570

Personality

.............

571

Lady Gaga dazzles millions with her unique musical arrangements, tantalizing outfits, and provocative performance theatrics. In shows around the world, Lady Gaga’s most predictable feature is her unpredictability. She has worn a meat dress to an award show, performed in a plastic bubble dress, and caused President Barack Obama to experience her, in her 16-inch heels, as “a little intimidating.”

Lady Gaga’s fans and critics alike can depend on her openness to new experiences and the energy she gets from the spotlight. But they can also rely on her careful, painstaking dedication to her music and performances. She describes herself in high school as “very dedicated, very studious, and very disciplined.” Now, in adulthood, she shows similar self-discipline: “I’m very detailed—every minute of the show has got to be perfect.”

Lady Gaga exhibits distinctive and enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Earlier chapters focused on the ways we all develop, perceive, learn, remember, think, and feel. This chapter emphasizes what makes us unique—our personality.

Much of this book deals with personality. Earlier chapters considered biological influences on personality; personality development across the life span; how personality relates to learning, motivation, emotion, and health; and social influences on personality. The next chapter will study disorders of personality. This chapter focuses on personality itself—what it is and how researchers study it.

We begin with two historically important theories of personality: Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and the humanistic approach. These sweeping perspectives on human nature laid the foundation for later personality theorists and for what this chapter presents next: newer scientific explorations of personality.

Today’s personality researchers study the basic dimensions of personality, and the interaction of persons and environments. They also study self-esteem, self-serving bias, and cultural influences on our concept of self—that sense of “Who I am.” And they study the unconscious mind—with findings that probably would have surprised even Freud.

572