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Personal Politics: the Rise of Personality Traits in The PERSONAL POLITICS: THE RISE OF PERSONALITY TRAITS IN THE CENTURY OF EUGENICS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS IAN J. DAVIDSON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN PSYCHOLOGY YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO AUGUST 2020 © IAN J. DAVIDSON, 2020 ii Abstract This dissertation documents personality psychology’s development alongside psychoanalysis and eugenics, offering a disciplinary and cultural history of personality across the twentieth century. Using the psychological concepts of neurosis and introversion as an organizational framework, personality’s history is portrayed as one of “success:” a succession of hereditarianism and its politics of normativity; a successful demarcation of the science of personality from competing forms of expertise; and a successful cleansing of personality psychology’s interchanges with unethical researchers and research. Chapter 1 provides background for the dissertation, especially focusing on turn-of-the- century developments in the nascent fields of American psychology and the importation of psychoanalytic ideas. It ends with a look at Francis Galton’s eugenicist and statistical contributions that carved a key path for psychological testers to discipline psychoanalytic concepts. Part I details the rise of personality testing in the USA during the interwar years, while also considering the many sexual and gender norms at play. Chapter 2 tracks the varied places in the 1920s that personality tests were developed: from wartime military camps to university laboratories to the offices of corporate advertisers. Chapter 3 takes stock of popular psychoanalytic notions of personality alongside the further psychometric development of personality testing. These developments occurred at a time when American eugenicists— including psychologists—were transitioning to a “positive” form that emphasized marriage and mothering. Part II partially strays from a strict chronicling of the Big Two’s development into iii traits—neuroticism and extraversion—to consider the broader histories of personality in the Cold War era and beyond. Chapter 4 considers the opposing legacies of Hans Eysenck and Paul Meehl to explore the development of psychometric tools that countered popular projective techniques. Additionally, it examines the multifarious connections between psychoanalysis and psychologists striving for a science of personality. Chapter 5 closes the dissertation with a look at the psychometric work that led to the Five-Factor Model’s ascent in the 1990s as perhaps the most widely accepted perspective on personality. Along the way, the conservative politics of heredity and eugenics would capitalize on cries for the “academic freedom” of racist science while justifying trait psychology’s past. iv Acknowledgements There are so many people to thank for their help on this dissertation, as well as their help with growing and surviving over the past five years. Michael Pettit, my doctoral advisor, contributed crucial feedback throughout the entire research and drafting process. The work could not have been done without him. My committee members Alexandra Rutherford and Christopher Green also provided consistent insight and support throughout this dissertation’s writing. All three have helped my academic and personal development well beyond this current work. My discerning and perceptive examiners, Peter Hegarty and Kenton Kroker, pushed and keep pushing the rigour of my work. And my appreciation, once more, to my two earlier mentors, Ian Nicholson and Michael Houlihan— two experts in personality. Keen insights and redirections came from many casual conversations and more formal venues while preparing portions of this dissertation. Thomas Teo’s advice on structuring the dissertation helped shape its current form—especially Chapter 5. Many others helped in smaller but important ways, even if just having a conversation where I could better hammer out my ideas. Among them: Erik Baker; David Berman; Kathy Bischoping; Jeremy Burman; Chelsea Chamberlain; Tal Davidson; David Devonis; Raymond Fancher; Cathy Faye; Lisa Feingold; Ivan Flis; Shayna Fox Lee; Zhipeng “Zed” Gao; Sean Hannan; Ed Hersch; Vincent Hevern; Sarah Igo; Kira Lussier; Frank Marchese; Leo Moss; Susannah Mulvale; Eric Oosenbrug; Jessica Padgett; Kate Slaney; Larry Stern; Nadine Weidman; Phyllis Wentworth; Andrew Winston; and Leila Zenderland. My thanks to colleagues who helped maintain my research career outside this dissertation, especially Jessica Kay Flake, Jolynn Pek, and Octavia Wong. My deepest appreciation to my many graduate course instructors, especially v David Flora, Raymond Mar, and Mark Solovey, for their courses on psychometrics, personality, and history of social science, respectively. Financially, a four-year Doctoral Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) made this work possible and my degree obtainable. Additionally, support and recognition through York University, including the Raymond Fancher Award, the Norman Endler Research Fellowship, and the Provost Dissertation Scholarship, helped and motivated me immensely. Archival evidence guided large portions of this dissertation. Chief among my sources were the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron’s Cummings Center for the History of Psychology. In addition to all their staff, and their Executive Director Cathy Faye (thanked above), I also need to emphasize Reference Archivist Lizette Barton’s persistent help during my time there and afterward. Helpful staff at a few other archives guiding this work are: the Clara Thomas Archives at York University (Toronto); Duke University’s J. Walter Thompson Company Collections held at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History; and the Special Collections & University Archives at both Colgate University and the University of Oregon. A lot has happened since I started thinking about how to write this dissertation. I was married; I lost a stepfather, a close aunt, and a grandmother; I saw new (to me) parts of the world; and I was appointed Assistant Professor. Also, it is currently 2020. I am so lucky to have the support of my loved ones. Among them, a heartfelt gratitude to: my good friends Matthew Clarke and Peter Rudiak-Gould for helping me survive grad life; to my mother, alongside her sister and her spouse, for providing a family homestead; and to my own spouse, Tracy, for everything. Tracy provides my life and my personality with balance and light and love. vi Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Prelude ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 1 ..................................................................................................................................... 13 (Pre-)Analytic Beginnings ........................................................................................................ 15 The Rise of Nervousness ...................................................................................................... 16 Freud’s Neurosis and Jung’s Libido ..................................................................................... 23 Jung’s Psychological Types .................................................................................................. 29 American Processes of Psychological Development ................................................................ 38 American Psychopathology .................................................................................................. 39 “The Great Expedition” ........................................................................................................ 47 Psychologists Measure .............................................................................................................. 52 On the Legibility of Jungian Thought ................................................................................... 53 Galton’s “Kantsaywhere” and the Twinning of Heredity/Testing ........................................ 58 Conclusions (in Preparation for the Upcoming Chapters) ........................................................ 63 Part I ............................................................................................................................................ 67 Chapter 2 ..................................................................................................................................... 68 The Intellect and Personality of the Sexes ................................................................................ 71 vii Overlapping Spheres ............................................................................................................. 72 Hinkle Trades Sex for Type .................................................................................................
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