We have thus far discussed the psychoanalytic theories of personality development, which emphasize the importance of factors beyond one’s control. You don’t get to choose the identity of your parents, the dynamics within your family, or the nature of your childhood conflicts. Nor do you have the ability to direct unconscious activities. If you’re looking for a perspective that emphasizes greater control and self-direction, humanism is a good alternative. According to this approach, the power is in your hands.

The humanistic perspective began gaining momentum in the 1960s and 1970s in response to the negative, mechanistic view of human nature apparent in other theories. According to the humanists, not only are we innately good, we are also in control of our destinies, and these positive aspects of human nature drive the development of personality. According to leading humanists Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, our natural tendency is to grow in a positive direction.

LO 6 Summarize Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and describe self-actualizers.

MASLOW AND PERSONALITY Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) is probably best-known for his theory of motivation. According to Maslow, human behaviors are motivated by biological and psychological needs. When a need is not being met, a state of tension motivates us to meet it, and this causes the tension to diminish. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains the organization of human needs, which are universal and ordered in terms of their strength (from basic physiological needs to self-actualization and self-transcendence). How does this relate to personality? If you recall, personality is the unique core set of characteristics that influence the way we think, act, and feel. Although we tend to respond to needs in a universal order, Maslow suggested that we all have the ability to reorder them. Maslow was particularly interested in self-actualizers, or people who are continually seeking to reach their fullest potential, one of the guiding principles of the humanistic perspective. Have a look at some of the attributes of self-actualizers presented in Table 10.3. Do you see any of them in yourself?

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LO 7 Discuss Rogers’ view of self-concept, ideal self, and unconditional positive regard.

ROGERS AND PERSONALITY Carl Rogers (1902–1987) was another humanist who had great faith in the essential goodness of people and their ability to make sound choices (Rogers, 1979). According to Rogers, we all have an innate urge to move toward situations and people that will help us grow and to avoid those with the potential to inhibit growth. He believed we should trust our ability to find happiness and mental balance, that is, to be fully functioning, and strive to really experience life, not just be passive participants. At the same time, we must also be sensitive to the needs of others.

Rogers highlighted the importance of self-concept, which refers to a person’s knowledge of her own strengths, abilities, behavior patterns, and temperament. Problems arise when a person’s self-concept is incongruent with, or does not correspond to, her experiences in the world (Rogers, 1959). If a woman believes she is kind and sociable but fails to get along with most people in her life, this incongruence will produce tension and confusion. Rogers also proposed that people often develop an ideal self, which is the self-concept a person fervently strives to achieve. Problems arise when the ideal self is unattainable or incongruent with one’s self-concept, a topic we will discuss further in Chapter 13 (Rogers, 1959).

Like Freud, Rogers believed caregivers play a vital role in the development of personality and self-concept. Ideally, caregivers should show unconditional positive regard, or total acceptance of a child regardless of her behavior. According to Rogers, people need to feel totally accepted and valued for who they are, not what they do. Caregivers who place too much emphasis on rules, morals, and values, ignoring a child’s innate goodness, can cause the child to experience conditions of worth. When our behaviors are judged to be bad or wrong, we feel unworthy, so we may try to please others by hiding or repressing these “unacceptable” behaviors and emotions. Seeking approval from others, we deny our true selves, and anxiety is ever-present in our lives. As caregivers, it is important to show children that we value them all the time, not just when they obey us and act the way we want them to. Of course, children behave in ways we dislike; but parents should love their children unconditionally, because it is the behavior that is unacceptable, not the child.

Let’s step back and review the potential weaknesses of the humanistic approach. For humanistic and psychoanalytic theories alike, creating operational definitions can be challenging. How can you use the experimental method to test a subjective approach whose concepts are open to interpretation (Schultz & Schultz, 2013)? Imagine submitting a research proposal that included two randomly assigned groups of children: one group whose parents were instructed to show them unconditional positive regard and the other group whose parents were told to instill conditions of worth. The proposal would never amount to a real study, not only because it raises ethical issues, but also because it would be impossible to control the experimental conditions. Another problem with unconditional positive regard in particular is that constantly praising, attempting to boost self-esteem, and withholding criticism can be counterproductive. In some cases, we run the risk of “fostering narcissism,” or another unproductive characteristic of elevated self-esteem such as aggression (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003). Finally, humanism almost completely ignores the negative aspects of human nature evident in war, greed, abuse, and aggression (Burger, 2011). And while it is important to recognize that humans have great potential to grow and move forward, we should not discount the developmental impact of early experiences. In spite of these weaknesses, the humanistic perspective has led to a less negative and more balanced view of human nature, influencing approaches to parenting, education, and psychotherapy. Its legacy is alive and well in the emerging field of positive psychology.

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LO 8 Use learning theories to explain personality development.

Behaviorists like B. F. Skinner were not interested in studying the thoughts and emotions typically equated with expressions of personality. They focused on measuring observable behaviors that they believed resulted from learning processes such as classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. From this perspective, personality is a collection of behaviors, all of which have been shaped through a lifetime of learning.

Let’s look at an example. Think of a friend or classmate who is very outgoing. A behaviorist would suggest she has been consistently reinforced to act this way. She gets positive attention, perhaps a promotion at work, and is surrounded by many friends, all of which reinforce her outgoing behavior. This characteristic, which psychologists might call “extraversion,” is just one of the many dimensions of personality molded by learning. Now apply the behaviorist principle to robots. Learning is the foundation for personality, and robots are capable of learning. Looking at things from this perspective, it seems plausible that robots could develop rudimentary personalities.

Like any theory of personality, behaviorism has limitations. Critics contend that behaviorism essentially ignores anything that is not directly observable and thus portrays humans too simplistically, as passive and unaware of what is going on in their internal and external environments. Julian Rotter (1916–2014) is one of the early social learning theorists who countered these weaknesses, suggesting that not all aspects of behavior and personality can be directly observed (Rotter, 1990). He proposed several important cognitive aspects of personality, including locus of control and expectancy.

LO 9 Summarize Rotter’s view of personality.

ROTTER AND PERSONALITY According to Rotter, a key component of personality is locus of control, a pattern of beliefs about where control or responsibility for outcomes resides. If a person has an internal locus of control, she believes that the causes of her life events generally reside within her, and that she has some control over them. For example, such a person would say that her career success depends on how hard she works, not on luck (Rotter, 1966). Someone with an external locus of control believes that causes for outcomes reside outside of him; he assigns great importance to luck, fate, and other features of the environment, over which he has little control. As this person sees it, getting a job occurs when all the circumstances are right and luck is on his side (Rotter, 1966). A person’s locus of control refers to beliefs about the self, not about others.

Rotter also explored how behaviors are influenced by thoughts about the future. Expectancy refers to the predictions we make about the outcomes and consequences of our behaviors (Infographic 10.2). A woman who is considering whether she should confront the manager of a restaurant over a bad meal will decide her next move based on her expectancy: Does she expect to be thrown out the door, or does she believe it will lead to a free meal? In these situations, there is an interaction among expectancies, behaviors, and environmental factors.

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LO 10 Discuss how Bandura uses the social-cognitive perspective to explain personality.

BANDURA AND PERSONALITY Another early critic of the behaviorist approach was Albert Bandura (1925–). Bandura rejected the notion that psychologists should only focus on observable behavior, and recognized the importance of cognition, reinforcers, and environmental factors (Bandura, 2006). This social-cognitive perspective suggests that personality results from patterns of thinking (cognitive) as well as relationships and other factors in the environment (social). Prior experiences have shaped, and will continue to shape, your personality. Cognitive abilities, including knowledge, are partly the result of our interactions with others (Bandura, 1977a, 2006). We don’t spend much time in isolation; in fact, almost everything we do involves some sort of collaboration. We are social creatures who work together and live in family units.

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Bandura also pointed to the importance of self-efficacy, which refers to beliefs about our ability and effectiveness in reaching goals (Bandura, 1977b, 2001). People who exhibit high self-efficacy often achieve greater success at work because they are more likely to be flexible and open to new ideas (Bandura, 2006). A person who demonstrates low self-efficacy generally believes he will not succeed in a particular situation, regardless of his abilities or experience. Beliefs about self-efficacy are influenced by experience and may change across situations. Generally speaking, people who believe they can change and progress are more likely to persevere in difficult situations.

Beliefs play a key role in our ability to make decisions, problem solve, and deal with life’s challenges. The environment also responds to our behaviors. In essence, we have internal forces (beliefs, expectations) directing our behavior, external forces (reinforcers, punishments) responding to those behaviors, and the behaviors themselves influencing our beliefs and the environment. Beliefs, behavior, and environment form a complex system that determines our behavior patterns and personality (Infographic 10.2 on page 423). Bandura (1978, 1986) refers to this multidirectional interaction as reciprocal determinism.

Let’s use an example to see how reciprocal determinism works. A student harbors a certain belief about herself (I am going to graduate with honors). This belief influences her behavior (she studies hard and reaches out to instructors), which affects her environment (instructors take note of her enthusiasm and offer support). Thus, you can see, personality is the result of an ongoing interaction among cognitions, behaviors, and the environment. Bandura’s reciprocal determinism resembles Rotter’s view. Both suggest that personality is shaped by an ongoing interplay of cognitive expectancies, behaviors, and environment.

TAKING STOCK The learning and social-cognitive theorists were among the first to realize that we are not just products of our environments, but dynamic agents capable of altering the environment itself. Their focus on research and testable hypotheses provide a clear advantage over the psychoanalytic and humanistic theories. Some critics argue that these approaches minimize the importance of unconscious processes and emotional influences (Schultz & Schultz, 2013; Westen, 1990), but overall, the inclusion of cognition and social factors offers valuable new ways to study and understand personality.

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LO 11 Distinguish trait theories from other personality theories.

ALLPORT AND PERSONALITY One of the first trait theorists was Gordon Allport (1897–1967), who created a comprehensive list of traits to describe personality. One primary reason for developing this list was to operationalize the terminology used in personality research; when researchers study a topic, they should agree on definitions. If two psychologists are studying a trait called “vivacious,” they will have an easier time comparing results if they use the same definition. Allport and his colleague carefully reviewed Webster’s New International Dictionary (1925) and identified 17,953 words (out of approximately 400,000 entries in the dictionary) that they proposed were “descriptive of personality or personal behavior” (Allport & Odbert, 1936, p. 24). The list contained terms that were considered to be personal traits (such as “acrobatical” and “zealous”), temporary states (such as “woozy” and “thrilled”), social evaluations (such as “swine” and “outlandish”), and words that were metaphorical and doubtful (such as “mortal” and “middle-aged”). Most relevant to personality were the personal traits, of which they identified 4,504—a little over 1% of all the entries in the dictionary. Surely, this long list could be condensed, reduced, or classified to make it more manageable. Enter Raymond Cattell.

CATTELL AND PERSONALITY Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) proposed grouping the long list of personality traits into two major categories: surface traits and source traits (Cattell, 1950). Surface traits are the easily observable personality characteristics we commonly use to describe people: She is quiet. He is friendly. Source traits are the foundational qualities that give rise to surface traits. For example, “extraversion” is a source trait, and the surface traits it produces may include “warm,” “gregarious,” and “assertive.” There are thousands of surface traits but only a few source traits. Cattell (1950) proposed that source traits are the product of both heredity and environment (nature and nurture), and surface traits are the “combined action of several source traits” (p. 34).

Cattell also condensed the list of surface traits into a much smaller set of 171. Realizing that some of these surface traits would be correlated, he used a statistical procedure known as factor analysis to group them into a smaller set of dimensions according to common underlying properties. With factor analysis, Cattell was able to produce a list of 16 personality factors.

These 16 factors, or personality dimensions, can be considered primary source traits. Looking at Figure 10.2, you can see that the ends of the dimensions represent polar extremes. On one end of the first dimension is the reserved and unsocial person; at the other end is the “social butterfly.” Based on these factors, Cattell developed the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), which is described in greater detail in the upcoming section on objective personality tests.

EYSENCK AND PERSONALITY Hans Eysenck (ahy-sengk) (1916–1997) continued to develop our understanding of source traits, proposing that we could describe personalities using three dimensions: introversion–extraversion (E), neuroticism (N), and psychoticism (P) (Figure 10.3).

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People high on the extraversion end of the introversion–extraversion (E) dimension tend to display a marked degree of sociability and are outgoing and active with others in their environment. Those on the introversion end of the dimension tend to be quiet and careful and enjoy time alone. Having high neuroticism (N) typically goes hand in hand with being restless, moody, and excitable, while low neuroticism means being calm, reliable, and emotionally stable. A person who is high on the psychoticism dimension is likely to be cold, impersonal, and antisocial, whereas someone at the opposite end of this dimension is warm, caring, and empathetic. (The psychoticism dimension is not related to psychosis, which is described in Chapter 12.)

In addition to identifying these dimensions, Eysenck worked diligently to unearth their biological basis. For example, he proposed a direct relationship between the behaviors associated with the introversion–extraversion dimension and the reticular formation (Eysenck, 1967). According to Eysenck (1967, 1990), introverted people display higher reactivity in their reticular formation. With their higher arousal levels, introverts are more likely to react to stimuli, and thus develop patterns of coping with arousal. An introvert may be more careful or restrained, for example. An extravert has lower levels of arousal, and thus is less reactive to stimuli. Extraverts seek stimulation because their arousal levels are low, so they tend to be more impulsive and outgoing.

The trait theories of Allport, Cattell, and Eysenck paved the way for the trait theories commonly used today. Let’s take a look at one of the most popular models.

LO 12 Identify the biological roots of the five-factor model of personality.

THE BIG FIVE The five-factor model of personality, also known as the Big Five, is a current trait approach for explaining personality (McCrae & Costa, 1987). This model, developed using factor analysis, indicates there are five factors, or dimensions, to describe personality. Although there is not 100% agreement on the names of these factors, in general, trait theorists propose they are (1) openness to experience, (2) conscientiousness, (3) extraversion, (4) agreeableness, and (5) neuroticism (McCrae, Scally, Terracciano, Abecasis, & Costa, 2010). Openness is the degree to which someone is willing to try new experiences. Conscientiousness refers to someone’s attention to detail and organizational tendencies. The extraversion and neuroticism dimensions are similar to Eysenck’s dimensions noted earlier: Extraversion refers to degree of sociability and outgoingness; neuroticism, to emotional stability (degree to which a person is calm, secure, and even tempered). Agreeableness indicates how trusting and easygoing a person is. To remember these factors, students sometimes use the mnemonic OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (Figure 10.4).

Empirical support for this model has been established using cross-cultural testing. People in more than 50 cultures, who speak languages as diverse as German, Spanish, and Czech, have been shown to exhibit these five dimensions (McCrae et al., 2000, 2005, 2010). Even the everyday terms used to describe personality characteristics across continents (North America, Europe, and Asia) fit well with the five-factor model (McCrae et al., 2010).

One possible explanation is that these five dimensions are biologically based and universal to humans (Allik & McCrae, 2004; McCrae et al., 2000). Three decades of twin and adoption studies point to a genetic basis for these five factors (McCrae et al., 2000; Yamagata et al., 2006), with openness to experience showing the greatest degree of heritability (McCrae et al., 2000; Table 10.4). Some researchers suggest that dog personalities can be described using similar dimensions, such as extraversion and neuroticism (Ley, Bennett, & Coleman, 2008). And such research is not limited to canines; animals as diverse as squid and orangutans seem to display personality characteristics that are surprisingly similar to those observed in humans (Sinn & Moltschaniwskyj, 2005; Weiss, King, & Perkins, 2006).

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The biological basis of these five factors is further supported by their general stability over time (Kandler et al., 2010; McCrae et al., 2000). This implies that the dramatic environmental changes most of us experience in life do not have as great an impact as our inherited characteristics. That does not mean personalities are completely static, however; people can experience changes in these five factors over the life span (Specht, Egloff, & Schmukle, 2011). For example, as people age, they tend to score higher on agreeableness and lower on neuroticism, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness. They also seem to become happier and more easygoing with age, displaying more positive attitudes (Marsh, Nagengast, & Morin, 2013).

Men and women appear to differ with respect to the five factors, although there is not total agreement on how. A review of studies from 55 nations reported that, across cultures, women score higher than men on conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Schmitt, Realo, Voracek, & Allik, 2008). Men, on the other hand, seem to demonstrate greater openness to experience. These disparities are not extreme, however; the variation within the groups of males and females is greater than the differences between males and females. Critics suggest that using such rough measures of personality may conceal some of the true differences between men and women; in order to shed light on such disparities, they suggest investigating models that incorporate 10 to 20 traits rather than just 5 (Del Giudice, Booth, & Irwing, 2012).

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Maybe you could have predicted women would score higher on measures of agreeableness and neuroticism; perhaps you would have guessed the opposite. Research suggests that some gender stereotypes do indeed contain a kernel of truth (Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001; Terracciano et al., 2005). Let’s find out if this principle holds true for cultural stereotypes as well.

across the WORLD

As you can see from the examples above, trait theories have facilitated important psychological research. But like any scientific approach, they have their flaws. One major criticism is that trait theories fail to explain the origins of personality. What aspects of personality are innate, and which are environmental? How do unconscious processes, motivations, and development influence personality? If you’re looking to answer these types of questions, trait theories might not be your best bet.

Trait theories also tend to underestimate environmental influences on personality. As psychologist Walter Mischel pointed out, environmental circumstances can affect the way traits manifest themselves (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). A person who is high on the openness factor may be nonconforming in college, wearing unique clothing and pursuing unusual hobbies, but put her in the military and her nonconformity will probably assume a new form.

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Question 1

Question 2

1. conditions of worth.

2. repression.

3. the real self.

4. unconditional positive regard.

Question 3

Question 4

1. reinforcement

2. locus of control

3. expectancy

4. reinforcement value

Question 5

Question 6

1. traits.

2. expectancies.

3. reinforcement values.

4. ego defense mechanisms.

Question 7