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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO

PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY Where It Began, and Why Philip Corr Dino Krupić

LEARNING GOALS

development of psychology over the past century. How ever, surveying this course of scientific development serves another important function: it allows us to better appreciate many of the recurring debates in psychology. Knowledge of the historical and conceptual devel opment of psychology is of value for a different reason. Some argue that psychology as an academic discipline suffers from a peculiar problem: of privileging the new and seemingly novel, and (too often) neglecting the leg acy of the ideas that make up its supporting scientific foundations. Knowing about these foundations is vital to appreciating present-day psychological science. This is true also for personality psychology. The main aim of this chapter is to summarize the origins of present-day personality psychology so they can be seen in an appropriate historical and conceptual light—theories have assumptions, some of which are not immediately obvious, so, to understand them we need to know from where they came, and why. This chapter needs to be read along with the following three in this section: the second focusing on the psychodynamic approach; the third, the behavioural and cognitive ap proaches; and the fourth, the humanistic challenge to all of these grand and, rather, mechanistic perspectives. After reading this chapter, you will be able to: • Understand the conceptual and historical origins of present-day personality psychology, including the seminal texts that established personality psychology as a distinct branch of general psychology. • Realize how the ‘two schools of psychology’ (exper imental and correlational) have divided psychology

Ideas about the nature of personality have a very long history, dating back several thousand years of record ed time. In its modern form, personality psychology as a serious scientific pursuit dates back to a little less than 150 years, and less than 100 years as an established aca demic discipline. As detailed in this introductory chapter, modern-day personality psychology traces its origins to several psychological and psychiatric endeavours aimed at explaining the variations observed in human behaviour. This encompassed all of its rich variety, including mental illness and other types of behavioural aberrations (e.g. so cial deviance and criminality). In general, psychology aims to explain normal behaviour with reference to the abnor mal. To understand properly these origins and to place them in an appropriate present-day perspective, we need to know the how of scientific development: what specific developments took place? Equally important, too, is the why question: the purpose and value of accounting for behaviour in terms of personality—defined as the relative ly stable patterns of individual differences in typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Knowledge of the origins of present-day personality psychology is fascinating in its own right, in particular showing how psychological science progresses from early inspired hypotheses (often based on little more than informed guess work) to the formation of a system of interconnected concepts, constructs, and operations (e.g. various forms of measurement) to form a coher ent scientific theory. In many ways, the development of personality psychology parallels the more general

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 8

PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEXT

and where personality psychology sits within this division. • Define the features of personality as used by re searchers in the field. • Appreciate the work of the Ancient Greek philoso phers and physicians who focused on bodily hu mours (fluids) and temperament, especially how this work influenced later thinkers. • Survey the morphological/constitutional theories of personality, including extension to criminality, Bruce, as an extremely successful person, has reached the very top of his profession. He has earned enough money to satisfy every materialistic need or desire. For instance, if he wants to, he can visit any place in the world or buy any car or house he likes. However, he has also been prone to severe bouts of depression throughout his life, often for extended periods of time. When growing up, he had problems with his father, but felt the unconditional love and support of his mother. These early experiences shaped him into the person he became in adulthood.

which inspired biologically oriented personality psychologists. • Examine the relationship between the brain and personality, starting with the phrenology (measuring bumps on the skull) and the highly influential work of Ivan Pavlov on the mechanics of the mind. • Understand the chronology of the milestones in personality psychology, including how the tough/ tender-mindedness of theorists may have influenced their scientific preferences and inclinations. When thinking about the life, thoughts, and feelings of someone like Bruce, ask yourself: 1. To what extent do you think that thoughts, be haviours, and feelings are the product of biological origins or social influences? 2. What do you think Bruce might look like according to the description from the feature? 3. Do you think that you could recognize that someone is depressed, and moreover, detect the personality of an individual, just by looking at that person?

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The topic of personality has long fascinated scien tists, intellectuals, as well as the general public, who have little difficulty appreciating that people differ from each other in notable and important ways—in their habitual and relatively stable ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We need only look to our own family and our friends, peers, and acquaintances to witness this fact at first hand. Interest in the notion of personality is evident, too, wider afield—in literature, history, politics, and the arts. But despite this interest, personality has proved an elusive concept to define in scientific terms, and many different constructs have been developed to characterize and operationalize it.

As a result, we have many different definitions, theo ries, and forms of measurement . Personality psychology, as seen from the modern scientific perspective, traces its origins to devel opments in psychiatry around the middle to late nineteenth century, accelerating in the early twen tieth century. The concerns of psychiatry back then were also the concerns of everyday psychological life. For example, in 1901 Sigmund Freud wrote The Psychopathology of Everyday Life . Around that time, several grand perspectives started to be developed, and these were to have a significant impact on the develop ment of the new field of personality psychology, as well

1.1 INTRODUCTION 9

as psychology more generally. One major impetus was Freud’s psychodynamic work (detailed in Chapter 2), and this was followed by the behavioural and cognitive perspectives (detailed in Chapter 3) that provided two additional sources of scientific inspiration. As detailed in Chapter 4, it was not long afterwards that these grand perspectives came under sustained attack for being far too mechanistic and reductionistic, and dehumanizing . The humanistic challenge strived to return the whole person to the centre stage of psy chological life (much as it had been in literature, e.g. Shakespeare’s plays). Although the grand perspectives discussed in Chapters 2–4 are clearly important in per sonality and general psychology, they are by no means the whole story. Not all personality psychologists adhered to these grand perspectives, and many were inspired by other approaches discussed in this chapter (e.g. biologi cal accounts). Some personality psychologists defied easy characterization of their approach. For example, take the case of Hans Eysenck (discussed in Chapter 5). Even though he had been accused of being far too reductionistic and statistical in outlook, he still re mained focused on the whole person. For example, Stevens (2016) criticized Hans Eysenck’s empirical– statistical approach to personality description and understanding, yet Eysenck wrote books such as Psychology is About People (1977), which draws atten tion to the whole person, although not in a humanistic way (see Corr, 2016b). Such books by even apparently reductionistic personality scientists, with their focus on statistical methodology and biological processes, reflect something essential about personality psychol ogy: it reflects a generalist perspective on psychology and, by its nature, it tries to integrate the whole person (Revelle, 2016)—although, it must be said, often as an assembly of separate traits, factors, and such like. This is unlike much of general psychology, which is focused on only some parts of the psychological system (e.g. perception, or learning, cognition, social interactions, genetics, and so forth). Overall, we could say that personality psychology is ‘concerned with describing and explaining the ob served complexity of individual differences in the pat terning of (A) affect, (B) behaviour, (C) cognition and (D) desires over time and space’ (Revelle, 2008, p. 508). When we define personality in this way, we cannot

avoid synthesizing many processes that are more commonly kept separate in general psychology (e.g. emotion, motivation, social behaviour, development, and so on). Personality psychology demands that we unify the (often-separated) factors and processes to capture the essence: the whole person . It is for this rea son that we need to avoid the temptation of simplify ing the various theoretical approaches to personality description and explanation—the subject is far too in teresting to be reduced to spurious, sometimes called ‘straw (wo)man’, arguments. Nevertheless, there remains a tension in general psychology of, on the one hand, viewing the human mind as a collection of separate ‘faculties’, ‘processes’, ‘factors’, and the like, and, on the other hand, seeing the ‘subject’ as a flesh-and-blood whole person—this ten sion is found in personality psychology, too. Many stu dents entering academic psychology experience this tension, and they may well wonder what happened to the ‘person’ in the many and varied psychological the ories they encounter. Sometimes, of course, this ana lytical approach does not matter much—or may seem not to. For example, if we want to understand the vi sual system we do not need to know much about other systems, but most psychological phenomena cannot be so easily isolated. Personality psychology may be seen as an antidote to this ‘splitting’ in psychology and, in stead, it serves a more ‘lumping’ purpose. In any event, however we choose to perceive these tensions in the theoretical approach, they reflect fundamental issues that persist to this day (e.g. as seen in the trait approach to personality description which focuses on separate ‘factors’ to describe the whole person; see Chapter 6). Although we can choose to label them as‘historical and conceptual’, they run through present-day psychiatry, psychology (including clinical psychology), and the wider behavioural and social sciences (e.g. econom ics and sociology). For example, we are still debating to what extent we can understand mental illness out side of its social context (Bentall, 2009), and some have even asked if mental illness is a ‘myth’ (Szasz, 1974). Big questions remain to be answered, even to be asked. Nevertheless, in spite of these difficulties, personal ity psychology has made remarkable progress over the past 100 years, especially when we consider that it has to deal with complex and elusive concepts, constructs, and operations.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 10

Such study design might be well received in contem porary scientific journals more than 100 years later! However, despite the impressive nature of this seminal piece of research work, it was not as influential as it deserved to be. When thinking about Webb’s seminal study, ask yourself: 1. What might be the reasons why Webb’s study was neglected in personality psychology for so many years? 2. ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ is a frequently used phrase in science. What do you think it means? 3. When thinking about the phrase in question 2, is it possible that Webb’s study was not recognized be cause he did not ‘stand on anyone’s shoulders’, that is, is it sometimes problematic to outpace others with your ideas? These were specific personality psychology books. In contrast, the perspectives of the ‘grand’ theories of the kind epitomized by psychodynamic and be havioural theories emerged quite independently and were never specifically about personality. However, they did hold important implications, as we explore in the following two chapters. Freud’s work was particu larly influential, especially as it had the power to capti vate the public mind, fuelled as it was by much talk of sexual tension, unconscious motivation, intra-psychic conflicts, motivated slips of the tongue, dreams, and also an account of cultural expressions and artefacts (e.g. works of art seen as a ‘neurotic’ coping mecha nism). There were even attempts to marry Freud’s theory with Marxist political philosophy to explain the emergence of Fascism in Germany and Italy—as a form of repressed sexual desire (Erich Fromm, famous for such works as The Fear of Freedom , 1942). The re sulting ‘madness’ of war gave many observers ample reason to believe in the basic irrationality of humans and the tendency to destruction and death ( thanatos ). biological and experimental approaches epitomized by Ivan Pavlov in Russia (discussed briefly in section 1.5.4 and in Chapter 3).

CLASSICS REVISITED Today it is assumed by researchers of the psychology of individual differences that people can be described in terms of a limited number of personality traits (as we will see later in Chapter 6), but this was not always so. This was made possible by early research, the most prominent being that of Edward Webb (1915). As Deary (2019, p. 11) says, ‘it is important because it was arguably the first study scientifically to discover a per sonality trait using recognizably modern methods’. In his research, Webb discovered a personality trait that he called ‘persistence of motives’, meaning ‘consisten cy of action resulting from deliberate volition, or will’ (Webb, 1915, p. 6). Webb was cognizant of the fact that he was taking personality from pre-science to science. Webb took great pains in his study to get reliable and detailed data on many qualities of his 194 subjects— two judges worked independently, observing their subjects on a daily basis in a teacher training college. Scientific personality psychology owes much to the year 1937, although see ‘Classics Revisited’. This was when Gordon Allport published his seminal book, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation , and in the same year, Ross Stagner’s Psychology of Personality . Both books were quickly followed by Henry Murray’s book, Explorations in Personality (1938), consisting of a set of experimen tal and clinical studies. Then, not too long afterwards, Gardner Murphy’s comprehensive book, Personality: A Biosocial Approach to Origins and Structure (1947). In the UK, 1947 saw the publication of Hans Eysenck’s Dimensions of Personality , consisting of an attempt to provide an experimental basis for the statistical factors of Extraversion and Neuroticism identified in an earlier 1944 statistical study of psychiatric signs and symptoms (see Chapter 5).All of these developments were founded on earlier philosophical and psychiatric, as well as psy chological,works (e.g.William James’,1890,monumental two-volume work, The Principles of Psychology ), but also 1.1.1 THE BEGINNINGS OF A SCIENTIFIC PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY

1.2 PSYCHOLOGY DIVIDED 11

Depending on one’s viewpoint, Freud’s was a pessimis tic or realistic perspective on the human mind.

the emergence of a psychology that seemed to hold significant implications for many areas of life, espe cially among those who had a definite view as to the shape of the future. Personality psychology was borne out of these wider developments in psychology and society. SECTION SUMMARY • The concept of personality has long fascinated intellectuals, and is present throughout art, litera ture, and politics. • Books specifically on personality were published from the late 1930s, establishing the field as a sci entific discipline. • Wider afield in psychology, psychodynamic and behavioural perspectives emerged and, although they did not focus specifically on personality, they had important implications. • From its earliest days, some theorists took a biolog ical and experimental approach to understanding how and why people differ in their typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. • Personality psychology is a generalist area of psy chology because it entails consideration of all fac tors and processes of the whole person.

1.1.2 IMPLICATIONS/ APPLICATIONS OF THEORIES

Many people with a political inclination saw the pros pects of a newly emerging psychological science as offering the tools necessary to socially engineer soci ety for the better, as they perceived matters, whether for humanitarian (conflict reduction) or commercial (e.g. advertising) gain. For example, from the begin ning of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Vladimir Lenin was eager to use behavioural technology to engineer the new ‘Soviet Man’ who would embody and enable the communistic manifesto—we return to this theme when we discuss the work of the pioneer of conditioning, Ivan Pavlov. In the US, behavioural tools were used to shape the consumer by ‘scientific’ marketing and advertising—we discuss this further when we consider the work of the behaviourist John B. Watson in Chapter 3. Others feared what this new science might mean for philosophical notions of free will and self-determination, and what all that meant for how human individuals were conceived and treated (e.g. human rights). What excited many was

1.2 PSYCHOLOGY DIVIDED

Often, we achieve greater understanding of a topic by observing contrasts. This is especially true when we want to know how personality psychology differs from general psychology. To start, it is important to know that two scientific disciplines, or ‘ schools ’, have long existed to divide psychology. The first psychological laboratories, Wilhelm Wundt’s psychophysical laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, and Francis Galton’s psychometric labora tory in London, UK (Figure 1.1), established different ways of measuring psychological factors and under standing their nature. The first approach (Wundt) is based on experimental methods where average

performance is the main ( dependent variable ) focus of interest. It is concerned with testing the effects of different ‘treatments’ or ‘conditions’ (i.e. independent variables ), with variance attributable to differences between experimental participants assigned to sta tistical ‘error’, or ‘residual variance’—sometimes even called statistical ‘noise’, or ‘nuisance variance’. The sec ond approach (Galton) is specifically interested in the variance observed, reflecting individual differences between people—variance is not seen as nuisance/ noise/error but as the focal variable of interest. These separate traditions came to characterize the two dis ciplines of scientific psychology, as Cronbach (1957)

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 12

FIGURE 1.1 A flyer advertising Francis Galton’s psychometric laboratory in London. Credit: K. Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours . Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0). © Oxford University Press

stated in his famous paper, which was the output of his 1957 Presidential Address to the American Psychology Association (APA), in which he said: Psychology continues to this day to be limited by the dedication of its investigators to one or the other method of inquiry rather than to scientific psycholo gy as a whole. This is such an important distinction that it is well worth reading Cronbach’s paper (see ‘Guide to Further Reading’). Although Wundt was very well aware that significant individual differences existed in his

experimental measures, they were not his major re search focus. Now, the major problem with ignoring dif ferences between people is that often (indeed, typically) these differences account for much more variance than that which can be explained by experimentally manipu lated factors. If these differences reflect systematic vari ance and can be measured reliably, then it would seem sensible to consider it so to achieve the fullest possible account of the causes of behaviour. Namely, individual differences or the variance of the results indicating dif ferences between people are usually ignored in exper imental studies and treated as unsystematic factors or

1.2 PSYCHOLOGY DIVIDED 13

errors.‘Twisting the Lens’ nicely displays the benefits of taking both scientific approaches into account. A strong argument can be made that the divide rep resented by these two schools has seriously held back the ability of psychology to provide a unified account of human behaviour, and associated thoughts and feel ings. Cronbach was not the only prominent psycholo gist to recognize the problems entailed by maintaining this divide (see Corr, 2000). Indeed, not too long after Cronbach’s statement, Hans Eysenck (1965, p. 8) declared: Individuals do differ . . . and it seems to me that psy chology will never advance very far without a recog nition of the complexities which are produced by this fact of personality. Yet it is possible to unify these two disciplines of scien tific psychology for the benefit of psychology as a whole. In Chapter 5, we see how state processes, which are dis covered and characterized by experimental methods, can be combined with traits of personality that have been un covered and defined by observational and correlational methods. Much the same is true of intelligence, as we see in Chapter 16. Nevertheless, a cursory look around a psychology library, the types of academic journals and books published, and the modules of university The distinction between experimental and correlational psychology characterizes the ‘two schools of psychol ogy’. They are often researched in isolation. However, when combined they can have an important applied impact. This is seen in aptitude–treatment interac tion (ATI) research, articulated by Cronbach and Snow (1977), which can be applied to instructional strategies in schools and in other learning environments. ATI states that the effectiveness of a ‘treatment’ (e.g. method of in struction) is dependent on the ‘aptitude’ of the learner— and what might work best for one person might be quite different to what works best for another person. ATI states that optimal learning occurs when the method of instruction matches the aptitude of the learner. As Snow (1991) points out, ATIs are very common in education, and they can be complex: ‘Learning style differences can be linked to relatively stable person or aptitude

psychology programmes, show clearly how psychology has singly failed to unite these two schools.

SECTION SUMMARY • The field of research psychology was formed from different starting points, and this established a di vision which continues to this day. • Wilhelm Wundt focused on experimental methods, manipulating variables and testing for mean differ ences between these ‘treatments’ or ‘conditions’. • Francis Galton was interested in how people differ from one another, that is, in the variance observed in psychological studies. • These ‘two schools’ of psychology are represented in the books, journals, and conferences that com prise the general field of psychology, as well as in the modular nature of undergraduate psychology programmes taught by specialists in their respec tive subjects. • It is possible to unite the field by combining experi mental and correlational methods, allowing the re search to explain in scientific terms what is causing the differences seen in a typical experimental study. variables, but they also vary within individuals as a func tion of task and situation variables’ (p. 51). Think about your own learning experience, and ask yourself: 1. What might be some of the major aptitudes (i.e. personality factors) that influence the effectiveness of two types of instruction: group work and inde pendent library study? 2. How might schoolteachers go about tailoring their teaching styles to match individuals’ aptitudes? 3. What might be the consequences to the individual student and wider society of ignoring the influence of ATIs? 4. Why do you think there is such a reluctance to as sess aptitudes in children to help them get the most out of their education?

TWISTING THE LENS: EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 14

1.3 DEFINITIONS OF PERSONALITY

How should we define what falls under the rubric of personality psychology? Personality theories came from different sources, but most (not all) have com mon assumptions. Most approaches to personality description and explanation contain the idea of an entity within the person that is agentic . Trait psychol ogy took up the challenge of defining and measuring these internal factors (see Chapter 5). To get a con ceptual and empirical grip on personality, it seems especially appropriate to define it as, ‘what a person will do when faced with a defined situation’ (Cattell, 1979, p. 14). That is, traits can be seen to predict re sponses to situational stimuli in certain ways (e.g. a shy person will respond to a busy social situation with behavioural avoidance). In contrast to the trait approach, behaviourally inspired definitions are much less impressed with the need to postulate complex the ories which, so often, are without strong supporting empirical evidence, especially as many of the elements of such theories can neither be directly observed nor easily measured. Indeed, in its most radical form, be haviourism avoided all concepts that could not be directly observed and measured (Skinner, 1950) and simply assumed that behaviours, however consistently shown, are merely habits formed by prior experiences. To the behaviourist, there was really nothing else to know, scientifically speaking. However, as we will see when we discuss behaviourism in Chapter 3, advocates failed to provide a coherent account of personality and just invited the reader to accept that personality de veloped from experiences (to get a sense of this style of reasoning, read B. F. Skinner’s 1974 book, About Behaviourism ). Later behaviourally inspired accounts, though, started to include internal notions of expecta tions and other forms of cognitions (e.g. perception, knowledge, interpretations, and attributions) (e.g. Bandura, 1986), reflecting the ‘cognitive revolution’ that thundered through academic psychology but left a lighter imprint on the general public’s understanding of psychology. Before we review the contemporary views on personality, let us return to the past, in an cient Greek history, to see on whose ‘shoulders’

contemporary thinkers were standing while trying to define personality.

1.3.1 ANCIENT GREEK THEORIES OF HUMOURS AND TEMPERAMENT

Various attempts by Ancient Greek philosophers and physicians were made to characterize personality— usually referred to as temperament. For example, Theophrastus in his Characters written in the fourth century bce (Rusten, Cunningham, & Knox, 1993; Diggle, 2004). He said: Often before now have I applied my thoughts to the puzzling question—one, probably, which will puz zle me for ever—why it is that, while all Greece lies under the same sky and all the Greeks are educated alike, it has befallen us to have characters so variously constituted. Theophrastus, who worked with Aristotle, described many characters that we can easily recognize today: The Reckless, The Gossip, The Shameless Man, etc. to name a few. The first known attempt to devise a theory of per sonality is found in the cosmological writings of the Greek philosopher and physiologist Empedocles, who lived some 500 years bc. His views were related to the other famous Greek physician, Hippocrates, who lived around the same time. Empedocles’ theory contains cosmic elements related to health:

• Air—warm and moist. • Earth—cold and dry. • Fire—warm and dry. • Water—cold and moist.

Writing in 370 bce, these cosmic elements were re lated by Hippocrates to four physical humours (i.e. bodily fluids) which, in turn, were related to tempera ment differences between people (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985; Lecci & Magnavita, 2013). Centuries later,

1.3 DEFINITIONS OF PERSONALITY 15

Hippocrates’ ideas were taken up by the physician and philosopher, Galen, who expanded them into ideas of personality we more readily recognize today. Galen suggested that both diseases and personality differ ences could be explained by an imbalance of the four humours. His theory contended that an excess of these various bodily humours, or fluids, led to the definite temperament types . Galen codified the relationships between bodily humours and temperament in the fol lowing way: • Blood—the sanguine (cheerful) type. • Yellow bile—the choleric (ambitious) type. • Black bile—the melancholic (neurotic) type. • Phlegm—the phlegmatic (calm) type. According to this theory, it was said that someone with an excess of blood would have a sanguine tem perament and be joyful, eager, optimistic, enthusiastic, and excitable. Someone with too much yellow bile (se creted by the liver) would have a choleric temperament and be passionate, ambitious, and bold and prone to anger and irritability. Someone with too much black bile (dark blood perhaps mixed with other secretions) would have a melancholic temperament and be re served, anxious, and unhappy. In contrast, someone with an abundance of phlegm (secreted in the respi ratory passage) would be calm, reliable, thoughtful, stolid, apathetic, and undemonstrative (Stelmack & Stalikas, 1991). Galen’s theory was impressive, not least in terms of its persistence for more than 1,000 years—it was pop ular well into the Middle Ages. Galen’s theory is illus trated in Figure 1.2, where it is related to the earlier view on temperament. Galen’s theory contains a number of interesting spec ulations that inform current-day personality theory: 1. There exist different types of people. 2. Personality is caused by bodily functions. 3. Personality can be observed and, to some extent, measured. Of course, during Galen’s time, very little was known about the various types of personality and what pre cisely gave rise to them. Yet, they were, and still are, very appealing—we even use expressions from the

Black Bile (Melancholic)

Earth

Dry

Wet

Sputum (Phlegm)

Yellow Bile (Choleric)

Water

Fire

Air

Cold

Hot

Blood (Sanguine)

theory in everyday life (e.g. the liver-related ‘jaun diced’ view of life of the yellow bile person).We see the influence of this theory in classic literary works (e.g. Chaucer and Shakespeare) when portraying charac ters, and philosophers (e.g. Locke and Descartes) have speculated on the nature of the types they observed. We take up the issue of categorical ‘types’ in Chapter 6 where we contrast them with continuous‘ dimensions ’, which are now much more prevalent in modern-day personality psychology. The theory that bodily chemistry determines temperament has survived for more than 2,500 years and is still very popular today, although in a different form. According to this theory, emotional stability, as well as overall health, depends on an appropriate balance between these four bodily hu mours. An excess of any one of these humours can lead to illness or exaggerated personality traits. This theoretical position is one of the first to assume that there is a continuum between ‘normal’ variations in personality and disease, both physical and mental. These were, indeed, revolutionary ideas, and al though the specific details, not unsurprisingly, have not stood the test of scientific time, the basic notion that bodily processes (i.e. central nervous system) influence personality are reflected in personality the ories that include body chemistry: hormones, neu rotransmitters, and substances such as endorphins. FIGURE 1.2 Galen’s typology. This depiction links together all of the ideas of Empedocles, Hippocrates, and Galen in their humoral theory of temperament. Credit: Adapted from Stelmack and Stalikas (1991). Copyright © 1991 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 16

Over the intervening centuries to modern times, there were sporadic writings on personality and emotion. For example, one famous book was by Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy , first published in 1621. This was intended as a medical textbook, but not as one we would recognize today. The focus was on melancholy , what we today term clinical depression. The book is interesting for using melancholy as a way of viewing all human emotion and can be read online. One interesting aspect of Burton’s book is to treat melancholy, or depres sion, as an emotion with positive features, related to imagination and creativity. This book has been much admired, especially as it anticipates much that we would recognize today as a characterization of the depressed personality, and the dispositions and habits associated with it. Closer to the present time, other thinkers such as Immanuel Kant (in the eighteenth century) and the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (in the nineteenth cen tury) contributed significantly to the then-current un derstanding of personality (Stelmack & Stalikas, 1991). Kant agreed with Galen that individuals can be cate gorized according to one of the four temperaments— importantly, there was no overlap between the catego ries. Kant developed a list of traits that could be used to describe the four personality types—in a manner similar to contemporary approaches to describing per sonality (see Chapter 6).Wundt, the experimental psy chologist, went further and proposed using two main axes to describe personality: emotional/non-emo tional and changeable/unchangeable. The first axis separated strong from weak emotions (the melan cholic and choleric temperaments from the phleg matic and sanguine), while the second axis separated the changeable temperaments (choleric and sanguine) from the unchangeable (melancholic and phlegmatic), as shown in Figure 1.3.

Emotional

Choleric

Exciteable

Anxious

Egocentric

Worried

Melancholic

Exhibitionist

Suspicious Serious Thoughtful Unhappy

Impulsive

Histrionic Active

Unchangeable

Changeable

Playful

Reasonable

Easy-going Sociable Carefree

High-principled

Controlled

Persistent

Hopeful

Steadfast Calm

Phlegmatic

Contented

Sanguine

Nonemotional

organization within the individual of those psycho physical systems that determine his unique adjust ments to the environment’ (p. 48). If we unpack this definition step by step, it provides us with ideas of process (‘dynamic’), structure (‘organization’), neu rophysiology (‘psychophysical systems’), situational factors (‘environment’), and individual differences (‘unique adjustments’). This is a fairly comprehensive listing of the varied features of personality—perhaps only knowledge, experience, and personal meaning are missing. A more recent and comprehensive definition of personality was given by McAdams and Pals (2006, p. 212): an individual’s unique variation on the general evolu tionary design for human nature, expressed as a de veloping pattern of dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, and integrative life stories complexly and differentially situated in culture. In this updated definition, we see deviations from the typical (mean) evolutionary ‘design’, as well as FIGURE 1.3 Immanuel Kant arrangement of two dimensions of temperament. Shown are characteristics (traits) associated with the quadrants in relation to the Ancient Greek classification of humours and temperament. Credit: Saklofske et al. (2012). Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1.3.2 GORDON ALLPORT’S PERSONOLOGICAL TRAIT APPROACH

As a scientific milestone, Allport’s (1937) personolog ical trait approach defined personality as ‘the dynamic

1.3 DEFINITIONS OF PERSONALITY 17

a ‘pattern’ of traits, and, importantly, a life story nar rative embedded in a specific culture. All of these features of personality are represented in the various chapters of this text. Both Allport’s (1937) and McAdams and Pals’s (2006) definitions draw our attention to two import ant features of personality: function and change— this stands in contrast to trait descriptions that tend to be much more static in nature.

Schopenhauer to Freud and German theorists in the early twentieth century, so they are prevalent in intellectual views of society. This cool–hot distinction is now very popular in psychology, as well as economics, with the advent of a more psychological perspective on judgement and decision-making: behavioural economics (Corr & Plagnol, 2023). 7. Personality can be seen as consisting in three parts: (a) latent constructs with each person having a true score on each trait/factor (see Chapter 20); (b) re sponse functions , which relate latent constructs to specific situational constraints/affordance; and (c) measured expressions of personality over time and situations. 8. The concept of personality is much more dynamic than any single score on a personality question naire might imply. 9. Personality predicts a wide range of life outcomes (e.g. occupational performance) and in this way has practical utility (see Chapter 22). • The first known theory of personality is seen in the cosmological writings of the Greek philosopher and physiologist Empedocles, who lived some 500 years bc . • Hippocrates related Empedocles’ ideas to physical humours (i.e. bodily fluids), which were associated with variations in temperament. • These ideas were later taken up by the physician and philosopher Galen, who specifically related the four humours to four temperament types: san guine (blood), choleric (yellow bile), melancholic (black bile), and phlegmatic (phlegm). • Other major ideas come from the philosopher Em manuel Kant and the experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. • These early ideas contained the intellectual kernels that inspired modern-day personality psychol ogists (e.g. linking physical functions with traits/ temperament). SECTION SUMMARY

1.3.3 THE CONSENSUS VIEW ON PERSONALITY

Irrespective of their specific features, most personality perspectives share general assumptions: 1. Personality has biological origins, although with an important contribution from the environment (see Chapter 13). 2. As personality develops over the lifespan it is in fluenced by many factors, including culture (see Chapter 10 and 11). 3. The characteristic thoughts, feelings, and be haviours that comprise personality are typi cal patterns of transitory state processes (see Chapter 5). 4. Traits of personality serve as convenient and useful summaries of the crystallization of all of the var ious processes of personality, as measured at any one point in time. 5. Consistencies in personality are found over time and across situations, but this does not mean that personality does not change over time and is always expressed in the same way in all situations. Instead, the rank ordering (not absolute scores) of person ality over time shows considerable stability, and personality serves to predict different behaviours in reaction to different situations. 6. There is the idea that more controlled-deliberative processes (‘cool’ processes) serve to control the expression of more automatic-emotional (‘hot’) ones—we see this with the notions of the Ego, Id, and Super-ego in psychodynamic theory. These ideas can be found from Plato and Aristotle to

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 18

1 1.4 MORPHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

More recent theorizing and empirical research fol lowed the Ancient Greeks’ stress on the importance of bodily processes (humours) to temperament— what we would now call personality. Indeed, such was the influence of this school of thought that, in common parlance, we still speak of people being in ‘good humour’. These basic ideas rubbed off on the orists who sought similarly to find a physical basis to personality. One major school during the early–mid part of the twentieth century was morphological personality psychology. This development reflected the longer-term interest in the body shape and per sonality, for example, as seen in those attempts to relate criminal predisposition to physical features and, also, in relation to the brain phrenology (mea suring bumps on the skull to infer psychological faculties)—we will discuss both schools of thought in this section. The German psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer pro posed an influential morphological theory of per sonality. In his 1921 book Physique and Character , he observed among his psychiatric patients that those diagnosed with schizophrenia tended to have a frail, rather weak (asthenic) physique or a mus cular (athletic) build. In contrast, a short, roundish physique (pyknic) seemed to be more often associ ated with manic depression—what we now call bi polar disorder. These apparent correlations piqued Kretschmer’s interest so much that he extended them to body build and personality. He suggested that a slim and petite physique is associated with introversion, while people with rounder, heavier, and shorter bodies tend to be cyclothymic, meaning they are moody but often extraverted and cheerful. Clearly, Kretschmer made an essential connection between normal personality variations and various 1.4.1 ERNST KRETSCHMER— PHYSIQUE, PSYCHIATRY, AND CHARACTER

forms of mental illness—an inspiration that led re searchers such as Hans Eysenck to see the structure of normal personality in the signs and symptoms of psychiatric patients (see Chapter 5). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given all the complexities it entails, there is little evidence to support Kretschmer’s specific theory. One immediate problem with all such studies is that the majority of psychiatric patients have a pre-morbid history, where their illness is developing, and this, by itself, might affect body type—either directly via chemical and hormonal processes, or indirectly via pro dromal health style (e.g. food consumption and exercise). What was more impressive about Kretschmer’s theory was the inspiration it provided to others to look for more robust, replicable, and scientifically defensive associa tions between body shape (morphology) and personality characteristics, and also related features (e.g. predisposi tion to antisocial and criminal behaviour). William Herbert Sheldon did much to advance the morphological approach to personality in the 1940s— he was both a physician and psychologist, so was well placed to pursue this line of research. Of relevance to the development of his theory, Sheldon joined the University of Oregon Medical School, where he was director of a constitution clinic, which examined the relationships between physical characteristics and disease. Like others before and after him, Sheldon ex tended physical characteristics to personality traits and their social expression (e.g. criminality). Sheldon came to believe that a person’s psychological makeup had biological origins. His ideas were outlined in var ious publications: The Varieties of Human Physique: An Introduction to Constitutional Psychology (Sheldon, Stevens, & Tucker, 1940), The Varieties of Temperament: A Psychology of Constitutional Differences (Sheldon & Stevens, 1942), and Atlas of Men: A Guide for Somatotyping the Adult Male at All Ages (Sheldon, 1954). 1.4.2 WILLIAM HERBERT SHELDON—CONSTITUTIONAL PERSONALITY

1.4 MORPHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF PERSONALITY 19

When reading the descriptions of the body types, we get a sense of the use of language of that day that would not be accepted today—if nothing else, it had the merit of being direct, albeit at the expense of appearing to be judgemental and even rude. Sheldon proposed that ‘body type’ could reliably be related to personality. As body shape to some ex tent reflects lifestyle, itself related to drives, appetites, and motivation, this is not an altogether far-fetched notion. Sheldon claimed that a fat person with a large bone structure tends to be outgoing, having a more relaxed personality. In contrast, a more muscular body-typed person is assumed to be more active and aggressive. A slim or lean person with thin muscles

was thought to be quiet or ‘fragile’. Sheldon catego rized body/personality types into three somatotypes, depicted in Figure 1.4. The endomorphic somatotype, also known as viscerotonic (calm mood), is said to have personal ity traits relating to being relaxed, tolerant, comfort able, and sociable. They are also said to be fun loving, good humoured, even tempered, and they love food and affection—in many respects they resemble the extravert. As shown in Figure 1.4, the endomorph is physically ‘round’—that is, they have wide hips and narrow shoulders that lean to what people have called a ‘pear shape’. They have extra fat on their body, arms, and thighs, with skinny ankles and wrists.

Ectomorph

Mesomorph

Endomorph

FIGURE 1.4 Three body types within Sheldon’s constitutional theory of personality.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 20

In his 1954 book Atlas of Men (see ‘Inside the Research’), Sheldon outlined the measurement system that assigned a three-digit somatotype on a scale of 1 to 7—each of the three digits referring to one of the three components of the physique mentioned by Sheldon. Under this system, an extreme endomorph would re ceive a score of 711, an extreme ectomorph would receive a score of 117, while an average person would receive a score of 444. Sheldon developed a 20-item list of traits that he believed distinguished three different categories of behaviour or temperaments. In apparent support of Sheldon’s theory, it was found, not surprisingly, that among prisoners there is a prev alence of muscular mesomorphs. We might assume, without much psychological or medical knowledge, that violent crimes are most suited to strong, muscular men, who might have to engage in physically challenging ac tivities to carry out crime. Frankly, what we are to make of the association of somatoform and criminal behaviour is anyone’s guess, but there are some fairly obvious candi dates (e.g. imprisoned criminals tend to be young males, were eventually used to illustrate Sheldon’s book on body types, the Atlas of Men . Thinking about this very peculiar practice in American universities, ask yourself: 1. If you were asked to participate in this peculiar form of research, would you agree? Elaborate your reasons. 2. Is it unethical (or immoral) to photograph students, even with their permission, for somatotype scien tific research? 3. Assuming systematic relationships (i.e. correla tions) between body type and psychological attri butes (e.g. occupational success in life) were found, would the direction of causation be obvious? More generally, what are the methodological problems with any such studies? 4. What might be some of the psychological con sequences of graduates, many of them now well known, realizing that there may be nude photos of them, somewhere?

The ectomorphic somatotype, also called cerebro tonic (related to thinking), is said to have personality traits opposite to that of the endomorph. They have narrow shoulders, thin legs and arms, little fat on the body, a narrow face, and a narrow chest. They are said to be self-conscious, rather private, introverted, inhib ited, quite intense, socially anxious, artistic, thought ful, quiet, and private. The mesomorphic somatotype, also called somato tonic (related to the body), has a body and personal ity traits that are intermediate between endomorphic and thin ectomorphic somatotypes. They tend to have broad shoulders with a narrow waist, and have a strong muscular body and strong arms and legs and little fat on the body. Mesomorphic people are said to be adventurous, courageous, assertive/bold, enjoy physical activity and are competitive; they are also said to have a need for power and to be dominant and are indifferent to what others think or want from them. Attesting to the evaluative labels imposed on these so matoforms, they are said to have an ‘attractive’ body. Data collection for William Herbert Sheldon’s somato type psychological studies took a very peculiar form, and one that would certainly not be permitted today. A New York Times (1995) article by Ron Rosenbaum chronicles the case of the ‘Ivy League nude posture pho tos’. These photos were taken in the 1940s through to the 1970s of incoming students at leading universities in the US (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Princeton)—ostensibly to measure the prevalence of rickets, scoliosis, and lordosis (disorders of the spine) in the population. The photos are black and white photographs of upright students in front, back, and side views with metal pins attached to their bodies (the skin was not pierced, but 4-inch metal pins were attached to the vertebrae with glue at regu lar intervals from the neck down). Subsequent publica tion of these photos would have been embarrassing to many of the students (e.g. George Bush, Meryl Streep, and Hillary Rodham) who later obtained prominent po sitions in government and society. At the time, students were not informed of what the photos would be used for, and a large number of the Harvard nude photos INSIDE THE RESEARCH

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