Perspectives on Personality - Essay Example

Perspectives on Personality A comprehensive study of the human personality entails examining theories that have been formulated about it. Theories are intended to describe a relationship between constructs or events and usually become the impetus for research (Burger, 1986). For instance, a particular personality theory may assert that a display of aggressive behavior is a result of an experience of frustration. This assumption may then be subjected to a research study to test its validity. On the other hand, theories may simply lead psychologists to explore other topics and issues that have not been the focus of research before. However, it is important to discriminate if a theory is any good. According to Epstein (as cited in Burger, 1986), a good theory has to have certain characteristics. One is that it has to be parsimonious and two, it has to be useful. Burger (1986) relates that scientists follow the law of parsimony which maintains that the “simplest explanation is the best one”. As such, in trying to explain the human personality and with all things being equal, the theory that offers explanation in its simplest terms is the one preferred. Some theories may delve into different aspects of personality and derive quite a number of assumptions but if they only tend to complicate matters, they are not accepted. Then again, if a theory is too simplistic to the point of inadequacy, scientists also recognize the need for additional elements to explain certain behaviors. The second characteristic of a good theory is its degree of usefulness especially in generating testable hypotheses for research (Burger, 1986). Not all concepts can be empirically measured and in this case they are not much of value. For example, there was this old belief that psychotic behavior is caused by some sort of demon possession. Because of this, psychotics have been locked up and shamefully hidden from public view. Such a supposition may have a ring of truth to it but it is utterly impossible to derive variables by which demon possession can be quantified. Conversely, a good theory is one which can be subjected to scientific processes and methods. Let us try to examine another theory and see if indeed it is a good one. Hans Eysenck from England developed a personality theory that studied such traits as neuroticism-emotional stability in relation to abnormal behavior (Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008). In addition, he focused on introversion-extraversion as a dimensional trait. He and his colleagues made use of statistical tools in their studies to discover the associations between people’s positions on this dimensional trait and their scores across various personality measures. This means that Eysenck’s theory made use of variables that can be empirically tested like any other good theory. In relation to Eysenck’s theory, the behavioral action system and behavioral inhibition system has been formulated (Carver, 2001). This theory espouses that negative failure to attain an anticipated incentive should lead to negative feelings and be managed by an approach system. Meanwhile, failure of an anticipated punishment should lead to positive feelings and generated by an avoidance system. This theory seems to complicated to understand that it may not be considered a good one. Come to think of it, what really are personality traits? Guilford (as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008) defines traits as “consistent differences between the behavior or characteristics of two or more people”. This way, traits are those that set people apart in comparison to others. Additionally, traits are dimensions considered to be quantifiable and scalable – they are qualities or attributes that can be quantified in terms of higher or lower degrees depending on how dominant a certain trait is in a person. It is presumed that people’s traits are usually in the middle with only a few showing extremes. Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk (2008), conveys that other theorists consider traits to be unique and enduring or relatively stable reactions to stimuli. As such, an aggressive person may be expected to consistently exhibit violent behavior in a series of stimulus situations. Traits and their specific content and structure are seen in different ways by various theorists but they do have a consensus on some aspects (Funder as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008). All theorists agree that traits can be attributed to the consistent ways individuals behave. They all use traits to explain individual differences in response to the same event or social encounter. Furthermore, each theorist believes that there are basic traits inside each person that produces traits that are explicitly expressed. Most theorists also observed that a person may exhibit changes or fluctuations in his position in relation to a certain temperament or character. Meanwhile, they all try to search for more stable and relatively enduring traits. One example of a trait dimension that has been the focus of research is Extraversion. Extraversion is a trait factor that describes response patterns that go together such as talkativeness, spontaneity, and boldness. It forms one of the “Big Five Structure” (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) that have reliably appeared in a number of studies (Goldberg; John as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008). In a study made by Goldberg ( as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008) of 187 college students and 1,710 trait terms, the students were asked to rate how well each trait describes him or her. Results suggested that these trait terms reliably clustered into five factors including Extraversion. Moreover, McCrae and Costa (as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008) suggested that the trait ratings and questionnaires related to the Big Five Structure tend to show considerable stability over time especially in the adult years. Despite a lot of experiences of change in adulthood in terms of marriage, children, divorce and health issues, the status of most individuals on the five trait dimensions tend to be highly stable. In particular, Extraversion had shown high consistency in their scores or high reliability in males at .84 and for females at .75. In another study by Hampson and Goldberg (as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008), Extraversion showed the highest stability at a .29 correlation when it was considered for a large study of 799 people across a 40-year life span from elementary to midlife. Similarly, Extraversion as a trait factor had been found to replicate well even if different languages, cultures and item formats were used (McCrae & Costa as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008). Such diverse languages and language families included Sino-Tibetan, Uraic, Hamito-Semitic, and Malayon-Polynesian. Lastly, John et al. ( as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008) found that the degree of Extraversion in delinquent youth tend to be higher as they are prone to excitement-seeking behavior and increased levels of activity. Now, we focus on how researchers study the role of inheritance in personality. Recently, there has been a lot of development in this area due to better research methods as well as advances in genetics research (Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008). In the past, researchers have focused on trying to find who has what kind of genes. The goal was to look into the different genes that different types of people have and see which ones bring about certain personality types and characteristics. Gradually, the focus has changed to trying to understand how the physical and social-psychological environment of a person turn on or off genes and how this process influences how people think, behave, and feel. Such a contention has stemmed from the assumption that genes that are found inside each cell can develop into different cells in our body. They may become nerve cells, skin cells or other specialized cells that form body organs. What determines this is what they call biological switches outside the cell that are turned on or off. Similarly, the focus of research has been to find out just how genes are turned on and off by environmental factors that makes people behave in certain ways. Gazzaniga and Heatherton (as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008) espouses that even if there is evidence that certain genes have consequent effects, it is the expression or turning on or off of these genes that really influence behavior. For example, in the studies made by Bouchard; Eysenck; Plomin and Caspi, and Tellegen et al., it was suggested that such dispositions as extraversion-introversion have a biological-genetic basis. How extraversion-introversion is expressed however largely depends on how the person has interacted with the environment as he goes through the developmental stages. Mischel, Shoda, and Ayduk (2008) relates that researchers have used varied methods to study the genetic basis of personality and one of them is the use of the twin method. The twin method compares the degree of similarity on measures of personality between identical twins and fraternal twins. Loehlin and Nichols (as cited in Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008), in a pioneering study of nearly 800 pairs of adolescent twins, found that identical twin pairs are much more alike than the fraternal twins. This is especially true for general ability but a bit lower for personality inventory scales and lowest for interests, goals, and self-concepts. Also, it was found that most of the personality traits measured through a self-report questionnaire showed moderate genetic influence. These findings suggest that even identical twins that are as closest to having the same genes as any other person would have still exhibit different characteristics. References Burger, J. (1986). Personality: Theory and research. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Ayduk, O. (2008). Introduction to personality. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Carver, C. S. (2001). Affect and the functional bases of behavior: On the dimensional structure of affective experience [electronic version]. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 345-356. Read More