Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines personality as “1: the complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual especially in relationships with others 2a: the totality of an individual's behavioral and emotional tendencies b: the organization of the individual's distinguishing character traits, attitudes, or habits.” The study of personality has a long provenance in western medicine. Our earliest theories come from Hippocrates himself, and were based upon the four humors, that is, blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. In turn, Galen was responsible for concept of the four temperaments: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. The theories relating bodily fluids and their predominance in the body and personality types held much sway in our medical theories until relatively recently, however, today we know that polycythemia does not make for more creative, happy people.
The modern study of personality traces its origins to Carl Gustav Jung and his magnum opus Psychologische Typen. Jung postulated that there are functionally 2 axes of personality, the perceiving function and the judging function. The perceiving function involved sensation and intuition whereas the judging function was comprised of thinking and feeling. Katharine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Myers, based their groundbreaking questionnaire on Jung’s analysis while offering minor modifications of the theory. The original goal of the questionnaire was to aid in the empowerment of women in the workplace by determining what jobs they would feel most comfortable performing (Myers, 1980).
There are two main approaches to understanding a normal personality; nomothetic and ideographic. Nomothetic is seen in terms of characteristics shared by individuals, and there are two divisions 1) type and 2) trait approaches. Type approaches describe a variable number of predefined archetype (type A vs. type B personality), trait approaches view traits along a continuum with people falling somewhere along them (Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry, 2005). A review of the literature will quickly reveal that the trait approach exemplified by the Five Factor Model (FFM) of Costa and McCrae is the dominant theory today (1992).
Personality theorists have always been embroiled in controversies of one type or another. By its very nature it is controversial theorizing. The study of people and how they interact and how they respond may seem alarming to many. Freud developed his theories of psychodynamics that, while not wholly discredited, have fallen out of academic favor (Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry, 2005.) Needless to say, Freud was and remains controversial for both his use of drugs and postulations on the role sexuality plays in developing the psyche. Remaining with psychodynamic theory, Erikson (a student of Freud) seemingly tried to sanitize the sexual aspects of Freudian theory and generated an eight-stage developmental process based on the original five (Erikson, 1950).
Behavioral theories originated with John B. Watson. Watson’s theory can be summed up with the following quotation:
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years“ (Watson, 1924).
The radicalism of Watson’s original approach must be viewed in light of the pervasive sway of the eugenics movements at the time he was writing.
Next in the line of behaviorists came B.F. Skinner, who further sought to dilute the agency of the individual in determining personality, and by a series of experiments culminating in the beloved “Skinner Box” attempted to show that psychology and personality were essentially dictated by circumstance – for everything could be explained as some sort of conditioned response. Luminaries as diverse as Noam Chomsky and Ayn Rand attacked Skinner’s theories and consequently the critiques became more famous than the original work (Hergenhahn, 2009).
In contrast to both the psychodynamic model and the behavioral model, came the humanistic approaches of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, both of whom expounded a theory of self-actualization in which a person had much more control over his outcomes than what the behaviorists would concede. Maslow however thought of himself as a complement to the Freudian tradition of psychodynamics. Insofar as psychological schools and personality theory hitherto had focused on the pathologies of mind, the humanists sought to expound a theory of healthy individuals. Towards this end of self-actualization he stated it “is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half” (Hergenhahn, 2009). The greatest contribution of Maslow (in this authors opinion) was the hierarchy of needs. The “feel-good” nature of the humanists approach has been strongly critiqued for lacking scientific rigor and having a western bias. Accordingly, it has fallen out of favor in recent years.
Some of the newest schools of personality theory attempt to find a biological basis of psychology and personality. This field is very compelling for physicians and people involved in the hard sciences. To view an MRI or some other lab test and correlate it to otherwise ephemeral sciences seems like a “golden chalice.” The idea is that we can present, repetitively, and with rigorous application of the scientific method, a complete picture of personality. Thus, the theories of Hans Eysenck, exploring genetics as the basis for personality certainly have a strong appeal. Interestingly, the movement has come full circle, and reexamines Hippocrates original theories in the context of extroversion and neuroticism (Modgil & Modgil, 1986). The theories are not without its detractors of course, the most notable critique being that his writings are overtly racist. Regardless of Eyseneck’s racial theories, there is a very strong effort to determine genetic variants and their consequences on personalities. Towards this end, Munafo, Clark, et al., in an article in Molecular Psychiatry (2003) reviewed ample literature showing genetic correlation between psychiatric personality diseases. What must be remembered though is that genetics usually indicate a propensity for an occurrence, rather than a definitive occurrence. One may have the genetics that predispose one to disease, but more often than not, the epi-genetic trigger is required to initiate the disease.
Current views of personality refer to the FFM that incorporates: 1) openness to experience 2) conscientiousness 3) extraversion 4) agreeableness and 5) neuroticism. This five-factor model was most completely expounded by Costa & McCrae; however, in their article they acknowledge that the underlying theories have been around for some 50 years, that multiple independent researchers have concluded along the same lines, and that it is not the end of the discussion (McCrae & Costa, 1987).
The current vogue is view the five factor model in light of the advances in genetic sciences. In a genome-wide association study four of the five personality traits had significant associations with discrete areas of the genome. Rather than polymorphisms of single genes, large sets of related genes seem to control personality traits. This will lead to a better understanding of psycho-pathology insofar as it is possible to obtain large samples and to appreciate the minor differences in genetic landscape (McCrae, et al, 2010)
Personality, as we have come to understand it, is probably an intricate interplay of nature versus nurture. None of the individual schools forms a compelling basis for a psychiatric understanding of personality. However, by blending the movements a more complete image is attainable. Obviously, in medicine or psychology the focus must be on pathology, but, in the same vain we study the normal physiology before the patho-physiology, we must understand the healthy personality in order to comprehend the diseased personality.
Accordingly, the American Psychological Association says that: Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole. Under this definition there is really no such thing as an “abnormal personality,” but there is room for a pathological personality.
Abstractly, personality is what enables an individual to respond to the environment around them. A personality should be labile enough to recognize similarities in things perceived to what came before, while at the same time be strong enough to appreciate the differences in similar things. Both are necessary functions of a personality. A large animal with big teeth is potentially a threat and should be recognized as such, however a large Labrador also has teeth and the majority of the time there is no threat emanating from it. To respond to the Labrador the same way we’d respond to a lion or a bear in the wild would be foolish and could lead a person into more harm than otherwise would come. Personality is thus a patterned way of behaving while remaining adaptive.
Personality is also made up of social responses, because, after-all, humans are social creatures that would be fundamentally defenseless and useless if entirely removed from other humans. The person should not always interact smoothly with all other persons, however, they should be able to do so the majority of the time without leaving another exasperated, frustrated, or unable to cope with the situation at hand. So, a “normal” personality is one that grows and learns while maintaining a memory of what was, and can interact with others towards a common goal while maintaining a certain universal happiness in his or her society. By happiness, we don’t mean to say that everyday should be somebodies birthday, but rather there must be recognition of other peoples emotional being. Responses should be appropriate, meaning if everyone were crying at a funeral – it would be quite odd to be the sole person smiling and making jolly. Human cognition is primed towards social ends and personality is designed to enable humans to fit into society. However, it is not solely towards social ends and a lone wolf has just as much a need of personality as the social butterfly.
It is not easy to make a blanket all-encompassing definition of personality even if various dictionaries provide one. Furthermore, no definition adequately explains why we have personalities or the nature of a normal personality. Indeed, at times people think that the world would be easier to handle if there was no personality – either their own, or others to contend with. However, evolution has gifted us with this tool, and it is undoubtedly a tool that has much benefit. It enables us to make friends and alliances that have helped humans achieve transcendental heights hitherto unreached by any other species known. But, as anyone who has ever owned a pet is probably aware, personality is not solely a human inheritance. Anecdotally, off the coast of Costa Rica there are huge schools of tiger sharks. There is much scuba diving that takes place there and one is able to swim in the middle of a school of dozens of sharks. The dive-masters that run the courses encourage you to be cautious of your surroundings, to dive with safety devices, and to not do anything that resembles feeding, but the most important warning is to avoid a lone shark. They say that the sharks have a social life, and a lone shark is maladapted to the social life and are likely rejected by the schools for violent behaviors to other sharks. Similarly humans are social animals, and it is likely to a laypersons benefit to avoid someone who intentionally closes himself off to social contact or is otherwise excluded from society at large (be it pirates or quarantined lepers.)
The various schools of psychological thought lead us to the various components of personality. The first component is consistency, that is, a person is likely to behave in much the same way as he has behaved before. The greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and in order for the social realm to be adequately satisfied people must be safe in their belief that their colleagues, acquaintances, friends, lovers and anyone else in their lives will behave in a consistent manner. The next component is the duality of its origins, neither Skinner nor Eysenck adequately account for an entire personality with their theories - personality is a product of both nature and nurture. Following this, it both determines how we respond to stimuli AND how we act upon the environment – we hardly need to be reminded that humans occasionally do things without being prodded into action by outside forces. Finally, it is more than just our behavior; it also regulates our thoughts, emotions, and social relations. Another view of personality is summed up by Fisher in This Will Make You Smarter (2012). Essentially, personality is made up of two disparate types of traits: character and temperament. Character is derived from the sum of your experience: the games you play as a child, family activities, community standards regarding love and hates, close social connections and how they regard behavior, religious fervor of the community, communal standards regarding singing, laughing, working, and relaxation. After this, the balance of what comprises the personality is the temperament, that is, the biological tendencies that make up the patterns of feelings, thinking, and behavior. It is best summed up as: “I am, plus my circumstances. Temperament is the 'I am,' the foundation of who you are.”
Thus, while we can see the contours of “normal” personality, it is impossible to define until we understand what is a pathological personality. In order to understand both the normal and the pathological it is important to understand what is the nature of the social relationships that humans undertake. After all, a personality is only pathologic when others are affected by it, that is to say, if one is stuck on a deserted island, anti-social personalities don’t have any consequence.
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