of emotions in personal construct theory, see Lester (2009).
7. Hostility is to be distinguished from aggression, which, for Kelly (1955), is simply the active elaboration of your construct system. In this respect aggression is not seen as a negative aspect of personality so much as a creative, active, exploratory stance toward events in your life.
8. The original work on core constructs, implicative richness, and resistance to change was presented by Dennis Hinkle (1965) in what has become a classic in the personal construct literature.
9. Throughout the book, whenever discussing individuals or organizations, I have changed the names and altered some of the details and circumstances so anonymity is maintained.
10. For details on person-thing orientation and specialization theory, see Little (1972, 1976).
11. See Little (2005) for a discussion of how these contrasting approaches play out in the field of personality science.
12. Assessment centers are not fixed places but events that organizations put together that are typically held away from the workplace. The ratio of the candidates to the assessors is typically very high, often 1:1, and the assessors are divided evenly into those who have specialist training in personality and abilities assessment and those who are employees of the organization and have extensive experience with the type of position being evaluated. Prior to the event candidates are administered a battery of personality, ability, and interest tests. For a recent comprehensive review on the functions and validity of assessment center methods, see Duncan, Jackson, Lance, and Hoffman (2012).
13. We deal extensively with Personal Projects Analysis in Chapters 9 and 10.
14. Independent of our own research, Robin Vallacher and Dan Wegner were also examining the same issues in what they called action identification theory (Vallacher & Wegner, 1987).
15. See Little (2005).
16. For those who are interested in delving deeply into an analysis of their own personal constructs, there are assessment techniques available for that purpose. An excellent resource on repertory grids, the technique for assessing personal constructs, is found on the website run by the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, www.centrepcp.co.uk.
1. I use the convention adopted by personality psychologists of spelling it extraversion, rather than as extroversion, which is preferred by dictatorial spell-check programs.
2. The ancient origins extend back to the pre-Socratic Greeks (see Dumont, 2010; Winter & Barenbaum, 1999).
3. Of Jung’s contributions, it was his treatise on psychological types that had the greatest influence on the MBTI. See Jung (1921).
4. For details on the MBTI, see Myers, McCaulley, Quenk, and Hammer (1998).
5. See Pittenger (1993) for an overview of some of the issues regarding the reliability and validity of MBTI profiles.
6. A highly critical account of these issues is found in Paul (2004).
7. Cited in Zemke (1992).
8. Karl Scheibe (2010) has written a fascinating account of how MBTI workshops engage the participants in an act of high drama, akin to the kinds of performances offered by magicians.
9. An excellent and accessible introduction to the Big Five dimensions of personality is found in Nettle (2007). I have inferred my own biogenic tendency toward introversion on the basis of an early model of Eysenck (1967) based on differences in levels of neocortical arousal in introverts and extraverts. I should note, however, that more recent research places greater emphasis on the effects of neurotransmitter activity on introversion-extraversion. See DeYoung (2010).
10. See the original article by Gosling, Rentfrow, and Swann (2003). How to score the TIPI:
Conscientiousness:
Score for #3: _____
+ (8 – Score for #8): _____
= _____
Divide your answer by 2.
Conscientiousness = _____
Score for #7: _____
+ (8 – Score for #2): _____
= _____
Divide your answer by 2.
Agreeableness = _____
Score ...
