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THEORIES OF PERSONALITY OUTLINE A theory is a set of related assumptions that

 Introduction to Personality Theory allows scientists to use logical deductive


reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses.
 Psychodynamic Theories
 Freud: Psychoanalysis Theory and Its Relatives
 Adler: Individual Psychology The term theory is often used incorrectly to imply
 Jung: Analytical Psychology something other than a scientific concept.
 Klein: Object Relations Theory Although theory has some relationship with
 Horney: Pscyhoanalytic Social Theory philosophy, speculation, hypothesis, and
 Fromm: Humanistic Psychoanalysis taxonomy, it is not the same as any of these.
 Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory Philosophy – the love of wisdom – is a broader
 Erikson: Post-Freudian Theory term than theory, but one of its branches –
epistemology – relates to the nature of
 Learning Theories knowledge, and theories are used by scientists in
 Skinner: Behavioral Analysis the pursuit of knowledge. Theories rely on
 Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory speculation, but speculation in the absence of
 Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning controlled observations and empirical research is
Theory essentially worthless. Hypothesis, or educated
guess, is a narrower term than theory. A single
 Dispositional Theories theory may generate hundreds of hypotheses.
 Cattel and Eysenck: Trait and Factor Theories Taxonomy means a classification system, and
 Allport: Psychology of the Individual theories often rely on some sort of classification
of data. However, taxonomies do not generate
 Humanistic/Existential Theories hypotheses.
 Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs
 Rogers: Person Centered Theory Why Different Theories?
 Maslow: Holistic-Dynamic Theory Psychologists and other scientist generate a
 May: Existential Psychology variety of theories because they have different
life experiences and different ways of looking at
INTRODUCTION OF PERSONALITY THEORY the same data.
Overview of Personality Theory
Personality theorists (1) make controlled observations of Theorists’ Personalities and Their Theories of
human behavior and (2) speculate on the meaning of Personality
those observations. Differences in theories are due to Because personality theories flow from an
more than differences in terminology; they stem from individual theorist’s personality, some
differences among theorists on basic issues concerning psychologists have proposed the psychology of
the nature of humanity. science, a discipline that studies the personal
characteristics of theorists.
What is Personality?
The term personality has several definitions. In everyday What Makes a Theory Useful?
language, the word personality refers to one’s social skills, A useful theory must
charisma, and popularity. However, scientists use the (1) generate research – both descriptive research
term to mean more than a person’s persona, or public and hypothesis testing,
image. To them, personality is a pattern of relatively (2) be falsifiable; that is, research findings should
permanent traits or characteristics that give some be able to either support or refute the theory,
consistency to a person’s behavior. (3) organize data into an intelligible framework
and integrate new information into its structure;
What is a Theory? (4) guide action, or provide the practitioner with
Theories are tools used by scientists to generate research a road map for making day-to-day decisions;
and organize observations. (5) be internally consistent and have a set of
operational definitions; and
(6) be parsimonious, or as simple as possible.
Theory Defined
Dimensions for a Concept of Humanity
Personality theorists have had different conceptions of Preconscious
human nature, and the authors list six dimensions for The preconscious contains images that are not in
comparing these conceptions. These dimensions include awareness but that can become conscious either
determinism versus free choice, pessimism versus quite easily or with some level of difficulty.
optimism, causality versus teleology, conscious versus
unconscious determinants of behavior, biological versus Conscious
social influences on personality, and uniqueness versus Consciousness plays a relatively minor role in
similarities among people. Freudian theory. Conscious ideas stem from
either the perception of external stimuli (our
Research in Personality Theory perceptual conscious system) or from the
In researching human behavior, personality theorists unconscious and preconscious after they have
often use various measuring procedures, and these evaded censorship.
procedures must be both reliable and valid. Reliability
refers to a measuring instrument’s consistency whereas Provinces of the Mind
validity refers to its accuracy or truthfulness. Freud conceptualized three regions of the mind – the id,
the ego, and the superego.

PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES The Id


The id, which is completely unconscious, serves
FREUD: PSYCHOANALYSIS the pleasure principle and contains our basic
instincts. It operates through the primary
Overview of Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory process.
Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis has endured because it
(1) postulated the primacy of sex and aggression – two The Ego
universally popular themes, The ego, or secondary process, is governed by
(2) attracted a group of followers who were dedicated to the reality principle and is responsible for
spreading psychoanalytic doctrine, and reconciling the unrealistic demands of the id and
(3) advanced the notion of unconscious motives, which the superego.
permit varying explanations for the same observations.
The Superego
Biography of Sigmund Freud The superego, which serves the idealistic
Born in the Czech Republic in 1856, Sigmund Freud spent principle, has two subsystems – the conscience
most of his life in Vienna. In his practice as a psychiatrist, and the ego-ideal. The conscience results from
he was more interested in learning about the unconscious punishment for improper behavior whereas the
motives of patients than in curing neuroses. Early in his ego-ideal stems from rewards for socially
professional career, Freud believed that hysteria was a acceptable behavior.
result of being seduced during childhood by a sexually
mature person, often a parent or other relative. Dynamics of Personality
Dynamics of personality refers to those forces that
Levels of Mental Life motivate people.
Freud saw mental functioning as operating on three
levels: unconscious, preconscious, and conscious. Instincts
Freud grouped all human drives or urges under
Unconscious two, primary instincts – sex (Eros or the life
The unconscious includes drives and instincts instinct) and aggression (the death or destructive
that are beyond awareness but that motivate instinct). The aim of the sexual instinct is
most human behaviors. Unconscious drives can pleasure, which can be gained through the
become conscious only in disguised or distorted erogenous zones, especially the mouth, anus, and
form, such as dream images, slips of the tongue, genitals. The object of the sexual instinct is any
or neurotic symptoms. Unconscious processes person or thing that brings sexual pleasure. All
originate from two sources: (1) repression, or the infants possess primary narcissism, or self-
blocking out of anxiety-filled experiences and (2) centeredness, but the secondary narcissism of
phylogenetic endowment, or inherited adolescence and adulthood is not universal. Both
experiences that lie beyond an individual’s sadism (receiving sexual pleasure from inflicting
personal experience. pain on another) and masochism (receiving
sexual pleasure from painful experiences) satisfy Projection is seeing in others those unacceptable
both sexual and aggressive drives. The feelings or behaviors that actually reside in one’s
destructive instinct aims to return a person to an own unconscious. When carried to extreme,
inorganic state, but it is ordinarily directed projection can become paranoia, which is
against other people and is called aggression. characterized by delusions of persecution.

Anxiety Introjection
Freud believed only the ego feels anxiety, but the Introjections take place when people incorporate
id, superego, and outside world can each be a positive qualities of another person into their
source of anxiety. Neurotic anxiety stems from own ego to reduce feelings of inferiority.
the ego’s relation with the id; moral anxiety is
similar to guilt and results from the ego’s relation Sublimation
with the superego; and realistic anxiety, which is Sublimation involves the elevation of the sexual
similar to fear, is produced by the ego’s relation instinct’s aim to a higher level, which permits
with the real world. people to make contributions to society and
culture.
Defense Mechanisms
According to Freud, defense mechanisms operate to Stages of Development
protect the ego against the pain of anxiety. Freud saw psychosexual development as proceeding from
birth to maturity though four overlapping stages.
Repression
Repression involves forcing unwanted, anxiety- Infantile Period
loaded experiences into the unconscious. It is the The infantile stage encompasses the first 4 to 5
most basic of all defense mechanisms because it years of life and is divided into three sub-phases:
is an active process in each of the others. oral, anal, and phallic. During the oral phase, an
infant is primarily motivated to receive pleasure
Undoing and Isolation through the mouth. During the second year of
Undoing is the ego’s attempt to do away with life, a child goes through the anal phase. If
unpleasant experiences and their consequences, parents are too punitive during the anal phase,
usually by means of repetitious ceremonial the child may become an anal character, with the
actions. Isolation, in contrast, is marked by anal trial of orderliness, stinginess, and obstinacy.
obsessive thoughts and involves the ego’s During the phallic phase, boys and girls begin to
attempt to isolate an experience by surrounding have differing psychosexual development. At this
it with a blacked-out region of insensibility. time, boys and girls experience the Oedipus
complex in which they have sexual feelings for
Reaction Formation one parent and hostile feelings for the other. The
A reaction formation is marked by the repression male castration complex, which takes the form of
of one impulse and the ostentatious expression castration anxiety, breaks up the male Oedipus
of its exact opposite. complex and results in a well-formed male
superego. For girls, however, the castration
Displacement complex, in the form of penis envy, precedes the
Displacement takes place when people redirect female Oedipus complex, a situation that leads to
their unwanted urges onto other objects or only a gradual and incomplete shattering of the
people in order to disguise the original impulse. female Oedipus complex and a weaker, more
flexible female superego.
Fixation
Fixation develops when psychic energy is blocked Latency Period
at one stage of development, making Freud believed that psychosexual development
psychological change difficult. goes through a latency stage – from about age 5
until puberty – in which the sexual instinct is
Regression partially suppressed.
Regression occurs whenever a person reverts to
earlier, more infantile modes of behavior. Genital Period
The genital period begins with puberty, when
Projection adolescents experience a reawakening of the
genital aim of Eros. The term “genital period” reveal a person’s true but unconscious
should not be confused with “phallic period.” intentions.

Maturity Related Research


Freud hinted at a stage of psychological maturity Freudian theory has generated a large amount of related
in which the ego would be in control of the id and research, including studies on defense mechanisms and
superego and in which consciousness would play oral fixation.
a more important role in behavior.
Defense Mechanisms
Applications of Psychoanalytic Theory’ George Valliant has added to the list of Freudian
Freud erected his theory on the dreams, free associations, defense mechanisms and has found evidence
slips of the tongue, and neurotic symptoms of his patients that some of them are neurotic (reaction
during therapy. But he also gathered information from formation, idealization, and undoing), some are
history, literature, and works of art. immature and maladaptive (projection, isolation,
denial, displacement, and dissociation), and some
Freud’s Early Therapeutic Technique are mature and adaptive (sublimation,
During the 1890s, Freud used an aggressive suppression, humor, and altruism). Valliant found
therapeutic technique in which he strongly that neurotic defense mechanisms are successful
suggested to patients that they had been sexually over the short term; immature defenses are
seduced as children. unsuccessful and have the highest degree of
He later dropped his technique and abandoned distortion; whereas mature and adaptive
his belief that most patients had been seduced defenses are successful over the long term,
during childhood. maximize gratification, and have the least
amount of distortion.
Freud’s Later Therapeutic Technique
Beginning in the late 1980s, Freud adopted a Oral Fixation
much more passive type of psychotherapy, one Some recent research has found that aggression
that relied heavily on free association, dream is higher in people who bite their finger nails that
interpretation, and transference. The goal of it is non-nail biters, especially in women. Other
Freud’s later psychotherapy was to uncover research found that people who are orally fixated
repressed memories, and the therapist uses tend to see their parents more negatively than
dream analysis and free association to do so. did people who were less orally fixated.
With free association, patients are required to
say whatever comes to mind, no matter how Critique of Freud
irrelevant or distasteful. Successful therapy rests Freud regarded himself as a scientist, but many critics
on the patient’s transference of childhood sexual consider his methods to be outdated, unscientific, and
or aggressive feelings onto the therapist and permeated with gender bias. On the six criteria of a useful
away from symptom formation. Patients’ theory, psychoanalysis is rated high on its ability to
resistance to change can be seen as progress generate research, very low on its openness to
because it indicates that therapy has advanced falsification, and average on organizing data, guiding
beyond superficial conversation. action, and being parsimonious. Because it lacks
operational definitions, it rates low on internal
Dream Analysis consistency.
In interpreting dreams, Freud differentiated the
manifest content (conscious description) from Concept of Humanity
the latent content (the unconscious meaning). Freud’s concept of humanity was deterministic and
Nearly all dreams are wish-fulfillments, although pessimistic. He emphasized causality over teleology,
the wish is usually unconscious and can be known unconscious determinants over conscious processes, and
only through dream interpretation. To interpret biology over culture, but he took a middle position on the
dreams, Freud used both dream symbols and the dimension of uniqueness versus similarities among
dreamer’s associations to the dream content. people.

Freudian Slips
Freud believed that parapraxes, or so-called
Freudian slips, are not chance accidents but
ADLER: INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY Striving for Success
In contrast, psychologically healthy people strive
Overview of Adler’s Individual Psychology for the success of all humanity, but they do so
An original member of Freud’s psychoanalytic group, without losing their personal identity.
Alfred Adler broke from that group and advocated a
theory of personality that was nearly diametrically Subjective Perceptions
opposed to that of Freud. Whereas Freud’s view of People’s subjective view of the world – not reality –
humanity was pessimistic and rooted in biology, Adler’s shapes their behavior.
view was optimistic, idealistic, and rooted in family
experiences. Fictionalism
Fictions are people’s expectations of the future.
Biography of Alfred Adler Adler held that fictions guide behavior, because
Alfred Adler was born in 1870 in a town near Vienna, a people act as if these fictions are true. Adler
second son of middle-class Jewish parents. Like Freud, emphasized teleology over causality, or
Adler was a physician, and in 1902, he became a charter explanations of behavior in terms of future goals
member of Freud’s organization. However, personal and rather than past causes.
professional differences between the two men led to
Adler’s departure from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society Organ Inferiorities
in 1911. Adler soon founded his own group, the Society Adler believed that all humans are “blessed” with
for Individual Psychology. Adler’s strengths were his organ inferiorities, which stimulate subjective
energetic oral presentations and his insightful ability to feelings of inferiority and move people toward
understand family dynamics. He was not a gifted writer, a perfection or completion.
limitation that may have prevented individual psychology
from attaining world recognition equal to Freud’s Unity and Self-Consistency of Personality
psychoanalysis. Adler believed that all behaviors are directed toward a
single purpose. When seen in the light of that sole
Introduction to Adlerian Theory purpose, seemingly contradictory behaviors can be seen
Although Adler’s individual psychology is both complex as operating in a self-consistent manner.
and comprehensive, its main tenets can be stated in
simple form. Organ Dialect
People often use a physical disorder to express
Striving for Success or Superiority style of life, a condition Adler called organ
The sole dynamic force behind people’s actions is the dialect.
striving for success or superiority.
Conscious and Unconscious
The Final Goal Conscious and unconscious processes are unified
The final goal of either success or superiority and operate to achieve a single goal. The part of
toward which all people strive unifies personality our goal that we do not clearly understand is
and makes all behavior meaningful. unconscious; the part of our goal that we fail to
fully comprehend is conscious.
The Striving Force as Compensation
Because people are born with small, inferior Social Interest
bodies, they feel inferior and attempt to Human behavior has value to the extent that it is
overcome these feelings through their natural motivated by social interest, that is, a feeling of oneness
tendency to move toward completion. The with all of humanity.
striving force can take one of two courses;
personal gain (superiority) or community benefit Origins of Social Interest
(success). Although social interest exists as potentially in all
people, it must be fostered in a social
Striving for Personal Superiority environment. Adler believed that the parent-
Psychologically unhealthy individuals strive for child relationship can be so strong that it negates
personal superiority with little concern for other the effects of heredity.
people. Although they may appear to be
interested in other people, their basic motivation
is personal benefit.
Importance of Social Interest maintain a neurotic style of life and protect a
According to Adler, social interest is “the sole person from public disgrace. The three principal
criterion of human values,” and the worthiness of safeguarding tendencies are
all one’s actions must be seen by this standard. (1) excuses which allow people to preserve their
Without social interest, societies could not exist; inflated sense of personal worth;
individuals in antiquity could not have survived (2) aggression, which may take the form of
without cooperating with others to protect depreciating others’ accomplishments, accusing
themselves from danger. Even today, an infant’s others of being responsible for one’s own
helplessness predisposes it toward a nurturing failures, or self-accusation; and
person. (3) withdrawal, which can be expressed by
psychologically moving backward, standing still,
Style of Life hesitating, or constructing obstacles.
The manner of a person’s striving is called style of life, a
pattern that is relatively well set by 4 or 5 years of age. Masculine Protest
However, Adler believed that healthy individuals are Both men and women sometimes overemphasize
marked by flexible behavior and that they have some the desirability of being manly, a condition Adler
limited ability to change their style of life. called the masculine protest. The frequently
found inferior status of women is not based on
Creative Power physiology but on historical developments and
Style of life is partially a product of heredity and social learning.
environment – the building blocks personality – but
ultimately style of life is shaped by people’s creative Applications of Individual Psychology
power, that is, by their ability to freely choose a course of Adler applied the principles of individual psychology to
action. family constellation, early recollections, dreams, and
psychotherapy.
Abnormal Development
Creative power is not limited to healthy people; unhealthy Family Constellation
individuals also create their own personalities. Thus, each Adler believed that people’s perception of how
of us is free to choose either a useful or a useless style of they fit into their family is related to their style of
life. life. He claimed that firstborns are likely to have
strong feelings of power and superiority, to be
General Description overprotective, and to have more than their
The most important factor in abnormal share of anxiety. Second-born children are likely
development is lack of social interest. In addition, to have strong social interest, provided they do
people with a useless style of life tend to (1) set not get trapped trying to overcome their older
their goals too high, (2) have a dogmatic style of sibling. Youngest children are likely to be
life, and (3) live in their own private world. pampered and to lack independence, whereas
only children have some of the characteristics of
External Factors in Maladjustment both the oldest and the youngest child.
Adler listed three factors that relate to abnormal
development: Early Recollections
(1) exaggerated physical deficiencies, which do A more reliable method of determining style of
not by themselves cause abnormal development, life is to ask people for their earliest recollections.
but which may contribute to it by generating Adler believed that early memories are templates
subjective and exaggerated feelings of inferiority; on which people project their current style of life.
(2) a pampered style of life, which contributes to These recollections need not be accurate
an overriding drive to establish a permanent accounts of early events; they have psychological
parasitic relationship with the mother or a importance because they reflect a person’s
mother substitute; and current view of the world.
(3) a neglected style of life, which leads to
distrust of other people. Dreams
Adler believed that dreams can provide clues to
Safeguarding Tendencies solving future problems. However, dreams are
Both normal and neurotic people create disguised to deceive the dreamer and usually
symptoms as a means of protecting their fragile must be interpreted by another person.
self-esteem. These safeguarding tendencies
Psychotherapy JUNG: ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
The goal of Adlerian therapy is to create a
relationship between the therapist and the Overview of Jung’s Analytical Psychology
patient that fosters social interest. To ensure that Carl Jung believed that people are extremely complex
the patient’s social interest will eventually beings who possess a variety of opposing qualities, such as
generalize to other relationships, the therapist introversion and extraversion, masculinity and femininity,
adopts both a maternal and a paternal role. and rational and irrational drives.

Related Research Biography of Carl Jung


Although family constellation and birth order have been Carl Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875, the oldest
widely researched, a topic more pertinent to Adlerian surviving child of an idealistic Protestant minister and his
theory is early recollections. Research shows that early wife. Jung’s early experience with parents (who were
recollections are related to a number of personal traits, quite opposite of each other) probably influenced his own
such as depression, alcoholism, criminal behavior, and theory of personality. Soon after receiving his medical
success in counseling. Other research has shown that a degree he became acquainted with Freud’s writings and
change in style of life may be capable of producing a eventually with Freud himself. Not long after he traveled
change in early recollections. Still other research suggests with Freud to the United States, Jung became
that made-up early recollections may be as meaningful as disenchanted with Freud’s pansexual theories, broke with
actual ones. Freud, and began his own approach to theory and
therapy, which he called analytical psychology. From a
Critique of Adler critical midlife crisis, during which he nearly lost contact
Individual psychology rates high on its ability to generate with reality, Jung emerged to become one of the leading
research, organize data, and guide the practitioner. It thinkers of the 20th century. He died in 1961 at age 85.
receives a moderate rating on parsimony, but because it
lacks operational definitions, it rates low on internal Levels of the Psyche
consistency. It also rates low on falsification because Jung saw the human psyche as being divided into a
many of its related research findings can be explained by conscious and an unconscious level, with the latter further
other theories. subdivided into a personal and a collective unconscious.

Concept of Humanity Conscious


Adler saw people as forward moving, social animals who Images sensed by the ego are said to be
are motivated by goals they set (both consciously and conscious. The ego thus represents the conscious
unconsciously) for the future. People are ultimately side of personality, and in the psychologically
responsible for their own unique style of life. Thus, Adler’s mature individual, the ego is secondary to the
theory rates high on free-choice, social influences, and self.
uniqueness; very high on optimism and teleology; and
average on unconscious influences. Personal Unconscious
The unconscious refers to those psychic images
not sensed by the ego. Some unconscious
processes flow from our personal experiences,
but others stem from our ancestors’ experiences
with universal themes. Jung divided the
unconscious into the personal unconscious,
which contains the complexes (emotionally toned
groups of related ideas) and the collective
unconscious, or ideas that are beyond our
personal experiences and that originate from the
repeated experiences of our ancestors.

Collective Unconscious
Collective unconscious images are not inherited
ideas, but rather they refer to our innate
tendency to react in a particular way whenever
our personal experiences stimulate an inherited
predisposition toward action. Contents of the
collective unconscious are called archetypes.
Archetypes Attitudes
Jung believed that archetypes originate through Attitudes are predispositions to act or react in a
the repeated experiences of our ancestors and characteristic manner. The two basic attitudes
that they are expressed in certain types of are introversion, which refers to people’s
dreams, fantasies, delusions, and hallucinations. subjective perceptions, and extraversion, which
Several archetypes acquire their own personality, indicates an orientation toward the objective
and Jung identified these by name. One is the world. Extraverts are influenced more by the real
persona – the side of our personality that we world than by their subjective perception,
show to others. Another is the shadow – the dark whereas introverts rely on their individualized
side of personality. To reach full psychological view of things. Introverts and extraverts often
maturity, Jung believed, we must first realize or mistrust and misunderstand one another.
accept our shadow. A second hurdle in achieving
maturity is for men to accept their anima, or Functions
feminine side, and for women to embrace their The two attitudes or extroversion and
animus, or masculine disposition. Other introversion can combine four basic functions to
archetypes include the great mother (the form eight general personality types. The four
archetype of nourishment and destruction); the functions are
wise old man (the archetype of wisdom and (1) thinking, or recognizing the meaning of
meaning); and the hero (the image we have of a stimuli;
conqueror who vanquishes evil, but who has a (2) feeling, or placing a value on something;
single fatal flaw). The most comprehensive (3) sensation, or taking in sensory stimuli; and
archetype is the self; that is, the image we have (4) intuition, or perceiving elementary data that
of fulfillment, completion, or perfection. The are beyond our awareness. Jung referred to
ultimate in psychological maturity is self- thinking and feeling as rational functions and to
realization, which is symbolized by the mandala, sensation and intuition as irrational functions.
or perfect geometric figure.
Development of Personality
Dynamics of Personality Nearly unique among personality theorists was Jung’s
Jung believed that the dynamic principles that apply to emphasis on the second half of life. Jung saw middle and
physical energy also apply to psychic energy. These forces old age as times when people may acquire the ability to
include causality and teleology as well as progression and attain self-realization.
regression.
Stages of Development
Causality and Teleology Jung divided development into four broad stages:
Jung accepted a middle position between the (1) childhood, which lasts from birth until
philosophical issues of causality and teleology. In adolescence;
other words, humans are motivated both by their (2) youth, the period from puberty until middle
past experiences and by their expectations of the life, which is a time for extraverted development
future. and for being grounded to the real world of
schooling, occupation, courtship, marriage, and
Progression and Regression family;
To achieve self-realization, people must adapt to (3) middle life, which is a time from about 35 or
both their external and internal worlds. 40 until old age when people should be adopting
Progression involves adaptation to the outside an introverted attitude; and
world and the forward flow of psychic energy, (4) old age, which is a time for psychological
whereas regression refers to adaptation to the rebirth, self-realization, and preparation for
inner world and the backward flow of psychic death.
energy. Jung believed that the backward step is
essential to a person’s forward movement Self-Realization
toward self-realization. Self-realization, or individuation, involves a
psychological rebirth and an integration of
Psychological Types various parts of the psyche into a unified or
Eight basic psychological types emerge from the union of whole individual. Self-realization represents the
two attitudes and four functions. highest level of human development.
Jung’s Methods of Investigation Concept of Humanity
Jung used the word association test, dreams, and active Jung saw people as extremely complex beings who are
imagination during the process of psychotherapy, and all products of both conscious and unconscious personal
these methods contributed to his theory of personality. experiences. However, people are also motivated by
Word Association Test inherited remnants that spring from the collective
Jung used the word association test early in his experiences of their early ancestors. Because Jungian
career to uncover complexes embedded in the theory is a psychology of opposites, it receives a moderate
personal unconscious. The technique requires a rating on the issues of free will versus determinism,
patient to utter the first word that comes to mind optimism versus pessimism, and causality versus
after the examiner reads a stimulus word. teleology. It rates very high on unconscious influences,
Unusual responses indicate a complex. low on uniqueness, and low on social influences.

Dream Analysis
Jung believed that dreams may have both a cause
and a purpose and thus can be useful in
explaining past events and in making decisions
about the future. “Big dreams” and “typical
dreams,” both of which come from the collective
unconscious, have meaning that lie beyond the
experiences of a single individual.

Active Imagination
Jung also used active imagination to arrive at
collective images. This technique requires the
patient to concentrate on a single image until
that image begins to appear in a different form.
Eventually, the patient should see figures that
represent archetypes and other collective
unconscious images.

Psychotherapy
The goal of Jungian therapy is to help neurotic
patients become healthy and to move healthy
people in the direction of self-realization. Jung
was eclectic in his choice of therapeutic
techniques and treated old people differently
than the young.

Related Research
Although Jungian psychology has not generated large
volumes of research, some investigators have used the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to examine the idea of
psychological types. Some research suggests that
extraverts and introverts have different preferences in
their choice of partners. Other researchers have reported
that personality type is related to academic performance
and success.

Critique of Jung
Although Jung considered himself as a scientist, many of
his writings have more of a philosophical than a
psychological flavor. As a scientific theory, it rates average
on its ability to generate research, but very low on its
ability to withstand falsification. It is about average on its
ability to organize knowledge but low on each of the other
criteria of a useful theory.
KLEIN: OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY positions, or ways of dealing with both internal and
external objects.
Overview of Object Relations Theory
Many personality theorists have accepted some of Freud’s Paranoid-Schizoid Position
basic assumptions while rejecting others. One approach to The struggles that infants experience with the
extending psychoanalytic theory has been the object good breast and the bad breast lead to two
relations theories of Melanie Klein and others. Unlike Jung separate and opposing feelings: a desire to
and Adler, who came to reject Freud’s ideas, Klein tried to harbor the breast and a desire to bite or destroy
validate Freud’s theories. In essence Klein extended it. To tolerate these two feelings, the ego splits
Freud’s developmental stages downward to the first 4 to 6 itself by retaining parts of its life and death
months after birth. instincts while projecting other parts onto the
breast. It then has a relationship with the ideal
Biography of Melanie Klein breast and the persecutory breast. To control his
Melanie Klein was born in Vienna in 1892, the youngest of situations, infants adopt the paranoid-schizoid
four children. She had neither a Ph.D. nor an M.D. degree position, which is a tendency to see the world as
but became an analyst by being psychoanalyzed. As an having both destructive and omnipotent
analyst, she specialized in working with young children. In qualities.
1927, she moved to London where she practiced until her
death in 1960. Depressive Position
By depressive position, Klein meant the anxiety
Introduction to Object Relations Theory that infants experience around 6 months of age
Object relations theory differs from Freudian theory in at over losing their mother and yet, at the same
least three ways: time, wanting to destroy her. The depressive
(1) it places more emphasis on interpersonal relationships, position is resolved when infants fantasize that
(2) it stresses the infant’s relationship with the mother they have made up for their mother and also
rather than the father, and realize that their mother will not abandon them.
(3) it suggests that people are motivated primarily for
human contact rather than for sexual pleasure. Psychic Defense Mechanisms
The term object in object relations theory refers to any According to Klein, children adopt various psychic defense
person or part of a person that infants introject, or take mechanisms to protect their ego against anxiety aroused
into their psychic structure and then later project onto by their own destructive fantasies.
other people.
Introjection
Psychic Life of the Infant Klein defined introjection as the fantasy of taking
Klein believed that infants begin life with an inherited into one’s own body the images that one has of
predisposition to reduce the anxiety that they experience an external object, especially the mother’s
as a consequence of the clash between the life instinct breast. Infants usually introject good objects as a
and the death instinct. protection against anxiety, but they also introject
bad objects in order to gain control of them.
Fantasies
Klein assumed that very young infants possess an Projection
active, unconscious fantasy life. Their most basic The fantasy that one’s own feelings and impulses
fantasies are images of the “good” breast and the reside within another person is called projection.
“bad” breast. Children project both good and bad images,
especially onto their parents.
Objects
Klein agreed with Freud that drives have an Splitting
object, but she was more likely to emphasize the Infants tolerate good and bad aspects of
child’s relationship with these objects (parents’ themselves and of external objects by splitting, or
face, hands, breast, penis, etc.), which she saw as mentally keeping apart, incompatible images.
having a life of their own within the child’s Splitting can be beneficial to both children and
fantasy world. adults, because it allows them to like themselves
while still recognizing some unlikable qualities.
Positions
In their attempts to reduce the conflict produced by good
and bad images, infants organize their experience into
Projective Identification resolved without any jealousy toward the
Projective identification is the psychic defense mother.
mechanism whereby infants split off
unacceptable parts of themselves, project them Later Views on Object Relations
onto another object, and finally introject them in A number of other theorists have expanded and altered
an altered form. Klein’s theory of object relations. Notable among them
are Margaret Mahler, Otto Kernberg, Heinz Kohut, and
Internalizations John Bowlby.
After introjecting external objects, infants organize them
into a psychologically meaningful framework, a process Margaret Mahler’s View
that Klein called internalization. Mahler, a native of Hungary who practiced
psychoanalysis in both Vienna and New York,
Ego developed her theory of object relations from
Internalizations are aided by the early ego’s careful observations of infants as they bonded
ability to feel anxiety, to use defense with their mothers during their first 3 years of
mechanisms, and to form object relations in both life. In their progress toward achieving a sense of
fantasy and reality. However, a unified ego identity, children pass through a series of three
emerges only after first splitting itself into two major developmental stages. First is normal
parts: those that deal with the life instinct and autism, which covers the first 3 to 4 weeks of life,
those that relate to the death instinct. a time when infants satisfy their needs within the
all-powerful protective orbit of their mother’s
Superego care. Second is normal symbiosis, when infants
Klein believed that the superego emerged much behave as if they and their mother is an
earlier than Freud has held. To her, the superego omnipotent, symbiotic unit. Third is separation-
preceded rather than followed the Oedipus individuation, from about 4 months until about 3
complex. Klein also saw the superego as being years, a time when children are becoming
quite harsh and cruel. psychologically separated from their mothers and
achieving individuation, or a sense of personal
Oedipus Complex identity.
Klein believed that the Oedipus complex begins
during the first few months of life then reaches Heinz Kohut’s View
its zenith during the genital stage, at about 3 or 4 Kohut was a native of Vienna who spent most of
years of age, or the same time that Freud had his professional life in the United States. More
suggested it began. Klein also held that much of than any of the other object-relations theorists,
the Oedipus complex is based on children’s fear Kohut emphasized the development of the self.
that their parents will seek revenge against them In caring for their physical and psychological
for their fantasy of emptying the parent’s body. needs, adults treat infants as if they had a sense
For healthy development during the Oedipal of self. The parents’ behaviors and attitudes
years, children should retain positive feelings for eventually help children form a sense of self that
each parent. According to Klein, the little boy gives unity and consistency to their experiences.
adopts a “feminine” position very early in life and
has no fear of being castrated as punishment for Otto Kernberg’s View
his sexual feelings for his mother. Later, he Kernberg, a native of Vienna who has spent most
projects his destructive drive onto his father, of his professional career in the United States,
whom he fears will bite or castrate him. The male believes that the key to understanding
Oedipus complex is resolved when the boy personality is the mother-child relationship.
establishes good relations with both parents. The Children who experience a healthy relationship
little girl also adopts a “feminine” position with their mother develop an integrated ego, a
toward both parents quite early in life. She has a punitive superego, a stable self-concept, and
positive feeling for both her mother’s breast and satisfying interpersonal relations. In contrast,
her father’s penis, which she believes will feed children who have poor relations with their
her with babies. Sometimes the girl develops mother will have difficulty integrating their ego
hostility toward her mother, whom she fears will and may suffer from some form of
retaliate against her and rob her of her babies, psychopathology during adulthood.
but in most cases, the female Oedipus complex is
John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory HORNEY: PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL THEORY
Bowlby, a native of England, received training in
child psychiatry from Melanie Klein. By studying Overview of Horney’s Psychoanalytic Social Theory
human and other primate infants, Bowlby Karen Horney’s psychoanalytic social theory assumes that
observed three stages of separation anxiety: (1) social and cultural conditions, especially during childhood,
protest, (2) apathy and despair, and (3) have a powerful effect on later personality. Like Melanie
emotional detachment from people, including Klein, Horney accepted many of Freud’s observations, but
the primary caregiver. Children who reach the she objected to most of his interpretations, including his
third stage lack warmth and emotion in their notions on feminine psychology.
later relationships.
Biography of Karen Horney
Psychotherapy Karen Horney, who was born in Germany in 1885, was one
The goal of Kleinian therapy was to reduce depressive of the first women in that country admitted to medical
anxieties and persecutory fears and to lessen the school. There, she became acquainted with Freudian
harshness of internalized objects. To do this, Klein theory and eventually became a psychoanalyst and a
encouraged patients to re-experience early fantasies and psychiatrist. In her mid-40s, Horney left Germany to settle
pointed out the differences between conscious and in the United States, first in Chicago and then in New York.
unconscious wishes. She soon abandoned orthodox psychoanalysis in favor of a
more socially oriented theory – one that had a more
Related Research positive view of feminine development. She died in 1952
Some research on attachment theory has found that at age 67.
children with secure attachment have both better
attention and better memory than do children with Introduction to Psychoanalytic Social Theory
insecure attachment. Other research suggests that Although Horney’s writings deal mostly with neuroses and
securely attached young children grow up to become neurotic personalities, her theories also appropriate
adolescents who feel comfortable in friendship groups suggest much that is appropriate to normal development.
that allow new members to easily become part of those She agreed with Freud that early childhood traumas are
groups. Still other studies have shown that 8- and 9-year- important, but she placed far more emphasis on social
old children who were securely attached during infancy factors.
produced family drawings that reflect that security.
Horney and Freud Compared
Concept of Humanity Horney criticized Freudian theory on at least
Object relations theorists see personality as being a three accounts:
product of the early mother-child relationship, and this (1) its rigidity toward new ideas,
they stress determinism over free choice. The powerful (2) its skewed view of feminine psychology, and
influence of early childhood also gives these theories a (3) its overemphasis on biology and the pleasure
low rating on uniqueness, a very high rating on social principle.
influences, and high ratings on causality and unconscious
forces. Klein and other object-relations theorists rate The Impact of Culture
average on optimism versus pessimism. Horney insisted that modern culture is too
competitive and that competition leads to
hostility and feelings of isolation. These
conditions lead to exaggerated needs for
affection and cause people to overvalue love.

The Importance of Childhood Experiences


Neurotic conflict stems largely from childhood
traumas, most of which are traced to a lack of
genuine love. Children who do not receive
genuine affection feel threatened and adopt rigid
behavioral patterns in an attempt to gain love.

Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety


All children need feeling of safety and security, but these
can be gained only by love from parents. Unfortunately,
parents often neglect, dominate, reject, or overindulge
their children conditions that lead to the child’s feelings of isolation by appearing arrogant and
basic hostility toward parents. If children repress feelings aloof.
of basic hostility, they will develop feelings of insecurity Intrapsychic Conflicts
and a pervasive sense of apprehension called basic People also experience inner tensions or intrapsychic
anxiety. People can protect themselves from basic anxiety conflicts that become part of their belief system and take
through a number of protective devices, including on a life of their own, separate from the interpersonal
(1) affection, conflicts that created them.
(2) submissiveness,
(3) power, prestige, or possession, and The Idealized Self-Image
(4) withdrawal. Normal people have the flexibility to use People who do not receive love and affection
any or all of these approaches, but neurotics are during childhood are blocked in their attempt to
compelled to rely rigidly on only one. acquire a stable sense of identity. Feeling
alienated from self, they create an idealized self-
Compulsive Drives image, or an extravagantly positive picture of
Neurotics are frequently trapped in a vicious circle in themselves. Horney recognized three aspects of
which their compulsive need to reduce basic anxiety leads the idealized self-image:
to a variety of self-defeating behaviors; these behaviors (1) the neurotic search for glory, or a
then produce more basic anxiety, and the cycle continues. comprehensive drive toward
actualizing the ideal self;
Neurotic Needs (2) neurotic claims, or a belief that they
Horney identified 10 categories of neurotic needs are entitled to special privileges;
that mark neurotics in their attempt to reduce (3) neurotic pride, or a false pride
basic anxiety. These include needs based not on reality but on a
(1) for affection and approval distorted and idealized view of self.
(2) for a powerful partner
(3) to restrict one’s life within narrow Self-Hatred
borders Neurotics dislike themselves because reality
(4) for power always falls short of their idealized view of self.
(5) to exploit others Therefore, they learn self-hatred, which can be
(6) for social recognition or prestige expressed as:
(7) for personal admiration (1) relentless demands on the self
(8) for ambition and personal (2) merciless self-accusation
achievement (3) self-contempt
(9) for self-sufficiency and (4) self-frustration
independence (5) self-torment or self-torture
(10) for perfection and unassailability. (6) self-destructive actions and
impulses.
Neurotic Trends
Later, Horney grouped these 10 neurotic needs Feminine Psychology
into three basic neurotic trends, which apply to Horney believed that psychological differences between
both normal and neurotic individuals in their men and women are not due to anatomy but to culture
attempt to solve basic conflict. The three and social expectation. Her view of the Oedipus complex
neurotic trends are: differed markedly from Freud’s in that she insisted that
(1) moving toward people, in which any sexual attraction or hostility of child to parent would
compliant people protect be the result of learning and not biology.
themselves against feelings of
helplessness by attaching Psychotherapy
themselves to other people; The goal of Horney’s psychotherapy was to help patients
(2) moving against people, in which grow toward self-realization, give up their idealized self-
aggressive people protect image, relinquish their neurotic search for glory, and
themselves against perceived change self-hatred to self-acceptance. Horney believed
hostility of others by exploiting that successful therapy is built on self-analysis and self-
others; understanding.
(3) moving away from people, in which
detached people protect
themselves against feelings of
Related Research FROMM: HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS
Horney’s concepts of morbid dependency and
hypercompetitiveness have both stimulated some recent Overview of Fromm’s Humanistic Psychoanalysis
research. Erich Fromm’s humanistic psychoanalysis looks at people
from the perspective of psychology, history and
Morbid Dependency anthropology. Influenced by Freud and Horney, Fromm
The current concept of codependency, which is developed a more culturally oriented theory than Freud’s
based on Horney’s notion of morbid dependency, and a much broader theory than Horney’s.
has produced research showing that people with
neurotic needs to move toward others will go to Biography of Erich Fromm
great lengths to win the approval of other Erich Fromm was born in Germany in 1900, the only child
people. A study by Lyon and Greenberg (1991) of orthodox Jewish parents. A thoughtful young man,
found that women with an alcoholic parent, Fromm was influenced by the bible, Freud, and Marx, as
compared with women without an alcoholic well as by socialist ideology. After receiving his Ph.D.,
parent, were much more nurturant toward a Fromm began studying psychoanalysis and became an
person they perceived as exploitative that toward analyst by being analyzed by Hanns Sachs, a student of
a person they perceived as nurturing. Freud. In 1934, Fromm moved to the United States and
began a psychoanalytic practice in New York, where he
Hypercompetitiveness also resumed his friendship with Karen Horney, whom he
Horney’s idea of moving against people relates to had known in Germany. Much of his later years were
the concept of hypercompetitiveness, a topic spent in Mexico and Switzerland. He died in 1980.
that has received some recent research interest.
Some of this research indicates that, although Fromm’s Basic Assumptions
hypercompetitiveness is a negative personality Fromm believed that humans have been torn away from
trait, some types of competitiveness can be their prehistoric union with nature and left with no
positive. Other research has found that powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world. But
hypercompetitive European American women because humans have acquired the ability to reason, they
frequently have some type of eating disorder. can think about their isolated condition – a situation
Fromm called the human dilemma.
Critique of Horney
Although Horney painted a vivid portrayal of the neurotic Human Needs
personality, her theory rates very low in generating According to Fromm, our human dilemma cannot be
research and low on its ability to be falsified, to organize solved by satisfying our animal needs. It can only be
data, and to serve as a useful guide to action. Her theory is addressed by fulfilling our uniquely human needs, an
rated about average on internal consistency and accomplishment that moves us toward a reunion with the
parsimony. natural world. Fromm identified five of these distinctively
human or existential needs.
Concept of Humanity
Horney’s concept of humanity is rated very high on social Relatedness
factors, high on free choice, optimism, and unconscious First is relatedness, which can take the form of
influences, and about average on causality versus (1) submission, (2) power, and (3) love. Love, or
teleology and on the uniqueness of the individual. the ability to unite with another while retaining
one’s own individuality and integrity, is the only
relatedness need that can solve our basic human
dilemma.

Transcendence
Being thrown into the world without their
consent, humans have to transcend their nature
by destroying or creating people or things.
Humans can destroy through malignant
aggression, or killing for reasons other than
survival, but they can also create and care about
their creations.
Rootedness Character Orientations
Rootedness is the need to establish roots and to People relate to the world by acquiring and using things
feel at home again in the world. Productively, (assimilation) and by relating to self and others
rootedness enables us to grow beyond the (socialization), and they can do so either nonproductively
security of our mother and establish ties with the or productively.
outside world. With the nonproductive strategy,
we become fixated and afraid to move beyond Nonproductive Orientations
the security and safety of our mother or a mother Fromm identified four nonproductive strategies
substitute. that fail to move people closer to positive
freedom and self-realization. People with a
Sense of Identity receptive orientation believe that the source of
The fourth human need is for a sense of identity, all good lies outside themselves and that the only
or an awareness of ourselves as a separate way they can relate to the world is to receive
person. The drive for a sense of identity is things, including love, knowledge, and material
expressed nonproductively as conformity to a objects. People with an exploitative orientation
group and productively as individuality. also believe that the source of good lies outside
themselves, but they aggressively take what they
Frame of Orientation want rather than passively receiving it. Hoarding
By frame of orientation, Fromm meant a road characters try to save what they have already
man or consistent philosophy by which we find obtained, including their opinions, feelings, and
our way through the world. This need is material possessions. People with a marketing
expressed nonproductively as a striving for orientation see themselves as commodities and
irrational goals and productively as movement value themselves against the criterion of their
toward rational goals. ability to sell themselves. They have fewer
positive qualities than the other orientations
The Burden of Freedom because they are essentially empty.
As the only animal possessing self-awareness, humans are
what Fromm called the “freaks of the universe.” The Productive Orientation
Historically, as people gained more political freedom, they Psychologically healthy people work toward
began to experience more isolation from others and from positive freedom through productive work, love,
the world and to feel free from the security of a and reasoning. Productive love necessitates a
permanent place in the world. As a result, freedom passionate love of all life and is called biophilia.
becomes a burden, and people experience basic anxiety,
or a feeling of being alone in the world. Personality Disorders
Unhealthy people have nonproductive ways of working,
Mechanisms of Escape reasoning, and especially loving. Fromm recognized three
To reduce the frightening sense of isolation and major personality disorders:
aloneness, people may adopt one of three (1) necrophilia, or the love of death and the hatred
mechanisms of escape: of all humanity;
(1) authoritarianism, or the tendency to give up (2) malignant narcissism, or a belief that everything
one’s independence and to unite with a belonging to one’s self is of great value and
powerful partner; anything belonging to others is worthless; and
(2) destructiveness, an escape mechanism (3) incestuous symbiosis, or an extreme dependence
aimed at doing away with other people or on one’s mother or mother surrogate.
things; and
(3) conformity, or surrendering of one’s Psychotherapy
individuality in order to meet the wishes of The goal of Fromm’s psychotherapy was to work toward
others. satisfaction of the basic human needs of relatedness,
transcendence, rootedness, a sense of identity, and a
Positive Freedom frame of orientation. The therapist tries to accomplish this
The human dilemma can only be solved through through shared communication in which the therapist is
positive freedom, which is he spontaneous simply a human being rather than a scientist.
activity of the whole, integrated personality, and
which is achieved when a person becomes
reunited with others.
Fromm’s Methods of Investigation SULLIVAN: INTERPERSONAL THEORY
Fromm’s personality theory rests on data he gathered
from a variety of sources, including psychotherapy, Overview of Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory
cultural anthropology, and psychohistory. Although Sullivan had a lonely and isolated childhood, he
evolved a theory of personality that emphasized the
Social Character in a Mexican Village importance of interpersonal relations. He insisted that
Fromm and his associates spent several years personality is shaped almost entirely by the relationships
investigating social character in an isolated we have with other people. Sullivan’s principal
farming village in Mexico and found evidence of contribution to personality theory was his conception of
all the character orientations except the developmental stages.
marketing one.
Biography of Harry Stack Sullivan
A Psycho-historical Study of Hitler Harry Stack Sullivan, the first American to develop a
Fromm applied the techniques of psychohistory comprehensive personality theory, was born in a small
to the study of several historical people, including farming community in upstate New York in 1892. A
Adolf Hitler – the person Fromm regarded as the socially immature and isolated child, Sullivan nevertheless
world’s most conspicuous example of someone formed one close interpersonal relationship with a boy
with the syndrome of decay, that is, necrophilia, five years older than himself. In his interpersonal theory,
malignant narcissism, and incestuous symbiosis. Sullivan believed that such a relationship has the power to
transform an immature preadolescent into a
Related Research psychologically healthy individual. Six years after
Fromm’s theory ranks near the bottom of personality becoming a physician, and with no training in psychiatry,
theories with regard to stimulating research. Recently, Sullivan gained a position at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in
Shaun Saunders and Don Munro have developed the Washington, D.C., as a psychiatrist. There, his ability to
Saunders Consumer Orientation Index (SCOI) to measure work with schizophrenic patients won him a reputation as
Fromm’s marketing character. To date, much of their work a therapeutic wizard. However, despite achieving much
has consisted in establishing the validity of this respect from an influential group of associates, Sullivan
instrument. In general, Saunders has found that people had few close interpersonal relations with any of his
with a strong consumer orientation tend to place low peers. He died alone in Paris in 1949, at age 56.
value on freedom, inner harmony, equality, self-respect,
and community. Tensions
Sullivan conceptualized personality as an energy system,
Critique of Fromm with energy existing either as tension (potentiality for
The strength of Fromm’s theory is his lucid writings on a action) or as energy transformations (the actions
broad range of human issues. As a scientific theory, themselves). He further divided tensions into needs and
however, Fromm’s theory rates very low on its ability to anxiety.
generate research and to lend itself to falsification; it rates
low on usefulness to the practitioner, internal consistency, Needs
and parsimony. Because it is quite broad in scope, Needs can relate either to the general well-being
Fromm’s theory rates high on organizing existing of a person or to specific zones such as the
knowledge. mouth or genitals. General needs can be either
physiological, such as food or oxygen, or they can
Concept of Humanity be interpersonal, such as tenderness and
Fromm believed that humans were “freaks of the intimacy.
universe” because they lacked strong animal instincts
while possessing the ability to reason. In brief, his view is Anxiety
rated average on free choice, optimism, unconscious Unlike needs – which are conjunctive and call for
influences, and uniqueness; low on causality; and high on specific actions to reduce them – anxiety is
social influences. disjunctive and calls for no consistent actions for
its relief. All infants learn to be anxious through
the emphatic relationship that they have with
their mothering one. Sullivan called anxiety the
chief disruptive force in interpersonal relations. A
complete absence of anxiety and other tensions
is called euphoria.
Dynamisms Bad-Mother, Good-Mother
Sullivan used the term dynamism to refer to a typical The bad-mother personification grows out of
pattern of behavior. Dynamisms may relate either to infants’ experiences with a nipple that does not
specific zones of the body or to tensions. satisfy their hunger needs. All infants experience
the bad-mother personification, even though
Malevolence their real mothers may be loving and nurturing.
The disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred is Later, infants acquire a good-mother
called malevolence, defined by Sullivan as a uringpersonification as they become mature
feeling of living among one’s enemies. Those enough to recognize the tender and cooperative
children who become malevolent have much behavior of their mothering one. Still later, these
difficulty giving and receiving tenderness or being two personifications combine to form a complex
intimate with other people. and contrasting image of the real mother.

Intimacy Me Personifications
The conjunctive dynamism marked by a close During infancy, children acquire three “me”
personal relationship between two people of personifications:
equal status is called intimacy. Intimacy facilitates (1) the bad-me, which grows from experiences
interpersonal development while decreasing of punishment and disapproval,
both anxiety and loneliness. (2) the good-me, which results from experiences
with reward and approval, and
Lust (3) the not-me, which allows a person to
In contrast to both malevolence and intimacy, dissociate or selectively inattend the
lust is an isolating dynamism. That is, lust is a self- experiences related to anxiety.
centered need that can be satisfied in the
absence of an intimate interpersonal Eidetic Personifications
relationship. In other words, although intimacy One of Sullivan’s most interesting observations
presupposes tenderness or love, lust is based was that people often create imaginary traits that
solely on sexual gratification and requires no they project onto others. Included in these
other person for its satisfaction. eidetic personifications are the imaginary
playmates that preschool-aged children often
Self-System have. These imaginary friends enable children to
The most inclusive of all dynamisms is the self- have a safe, secure relationship with another
system, or that pattern of behaviors that protects person, even though that person is imaginary.
us against anxiety and maintains our
interpersonal security. The self-system is a Levels of Cognition
conjunctive dynamism, but because its primary Sullivan recognized three levels of cognition, or ways of
job is to protect the self from anxiety, it tends to perceiving things – prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic.
stifle personality chance. Experiences that are
inconsistent with our self-system threaten ur Prototaxic Level
security and necessitate our use of security Experiences that are impossible to put into words
operations, which consist of behaviors designed or to communicate to others are called
to reduce interpersonal tensions. One such prototaxic. Newborn infants experience images
security operation is dissociation, which includes mostly on a prototaxic level, but adults, too,
all those experiences that we block from frequently have preverbal experiences that are
awareness. Another is selective inattention, momentary and incapable of being
which involves blocking only certain experiences communicated.
from awareness.
Parataxic Level
Personifications Experiences that are prelogical and nearly
Sullivan believed that people acquire certain images of impossible to accurately communicate to others
self and others throughout the developmental stages, and are called parataxic. Included in these are
he referred to these subjective perceptions as erroneous assumptions about cause and effect,
personifications. which Sullivan termed parataxic distortions.
Syntaxic Level Early Adolescence
Experiences that can be accurately With puberty comes, the lust dynamism and the
communicated to others are called syntaxic. beginning of early adolescence. Development
Children become capable of syntaxic language at during this stage is ordinarily marked by a
about 12 to 18 months of age when words begin coexistence of intimacy with a single friend of the
to have the same meaning for them that they do same gender and sexual interest in many persons
for others. of the opposite gender. However, if children have
no preexisting capacity for intimacy, they may
Stages of Development confuse lust with love and develop sexual
Sullivan saw interpersonal development as taking place relationships that are devoid of true intimacy.
over seven stages, from infancy to mature adulthood.
Personality changes can take place at any time but are Late Adolescence
more likely to occur during transitions between stages. Chronologically, late adolescence may start at
any time after about age 16, but psychologically,
Infancy it begins when a person is able to feel both
The period from birth until the emergence of intimacy and lust toward the same person. Late
syntaxic language is called infancy, a time when adolescence is characterized by a stable pattern
the child receives tenderness from the mothering of sexual activity and the growth of the syntaxic
one while also learning anxiety through an mode, as young people learn how to live in the
empathic linkage with the mother. Anxiety may adult world.
increase to the point of terror, but such terror is
controlled by the built-in protections of apathy Adulthood
and somnolent detachment that allow the baby Late adolescence flows into adulthood, a time
to go to sleep. During infancy children use autistic when a person establishes a stable relationship
language, which takes place on a prototaxic or with a significant other person and develops a
parataxic level. consistent pattern of viewing the world.

Childhood Psychological Disorders


The stage that lasts from the beginning of Sullivan believed that disordered behavior has an
syntaxic language until the need for playmates of interpersonal origin, and can only be understood with
equal status is called childhood. The child’s reference to a person’s social environment.
primary interpersonal relationship continues to
be with the mother, who is now differentiated Psychotherapy
from other persons who nurture the child. Sullivan pioneered the notion of the therapist as a
participant observer, who establishes an interpersonal
Juvenile Era relationship with the patient. He was primarily concerned
The juvenile stage begins with the need for peers with understanding patients and helping them develop
of equal status and continues until the child foresight, improve interpersonal relations, and restore
develops a need for an intimate relationship with their ability to operate mostly on a syntaxic level.
a chum. At this time, children should learn how
to compete, to compromise, and to cooperate. Related Research
These three abilities, as well as an orientation In recent years, a number of researchers have studied the
toward living, help a child develop intimacy, the impact of two-person relationships, involving both
chief dynamism of the next developmental stage. therapy and non-therapy encounters.

Preadolescence Therapist-Patient Relationships


Perhaps the most crucial stage is preadolescence, Hans Strupp, William Henry, and associates at
because mistakes made earlier can be corrected Vanderbilt developed the Structural Analysis of
during preadolescence, but errors made during Social Behavior, an instrument for studying the
preadolescence are nearly impossible to dynamics between therapist and patient. This
overcome in later life. Preadolescence spans the group of researchers found that patients tended
time from the need for a single best friend until to have relatively stable behaviors that were
puberty. Children who do not learn intimacy consistent with the way their therapists treated
during preadolescence have added difficulties them. Later, these researchers reported
relating to potential sexual partners during later therapists' professional training was less
stages.
important to successful therapy than the ERIKSON: POST-FREUDIAN THEORY
therapists' own developmental history.
Overview of Erikson’s Post-Freudian Theory
Intimate Relationship with Friends Erikson postulated eight stages of psychosocial
Elizabeth Yaughn and Stephen Nowicki studied development through which people progress. Although he
intimate interpersonal relationships in same- differed from Freud in his emphasis on the ego and on
gender dyads and found that women-but not social influences, his theory is an extension, not a
men-had complementary interpersonal styles repudiation of Freudian psychoanalysis.
with their close women friends. Also, women
were more likely than men to engage in a wide Biography of Erik Erikson
variety of activities with their intimate friend, a When Erik Erikson was born in Germany in 1902 his name
finding that suggests that women develop deeper was Erik Salomonsen. After his mother married Theodor
same-gender friendships than do men. Homburger, Erik eventually took his step-father's name.
At age 18 he left home to pursue the life of a wandering
Imaginary Friends artist and to search for self-identity. He gave up that life to
Other researchers have studied Sullivan's notion teach young children in Vienna, where he met Anna
of imaginary playmates and have found that Freud. Still searching for his personal identity, he was
children who have identifiable eidetic playmates psychoanalyzed by Ms. Freud, an experience that allowed
tend to be more socialized, less aggressive, more him to become a psychoanalyst. In mid-life, Erik
intelligent, and to have a better sense of humor Homburger moved to the United States, changed his
than children who do not report having an name to Erikson, and took a position at the Harvard
imaginary playmate. Medical School. Later, he taught at Yale, the University of
California at Berkeley, and several other universities. He
Critique of Sullivan died in 1994, a month short of his 92nd birthday.
Despite Sullivan's insights into the importance of
interpersonal relations, his theory of personality and his The Ego in Post-Freudian Psychology
approach to psychotherapy have lost popularity in recent One of Erikson's chief contributions to personality theory
years. In summary, his theory rates very low in was his emphasis on ego rather than id functions.
falsifiability, low in its ability to generate research, and According to Erikson, the ego is the center of personality
average in its capacity to organize knowledge and to guide and is responsible for a unified sense of self. It consists of
action. In addition, it is only average in self-consistency three interrelated facets: the body ego, the ego ideal, and
and low in parsimony. ego identity.

Concept of Humanity Society's Influence


Because Sullivan saw human personality is being largely The ego develops within a given society and is
formed from interpersonal relations, his theory rates very influenced by child-rearing practices and other
high on social influences and very low on biological ones. cultural customs. All cultures and nations develop
In addition, it rates high on unconscious determinants, a pseudospecies, or a fictional notion that they
average on free choice, optimism, and causality, and low are superior to other cultures.
on uniqueness.
Epigenetic Principle
The ego develops according to the epigenetic
principle; that is, it grows according to a
genetically established rate and in a fixed
sequence.

Stages of Psychosocial Development


Each of the eight stages of development is marked by a
conflict between a syntonic (harmonious) element and a
dystonic (disruptive) element, which produces a basic
strength or ego quality. Also, from adolescence on, each
stage is characterized by an identity crisis or turning point,
which may produce either adaptive or maladaptive
adjustment.
Infancy and informal education. The psychosocial crisis of
Erikson's view of infancy (the first year of life) this age is industry versus inferiority. Children
was similar to Freud's concept of the oral stage, need to learn to work hard, but they also must
except that Erikson expanded the notion of develop some sense of inferiority. From the
incorporation beyond the mouth to include sense conflict of industry and inferiority emerges
organs such as the eyes and ears. The competence, the basic strength of school age
psychosexual mode of infancy is oral-sensory, children. Lack of industry leads to inertia, the
which is characterized by both receiving and core pathology of this stage.
accepting. The psycho-social crisis of infancy is
basic trust versus basic mistrust. From the crisis Adolescence
between basic trust and basic mistrust emerges Adolescence begins with puberty and is marked
hope, the basic strength of infancy. Infants who by a person’s struggle to find ego identity. It is a
do not develop hope retreat from the world, and time of psychosexual growth, but it is also a
this withdrawal is the core pathology of infancy. period of psychosocial latency. The psychosexual
mode of adolescence is puberty or genital
Early Childhood maturation. The psychosocial crisis of
The second to third year of life is early childhood, adolescence is identity versus identity confusion.
a period that compares to Freud's anal stage, but Psychologically healthy individuals emerge from
also includes mastery of other body functions adolescence with a sense of who they are and
such as walking, urinating, and holding. The what they believe; but some identity confusion is
psychosexual mode of early childhood is anal- normal. The conflict between identity and
urethral-muscular, and children of this age identity confusion produces fidelity, or faith in
behave both impulsively and compulsively. The some ideological view of the future. Lack of belief
psychosocial crisis of early childhood is autonomy in one’s own selfhood results in role repudiation
versus shame and doubt. The psychosocial crisis or an inability to bring together one’s various
between autonomy on the one hand and shame self-images.
and doubt on the other produces will – the basic
strength of early childhood. The core pathology Young Adulthood
of early childhood is compulsion. Young adulthood begins with the acquisition of
intimacy at about age 18 and ends with the
Play Age development of generativity at about age 30. The
From about the third to the fifth year, children psychosexual mode of young adulthood is
experience the play age, a period that parallels genitality, which is expressed as mutual trust
Freud's phallic phase. Unlike Freud, however, between partners in a stable sexual relationship.
Erikson saw the Oedipus complex as an early Its psychosocial crisis is intimacy versus isolation.
model of lifelong playfulness and a drama played Intimacy is the ability to fuse one's identity with
out in children's minds as they attempt to that of another without fear of losing it; whereas
understand the basic facts of life. The primary isolation is the fear of losing one's identity in an
psychosexual mode of the play age is genital- intimate relationship. The crisis between intimacy
locomotor, meaning that children have both an and isolation results in the capacity to love. The
interest in genital activity and an increasing core pathology of young adulthood is exclusivity,
ability to move around. The psychosocial crisis of or inability to love.
the play age is initiative versus guilt. The conflict
between initiative and guilt helps children to act Adulthood
with purpose and to set goals. But if children The period from about 31 to 60 years of age is
have too little purpose, they develop inhibition, adulthood, a time when people make significant
the core pathology of the play age. contributions to society. The psychosexual mode
of adulthood is procreativity, or the caring for
School Age one's children, the children of others, and the
The period from about 6 to 12 or 13 years of age material products of one's society. The
is called the school age, a time of psychosexual psychosocial crisis of adulthood is generativity
latency, but it is also a time of psychosocial versus stagnation, and the successful resolution
growth beyond the family. Because sexual of this crisis results in care. Erikson saw care as
development is latent during the school age, taking care of the persons and products that one
children can use their energies to learn the has learned to care for. The core pathology of
customs of their culture, including both formal adulthood is rejectivity, or the rejection of certain
individuals or groups that one is unwilling to take Identity in Early Adulthood
care of. A longitudinal study by Jennifer Pals and Ravenna
Helson found that identity established in early
Old Age adulthood is associated with stable marriage and
The final stage of development is old age, from high levels of creativity. Additional research by
about age 60 until death. The psychosexual mode Helson and Pals found that women who had solid
of old age is generalized sensuality; that is, taking identity and high creative potential at age 21
pleasure in a variety of sensations and an were more likely than other women to have had
appreciation of the traditional lifestyle of people a challenging and creative work experience at age
of the other gender. The psychosocial crisis of old 52.
age is the struggle between integrity (the
maintenance of ego-identity) and despair (the Generativity in Midlife
surrender of hope). The struggle between People high in generativity should have a lifestyle
integrity and despair may produce wisdom (the marked by creating and passing on knowledge,
basic strength of old age), but it may also lead to values, and ideals to a younger generation, and
disdain (a core pathology marked by feelings of should benefit from a pattern of helping younger
being finished or helpless). people. Research by Dan McAdams and
colleagues found that adults at midlife who
Erikson’s Methods of Investigation contributed to the well-being of young people
Erikson relied mostly on anthropology, psychohistory, and had a clear sense of who they were and what life
play construction to explain and describe human had to offer them. Other research found that
personality. people high in generativity are typically
concerned with the well-being of others.
Anthropological Studies
Erikson's two most important anthropological Critique of Erikson
studies were of the Sioux of South Dakota and Although Erikson's work is a logical extension of Freud's
the Yurok tribe of northern California. Both psychoanalysis, it offers a new way of looking at human
studies demonstrated his notion that culture and development. As a useful theory, it rates high on its ability
history help shape personality. to generate research, and about average on its ability to
be falsified, to organize knowledge, and to guide the
Psychohistory practitioner. It rates high on internal consistency and
Erikson combined the methods of psychoanalysis about average on parsimony.
and historical research to study several
personalities, most notably Gandhi and Luther. In Concept of Humanity
both cases, the central figure experienced an Erikson saw humans as basically social animals who have
identity crisis that produced a basic strength limited free choice and who are motivated by past
rather than a core pathology. experiences, which may be either conscious or
unconscious. In addition, Erikson is rated high on both
Play Construction optimism and uniqueness of individuals.
Erikson's technique of play construction became
controversial when he found that 10- to 12-year-
old boys used toys to construct elongated objects
and to produce themes of rising and falling. In
contrast, girls arranged toys in low and peaceful
scenes. Erikson concluded that anatomical
differences between the sexes play a role in
personality development.

Related Research
Erikson's theory has generated a moderately large body of
research, must of it investigating the concept of identity.
In addition, some researchers have looked at Erikson's
concept of generativity.
LEARNING THEORIES (1) its findings are cumulative,
(2) it rests on an attitude that values empirical
SKINNER: BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS observation, and
(3) it searchers for order and lawful relationships.
Overview of Skinner's Behavioral Analysis
Unlike any theory discussed to this point, the radical Conditioning
behaviorism of B. F. Skinner avoids speculations about Skinner recognized two kinds of conditioning: classical and
hypothetical constructs and concentrates almost operant.
exclusively on observable behavior. Besides being a radical Classical Conditioning
behaviorist, Skinner was also a determinist and an In classical conditioning, a neutral (conditioned)
environmentalist; that is, he rejected the notion of free stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus
will, and he emphasized the primacy of environmental until it is capable of bringing about a previously
influences on behavior. unconditioned response, now called the
conditioned response. For example, Watson and
Biography of B. F. Skinner Rayner conditioned a young boy to fear a white
B. F. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania in rat (the conditioned stimulus) by associating it
1904, the older of two brothers. While in college, Skinner with a loud, sudden noise (an unconditioned
wanted to be a writer, but after having little success in this stimulus). Eventually, through the process of
endeavor, he turned to psychology. After earning a Ph.D. generalization, the boy learned to fear stimuli
from Harvard, he taught at the Universities of Minnesota that resembled the white rat.
and Indiana before returning to Harvard, where he
remained until his death in 1990. Operant Conditioning
With operant conditioning, reinforcement is used
Precursors to Skinner's Scientific Behaviorism to increase the probability that a given behavior
Modern learning theory has roots in the work of Edward L. will recur. Three factors are essential in operant
Thorndike and his experiments with animals during the conditioning:
last part of the 19th century. Thorndike's law of effect (1) the antecedent, or environment in which
stated that responses followed by a satisfier tend to be behavior takes place;
learned, a concept that anticipated Skinner's use of (2) the behavior, or response; and
positive reinforcement to shape behavior. Skinner was (3) the consequence that follows the behavior.
even more influenced by John Watson, who argued that Psychologists and others use shaping to mold
psychology must deal with the control and prediction of complex human behavior. Different histories of
behavior and that behavior-not introspection, reinforcement result in operant discrimination,
consciousness, or the mind-is the basic data of scientific meaning that different organisms will respond
psychology. differently to the same environmental
contingencies. People may also respond similarly
Scientific Behaviorism to different environmental stimuli, a process
Skinner believed that human behavior, like any other Skinner called stimulus generalization. Anything
natural phenomena, is subject to the laws of science, and within the environment that strengthens a
that psychologists should not attribute inner motivations behavior is a reinforcer. Positive reinforcement is
to it. Although he rejected internal states (thoughts, any stimulus that when added to a situation
emotions, desires, etc.) as being outside the realm of increases the probability that a given behavior
science, Skinner did not deny their existence. He simply will occur. Negative reinforcement is the
insisted that they should not be used to explain behavior. strengthening of behavior through the removal of
an aversive stimulus. Both positive and negative
Philosophy of Science reinforcement strengthen behavior. Any event
Skinner believed that, because the purpose of that decreases a behavior either by presenting an
science is to predict and control, psychologists aversive stimulus or by removing a positive one is
should be concerned with determining the called punishment. The effects of punishment are
conditions under which human behavior occurs much less predictable than those of reward. Both
so that they can predict and control it. punishment and reinforcement can result from
either natural consequences or from human
Characteristics of Science imposition. Conditioned reinforcers are those
Skinner held that science has three principle stimuli that are not by nature satisfying (e.g.,
characteristics: money), but that can become so when they are
associated with a primary reinforcer, such as
food. Generalized reinforcers are conditioned rejected the notion that they can explain
reinforcers that have become associated with behavior. To Skinner, drives refer to the effects of
several primary reinforcers. Reinforcement can deprivation and satiation and thus are related to
follow behavior on either a continuous schedule the probability of certain behaviors, but they are
or on an intermittent schedule. There are four not the causes of behavior. Skinner believed that
basic intermittent schedules: emotions can be accounted for by the
(1) fixed-ratio, on which the organism is contingencies of survival and the contingencies of
reinforced intermittently according to the reinforcement; but like drives, they do not cause
number of responses it makes; behavior. Similarly, purpose and intention are not
(2) variable-ratio, on which the organism is causes of behavior, although they are sensations
reinforced after an average of a that exist within the skin.
predetermined number of responses;
(3) fixed-interval, on which the organism is Complex Behavior
reinforced for the first response following a Human behavior is subject to the same principles
designated period of time; and of operant conditioning as simple animal
(4) variable interval, on which the organism is behavior, but it is much more complex and
reinforced after the lapse of varied periods difficult to predict or control. Skinner explained
of time. creativity as the result of random or accidental
The tendency of a previously acquired response behaviors that happen to be rewarded. Skinner
to become progressively weakened upon non- believed that most of our behavior is unconscious
reinforcement is called extinction. Such or automatic and that not thinking about certain
elimination or weakening of a response is called experiences is reinforcing. Skinner viewed
classical extinction in a classical conditioning dreams as covert and symbolic forms of behavior
model and operant extinction when the response that are subject to the same contingencies of
was acquired through operant conditioning. reinforcement as any other behavior.

The Human Organism Control of Human Behavior


Skinner believed that human behavior is shaped by three Ultimately, all of a person's behavior is controlled
forces: by the environment. Societies exercise control
(1) natural selection, over their members through laws, rules, and
(2) cultural practices, and customs that transcend any one person's means
(3) the individual's history of reinforcement, which of countercontrol. There are four basic methods
we discussed above. of social control:
(1) operant conditioning, including positive and
Natural Selection negative reinforcement and punishment;
As a species, our behavior is shaped by the (2) describing contingencies, or using language
contingencies of survival; that is, those behaviors to inform people of the consequence of their
(e.g., sex and aggression) that were beneficial to behaviors;
the human species tended to survive, whereas (3) deprivation and satiation, techniques that
those that did not tended to drop out. increase the likelihood that people will
behave in a certain way; and
Cultural Evolution (4) physical restraint, including the jailing of
Those societies that evolved certain cultural criminals.
practices (e.g. tool making and language) tended Although Skinner denied the existence of free
to survive. Currently, the lives of nearly all people will, he did recognize that people manipulate
are shaped, in part, by modern tools (computers, variables within their own environment and thus
media, various modes of transportation, etc.) and exercise some measure of self-control, which has
by their use of language. However, humans do several techniques:
not make cooperative decisions to do what is (1) physical restraint,
best for their society, but those societies whose (2) physical aids, such as tools;
members behave in a cooperative manner (3) changing environmental stimuli;
tended to survive. (4) arranging the environment to allow escape
from aversive stimuli;
Inner States (5) drugs; and
Skinner recognized the existence of such inner (6) doing something else.
states as drives and self-awareness, but he
The Unhealthy Personality Critique of Skinner
Social control and self-control sometimes produce On the six criteria of a useful theory, Skinner's approach
counteracting strategies and inappropriate behaviors. rates very high on its ability to generate research and to
guide action, high on its ability to be falsified, and about
Counteracting Strategies average on its ability to organize knowledge. In addition, it
People can counteract excessive social control by rates very high on internal consistency and high on
(1) escaping from it, simplicity.
(2) revolting against it, or
(3) passively resisting it. Concept of Humanity
Skinner's concept of humanity was a completely
Inappropriate Behaviors deterministic and causal one that emphasized
Inappropriate behaviors follow from self- unconscious behavior and the uniqueness of each
defeating techniques of counteracting social person's history of reinforcement within a mostly social
control or from unsuccessful attempts at self- environment. Unlike many determinists, Skinner is quite
control. optimistic in his view of humanity.

Psychotherapy
Skinner was not a psychotherapist, and he even criticized
psychotherapy as being one of the major obstacles to a
scientific study of human behavior. Nevertheless, others
have used operant conditioning principles to shape
behavior in a therapeutic setting. Behavior therapists play
an active role in the treatment process, using behavior
modification techniques and pointing out the positive
consequences of some behaviors and the aversive effects
of others.

Related Research
Skinner's theory has generated more research than any
other personality theory. Much of this research can be
divided into two questions:
(1) How does conditioning affect personality?
(2) How does personality affect conditioning?

How Conditioning Affects Personality


A plethora of studies have demonstrated that
operant conditioning can change personality
(that is, behavior). For example, a recent study by
Stephen Higgens et al. demonstrated that a
contingent management program can be
successful in decreasing cocaine use.

How Personality Affects Conditioning


Research has also found that different
personalities may react differently to the same
environmental stimuli. This means that the same
reinforcement strategies will not have the same
effect on all people. For example, Alan Pickering
and Jeffrey Gray have developed and tested a
reinforcement sensitivity theory that suggests
that impulsivity, anxiety, and
introversion/extraversion relate to ways people
respond to environmental reinforcers.
BANDURA: SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY on which factor is strongest at any particular
moment.
Overview of Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory
Bandura's social cognitive theory takes an agentic Chance Encounters and Fortuitous Events
perspective, meaning that humans have some limited The lives of many people have been
ability to control their lives. In contrast to Skinner, fundamentally changed by a chance meeting with
Bandura another person or by a fortuitous, unexpected
(1) recognizes that chance encounters and fortuitous event. Chance encounters and fortuitous events
events often shape one's behavior; enter the reciprocal determinism paradigm at
(2) places more emphasis on observational learning; the environment point, after which they
(3) stresses the importance of cognitive factors in influence behavior in much the same way as do
learning; planned events.
(4) suggests that human activity is a function of
behavior and person variables, as well as the Self-System
environment; and The self-system gives some consistency to personality by
(5) believes that reinforcement is mediated by allowing people to observe and symbolize their own
cognition. behavior and to evaluate it on the basis of anticipated
future consequences. The self-system includes both self-
Biography of Albert Bandura efficacy and self-regulation.
Albert Bandura was born in Canada in 1925, but he has
spent his entire professional life in the United States. He Self-Efficacy
completed a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University How people behave in a particular situation
of Iowa in 1951 and since then has worked almost entirely depends in part on their self-efficacy-that is, their
at Stanford University, where he continues to be the most beliefs that they can or cannot exercise those
active of all personality theorists in investigating his own behaviors necessary to bring about a desired
hypotheses. consequence. Efficacy expectations differ from
outcome expectations, which refer to people's
Human Agency prediction of the likely consequences of their
Bandura believes that human agency is the essence of behavior. Self-efficacy combines with
humanness; that is, humans are defined by their ability to environmental variables, previous behaviors, and
organize, regulate, and enact behaviors that they believe other personal variables to predict behavior. It is
will produce desirable consequences. Human agency has acquired, enhanced, or decreased by any one or
four core features: combination of four sources:
(1) intentionality, or a proactive commitment to (1) mastery experiences or performance,
actions that may bring about desired outcomes; (2) social modeling, or observing someone of
(2) foresight, or the ability to set goals; equal ability succeed or fail at a task;
(3) self-reactiveness, which includes people (3) social persuasion, or listening to a trusted
monitoring their progress toward fulfilling their person's encouraging words; and
choices; and (4) physical and emotional states, such as
(4) self-reflectiveness, which allows people to think anxiety or fear,
about and evaluate their motives, values, and life which usually lowers self-efficacy. High self-
goals. efficacy and a responsive environment are the
best predictors of successful outcomes.
Reciprocal Determinism
Social cognitive theory holds that human functioning is Proxy Agency
molded by the reciprocal interaction of Bandura has recently recognized the influence of
(1) behavior; proxy agency through which people exercise
(2) person variables, including cognition; and some partial control over everyday living.
(3) environmental events Successful living in the 21st century requires
– a model Bandura calls reciprocal determinism. people to seek proxies to supply their food,
deliver information, provide transportation, etc.
Differential Contributions Without the use of proxies, modern people
Bandura does not suggest that the three factors would be forced to spend most of their time
in the reciprocal determinism model make equal securing the necessities of survival.
contributions to behavior. The relative influence
of behavior, environment, and person depends
Collective Efficacy disengage themselves from reprehensible
Collective efficacy is the level of confidence that conduct by:
people have that their combined efforts will (1) justifying otherwise culpable behavior on
produce social change. At least four factors can moral grounds;
lower collective efficacy. (2) making advantageous comparisons between
(1) Events in other parts of the world can leave their behavior and the even more
people with a sense of helplessness; reprehensible behavior of others; and
(2) complex technology can decrease people's (3) using euphemistic labels to change the moral
perceptions of control over their tone of their behavior.
environment; A second method of disengagement from
(3) entrenched bureaucracies discourage people internal standards is to distort or obscure the
from attempting to bring about social relationship between behavior and its injurious
change; and consequences. People can do this by minimizing,
(4) the size and scope of world-wide problems disregarding, or distorting the consequences of
contribute to people's sense of their behavior. A third set of disengagement
powerlessness. procedures involves blaming the victims. Finally,
people can disengage their behavior from its
Self-Regulation consequences by displacing or diffusing
By using reflective thought, humans can responsibility.
manipulate their environments and produce
consequences of their actions, giving them some Learning
ability to regulate their own behavior. Bandura People learn through observing others and by attending to
believes that behavior stems from a reciprocal the consequences of their own actions. Although Bandura
influence of external and internal factors. Two believes that reinforcement aids learning, he contends
external factors contribute to self-regulation: (1) that people can learn in the absence of reinforcement and
standards of evaluation, and (2) external even of a response.
reinforcement. External factors affect self-
regulation by providing people with standards for Observational Learning
evaluating their own behavior. Internal The heart of observational learning is modeling,
requirements for self-regulation include: which is more than simple imitation, because it
(1) self-observation of performance; involves adding and subtracting from observed
(2) judging or evaluating performance; behavior. At least three principles influence
(3) self-reactions, including self-reinforcement modeling:
or self-punishment. (1) people are most likely to model high-status
Internalized self-sanctions prevent people from people,
violating their own moral standards either (2) people who lack skill, power, or status are
through selective activation or disengagement of most likely to model, and
internal control. Selective activation refers to the (3) people tend to model behavior that they see
notion that self-regulatory influences are not as being rewarding to the model.
automatic but operate only if activated. It also Bandura recognized four processes that govern
means that people react differently in different observational learning:
situations, depending on their evaluation of the (1) attention, or noticing what a model does;
situation. Disengagement of internal control (2) representation, or symbolically representing
means that people are capable of separating new response patterns in memory;
themselves from the negative consequences of (3) behavior production, or producing the
their behavior. People in ambiguous moral behavior that one observes; and
situations-who are uncertain that their behavior (4) motivation.
is consistent with their own social and moral That is, the observer must be motivated to
standards of conduct – may separate their perform the observed behavior.
conduct from its injurious consequences through
four general techniques of disengagement of Enactive Learning
internal standards or selective activation. First is All behavior is followed by some consequence,
redefining behavior, or justifying otherwise but whether that consequence reinforces the
reprehensible actions by cognitively restructuring behavior depends on the person's cognitive
them. People can use redefinition of behavior to evaluation of the situation.
Dysfunctional Behavior became more variable, leading to future lapses
Dysfunctional behavior is learned through the mutual and, with some ex-smokers, a complete relapse.
interaction of the person (including cognitive and Ex-smokers who believed in their ability to quit
neurophysiological processes), the environment (including smoking were able to maintain high self-efficacy
interpersonal relations), and behavioral factors (especially and to avoid lapses and relapse.
previous experiences with reinforcement).
Self-Efficacy and Academic Performance
Depression Bandura and a group of Italian researchers
People who develop depressive reactions often studied levels of self-efficacy and their relation to
(1) underestimate their successes and academic performance in middle-school children
overestimate their failures, living near Rome. They found that children who
(2) set personal standards too high, or believed that their parents had confidence in
(3) treat themselves badly for their faults. their academic ability were likely to have high
academic aspirations, high academic self-efficacy,
Phobias and high self-regulatory efficacy, and that each of
Phobias are learned by these factors related either directly or indirectly
(1) direct contact, to high academic performance.
(2) inappropriate generalization, and
(3) observational experiences. Critique of Bandura
Once learned they are maintained by negative Bandura's theory receives the highest marks of any in the
reinforcement, as the person is reinforced for text largely because it was constructed through a careful
avoiding fear-producing situations. balance of innovative speculation and data from rigorous
research. In summary, the theory rates very high on its
Aggressive Behaviors ability to generate research and on its internal
When carried to extremes, aggressive behaviors consistency. In addition, it rates high on parsimony and on
can become dysfunctional. In a study of children its ability to be falsified, organize knowledge, and guide
observing live and filmed models being the practitioner.
aggressive, Bandura and his associates found that
aggression tends to foster more aggression. Concept of Humanity
Bandura sees humans as being relatively fluid and flexible.
Therapy People can store past experiences and then use this
The goal of social cognitive therapy is self-regulation. information to chart future actions. Bandura's theory
Bandura noted three levels of treatment: rates near the middle on teleology versus causality and
(1) induction of change, high on free choice, optimism, conscious influences, and
(2) generalization of change to other appropriate uniqueness. As a social cognitive theory, it rates very high
situations, and on social determinants of personality.
(3) maintenance of newly acquired functional
behaviors.
Social cognitive therapists sometimes use systematic
desensitization, a technique aimed at diminishing phobias
through relaxation.

Related Research
Bandura's concept of self-efficacy has generated a great
deal of research demonstrating that people's beliefs are
related to their ability to enact a wide variety of
performances, including stopping smoking and academic
performance.

Self-Efficacy and Smoking Cessation


Saul Shiffman and his colleagues studied the
effects of daily fluctuations in self-efficacy on
smoking lapses and relapses among ex-smokers
who had quit on their own for at least 24 hours.
They found that when these participants smoked
even a single cigarette, their daily self-efficacy
ROTTER AND MISCHEL: COGNITIVE SOCIAL LEARNING perception of an event, whereas external
THEORY reinforcement refers to society's evaluation of an
event. Reinforcement-reinforcement sequences
Overview of Cognitive Social Learning Theory suggest that the value of an event is a function of
Both Julian Rotter and Walter Mischel believe that one's expectation that a particular reinforcement
cognitive factors, more than immediate reinforcements, will lead to future reinforcements.
determine how people will react to environmental forces.
Each suggests that our expectations of future events are Psychological Situation
major determinants of performance. The psychological situation is that part of the
external and internal world to which a person is
Biography of Julian Rotter responding. Behavior is a function of the
Julian Rotter was born in Brooklyn in 1916. As a high- interaction of people with their meaningful
school student, he became familiar with some of the environment.
writings of Freud and Adler, but he majored in chemistry
rather than psychology while at Brooklyn College. In 1941, Basic Prediction Formula
he received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana Hypothetically, in any specific situation, behavior
University. After World War II, he took a position at Ohio can be predicted by the basic prediction formula,
State, where one of his students was Walter Mischel. In which states that the potential for a behavior to
1963, he moved to the University of Connecticut and has occur in a particular situation in relation to a
remained there since retirement. given reinforcement is a function of people's
expectancy that the behavior will be followed by
Introduction to Rotter's Social Learning Theory that reinforcement in that situation.
Rotter's interactionist position holds that human behavior
is based largely on the interaction of people with their Predicting General Behaviors
meaningful environments. Rotter believes that, although The basic prediction is too specific to give clues about how
personality can change at any time, it has a basic unity a person will generally behave.
that preserves it from changing as a result of minor
experiences. His empirical law of effect assumes that Generalized Expectancies
people choose a course of action that advances them To make more general predictions of behavior,
toward an anticipated goal. one must know people's generalized
expectancies, or their expectations based on
Predicting Specific Behaviors similar past experiences that a given behavior will
Human behavior is most accurately predicted by an be reinforced. Generalized expectancies include
understanding of four variables: behavior potential, people's needs-that is, behaviors that move them
expectancy, reinforcement value, and the psychological toward a goal.
situation.
Needs
Behavior Potential Needs refer to functionally related categories of
Behavior potential is the possibility that a behaviors. Rotter listed six broad categories of
particular response will occur at a given time and needs, with each need being related to behaviors
place in relation to its likely reinforcement. that lead to the same or similar reinforcements:
(1) recognition-status refers to the need to
Expectancy excel, to achieve, and to have others
People's expectancy in any given situation is their recognize one's worth;
confidence that a particular reinforcement will (2) dominance is the need to control the
follow a specific behavior in a specific situation or behavior of others, to be in charge, or to gain
situations. Expectancies can be either general or power over others;
specific, and the overall likelihood of success is a (3) independence is the need to be free from
function of both generalized and specific the domination of others;
expectancies. (4) protection-dependency is the need to have
others take care of us and to protect us from
Reinforcement Value harm;
Reinforcement value is a person's preference for (5) love and affection are needs to be warmly
any particular reinforcement over other accepted by others and to be held in friendly
reinforcements if all are equally likely to occur. regard; and
Internal reinforcement is the individual's
(6) physical comfort includes those behaviors between goals, (2) destructive goals, and (3)
aimed at securing food, good health, and unrealistically lofty goals.
physical security.
Three need components are: Eliminating Low Expectancies
(1) need potential, or the possible occurrences In helping clients change low expectancies of
of a set of functionally related behaviors success, Rotter uses a variety of approaches,
directed toward the satisfaction of similar including reinforcing positive behaviors, ignoring
goals; inappropriate behaviors, giving advice, modeling
(2) freedom of movement, or a person's overall appropriate behaviors, and pointing out the long
expectation of being reinforced for range consequences of both positive and
performing those behaviors that are directed negative behaviors.
toward satisfying some general need; and
(3) need value, or the extent to which people Introduction to Mischel's Cognitive-Affective Personality
prefer one set of reinforcements to another. System
Need components are analogous to the more Like Bandura and Rotter, Mischel believes that cognitive
specific concepts of behavior potential, factors, such as expectancies, subjective perceptions,
expectancy, and reinforcement value. values, goals, and personal standards, are important in
shaping personality. In his early theory, Mischel seriously
General Prediction Formula questioned the consistency of personality, but more
The general prediction formula states that need recently, he and Yuichi Shoda have advanced the notion
potential is a function of freedom of movement that behavior is also a function of relatively stable
and need value. Rotter's two most famous scales personal dispositions and cognitive-affective processes
for measuring generalized expectancies are the interacting with a particular situation.
Internal-External Control Scale and the
Interpersonal Trust Scale. Biography of Walter Mischel
Walter Mischel was born in 1930, in Vienna, the second
Internal and External Control of Reinforcement son of upper-middle-class parents. When the Nazis
The Internal-External Control Scale (popularly invaded Austria in 1938, his family moved to the United
called "locus of control scale") attempts to States and eventually settled in Brooklyn. Mischel
measure the degree to which people perceive a received an M.A. from City College of New York and a
causal relationship between their own efforts Ph.D. from Ohio State, where he was influenced by Julian
and environmental consequences. Rotter. He is currently a professor at Columbia University.

Interpersonal Trust Scale Background of the Cognitive-Affective Personality


The Interpersonal Trust Scale measures the System
extent to which a person expects the word or Mischel originally believed that human behavior was
promise of another person to be true. mostly a function of the situation, but presently he has
recognized the importance of relatively permanent
Maladaptive Behavior cognitive-affective units. Nevertheless, Mischel's theory
Rotter defined maladaptive behavior as any persistent continues to recognize the apparent inconsistency of
behavior that fails to move a person closer to a desired some behaviors.
goal. It is usually the result of unrealistically high goals in
combination with low ability to achieve them. Consistency Paradox
The consistency paradox refers to the
Psychotherapy observation that, although both lay-people and
In general, the goal of Rotter's therapy is to achieve professionals tend to believe that behavior is
harmony between the client's freedom of movement and quite consistent, research suggests that it is not.
need value. The therapist is actively involved in trying to Mischel recognizes that, indeed, some traits are
(1) change the importance of the client's goals and (2) consistent over time, but he contends that there
eliminate their unrealistically low expectancies for is little evidence to suggest that they are
success. consistent from one situation to another.

Changing Goals Person-Situation Interaction


Maladaptive behaviors follow from three Mischel believes that behavior is best predicted
categories of inappropriate goals: (1) conflict from an understanding of the person, the
situation, and the interaction between person
and situation. Thus, behavior is not the result of including emotions, feelings, and the affects that
some global personality trait, but by people's accompany physiological reactions.
perceptions of themselves in a particular
situation. Related Research
The theories of both Rotter and Mischel have sparked an
Cognitive-Affective Personality System abundance of related research, with Rotter's locus of
However, Mischel does not believe that inconsistencies in control being one of the most frequently researched areas
behavior are due solely to the situation; he recognizes in psychology and Mischel's notion of delay of gratification
that inconsistent behaviors reflect stable patterns of and his cognitive-affective personality system also
variation within a person. He and Shoda see these stable receiving wide attention.
variations in behavior in the following framework: If A,
then X; but if B, then Y. People's pattern of variability is Locus of Control and Health-Related Behaviors
their behavioral signature of personality, or their unique One adjunct of the locus of control concept is the
and stable pattern of behaving differently in different health locus of control, and research in this area
situations. suggests that self-mastery of health and people's
belief about their personal control over health-
Behavior Prediction related behaviors predict subsequent health
Mischel's basic theoretical position for predicting status. This body of research has included such
and explaining behavior is as follows: If health-related behaviors as smoking, abusing
personality is a stable system that processes alcohol, and unwise eating. In general, this
information about the situation, then individuals research indicates that people high on internal
encountering different situations should behave locus of control, compared with those high on
differently as situations vary. Therefore, Mischel external locus of control, are more likely to enact
believes that, even though people's behavior may health-related behaviors.
reflect some stability over time, it tends to vary
as situations vary. An Analysis of Reactions to the O. J. Simpson
Verdict
Situation Variables Mischel, Shoda, and two of their colleagues used
Situation variables include all those stimuli that the cognitive-affective personality system to
people attend to in a given situation. analyze the verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder
trial. They found that European Americans and
Cognitive-Affective Units African Americans had different ways of looking
Cognitive-affective units include all those at the Simpson verdict. Although their reactions
psychological, social, and physiological aspects of tended to follow along racial lines, participants'
people that permit them to interact with their race itself was not as important as their thoughts
environment with some stability in their and feelings in determining their reactions to the
behavior. Mischel identified five such units. First verdict. More specifically, European Americans
are encoding strategies, or people's who agreed with the verdict had thoughts and
individualized manner of categorizing emotions very similar to those of African
information they receive from external stimuli. Americans who were elated by the verdict.
Second are competencies and self-regulatory Moreover, African Americans who disagreed with
strategies. One of the most important of these the verdict thought and felt much the same as
competencies is intelligence, which Mischel European Americans who were dismayed by the
argues is responsible for the apparent not-guilty verdict.
consistency of other traits. In addition, people
use self-regulatory strategies to control their own Critique of Cognitive Social Learning Theory
behavior through self-formulated goals and self- Cognitive social learning theory combines the rigors of
produced consequences. The third cognitive learning theory with the speculative assumption that
affective units are expectancies and beliefs, or people are forward-looking beings. It rates high on
people's guesses about the consequences of each generating research and on internal consistency, and it
of the different behavioral possibilities. The rates about average on its ability to be falsified, to
fourth cognitive-affective unit includes people's organize data, and to guide action.
goals and values, which tend to render behavior
fairly consistent. Mischel's fifth cognitive- Concept of Humanity
affective unit includes affective responses, Rotter and Mischel see people as goal-directed, cognitive
animals whose perceptions of events are more crucial
than the events themselves. Cognitive social learning DISPOSITIONAL THEORIES
theory rates very high on social influences, and high on
uniqueness of the individual, free choice, teleology, and CATTEL AND EYSENCK: TRAIT AND FACTOR THEORIES
conscious processes. On the dimension of optimism
versus pessimism, Rotter's view is slightly more optimistic, Overview of Factor Analytic Theory
whereas Mischel's is about in the middle. Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck have each used factor
analysis to identify traits (that is, relatively permanent
dispositions of people). Cattell has identified a large
number of personality traits, whereas Eysenck has
extracted only three general factors.

Biography of Raymond B. Cattell


Raymond B. Cattell was born in England in 1905, educated
at the University of London, but spent most of his
professional career in the United States. He held positions
at Columbia University, Clark University, Harvard
University, and the University of Illinois, where he spent
most of his active career. During the last 20 years of his
life, he was associated with the Hawaii School of
Professional Psychology. He died in 1998, a few weeks
short of his 93rd birthday.

Basics of Factor Analysis


Factor analysis is a mathematical procedure for reducing a
large number of scores to a few more general variables or
factors. Correlations of the original, specific scores with
the factors are called factor loadings. Traits generated
through factor analysis may be either unipolar (scaled
from zero to some large amount) or bipolar (having two
opposing poles, such as introversion and extraversion).
For factors to have psychological meaning, the analyst
must rotate the axes on which the scores are plotted.
Eysenck used an orthogonal rotation whereas Cattell
favored an oblique rotation. The oblique rotation
procedure ordinarily results in more traits than the
orthogonal method.

Introduction to Cattell's Trait Theory


Cattell used an inductive approach to identify traits; that
is, he began with a large body of data that he collected
with no preconceived hypothesis or theory.

P Technique
Cattell's P technique is a correlational procedure
that uses measures collected from one person on
many different occasions and is his attempt to
measure individual or unique, rather than
common, traits. Cattell also used the dR
(differential R) technique, which correlates the
scores of a large number of people on many
variables obtained at two different occasions. By
combining these two techniques, Cattell has
measured both states (temporary conditions
within an individual) and traits (relatively
permanent dispositions of an individual).
Media of Observation subsidiation chain, or a complex set of subgoals,
Cattell used three different sources of data that underlies motivation.
enter the correlation matrix:
(1) L data, or a person's life record that comes Ergs
from observations made by others; Ergs are innate drives or motives, such as sex,
(2) Q data, which are based on questionnaires; hunger, loneliness, pity, fear, curiosity, pride,
and sensuousness, anger, and greed that humans
(3) T data, or information obtained from share with other primates.
objective tests.
Sems
Source Traits Sems are learned or acquired dynamic traits that
Source traits refer to the underlying factor or factors can satisfy several ergs at the same time. The
responsible for the intercorrelation among surface traits. self-sentiment is the most important sem in that
They can be distinguished from trait indicators, or surface it integrates the other sems.
traits.
The Dynamic Lattice
Personality Traits The dynamic lattice is a complex network of
Personality traits include both common traits (shared by attitudes, ergs, and sems underlying a person's
many people) and unique traits (peculiar to one motivational structure.
individual). Personality traits can also be classified into
temperament, motivation (dynamic), and ability. Genetic Basis of Traits
Cattell and his colleagues provided estimates of
Temperament Traits heritability of the various source traits. Heritability is an
Temperament traits are concerned with how a estimate of the extent to which the variance of a given
person behaves. Of the 35 primary or first-order trait is due to heredity. Cattell has found relatively high
traits Cattell has identified, all but one heritability values for both fluid intelligence (the ability to
(intelligence) is basically a temperament trait. Of adapt to new material) and crystallized intelligence (which
the 23 normal traits, 16 were obtained through Q depends on prior learning), suggesting that intelligence is
media and compose Cattell's famous 16 PF scale. due more to heredity than to environment.
The additional seven factors that make up the 23
normal traits were originally identified only Introduction to Eysenck's Factor Theory
through L data. Cattell believed that pathological Compared to Cattell, Eysenck (1) was more likely to
people have the same 23 normal traits as other theorize before collecting and factor analyzing data; (2)
people, but, in addition, they exhibit one or more extracted fewer factors; and (3) used a wider variety of
of 12 abnormal traits. Also, a person's pathology approaches to gather data.
may simply be due to a normal trait that is
carried to an extreme. Biography of Hans J. Eysenck
Hans J. Eysenck was born in Berlin in 1916, but as a
Second-Order Traits teenager, he moved to England to escape Nazi tyranny
The 35 primary source traits tend to cluster and made London his home for more than 60 years.
together, forming eight clearly identifiable Eysenck was trained in the psychometrically oriented
second-order traits. The two strongest of the psychology department of the University of London, from
second-order traits might be called which he received a bachelor's degree in 1938 and a Ph.D.
extraversion/introversion and anxiety. in 1940. Eysenck was perhaps the most prolific writer of
any psychologist in the world, and his books and articles
Dynamic Traits often caused world-wide controversy. He died in
In addition to temperament traits, Cattell recognized September of 1997.
motivational or dynamic traits, which include attitudes,
ergs, and sems. Measuring Personality
Eysenck believed that genetic factors were far more
Attitudes important than environmental ones in shaping personality
An attitude refers to a specific course of action, and that personal traits could be measured by
or desire to act, in response to a given situation. standardized personality inventories.
Motivation is usually quite complex, so that a
network of motives, or dynamic lattice, is
ordinarily involved with an attitude. In addition, a
Criteria for Identifying Factors Biological Bases of Personality
Eysenck insisted that personality factors must: Eysenck believed that P, E, and N all have a
(1) be based on strong psychometric evidence, powerful biological component, and he cited as
(2) must possess heritability and fit an evidence the existence of these three types in a
acceptable genetic model, wide variety of nations and languages.
(3) make sense theoretically, and
(4) possess social relevance. Personality and Behavior
Eysenck argued that different combinations of P,
Hierarchy of Measures E and N relate to a large number of behaviors and
Eysenck recognized a four-level hierarchy of processes, such as academic performance,
behavior organization: creativity, and antisocial behavior. He cautioned
(1) specific acts or cognitions; that psychologists can be misled if they do not
(2) habitual acts or cognitions; consider the various combinations of personality
(3) traits, or personal dispositions; and dimensions.
(4) types or superfactors.
Personality and Disease
Dimensions of Personality For many years, Eysenck researched the
Eysenck's methods of measuring personality limited the relationship between personality factors and
number of personality types to a relatively small number. disease. He teamed with Ronald Grossarth
Although many traits exist, Eysenck identified only three Maticek to study the connection between
major types. characteristics and both cancer and
cardiovascular disease and found that people
What Are the Major Personality Factors? with a helpless/hopeless attitude were more
Eysenck's theory revolves around only three likely to die from cancer, whereas people who
general bipolar types: extraversion/introversion, reacted to frustration with anger and emotional
neuroticism/stability, and psychoticism/superego arousal were much more likely to die from
function. All three have a strong genetic cardiovascular disease.
component. Extraverts are characterized by
sociability, impulsiveness, jocularity, liveliness, Related Research
optimism, and quick-wittedness, whereas The theories of both Cattell and Eysenck have been highly
introverts are quiet, passive, unsociable, careful, productive in terms of research, due in part to Cattell's 16
reserved, thoughtful, pessimistic, peaceful, sober, PF Questionnaire and Eysenck's various personality
and controlled. Eysenck, however, believes that inventories. Some of this research has looked at
the principal difference between extraverts and personality factors and the creativity of scientists and
introverts is one of cortical arousal level. Neurotic artists. In addition, some of Eysenck's research attempted
traits include anxiety, hysteria, and obsessive to show a biological basis of personality.
compulsive disorders. Both normal and abnormal
individuals may score high on the neuroticism Personalities of Creative Scientists and Artists
scale of the Eysenck's various personality Early research using the 16 PF found that creative
inventories. People who score high on the scientists compared with either the general
psychoticism scale are egocentric, cold, population or less creative scientists, were more
nonconforming, aggressive, impulsive, hostile, intelligent, outgoing, adventurous, sensitive, self-
suspicious, and antisocial. Men tend to score sufficient, dominant, and driven. Other research
higher than women on psychoticism. found that female scientists, compared to other
women, were more dominant, confident,
Measuring Superfactors intelligent, radical, and adventurous. Research on
Eysenck and his colleagues developed four the personality of artists found that writers and
personality inventories to measure superfactors artists were more intelligent, dominant,
or types. The two most frequently used by adventurous, emotionally sensitive, radical, and
current researchers are the Eysenck Personality self-sufficient than other people. Later research
Inventory (which measures only E and N) and the found that creative artists scored high on
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (which also Eysenck's neuroticism and psychoticism scales,
measures P). indicating that they were more anxious, sensitive,
obsessive, impulsive, hostile, and willing to take
risks than other people.
Biology and Personality ALLPORT: PSYCHOLOGY OF THE INDIVIDUAL
If personality has a strong biological foundation,
then researchers should find very similar Overview of Allport's Psychology of the Individual
personality types in various cultures around the Gordon Allport, whose major emphasis was on the
world. Studies in 24 countries found a high uniqueness of each individual, built a theory of personality
degree of similarity among these different as a reaction against what he regarded as the non-
cultures. Eysenck's later work investigated humanistic positions of both psychoanalysis and animal-
personality factors across 35 European, Asian, based learning theory. However, Allport was eclectic in his
African, and American cultures and found that approach and accepted many of the ideas of other
personality factors are quite universal, thus theorists.
supporting the biological nature of personality.
Biography of Gordon Allport
Critique of Trait and Factor Theories Gordon W. Allport was born in Indiana in 1897. He
Cattell and Eysenck's theories rate high on parsimony, on received an undergraduate degree in philosophy and
their ability to generate research, and on their usefulness economics from Harvard, and taught in Europe for a year.
in organizing data; they are about average on falsifiability, While in Europe, he had a fortuitous meeting with
usefulness to the practitioner, and internal consistency. Sigmund Freud in Vienna, which helped him decide to
complete a Ph.D. in psychology. After receiving his Ph.D.
Concept of Humanity from Harvard, Allport spent two years studying under
Cattell and Eysenck believe that human personality is some of the great German psychologists, but he returned
largely the product of genetics and not the environment. to teach at Harvard. Two years later he took a position at
Thus, both are rated very high on biological influences and Dartmouth, but after four years at Dartmouth, he again
very low on social factors. In addition, both rate about returned to Harvard, where he remained until his death in
average on conscious versus unconscious influences and 1967.
high on the uniqueness of individuals. The concepts of
free choice, optimism versus pessimism, and causality Allport's Approach to Personality
versus teleology do not apply to Cattell and Eysenck. Allport believed that psychologically healthy humans are
motivated by present mostly conscious drives and they
not only seek to reduce tensions but to establish new
ones. He also believed that people are capable of
proactive behavior, which suggests that they can
consciously behave in new and creative ways that foster
their own change and growth. He called his study of the
individual morphogenic science and contrasted it with
traditional nomothetic methods.

Personality Defined
Allport defined personality as "the dynamic organization
within the individual of those psychophysical systems that
determine his characteristic behavior and thought."

Structure of Personality
According to Allport, the basic units of personality are
personal dispositions and the proprium.

Personal Dispositions
Allport distinguished between common traits,
which permit inter-individual comparisons, and
personal dispositions, which are peculiar to the
individual. He recognized three overlapping levels
of personal dispositions, the most general of
which are cardinal dispositions that are so
obvious and dominating that they cannot be
hidden from other people. Not everyone has a
cardinal disposition, but all people have 5 to 10
central dispositions, or characteristics around
which their lives revolve. In addition, everyone are aware of what they are doing and why they
has a great number of secondary dispositions, are doing it.
which are less reliable and less conspicuous than
central traits. Allport further divided personal The Psychologically Healthy Personality
dispositions into (1) motivational dispositions, Allport believed that people are motivated by both the
which are strong enough to initiate action and (2) need to adjust to their environment and to grow toward
stylistic dispositions, which refer to the manner in psychological health; that is, people are both reactive and
which an individual behaves and which guide proactive. Nevertheless, psychologically healthy persons
rather than initiate action. are more likely to engage in proactive behaviors. Allport
listed six criteria for psychological health:
Proprium (1) an extension of the sense of self,
The proprium refers to all those behaviors and (2) warm relationships with others,
characteristics that people regard as warm and (3) emotional security or self-acceptance,
central in their lives. Allport preferred the term (4) a realistic view of the world,
proprium over self or ego because the latter (5) insight and humor, and
terms could imply an object or thing within a (6) a unifying philosophy of life.
person that controls behavior, whereas proprium
suggests the core of one's personhood. The Study of the Individual
Allport strongly felt that psychology should develop and
Motivation use research methods that study the individual rather
Allport insisted that an adequate theory of motivation than groups.
must consider the notion that motives change as people
mature and also that people are motivated by present Morphogenic Science
drives and wants. Traditional psychology relies on nomothetic
science, which seeks general laws from a study of
Reactive and Proactive Theories of Motivation groups of people, but Allport used idiographic or
To Allport, people not only react to their morphogenic procedures that study the single
environment, but they also shape their case. Unlike many psychologists, Allport was
environment and cause it to react to them. His willing to accept self-reports at face value.
proactive approach emphasized the idea that
people often seek additional tension and that The Diaries of Marion Taylor
they purposefully act on their environment in a In the late 1930's, Allport and his wife became
way that fosters growth toward psychological acquainted with diaries written by woman they
health. called Marion Taylor. These diaries-along with
descriptions of Marion Taylor by her mother,
Functional Autonomy younger sister, favorite teacher, friends, and a
Allport's most distinctive and controversial neighbor-provided the Allports with a large
concept is his theory of functional autonomy, quantity of material that could be studied using
which holds that some (but not all) human morphogenic methods. However, the Allports
motives are functionally independent from the never published this material.
original motive responsible for a particular
behavior. Allport recognized two levels of Letters from Jenny
functional autonomy: (1) perseverative functional Even though Allport never published data from
autonomy, which is the tendency of certain basic Marion Taylor's dairies, he did publish a second
behaviors (such as addictive behaviors) to case study-that of Jenny Gove Masterson. Jenny
continue in the absence of reinforcement, and (2) had written a series of 301 letters to Gordon and
propriate functional autonomy, which refers to Ada Allport, whose son had been a roommate of
self-sustaining motives (such as interests) that Jenny's son. Two of Gordon Allport's students,
are related to the proprium. Alfred Baldwin and Jeffrey Paige used a personal
structure analysis and factor analysis
Conscious and Unconscious Motivation respectively, while Allport used a commonsense
Although Allport emphasized conscious approach to discern Jenny's personality structure
motivation more than any other personality as revealed by her letters. All three approaches
theorist, he did not completely overlook the yielded similar results which suggest that
possible influence of unconscious motives on morphogenic studies can be reliable.
pathological behaviors. Most people, however,
Related Research
Allport believed that a deep religious commitment was a HUMANISTIC/EXISTENTIAL THEORIES
mark of a mature person, but he also saw that many
regular churchgoers did not have a mature religious KELLY: PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY
orientation and were capable of deep racial and social
prejudice. In other words, he saw a curvilinear Overview of Kelly's Personal Construct Theory
relationship between church attendance and prejudice. Kelly's theory of personal constructs can be seen as a
metatheory, or a theory about theories. It holds that
The Religious Orientation Scale people anticipate events by the meanings or
This insight led Allport to develop and use the interpretations that they place on those events. Kelly
Religious Orientation Scale to assess both an called these interpretations personal constructs. His
intrinsic orientation and an extrinsic orientation philosophical position, called constructive alternativism,
toward religion. Allport and Ross found that assumes that alternative interpretations are always
people with an extrinsic orientation toward available to people.
religion tend to be quite prejudiced, whereas
those with an intrinsic orientation tend to be low Biography of George Kelly
on racial and social prejudice. George Kelly was born on a farm in Kansas in 1905. During
his school years and his early professional career, he
Religious Orientation and Psychological Health dabbled in a wide variety of jobs, but he eventually
Research has found that people who score high received a Ph.D. in psychology from the State University of
on the intrinsic scale of the ROS tend to have Iowa. He began his academic career at Fort Hays State
overall better personal functioning than those College in Kansas, then after World War II, he took a
who score high on the Extrinsic scale. In general, position at Ohio State. He remained there until 1965 when
these studies have found that some highly he joined the faculty at Brandeis. He died two years later
religious people have strong psychological health at age 61.
whereas others suffer from a variety of
psychological disorders. The principal difference Kelly's Philosophical Position
between the two groups is one of intrinsic or Kelly believed that people construe events according to
extrinsic religious orientation; that is, people with their personal constructs rather than reality.
an intrinsic orientation tend to be psychologically
healthy, but those with an extrinsic orientation Person as Scientist
suffer from poor psychological health. People generally attempt to solve everyday
problems in much the same fashion as scientists;
Critique of Allport that is, they observe, ask questions, formulate
Allport has written eloquently about personality, but his hypotheses, infer conclusions, and predict future
views are based more on philosophical speculation and events.
common sense than on scientific studies. As a
consequence, his theory is very narrow, being limited Scientist as Person
mostly to a model of human motivation. Thus, it rates low Because scientists are people, their
on its ability to organize psychological data and to be pronouncements should be regarded with the
falsified. It rates high on parsimony and internal same skepticism as any other data. Every
consistency and about average on its ability to generate scientific theory can be viewed from an alternate
research and to help the practitioner. angle, and every competent scientist should be
open to changing his or her theory.
Concept of Humanity
Allport saw people as thinking, proactive, purposeful Constructive Alternativism
beings who are generally aware of what they are doing Kelly believed that all our interpretations of the
and why. On the six dimensions for a concept of humanity, world are subject to revision or replacement, an
Allport rates higher than any other theorist on conscious assumption he called constructive alternativism.
influences and on the uniqueness of the individual. He He further stressed that, because people can
rates high on free choice, optimism, and teleology, and construe their world from different angles,
about average on social influences. observations that are valid at one time may be
false at a later time.
Personal Constructs because they can construe those people's
Kelly believed that people look at their world through constructions.
templates that they create and then attempt to fit over With the sociality corollary, Kelly introduced the
the realities of the world. He called these templates or concept of role, which refers to a pattern of
transparent patterns personal constructs, which he behavior that stems from people's understanding
believed shape behavior. of the constructs of others. Each of us has a core
role and numerous peripheral roles. A core role
Basic Postulate gives us a sense of identity whereas peripheral
Kelly expressed his theory in one basic postulate roles are less central to our self-concept.
and 11 supporting corollaries. The basic postulate
assumes that human behavior is shaped by the Applications of Personal Construct Theory
way people anticipate the future. Kelly's many years of clinical experience enabled him to
evolve concepts of abnormal development and
Supporting Corollaries psychotherapy, and to develop a Role Construct Repertory
The 11 supporting corollaries can all be inferred (Rep) Test.
from this basic postulate:
(1) Although no two events are exactly alike, we Abnormal Development
construe similar events as if they were the Kelly saw normal people as analogous to
same, and this is Kelly's construction competent scientists who test reasonable
corollary. hypotheses, objectively view the results, and
(2) The individuality corollary states that willingly change their theories when the data
because people have different experiences, warrant it. Similarly, unhealthy people are like
they can construe the same event in incompetent scientists who test unreasonable
different ways. hypotheses, reject or distort legitimate results,
(3) The organization corollary assumes that and refuse to amend outdated theories. Kelly
people organize their personal constructs in identified four common elements in most human
a hierarchical system, with some constructs disturbances:
in a superordinate position and others (1) threat, or the perception that one's basic
subordinate to them. constructs may be drastically changed;
(4) The dichotomy corollary assumes that (2) fear, which requires an incidental rather than
people construe events in an either/or a comprehensive restructuring of one's
manner, e.g., good or bad. construct system;
(5) Kelly's choice corollary assumes that people (3) anxiety, or the recognition that one cannot
tend to choose the alternative in a adequately deal with a new situation; and
dichotomized construct that they see as (4) guilt, defined as "the sense of having lost
extending the range of their future choices. one's core role structure."
(6) The range corollary states that constructs are
limited to a particular range of convenience; Psychotherapy
that is, they are not relevant to all situations. Kelly insisted that clients should set their own
(7) Kelly's experience corollary suggests that goals for therapy and that they should be active
people continually revise their personal participants in the therapeutic process. He
constructs as the result of their experiences. sometimes used a procedure called fixed-role
(8) The modulation corollary assumes that only therapy in which clients act out a predetermined
permeable constructs lead to change; role for several weeks. By playing the part of a
concrete constructs resist modification psychologically healthy person, clients may
through experience. discover previously hidden aspects of
(9) The fragmentation corollary states that themselves.
people's behavior can be inconsistent
because their construct systems can readily The Rep Test
admit incompatible elements. The purpose of the Rep test is to discover ways in
(10) The commonality corollary suggests that our which clients construe significant people in their
personal constructs tend to be similar to the lives. Clients place names of people they know
construction systems of other people to the on a repertory grid in order to identify both
extent that we share experiences with them. similarities and differences among these people.
(11) The sociality corollary states that people are
able to communicate with other people
Related Research ROGERS: PERSON-CENTERED THEORY
Kelly's personal construct theory and his Rep test have
generated a substantial amount of empirical research in Overview of Rogers's Person-Centered Theory
both the United States and the United Kingdom. Although Carl Rogers is best known as the founder of
client-centered therapy, he also developed an important
The Rep Test and Children theory of personality that underscores his approach to
Use of the Rep test with children reveals that the therapy.
self-constructs of depressed adolescents are
marked by low self-esteem, pessimism, and an Biography of Carl Rogers
external locus of control. Other research with Carl Rogers was born into a devoutly religious family in a
children and the Rep test shows that Chicago suburb in 1902. After the family moved to a farm
preadolescents construe themselves and others near Chicago, Carl became interested in scientific farming
in ways consistent with the Big Five personality and learned to appreciate the scientific method. When he
factors (extraversion, agreeableness, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Rogers
conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intended to become a minister, but he gave up that notion
intelligence), thus demonstrating that the Big and completed a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia
Five factors can come from instruments other University in 1931. In 1940, after nearly a dozen years
than standard personality tests. away from an academic life working as a clinician, he took
a position at Ohio State University. Later, he held positions
The Rep Test and the Real Self Versus the Ideal at the University of Chicago and the University of
Self Wisconsin. In 1964, he moved to California where he
Other research has found that the Rep test was helped found the Center for Studies of the Person. He
useful in (1) predicting adherence to a physical died in 1987 at age 85.
activity program, (2) detecting differences
between the real self and the ideal self, and (3) Person-Centered Theory
measuring neuroticism. Rogers carefully crafted his person-centered theory of
personality to meet his own demands for a structural
The Rep Test and the Pain Patient model that could explain and predict outcomes of client-
A number of studies, including the Large and centered therapy. However, the theory has implications
Strong (1997) study, have found that the Rep test far beyond the therapeutic setting.
can be a reliable and valid instrument for
measuring pain. Basic Assumptions
Person-centered theory rests on two basic
Critique of Kelly assumptions: (1) the formative tendency, which
Kelly's theory probably is most applicable to relatively states that all matter, both organic and inorganic,
normal, intelligent people. Unfortunately, it pays scant tends to evolve from simpler to more complex
attention to problems of motivation, development, and forms, and (2) an actualizing tendency, which
cultural influences. On the six criteria of a useful theory, it suggests that all living things, including humans,
rates very high on parsimony and internal consistency and tend to move toward completion, or fulfillment
about average on its ability to generate research. of potentials. However, in order for people (or
However, it rates low on its ability to be falsified, to guide plants and animals) to become actualized, certain
the practitioner, and to organize knowledge. identifiable conditions must be present. For a
person, these conditions include a relationship
Concept of Humanity with another person who is genuine, or
Kelly saw people as anticipating the future and living their congruent, and who demonstrates complete
lives in accordance with those anticipations. His concept acceptance and empathy for that person.
of elaborative choice suggests that people increase their
range of future choices by the present choices they freely The Self and Self-Actualization
make. Thus, Kelly's theory rates very high in teleology and A sense of self or personal identity begins to
high in choice and optimism. In addition, it receives high emerge during infancy, and, once established, it
ratings for conscious influences and for its emphasis on allows a person to strive toward self-
the uniqueness of the individual. Finally, personal actualization, which is a subsystem of the
construct theory is about average on social influences. actualization tendency and refers to the tendency
to actualize the self as perceived in awareness.
The self has two subsystems: (1) the self-concept,
which includes all those aspects of one's identity
that are perceived in awareness, and (2) the ideal when and if they meet the conditions set by
self, or our view of our self as we would like to be others.
or aspire to be. Once formed, the self-concept
tends to resist change, and gaps between it and Psychological Stagnation
the ideal self, result in incongruence and various When the organismic self and the self-concept
levels of psychopathology. are at variance with one another, a person may
experience incongruence, which includes
Awareness vulnerability, threat, defensiveness, and even
People are aware of both their self-concept and disorganization. The greater the incongruence
their ideal self, although awareness need not be between self-concept and the organismic
accurate or at a high level. Rogers saw people as experience, the more vulnerable that person
having experiences on three levels of awareness: becomes. Anxiety exists whenever the person
(1) those that are symbolized below the becomes dimly aware of the discrepancy
threshold of awareness and are either ignored or between organismic experience and self-concept,
denied, that is, subceived, or not allowed into the whereas threat is experienced whenever the
self-concept; (2) those that are distorted or person becomes more clearly aware of this
reshaped to fit it into an existing self-concept; incongruence. To prevent incongruence, people
and (3) those that are consistent with the self- react with defensiveness, typically in the forms of
concept and thus are accurately symbolized and distortion and denial. With distortion, people
freely admitted to the self-structure. Any misinterpret an experience so that it fits into
experience not consistent with the self-concept – their self-concept; with denial, people refuse to
even positive experiences – will be distorted allow the experience into awareness. When
or denied. people's defenses fail to operate properly, their
behavior becomes disorganized or psychotic.
Needs With disorganization, people sometimes behave
The two basic human needs are maintenance and consistently with their organismic experience and
enhancement, but people also need positive sometimes in accordance with their shattered
regard and self-regard. Maintenance needs self-concept.
include those for food, air, and safety, but they
also include our tendency to resist change and to Psychotherapy
maintain our self-concept as it is. Enhancement For client-centered psychotherapy to be effective, certain
needs include needs to grow and to realize one's conditions are necessary: A vulnerable client must have
full human potential. As awareness of self contact of some duration with a counselor who is
emerges, an infant begins to receive positive congruent, and who demonstrates unconditional positive
regard from another person-that is, to be loved regard and listens with empathy to a client. The client
or accepted. People naturally value those must in turn perceive the congruence, unconditional
experiences that satisfy their needs for positive positive regard, and empathy of the therapist. If these
regard, but, unfortunately, this value sometimes conditions are present, then the process of therapy will
becomes more powerful than the reward they take place and certain predictable outcomes will result.
receive for meeting their organismic needs. This
sets up the condition of incongruence, which is Conditions
experienced when basic organismic needs are Three conditions are crucial to client-centered
denied or distorted in favor of needs to be loved therapy, and Rogers called them the necessary
or accepted. As a result of experiences with and sufficient conditions for therapeutic growth.
positive regard, people develop the need for self- The first is counselor congruence, or a therapist
regard, which they acquire only after they whose organismic experiences are matched by
perceive that someone else cares for them and awareness and by the ability and willingness to
values them. Once established, however, self- openly express these feelings. Congruence is
regard becomes autonomous and no longer more basic than the other two conditions
dependent on another's continuous positive because it is a relatively stable characteristic of
evaluation. the therapist, whereas the other two conditions
are limited to a specific therapeutic relationship.
Conditions of Worth Unconditional positive regard exists when the
Most people are not unconditionally accepted. therapist accepts the client without conditions or
Instead, they receive conditions of worth; that is, qualifications. Empathic listening is the
they feel that they are loved and accepted only therapist's ability to sense the feelings of a client
and also to communicate these perceptions so The Chicago Study
that the client knows that another person has When he taught at the University of Chicago, Rogers,
entered into his or her world of feelings without along with colleagues and graduate students, conducted a
prejudice, projection, or evaluation. sophisticated and complex study on the effectiveness of
psychotherapy.
Process
Rogers saw the process of therapeutic change as Hypotheses
taking place in seven stages: This study tested four broad hypotheses. As a
(1) clients are unwilling to communicate consequence of therapy (1) clients will become
anything about themselves; more aware of their feelings and experiences, (2)
(2) they discuss only external events and other the gap between the real self and the ideal self
people; will lessen; (3) clients' behavior will become more
(3) they begin to talk about themselves, but still socialized and mature; and (4) clients will become
as an object; both more self-accepting and more accepting of
(4) they discuss strong emotions that they have others.
felt in the past;
(5) they begin to express present feelings; Method
(6) they freely allow into awareness those Participants were adults who sought therapy at
experiences that were previously denied or the University of Chicago counseling center.
distorted; and Experimenters asked half of them to wait 60 days
(7) they experience irreversible change and before receiving therapy while beginning therapy
growth. with the other half. In addition, they tested a
control group of "normals" who were matched
Outcomes with the therapy group. This control group was
When client-centered therapy is successful, also divided into a wait group and a non-wait
clients become more congruent, less defensive, group.
more open to experience, and more realistic. The
gap between their ideal self and their true self Findings
narrows and, as a consequence, clients Rogers and his associates found that the therapy
experience less physiological and psychological group-but not the wait group-showed a lessening
tension. Finally, clients' interpersonal of the gap between real self and ideal self. They
relationships improve because they are more also found that clients who improved during
accepting of self and others. therapy-but not those rated as least improved-
showed changes in social behavior, as noted by
The Person of Tomorrow friends.
Rogers was vitally interested in the psychologically healthy
person, called the "fully functioning person" or the Summary of Results
"person of tomorrow." Rogers listed seven characteristics Although client-centered therapy was successful
of the person of tomorrow. The person of tomorrow in changing clients, it was not successful in
(1) is able to adjust to change, bringing them to the level of the fully functioning
(2) is open to experience, persons or even to the level of "normal"
(3) is able to live fully in the moment, psychological health.
(4) is able to have harmonious relations with others,
(5) is more integrated with no artificial boundaries Related Research
between conscious and unconscious processes, More recently, other researchers have investigated
(6) has a basic trust of human nature, and Rogers's facilitative conditions both outside therapy and
(7) enjoys a greater richness in life. The factors have within therapy.
implications both for the individual and for
society. Facilitative Conditions Outside Therapy
In the United Kingdom, Duncan Cramer has
Philosophy of Science conducted a series of studies investigating the
Rogers agreed with Maslow that scientists must care therapeutic qualities of Rogers's facilitative
about and be involved in the phenomena they study and conditions in interpersonal relationships outside
that psychologists should limit their objectivity and of therapy. Cramer found positive relationships
precision to their methodology, not to the creation of between self-esteem, as measured by the
hypotheses or to the communication of research findings. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the four
facilitative conditions that make up the Barrett MASLOW’S HOLISTIC-DYNAMIC THEORY
Lennard Relationship Inventory-level of regard,
unconditionality of regard, congruence, and Overview of Maslow's Holistic-Dynamic Theory
empathy. Moreover, the direction of the Abraham Maslow's holistic-dynamic theory holds that
relationship strongly suggested that Rogers's people are continually motivated by one or more needs,
facilitative conditions precede the acquisition of and that, under the proper circumstances, they can reach
higher levels of self-esteem. a level of psychological health called self-actualization.

Facilitative Conditions and Couples Therapy Biography of Abraham H. Maslow


In Belgium, Alfons Vansteenwegen (1996) used a Abraham H. Maslow was born in New York in 1908, the
revised form of the Barrett-Lennard to determine oldest of seven children of Russian Jewish immigrants.
if Rogers's facilitative conditions related to After two or three mediocre years as a college student, his
success during couples therapy. He found that work improved at about the time he was married. He
client-centered couples’ therapy can bring about received both a bachelor's degree and a Ph.D. from the
positive changes in couples, and that some of University of Wisconsin where he worked with Harry
these changes lasted for at least seven years after Harlow conducting animal studies. Most of his
therapy. professional career was spent at Brooklyn College and at
Brandeis University. Poor health forced him to move to
Critique of Rogers California where he died in 1970 at age 62.
Rogers's person-centered theory is one of the most
carefully constructed of all personality theories, and it Maslow's View of Motivation
meets quite well each of the six criteria of a useful theory. Maslow's theory rests on five basic assumptions about
It rates very high on internal consistency and parsimony, motivation: (1) the whole organism is motivated at any
high on its ability to be falsified and to generate research, one time; (2) motivation is complex, and unconscious
and high-average on its ability to organize knowledge and motives often underlie behavior; (3) people are
to serve as a guide to the practitioner. continually motivated by one need or another; (4) people
in different cultures are all motivated by the same basic
Concept of Humanity needs; and (5) needs can be arranged on a hierarchy.
Rogers believed that humans have the capacity to change
and grow-provided that certain necessary and sufficient Hierarchy of Needs
conditions are present. Therefore, his theory rates very Maslow held that lower level needs have
high on optimism. In addition, it rates high on free choice, prepotency over higher level needs; that is, they
teleology, conscious motivation, social influences, and the must be satisfied before higher needs become
uniqueness of the individual. motivators. Maslow's hierarchy includes (1)
physiological needs, such as oxygen, food, water,
and so on; (2) safety needs, which include
physical security, stability, dependency,
protection, and freedom from danger, and which
result in basic anxiety if not satisfied; (3) love and
belongingness needs, including the desire for
friendship, the wish for a mate and children, and
the need to belong; (4) esteem needs, which
follow from the satisfaction of love needs and
which include self-confidence and the recognition
that one has a positive reputation; and (5) self-
actualization needs, which are satisfied only by
the psychologically healthiest people. Unlike
other needs that automatically are activated
when lower needs are met, self-actualization
needs do not inevitably follow the satisfaction of
esteem needs. Only by embracing such B-values
as truth, beauty, oneness, and justice, can people
achieve self-actualization. The five needs on
Maslow's hierarchy are conative needs. Other
needs include aesthetic needs, cognitive needs,
and neurotic needs.
Aesthetic Needs also believed that higher level needs (love,
Aesthetic needs include a desire for beauty and esteem, and self-actualization) are later on the
order, and some people have much stronger evolutionary scale than lower level needs and
aesthetic needs than do others. When people fail that they produce more genuine happiness and
to meet their aesthetic needs, they become sick. more peak experiences.

Cognitive Needs Self-Actualization


Cognitive needs include the desire to know, to Maslow believed that a very small percentage of people
understand, and to be curious. Knowledge is a reach an ultimate level of psychological health called self-
prerequisite for each of the five conative needs. actualization.
Also, people who are denied knowledge and kept
in ignorance become sick, paranoid, and Values of Self-Actualizers
depressed. Maslow held that self-actualizers are
metamotivated by such B-values as truth,
Neurotic Needs goodness, beauty, justice, and simplicity.
With each of the above three dimensions of
needs, physical or psychological illness results Criteria for Self-Actualization
when the needs are not satisfied. Neurotic needs, Four criteria must be met before a person
however, lead to pathology regardless of achieves self-actualization: (1) absence of
whether they are satisfied or not. Neurotic needs psychopathology, (2) satisfaction of each of the
include such motives as a desire to dominate, to four lower level needs, (3) acceptance of the B-
inflict pain, or to subject oneself to the will of values, and (4) full realization of one's
another person. Neurotic needs are potentials for growth.
nonproductive and do not foster health.
Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People
General Discussion of Needs Maslow listed 15 qualities that characterize self-
Maslow believed that most people satisfy lower actualizing people, although not all self-
level needs to a greater extent than they do actualizers possess each of the characteristics to
higher levels needs, and that the greater the the same extent. These characteristics are
satisfaction of one need, the more fully the next (1) more efficient perception of reality, meaning
highest need is likely to emerge. In certain rare that self-actualizers often have an almost
cases, the order of needs might be reversed. For uncanny ability to detect phoniness in
example, a starving mother may be motivated by others, and they are not fooled by sham;
love needs to give up food in order to feed her (2) acceptance of self, others, and nature;
starving children. However, if we understood the (3) spontaneity, simplicity, and naturalness,
unconscious motivation behind many apparent meaning that self-actualizers have no need
reversals, we would see that they are not to appear complex or sophisticated;
genuine reversals at all. Thus, Maslow insisted (4) problem-centered which is the ability to view
that much of our surface behavior is actually age-old problems from a solid philosophical
motivated by more basic and often unconscious position;
needs. Maslow also believed that some (5) the need for privacy, or a detachment that
expressive behaviors are unmotivated, even allows self-actualizing people to be alone
though all behaviors have a cause. Expressive without being lonely;
behavior has no aim or goal but is merely a (6) autonomy, meaning that they no longer are
person's mode of expression. In comparison, dependent on other people for their self-
coping behaviors (which are motivated) deal with esteem;
a person's attempt to cope with the (7) continued freshness of appreciation and the
environment. The conative needs ordinarily call ability to view everyday things with a fresh
forth coping behaviors. Deprivation of any of the vision and appreciation;
needs leads to pathology of some sort. For (8) frequent reports of peak experiences, or
example, people's inability to reach self- those mystical experiences that give a
actualization results in metapathology, defined as person a sense of transcendence and
an absence of values, a lack of fulfillment, and a feelings of awe, wonder, ecstasy, reverence,
loss of meaning in life. Maslow suggested that and humility;
instinctoid needs are innately determined even
though they can be modified by learning. Maslow
(9) Gemeinschaftsgefühl, that is, social interest The Jonah Complex
or a deep feeling of oneness with all Because humans are born with a natural tendency to
humanity; move toward psychological health, any failure to reach
(10) profound interpersonal relations, but with self-actualization can technically be called abnormal
no desperate need to have a multitude of development. One such abnormal syndrome is the Jonah
friends; complex, or fear of being or doing one's best, a condition
(11) the democratic character structure, or the that all of us have to some extent. Maslow believed that
ability to disregard superficial differences many people allow false humility to stifle their creativity,
between people; which causes them to fall short of self-actualization.
(12) discrimination between means and ends,
meaning that self-actualizing people have a Psychotherapy
clear sense of right and wrong, and they The hierarchy of needs concept has obvious ramifications
experience little conflict about basic values; for psychotherapy. Most people who seek psychotherapy
(13) a philosophical sense of humor that is probably do so because they have not adequately satisfied
spontaneous, unplanned, and intrinsic to the their love and belongingness needs. This suggests that
situation; much of therapy should involve a productive human
(14) creativeness, with a keen perception of relationship and that the job of a therapist is to help
truth, beauty, and reality; clients satisfy love and belongingness needs.
(15) resistance to enculturation, or the ability to
set personal standards and to resist the mold Related Research
set by culture. Researchers have investigated Maslow's concept of self-
actualization in many divergence settings and for a variety
Love, Sex, and Self-Actualization of purposes.
Maslow compared D-love (deficiency love) to B-
love (love for being or essence of another Self-Actualization and Intimate Interpersonal
person). Self-actualizing people are capable of B- Relations
love because they can love without expecting Michael Sheffield and his colleagues used the POI
something in return. B-love is mutually felt and as a measure of self-actualization and found that
shared and not based on deficiencies within the high scores on the POI were inversely related to
lovers. interpersonal relations. More specifically, people
who approached self-actualization tended to be
Philosophy of Science self-motivated, accepted feelings of aggression,
Maslow criticized traditional science as being value free, and were able to sustain intimacy.
with a methodology that is sterile and nonemotional. He
argued for a Taoistic attitude for psychology in which Self-Actualization and Creativity
psychologists are willing to resacralize their science, or to Mark Runco and his colleagues used the Short
instill it with human values and to view participants with Index of Self-Actualization to assess self-
awe, joy, wonder, rapture, and ritual. actualization and found a positive relationship
between self-actualization scores and two
Measuring Self-Actualization measures of creativity. Although the relationships
Maslow's methods for measuring self-actualization were were not strong, they suggest that, as Maslow's
consistent with his philosophy of science. He began his hypothesized, creativity is at least partly related
study of self-actualizing people with little evidence that to self-actualization.
such a classification of people even existed. He looked at
healthy people, learned what they had in common, and Self-Actualization and Self-Acceptance
then established a syndrome for psychological health. Some researchers have tested Maslow's
Next, he refined the definition of self-actualization, assumption that self-actualizing people accept
studied other people, and changed the syndrome. He themselves. One study (Sumerlin & Bundrick,
continued this process until he was satisfied that he had a 2000) with African-American businessmen found
clear definition of self-actualization. Other researchers that those who scored high on self-actualization
have developed personality inventories for measuring tended to have increased happiness and self-
self-actualization. The most widely used of these is Everett fulfillment. Another study by William Compton
Shostrom's Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), a 150- and his colleagues found that self-actualization
item forced-choice inventory that assesses a variety of related to openness to experience and to seeking
self-actualization facets. out new and exciting experiences.
Critique of Maslow MAY: EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Maslow's theory has been popular in psychology and
other disciplines, such as management, nursing, and Overview of May's Existential Theory
education. The hierarchy of needs concept seems both Existential psychology began in Europe shortly after World
elementary and logical, which gives Maslow's theory the War II and spread to the United States, where Rollo May
illusion of simplicity. However, the theory is somewhat played a large part in popularizing it. A clinical
complex, with four dimensions of needs and the psychologist by training, May took the view that modern
possibility of unconsciously motivated behavior. As a people frequently run away both from making choices and
scientific theory, Maslow's model rates high in generating from assuming responsibility.
research but low in falsifiability. On its ability to organize
knowledge and guide action, the theory rates quite high; Biography of Rollo May
on its simplicity and internal consistency, it rates only Rollo May was born in Ohio in 1909, but grew up in
average. Michigan. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1930,
he spent three years roaming throughout eastern and
Concept of Humanity southern Europe as an itinerant artist. When he returned
Maslow believed that people are structured in such a way to the United States, he entered the Union Theological
that their activated needs are exactly what they want Seminary, from which he received a Master of Divinity
most. Hungry people desire food, frightened people look degree. He then served for two years as a pastor, but quit
for safety, and so forth. Although he was generally in order to pursue a career in psychology. He received a
optimistic and hopeful, Maslow saw that people are Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia in 1949 at the
capable of great evil and destruction. He believed that as a age of 40. During his professional career, he served as
species, humans are becoming more and more fully lecturer or visiting professor at a number of universities,
human and motivated by higher level needs. In summary, conducted a private practice as a psychotherapist, and
Maslow's view of humanity rates high on free choice, wrote a number of popular books on the human
optimism, teleology, and uniqueness and about average condition. May died in 1994 at age 85.
on social influences.
Background of Existentialism
Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and
theologian, is usually considered to be the founder of
modern existentialism. Like later existentialists, he
emphasized a balance between freedom and
responsibility. People acquire freedom of action by
expanding their self-awareness and by assuming
responsibility for their actions. However, this acquisition
of freedom and responsibility is achieved at the expense
of anxiety and dread.

What Is Existentialism?
The first tenet of existentialism is that existence
take precedence over essence, meaning that
process and growth are more important than
product and stagnation. Second, existentialists
oppose the artificial split between subject and
object. Third, they stress people's search for
meaning in their lives. Fourth, they insist that
each of us is responsible for who we are and
what we will become. Fifth, most take an
antitheoretical position, believing that theories
tend to objectify people.

Basic Concepts
According to existentialists, a basic unity exists
between people and their environments, a unity
expressed by the term Dasein, or being-in-the-
world. Three simultaneous modes of the world
characterize us in our Dasein: Umwelt, or the
environment around us; Mitwelt, or our world Intentionality
with other people; and Eigenwelt, or our The structure that gives meaning to experience and allows
relationship with our self. People are both aware people to make decisions about the future is called
of themselves as living beings and also aware of intentionality. May believed that intentionality permits
the possibility of nonbeing or nothingness. Death people to overcome the dichotomy between subject and
is the most obvious form of nonbeing, which can object, because it enables them to see that their
also be experienced as retreat from life's intentions are a function of both themselves and their
experiences. environment.

The Case of Philip Care, Love, and Will


Rollo May helped illustrate his notion of existentialism Care is an active process that suggests that things matter.
with the case of Philip, a successful architect in his mid- Love means to care, to delight in the presence of another
50s. Despite his apparent success, Philip experienced person, and to affirm that person's value as much as one's
severe anxiety when his relationship with Nicole (a writer own. Care is also an important ingredient in will, defined
in her mid-40s) took a puzzling turn. Uncertain of his as a conscious commitment to action.
future and suffering from low self-esteem, Philip went
into therapy with Rollo May. Eventually, Philip was able to Union of Love and Will
understand that his difficulties with women were related May believed that our modern society has lost
to his early experiences with a mother who was sight of the true nature of love and will, equating
unpredictable and an older sister who suffered from love with sex and will with will power. He further
severe mental disorders. However, he began to recover held that psychologically healthy people are able
only after he accepted that his "need" to take care of to combine love and will because both imply
unpredictable Nicole was merely part of his personal care, choice, action, and responsibility.
history with unstable women.
Forms of Love
Anxiety May identified four kinds of love in Western
People experience anxiety when they become aware that tradition: sex, eros, philia, and agape. May
their existence or something identified with it might be believed that Americans no longer view sex as a
destroyed. The acquisition of freedom inevitably leads to natural biological function, but have become
anxiety, which can be either pleasurable and constructive preoccupied with it to the point of trivialization.
or painful and destructive. Eros is a psychological desire that seeks an
enduring union with a loved one. It may include
Normal Anxiety sex, but it is built on care and tenderness. Philia,
Growth produces normal anxiety, defined as that an intimate nonsexual friendship between two
which is proportionate to the threat, does not people, takes time to develop and does not
involve repression, and can be handled on a depend on the actions of the other person.
conscious level. Agape is an altruistic or spiritual love that carries
with it the risk of playing God. Agape is
Neurotic Anxiety undeserved and unconditional.
Neurotic anxiety is a reaction that is
disproportionate to the threat and that leads to Freedom and Destiny
repression and defensive behaviors. It is felt Psychologically healthy individuals are comfortable with
whenever one's values are transformed into freedom, able to assume responsibility for their choices,
dogma. Neurotic anxiety blocks growth and and willing to face their destiny.
productive action
Freedom Defined
Guilt Freedom comes from an understanding of our
Guilt arises whenever people deny their potentialities, fail destiny. We are free when we recognize that
to accurately perceive the needs of others, or remain death is a possibility at any moment and when
blind to their dependence on the natural world. Both we are willing to experience changes, even in the
anxiety and guilt are ontological; that is, they refer to the face of not knowing what those changes will
nature of being and not to feelings arising from specific bring.
situations.
Forms of Freedom
May recognized two forms of freedom: (1)
freedom of doing, or freedom of action, which he
called existential freedom, and (2) freedom of much research. Nevertheless, Jeff Greenberg and his
being, or an inner freedom, which he called colleagues have investigated the concept of terror
essential freedom. management, which is based on the notion of existential
anxiety. In general, Greenberg's findings are consistent
Destiny Defined with May's definition of existential anxiety as an
May defined destiny as "the design of the apprehension of threats to one's existence. However, this
universe speaking through the design of each one research can also be explained by other psychological
of us." In other words, our destiny includes the theories.
limitations of our environment and our personal
qualities, including our mortality, gender, and Critique of May
genetic predispositions. Freedom and destiny May's psychology has been legitimately criticized as being
constitute a paradox, because freedom gains antitheoretical and unjustly criticized as being anti-
vitality from destiny, and destiny gains intellectual. May's antitheoretical approach calls for a new
significance from freedom. kind of science-one that considers uniqueness and
personal freedom as crucial concepts. However, according
Philip's Destiny to the criteria of present science, May's theory rates low
After some time in therapy, Philip was able to on most standards. Currently, his theory is very low on
stop blaming his mother for not doing what he its ability to generate research, to be falsified, and to
thought she should have done. The objective guide action; low on internal consistency (because it lacks
facts of his childhood had not changed, but operationally defined terms), average on parsimony, and
Philip's subjective perceptions had. As he came to high on its organizational powers due to its consideration
terms with his destiny, Philip began to be able to of a broad scope of the human condition.
express his anger, to feel less trapped in his
relationship with Nicole, and to become more Concept of Humanity
aware of his possibilities. In other words, he May viewed people as complex beings, capable of both
gained his freedom of being. tremendous good and immense evil. People have become
alienated from the world, from other people, and, most of
The Power of Myth all, from themselves. On the dimensions of a concept of
According to May, the people of contemporary Western humanity, May rates high on free choice, teleology, social
civilization have an urgent need for myths. Because they influences, and uniqueness. On the issue of conscious or
have lost many of their traditional myths, they turn to unconscious forces, his theory takes a middle position.
religious cults, drugs, and popular culture to fill the
vacuum. The Oedipus myth has had a powerful effect on
our culture because it deals with such common existential
crises as birth, separation from parents, sexual union with
one parent and hostility toward the other, independence
in one's search for identity, and, finally, death.

Psychopathology
May saw apathy and emptiness-not anxiety and guilt-as
the chief existential disorders of our time. People have
become alienated from the natural world (Umwelt), from
other people (Mitwelt), and from themselves (Eigenwelt).
Psychopathology is a lack of connectedness and an
inability to fulfill one's destiny.

Psychotherapy
The goal of May's psychotherapy was not to cure patients
of any specific disorder, but to make them more fully
human. May said that the purpose of psychotherapy is to
set people free, to allow them to make choices and to
assume responsibility for those choices.

Related Research
May's theory of personality does not lend itself to easily
testable hypotheses, and, therefore, it has not generated

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