14-10 How did humanistic psychologists view personality, and what was their goal in studying personality?

By the 1960s, some personality psychologists had become discontented with the sometimes bleak focus on drives and conflicts in psychodynamic theory and the mechanistic psychology of B. F. Skinner’s behaviorism (see Chapter 7). In contrast to Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on disorders born out of dark conflicts, these humanistic theorists focused on the ways people strive for self-determination and self-realization. In contrast to behaviorism’s scientific objectivity, they studied people through their own self-reported experiences and feelings.

Two pioneering theorists—Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) and Carl Rogers (1902–1987)—offered a third-force perspective that emphasized human potential.

Maslow proposed that we are motivated by a hierarchy of needs (Chapter 11). If our physiological needs are met, we become concerned with personal safety; if we achieve a sense of security, we then seek to love, to be loved, and to love ourselves; with our love needs satisfied, we seek self-esteem. Having achieved self-esteem, we ultimately seek self-actualization (the process of fulfilling our potential) and self-transcendence (meaning, purpose, and communion beyond the self).

Maslow (1970) developed his ideas by studying healthy, creative people rather than troubled clinical cases. He based his description of self-actualization on a study of those, such as Abraham Lincoln, who seemed notable for their rich and productive lives. Maslow reported that such people shared certain characteristics: They were self-aware and self-accepting, open and spontaneous, loving and caring, and not paralyzed by others’ opinions. Secure in their sense of who they were, their interests were problem-centered rather than self-centered. They focused their energies on a particular task, one they often regarded as their mission in life. Most enjoyed a few deep relationships rather than many superficial ones. Many had been moved by spiritual or personal peak experiences that surpassed ordinary consciousness.

These, said Maslow, are mature adult qualities found in those who have learned enough about life to be compassionate, to have outgrown their mixed feelings toward their parents, to have found their calling, to have “acquired enough courage to be unpopular, to be unashamed about being openly virtuous.” Maslow’s work with college students led him to speculate that those likely to become self-actualizing adults were likable, caring, “privately affectionate to those of their elders who deserve it,” and “secretly uneasy about the cruelty, meanness, and mob spirit so often found in young people.”

Fellow humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers agreed with much of Maslow’s thinking. Rogers’ person-centered perspective held that people are basically good and are endowed with self-actualizing tendencies. Unless thwarted by an environment that inhibits growth, each of us is like an acorn, primed for growth and fulfillment. Rogers (1980) believed that a growth-promoting climate required three conditions.

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Genuineness, acceptance, and empathy are, Rogers believed, the water, sun, and nutrients that enable people to grow like vigorous oak trees. For “as persons are accepted and prized, they tend to develop a more caring attitude toward themselves” (Rogers, 1980, p. 116). As persons are empathically heard, “it becomes possible for them to listen more accurately to the flow of inner experiencings.”

Writer Calvin Trillin (2006) recalled an example of parental genuineness and acceptance at a camp for children with severe disorders, where his wife, Alice, worked. L., a “magical child,” had genetic diseases that meant she had to be tube-fed and could walk only with difficulty. Alice recalled,

One day, when we were playing duck-duck-goose, I was sitting behind her and she asked me to hold her mail for her while she took her turn to be chased around the circle. It took her a while to make the circuit, and I had time to see that on top of the pile [of mail] was a note from her mom. Then I did something truly awful…. I simply had to know what this child’s parents could have done to make her so spectacular, to make her the most optimistic, most enthusiastic, most hopeful human being I had ever encountered. I snuck a quick look at the note, and my eyes fell on this sentence: “If God had given us all of the children in the world to choose from, L., we would only have chosen you.” Before L. got back to her place in the circle, I showed the note to Bud, who was sitting next to me. “Quick. Read this,” I whispered. “It’s the secret of life.”

Maslow and Rogers would have smiled knowingly. For them, a central feature of personality is one’s self-concept—all the thoughts and feelings we have in response to the question, “Who am I?” If our self-concept is positive, we tend to act and perceive the world positively. If it is negative—if in our own eyes we fall far short of our ideal self—said Rogers, we feel dissatisfied and unhappy. A worthwhile goal for therapists, parents, teachers, and friends is therefore, he said, to help others know, accept, and be true to themselves.

14-11 How did humanistic psychologists assess a person’s sense of self?

Humanistic psychologists sometimes assessed personality by asking people to fill out questionnaires that would evaluate their self-concept. One questionnaire, inspired by Carl Rogers, asked people to describe themselves both as they would ideally like to be and as they actually are. When the ideal and the actual self are nearly alike, said Rogers, the self-concept is positive. Assessing his clients’ personal growth during therapy, he looked for successively closer ratings of actual and ideal selves.

Some humanistic psychologists believed that any standardized assessment of personality, even a questionnaire, is depersonalizing. Rather than forcing the person to respond to narrow categories, these humanistic psychologists presumed that interviews and intimate conversation would provide a better understanding of each person’s unique experiences.

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14-12 How have humanistic theories influenced psychology? What criticisms have they faced?

One thing said of Freud can also be said of the humanistic psychologists: Their impact has been pervasive. Maslow’s and Rogers’ ideas have influenced counseling, education, child raising, and management. And they laid the groundwork for today’s scientific positive psychology (Chapter 12).

They have also influenced—sometimes in unintended ways—much of today’s popular psychology. Is a positive self-concept the key to happiness and success? Do acceptance and empathy nurture positive feelings about oneself? Are people basically good and capable of self-improvement? Many people answer Yes, Yes, and Yes. In 2006, U.S. high school students reported notably higher self-esteem and greater expectations of future career success than did students living in 1975 (Twenge & Campbell, 2008). Given a choice, today’s North American collegians mostly say they’d rather get a self-esteem boost, such as a compliment or good grade on a paper, than enjoy a favorite food or sexual activity (Bushman et al., 2011). Humanistic psychology’s message has been heard.

The prominence of the humanistic perspective set off a backlash of criticism. First, said the critics, its concepts are vague and subjective. Consider Maslow’s description of self-actualizing people as open, spontaneous, loving, self-accepting, and productive. Is this a scientific description? Or is it merely a description of the theorist’s own values and ideals? Maslow, noted M. Brewster Smith (1978), offered impressions of his own personal heroes. Imagine another theorist who began with a different set of heroes—perhaps Napoleon, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and Donald Trump. This theorist would likely describe self-actualizing people as “undeterred by others’ needs and opinions,” “motivated to achieve,” and “comfortable with power.”

Critics also objected to the idea that, as Rogers put it, “The only question which matters is, ‘Am I living in a way which is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly expresses me?’” (quoted by Wallach & Wallach, 1985). This emphasis on individualism— trusting and acting on one’s feelings, being true to oneself, fulfilling oneself—could lead to self-indulgence, selfishness, and an erosion of moral restraint (Campbell & Specht, 1985; Wallach & Wallach, 1983). Imagine working on a group project with people who refuse to complete any task that is not deeply satisfying or does not truly express their identity.

Humanistic psychologists reply that a secure, nondefensive self-acceptance is actually the first step toward loving others. Indeed, people who feel intrinsically liked and accepted—for who they are, not just for their achievements—exhibit less defensive attitudes (Schimel et al., 2001). Those feeling liked and accepted by a romantic partner report being happier in their relationships and acting more kindly toward their partner (Gordon & Chen, 2010).

A final accusation leveled against humanistic psychology is that it is naive, that it fails to appreciate the reality of our human capacity for evil. Faced with climate change, overpopulation, terrorism, and the spread of nuclear weapons, we may become apathetic from either of two rationalizations. One is a starry-eyed optimism that denies the threat (“People are basically good; everything will work out”). The other is a dark despair (“It’s hopeless; why try?”). Action requires enough realism to fuel concern and enough optimism to provide hope. Humanistic psychology, say the critics, encourages the needed hope but not the equally necessary realism about evil.

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14-13 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.

Like Allport, Isabel Briggs Myers (1987) and her mother, Katharine Briggs, wanted to describe important personality differences. They attempted to sort people according to Carl Jung’s personality types, based on their responses to 126 questions. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), available in 30 languages, has been taken by more than 2 million people a year, mostly for counseling, leadership training, and work-team development (CPP, 2008). It offers choices, such as “Do you usually value sentiment more than logic, or value logic more than sentiment?” Then it counts the test-taker’s preferences, labels them as indicating, say, a “feeling type” or “thinking type,” and feeds them back to the person in complimentary terms. Feeling types, for example, are told they are “sympathetic, appreciative, and tactful”; thinking types are told they are “good at analyzing.” (Every type has its strengths, so everyone is affirmed.)

Most people agree with their announced type profile, which mirrors their declared preferences. They may also accept their label as a basis for being matched with work partners and tasks that supposedly suit their temperaments. But growing research suggests that people should not blindly accept the validity of their test results. A National Research Council report noted that despite the test’s popularity in business and career counseling, its initial use outran research on its value as a predictor of job performance, and “the popularity of this instrument in the absence of proven scientific worth is troublesome” (Druckman & Bjork, 1991, p. 101; see also Pittenger, 1993). Although research on the MBTI has been accumulating since those cautionary words were expressed, the test remains mostly a counseling and coaching tool, not a research instrument.

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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 also been used to identify clusters (factors) of test items that tap basic components of intelligence (such as 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 14.3). 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.

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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 show 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 4, our genes have much to say about the temperament and behavioral style that help define our personality. Jerome Kagan, for example, has attributed differences in children’s shyness and inhibition to their autonomic nervous system reactivity (see Thinking Critically About: The Stigma of Introversion). Those with a reactive autonomic nervous system respond to stress with greater anxiety and inhibition. 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 (Groot-huis & 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.

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14-15 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 to that of Alfred Binet. Binet, as you may recall from Chapter 10, 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. They then grouped the questions into 10 clinical scales, including scales that assess depressive tendencies, masculinity–femininity, and introversion–extraversion.

Hathaway and others initially gave hundreds of true-false statements (“No one seems to understand me”; “I get all the sympathy I should”; “I like poetry”) to groups of psychologically disordered patients and to “normal” people. They retained any statement—no matter how silly it sounded—on which the patient group’s answer differed from that of the normal group. “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. Today’s MMPI-2 also has scales assessing, for instance, work attitudes, family problems, and anger.

In contrast to the subjectivity of most projective tests, 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. For example, 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.

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14-16 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 14.3), 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 it takes only one or two or three factors—such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion—to describe the basic personality dimensions (Block, 2010; De Raad et al., 2010; Rushton & Irwing, 2011). But for now, at least, five is the winning number in the personality lottery (Heine & Buchtel, 2009; McCrae, 2009). The Big Five—today’s “common currency for personality psychology” (Funder, 2001)—has been the most active personality research topic since the early 1990s and is currently our best approximation of the basic trait dimensions.

Big Five research has explored various questions:

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

14-17 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. The personality traits we express can change from one situation to another.

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?

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In earlier chapters, we considered research that has followed lives through time. We noted that some scholars (especially those who study infants) are impressed with personality change; others are struck by personality stability during adulthood. As FIGURE 14.4 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 either 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 but 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 (though for certain traits, Mischel reports, you may accurately assess yourself as more consistent).

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 (Kenrick & Funder, 1988). By collecting snippets of people’s daily experience via body-worn recording devices, Matthias Mehl and his colleagues (2006) confirmed that extraverts really do talk more. A similar extraversion-talkativeness relationship was also found among Bolivian hunter-gathers (Gurven et al., 2013). (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

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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 video clips of a teacher in action—can tell us a lot about the person’s basic personality traits (Ambady, 2010; Rule et al., 2009).

Some people are naturally expressive (and therefore talented at pantomime and charades); others are less expressive (and therefore better poker players). To evaluate people’s voluntary control over their expressiveness, Bella DePaulo and her colleagues (1992) asked people to act as expressive or inhibited as possible while stating opinions. Their remarkable findings: Inexpressive people, even when feigning expressiveness, were less expressive than expressive people acting naturally. Similarly, expressive people, even when trying to seem inhibited, were less inhibited than inexpressive people acting naturally. It’s hard to be someone you’re not, or not to be who you are.

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. Thus, professors may perceive certain students as subdued (based on their classroom behavior), but friends may perceive them as pretty wild (based on their party behavior). Averaging our behavior across many occasions does, however, reveal distinct personality traits. Traits exist. We differ. And our differences matter.

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