The Past and Present of Personality

By Pierce K. Kozlowski

Introduction

The goal of psychology as a science is to study and comprehend the tendencies, inclinations, and behaviors of people, and why such behaviors manifest both environmentally and biologically. Concerning the many fields of science, psychology is often coined as the “younger brother” to the harder sciences like physics, chemistry, and the like. Despite the fact that modern psychology is still very much a valid field of “knowledge” as the Latin root word “scienta” suggests, the aid of other sciences and subtopics are necessary parts that constitute the broader whole of psychology. Examples include biology, which can help understand the structures and formations of the brain accounting for the more primal behavior of humans, with such examples including “fight or flight.” While biology is its own subtopic in psychology, chief among those is the subtopic of personality. Therefore, the goal of this essay is threefold: first, to define personality as a person’s unique traits, which are influenced by genetic and nonshared environmental factors. Second, to outline psychoanalysis as an outdated but useful first step in developing a scientific model for personality. And third, to overview the modern personality methods that psychoanalysis helped give rise to. As we will see, the overview of these three things will provide a solid foundation for how personality has become so fundamental to the study of modern psychology, and how the history of theories relating to personality before have developed into the modern understanding we have of personality now.

Defining Personality

Stated briefly, personality is the typical behaviors and predispositions – hereafter called “traits” – that people have relative to their circumstances (Allport, 1961). There are three factors that influence personality: first, genetic variables, accounting for traits that are inherited rather than learned. Second, shared environmental variables, such as the style of discipline for all children in the same home. And third, non-shared environmental variables, such as parents who disproportionately favor or neglect one child over another in the same home. So how are these different factors separated when studying personality? In the textbook, Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding, Dr. Scott Lilienfeld (2018) answers this question by stating that correlational studies in twin and adoption cases help distinguish between the influence of the variables mentioned above. And as we will see, the findings from these studies inform modern psychology of two important influences on personality: one, that many traits may be genetically inherited, and second, that nonshared environments influence personality more than shared environments.

In the twin cases, for example, the cited study by Tellegen et al. (1988) found correlations of the similarity of personality between twins living together versus twins living apart. The study found that the correlation coefficient of both groups was radically similar, which suggests that shared environments play no significant role in personality, especially for adults – pointing to the influence of nonshared environmental and genetic variables (Lilienfeld et al., 2018). The same principle is found in adoption studies, where the cited study by Loehlin et al. (2010) identifies the correlation of the sociability in children between their adopted parents and biological parents. The study found that the correlation between the sociability of children and their biological parents was stronger than that of their adopted parents, despite the children never meeting or sharing an environment with their biological parents (Lilienfeld et al., 2018). So while adoption and twin studies help distinguish between genetic and environmental variables, the findings of these studies lend credence to the idea that personality – as suggested by correlational research – is most influenced by hereditary traits and nonshared environmental factors. And as a consequence, both findings are used by modern psychologists to help think about the potential causes of personality, the different ones that emerge, and how they arise in people today.

Freud's Personality Model

Having explained what personality is and the factors which most greatly influence it, another question must be raised: what theories or models were formulated on personality? In the 19th and 20th centuries, three camps came forward and laid forth some of the most influential principles concerning this issue: the psychoanalysts, the behaviorists and social learning theorists, and the humanists – with perhaps the most influential of them being the psychoanalysts (Lilienfeld et al., 2018). And while the two latter camps were immensely influential as well, only the psychoanalytic model will be discussed for the sake of brevity. To summarize an otherwise comprehensive theory, psychoanalysis was a practice originally developed by Sigmund Freud, and the theory itself can be boiled down into three features of interest – its assumptions, its main proposition, and its second proposition. The assumptions the theory makes are based on determinism (all actions have a cause), symbolism (all actions have a meaning), and unconscious motivation (all actions have a deeper motivation which people are unconscious of). The main proposition the theory makes is a personality model consisting of the Id (our unconscious primal instincts); the Ego (our sense of self which tempers the Id); and the Superego (our internalized morality which guides the Ego) (Newirth, 2015). The second proposition the theory makes, while not as significant as the first, relates to the five psychosexual stages of sexual and psychological development – with Freud assuming that sexual development was a predictor of personal development.

While psychoanalysis was tremendously influential to modern conceptions of personality, the theory has been criticized on the grounds of unfalsifiability and other scientific errors. Let’s take an example. According to Freud, the Ego is the central decision maker which is designed to temper the desires of the Id, with the specific interest of protecting the person’s sense of self. Examples include the Ego’s use of defense mechanisms, which are a series of “unconscious maneuvers” designed chiefly to combat anxiety and or trauma. However, Lilienfeld et al. (2018) point out the difficulty of verifying Freud’s claims by addressing that example directly:

If we were to find evidence that most five-year-old boys report being sexually repulsed by their mothers, would this observation refute the existence of the Oedipus complex? Superficially, the answer would seem to be yes, but Freudians could respond that these boys are engaging in reaction-formation and are attracted to their mothers at the unconscious level. (p.546).

The logical error here arises because the theoretical rebuttal that the Freudians give in the example provides an answer after the fact. It's a post hoc approach to justifying the result. Hence the question in the quote: if polling data from young boys said they were sexually repulsed by their mother, how can one verify if they’re engaging in reaction formation and actually fitting the criteria of the Oedipus complex? Or if it’s not at all a reaction formation and the Oedipus complex is simply unfounded? Such verification is nowhere to be seen, and thus cannot be accepted as empirically objective in the scientific sense. With many other examples like this, such as Maarten Boudry (2013) pointing out Freud’s use of the ad hoc fallacy, Freud’s reasoning renders the psychoanalytic theory extraordinarily difficult to falsify – hence the criticism of “unfalsifiability” that Freudian psychoanalysis has shouldered over the years.

Modern Personality Models

While there are many other critiques of Freud’s theory, it's worth noting the contribution psychoanalysis has made to the field of psychology. Not only has Freud been cited three to six times more than his infamous contemporaries like Darwin and Jung in modern academia, according to a study by Deiner et al. (2014), but his theories were responsible for both inspiring and paving the way for newer scientific and more reliable frameworks on human behavior in psychology today (Kluners, 2014). And this brings us to the last point, which relates to the modern models of personality and the metrics used to measure it. Today, there is a much more empirical approach taken when choosing the most fundamental and (almost but not quite) universal personality traits, which today is now called the Big Five personality model. Essentially, researchers utilized the lexical approach which determines the personality traits that are talked about or which occur the most in everyday language, and the results were five traits: consciousness – being responsible or careful; agreeableness – being diplomatic and easy to get along with; neuroticism – being prone to melancholy; openness to experience – being unconventional and intellectually curious; and extraversion – being sociable and outgoing (Miller, 2012). Not only were these found to be the most commonly used terms to describe personality in everyday language, but dimensions of these traits were found to exist transnationally, ranging from Italy to Japan (Trull, 2012).

Lastly, it’s also worth noting that while the Big Five is a good starting ground, its worthy rivals such as the Big Three subsume neuroticism and extraversion under the category of openness to experience – even then, however, both proposals are still imperfect models because relying on the frequency at which traits are brought up in everyday language is not the only measure for relevant personality traits. Additionally, as Walter Mischel pointed out, personality measures are still weak since they cannot adequately predict behaviors in isolation (Mischel, 1968). On the converse, personality measures are still good indicators of long-term behavioral tendencies, suggesting that modern models like the Big Five or the Big Three are better used to describe personality rather than explaining the causes behind it (Lilienfeld et al., 2018).

Conclusion

Personality is a complicated thing, and even in the grandeur of the modern tech age, there does not exist a perfect scientific model for personality. As already said, personality accounts for the various behaviors and predispositions – which are called traits – that people have varying on the situation. Based on pre-existing twin and adoption studies, all of which have been replicated, suggests that many of these traits are hereditary and that shared environment has little to do with playing a role in personality development. Therefore, based on the aforementioned findings, it is within reason to say that genetic and nonshared environmental factors play the largest role in personality development. In the past, ingenious (yet often unscientific) thinkers such as Freud had posited a brilliantly comprehensive system of how the human psyche behaved, putting forward the first ever three-structure personality model, famously known as the Id, Ego, and Superego. And while not every psychologist accepted Freud’s notion of personality, it gave rise to more interesting debates on consciousness and paved the road for a far more empirically objective approach to the topic of personality; and apart from the many controversies of his theories and the oddities of his character, Freud positively influenced psychology the world over. The fire of Freud’s thoughts on personality has reached new heights in the modern day, giving rise to the development of more modern models of personality such as the Big Five and Big Three. These models capture the personality traits most often spoken of in everyday language, which are conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion. Lastly, while these traits cannot accurately predict isolated behaviors, they can accurately predict long-term behavioral trends; and while the mechanisms for the personality cannot be explained, the personality measures administered today can accurately describe the personality itself. For the foregoing reasons, psychology has come a tremendous way since the time of Freud, and thinking about personality itself has become supremely important today and will remain so as it continues to develop in the future to come.

References:

1. Allport G. W. (1961). Pattern and Growth in Personality. Fort Worth TX: Harcourt College Publisher, 28.

2. Boudry, M. (2013). The hypothesis that saves the day. Ad hoc reasoning in pseudoscience. Logique et analyse, 52, 245-258.

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4. Kluners, M. (2014). Freud as a philosopher of history. The Journal of Psychohistory, 42(1), p.55-71.

5. Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., & Namy, L. L. (2018). Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding (Fourth Edition). Pearson Education. (Original work published 2011), p.537-538, 546, 555, 560.

6. Loehlin, J. C., & Horn, J. M. (2010). Personality and intelligence in adoptive families. New York, NY: Sage.

7. Miller, J. D. (2012). Five-Factor Model personality disorder prototypes: A review of their development, validity, and comparison to alternative approaches. Journal of Personality, 80(6), 1565–1591.

8. Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York, NY: Wiley

Newirth, J. (2015). Psychoanalysis’ Past, Present, and Future: Sherlock Holmes, Sir Lanecelot, and the Wizard of Oz. Psychoanalytic Psychology, p.1–14.

9. Tellegen, A., Lykken, D. T., Bouchard, T. J., Wilcox, K. J., Segal, N. L., & Rich, S. (1988). Personality similarity in twins reared apart and together. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, p.1031-1039.

10. Trull, T. J. (2012). The Five-Factor Model of personality disorder and DSM 5. Journal of Personality, 80(6), 1697–1720.