Trait Theories

13-13 How do psychologists use traits to describe personality?

Rather than focusing on unconscious forces and thwarted growth opportunities, some researchers attempt to define personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns, such as Lady Gaga’s openness to new experiences and her self-discipline. This perspective can be traced in part to a remarkable meeting in 1919, when Gordon Allport, a curious 22-year-old psychology student, interviewed Sigmund Freud in Vienna. Allport soon discovered just how preoccupied the founder of psychoanalysis was with finding hidden motives, even in Allport’s own behavior during the interview. That experience ultimately led Allport to do what Freud did not do—to describe personality in terms of fundamental traits—people’s characteristic behaviors and conscious motives (such as the curiosity that actually motivated Allport to see Freud). Meeting Freud, said Allport, “taught me that [psychoanalysis], for all its merits, may plunge too deep, and that psychologists would do well to give full recognition to manifest motives before probing the unconscious.” Allport came to define personality in terms of identifiable behavior patterns. He was concerned less with explaining individual traits than with describing them.

Exploring Traits

Classifying people as one or another distinct personality type fails to capture their full individuality. We are each a unique complex of multiple traits. So how else could we describe our personalities? We might describe an apple by placing it along several trait dimensions—relatively large or small, red or green, sweet or sour. By placing people on several trait dimensions simultaneously, psychologists can describe countless individual personality variations. (Remember from Chapter 6 that variations on just three color dimensions—hue, saturation, and brightness—create many thousands of colors.)

What trait dimensions describe personality? If you had an upcoming blind date, what personality traits might give you an accurate sense of the person? Allport and his associate H. S. Odbert (1936) counted all the words in an unabridged dictionary with which one could describe people. There were almost 18,000! How, then, could psychologists condense the list to a manageable number of basic traits?

FACTOR ANALYSIS One technique is factor analysis, a statistical procedure that has been used to identify clusters (factors) of test items that tap basic components of a trait, such as intelligence (spatial ability or verbal skill). Imagine that people who describe themselves as outgoing also tend to say that they like excitement and practical jokes and dislike quiet reading. Such a statistically correlated cluster of behaviors reflects a basic factor, or trait—in this case, extraversion.

British psychologists Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenck [EYE-zink] believed that we can reduce many of our normal individual variations to two or three dimensions, including extraversion-introversion and emotional stability–-instability (FIGURE 13.3). People in 35 countries around the world, from China to Uganda to Russia, have taken the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. When their answers were analyzed, the extraversion and emotionality factors inevitably emerged as basic personality dimensions (Eysenck, 1990, 1992). The Eysencks believed, and research confirms, that these factors are genetically influenced.

BIOLOGY AND PERSONALITY Brain-activity scans of extraverts add to the growing list of traits and mental states now being explored with brain-imaging procedures. Such studies indicate that extraverts seek stimulation because their normal brain arousal is relatively low. For example, PET scans have shown that a frontal lobe area involved in behavior inhibition is less active in extraverts than in introverts (Johnson et al., 1999). Dopamine and dopamine-related neural activity tend to be higher in extraverts (Kim et al., 2008; Wacker et al., 2006).

Our biology influences our personality in other ways as well. As you may recall from the twin and adoption studies in Chapter 2, our genes have much to say about the temperament and behavioral style that help define our personality. Children’s shyness and inhibition may differ as an aspect of autonomic nervous system reactivity: Those with a reactive autonomic nervous system respond to stress with greater anxiety and inhibition (Kagan, 2010) (see Thinking Critically About: The Stigma of Introversion). The fearless, curious child may become the rock-climbing or fast-driving adult.

Personality differences among dogs (in energy, affection, reactivity, and curious intelligence) are as evident, and as consistently judged, as personality differences among humans (Gosling et al., 2003; Jones & Gosling, 2005). Monkeys, chimpanzees, orangutans, and even birds also have stable personalities (Weiss et al., 2006). Among the Great Tit (a European relative of the American chickadee), bold birds more quickly inspect new objects and explore trees (Groothuis & Carere, 2005; Verbeek et al., 1994). By selective breeding, researchers can produce bold or shy birds. Both have their place in natural history: In lean years, bold birds are more likely to find food; in abundant years, shy birds feed with less risk.

Assessing Traits

13-15 What are personality inventories, and what are their strengths and weaknesses as trait-assessment tools?

If stable and enduring traits guide our actions, can we devise valid and reliable tests of them? Several trait-assessment techniques exist—some more valid than others. Some provide quick assessments of a single trait, such as extraversion, anxiety, or self-esteem. Personality inventories—longer questionnaires covering a wide range of feelings and behaviors—assess several traits at once.

The classic personality inventory is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Although the MMPI was originally developed to identify emotional disorders, it also assesses people’s personality traits. One of its creators, Starke Hathaway (1960), compared his effort with that of Alfred Binet. Binet, as you may recall from Chapter 9, developed the first intelligence test by selecting items that identified children who would probably have trouble progressing normally in French schools. Like Binet’s items, the MMPI items were empirically derived: From a large pool of items, Hathaway and his colleagues selected those on which particular diagnostic groups differed. “Nothing in the newspaper interests me except the comics” may seem senseless, but it just so happened that depressed people were more likely to answer True. The researchers grouped the questions into 10 clinical scales, including scales that assess depressive tendencies, masculinity–femininity, and introversion–extraversion. Today’s MMPI-2 has additional scales that assess work attitudes, family problems, and anger.

Whereas most projective tests are scored subjectively, personality inventories are scored objectively. (Software can administer and score these tests, and can also provide descriptions of people who previously responded similarly.) Objectivity does not, however, guarantee validity. Individuals taking the MMPI for employment purposes can give socially desirable answers to create a good impression. But in so doing they may also score high on a lie scale that assesses faking (as when people respond False to a universally true statement, such as “I get angry sometimes”). The objectivity of the MMPI has contributed to its popularity and to its translation into more than 100 languages.

The Big Five Factors

13-16 Which traits seem to provide the most useful information about personality variation?

Today’s trait researchers believe that simple trait factors, such as the Eysencks’ introversion–extraversion and stability–instability dimensions, are important, but they do not tell the whole story. A slightly expanded set of factors—dubbed the Big Five—does a better job (Costa & McCrae, 2011). If a test specifies where you are on the five dimensions (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion; see TABLE 13.3), it has said much of what there is to say about your personality. Around the world—across 56 nations and 29 languages in one study (Schmitt et al., 2007)—people describe others in terms roughly consistent with this list. The Big Five may not be the last word. Some researchers report that basic personality dimensions can be described by only one or two or three factors (such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion) (Block, 2010; De Raad et al., 2010). But for now, at least, five is the winning number in the personality lottery (Heine & Buchtel, 2009; McCrae, 2009). To find out how your personality measures up, try the brief self-assessment in FIGURE 13.4.

The Big Five is currently our best approximation of the basic trait dimensions. This “common currency for personality psychology” (Funder, 2001) has been the most active personality research topic since the early 1990s, as researchers have explored these questions and more:

By exploring such questions, Big Five research has sustained trait psychology and renewed appreciation for the importance of personality. Traits matter.

Evaluating Trait Theories

13-17 Does research support the consistency of personality traits over time and across situations?

Are our personality traits stable and enduring? Or does our behavior depend on where and with whom we find ourselves? In some ways, our personality seems stable. Cheerful, friendly children tend to become cheerful, friendly adults. At a recent college reunion, I [DM] was amazed to find that my jovial former classmates were still jovial, the shy ones still shy, the happy-seeming people still smiling and laughing—50 years later. But it’s also true that a fun-loving jokester can suddenly turn serious and respectful at a job interview. And the personality traits we express can change from one situation to another. Major life events, such as becoming unemployed, can shift our personality from agreeable to slightly rude (Boyce et al., 2015).

THE PERSON-SITUATION CONTROVERSY Our behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner disposition with our environment. Still, the question lingers: Which is more important? When we explore this person-situation controversy, we look for genuine personality traits that persist over time and across situations. Are some people dependably conscientious and others unreliable? Some cheerful and others dour? Some friendly and outgoing and others shy? If we are to consider friendliness a trait, friendly people must act friendly at different times and places. Do they?

In considering research that has followed lives through time, some scholars (especially those who study infants) are impressed with personality change; others are struck by personality stability during adulthood. As FIGURE 13.5 illustrates, data from 152 long-term studies reveal that personality trait scores are positively correlated with scores obtained seven years later, and that as people grow older their personality stabilizes. Interests may change—the avid tropical-fish collector may become an avid gardener. Careers may change—the determined salesperson may become a determined social worker. Relationships may change—the hostile spouse may start over with a new partner. But most people recognize their traits as their own, as Robert McCrae and Paul Costa noted (1994), “and it is well that they do. A person’s recognition of the inevitability of his or her one and only personality is . . . the culminating wisdom of a lifetime.”

So most people—including most psychologists—would probably presume the stability of personality traits. Moreover, our traits are socially significant. They influence our health, our thinking, and our job choices and performance (Deary & Matthews, 1993; Hogan, 1998; Jackson et al., 2012; Sutin et al., 2011). Studies that follow lives through time show that personality traits rival socioeconomic status and cognitive ability as predictors of mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment (Roberts et al., 2007).

Any of these tendencies, taken to an extreme, become maladaptive. Agreeableness ranges from cynical combativeness at its low extreme to gullible subservience at its high extreme. Conscientiousness ranges from irresponsible negligence to workaholic perfectionism (Widiger & Costa, 2012).

Although our personality traits may be both stable and potent, the consistency of our specific behaviors from one situation to the next is another matter. As Walter Mischel (1968, 2009) has pointed out, people do not act with predictable consistency. Mischel’s studies of college students’ conscientiousness revealed only a modest relationship between a student’s being conscientious on one occasion (say, showing up for class on time) and being similarly conscientious on another occasion (say, turning in assignments on time). If you’ve noticed how outgoing you are in some situations and how reserved you are in others, perhaps you’re not surprised.

This inconsistency in behaviors also makes personality test scores weak predictors of behaviors. People’s scores on an extraversion test, for example, do not neatly predict how sociable they actually will be on any given occasion. If we remember this, says Mischel, we will be more cautious about labeling and pigeonholing individuals. Years in advance, science can tell us the phase of the Moon for any given date. A day in advance, meteorologists can often predict the weather. But we are much further from being able to predict how you will feel and act tomorrow.

However, people’s average outgoingness, happiness, or carelessness over many situations is predictable (Epstein, 1983a,b). People who know someone well, therefore, generally agree when rating that person’s shyness or agreeableness (Jackson et al., 2015; Kenrick & Funder, 1988). The predictability of average behavior across many situations was again confirmed when researchers collected snippets of people’s daily experience via body-worn recording devices: Extraverts really do talk more (Mehl et al., 2006). (I [DM] have repeatedly vowed to cut back on my jabbering and joking during my noontime pickup basketball games with friends. Alas, moments later, the irrepressible chatterbox inevitably reoccupies my body. And I [ND] have a similar experience each time I try to stay quiet in taxis. Somehow, I always end up chatting with the driver!) As our best friends can verify, we do have genetically influenced personality traits. And those traits even lurk, report Samuel Gosling and his colleagues in a series of studies, in our

In unfamiliar, formal situations—perhaps as a guest in the home of a person from another culture—our traits remain hidden as we carefully attend to social cues. In familiar, informal situations—just hanging out with friends—we feel less constrained, allowing our traits to emerge (Buss, 1989). In these informal situations, our expressive styles—our animation, manner of speaking, and gestures—are impressively consistent. Viewing “thin slices” of someone’s behavior—such as seeing a photo for a mere fraction of a second or seeing three, 2-second clips of a teacher in action—can tell us a lot about the person’s basic personality traits (Ambady, 2010; Rule et al., 2009).

To sum up, we can say that at any moment the immediate situation powerfully influences a person’s behavior. Social psychologists have learned that this is especially so when a “strong situation” makes clear demands (Cooper & Withey, 2009). We can better predict drivers’ behavior at traffic lights from knowing the color of the lights than from knowing the drivers’ personalities. Averaging our behavior across many occasions does, however, reveal distinct personality traits. Traits exist. We differ. And our differences matter.

13-18 How do social-cognitive theorists view personality development, and how do they explore behavior?

The social-cognitive perspective on personality, proposed by Albert Bandura (1986, 2006, 2008), emphasizes the interaction of our traits with our situations. Much as nature and nurture always work together, so do individuals and their situations.

Social-cognitive theorists believe we learn many of our behaviors either through conditioning or by observing and imitating others. (That’s the “social” part.) They also emphasize the importance of mental processes: What we think about a situation affects our behavior in that situation. (That’s the “cognitive” part.) Instead of focusing solely on how our environment controls us (behaviorism), social-cognitive theorists focus on how we and our environment interact: How do we interpret and respond to external events? How do our schemas, our memories, and our expectations influence our behavior patterns?

Reciprocal Influences

Bandura (1986, 2006) views the person-environment interaction as reciprocal determinism. “Behavior, internal personal factors, and environmental influences,” he said, “all operate as interlocking determinants of each other” (FIGURE 13.6). We can see this interaction in people’s relationships. For example, Rosa’s romantic history (past behavior) influences her attitudes toward new relationships (internal factor), which affects how she now responds to Ryan (environmental factor).

Consider three specific ways in which individuals and environments interact:

In addition to the interaction of internal personal factors, the environment, and our behaviors, we also experience gene-environment interaction. Our genetically influenced traits evoke certain responses from others, which may nudge us in one direction or another. In one classic study, those with the interacting factors of (1) having a specific gene associated with aggression and (2) being raised in a difficult environment were most likely to demonstrate adult antisocial behavior (Caspi et al., 2002).

In such ways, we are both the products and the architects of our environments: Behavior emerges from the interplay of external and internal influences. Boiling water turns an egg hard and a potato soft. A threatening environment turns one person into a hero, another into a scoundrel. Extraverts enjoy greater well-being in an extraverted culture than in an introverted one (Fulmer et al., 2010). At every moment, our behavior is influenced by our biology, our social and cultural experiences, and our cognition and dispositions (FIGURE 13.7).

Assessing Behavior in Situations

To predict behavior, social-cognitive psychologists often observe behavior in realistic situations. One ambitious example was the U.S. Army’s World War II strategy for assessing candidates for spy missions. Rather than using paper-and-pencil tests, Army psychologists subjected the candidates to simulated undercover conditions. They tested their ability to handle stress, solve problems, maintain leadership, and withstand intense interrogation without blowing their cover. Although time-consuming and expensive, this assessment of behavior in a realistic situation helped predict later success on actual spy missions (OSS Assessment Staff, 1948).

Military and educational organizations and many Fortune 500 companies have adopted assessment center strategies (Bray et al., 1991, 1997; Eurich et al., 2009). AT&T has observed prospective managers doing simulated managerial work. Many colleges assess students’ potential via internships and student teaching, and assess potential faculty members’ teaching abilities by observing them teach. Most American cities with populations of 50,000 or more have used assessment centers in evaluating police officers and firefighters (Lowry, 1997).

Assessment center exercises have some limitations. They are more revealing of visible dimensions, such as communication ability, than of others, such as inner achievement drive (Bowler & Woehr, 2006). Nevertheless, these procedures exploit a valid principle: The best means of predicting future behavior is neither a personality test nor an interviewer’s intuition; rather, it is the person’s past behavior patterns in similar situations (Lyons et al., 2011; Mischel, 1981; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). As long as the situation and the person remain much the same, the best predictor of future job performance is past job performance; the best predictor of future grades is past grades; the best predictor of future aggressiveness is past aggressiveness. If you can’t check the person’s past behavior, the next best thing is to create an assessment situation that simulates the task so you can see how the person handles it (Lievens et al., 2009; Meriac et al., 2008).

Evaluating Social-Cognitive Theories

13-19 What criticisms have social-cognitive theorists faced?

Social-cognitive theories of personality sensitize researchers to how situations affect, and are affected by, individuals. More than other personality theories (see TABLE 13.4), they build from psychological research on learning and cognition.

Critics charge that social-cognitive theories focus so much on the situation that they fail to appreciate the person’s inner traits. Where is the person in this view of personality, ask the dissenters, and where are human emotions? True, the situation does guide our behavior. But, say the critics, in many instances our unconscious motives, our emotions, and our pervasive traits shine through. Personality traits have been shown to predict behavior at work, love, and play. Our biologically influenced traits really do matter. Consider Percy Ray Pridgen and Charles Gill. Each faced the same situation: They had jointly won a $90 million lottery jackpot (Harriston, 1993). When Pridgen learned of the winning numbers, he began trembling uncontrollably, huddled with a friend behind a bathroom door while confirming the win, then sobbed. When Gill heard the news, he told his wife and then went to sleep.

13-20 Why has psychology generated so much research on the self? How important is self-esteem to our well-being?

Psychology’s concern with people’s sense of self dates back at least to William James, who devoted more than 100 pages of his 1890 Principles of Psychology to the topic. By 1943, Gordon Allport lamented that the self had become “lost to view.” Although humanistic psychology’s later emphasis on the self did not instigate much scientific research, it did help renew the concept of self and keep it alive. Now, more than a century after James, the self is one of Western psychology’s most vigorously researched topics. Every year, new studies galore appear on self-esteem, self-disclosure, self-awareness, self-schemas, self-monitoring, and more. Even neuroscientists have searched for the self, by identifying a central frontal lobe region that activates when people respond to self-reflective questions about their traits and dispositions (Damasio, 2010; Mitchell, 2009; Pauly et al., 2013). Underlying all this research is an assumption that the self, as organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, is the center of personality.

One example of thinking about self is the concept of possible selves (Cross & Markus, 1991; Markus & Nurius, 1986). Your possible selves include your visions of the self you dream of becoming—the rich self, the successful self, the loved and admired self. Your possible selves also include the self you fear becoming—the unemployed self, the academically failed self, the lonely and unpopular self. Possible selves motivate us to lay out specific goals that direct our energy effectively and efficiently (Landau et al, 2014). High school students enrolled in a gifted program for math and science were more likely to become scientists if they had a clear vision of themselves as successful scientists (Buday et al., 2012). Dreams do often give birth to achievements.

Our self-focused perspective may motivate us, but it can also lead us to presume too readily that others are noticing and evaluating us. Most of them aren’t. Thomas Gilovich has demonstrated this spotlight effect. He and his colleagues found that fewer people than we presume actually notice our dorky clothes, bad hair, nervousness, or irritation (Gilovich & Savitsky, 1999). Others are also less aware than we suppose of the variability—the ups and downs—of our appearance and performance (Gilovich et al., 2002). Even after a blunder (setting off a library alarm, showing up in the wrong clothes), we stick out like a sore thumb less than we imagine (Savitsky et al., 2001). To turn down the brightness of the spotlight, we can use two strategies. The first is simply knowing about the spotlight effect. Public speakers perform better if they understand that their natural nervousness is not obvious (Savitsky & Gilovich, 2003). The second is to take the audience’s perspective. When we imagine audience members empathizing with our situation, we tend to expect we will not be judged as harshly (Epley et al., 2002).

The Benefits of Self-Esteem

Self-esteem—our feelings of high or low self-worth—is important. So also is self-efficacy, our sense of competence on a task. A person with high self-esteem will strongly agree with self-affirming questionnaire statements such as, “I am fun to be with,” or “I have good ideas.” A person with low self-esteem responds to these statements with qualifying adjectives, such as somewhat or sometimes.

High self-esteem pays dividends. People who feel good about themselves have fewer sleepless nights. They are less likely to give in to pressures to conform. They make more positive Facebook posts, causing others to like them more (Forest & Wood, 2012). They are more persistent at difficult tasks, and they are less shy, anxious, and lonely. They try harder to shake their bad moods because they think they deserve better (Wood et al., 2009). And they are more successful and just plain happier (Greenberg, 2008; Orth & Robins, 2014).

But is high self-esteem the horse or the cart? Is it really “the armor that protects kids” from life’s problems (McKay, 2000)? Some psychologists have had their doubts (Baumeister, 2006, 2015; Dawes, 1994; Leary, 1999; Seligman, 1994, 2002). Children’s academic self-efficacy—their confidence that they can do well in a subject—predicts school achievement, but their general self-image does not (Marsh & Craven, 2006; Swann et al., 2007; Trautwein et al., 2006). Maybe self-esteem simply reflects reality. Maybe it’s a side effect of meeting challenges and surmounting difficulties. Maybe self-esteem is a gauge that reads out the state of our relationships with others. If so, isn’t pushing the gauge artificially higher with empty compliments much like forcing a car’s low fuel gauge to display “full”?

If feeling good follows doing well, then giving praise in the absence of good performance may actually harm people. After receiving weekly self-esteem-boosting messages, struggling students earned lower-than-expected grades (Forsyth et al., 2007). Other research showed that giving people random rewards hurt their productivity. Martin Seligman (2012) reported that “when good things occurred that weren’t earned, like nickels coming out of slot machines, it did not increase people’s well-being. It produced helplessness. People gave up and became passive.”

Experiments have revealed an effect of low self-esteem. When researchers temporarily deflated participants’ self-image (by telling them they did poorly on an aptitude test or by disparaging their personality), those participants became more likely to disparage others or to express heightened racial prejudice (vanDellen et al., 2011; van Dijk et al., 2011; Ybarra, 1999). Self-image threat even increases unconscious racial bias (Allen & Sherman, 2011). In other studies, people who were negative about themselves also tended to be oversensitive and judgmental (Baumgardner et al., 1989; Pelham, 1993). Self-esteem threats also lead people to spend more time with their online profiles—safe havens in which to rebuild their self-worth (Toma & Hancock, 2013). Such findings are consistent with humanistic psychology’s presumption that a healthy self-image is essential. Accept yourself and you’ll find it easier to accept others. Disparage yourself and you will be prone to the floccinaucinihilipilification¹ of others. Said more simply, people who are down on themselves tend to be down on others. Some people “love their neighbors as themselves”; others loathe their neighbors as themselves.

Self-Serving Bias

13-21 What evidence reveals self-serving bias, and how do defensive and secure self-esteem differ?

Imagine dashing to class, hoping not to miss the first few minutes. But you arrive five minutes late, huffing and puffing. As you sink into your seat, what sorts of thoughts go through your mind? Do you go through a negative door, with thoughts such as, “I hate myself” and “I’m a loser”? Or do you go through a positive door, saying to yourself, “At least I made it to class” and “I really tried to get here on time”?

Personality psychologists have found that most people choose the second door, which leads to positive self-thoughts. We have a good reputation with ourselves. We show a self-serving bias—a readiness to perceive ourselves favorably (Myers, 2010). Consider:

People accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, and for successes than for failures. Athletes often privately credit their victories to their own prowess, and their losses to bad breaks, lousy officiating, or the other team’s exceptional performance. Most students who receive poor grades on an exam criticize the test, not themselves. Drivers filling out insurance forms explain their accidents in such words as “As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision, and I did not see the other car” and “A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.” The question “What have I done to deserve this?” is one we usually ask of our troubles, not our successes. Although a self-serving bias can lead us to avoid uncomfortable truths, it can also motivate us to approach difficult tasks with confidence instead of despair (Tomaka et al., 1992; von Hippel & Trivers, 2011).

Most people see themselves as better than average. Compared with most other people, how nice are you? How appealing are you as a friend or romantic partner? Where would you rank yourself from the 1st to the 99th percentile? Most people put themselves well above the 50th percentile. This better-than-average effect appears for nearly any subjectively assessed and socially desirable behavior. Some examples:

The self-serving bias reflects an overestimation of ourselves as well as a desire to maintain a positive self-view (Brown, 2012; Epley & Dunning, 2000). This phenomenon is less striking in Asia, where people value modesty (Falk et al., 2009; Heine & Hamamura, 2007). Yet self-serving biases have been observed worldwide: In every one of 53 countries surveyed, people expressed self-esteem above the midpoint of the most widely used scale (Schmitt & Allik, 2005).

Ironically, people even see themselves as more immune than others to self-serving bias (Pronin, 2007). That’s right, people believe they are above average at not believing they are above average. (Isn’t psychology fun?) The world, it seems, is Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon writ large—a place where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

Finding their self-esteem threatened, people with large egos may react violently. Researchers Brad Bushman and Roy Baumeister (1998; Bushman et al., 2009) had undergraduate volunteers write a brief essay, in response to which another supposed student gave them either praise (“Great essay!”) or stinging criticism (“One of the worst essays I have read!”). Then the essay writers played a reaction-time game against the other student. After wins, they could assault their opponent with noise of any intensity for any duration.

Can you anticipate the result? After criticism, those with inflated self-esteem were “exceptionally aggressive.” They delivered three times the auditory torture of those with normal self-esteem. “Encouraging people to feel good about themselves when they haven’t earned it” poses problems, Baumeister (2001) concluded. “Conceited, self-important individuals turn nasty toward those who puncture their bubbles of self-love.”

Are self-serving perceptions on the rise in North America? Some researchers believe they are. From 1980 to 2007, popular song lyrics became more self-focused (DeWall et al., 2011). An analysis of 766,513 American books published between 1960 and 2008 showed a similar result: Self-focused words increased (Twenge et al., 2013). Surveys of over 9 million high school seniors and entering college students between 1966 and 2009 also found increasing interest in gaining money, fame, and prestige, and decreasing concern for others (Twenge et al., 2012).

Psychologist Jean Twenge has reported that narcissism—excessive self-love and self-absorption—has also been rising (2006; Twenge & Foster, 2010). After tracking self-importance across the last several decades, Twenge found that what she calls Generation Me (born in the 1980s and 1990s) is expressing more narcissism by agreeing more often with statements such as, “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place,” or “I think I am a special person.” What gives birth to narcissism? One ingredient is parents who tell their kids they are superior to others (Brummelman et al., 2015). Why does a rise in narcissism matter? Narcissists (more often men [Grijalva et al. 2015]) tend to be materialistic, desire fame, have inflated expectations, hook up more often without commitment, and gamble and cheat more—all of which have been increasing as narcissism has increased.

Some critics of the concept of self-serving bias claim that it overlooks those who feel worthless and unlovable: If self-serving bias prevails, why do so many people disparage themselves? For four reasons: (1) Self-directed put-downs can be subtly strategic—they elicit reassuring strokes. Saying “No one likes me” may at least elicit “But not everyone has met you!” (2) Before an important event, such as a game or an exam, self-disparaging comments prepare us for possible failure. The coach who extols the superior strength of the upcoming opponent makes a loss understandable, a victory noteworthy. (3) A self-disparaging “How could I have been so stupid!” can help us learn from our mistakes. (4) Self-disparagement frequently pertains to one’s old self. Asked to remember their really bad behaviors, people recall things from long ago; good behaviors more easily come to mind from their recent past (Escobedo & Adolphs, 2010). People are much more critical of their distant past selves than of their current selves—even when they have not changed (Wilson & Ross, 2001). “At 18, I was a jerk; today I’m more sensitive.” In their own eyes, chumps yesterday, champs today.

Even so, it’s true: All of us some of the time, and some of us much of the time, do feel inferior—especially when we compare ourselves with those who are a step or two higher on the ladder of status, looks, income, or ability. For example, Olympians who win silver medals, barely missing gold, show greater sadness on the awards podium compared with the bronze medal winners (Medvec et al., 1995). The deeper and more frequently we have such feelings, the more unhappy, even depressed, we are. But for most people, thinking has a naturally positive bias.

While recognizing the dark side of self-serving bias and self-esteem, some researchers prefer isolating the effects of two types of self-esteem—defensive and secure (Kernis, 2003; Lambird & Mann, 2006; Ryan & Deci, 2004). Defensive self-esteem is fragile. It focuses on sustaining itself, which makes failure and criticism feel threatening. Perceived threats feed anger and feelings of vulnerability (Crocker & Park, 2004).

Secure self-esteem is less fragile, because it is less contingent on external evaluations. Feeling accepted for who we are, and not for our looks, wealth, or acclaim, relieves pressures to succeed and enables us to focus beyond ourselves. By losing ourselves in relationships and purposes larger than self, we may achieve a more secure self-esteem, satisfying relationships, and greater quality of life (Crocker & Park, 2004). Authentic pride, rooted in actual achievement, supports self-confidence and leadership (Tracy et al., 2009; Weidman et al., in press; Williams & DeSteno, 2009).

Culture and the Self

13-22 How do individualist and collectivist cultures differ in their values and goals?

Our consideration of personality—of people’s characteristic ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—concludes with a look at cultural variations. Imagine that someone ripped away your social connections, making you a solitary refugee in a foreign land. How much of your identity would remain intact?

If you are an individualist, a great deal of your identity would survive. You would have an independent sense of “me,” and an awareness of your unique personal convictions and values. Individualists give higher priority to personal goals. They define their identity mostly in terms of personal traits. They strive for personal control and individual achievement.

Although people within cultures vary, different cultures emphasize either individualism or collectivism (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Individualism is valued in most areas of North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The United States is mostly an individualist culture. Founded by settlers who wanted to differentiate themselves from others, Americans have cherished the “pioneer” spirit (Kitayama et al., 2010). Some 85 percent of Americans say it is possible to “pretty much be who you want to be” (Sampson, 2000).

Individualists share the human need to belong. They join groups. But they are less focused on group harmony and doing their duty to the group (Brewer & Chen, 2007). Being more self-contained, individualists move in and out of social groups more easily. They feel relatively free to switch places of worship, change jobs, or even leave their extended families and migrate to a new place. Marriage is often for as long as they both shall love.

Individualists even prefer unusual names, as Jean Twenge noticed while seeking a name for her first child. Over time, the most common American names listed by year on the U.S. Social Security baby names website were becoming less desirable. An analysis of the first names of 325 million American babies born between 1880 and 2007 confirmed this trend (Twenge et al., 2010). As FIGURE 13.8 illustrates, the percentage of boys and girls given one of the 10 most common names for their birth year has plunged, especially in recent years. Even within the United States, parents from more recently settled states (for example, Utah and Arizona) give their children more distinct names compared with parents who live in more established states (for example, New York and Massachusetts) (Varnum & Kitayama, 2011).

If set adrift in a foreign land as a collectivist, you might experience a greater loss of identity. Cut off from family, groups, and loyal friends, you would lose the connections that have defined who you are. Group identifications provide a sense of belonging, a set of values, and an assurance of security in collectivist cultures. In return, collectivists have deeper, more stable attachments to their groups—their family, clan, or company. Elders receive great respect. In some collectivist cultures, disrespecting family elders violates the law. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly states that parents aged 60 or above can sue their sons and daughters if they fail to provide “for the elderly, taking care of them and comforting them, and cater[ing] to their special needs.”

Collectivists are like athletes who take more pleasure in their team’s victory than in their own performance. They find satisfaction in advancing their groups’ interests, even at the expense of personal needs. Preserving group spirit and avoiding social embarrassment are important goals. Collectivists therefore avoid direct confrontation, blunt honesty, and uncomfortable topics. They value humility, not self-importance (Bond et al., 2012). Instead of dominating conversations, collectivists hold back and display shyness when meeting strangers (Cheek & Melchoir, 1990). When the priority is “we,” not “me,” that individualized latte—“decaf, single shot, skinny, extra hot”—that feels so good to a North American might sound selfishly demanding in Seoul (Kim & Markus, 1999).

Within many countries, there are also distinct subcultures related to one’s religion, economic status, and region (Cohen, 2009). In China, greater collectivist thinking occurs in provinces that produce large amounts of rice, a difficult-to-grow crop that often involves cooperation between groups of people (Talhelm et al., 2014). In collectivist Japan, a spirit of individualism marks the “northern frontier” island of Hokkaido (Kitayama et al., 2006). And even in the most individualist countries, some people have collectivist values. But in general, people (especially men) in competitive, individualist cultures have more personal freedom, are less geographically bound to their families, enjoy more privacy, and take more pride in personal achievements (TABLE 13.5).

Sources: Information from Thomas Schoeneman (1994) and Harry Triandis (1994).

Individualism’s benefits may come at a cost. There has been more loneliness, divorce, homicide, and stress-related disease in individualist cultures (Popenoe, 1993; Triandis et al., 1988). Demands for more romance and personal fulfillment in marriage can subject relationships to more pressure (Dion & Dion, 1993). In one survey, “keeping romance alive” was rated as important to a good marriage by 78 percent of U.S. women but only 29 percent of Japanese women (American Enterprise, 1992). In China, love songs have often expressed enduring commitment and friendship (Rothbaum & Tsang, 1998): “We will be together from now on . . . I will never change from now to forever.”

What predicts change in one culture over time, or between differing cultures? Social history matters. In Western cultures, individualism and independence have been fostered by voluntary emigration, a capitalist economy, and a sparsely populated, challenging environment (Kitayama et al., 2009, 2010; Varnum et al., 2010). Might biology also play a role? In search of biological underpinnings to such cultural differences, a new subfield, cultural neuroscience, is studying how neurobiology and cultural traits influence each other (Chiao et al., 2013). One study compared collectivists’ and individualists’ brain activity when viewing other people in distress. The brain scans suggested that collectivists experienced greater emotional pain when exposed to others’ distress (Cheon et al., 2011). As we have seen in personality and beyond, we are biopsychosocial creatures.

Learning Objectives

Test Yourself by taking a moment to answer each of these Learning Objective Questions (repeated here from within the chapter). Research suggests that trying to answer these questions on your own will improve your long-term memory of the concepts (McDaniel et al., 2009).

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Terms and Concepts to Remember

Test yourself on these terms.

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Experience the Testing Effect

Test yourself repeatedly throughout your studies. This will not only help you figure out what you know and don’t know; the testing itself will help you learn and remember the information more effectively thanks to the testing effect.

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Use to create your personalized study plan, which will direct you to the resources that will help you most in .