Personality Psychology
Alexander Nininger, twenty-three years old, was newly commissioned as a lieutenant in the United States Army and sent to the South Pacific to serve with the 57th Infantry of the Philippine Scouts. Quiet and thoughtful by nature, he loved theater, would spend many hours with a friend and often sit by the fireplace in the living room, having tea and listening to Tchaikovsky. When he went to serve in the South Pacific, he wrote a letter to a friend, saying that he had no feelings of hate and didn’t think that he could ever kill anyone out of hatred. In January of 1942, when the Japanese attacked, slipping hundreds of snipers through the American lines, Nininger told his commanding officer that he wanted to be assigned to another company so he could go hunting for Japanese snipers. He carried several weapons such as grenades, ammunition belts, a Garand rifle and a submachine gun. The young man crawled through the jungle and shot and killed snipers. He was wounded in the leg but kept going, shooting Japanese snipers for the comrades behind him. The ambitious soldier was wounded again but waved off a medic who tried to bring him back; he saw a Japanese bunker and two enlisted men up ahead. He kept charging at the bunker although he was shot in the shoulder. Nininger killed one soldier with a double thrust of his bayonet, clubbed down the other, and bayoneted the officer. Then, with outstretched arms, he collapsed face down. He was awarded the Medal of Honor (Gladwell, 1).
Nininger obviously had the right personality for this kind of work. But how could we know his personality beforehand? This young man loved theater and spent afternoons with tea and Tchaikovsky, and was so fearless and tenacious. Knowing one’s personality helps us predict one’s behavior. But asking Nininger himself or his friends to tell his personality would not be of any help. He did not even know that he was fearless. His friends would only recall him as a quiet and thoughtful person. Then, how can we get to the heart of one’s personality? There are twenty-five hundred kinds of personality tests and testing is a four-hundred-million-dollar-a year industry (Gladwell, 2). However, a personality test cannot predict behavior, because of its controversial aspects and problems regarding reliability, validity and limitations and because of its theoretical issues.
Content validity vs. Internal Consistency Reliability
In assessment of personality, validity concerns which characteristic is being assessed, for instance sociability or selfishness. One significant aspect regarding validity is content validity. It refers to component of questions in relation to a characteristic (Lanyon, 129). An assessment with a high content validity has components of question items that are “relevant to the characteristic” that is being measured (Ashton, 16). Though it may seem easy to achieve a high content validity, choosing question items can be tricky and sometimes it is difficult to determine what kinds of content should be included in question items and what kinds of content should be excluded from them. Suppose that we are to measure the sociability of individuals. We may include questions such as preference to spend free time with people rather than being alone. But what about being good at speaking in public or the tendency to initiate a conversation in a group? Are those considered one of the aspects of sociability or not? We can achieve high content validity by including question components that are relevant to a characteristic and by excluding those that are not relevant to it. Meanwhile, reliability refers to whether or not the data from an assessment is trustworthy (Lanyon, 118). The most significant part of reliability is internal consistency reliability. It refers to whether question items of an assessment are accurately measuring the intended characteristic (Ashton, 10). Using the same example, we would choose three question items to which individuals rate their liking with the scale of 0 to 10; disco, nightclub and party at a friend’s house. However, those three items are only partially measuring one’s sociability. More importantly, they are assessing some other variables that are unique to those items. The first item may probably measure one’s liking of music and dance in addition to sociability. The second item may probably measure one’s liking of drinking in addition to sociability. Finally, the third item may probably measure liking of a homey atmosphere, again, in addition to sociability. In order to maximize the internal consistency reliability, we have to increase either the number of question items or the correlation of the questions. For instance, we can add some more question items such as liking of local events or meeting new people. Now, the core elements of sociability are strengthened and unique elements of each question item are weakened (Ashton, 11). In this way, we achieve high internal consistency reliability. On the other hand, we can increase the correlation among question items. For instance, we can choose questions like preference to spend time with friends, preference to spend time with classmates and preference to spend time with coworkers. Then the correlation among these three items becomes quite high and it indicates that the characteristic is most likely presenting sociability, not the liking of music or alcohol. However, the solutions bring up a new problem. Trying to achieve high internal consistency reliability, by increasing either the number of question items or the correlation among them, we are forced to sacrifice content validity instead (Ashton, 17). In increasing the number of question items, the content of a characteristic is automatically being expanded since we would have to go further than a basic core part of a characteristic to create more question items. This means that the components of the question items become less and less relevant to the content of the characteristic as we increase question items, resulting in a poor content validity (Ashton, 17). Meanwhile, in increasing the correlation, we have to choose very similar question items. This means that the question items would represent only a small part of the characteristic. The content of the characteristic is now very limited to only one specific aspect of the characteristic, also leading to a poor content validity. Content validity and internal consistency reliability cannot be high at the same time. Therefore, assessments always have to lack or compromise either content validity or internal consistency validity.
Response Distortion
Some assumptions behind personality assessment, especially self-report questions, are important enough not to be ignored. The assessment assumes that respondents are aware of their characteristics, understand or interpret questions in the same way as others do and answer honestly and accurately (Larsen, 109). Though this may sound quite simple and fundamental, responses are always subject to a number of variables. Response set refers to the cases when respondents answer in certain ways to produce certain images of themselves (Lanyon, 141). It is also called non-content responding since people respond not to the content of questions but to something else (Larsen, 111). Response set includes overcautiousness being excessively cautious; oppositionalism, tendency to respond oppositely to what they believe to be true; extreme responding, tendency to give such extreme responses that even mentally disordered people may not do, such as choosing “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” and avoid “slightly agree” or “slightly disagree” (Larsen, 111). Among the response set, the three most significant variables are acquiescence, defensiveness and social desirability. First, acquiescence is the tendency when one is in doubt or uncertain to agree, answer “yes” in yes/no questions and answer “true” in true/false question, rather than disagree, answer “no” or “false”(Goodstein, 389). For instance, an answer “yes” to a question item like, “I consider myself as an intellectual person”, can have two possible interpretations. One is that the “yes” comes from the fact that the person is actually intellectual, while the other “yes” is simply a reflection of the person’s uncertainty if he or she is an intellectual person. The correlation between positive response (yes, true, agree) and such personality aspect as extroversion or stimulus acceptance are significantly high. Secondly, defensiveness refers to deliberate efforts to produce certain results, mostly either by faking good or by faking bad (Lanyon, 151). One may be motivated to fake good to appear to be better adjusted than he or she actually is. Or one may be motivated to fake bad to appear to be more maladjusted than he or she actually is (Larsen, 110). For example, a person suing a next door neighbor for stress caused by noise and some other environmental conditions might be motivated to appear very distressed when he or she takes an assessment. The most significant notion in response set is social desirability. Social desirability is generally defined as an unconscious tendency to respond in a socially desirable way to make a positive impression or to avoid a negative impression (Larsen, 111). Some psychologists view this as a trait in itself and use it to measure some other variables such as a reflection of a need for approval (Larsen, 112, 116). It is also used as an important predictor variable to determine psychopathology or psychological health. This is because normal people respond to questions with social desirability, while mentally disordered people respond without social desirability (Lanyon, 149). However, the majority of psychologists see social desirability as errors and something that should be eliminated from the score. We learn to experience negative feelings, such as anxiety or guilt along with punishment and rejections from society when our behaviors do not conform to social norms or expectations. We learn to experience positive feelings, such as pride and pleasure along with reward or acceptance when our behaviors are socially conformable (Goodstein, 417). Therefore, with the obviousness of the “correct” answer, people are almost automatically made to respond in certain ways. For example, a true/ false question like, “Most of the time I see things positively”, you might answer “yes” even if you actually see things negatively most of the time because that tells that you are a well-adjusted person. People respond “not to the content of the item but to the kind of impression a True or False answer would create” (Larsen, 111). Socially desirable behavior is connected to good adjustment and people are affected by societal perceptions and demands, which conceals an accurate essence of one’s personality. Response set becomes more significant when making important decisions about people’s lives, such as admission for certain schools, hiring, placing, promoting and firing employees, determining someone is not guilty by the reason of insanity, and allowing prisoners to be paroled (Larsen, 110). Inaccuracies are often introduced into the test scores by response set and assessments fail to capture the true essence of one’s personality, which they are intended to do.
Theoretical issues
In assessing personality, the most important question to be asked is what personality is, the definition of personality. Personality psychology has not had one single definition agreed by all personality psychologists yet. Nevertheless, the majority of personality assessments are primarily based on trait theory. Trait theory approaches human personality and behavior with the reference to traits, which they define as meaningful differences among individuals that are relatively stable and consistent over time and across situations (Ashton, 27). Gordon Allport, the founder of personality psychology and pioneer of trait theory, states that traits are generalized response-units to stimuli that reflect one’s personality (Funder, 368). In other words, personality consists of a collection of traits, which we know through behavior such as habits or tendencies. Because traits that we possess vary in their degrees and combinations, every person can be unique.
However, shortcoming of trait theory was conspicuous because of its controversial aspects regarding consistency and stability that did not reflect traits. McAdams argues that personality can be viewed from three different stand points or levels (111). The first level is dispositional traits, which are mentioned above. The second level is characteristic adaptations, which are more internal and personal. Motives, goals, beliefs, interests, values, skills, knowledge, and defense mechanisms belong in this level. Major theories that focus on the second levels are Social Cognitive Affective theory and Social Cognitive Learning theory. Both have the same foundation in that they view personality as a dynamic entity influenced by a number of external factors and in that they emphasize internal personality structures and processes, including such concepts as human agency or intraindividual patterning. Both theories take the position of situationalism, which sees situations as a determiner of behavior and takes the impact of social context into great consideration (Larsen, 101). You may probably not joke at a funeral even if you are extroverted or you can be shy when you meet your girlfriend’s father even if you are a social person. First, Social Cognitive Affective theory recognizes stable patterns of inconsistent behavior across various situations as a reflection of the “same underlying stable personality system” (Mischel, 246). Individual differences are seen in dynamic, complex and multi faceted social and emotional information processing that may operate at many levels of awareness, automaticity, and control, in the accessibility or activation levels of the particular mental representations available to them, and in the organization of interrelationships among the cognitions and affects available in the system (Mischel, 253). The figure below illustrates the structure and process of behavior patterns from the view point of Social Cognitive-Affective theory.
This image is from Psychological Review, 1995, Vol. 102, No. 2. 246-268, Copyright 1995 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.Reflecting humanism, goals and subjective values are listed as personal variables and a person is seen as “active and goal-directed, constructing plans and self-generated changes”, not as a passive reactor to situations (Mischel, 252). Social Cognitive Learning theory, on the other hand, explains behavior as transmitted largely through exposure to social models (Bandura, 1). Albert Bandura states that people observe real life models and they are “conditioned through rewards and punishments to adopt the desired patterns” (Bandura, 2). One directs attention to a stimuli, retains the original observational inputs in a symbolic form, uses it to guide overt performances and retains the capability acquired with positive sensations or favorable conditions (Bandura, 34). The third level is what McAdams calls life stories. Psychoanalysts and a few other motivational and personality psychologists used stories as methodological means to obtain other things about persons, such as traits, motives or conflicts. However, beginning with Silvan Tomkins, personality psychologists began to consider the possibility that the story itself is “the thing” (McAdams, 111). The idea is that “identity itself takes the form of a story, complete with setting, scenes, character, plot, and theme” (101). Identity is internalized as a form of life story, based on biographical memory which is socially constructed (McAdams, 114). The theory also emphasizes the cultural and social impact on life stories, or identities, since the ability to construct personal stories requires the acquisition of cultural norms as the basis for what the stories should be like, what they should contain, how they should be sequenced and so on (McAdams, 111).
In order to save the idea of traits, trait theorists reformed their theory and introduced two significant changes: aggregation and the notion of “person-situation interaction” (Larsen, 101). The practice of aggregation, the process of averaging several single observations, produces better results in assessing traits and predicting behavior. There might be days when a dominant student is not dominant for some reasons. But what is important is his or her behavior over a long term and not his or her mood on any given day (Larsen, 107). Meanwhile, person-situation interaction explains behavior as a function of the interaction between personality traits and situational forces, also explainable through a “If..., if..., then...” statement (Larsen, 102). For example, if the situation is overwhelming, and if the person is shy, then being upset will be the result. One of the ways trait theory has proposed in which personality traits interact with situations is “situational selection”. It refers to the tendency to select situations in which one finds oneself (Larsen, 103). Snyder states, “quite possibly, one’s choice of the settings in which to live one’s life may reflect features of one’s personality; an individual may choose to live his or her life in serious, reserved, and intellectual situations precisely because he or she is a serious, reserved, and thoughtful individual” (Larsen, 104). Trait theorists’ point is that these situations which produce certain behaviors are the ones that an individual has chosen by him or herself with the internal causal properties, or traits.
Despite trait theorists’ remodeling some part of the theory, there is still a fundamental defect in the theory. The figure below shows the personality structure of trait theory. Basic tendencies refer to traits that are observable through behavior, and characteristic adaptations refer to more personal and internal entities as mentioned before. The most decisive point in this structure is the casual relationship, or the direction of arrows; one from biological bases to basic tendencies and one from basic tendency to characteristic adaptations, and not the other ways round.
This image is from The Piece of Personality Puzzle by David C. Funder, Norton & Company, 2010, Page 101Traits are placed as the initial and direct cause of characteristic adaptation. Characteristic adaptations, such as goals and motives, are merely outcomes of traits that do not in turn influence traits as the figure shows. That is to say that you want to be a comedian because you have a high level of extroversion. Second, the cause of traits is showed as biological bases, which refer to brain functions or genetic predispositions. However, how they influence traits are not explained clearly and thoroughly. Personality assessment is based on trait theory, which is deterministic and fails to consider other important aspects.
Human personality, expressed through behaviors, directly or indirectly, or explicitly or implicitly, reflects our internal reaction systems that are constantly influenced by many factors that interact with each other in such a complex manner. Therefore, personality tests, based on trait theory and with all those issues discussed above, can hardly be valid and reliable enough in assessing accurately and deeply one’s personality and in predicting behaviors.
Works Cited
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Ashton, Michael C. Individual differences and personality. Amsterdam: Elservier Academic Press, 2007, Print.
Bandura, Albert. Psychological Modeling Conflicting Theories. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2007, Print.
Funder, David C. Pieces of personality puzzle. Norton & Company, 2010, Print.
Gladwell, Malcolm. “Personality Plus”. New Yorker (Sept 20. 2004):1. Print
Goleman, Daniel. “Personality: Major Traits Found Stable Through Life.” New York Times (Jun 9. 1987): C1. Print.
Goodstein, Leonard D. and Richard I. Lanyon. Readings in personality assessment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1971, Print.
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Larsen, Randy J. and David M. Buss. Personality Psychology. New York: McGrow Hill, 2008, Print.
McAdams, Dan P. The Psychology of Life Stories. Review of General Psychology, Educational Publishing Foundatoin, 2001, Print.
Mischel, Walter. and Yuichi. Shoda. A cognitive-Affective System Theory of Personality: Reconceptualizing Situations, Dispositions, Dynamics, and Invariance in Personality Structure. Psychological Review, American Psychological Association, Inc., 1995. Print.
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