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Brian R. Little
Carleton University and
Murray Research Center
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Harvard University
Introduction: Voices in the Cafeteria
Imagine that we are listening in on a conversation between three
students in the college cafeteria. Their discussion weaves around
many topics but the dominant theme is their common project of applying
to graduate school in psychology. Speaking animatedly and downing
her third cup of coffee, Eve declares that she is only applying
to her top three choices and she's looking forward to dragging her
boyfriend to Ann Arbor. She suddenly bolts from the group realizing
she's late for her stats class. Adam says little, nods often, and
is wondering whether he really is grad school material. Besides,
his parents want him to go back home after graduation to work in
the family business. Nikki isn't really listening at all; she's
hung over again, hadn't realized grad application deadlines were
coming up, and frankly is fed up with Adam and Eve and the whole
human condition. She mumbles something they can't quite hear and
heads for the restroom.
If you are sitting in the adjacent booth in the cafeteria, would
you linger a bit, intrigued by the differing styles, contrasting
concerns, and singular stories you hear emerging in the snatches
of conversation? If so, then you probably have a natural affinity
for personality psychology. This chapter surveys the past and present
state of personality psychology as a core specialty within psychology
and examines how it goes about understanding the lives of the Eves,
Adams, and Nikkis of this world.
The field of personality psychology is flourishing. In many respects
the current buoyancy of the field reflects important shifts, both
methodological and conceptual, that have occurred over the past
two decades. Some of these changes arose in response to conceptual
crises within the field, particularly the Great Trait Debate that
occupied much of the field in the seventies. (Mischel's (1968) critique,
which launched the debate, and reactions to it are discussed in
a later section) .Other shifts reflect the gradual maturing of intellectual
agendas that were present at the modern inception of academic personality
psychology in the nineteen thirties (Craik, 1986). After sketching
very briefly the nature and challenges of the field of personality
psychology, I will present a perspective (admittedly an idiosyncratic
one) on some of the currently active research programs in the 'new
look' in personality psychology.
The Core Project of Personality Psychology: The Integrative Challenge
Within the social and behavioral sciences, personality psychologists
have chosen to specialize in comprehensiveness (Little, 1972). As
an intellectual field its scope of inquiry is inordinately extensive.
Personality psychology seeks to integrate diverse influences on
human conduct ranging from the genetic and neurophysiological underpinnings
of traits to the historical contexts within which individual life
stories can be rendered coherent. Pervin (1996) has provided a thoughtful
definition of personality which, in part, characterizes it as "the
complex organization of cognitions, affects, and behaviors that
gives direction and pattern (coherence) to the person's life"
(p.414). The study of personality seeks to understand how individuals
are like all other people, some other people, and no other person
(to revise slightly the classic phrase of Kluckhohn & Murray,
1953, p.53). It formulates theories about the nature of human nature,
the role of individual differences, and the study of single cases.
Personality psychology provides one of the core basic sciences underlying
many of the fields of applied psychology, including clinical, counseling,
health, and organizational psychology.
Classical Voices and the Conceptual Foundations of Personology
Even a cursory history of the classical theoretical and methodological
perspectives in personality psychology exceeds the limits of this
chapter, but fortunately two recent reviews provide authoritative
and concise accounts of the history of personality psychology (McAdams,
1997; Winter & Barenbaum, 1999). But it will advance the purpose
of this chapter if we have some major historical figures in the
field, metaphorically descend (or ascend) from their places in posterity
to offer their perspective on the cafeteria conversation with which
we began this survey. Their role will be like that of the Greek
Chorus in classical drama that offered commentary about the ongoing
action. (Except that none will speak in Greek and some won't speak,
but sing. Or hum.) They will introduce some of the concerns and
admonishments of classical personology and provide a bridge to contemporary
discourse about the field.
Let us start with a Freudian chorus (perhaps the Vienna Old Boys
Choir?). There is little doubt that psychoanalysis has had a profound
impact on the intellectual climate of the twentieth century. Many
in fact would claim that its impact has been greater in the arts
and humanities than in the social and behavioral sciences. In essence
the Freudian psychodynamic perspective held that unconscious wishes
and the vicissitudes of their expression comprised the core integrative
concepts necessary to understand the complexities of both normal
and abnormal personality. Thus the reach of psychoanalytic theorizing
extended from the clinical couch to the psychopathology of daily
life, from the deepest neuroses to the seeming innocence of typing
misrakes. Through the theoretical lenses provided by Freudian theory,
Eve's tardiness, Adam's ambivalence, and Nikki's petulance might
reflect the subtle operation of unconscious wishes and defenses
against them. Such influences would likely be sexual or aggressive
at root. A Freudian chorus might choose Nikki as the most obvious
case for explication of the possible influences of unconscious and
destructive forces in human personality because of the welling up
of impulses that compromise her ability to muddle through this particular
Monday. But they would also have comments to make about why Eve
is late only for her stats class and why Adam has never fully been
able to break away from the Edenic security of his home.
The Personological Chorus would feature Henry Murray with counterpoint
commentary by Gordon Allport, both of whom would be draped in Harvard
Crimson. Like Freud, Murray would insist that the motivation of
the students would run deep. Rather than focusing exclusively upon
sex and aggression, he would insist that there are diverse needs
that underlie human motivation, such as the need for affiliation
or need for achievement. He would voice concern that the environments
within which human motives play out should also receive our attention,
and that for each need operating in personality there is a corresponding
"press" in the environment that can facilitate or frustrate
its achievement. Finally, Murray would be concerned that we expand
the time line to look at "serials"--the sequences of action
that extend over longer periods of time and without which the significant
motivational agendas of people's lives may be given shorter shrift
than they deserve.
Allport would generally concur, but would suggest that traits are
the substantively real and dynamic sources of human personality
and that both the nature and organization of such dispositions are
patterned idiosyncratically. He would also argue that although pursuits
may originally be undertaken for one set of motives, they may eventually
become independent or "functionally autonomous" of the
originating motivation.
For these personologists, the ways in which the three students
are approaching their last weeks as undergraduates may reflect different
patterns of needs and the ways in which the environments are fulfilling
or frustrating the achievement of the needs. Eve may be primarily
concerned with a need for power, and her seeking admission only
to the elite schools may help her to develop influential connections.
This would contrast with her classmates, high in achievement motivation,
who may apply to a greater range of schools to optimize likely success.
(See Winter (1996) for an excellent description of need research
in the tradition of Murray and his followers such as McClelland).
Adam may have a strong need for self-abasement--a need his parents
are only too happy to satisfy when he broaches the topic of heading
off for grad school. Nikki might be particularly intriguing to the
personologists. Not satisfied to dismiss her behavior simply as
aggressive or neurotic, they may see her as a complex person--perhaps
a highly creative personality whose needs are being systematically
frustrated by environmental press that keeps her from exploring
ideas that she and others find strange and disturbing.
We might hear next from the Behaviorist Chorus comprising the early
learning theorists and joined by those such as Dollard and Miller
who attempted to translate psychodynamic theory into behaviorist
principles and of course Skinner whose clear voice of confidence
about the power of operant conditioning would likely drown out the
rest of the Chorus. The behavioral analytic units would be stimulus-response
bonds that would allow an integration not only of human personality
but the behavior of all organisms. This perspective placed considerable
emphasis upon the shaping of personality by environmental contingencies,
particularly by the rewards and punishments that reinforced behavior.
For the behaviorists, the differences between our three students,
Eve's ascendancy, Adam's diffidence, and Nikki's emotionality (and
drinking problems), arise from differences in their reinforcement
histories and the commonalities arise from their desire to avoid
painful stimulation and seek out rewards.
A third distinctive voice can be heard in the cafeteria: that of
George Kelly. At the same time as behavioral theories were in ascendancy
in psychology, Kelly proposed an original and audacious theory.
His integrative mission was to weave theoretical, assessment, and
clinical concerns into a seamless model of human personality. Kelly
postulated that to understand individuals was to understand the
personal constructs through which they viewed their worlds. Kelly
saw each of us as a "lay" scientist--testing out hypotheses
about ourselves and our worlds and revising those hypotheses (constructs)
in the light of experience. These personal constructs are organized
into systems such that some of them become core role constructs,
centrally important to the lives of individuals. Their preservation
and continued validation have a profound effect on emotional experience.
For example, according to Kellian theory, threat is awareness of
an imminent and comprehensive change in one's construct system.
Guilt is awareness of being dislodged from one's core constructs,
aggression is the expansion of core constructs to subsume new domains,
and hostility is the attempt to extort validation for a construct
one already feels has been invalidated (Kelly, 1955). So how would
the Kellian Chorus in the cafeteria (more likely an Irish tenor
solo) attempt to understand our three students? Kelly would likely
see all three students as feeling threat at the prospect of being
in transition between undergraduate life and their futures. Adam
may feel guilt in that he is being dislodged from a core construct
of being loyal to his family. Eve may be aggressively pursuing confirmation
of her construct of herself as successful. Nikki, we can now disclose,
has experienced a series of abusive relationships. She may have
experienced what Kellians refer to as serial invalidation of her
core constructs, in which each attempt to anticipate her world is
painfully disconfirmed. Her only strategy left is to attempt to
extort validation of her worth by acting abrasively toward those
who have failed to notice her pain. For Nikki, only a worthy person
has the temerity to tell her friends to "piss off". Or
so she tells herself.
These classic voices from personality psychology each approach
the integrative task by developing overarching theories of considerable
scope, though each selectively highlights a particular aspect of
human conduct as its integrative center. Thus classical psychodynamic
theory is primarily concerned with emotional experience, learning
theory with overt behavioral processes, and Kellian theory with
the cognitive systems through which personality unfolds. Yet each
extends the range of its theoretical constructs to include phenomena
that are of more focal concern for alternative perspectives. Indeed,
within psychodynamic theory, a major historical progression involved
a shift from emphasis upon unconscious motivation, to a conflict
free domain in which conscious goal pursuit could be carried out
without being subordinated to the pressures of irrational impulses
and wishes. Thus, psychodynamic theory was able to push its conceptual
agenda into an area that would be regarded as more the domain of
cognitive psychology. Similarly, learning theorists over the century
have moved from drive-reduction and peripheralist theories to cognitive
social learning theories (e.g., Bandura, Mischel), in which the
influence on human action has shifted from classical and operant
conditioning, or rewards and punishments to more cognitive concerns,
such as schemata, encoding skills etc. (e.g., Mischel, 1990).
Critical Voices: Challenge and Restoration in Personology
The field of personality psychology was thrown into considerable
conceptual turmoil with the publication of Walter Mischel's (1968)
Personality and Assessment. Mischel mounted a detailed critique
of broad dispositional traits as units of analysis in personality
psychology. Specifically, he argued that there was little evidence
for broad-based generalities of trait dispositions (e.g., an Adam
may be submissive around his fellow students and his parents but
assertive and confident when playing in his jazz band). He also
provided evidence that specific tests of personality traits had
little predictive validity in accounting for actual behavior and
seldom exceed a "personality coefficient" limit of .30.
Thus, Mischel's attack was antagonistic to the classical personological
perspectives and particularly to those who offered fixed traits
as analytic units for the field. His allies, interestingly, were
rather strange bedfolk: behaviorists (who by then were transforming
into cognitive social learning theorists) and personal construct
theorists--a direct reflection of Mischel having been a student
of George Kelly's. Mischel's central contentions were that human
action was finely attuned to situational influences, and that such
action was less the product of fixed traits than of the personal
constructs or conceptual lenses through which individuals viewed
the world.
The impact of Mischel's critique was pivotal for the field of personality
in three ways. First, it had a major effect upon personality testing
by calling into question the validity of such tests. Second, it
encouraged greater collaborative linkages with social psychologists,
who had traditionally regarded the major sources of human action
to lie in the situations and environmental contexts with which individuals
were confronted (Endler & Magnusson, 1976). Finally, and most
significantly, it stimulated an immediate, protracted, and eventually
successful defense of the orthodox trait model by personality psychologists.
While feeling that the strengths of the personological tradition
had been underestimated by Mischel, they also conceded that greater
conceptual grappling with some of the foundational issues in personality
measurement were now urgently needed (Wiggins, 1997). The result
of the clash between these critical voices was an enrichment and
broadening of the conceptual base of personality psychology. The
social cognitive learning alternative, espoused by Mischel, continues
to generate considerable research (e.g., Cervone & Shoda, 1999;
Mischel & Shoda, 1995). But a full scale restoration of trait
psychology also came about as a result of the Great Trait Debate
and, as we shall see, it now constitutes one of three major contemporary
perspectives in the field. It is to these contemporary voices that
we can now turn.
Contemporary Voices: Three Tiers for Personality Psychology
Contemporary personality psychology is multifaceted, complex, and
dynamic. One particularly helpful way of organizing this complexity
for expository purposes has been proposed by McAdams (1995). I will
adopt this as a starting point to review three different levels
at which personality psychologists are exploring the nature of human
nature and explaining the ways in which individuals live out their
lives.
Havings, Doings, and Beings in Personality Research
The first level of inquiry in contemporary personality research
is that of relatively fixed features of individual differences emphasizing
personality traits. The second level explores more contextually
sensitive and dynamic units of analysis that McAdams labels personal
concerns. (McAdams includes many more constructs at this level than
I will treat in this chapter. I have tried to make the case that
the central integrative units at this level are Personal Action
Constructs (PAC units) (Little, 1989, 1996)). The third level addresses
individuals' life stories and the narrative identities that people
construct to make sense of their lives. Invoking terms introduced
by Allport and re-introduced by Cantor (1990), we can refer to Levels
1 and Levels 2 as reflecting the "having" and "doing"
aspects of human personality respectively. "Having" refers
to that which we are endowed with and carry with us and "doing"
refers to that which we intentionally perform. Because Level 3 is
concerned with identity and the sense of self that individuals construct,
and to preserve the gerundial form of depicting the field, we can
refer to this as the "being" aspects of personality. Collectively
this structure of the contemporary field of personality research
can be thought of as exploring the havings, doings, and beings of
individuals.
For initial expository purposes, we can conceive of these three
levels as different tiers or floors of a house. Thus, personality
psychology can be thought of as having trait psychologists on the
ground floor exploring the nature of stable dispositions. On the
second floor are a group of psychologists who are interested in
people's personal concerns, and carry out research with PAC units,
such as current concerns, personal strivings, personal projects,
and life tasks (Little, 1996, 1999a). On the third floor are the
narrative theorists and psychobiographers who are examining identity
and life stories. As I have suggested elsewhere however, (Little,
1996), the "house of personality" would be incomplete
unless we added a basement in which would be housed two other active
groups of contemporary personality psychologists, psychodynamic
theorists and evolutionary psychologists. I wish to turn now to
a description of some of the important questions, methodological
tools, and research findings on the three main levels of personality
psychology. We shall deal with the cellar in due course.
Level I ("Havings"): Traits as Enduring Dispositions
Stable traits of personality were not only a foundational unit
of analysis in academic psychology, they have been invoked ever
since humans have communicated about their lives and those of others.
The notion that stable individual differences arise out of differences
in bodily humors is an ancient one and there has been an enduring
interest in attempting to classify and predict individuals on the
basis of traits assumed to be part of the constitutive nature of
human beings. These have often been thought of as aspects of people
that they "have" and that they carry with them through
the contexts, challenges, and pivotal moments of their lives.
The Big Five: Major Factors of Personality Traits
Consensus has gradually emerged that stable features of human personality
can be adequately described by five factors of neuroticism, extraversion,
openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (e.g.,
McCrae & John, 1992; Wiggins, 1996). Neuroticism is characterized
by attributes such as being nervous, worried and feeling emotionally
insecure. Extraversion is depicted by attributes such as excitement
seeking and activity level. Openness entails broad interests and
imaginative dispositions. Agreeableness involves tendencies toward
being good natured and trusting. Conscientiousness is associated
with characteristics such as being organized and disciplined.
Thus, at first blush, Eve, in our opening image, might be described
by others as being a rather extraverted, open individual; Adam could
be regarded as agreeable and conscientious, while Nikki might be
seen as at least incipiently neurotic.
Much of the current conceptual and empirical research in the field
of personality is concerned with the descriptive, explanatory, and
predictive implications of the five factor model. The five factor
model is seen by most psychologists as primarily a taxonomic description
of personality structure rather than a causal model that precisely
predicts behavior. Indeed, there are a number of different explanatory
models for each of the big five factors of personality, two of which
in particular, extraversion and neuroticism, have been well developed.
As one example, extraversion has been postulated by Eysenck (1970)
as a dispositional tendency to seek out stimulation, particularly
social stimulation, as a result of chronically low levels of activation
in the neo-cortex.
A somewhat different model of extraversion formulated by Gray (1981),
assumes that extraverts are particularly sensitive to reward cues,
while introverts are more sensitive to punishment cues (particularly
so if the individuals in both cases are also high in neuroticism).
Both these and other models of extraversion based on a biological
model have been bolstered by evidence that there appears to be a
strong genetic base underlying extraversion as well as the other
big five factors.
Thus, under these models, we might expect the extraverted Eve of
our example to be particularly keen to seek out stimulation and
to absorb herself in the conversation about grad school, and not
to notice that it was time to go to class. We might also predict
that she would be more likely than her introverted peers to need
a good dose of caffeine in the cafeteria to sustain her through
her stats class. And we might anticipate that she may not yet have
thought through some of the down side issues in applying for graduate
school ("Hey, what are these GRE thingies we're supposed to
take"?).
As well as having descriptive and explanatory functions, traits
are increasingly being used for purposes of prediction in applied
areas. For example, there is evidence that conscientiousness is
a robust predictor of success in many areas where achievement is
important, particularly achievement based on conformity to clearly
specified goals (see Hough, Eaton, Dunnette, Kamp,& McCloy,
1990). However, there appears to be one intriguing exception. Hogan
and Hogan (1993) have reported that conscientiousness is negatively
correlated with peer rated success among Tulsa jazz musicians. Given
that the ability to "jam" involves being able to "flex"
to the shifting cadence and intonations of others, the goal-oriented
persistence of the conscientious person may become a liability.
This exception may not, in fact, be so exceptional. It is interesting
to speculate whether organizational life, particularly in fast-paced
high tech companies, is more likely to require the skills of juggling
and jamming than those of dogged linear pursuit. So even though
traits may be fairly stable, the personality psychologists using
them as predictive instruments are fully aware of the need to monitor
their predictive validity in domains that are changeable and dynamic.
How might our three students be understood in terms of the Big
Five trait approaches to contemporary personality psychology? Eve
would appear to be an open, agreeable extravert, seeking stimulation,
confident in her expectations, and generally engaged in zestful
project pursuit. Adam might be seen as more introverted and conscientious.
He seems to be agonizing over the question of grad school and is
trying to balance it against other claims on his life. We might
see Nikki as distinctly neurotic: she is angry, anxious, hurting,
and inexpressibly sad.
Level II ("Doings"): Personal Projects, Tasks, and Strivings
Over the past couple of decades, another family of conceptual units
of analysis in personality psychology has arisen which complement,
and in some ways challenge, trait units. They have as a common focus
an emphasis upon personal action: on the doing side of personality
(Cantor, 1990; Little, 1999a). These personal action constructs
(or PAC units) include personal projects (Little, 1972, 1983; 1989),
personal strivings (Emmons, 1986), and life tasks (Cantor, 1990).
Personal projects are extended sets of personally salient activity
that can range from short bursts of action, such as "meeting
Adam for coffee" to the defining commitments of one's lifetime,
such as "try to respect my parent's wishes." Projects
are conceived of as middle level units in personality (Little, 1987,
1989) in that they are influenced by superordinate goals such as
core values, and they generate subordinate acts through which the
project is implemented. Though projects are action units, the fact
that they are personal means that they cannot be directly inferred
from mere observation of an individual's acts. Personal projects
typically proceed through the stages of project inception, planning,
action, and termination. However, the fact that they are embedded
in a daily ecology that involves flu bugs, returning boyfriends,
irate roomates and computer system crashes (sometimes simultaneously)
means that projects are in continual flux and their successful management
involves a blend of tenacity and suppleness. Quintessentially, personal
projects analysis is about the social ecology of muddling through.
To illustrate, let's follow Adam for a while. We catch sight of
him as he arrives on campus on Wednesday morning. He sits alone
in the cafeteria, skims a few pages of his Personality text, and
heads off to a Physics lecture. He sits frozen faced, trying to
suppress his yawning, leaves quickly after class, pauses momentarily
in the hallway, and then slowly walks along the river to his residence.
He slams the door, puts on a CD, and starts to cry: What's up?
From a trait perspective we might say that he is showing signs
of introversion by avoiding much contact with others and perhaps
that he is a bit neurotic (his crying might be seen as dysphoric).
But at Level II his behavior is approached rather differently. From
a personal projects perspective we would ask the crucial question
"What have you been up to today" to which he may well
respond with "trying to get a date with Jennifer". The
outward and visible signs of his behavior may have made little thematic
sense until we get that crucial piece of personal construing. His
cafeteria stop prior to class had been a reconnaissance mission
to see if Jenn was there that morning. His boredom in class may
have made more sense to the physics professor (who may have been
attributing unwarranted "thickness" to the student) if
he had known that Adam wasn't even registered in the course: the
only reason he was there was to be near Jennifer, a physics major.
Adam's dithering in the hall was a failed implementation of his
intention to approach Jennifer, who only knows him as a rather "wimpy"
person who seems to be following her around. His emotional release
back in residence was in frustration that once again he lacked the
courage to ask her out.
Research on personal projects involves asking people what their
current personal projects are, and then to appraise each project
on a set of approximately twenty dimensions that have both theoretical
and applied importance for personality psychology (e.g., enjoyment,
stress, control). These ratings, which can be appraised at both
the individual level of analysis and normatively, can be summarized
as falling under five major theoretical factors: project meaning,
structure, community, efficacy, and stress. Research to date confirms
the proposition that subjective well-being is related to the extent
to which people are engaged in personal projects that are worthwhile
(meaning), managed effectively (structure), supported by others
(community), likely to succeed (efficacy), and not unduly onerous
(low stress) (Little, 1989, 1999a, b, 2000a, b).
The content of personal projects has also been shown to be important.
For example, being engaged in intrapersonal projects, those dealing
with trying to change or deal with aspects of one's own personality
(e.g.,"be less subservient to my parents", "try to
figure out why I am always so angry", "be more outgoing"),
is positively associated both with a tendency to experience depressive
affect but also with the Big Five factor of Openness to Experience
(Little, 1989). From a personal projects view then, Nikki might
be expected to be engaged in a number of such intrapersonal projects.
But whether she sees them as likely to succeed or not might well
influence whether she flourishes as a creative intellectual or becomes
immobilized in self-hatred.
Two other PAC units, each in part derived from personal projects
methodology, have stimulated considerable research interest. Nancy
Cantor and her colleagues (e.g., Cantor, 1990) have examined personal
action in the context of what they term "life tasks".
Life tasks are undertakings that are important to accomplish at
different stages of life. Cantor explored these in her influential
study of the transition of University of Michigan students through
undergraduate life (Cantor, Norem, Niedenthal, Langston, & Brower,
1987). Students generated lists of personal projects which they
then categorized in terms of alignment with several types of life
task deemed important for university students. Subjects were able
to categorize many of their projects as being in the service of
life tasks such as "getting independent of parents," "forming
friendships," or "succeeding academically."
Cantor's research has shown how the successful management of life
tasks requires social intelligence, particularly the sensitive deployment
of appropriate strategies through which tasks can be successfully
accomplished (Cantor & Fleeson, 1994). Two such strategic approaches
have been identified by researchers on life tasks: defensive pessimism
and illusory glow optimism (Norem, 1989). The former strategy involves
envisaging a worst case scenario ("I'm going to fail this exam")
and harnessing the anxiety to motivate studying and task persistence.
The opposite strategy involves imaging best case scenarios ("I'm
going to ace this exam!") and having this positive incentive
motivate studying. The life task researchers have shown some intriguing
implications of the adoption of these two strategies. They seem
to be equally effective in terms of actual academic attainment,
but the defensive pessimists seem to incur social costs in terms
of being more of a burden on others. Thus, Nikki's repeated bemoaning
of the difficulties of finishing up term without falling apart may
work just as well as a motivational strategy for studying as Eve's
optimism. But friends start to tune Nikki out and potentially valuable
resources for her appear not to be answering their phones at college
that month.
Another PAC unit that has stimulated considerable research activity
is that of Emmons' personal strivings (Emmons, 1986). A personal
striving is something that a person is typically trying to do. Thus,
Adam's acts of listening empathetically to Nikki and writing a letter
home may be in the service of the personal striving of "being
nice to people." Emmons and his colleagues have shown that
human well-being is enhanced to the extent that personal strivings
are appraised as likely to be accomplished and are not in conflict
with each other. If Adam's "Be nice" striving is in conflict
with a "be intellectually tough" striving, his well-being
is likely to be compromised (Emmons & King, 1988).
Clearly, these three PAC units are closely related, though each
has a particular zone of applicability that suggests it is worthwhile
to preserve the subtle distinctions between them (cf. Krahe, 1992).
My own perspective sees personal projects as middle level units
that can be in the service of both personal strivings and life tasks.
Eve's personal project of completing her stats assignment may serve
both her striving of "competing with her brother" and
the normative life task of "doing well in academic tasks."
But she may also be involved in personal projects that are only
loosely coupled with a personal striving or life task such as "talking
to Nikki about the way she dresses."
Nikki's whole project system at college may be a protracted exercise
in meaningless pursuits, unlinked to superordinate goals, and bereft
of intrinsic meaning. Each of the PAC perspectives would see this
state of affairs to be problematic. It should also be noted here
that one of the major differences between the Big Five and PAC units
is that the former are postulated to be relatively unchangeable
after about the age of thirty (Costa & McCrae, 1994). So, while
there may be some latitude left for Nikki to change her trait of
neuroticism as she stumbles through her early twenties, there is
greater tractability for change in her personal projects, and perhaps
in her life tasks and personal strivings . At the very least there
is the possibility of helping to clarify them and enhance the likelihood
of them being pursued effectively. And, unlike traits, these reformulations
and transformations can be tried on throughout the life-span--even
when Nikki gets old and wobbly.
Level III ("Beings"): Life Stories and Personal Narratives
A third major growth area in contemporary personality theory and
research is the narrative turn that has occurred in recent years
(Sarbin, 1986). The major thrust of this perspective is that humans
have a deeply rooted need to construct narratives within which their
lives make sense. We construct stories not only about our relationships,
our achievements, and our aspirations, but we also tell stories
in order to establish an identity, to establish validation about
the type of "being" we are or are becoming.
McAdams (1993) has developed an elegant theory of personality in
which life stories form the central focus. Life stories are built
around various representations of self. Indeed, the very process
of "selfing" as McAdams calls it, emerges only in the
construction of a compelling life story that meets certain critical
features such as being coherent. A key element of the life story
is the development of "imagoes" which are like stock characters
in a story and are often personifications of the themes of agency
and communion.
The narrative theorists in contemporary personality psychology
would have much to say about our cafeteria conversations. First
and most obviously, the students are conversing! During conversation
we typically tell each other stories about how things are going,
what's up, who's doing what (and where and why). Second, the stories
we tell as we talk with others enable us to tie together personally
salient information from the other two levels of personality research.
Eve doesn't just list her trait characteristics or her projects,
she casts them in narrative form ("I know I'm too pushy with
Eric, and he really doesn't want me to go to grad school, but I
think he's fooling himself and I'll straighten him out before the
end of April. More coffee Adam?" ) In these conversations and
story telling, Eve's imago seems to be a blend of agency and communion--perhaps
seeing herself as the Directive Therapist. Eric, on the other hand,
may see her as Eve, the Avenging Traveler.
A third consequence of the narrative perspective to personality
is that the mere telling of our tales can have a salutary effect.
Pennebaker (1989) has shown that when students are asked to write
personal narratives that deal with previously unshared painful material,
there is an initial increase and then a long term decrease in measures
of autonomic arousal. The effect is particularly notable with students
who choose to tell deeply revealing stories. These results are consistent
with the research of Wegner (1994) who has shown that "not
thinking" about certain things can be taxing. (Wegner directs
his subjects, for example, to not think of a White Bear. I admonish
the reader not to think about this example.) Thought suppression
actually increases the likelihood of thinking about the suppressed
image and can extract an autonomic cost. If Nikki, then, were finally
to get the chance to unload, to open up and tell her story, she
may be less likely to anesthetize herself against the unspoken aspects
of her life.
Voices from the Cellar: Psychodynamic and Evolutionary Perspectives
in Personality
We have tried to capture the kind of theoretical conversations
that we would hear at each of three different levels in the house
of personality. In some respects, the metaphor is fitting-- often
the research being carried out on one floor is done in ignorance
(not necessarily willful) of work going on at the other two levels.
I also think that the second floor offers ways of "listening
in"on conversations on the narrative upper deck and down below
with the trait-ers. But, to extend the metaphor one level further,
I think there is a need to acknowledge some very strong rumblings
from the basement cellar. Here is where power plants and sump pumps
are chugging along and the kind of discourse going on down there
about personality is similarly foundational and, some would say,
earthy.
I see two basement areas operating at this deepest level of personality:
psychodynamic theory and evolutionary psychology. The first provides
a line of continuity with the modern origins of personality theory.
The second provides a link with the Darwinian roots of modern life
sciences.
A spirited treatment of the contemporary revival and sustained
relevance of psychodynamic theory for personality psychology can
be found in Westen (1990). One of the most noteworthy accomplishments
of contemporary psychodynamic theory has been wide spread acceptance
of one of its most basic assumptions: the pervasive impact of unconscious
influences on personality functioning (Erdelyi, 1974). For example,
when patients are exposed to subliminal stimuli that are symbolically
related to their particular problem, there appears to be some relief
of symptoms ( Silverman & Weinberger, 1985). That such messages
are not consciously recognized yet have a discernible impact on
human functioning means that at least some of the dynamics going
on in the college cafeteria are not accessible to the participants
or to their personality research professors (not unless armed with
hidden portable tachistoscopes). A general sense of tension and
pervasive unease between Nikki and Adam, for example, may be the
result of the continuous influence of impulses that each has imperfectly
repressed. To an astute psychodynamicist, there may be subtle hints
revealed in gesture and the parapraxes (such as slips of the tongue
and memory lapses) that lead to mixed messages and missed meetings.
Such influences are perplexing and their detection requires probative
work that is both demanding and subtle.
On the other side of the basement are the evolutionary psychologists.
David Buss (1991), in particular, has pioneered the study of how
evolutionary adaptation has shaped human personality. The essential
argument of this perspective is that in the course of evolution
various strategies which conferred adaptational advantage were selectively
retained and transmitted to the next generation. Though these adaptations
evolved in adaptive landscapes radically different from those that
confront us today, the mammalian brain still shows evidence of these
primordial adaptations.
One of the important claims of the evolutionary perspective is
that there will be sex differences in the criteria that guide selection
of future mates. It is argued that women will place a premium on
the status of prospective mates, while men will regard the physical
attractiveness of mates as differentially important. Note that it
is not being claimed that these will be the most important or the
only important criteria, in fact pleasantness of personality is
the top criterion in mate selection for both sexes. But it is argued
that the sexes should differ in the rankings of these attributes
for evolutionary reasons. Physical attractiveness serves as a marker
of potential fecundity in the female, and status cues serve as markers
that a male will be able to provide resources that will support
the viability of offspring.
Evolutionary personality theory also posits that there will be
important sex differences in emotions, such as jealousy. Males are
more jealous when their mates engage in sexual infidelity and women
more if their mates establish emotional romantic interests in another
woman.
An early and similar perspective to the evolutionary personality
psychologists is Hogan's (1982) socioanalytic theory. Hogan was
one of the first to emphasize the significance of the fact that
human personality evolved in the context of group life. Group living
requires that individuals be particularly sensitive to two key issues--establishing
social bonds with others and negotiating the power hierarchy: in
short of "getting along" and "getting ahead"
(Hogan,1982).
Like psychodynamic forces, those arising from evolutionary principles
may have an influence that eludes awareness. Adam may not have consciously
chosen to ask Jennifer out because she was "drop dead gorgeous"
(let alone likely to bear his child), though she is sure that this
is the main reason he keeps hanging around. He may well have consciously
formulated the goal of taking her out because she seemed nurturing
and responsive at a party in September. Meanwhile Eve will feel
deep frustration when Nikki asks her why she wore provocative clothes
when Professor Buss gave a colloquium in their department. "Give
me a break" says Eve, and rolls her eyes, while Nikki responds
with a smile that is part twinkle, part smirk.
My own view of the evolutionary perspective in personality theory
is that it provides some intriguing hypotheses about the distal
roots of human personality that otherwise seem inexplicable. My
concern is that we not underestimate the importance of another achievement
of mammalian evolution--the development of a neocortex that allows
us to formulate and carry out core projects that can override the
primitive motivational processes of more ancient origin. In my view,
peoples' accounts of what they are doing should take initial priority
particularly when we are dealing with things that are important
to them in their lives. Thus, I would be more inclined to believe
Adam's explanation of his reasons for pursuing Jennifer than those
that might be offered under the evolutionary hypothesis. Such a
"credulous" approach, which is consistent with Kelly's
view of the individual as co-scientist, works well within the normal
boundaries of daily conduct. If, however, there is consistent evidence
that all of the people Adam finds nurturing just happen to be beautiful
women, I would be inclined to look to evolutionary theory to help
explain why this is so. Perhaps it is in the dark passages of personality
and the extreme edges of human conduct that both the psychodynamic
and evolutionary perspectives deservedly attract our attention.
The prevalence of violent jealousy and the pervasiveness of "powerful
man, nubile woman partnerships" reminds us that we are, after
all, an evolved mammalian species with adapted minds and that this
heritage has the potential to influence us in powerful ways. (Do
not think of a White House.)
Personality in Context: Situations, Places and Environments
One of the central tenets of behaviorism, as well as the Mischellian
critique of traits, was that human conduct is often generated by
the context within which it is embedded. Murray, too, it will be
recalled, insisted on the need to appraise the press of the environments
within which human needs were satisfied or frustrated. A brief word,
then, about the role of contextual features in contemporary personality.
How do the theorists on the three levels view the environments within
which personality processes are played out?7
On the first floor, trait psychologists are concerned with the
extent to which there is an appropriate degree of "fit"
between persons and their environments. Extraverts, for example,
require stimulating environments for optimal functioning, while
more introverted individuals require more structured and modulated
environments. While Eve may thrive on a week filled with parties
and recreational diversions, Adam may find walking by the river
for getting his thoughts together about Jennifer, his folks and
the upcoming GRE exams. Along with tools for the assessment of personality
characteristics, there are abundant scales and inventories for the
appraisal of the "personality" of environments, so that
there are practical ways of determining the degree of fit between
people and their contexts along a number of key dimensions. Such
tools allow us to formulate and answer the essential question about
persons and environments talked about on the first floor:"got
a match"?
On the second floor, the PAC theorists are more concerned with
the extent to which environmental contexts serve to generate, facilitate,
or frustrate personal action. The pursuit of one's core projects,
cherished strivings, or vital life tasks requires an environment
within which such pursuits are valued, or at the very least not
impeded. Personal contexts may be the major source of the projects
that people regard as worthy of exploration , but they may also
proscribe the kind of pursuits that people even dare to consider.
Eve's home environment may have been such that the thought of doing
anything other than pursue a graduate degree after college was simply
not an option. Nikki's home environment may have been one in which
the possibility of graduate school brought blank stares of incredulity
and the blunt question of "who the hell is going to pay for
that?" Unlike trait perspectives, then, second floor theorists
are more likely to look at the environment less in terms of "fit"
than in terms of ecological factors such as affordances, resources,
impedances, and constraints (Little, 1999b; Phillips, Little &
Goodine, 1997).
The third floor narrative theorists are positioned to view the
environment with a broader sweep and they are particularly interested
in locating individual life stories in their historical contexts.
Sarbin provides a fascinating analysis of how life trajectories
can be entrained to the cultural myths that define a particular
historical time and place--for example, the pervasive myth of the
avenging hero who sacrifices his life to avenge wrongs done against
his people in the past (Sarbin, 1996).
Linking Levels: A Contemporary Example of Meeting the Integrative
Challenge
Personality theorists have argued that the enduring mission of
personality psychology has been to provide both theoretical and
methodological tools for integrating the diverse system of influences
affecting the lives of individuals and accounting for their differences.
We have also shown that much of contemporary personality research
is taking place in three relatively independent sectors concerned
with traits, action, and narratives, each of which has its own integrative
task. Trait psychology provides an impetus for integration of taxonomic
work on stable personality characteristics with, as just one example,
neurophysiological research thus providing an integrative bridge
to the neurosciences. Personal action psychology, particularly in
the focal role given to the concept of goals, provides a natural
bridge to cognitive science as well as to social ecological perspectives
that explore the ways in which goal pursuit is embedded in and contributes
to middle level dynamic contexts. Narrative psychology provides
a natural bridge to the humanities and to a broad corpus of literary,
historical, and political scholarship that charts the larger currents
of thought, tradition, and myth that define culture.
Although we may well have horizontal integration within each of
these three levels of contemporary personality research, is there
a way of vertically integrating them so that we might bridge the
full spectrum of influences on human personality? Not only do I
think the answer is a strong "yes, indeed", I also think
that it is precisely in this bridging research between levels in
personality that some of the most interesting new findings are emerging.
Such bridging or linking research should also allow us access to
the theoretical insights of the classical perspectives in personality
whose voices guided us through the early history of the field.
Not surprisingly, given my own theoretical orientation, I feel
that it is on the second floor--where the action is--that we are
offered the best opportunity for conceptual commerce with the trait-ERs
downstairs and the narrative theorists up in the loft. We shall
even show how our understanding of personal projects can be enriched
by taking a trip down to the basement on occasion. I want to illustrate
this by showing how research on personal projects allows us to move
through each of the different levels of research in personality
and, in this way, to continue to struggle with the broad band integrative
challenge that defines our field.
To illustrate this, let's return to the cafeteria and take "Getting
into graduate school in psychology" as a prototypical personal
project and one shared by all three students. Research studies from
several different theoretical perspectives and levels of analysis
in personality have addressed the content, appraisal, and dynamics
of personal projects.
We can start in the basement. Although the evidence from this level
is more indirect than at the other levels, it offers one of the
most intriguing areas of interlevel influences on personality and
one of the most challenging areas for future research.
Unconscious Influences: Particularly at the inception stages of
a personal project, it is likely that unconscious processes may
play a subtle, even powerful role, in directing its course of including
whether the project is even considered in the first place. For example,
Baldwin, Carrell & Lopez (1990 ) reported an intriguing study
in which graduate students at the University of Michigan appraised
the likely success of their research projects for the next term.
For half the students, prior to their ratings, a tachistoscopic
image was flashed of the scowling face of a highly distinguished
and rather threatening Michigan professor. For the other half, the
smiling face of a less threatening post-doctoral fellow was flashed.
Those exposed to the threatening face rated the likely success of
their research projects to be lower.
In other words, pre-conscious images that involve threat may lead
us to evaluate our projects in powerful ways. Indeed, such images
may actually serve to proscribe a project as something that one
simply cannot do or should not do. Thus Adam's ruminations about
grad school as he walks by the river, may well be guided by the
image of his parents' disapproving looks and snippets of conversation
about grad school being a waste of time.
Do the other cellar dwellers have relevance to the pursuit of our
students' projects? Though more speculative, I think the evolutionary
perspective offers some intriguing possibilities for explaining
project choice (see Buss, 1989). When we look at the content of
the projects generated in the listing of our student research collaborators,
it is easy to see projects that represent quintessential evolutionary
tasks of mate selection, competition, social bonding, etc. It would
be possible to create an evolutionary task template (based on relevant
project appraisal dimensions such as the extent to which this project
involves competing with other males, etc.) that would allow a researcher
to estimate the degree to which appraisals of projects can be explained
by their match with the theoretical expectations of evolutionary
theory.
Moving up a level to that of the trait psychologists, there has
been extensive research showing the relationships between traits
and the content and appraisal of personal projects (e.g., Little,
Lecci, & Watkinson, 1992; Salmela-Aro, 1992). Among the most
robust findings have been that conscientiousness is strongly related
to the personal project factors, such as efficacy and absence of
stress. Perhaps more surprisingly is the consistent evidence that
conscientiousness is also strongly related to the perceived meaningfulness
of projects, particularly to its enjoyment. The image of someone
who is highly conscientious as a rather joyless creature slogging
away on her ANOVAs at the computer terminal is more myth than reality.
If Eve happened to score high on conscientiousness, her seemingly
cavalier tactic of applying only to three schools may not be so
cavalier at all. She may already have thrown herself into researching
the schools, having email correspondence with prospective advisors,
and actually visiting the campuses before sending off her applications.
And our research would suggest that for Eve these projects would
be a delight, not a drag. Nikki, on the other hand, has probably
procrastinated again, and regards the whole application process
as a Royal Pain. This pattern likely reflects Nikki's status on
another of the big five dimensions, neuroticism. Salmela-Aro (1992)
has provided important evidence that depression is significantly
associated with the tendency for personal projects to be pursued
with less effectiveness and less likelihood of successful completion,
and Pychyl's extensive program of research on procrastination and
well-being provides clear evidence of the deleterious effects of
Nikki's style of dealing (or not dealing) with her projects (e.g.,
Pychyl & Little, 1998).
Two aspects of environmental influences have also been shown to
be associated with appraisals of our personal projects. For example,
Ruehlman and Wolchik (1988) have explored the extent to which people
in our social networks can both help and hinder the likelihood of
successful project pursuit. Eve's project of going to Ann Arbor
may be frustrated by Erik's apparent disapproval, but facilitated
by the fact that beyond any one else, Erik has challenged her intellectually
and given her the confidence to aspire well beyond where she had
thought possible in September. The reason we choose to undertake
certain projects rather than others has been approached in a very
imaginative way by Ogilvie and Rose (1995) who, after grappling
with the difficulties of categorizing projects in terms of content,
realized that projects fall neatly into four categories that are
rooted in classical learning theory: whether the project is a positive
or negative goal and whether it is something that is being sought
or avoided.
Omodei & Wearing (1990) provided a clear demonstration of the
relationship between the classical Murrayan needs, personal projects,
and well-being. They had respondents rate each of their current
personal projects on dimensions that represented each of the major
needs posited by Murray as central to individual differences, and
found that the extent to which projects were satisfying their needs,
overall life satisfaction was higher. Indeed, they were able to
show that need satisfaction of personal projects served as an excellent
proxy for overall life satisfaction ratings. Thus, Nikki may be
deeply unhappy at this point in her life because she has been unable
to formulate and act upon personal projects that satisfy some of
her most important needs. Though changing the needs may be very
difficult, finding projects through which they might be met may
offer greater tractability for Nikki at this stage in her life (Little
& Chambers, 2000).
Finally, there are also compelling theoretical reasons to see personal
projects as interpenetrating with the narrative level of personality
theory and research. Sarbin (1996), in tracing through the importance
of cultural myth and its impact on lives, suggests that tragically
conceived projects, such as terrorist campaigns, may derive their
motivational force from the myths to which children are exposed
from an early age, and which are reinforced by media attention and
the collective stories about heroes and villains which saturate
our cultural landscape. Under such a view, and depending on one's
belief systems, another Adam's project ("Do not eat that Apple")
may be seen as a generative proto-project of humankind.
The Prospects for Personology: Consolidating the Integrative Center
in Psychology
It should be apparent that I feel that the field of personality
psychology is an exceptionally exciting place in which to take up
permanent residence. I see its aspiration to provide the integrative
center for psychology as a continuing challenge. The three levels
that we have discussed in this chapter, will, I believe, continue
to grow in importance and yield insights that will advance both
theoretical understanding and applications in fields such as clinical,
health, and organizational psychology. So too, undoubtedly, will
the personologists in the basement continue to expand our understanding
of the remote roots of human conduct. In addition to these, I think
there are five areas that deserve to be promoted to positions of
importance in our collective research agenda.
First, I think there are rich possibilities for expansion of our
understanding of the biological base of personality traits, particularly
given the rapid advances in techniques for monitoring brain activity
on-line. Though there is a fairly substantial research literature
on the neurophysiological substrates of extraversion and neuroticism,
work on the rest of the big five dimensions is still in the early
stages. Recent advances in the neurobiology of temperament (with
its own Big Three factors) seems particularly promising (Clark &
Watson, 1999).
Second, I think that non-human studies of personality, particularly
among the higher primates, but involving a whole range of species,
will pay very rich dividends in understanding how evolutionary forces
have shaped human personality. There are already signs that an emerging
animal personality psychology research agenda is well under way
(Gosling, in press). Given my conviction that project pursuit is
an inherently mammalian propensity, I do not see such research as
restricting itself to trait-like behaviors. Extended sets of salient
activity in the pursuit of valued goals applies to Nikki's cat as
well as Nikki. While we will never be able to herd either Nikki
or her cat, I think the comparative psychology of unpredictability
is itself an intriguing focus for collaborative research between
ethologists and personality psychologists.
Third, particularly at Level II, I believe there is considerable
scope for expanding personality psychology's intellectual collaboration
with the fields of ethical philosophy, legal theory, and the philosophy
of action (Little, 1987, 1999a). Scholars in these areas are already
grappling with questions of how the nature of our ground projects
or core tasks bear upon issues of ethics and of different conceptions
of justice. (For a compelling treatment of such issues see Nussbaum
(1992). Nussbaum looks at various Hellenistic philosophies through
the eyes of Nikidion--a probably fictitious student of Epicurus,
who is seeking instruction on living a flourishing life. Nikki in
the present chapter is a modern descendent of Nikidion. Some day
I hope to take her on a more extensive trip through what contemporary
personality psychology can say about human flourishing.) I believe
that such discourse will be enriched by the importation of empirical
work of personality psychologists, and that our work will be enriched
by the conceptual precision afforded by philosophical inquiry.
As one example of this kind of interdisciplinary analysis, I have
recently been exploring the concept of free traits, which I see
as trait-like behavior carried out in the service of a personal
project even though it may run against one's "first nature".
For example, some of us are "pseudo-extraverts," by which
I mean we are Eysenckian introverts who, because of professional
duty or love, act extravertedly in order to accomplish valued goals.
I believe such apparently disingenuous behavior can extract a toll
on the autonomic nervous system and that this can lead to burn out.
However, such a consequence can be mitigated by the availability
of restorative niches in which we can, every now and then, indulge
our first natures ( Little, 1999b, 2000a). One of the intriguing
questions raised by such an analysis (which integrates research
from Levels I and II), is whether such disingenuous behavior is,
in fact, a "bad thing" (not only in the sense of possibly
being stressful, but in terms of being unnatural, even phony). If
Adam decides to go back to the family business and forego grad school,
how should we think about the tradeoff between fidelity to family
and honesty to oneself? Clearly these are questions of value that
can not be exclusively adjudicated by empirical inquiry. But I strongly
believe they can be informed by such inquiry, and personality psychologists
are ideally positioned to provide precisely the kind of rich textured
information about the complexities of people's lives.
Fourth, I believe the narrative perspective in personality will
continue to flourish and I hope that the traditional ways of getting
individuals to tell their stories will be enriched by adoption of
new technologies and methodologies. For example, simply asking individuals
to tell about their daily lives by providing us with images and
captions from an imaginary videotape (called an idio-tape machine),
allows individuals some adaptive flexibility in bringing into conceptual
focus concerns and elements of emotional significance to them (Little,
2000a). Similarly, just as computing science and cognitive psychology
have proceeded in virtual lock step, I believe that the field of
personality can benefit from joining forces with the "New Media",
including the imaginative use of interactive multi-media to assist
individuals in exposing and exploring their personal wishes, needs,
projects, traits, and life narratives. For example, Nikki has been
depicted throughout this essay as someone who has pain beyond words.
Perhaps by using media that do not rely solely upon words, she will
be able to construct images and scenarios with greater richness
and precision. Such multimedia meditations might help her both express
and expunge some of that hurt.
If students ask me if I think they should pursue graduate work
in personality psychology, I usually schedule two meetings. In the
first meeting I tell them that I cannot think of a more fascinating
area of research and proceed to tell them much of what has been
compressed into this chapter.
They occasionally ask me how I got into the field of personality
psychology. Depending on how much time they have to indulge what
I call my "anecdotage", I tell them the following. I have
long felt a strong attraction to both the humanities and the biological
sciences, with classics and microbiology being among my favorite
undergraduate courses. When it came time to choose a major, psychology
seemed to be the most likely field in which I could maintain a joint
focus on ions and Ionians. Though I had originally been accepted
at Berkeley to study neuropsychology, a chance event in the library
just prior to leaving for graduate school launched me on another
trajectory. I was searching for a book called the Stereotaxic Atlas
of the Brain when I accidentally pulled down a wayward copy of George
Kelly's Psychology of Personal Constructs. I leafed through the
first few pages, developed a very severe intellectual itch and have
been scratching it ever since. I do not recommend to my students
that they take this random walk through the stacks as a strategy
for choosing their specialties in psychology, though it is an honest
account of how our professional lives can sometimes wind their ways
along unpredictable paths (Bandura, 1982).
In the second meeting, I am usually rather more cautious. Personality
psychology is a fundamentally intellectual pursuit--it is concerned
with themes that go back to antiquity and challenges its serious
students to ponder issues that cut across the full spectrum of the
humanities and sciences. I point out that if the student's overriding
concern is with a particular practical problem, such as abuse or
depression or occupational success or criminal behavior, then that
student should seriously consider going into an applied field such
as clinical or organizational psychology. But if they are interested
in how all of these disparate phenomena are linked together, then
they may well have found an intellectual home. We usually discuss
where the strong programs are in personality psychology and I direct
them to the splendid website called the Personality Project run
by Bill Revelle at Northwestern. I am also delighted as of a few
months ago, to be able to direct them to the Association for Research
in Personality website and urge them to join the Association immediately.
The philosophy and sense of excitement for the personality field
in this new Association overlaps exactly with my own and I see it
as a major source of stimulation and support for the field in the
future.
If the student comes back for a third meeting, I know that the
line of succession from Freud, Murray, Allport, Kelly, and all the
secular saints of personology will likely remain unbroken. But if
that particular student doesn't come back, I can take some solace
from knowing that there are three other students waiting outside
at this very moment. They want me to go have a coffee with them
in the cafeteria and chat about grad school. In fact there's loud
banging on my door even as I wrap up this chapter. Hang on, Nikki,
I'm coming.
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Brian Little received his early education in British Columbia and
his Ph.D. in personality psychology from the University of California
at Berkeley. He was a Commonwealth Scholar and faculty member at
Oxford University in England and Professor of Psychology at Carleton
University. Dr. Little holds joint positions at Carleton and Harvard
Universities. At Carleton he is Distinguished Research Professor.
At Harvard he is Lecturer in the Department of Psychology and an
Affiliated Scholar of the the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
at Harvard University. He has won numerous awards for both research
and teaching and was one of the early pioneers of the "new
look" in personality psychology with his research on personal
projects. It is rumored he still plans to play professional basketball
for the Toronto Raptors. |
