Lecture Notes for Unit 1 (revised September 1, 2006)
See main textbook chapters 1-3. We won't be spending much time on material covered in chapter 3 due to time limitations. Specific textbook page references are sprinkled throughout the notes below; watch for them, as they can help guide your reading of the text, which you should actively be doing!
What is personality?
Since we're going to be spending a semester learning about personality, it might be useful to begin by defining the term. Here is one moderately helpful definition: "Personality is defined as those characteristics of the person that account for consistent patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving." This is moderately different from the definition offered in your textbook on page 5, but is similar enough for our purposes.
Let's try to parse this definition and see if we can make some sense of it. It appears to have five parts as follows:
Paradigms, schools of thought, and eclecticism
Personality psychologists don't all agree on this definition (or on much of anything else) because of the fact that psychology is a nonparadigmatic science. A paradigm, as the term is used by philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, refers to a way of thinking about reality, a set of assumptions or "mental lenses" that organize our thinking -- and which all practitioners of a given scientific discipline (or other social group) hold in common. (Note that this is somewhat different from your textbook author's use of the word "paradigm" as found on page 6. However, he would agree with Kuhn about the implications of paradigmatic though.) Kuhn divides all sciences into those that have a governing paradigm and those that do not; psychology, for better or worse, is of the latter. That means that psychologists divide themselves into competing schools of thought, of which much more will be said throughout this course, as they form the backbone around which the course is organized. Note three important facts about the competing schools:
1. They are more or less incompatible in their assumptions, since each is attempting to develop a complete and comprehensive picture of the nature of personality. Those who try to treat the different schools of thought as a smorgasbord from which they can pick and choose as they will are known as eclecticists; eclecticism means a higher degree of intellectual freedom, the price for which is a higher degree of muddle-headedness.
2. The different schools can be compared and contrasted in terms of their key ideas (core assumptions or theoretical underpinnings) -- another mission-critical concept of this course. Not only does each school of thought have its own strengths and weaknesses (things it explains well and things it sweeps quietly under the rug), but each has differing implications, both practical and philosophical.
3. Since each reasoner's cultural background -- and philosophical assumptions -- colors his or her perceptions of the different schools, it's difficult to be objective in assessing or analyzing them.
Because psychology is a nonparadigmatic science as discussed above, personality psychologists are divided into competing “schools of thought” (see textbook page 6) with differing assumptions, perspectives, and points of view. Some theorists try to evade this problem by taking a so-called eclectic stance or posture. Think of eclecticism as a sort of “cafeteria” or “smorgasbord” approach to the schools of thought – borrowing from each of them in a pragmatic, opportunitistic, or subjective fashion.
Eclecticism is popular, and it has its advantages – helping thinkers to avoid the mental “tunnel vision” that can sometimes come from investing too heavily in a single point of view. But it has equally compelling disadvantages, such as muddle-headedness – because it does not really take into account the fact that the different schools of thought often make incompatible or directly opposing assumptions about the human condition, forcing the intellectually consistent person to make a true choice between them, rather than just sitting on the fence.
The moral? By all means be open to valuable insights from all the schools of thought; but don’t be intellectually lazy in so doing. Recognize that to say yes to one thing is inevitably to say no to its opposite, and that to affirm everything is ultimately to avoid thinking at all. See the textbook discussion of the question of competition between, versus cooperation among, the differing schools of thought (textbook page 7). The excellent discussion on page 8 of the "OBT problem" is also quite relevant to this concern.
Psychology and history: The problem of historical embeddedness
Strauss and Howe's model of generational cyclicity
As
Strauss and Howe use the term, a cohort
generation is a group of persons born within the same general time period
(usually about 20 years), who share the same set of defining experiences. Because of the length of a cohort generation relative to the
actuarial human lifespan, there are between 4 and 6 cohort generations alive in
America at any given time. As noted
below, there are four basic types of cohort generations that recur, in Strauss
and Howe’s theory of history, in a predictable, cyclic fashion.
A
social moment is a key, defining time and series of events that
shapes the entire culture and, in a significant sense, ushers in a new phase in
history. There are two contrasting
kinds of social moments which, Strauss and Howe assert, occur in an alternating
sequence:
Secular crises are outer-focused events that challenge the external structures of society. (Often, though not always, there are wars, or other external threats.) The most recent secular crisis in America was the Great Depression and World War II era (1930-1945). Previous secular crises included the events leading up to and culminating in the Civil War (1857-1865), the Revolutionary War (1773-1789), and the Glorious Revolution (1675-1692).
Spiritual
awakenings are inner-focused
events that challenge the internal
values of society. (These are
internally generated events stemming from a perception that society has become
too sterile and coldly rationalistic.) The
most recent spiritual awakening in America was the “Boom Awakening”
(1967-1980). Previous spiritual
awakenings included the Missionary Awakening (1886-1903), the Transcendental
Awakening (1822-1837), and the Great Awakening (1734-1743).
Note
that the lapse of time between like social moments is about 80 years, or four
cohort generations, in length. This
is no accident, as we’ll see below. It
also suggests that we’ll be due for another secular crisis around the year
2020 (give or take about 5 years). Hence
we’ll soon find out how valid Strauss and Howe’s model is… stay tuned.
Based
on the above concepts, we can define the four generational types as follows.
Idealist
generations come of age (adolescence or early adulthood) in a time of spiritual
awakening, and reach elderhood in a time of secular crisis.
The most recent Idealist generation was the Boom generation (born
1943-1960). The oldest member of
the previous Idealist generation, the Missionary generation (born 1860-1882),
died in 1994 at the age of 112.
Reactive
generations are children during a time of spiritual awakening, and reach midlife
in a time of secular crisis. The most recent Reactive generation was Gen X (born
1961-1980). A very few, very old members of the Lost generation (born
1883-1900), also a Reactive generation, are still alive.
Civic
generations come of age (adolescence or early adulthood) in a time of secular
crisis, and reach elderhood in a time of spiritual awakening.
The most recent Civic generation was the Millennial generation (born 1981
or later). The G.I. generation that
fought World War II (born 1901-1924), a great many of whom are still alive
today, was also a Civic generation.
Adaptive
generations are children during a time of secular crisis, and reach midlife in a
time of spiritual awakening. The
most recent Adaptive generation was the Silent generation (born 1925-1942).
The first new Adaptive generation should (if current cycles hold) start
being born around 2003 or 2004.
Because
of the influence of social moments as mediated by the age (phase or stage of
life) during which they are experienced by the different cohort generations, the
four generational types tend to take on different personalities or values.
Of course, these are generalizations that apply only to the “group
persona”, not universally to every member within a given cohort generation:
Idealists
are visionary, individualistic, and spiritual.
Core values include principle, religion, education.
A typical weakness (as least as perceived by others) might be dogmatism
(principles taken to excess).
Reactives
are rebellious, pragmatic, and materialistic.
Core values include liberty, practicality, survival.
A typical weakness (as least as perceived by others) might be amoralism
(pragmatism taken to excess).
Civics
are heroic, collegial, and rationalistic. Core
values include community, technology, affluence.
A typical weakness (as least as perceived by others) might be
insensitivity (rationalism taken to excess).
Adaptives
are conformist, sensitive, and cultured. Core
values include pluralism, expertise, and social justice.
A typical weakness (as least as perceived by others) might be
superficiality (adaptability taken to excess).
What
fuels the generational cycle
is a tendency for each cohort generation to react to the excesses of the
previous generation. Since we
tend to form our sense of personal identity primarily during the ages 15-25,
cultural events that occur during that time frame tend to be central to our
sense of self. Thus,
Idealists see themselves
as shaped by the spiritual awakening, thus prophetic and spiritual (contra
mundum or “principled rebels” as youth, “Grey Champions” as elders),
Reactives see themselves
as “abandoned” by a culture that has left them to “raise themselves”
(hence they must become hard-headed realists focused on material survival),
Civics
see themselves as
shaped by the secular crisis, thus heroic and rationalistic (world-saving
combatants and builders as youth, busy “doers” as elders),
Adaptives
see themselves
as having been “born too late” to do the great deeds their parents did
(hence they must become sensitive, outer-driven, egalitarian negotiators).
And what does this all have to do with psychology? Keep reading.
A long, long time ago – that is to say, about a quarter century ago, when I was a graduate student in social psychology at UW-Madison – the so-called “crisis in social psychology” was at its height. The ideas of Kenneth Gergen, briefly alluded to in your textbook, were raging across the intellectual landscape, forcing an entire generation of psychology students to ask themselves the question, “Am I wasting my time learning an enterprise that is a bundle of hopeless contradictions and doomed to extinction?”
Since that time, the crisis has passed. Psychology remains, a valid and viable – though somewhat sadder and wiser – enterprise. It’s important for you as students to understand the nature of this crisis, however, so you can react to it. The story is one with important lessons for any intellectual discipline and most notably for the social sciences.
Gergen’s original criticism was stated more harshly: “Psychology is nothing more than a form of history”. This sounds quite damaging, because it implies a sort of fraud: “Psychologists are pretending to be scientists, but they are not.” To a culture that values (or claims to value) science highly, to call someone a fake scientist is to make a serious claim.
To evaluate Gergen’s criticism, we must be clear about the distinction between history and science. To do so, let’s imagine a “real” (that is, a natural) scientist at work, and a historian at work, and see if we can detect some critical differences. Contrast a physicist studying a hydrogen atom and a historian studying John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin.
If we ask the physicist, “Why are you interested in this particular hydrogen atom?” we will get, at best, a strange look and, at worst, an invitation to an all-expenses-paid stay at a local inpatient psychiatric facility. If the physicist treats our question seriously, he will say, “I’m not interested in this particular hydrogen atom at all; I’m interested in all hydrogen atoms, but I can’t study all of them (I don’t have access to all of them, nor the time to study them all before I die), so I’ve picked one at random and will be generalizing from my observations of this one.” (In practice he will examine far more than just one, but the logic still holds.) But if we ask the historian, “Why are you interested in John Wilkes Booth in particular?” we will get a lengthy and serious answer, for the historian really and truly has an interest in this specific person.
Note what lies behind this contrast. The scientist assumes (with some degree of evidence backed up by a rather larger degree of blind faith) that all hydrogen atoms share the same essential properties: that what is true of a hydrogen atom in Wausau, Wisconsin is also true of a hydrogen atom in the middle of the Andromeda Galaxy, and that a hydrogen atom today is no different from a hydrogen atom a billion years ago. The historian, however, assumes that John Wilkes Booth is a unique individual with unique properties (though she will admit that he probably has many things in common with others of his day, with other political assasins, and so on), and her primary interest is in him as a unique entity. In other words, John Wilkes Booth is historically embedded (he is a product of his culture, his place in history, and so forth), but the hydrogen atom is not. In studying the hydrogen atom, we do not have to worry (or worry much, anyway) about its “historical context”; in studying Booth, we would be missing the entire point if we did not focus a great deal on historical context. Science, in other words, deals with the general case (the technical term is that it is nomothetic in outlook); it seeks general laws and principles that always apply. History deals with the specific instance (is idiographic in approach); it seeks to understand the individual instance. (See your text, page 13, for a discussion of these same issues using slightly different terminology.)
While there are a host of other important differences between history and science (science deals with events that can be repeated or replicated, while historical events by definition are unique and can never be repeated exactly), the above argument is central to what Gergen has to say. His notion is that human beings, and hence human behavior, is always historically and culturally embedded. Thus, we can never (he says) really generalize from the results of any social psychological experiment. If a group of affluent white male twentysomething college students at a midwestern American college in the 1950’s behaved in a certain way, we are not justified from this fact in drawing conclusions about how all people (at all times, in all places, from all cultures, and so on) will behave. A group of impoverished black female fortysomething African agrarian workers in the year 2001 may behave in a completely different way. Where, says Gergen, are the general laws of human behavior that correspond to the general laws of the physicist or the chemist?
Both sides of this once shrill argument have calmed down somewhat since the mid-1970’s when Gergen first raised this argument. On the one hand, we now recognize, to a much greater extent than anyone did a quarter century ago, that we can’t ignore the role of culture. Cross-cultural research is essential, though costly and often very difficult to perform. On the other hand, Gergen was probably wrong in his assumption that there are no universals in human behavior. Many important social psychological findings have held up well over time (at least over a period of five or more decades) and across diverse cultural lines. Differences exist (there are historical trends and cultural contrasts), but there are also commonalities of behavior.
Note that underlying this entire controversy is a deeper one: is there such a thing as “human nature”? If we say no, then any hope of understanding a person from a different culture or a different time in history is impossible; the gulf becomes too broad to be spanned. On the other hand, we need to be careful when we attribute a certain action, attitude, or behavior to “human nature” without being clear what we mean by this, and we need to remember that other people are sometimes markedly different from what we might expect. Whatever human nature is, it is presumably unlearned, innate, and not transmitted by culture. Whether its origins are genetic or otherwise, it transcends time and place. Different psychologists have differing ideas about the extent to which true human universals in cognition or behavior can be identified. Keep this issue in mind as we go through the course, and be prepared to ask the question, “Would this result be likely to hold true for a different culture or a different time in history? Why or why not, or to what extent?” We'll revisit these issues in more depth in units 5 and 6 of the course.
Psychology and the academy
A common thread running through all the above is the question, “Is personality psychology more like a science, or more like one of the arts (or humanities)?” Indeed, it lies close to the crossroads or dividing line between these two kinds of disciplines: viewed one way it has much in common with “hard” disciplines like physics, chemistry, and biology, but viewed another way it has equally much in common with “soft” disciplines like literature. After all, one important element of personality (as we’ll discover in Unit 2) is the “story” that each person has to tell. This is the famous etic vs. emic distinction in psychology: do we better understand human beings objectively, from the "outside" (etic), or subjectively, from the "inside" (emic)? See the quote that heads up chapter 1 of the text (page 3): which viewpoint is being advocated there?
The history of psychology is, in fact, divided between approaches that are more objective, scientific, and often reductionistic (“positivism”) and those that are more subjective, literary, and wholistic (“constructivism”). The modernist-postmodernist controversy, of which more will be said later in this course, also involves a dispute about these same kinds of issues. We’ll save some of that for later; but for now, ponder the following analysis by Charles Colson:
It
began with rationalist critics looking with disdain on all the mythological
creatures so beloved of poets and painters, saying in essence, “Come now.
Science proves that there are no such things as unicorns and centaurs,
witches and fairies, dragons and cyclopes.
Away with these myths and superstitions!”
Eventually rationalists concluded that art, by its very nature, is a
falsification of reality. Isn’t
literature comprised of imaginary stories?
Doesn’t poetry employ metaphor and hyperbole?
The artist might paint a sunset in all its glorious hues, but the
scientist knows that a sunset is “really” [i.e., from a reductionistic
or positivistic viewpoint] nothing but the refraction of white light through
dust particles in layers of air of variable density.
To many people it began to seem that if science is true, then art must be
false, or at best merely an expression of personal emotion.
More on this in a subsequent unit; but consider a possible connection between these two ways of thinking and the two halves or hemispheres of the human brain: the logical, linear, detail-minded, hard-headed, impersonal, analytical left hemisphere (LH) and the intuitive, nonlinear, big-picture, empathic, personal, wholistic right hemisphere (RH). Again the same dilemma we have encountered above: what can allow the two opposing perspectives to meet or find any common ground or useful synthesis or integration? This is a perennial and difficult philosophical dilemma.
This raises significant questions about the relationship between psychology (as a social science), or the social sciences in general, and other academic disciplines such as the humanities and the natural sciences, which also claim to have some things to say about the human condition. More about that in units 5 and 6, but I'll briefly present some material about that in the unit 1 lecture as well.
The mind-body problem
The mind-body problem will crop up repeatedly throughout this course. One simple way to think about this problem is as follows, but note (keep reading) that this is really too simple, as we'll discover.
How are the brain (a physical, and presumably deterministic, system) and the mind (a nonphysical, and potentially nondeterministic, system) related?
What no one disputes
All psychologists agree that understanding the structure, functions, and activity of the physical brain is an important part of understanding human conscious experience (how the mind works), including perception and cognition. That is a universal given (at least among Western thinkers who accept the basic assumptions and values of the scientific method and the scientific enterprise). In fact, the practical implications of understanding the biology of the brain -- for both normal (nonclinical) and abnormal psychology -- are many and profound. They have revolutionized the world of psychiatry, for instance, and have rendered treatable many forms of mental illness that would have been seen as "hopeless" only two generations ago.
What is disputed
What is a source of ongoing disagreement among psychologists (and within the wider culture generally) is the exact nature of the relationship between the brain and the mind. This is a "watershed" philosophical issue that is central and determinative with regard to a wide variety of other metaphysical, ethical, legal, and public policy issues that at times threaten to divide our society into warring camps.
It's important to understand that this dispute is not one that can (at least in my view) ever be resolved scientifically. It is not a matter of observation; empirical analysis is of little or no help in addressing it one way or the other. It is a matter for the philosopher (or the theologian), not the scientist as such. In other words, using terms we've discussed earlier in the course, it is outside the "universe of discourse" of the scientific method and the scientific enterprise; alternative "ways of knowing" are needed to addess these issues. (For more about my own views on questions like this, in case you care, see here... and here.) That doesn't mean that individual scientists don't have defined points of view about the question! They do, of course: because (like the rest of us) they are human beings, and these kinds of questions are universal and inescapable. But to pass judgment on these questions is to abandon the mantle of scientific expertise. When a scientist (no matter how prominent) offers his or her opinion on such issues, he or she is no more expert than anyone else, though still worth listening to respectfully (as one might anyone else). But his or her point of view can never be, in the nature of things, "scientifically proven". The disputed issues are simply not empirical and observational in character.
In our culture (the "our" is problematic, but I mean the Western intellectual tradition, loosely framed), there are two major ways that people think about the mind-brain relationship. Common terms for them, which I will use here, are "epiphenomenalism" and "dualism", though other writers use different terms. Because debates about terminology generate more heat than light, I'll try to avoid them. And, because whoever controls the language controls the debate, I've tried to pick neutral terms that don't favor either side, though that's hard to do.
Epiphenomenalism
The epiphenomenalist point of view is that, ultimately, the brain is all there is. (Note that -- and with apologies to Centore, whose terminology appears somewhat to contradict this -- this is inherently a reductionistic point of view. The mind is "simply" the brain in action and nothing more.) Human consciousness, in this view, is a by-product of the functioning brain, just as the glow from a light bulb is a by-product of the functioning bulb. It is not a "thing" in itself, but a process that depends entirely on the underlying physical system that produces it. As a result, chains of cause and effect can only run in one direction (from the brain to the mind); physical changes in the brain can result in changes in conscious experience, but never the other way around. Brain events are always the "cause", conscious experiences always the "result".
Because, in the epiphenomenalist view, there is nothing "special" about consciousness -- in theory it could be fully explained in physical, materialistic terms, though in fact no one has even the first glimmers of a clue about how one might actually do so -- it need not be restricted to human beings or even to biological systems. If we only knew how, we could construct a computer that could actually think (that is, be conscious of itself). In that event, pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del would actually be a form of murder (bringing the conscious life of our computer to an end). Consciousness, in this view, is a sort of evolutionary accident; nice if you happen to have it, but hardly inevitable.
Dualism
In contrast, the dualist view is that both the mind and the brain are equally "real", or to use more formal philosophical language, both have a "noncontingent ontological status" (try saying that five times fast). Though the brain and mind clearly interact and are inextricably linked, neither is directly dependent on the other. Chains of cause and effect can run in either direction: from brain to mind (as when drinking alcohol makes you feel tipsy), or from mind to brain (as when choosing to think a certain thought causes the activation of various brain centers). In some sense or another, the mind is a "thing" in itself, a separate domain of reality that is just as real as the physical, but not itself a physical reality.
In this view, consciousness -- regardless of how or why it arose -- can never be thought of as a mere accident. In consequence, because it is not a physical property or quality, it is not something we can "make happen" in physical systems (such as computers) of our own making.
Ramifications and implications
Though it is not absolutely necessary for a dualist to believe in the reality of free will (authentic human choice), most dualists probably do so. Conversely, it is difficult (at least for me) to see how epiphenomenalists can make room for the idea of genuine human freedom (though some attempt to do so, in a fashion that I happen to find singularly unconvincing -- but you may disagree), since physical systems are by definition either random or deterministic (low information content), but the mind gives every appearance of being rational and free (high information content). Most epiphenomenalists -- the consistent ones, anyway, in my view -- argue that while we perceive ourselves to be free to think as we please and (within limits) act as we choose, this is actually a delusion; our thoughts and acts are as strictly determined as anything else in the universe. What this says about the validity of human thought and the merits of the intellectual enterprise, I leave to your own judgment (the assumption being that you are capable of making trustworthy judgments, an assumption that I happen to think requires dualism to be valid and defensible).
Students sometimes ask me about the relationship between the epiphenomenalist-dualist debate and "religious" versus "secular" views of reality. Again the issues are complex, but in general, many (though not all) dualists have a religious or spiritual view of reality (the ultimate reality is a Mind or minds), while most (though not all) epiphenomenalists have a materialistic or secular view of reality (the ultimate reality is impersonal matter). To some extent this reflects the greater reductionism of the epiphenomenalist view. Research indicates that the epiphenomenalist view may tend to be associated more with "left-hemisphere", the dualist view more with "right-hemisphere", ways of thinking: about this distinction, more later in this unit.
A more complex schema
The above approach is too simplistic, though easy as a place to begin. A more comprehensive approach is that offered by philosopher F. F. Centore, who suggests six possible solutions to the mind-body problem, as follows.
Reductionistic materialism (RM): In this view, the material world is the only reality; mental constructs are entirely excluded. In consequence, we can speak of the body (and its observable acts and behaviors) but not of mind. Radical behaviorism of the Skinnerian sort is an exemplar of this view.
Nonreductionistic materialism (NM): In this view, we can use the word "mind" as a useful construct since human consciousness, and cognitive processes, exist and can be meaningfully studied. However, consciousness, as an evolutionary emergent or epiphenomenal by-product of the functioning brain, cannot be afforded any sort of unique ontological status. The mind cannot exist without the body (brain) in any sense. The material world remains primary. This is probably the consensual view among contemporary secular psychologists in the West and represents the regnant worldview among the majority of social scientists (Lillard, 1998), though there are significant minorities (including yours truly) among the social science community.
First-order psychosomaticism (P1): Both material and mental realities exist; the mind is more than an epiphenomenon, and mental events (such as choices and decisions) can affect brain states as well as the other way around. However, mind and body (brain) are irretrievably linked and interdependent, and the mind necessarily dies with the body. Aristotle is the best known proponent, within Western philosophy, of this view.
Second-order psychosomaticism (P2): While mind and body remain organically linked, so that neither is complete without the other and unique selfhood can be attributed equally to both, the mind does not require the existence of the body. Hence conscious individual personality can survive the death of the body, but the normal state is one of a mind-body integration. This is the traditional view of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, including an emphasis on the resurrection of the physical body.
Vitalism (VI): In this view, mind or soul, whether conceived as individual selfhood or as manifestations of a collective soul or universal soul, is primary. The physical world exists, but has a distinctly secondary status. The connection between mind and body is ephemeral or accidental and may be altered from one time to another, as in the case of reincarnation from one body to another. This best represents most variants of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as of neo-Platonic thought.
Reductionistic immaterialism (RI): In this view, the material world is strictly illusory and does not exist at all. One cannot speak of "body" in any formal sense (though we have the appearance of bodies). Mind is all there is. The philosophical idealism of Berkeley is the most fully articulated variant of this view.
Even this schema may be too simple. For instance, Polkinghorne's "dual-aspect monism" view (discussed in lecture) is difficult to classify within Centore's schema... try if you dare. He writes within a tradition of thought that fits most easily within Centore's P2 position, yet he appears to question the notion that mind and matter are (or can be?) separate, a view more commonly associated with Centore's NM.
A related question, the person-situation debate, is very adequately covered in your main textbook (see pages 95-110). I see no need to paraphrase this material here, so, being lazy, I won't. Read the book.
Data types
Four types of data utilized by psychological researchers are L-data, O-data, T-data, and S-data. Note how these form the convenient acronym LOTS, since they enable us to collect LOTS of data. See text pages 19-50 for an excellent, detailed discussion of this concept, though annoyingly a slightly different acronym is used in the text.
1. L-data (or Life-data) are physical artifacts of a person's life history... the kinds of tangible evidence that (say) a private detective, biographer, or even a historian or archaeologist could uncover. Examples might be physical possessions, public documents (birth certificates, school records, medical records, tax records), journals or diaries, newspaper clippings about a person.
2. O-data (or Other-data) represent evaluations, impressions, perceptions, observations, and ratings provided or made by third parties who know the individual personally in a real-world context... such as parents, siblings, teachers, peers. Formal observations made by trained scientific researchers as part of the formal research enterprise are not O-data, but represent a form of T-data, below.
3. T-data (or Test-data) represent formal scientific observations of a person's behavior (whether in a lab setting or a real-life field setting) by trained scientific observers utilizing objective standards of measurement and data recording. Results of objective tests (meaning those for which right and wrong answers exist, like tests of skill, aptitude, competence, or knowledge) also count as T-data. However, results of subjective measures like paper-and-pencil personality tests, for which there are no right or wrong answers as such, do not comprise T-data, but represent a form of S-data, below.
4. S-data (or Self-data) represent a person's own self-evaluations, self-assessments, self-ratings, or self-perceptions, including formalized self-audits or self-reports such as might be obtained by structured interviews or structured personality inventories or questionnaires. Unstructured self-reports generated in the past, such as diaries and journals, are usually regarded as forms of L-data, however.
Why do we need more than one form of data? Because different kinds of data give us different kinds of insights into the person, since they are generated in different contexts, by different people, in different ways. They allow us to "triangulate" our impressions of the subjects of our research to get a well-rounded, full-orbed view of the persons we are interested in. Each form of data has some strengths and weaknesses associated with it, so a lopsided overreliance on one form of data collection to the exclusion of the others is usually, in the long run, a bad idea.
Most of the assessment methods and tools outlined below involve the collection of S-data or T-data. However, L-data and O-data, particularly the latter, have their place in clinical contexts as well.
Study Guide 1
1. What is meant by "personality"? Discuss five aspects or elements of the definition of personality provided in lecture.
2. What does it mean to say that psychology is a nonparadigmatic science? What implications does this have for the existence of competing schools of thought in personality psychology?
3. What is eclecticism? What are some advantages -- and some disadvantages -- of the eclectic approach?
4. What is meant by historical embeddedness? How does this form the heart of Gergen's criticism of psychology as a scientific enterprise? Discuss the similarities and differences between science and history and how the two might be interrelated. Discuss in terms of models of historical cyclicity (e.g., the Strauss-Howe model).
5. Discuss some ways in which personality psychology could be said to straddle the fence between the sciences and the humanities. How might this be related to the positivist-constructivist dichotomy?
6. Summarize the two models of the mind-body problem discussed in lecture.
7. Summarize the person-situation debate.
8. What are four types of data? Give specific examples of each data type. Why might it be beneficial for a personality researcher to utilize more than one data type?