INTERPERSONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS

Harry Stack Sullivan, the first American to construct a comprehensive personality theory, believed that
people develop their personality within a social context. Without other people, Sullivan contended,
humans would have no personality. His interpersonal theory emphasizes the importance of various
developmental stages—infancy, childhood, the juvenile era, preadolescence, early adolescence, late
adolescence, and adulthood (Sullivan, 1953b). Healthy human development rests on a person’s ability to
establish intimacy with another person, but unfortunately, anxiety can interfere with satisfying
interpersonal relations at any age.

HARRY STACK SULLIVAN

Harry Stack Sullivan (1892 - 1949) was born to Irish
immigrants, and said to have grown-up in an anti-Catholic town.
The resultant social isolation might have laid to his later interest
in psychiatry. He received his medical degree from Chicago
College of Medicine and Surgery in 1917. He was one of the
founders of the William Alanson White Institute, considered to
be the World's leading independent psychoanalytic institute, and
of the journal Psychiatry in 1937. He headed the Washington
School of Psychiatry (DC) from 1936 to 1947. In 1940, Sullivan
and his colleague Winfred Overholser formulated guidelines for
the psychological screening of inductees to the United States
military.

Tensions

Sullivan (1953a) conceptualized personality as an energy system, with energy existing either as tension
(potentiality for act ion) or as energy transformations (the actions themselves). He further divided
tensions into needs and anxiety.
 Needs can relate either to the general well-being of a person or to specific zones, such as the
mouth or genitals. General needs can be either physiological, such as food or oxygen, or they can
be interpersonal, such as tenderness and intimacy.
 Unlike needs, which are conjunctive and call for specific actions to reduce them, anxiety is
disjunctive and calls for no consistent actions for its relief. All infants learn to be anxious through
the empathic relationship that they have with their mothering one. Sullivan called anxiety the
chief disruptive force in interpersonal relations.

Dynamisms

Sullivan (1953a) used the term dynamism to refer to a typical pattern of behavior.
 The disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred is called malevolence, defined by Sullivan as a
feeling of living among one's enemies. Those children who become malevolent have much
difficulty giving and receiving tenderness or being intimate with other people.
  The conjunctive dynamism marked by a close personal relationship between two people of equal
status is called intimacy. Intimacy facilitates interpersonal development while decreasing both
anxiety and loneliness.
 Lust is a self-cantered need that can be satisfied in the absence of an intimate interpersonal
relationship. In other words, although intimacy presupposes tenderness or love, lust is based
solely on sexual gratification and requires no other person for its satisfaction.
 The most inclusive of all dynamisms is the self-system, or that pattern of behaviors that protects
us against anxiety and maintains our interpersonal security. In order to do this, we display
behaviors that are designed to reduce interpersonal tensions:
o dissociation - this includes all those experiences that we block from awareness
o selective inattention – involves blocking only certain experiences from awareness.

Personifications

Sullivan (1954) believed that people acquire certain images of self and others throughout the
developmental stages, and he referred to these subjective perceptions as personifications.
 Bad-Mother, Good-Mother. The bad-mother personification grows out of infants' experiences
with a nipple that does not satisfy their hunger needs. All infants experience the bad-mother
personification, even though their real mothers may be loving and nurturing. Later, infants
acquire a good-mother personification as they become mature enough to recognize the tender and
cooperative behavior of their mothering one. Still later, these two personifications combine to
form a complex and contrasting image of the real mother.
 Me personifications. During infancy children acquire three "me" personifications:
o the bad-me, which grows from experiences of punishment and disapproval,
o the good-me, which results from experiences with reward and approval, and
o the not-me, which allows a person to dissociate or selectively not attend to the
experiences related to anxiety.
 Eidetic personifications. One of Sullivan's most interesting observations was that people often
create imaginary traits that they project onto others. Included in these eidetic personifications are
the imaginary playmates that preschool-aged children often have. These imaginary friends enable
children to have a safe, secure relationship with another person, even though that person is
imaginary.

Levels of Cognition

Sullivan (1956) recognized three levels of cognition, or ways of perceiving things:

 Prototaxic Level. Experiences that are impossible to put into words or to communicate to others
are called prototaxic. This occurs normally in infancy and also appears in patients with
schizophrenia.
 Parataxic Level. Experiences that are prelogical and nearly impossible to accurately
communicate to others are called parataxic. Included in these are erroneous assumptions about
cause and effect, which Sullivan termed parataxic distortions.
  Syntaxic Level. Experiences that can be
accurately communicated to others are called
syntaxic. Logical, rational, and most mature
type of cognitive functioning of which a person
is capable.

Developmental Epochs

Another similarity between Sullivan's (1964)

theory and that of Freud's is the belief that
childhood experiences determine, to a large
degree, the adult personality. Unlike Freud,
however, he also believed that personality can
develop past adolescence and even well into
adulthood. He called the stages in his
developmental theory Epochs. He believed that
we pass through these stages in a particular
order but the timing of such is dictated by our
social environment. Much of the focus in
Sullivan's theory revolved around the conflicts of
adolescence.

In preadolescence (9 - 12 yrs) the

capacity for love and for collaboration with
another person of same sex develops. This is
called chum period, and it is the prototype of
sense of intimacy. This chum is often missing in
schizophrenia patients.

Interpersonal therapy

Sullivan (1964) evolved a theory of personality

that emphasized the importance of interpersonal
relations. According to him, the therapist is a
participant observer, who establishes an
interpersonal relationship with the patient. The
therapist understands patients, and helps them
develop foresight, improves interpersonal
relations, and restores their ability to operate
mostly on a syntaxic level. In general terms,
Sullivanian therapy is aimed at uncovering
patients’ difficulties in relating to others. To accomplish this goal, the therapist helps patients to give up
some security in dealing with other people and to realize that they can achieve mental health only through
consensually validated personal relations. The therapeutic ingredient in this process is the face-to-face
relationship between therapist and patients, which permits patients to reduce anxiety and to communicate
with others on the syntaxic level.

Criticisms and View of Human Nature

Though Sullivan gave much importance to interpersonal relations, his theory of personality and his
approach to psychotherapy lost popularity in coming years. In summary, his theory rates very low in
falsifiability, low in its ability to generate research, and average in its capacity to organize knowledge and
to guide action. In addition, it is only average in self-consistency and low in parsimony. Because Sullivan
saw human personality as largely being formed from interpersonal relations, his theory rates very high on
social influences and very low on biological ones. In addition, it rates high on unconscious determinant s;
average on free choice, optimism, and causality; and low on uniqueness.

PERSONOLOGY

Henry Murray designed an approach to personality that includes conscious and unconscious forces; the
influence of the past, present, and future; and the impact of physiological and sociological factors. The
influence of Freudian psychoanalysis can be seen in Murray’s recognition of the effect on adult behavior
of childhood experiences and in his notions of the id, ego, and superego.

HENRY MURRAY
Henry Murray, in full Henry Alexander Murray (born
May 13, 1893, New York, New York, U.S.—died June 23,
1988, Cambridge, Massachusetts), American psychologist
who developed a theory of human personality based on an
individual’s inborn needs and his relationship with the
physical and social environment.
Source: http://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-
Murray

Principles of Personology (Murray, 1938)

1. Personality is rooted in the brain. The

individual’s cerebral physiology guides and governs every
aspect of the personality. A simple example of this is that
certain drugs can alter the functioning of the brain, and so
the personality.
2. People act to reduce physiological and
psychological tension. It is the process of acting to
reduce tension that is satisfying, according to Murray, rather than the attainment of a condition
free of all tension. Murray believed that a tension-free existence is itself a source of distress. We
need excitement, activity, and movement, all of which involve increasing, not decreasing, tension.
Murray believed the ideal state of human nature involves always having a certain level of tension
to reduce.
 3. Individual’s personality continues to develop. It is constructed of all the events that occur
during the course of that person’s life. Therefore, the study of a person’s past is of great
importance.
4. Personality changes and progresses. It is not fixed or static.
5. Personology emphasized the uniqueness of each person while recognizing similarities
among all people. As he saw it, an individual human being is like no other person, like some
other people, and like every other person.

The Divisions of Personality

Like Freud, Murray (1938) suggested that the id is the repository of all innate impulsive tendencies. As
such, it provides energy and direction to behavior and is concerned with motivation. The id contains the
primitive, amoral, and lustful impulses Freud described. However, in Murray’s personology system the id
also encompasses innate impulses that society considers acceptable and desirable. Here we see the infl
uence of Jung’s shadow archetype, which has both good and bad aspects. The id contains the tendencies
to empathy, imitation, and identification; forms of love other than lustful ones; and the tendency to master
one’s environment.

Murray (1938) defined the superego as the internalization of the culture’s values and norms, by
which rules we come to evaluate and judge our behavior and that of others. The substance of the superego
is imposed on children at an early age by their parents and other authority figures. The superego is not in
constant conflict with the id, as Freud proposed, because the id contains good forces as well as bad ones.
While the superego is developing, so is the ego-ideal, which provides us with long-range goals for which
to strive. The ego-ideal represents what we could become at our best and is the sum of our ambitions and
aspirations.

The ego is the rational governor of the personality; it tries to modify or delay the id’s
unacceptable impulses. Murray extended Freud’s formulation of the ego by proposing that the ego is the
central organizer of behavior. It consciously reasons, decides, and wills the direction of behavior. Thus,
the ego is more active in determining behavior than Freud believed. Not merely the servant of the id, the
ego consciously plans courses of action. It functions not only to suppress id pleasure but also to foster
pleasure by organizing and directing the expression of acceptable id impulses.

Types of Needs

 Primary needs (viscerogenic needs) arise from internal bodily states and include those needs
required for survival (such as food, water, air, and harm avoidance), as well as such needs as sex
and sentience.
 Secondary needs (psychogenic needs) arise indirectly from primary needs which are concerned
with emotional satisfaction and include most of the needs on Murray’s original list.
 Reactive needs involve a response to something specific in the environment and are aroused only
when that object appears.
 Proactive needs do not depend on the presence of a particular object. They are spontaneous
needs that elicit appropriate behavior whenever they are aroused, independent of the environment.
 SOURCE: Image adapted from Schultz and Schultz (2005).

Characteristics of Needs

 Prepotency. Needs differ in terms of the urgency with which they impel behavior,
  Fusion of needs. Some needs are complementary and can be satisfied by one behavior or a set of
behaviors.
 Subsidiation. It refers to a situation in which one need is activated to aid in satisfying another
need.
 Press. The influence of an environmental object or event that presses or pressures the individual
to act a certain way.
 Thema. It combines personal factors (needs) with the environmental factors that pressure or
compel our behavior (presses).

Personality Development in Childhood

Drawing on Freud’s work, Murray (1940) divided childhood into five stages, each characterized by a
pleasurable condition that is inevitably terminated by society’s demands. Each stage leaves its mark on
our personality in the form of an unconscious complex that directs our later development.

SOURCE: Image adapted from Schultz and Schultz (2005).

Stages of Development

 The claustral stage. The fetus in the womb is secure, serene, and dependent, conditions
we may all occasionally wish to reinstate.
o The simple claustral complex is experienced as a desire to be in small, warm, dark
places that are safe and secluded.
 The insupport form of the claustral complex centers on feelings of
insecurity and helplessness that cause the person to fear open spaces,
falling, drowning, fi res, earthquakes, or simply any situation involving
novelty and change.
 The anti-claustral or egression form of the claustral complex is based on a
need to escape from restraining womblike conditions.
  The oral stage.
o The oral succorance complex features a combination of mouth activities, passive
tendencies, and the need to be supported and protected.
o The oral aggression complex combines oral and aggressive behaviors, including biting,
spitting, shouting, and verbal aggression such as sarcasm.
o Behaviors characteristic of the oral rejection complex include vomiting, being picky
about food, eating little, fearing oral contamination (such as from kissing), desiring
seclusion, and avoiding dependence on others.
 The anal stage.
o In the anal rejection complex, there is a preoccupation with defecation, anal humor, and
feces-like material such as dirt, mud, plaster, and clay. Persons with this complex may be
dirty and disorganized.
o The anal retention complex is manifested in accumulating, saving, and collecting things,
and in cleanliness, neatness, and orderliness.
 The urethral stage. Unique to Murray’s system, the urethral complex is associated with
excessive ambition, a distorted sense of self-esteem, exhibitionism, bedwetting, sexual cravings,
and self-love.
 The genital or castration stage. Murray disagreed with Freud’s contention that fear of
castration is the core of anxiety in adult males. He interpreted the castration complex in narrower
and more literal fashion as a boy’s fantasy that his penis might be cut off. Murray believed such a
fear grows out of childhood masturbation and the parental punishment that may have
accompanied it.

Views about Human Nature

 On the free will versus determinism issue, Murray argued that personality is determined by our
needs and by the environment. He accorded us some free will in our capacity to change and to
grow. Each person is unique, but there are also similarities in the personalities of all of us.
 Murray believed we are shaped by our inherited attributes and by our environment; each is of
roughly equal influence. We cannot understand the human personality unless we accept the
impact of the physiological forces and the stimuli in our physical, social, and cultural
environments.
 Murray’s view of human nature was optimistic. He criticized a psychology that projected a
negative and demeaning image of human beings. He argued that, with our vast powers of
creativity, imagination, and reason, we are capable of solving any problem we face.
 Our orientation is largely toward the future. Although Murray recognized the imprint of
childhood experiences on current behavior, he did not envision people as captives of the past.
 We have the ability to grow and develop, and such growth is a natural part of being human.
 We can change through our rational and creative abilities and can reshape our society as well.
THEORY OF TRAUMA OF BIRTH (in Apruebo, 2008a)

OTTO RANK
(April 22, 1884 – October 31, 1939) was an
Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and teacher. Born
in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's
closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on
psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important
analytic journals, managing director of Freud's publishing house
and a creative theorist and therapist. In 1926, Otto Rank left
Vienna for Paris. For the remaining 14 years of his life, Rank
had a successful career as a lecturer, writer and therapist in
France and the United States.
Source: http://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-Rank

View of Man

 Rank viewed man’s personality in terms of the will as

the guiding force in personality development.
 In Rank’s view, resistance from patient during
psychotherapy was a manifestation of his will and was not an inherently
` negative factor.
 Rank believed that life instinct pushes the person to become fully functioning individual,
competent, and independent. Death instinct pushes the person to be a part of the family,
community, and humanity.
 Rank’s theory’s basic tenet is that the separation we experienced from our mother during birth
was in fact traumatic and it serves as the model for all anxiety we’ll experience later on our lives.
 The psychic separation we experienced from our mother is too strong that we desire to back to
the womb–a place of too much comfort and instant gratification– in order to restore prenatal
conditioning of safety and security.
 Healthily development has an impulse for rebirth or separation from maternal object so as to
achieve independence.

Types of Persons

1. Adapted or Average Type. People who learn to “will” what they have been forced to do. They
obey authority, society’s moral code, and as best as they can, their sexual impulses. This is a
passive and duty-bound person.
2. Neurotic Type. People who have a much stronger will that the average person but is totally
engaged in the fight against external and internal domination. They even fight the expression of
their own will and worry and feel guilty about being so “willful”. They are however on the higher
level of moral development than average type.
 3. Productive or Artist Type. People who have accepted and integrated the inevitable pressure
toward individuation and the unavoidable longing for union. These people accept and affirm
themselves which functions as a positive focus for will.

Processes

 The primordial anxiety of separation from the mother, rooted in the original birth trauma, was
revived at all subsequent experiences of separation such as weaning, castration threats, and
removal from close relationship with people.
 The need to restore unity with the maternal figure was contained in the desire to submit oneself
in human relationships. While the need for assertive individuality was residual in an impulse to
fight off the desire to unite with another person.
 Separation anxiety manifested in the “fear of life” – the tendency of the people to recognize
creative capacities within himself which would threaten to separate him from others and to live as
an isolated person. The “fear of death” is manifested by terror of losing one’s individuality and
being swallowed by others.
 The will is considered as the force of life and it integrates all separate experiences into a
composite sense of total being.
 Separation and individuation are caused by biological, psychological, and social developments
that are indistinguishable from life.
 Rank proposed a system of psychotherapy he named as will therapy where “empathy and love”
is necessary. Through this, the patient is encouraged to verbalize and explore rather than to let the
therapist take primary responsibilities for the interpretations and therapy direction. This is aimed
to mobilize the patient’s “creative will impulse” for positive self-realization.
LOGOTHERAPY AND EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS

The development of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis dates back to the 1930s. On the basis of
Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis and Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology the psychiatrist and
neurologist Viktor Emil Frankl (1905-1997) laid down the foundations of a new and original approach
which he first published in 1938. Logotherapy/Existential Analysis, sometimes called the "Third
Viennese School of Psychotherapy", is an internationally acknowledged and empirically based meaning-
centered approach to psychotherapy (Apruebo, 2008b).

VICTOR FRANKL
Viktor Emil Frankl (26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997) was
an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust
survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a
form of existential analysis, the "Third Viennese School of
Psychotherapy". His best-selling book Man's Search for
Meaning chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp
inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding
meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones,
and thus, a reason to continue living. Frankl became one of the
key figures in existential therapy and a prominent source of
inspiration for humanistic psychologists.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl

Freedom of Will

According to LTEA humans are not fully subject to conditions

but are basically free to decide and capable of taking their stance towards internal (psychological) and
external (biological and social) conditions (Frankl, 1961a). Freedom is here defined as the space of
shaping one's own life within the limits of the given possibilities. This freedom derives from the spiritual
dimension of the person, which is understood as the essentially human realm, over and above the
dimensions of body and of psyche. As spiritual persons, humans are not just reacting organisms but
autonomous beings capable of actively shaping their lives. The freedom of the human person plays an
important role in psychotherapy, in that it provides clients with room for autonomous action even in the
face of somatic or psychological illness; and it just that resource which enables clients, in the context of
the techniques of Paradoxical Intention and Dereflection, to cope with their symptoms and to regain
control and self-determination.

Will To Meaning (Frankl, 1958)

Human beings are not only free, but most importantly they are free to something - namely, to achieve
goals and purposes. The search for meaning is seen as the primary motivation of humans. When a person
cannot realize his or her "Will to Meaning" in their lives they will experience an abysmal sensation of
meaninglessness and emptiness. The frustration of the existential need for meaningful goals will give rise
to aggression, addiction, depression and suicidality, and it may engender or increase psychosomatic
maladies and neurotic disorders. Logotherapy/Existential Analysis assists clients in perceiving and
removing those factors that hinder them in pursuing meaningful goals in their lives. Clients are sensitized
for the perception of meaning potentialities; however, they are not offered specific meanings. Rather, they
are guided and assisted in the realization of those meaning possibilities they have detected themselves.

Meaning in Life (Frankl, 1958)

LTEA is based on the idea that meaning is an objective reality, as opposed to a mere illusion arising
within the perceptional apparatus of the observer. This is in contrast to the so-called "Occupational and
Recreational Therapies" which are primarily concerned with diverting the clients' attention from disturbed
or disturbing modes of experience. According to LTEA humans are called upon, on the grounds of their
freedom and responsibility, to bring forth the possible best in themselves and in the world, by perceiving
and realizing the meaning of the moment in each and every situation. In this context it must be stressed
that these meaning potentials, although objective in nature, are linked to the specific situation and person,
and are therefore continually changing. Thus LTEA does not declare or offer some general meaning of
life. Rather, clients are aided in achieving the openness and flexibility that will enable them to shape their
day-to-day lives in a meaningful manner.

Therapeutic Techniques in LTEA (Frankl, 1966)

Paradoxical Intention. Indications: mainly compulsive disorders and anxiety, also vegetative syndromes.
Guided by the physician or therapist, clients learn to overcome their obsessions or anxieties by self-
distancing and humorous exaggeration, thus breaking the vicious circle of symptom and symptom
amplification.

Dereflexion. Indications: Sexual disorders and sleeplessness, also anxiety disorders. Instinctive,
automatic processes are impeded and hindered by exaggerated self-observation. By the same token, some
mild and well-founded sensations of anxiousness or sadness will be increased and amplified by self-
observation, making them more noticeable and engendering even more intense observation. It is the
purpose of dereflexion to break this neuroticizing circle by drawing the client's attention away from the
symptom or the naturally flowing process.

Socratic dialogue / modification of attitudes. Certain attitudes and expectations may be obstacles to
meaning fulfillment. They can alienate a person from the meaning potentialities in his or her life, thus
accentuating neurotic disorders, or even producing them via repeated maldecisions and formation of
behavior patterns. It is important to note that the therapist or physician must refrain from imposing his or
her own values or meaning perceptions. Rather, clients are guided to perceive their unrealistic and
counterproductive attitudes and to develop a new outlook that may be a better basis for a fulfilled life.
Socratic dialogue is a conversational method frequently used by logotherapists. Specific questions are
aimed to raise into consciousness the possibility to find, and the freedom to fulfill, meaning in one's life.
In the philosophical setting this technique of guiding by questioning was introduced by Socrates, who
characterized it as a sort of "spiritual midwifery".

Dictionary of Logotherapy/Existential Analysis

Logotherapy. The greek word "logos" is here used in the sense of "meaning"; the equally valid
translations, "word" or "rational order" are not helpful in explaining the tenets of LTEA. In particular, the
logotherapist is not attempting to persuade the client by logical reasoning; rather, they assist the clients in
detecting their specific and individual meaning. Logotherapy is applied therapy on the basis of the
psychological-anthropological model developed by Viktor Frankl.

Existential analysis. EA may be understood as the philosophical and scientific basis of logotherapy as
well as an essential part of a therapy proper. Basically, existential analysis means analysis with respect to
existence, or "explication of existence" with consideration of a self-responsible, self-realized and humane
life.

In "general existential analysis" the pursuit of meaning is discussed and identified as a basic motivation
in humans, and arguments are provided that demonstrate the fundamental possibility of finding meaning
in life. On this basis the therapeutic effects of a successful search for meaning may be explained.

In "special existential analysis" the specific, individual life of a person or a group is probed for the
possible existential roots of a mental or psychological disorder. In this context it provides the basis for a
logo-therapy as a specific therapy proceeding via the "existential core". Thus the therapeutic value of
existential analysis lies in the elucidation of the concrete existential situation and the preparation for
giving assistance in the - autonomous - search for meaning.
 BIOLOGICAL / EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES

EYSENCK’S BIOLOGICALLY BASED FACTOR THEORY

The personality theory of Hans Eysenck has strong psychometric and biological components. However,
Eysenck (1977a, 1997a) contended that psychometric sophistication alone is not sufficient to measure the
structure of human personality and that personality dimensions arrived at through factor analytic methods
are sterile and meaningless unless they have been shown to possess a biological existence.

HANS EYSENCK
AKA Hans Jürgen Eysenck
Born: 4-Mar-1916
Birthplace: Berlin, Germany
Died: 4-Sep-1997
Location of death: London, England
Cause of death: Cancer – Brain
Gender: Male
Religion: Agnostic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Psychologist
Nationality: England
Executive summary: Intelligence and personality
Source: http://www.nndb.com/people/586/000195998/

Criteria for Identifying Factors

 Psychometric evidence for the factor’s existence must be established. A corollary to this criterion
is that the factor must be reliable and replicable.
 The factor must also possess heritability and must fit an established genetic model. This criterion
eliminates learned characteristics, such as the ability to mimic the voices of well-known people or
a religious or political belief.
 The factor must make sense from a theoretical view. Eysenck (1977a) employed the deductive
method of investigation, beginning with a theory and then gathering data that are logically
consistent with that theory.
 The final criterion for the existence of a factor is that it must possess social relevance; that is, it
must be demonstrated that mathematically derived factors have a relationship (not necessarily
causal) with such socially relevant variables as drug addiction, proneness to unintentional
injuries, outstanding performance in sports, psychotic behavior, criminality, and so on.

Hierarchy of Behavior Organization

Eysenck (1947, 1994c) recognized a four-level hierarchy of behavior organization. At the lowest level are
specific acts or cognitions, individual behaviors or thoughts that may or may not be characteristic of a
person. At the second level are the habitual acts or cognitions, that is, responses that recur under similar
conditions. Several related habitual responses form a trait—the third level of behavior. Eysenck (1981)
defined traits as “important semi-permanent personality dispositions” (p. 3). Most of Cattell’s 35 normal
and abnormal primary source traits are at this third level of organization, which accounts for the fact that
he identified far more personality dimensions than either Eysenck or advocates of the Five-Factor Theory.
Eysenck concentrated on the fourth level, that of types or superfactors. A type is made up of several
interrelated traits.

SOURCE: Image adapted from Feist & Feist (2009).

Dimensions of Personality

Eysenck extractedonly three general superfactors. His three personality dimensions are extraversion (E),
neuroticism (N), and psychoticism (P), although he did not rule out “the possibility that further
dimensions may be added later” (Eysenck, 1994b, p. 151). Neuroticism and psychoticism are not limited
to pathological individuals, although disturbed people tend to score higher than normal people on scales
measuring these two factors. Eysenck regarded all three factors as part of normal personality structure.
Eysenck contended that each of these factors meets his four criteria for identifying personality
dimensions.
 First, strong psychometric evidence exists for each, especially Factors E and N. The P factor
(psychoticism) emerged later in Eysenck’s work but was not taken seriously by other researchers
until the mid-1990s (Eysenck, 1997b).
 Second, Eysenck (1994, 1994b) argued that a strong biological base exists for each of his three
superfactors. At the same time, he claimed that traits such as agreeableness and
 conscientiousness, which are part of the five-factor taxonomy (John, 1990; Norman, 1963; Tupes
& Christal, 1961), do not have an underlying biological foundation.
 Third, Eysenck’s three personality dimensions make sense theoretically. Carl Jung and others
have recognized the powerful effect on behavior of extraversion and introversion (Factor E), and
Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of anxiety (Factor N) on shaping behavior. In
addition, psychoticism (Factor P) agrees with theorists, such as Abraham Maslow, who propose
that psychological health ranges from self-actualization (a low P score) to schizophrenia and
psychosis (a high P score).
 Fourth, Eysenck repeatedly demonstrated that his three factors relate to such social issues as drug
use (Eysenck, 1983), sexual behaviors (Eysenck, 1976), criminality (Eysenck, 1964, 1998b;
Eysenck & Gudjonsson, 1989), preventing cancer and heart disease (Eysenck, 1991c, 1991d;
Grossarth-Maticek, Eysenck, & Vetter, 1988), and creativity (Eysenck, 1993).

SOURCE: Image adapted from Feist & Fesit (2009).

Biological Bases of Personality

Eysenck (1990) cited three threads of evidence for a strong biological component in personality:

 First, researchers (McCrae & Allik, 2002) have found nearly identical factors among people in
various parts of the world, not only in Western Europe and North America but also in Uganda,
Nigeria, Japan, China, Russia, and other African and European countries.
 Second, evidence (McCrae & Costa, 2003) suggests that individuals tend to maintain their
position over time on the different dimensions of personality.
 Third, studies of twins (Eysenck, 1990) show a higher concordance between identical twins than
between same-gender fraternal twins reared together, suggesting that genetic factors play a
dominant part in determining individual differences in personality.

In Eysenck’s theory of personality, psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism have both

antecedents and consequences. The antecedents are genetic and biological, whereas the consequences
include such experimental variables as conditioning experiences, sensitivity, and memory as well as
social behaviors such as criminality, creativity, psychopathology, and sexual behavior.

SOURCE: Image adapted from Feist & Feist (2009).

To Eysenck, traits and dimensions are determined primarily by heredity, although the research
evidence shows a stronger genetic component for extraversion and neuroticism than for psychoticism.
Eysenck did not rule out environmental and situational influences on personality, such as family
interactions in childhood, but he believed their effects on personality were limited (Eysenck, 1990a).
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF PERSONALITY

Charles Darwin (1859) laid the foundation for modern theory of evolution, even though the theory itself
has been around since the ancient Greeks. Darwin’s major contribution was not the theory of evolution
but rather an explanation for how evolution works, namely through selection (natural and sexual) and
chance. Chance occurs mostly through random genetic mutation and we won’t have much to say about
chance. But Buss (2008) is adamant that human personality development is by and large due to chance.

DAVID BUSS
David M. Buss received his Ph.D. from the University of
California at Berkley in 1981. He began his career in academics
at Harvard, later moving to the University of Michigan before
accepting his current position as Professor of Psychology at the
University of Texas. His primary research interests include
human sexuality, mating strategies, conflict between the sexes,
homicide, stalking, and sexual victimization. The author of more
than 200 scientific articles and 6 books, Buss has won numerous
awards including the American Psychological Association
(APA) Distinguished Scientific Awardfor Early Career
Contribution to Psychology (1988), the APA G. Stanley Hall
Lectureship (1990), the APA Distinguished Scientist Lecturer
Award (2001) and the Robert W. Hamilton Book Award (2000)
for the first edition of Evolutionary Psychology: The New
Science of the Mind. He is also the editor of the first
comprehensive Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (Buss, 2008).

Principles of Evolutionary Psychology

Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer were the first thinkers to argue for an evolutionary perspective of
psychological thought and behavior. The term evolutionary psychology can be defined as the scientific
study of human thought and behavior from an evolutionary perspective and focuses on four big questions
(Buss, 1999):
1. Why the human mind is designed the way it is and how did it come to take its current form?
2. How is the human mind designed, that is, what are its parts and current structure?
3. What function do the parts of the mind have and what is it designed to do?
4. How do the evolved mind and current environment interact to shape human behavior?

Evolutionary Theory of Personality

Most personality theories assume that personality is caused by environmental events alone and
seldom mention a biological component. Evolutionary theory, however, assumes that the true origins of
personality traits reach far back in ancestral times. The true origin of personality is evolution, meaning
that it is caused by an interaction between an ever changing environment and a changing body and brain.
Evolutionary theory is one of the few recent theories of personality that attempts once again to explain the
grand view of human personality—its ultimate origins as well as its overall function and structure (Buss,
2008).
Kinds of Evolutionary Selection Process

 Artificial Selection – (otherwise known as “breeding”) occurs when humans select particular
desirable traits in a breeding species.
 Natural Selection – the process by which evolution happens and is simply a more general form
of artificial selection in which nature rather than people select the traits.
 Sexual Selection – operates when members of the opposite sex find certain traits more appealing
and attractive than others and thereby produce offspring with those traits.

Evolutionary psychology is the scientific study of human thought and behavior from an
evolutionary perspective. The process of evolution by natural selection has produced solution to two basic
problems of life (survival and reproduction) and they are called mechanisms:
 Physical mechanisms – physiological organs and systems that evolved to solve problems of
survival.
 Psychological mechanisms – internal and specific cognitive, motivational, and personality
systems that solve specific survival and reproductive problems.
o Goals/drives/motives
o Emotions
o Personality traits
 Surgency/extraversion/dominance
 Agreeableness
 Conscientiousness
 Emotional Stability (opposite of neuroticism)
 Openness/intellect

Outcomes of the Evolutionary Process

 Adaptations – evolved strategies that solve important survival and/or reproductive problems.
Adaptations are often the products of natural or sexual selection and must have a genetic or
inherited basis to them.
 By-products – traits that happen as a result of adaptations but are not part of the functional
design.
 Noise – also known as “random effects”, occurs when evolution produces random changes in
design that do not affect function. Noise tends to be produced by chance and not selected for.

Common Misunderstanding in Evolutionary Theory (Feist, et. al., 2013)

When evolutionary theory first became popular in the 1980s it caused quite a bit of controversy.
There was a lot of resistance both from inside and outside university settings against applying
evolutionary ideas to human thought and behavior. Evolution is all about the body changing due to
changes in the environment. In this sense it is inherently a “nature and nurture” interaction perspective.
Evolution occurs from the interaction between adaptations and input from the environment that triggers
the adaptations. More generally, the discovery of epigenetics is an even more powerful example of how
genetic influence is not set in stone at the moment of conception and interacts with input from the
environment. Epigenetics is change in gene function that does not involve changes in DNA.

The evolutionary model of personality cannot be tested directly in so far as we cannot conduct
studies over hundreds of generations. And yet, just like in biology, there is much support for the
evolutionary basis of human personality, which can be divided into at least three general topics:
temperament, genetics, and animal personality. All three lines of evidence support the view that
personality has a biological basis and that these biological systems have evolved.

Concept of Humanity

 It is difficult to say on which side of the optimism-pessimism debate evolutionary theory

would fall. It is mostly descriptive and, in that sense, tends to be somewhat neutral about
describing human nature.
 Evolutionary psychology has a complex view on the question of determinism versus free-will.
A common assumption of evolutionary theory by critics is that it is harshly deterministic in
that it explains behavior in terms of an evolved past and genetic influence. Indeed,
evolutionary psychology is often criticized for condoning traditional sex-roles (e.g., women
are attracted to high status men and men are attracted to physically attractive women). Buss
(2008) and other evolutionary theorists make clear, however, that evolutionary psychology is a
theory of how these traits began, not how they should be.
 On the question of causality versus teleology it is clear that evolutionary theory comes down
heavily on the causality side of the equation.
 Evolutionary theory sides more with the unconscious influences on thought, behavior, and
personality than on conscious ones.
 The concept of humanity that will be most surprising to many people will be evolutionary
psychology’s stance on biological versus social influence. Clearly there is a strong emphasis
on biological influences, from brain systems, neurochemicals, and genetics.
 Evolutionary theory is also balanced on the question of the uniqueness of the individual
compared to general commonality among all people.
COGNITIVE SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Both Julian Rotter (1954) and Walter Mischel (1973) believe that cognitive factors, more than immediate
reinforcements, determine how people will react to environmental forces. Each suggests that our
expectations of future events are major determinants of performance. Rotter's interactionist position holds
that human behavior is based largely on the interaction of people with their meaningful environments.
Rotter believes that, although personality can change at any time, it has a basic unity that preserves it
from changing as a result of minor experiences. His empirical law of effect assumes that people choose a
course of action that advances them toward an anticipated goal.

JULIAN ROTTER
Julian Rotter was born in Brooklyn in 1916. As a high-school student, he
became familiar with some of the writings of Freud and Adler, but he
majored in chemistry rather than psychology while at Brooklyn College.
In 1941, he received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana
University. After World War II, he took a position at Ohio State, where
one of his students was Walter Mischel. In 1963, he moved to the
University of Connecticut and has remained there since retirement.

Predicting Specific Behaviors

Human behavior is most accurately predicted by an understanding of four

variables (Rotter, 1966):
 Behavior Potential. It is the possibility that a particular response will occur at a given time and
place in relation to its likely reinforcement.
 Expectancy. People's expectancy in any given situation is their confidence that a particular
reinforcement will follow a specific behavior in a specific situation or situations. Expectancies
can be either general or specific, and the overall likelihood of success is a function of both
generalized and specific expectancies.
 Reinforcement Value. Reinforcement value is a person's preference for any particular
reinforcement over other reinforcements if all are equally likely to occur. Internal reinforcement
is the individual's perception of an event, whereas external reinforcement refers to society's
evaluation of an event. Reinforcement-reinforcement sequences suggest that the value of an event
is a function of one's expectation that a particular reinforcement will lead to future
reinforcements.
 Psychological Situation. The psychological situation is that part of the external and internal
world to which a person is responding. Behavior is a function of the interaction of people with
their meaningful environment.
 Basic Prediction Formula. Hypothetically, in any specific situation, behavior can be predicted
by the basic prediction formula, which states that the potential for a behavior to occur in a
particular situation in relation to a given reinforcement is a function of people's expectancy that
the behavior will be followed by that reinforcement in that situation.

Predicting General Behaviors

The basic prediction is too specific to give clues about how a person will generally behave.
 Generalized Expectancies. To make more general predictions of behavior, one must know
people's generalized expectancies, or their expectations based on similar past experiences that a
given behavior will be reinforced. Generalized expectancies include people's needs-that is,
behaviors that move them toward a goal.
 Needs. Needs refer to functionally related categories of behaviors. Rotter (1966) listed six broad
categories of needs, with each need being related to behaviors that lead to the same or similar
reinforcements:
(1) recognition-status refers to the need to excel, to achieve, and to have others
recognize one's worth;
(2) dominance is the need to control the behavior of others, to be in charge, or to
gain power over others;
(3) independence is the need to be free from the domination of others;
(4) protection-dependency is the need to have others take care of us and to protect us
from harm;
(5) love and affection are needs to be warmly accepted by others and to be held in
friendly regard; and
(6) physical comfort includes those behaviors aimed at securing food, good health,
and physical security.
Three need components are:
(1) need potential, or the possible occurrences of a set of functionally related behaviors
directed toward the satisfaction of similar goals;
(2) freedom of movement, or a person's overall expectation of being reinforced for
performing those behaviors that are directed toward satisfying some general need;
(3) need value, or the extent to which people prefer one set of reinforcements to
another.Need components are analogous to the more specific concepts of behavior
potential, expectancy, and reinforcement value.

General Prediction Formula

The general prediction formula states that need potential is a function of freedom of movement and need
value. Rotter's (1975) two most famous scales for measuring generalized expectancies are the Internal-
External Control Scale and the Interpersonal Trust Scale.

 Internal and External Control of Reinforcement. The Internal-External Control Scale

(popularly called "locus of control scale") attempts to measure the degree to which people
perceive a causal relationship between their own efforts and environmental consequences.

 Interpersonal Trust Scale. The Interpersonal Trust Scale measures the extent to which a person
expects the word or promise of another person to be true.
Maladaptive Behavior and Psychotherapy

Rotter defined maladaptive behavior as any persistent behavior that fails to move a person closer to a
desired goal. It is usually the result of unrealistically high goals in combination with low ability to
achieve them. In general, the goal of Rotter's (1970) therapy is to achieve harmony between a client's
freedom of movement and need value. The therapist is actively involved in trying to (1) change the
importance of the client's goals and (2) eliminate their unrealistically low expectancies for success.

 Changing Goals. Maladaptive behaviors follow from three categories of inappropriate goals: (1)
conflict between goals, (2) destructive goals, and (3) unrealistically lofty goals.

 Eliminating Low Expectancies. In helping clients change low expectancies of success, Rotter
uses a variety of approaches, including reinforcing positive behaviors, ignoring inappropriate
behaviors, giving advice, modeling appropriate behaviors, and pointing out the long-range
consequences of both positive and negative behaviors.

Introduction to Mischel's Cognitive-Affective Personality System

Like Bandura and Rotter, Mischel believes that cognitive factors, such as expectancies, subjective
perceptions, values, goals, and personal standards, are important in shaping personality. In his early
theory, Mischel seriously questioned the consistency of personality, but more recently, he and Yuichi
Shoda have advanced the notion that behavior is also a function of relatively stable personal dispositions
and cognitive-affective processes interacting with a particular situation.

Mischel originally believed that human behavior was mostly a function of the situation, but
presently he has recognized the importance of relatively permanent cognitive-affective units.
Nevertheless, Mischel's theory continues to recognize the apparent inconsistency of some behaviors.

WALTER MISCHEL
Walter Mischel was born in 1930, in Vienna, the second son of upper-
middle-class parents. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, his
family moved to the United States and eventually settled in Brooklyn.
Mischel received an M.A. from City College of New York and a Ph.D.
from Ohio State, where he was influenced by Julian Rotter. He is
currently a professor at Columbia University.

Consistency Paradox

The consistency paradox refers to the observation that, although both

lay-people and professionals tend to believe that behavior is quite
consistent, research suggests that it is not. Mischel (1973) recognizes
that, indeed, some traits are consistent over time, but he contends that
there is little evidence to suggest that they are consistent from one situation to another.
Person-Situation Interaction

Mischel (1976) believes that behavior is best predicted from an understanding of the person, the situation,
and the interaction between person and situation. Thus, behavior is not the result of some global
personality trait, but by people's perceptions of themselves in a particular situation.

Cognitive-Affective Personality System

However, Mischel (1979) does not believe that inconsistencies in behavior are due solely to the situation;
he recognizes that inconsistent behaviors reflect stable patterns of variation within a person. He and
Shoda see these stable variations in behavior in the following framework: If A, then X; but if B, then Y.
People's pattern of variability is their behavioral signature of personality, or their unique and stable
pattern of behaving differently in different situations.
 Behavior Prediction. Mischel's (1979) basic theoretical position for predicting and explaining
behavior is as follows: If personality is a stable system that processes information about the
situation, then individuals encountering different situations should behave differently as situations
vary. Therefore, Mischel believes that, even though people's behavior may reflect some stability
over time, it tends to vary as situations vary.
 Situation Variables. Situation variables include all those stimuli that people attend to in a given
situation.
 Cognitive-Affective Units. Cognitive-affective units include all those psychological, social, and
physiological aspects of people that permit them to interact with their environment with some
stability in their behavior. Mischel (1979) identified five such units.
o First are encoding strategies, or people's individualized manner of categorizing
information they receive from external stimuli.
o Second are competencies and self-regulatory strategies. One of the most important of
these competencies is intelligence, which Mischel argues is responsible for the apparent
consistency of other traits. In addition, people use self-regulatory strategies to control
their own behavior through self-formulated goals and self-produced consequences.
o The third cognitive-affective units are expectancies and beliefs, or people's guesses about
the consequences of each of the different behavioral possibilities.
o The fourth cognitive-affective unit includes people's goals and values, which tend to
render behavior fairly consistent.
o Mischel's fifth cognitive-affective unit includes affective responses, including emotions,
feelings, and the affects that accompany physiological reactions.

Concept of Humanity

 Cognitive social learning theory combines the rigors of learning theory with the speculative
assumption that people are forward-looking beings.
 It rates high on generating research and on internal consistency, and it rates about average on its
ability to be falsified, to organize data, and to guide action.
 Rotter and Mischel see people as goal-directed, cognitive animals whose perceptions of events
are more crucial than the events themselves.
 Cognitive social learning theory rates very high on social influences, and high on uniqueness of
the individual, free choice, teleology, and conscious processes.
 On the dimension of optimism versus pessimism, Rotter's view is slightly more optimistic,
whereas Mischel's is about in the middle.