Fifty Years of Personality Psychology PERSPECTIVES on INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES CECIL R

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Fifty Years of Personality Psychology PERSPECTIVES ON INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES CECIL R. REYNOLDS, Thxas A&M University, College Station ROBERT T. BROWN, University of Nurth Carolina, Wilmington Current volumes in the series

EXPLORATIONS IN TEMPERAMENT International Perspectives on Theory and Measurement Edited by Jan Strelau and Alois Angleitner

FIFTY YEARS OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY Edited by Kenneth H. Craik, Robert Hogan, and Raymond N. Wolfe

HANDBOOK OF CREATIVITY Assessment, Research, and Theory Edited by John A. Glover, Royce R. Ronning, and Cecil R. Reynolds

HANDBOOK OF MULTIVARIATE EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, Second Edition Edited by John R. Nesselroade and Raymond B. Cattell

HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Edited by John A. Glover and Royce R. Ronning

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN CARDIOVASCULAR RESPONSE TO STRESS Edited by J. Rick 'fumer, Andrew Sherwood and Kathleen C. Light

LEARNING STRATEGIES AND LEARNING STYLES Edited by Ronald R. Schmeck

THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES A Developmental Perspective Edited by Lawrence C. Hartlage and Cathy F. Telzrow

PERSONALITY, SOCIAL SKILLS, AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY An Individual Differences Approach Edited ~y David G. Gilbert and James J. Connolly

SCHIZOPHRENIC DISORDERS Sense and Nonsense, in Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment Leighton C. Whitaker

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY Edited by Hans J. Eysenck and Irene Martin

A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. Fifty Years of Personality Psychology

Edited by Kenneth H. Craik University of California Berkeley, California Robert Hogan University of Tulsa Tulsa, Oklahoma and Raymond N. Wolfe State University of New York Geneseo, New York

SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC Llbrary of Congress Cataloglng-ln-Publlcatlon Data

Flfty years of personallty psychology / edlted by Kenneth H. Cralk, Robert Hogan, and Ray.ond N. Holfe. p. c •. -- (Perspectlves an IndIvIdual dlfferences) A co.paratlve analysls of the 1937 textbooks Personallty by Gordon H. Allport and Psychology of personallty by Ross Stagner. Includes blbllographlcal references and Index. ISBN 978-1-4899-2313-4 ISBN 978-1-4899-2311-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-2311-0 1. Personallty--Hlstory. 2. Allport, Gordon H. (Gordon Hl11ard), 1897-1967. Personal1ty. 3. Stagner, Ross, 1909- Psychology of personal1ty. 1. Cralk, Kenneth H. II. Hogan, Robert, 1937- III. Holfe, Ray.ond N. IV. Allport, Gardon H. (Gordon Hl11ard), 1897-1967. Personal1ty. V. V. Stagner, Ross, 1909- Psychology of personal1ty. VI. Serles. [DNLM: 1. AII port, Gordon H. (Gordon Hl11ard), 1897-1967. 2. Stagner, Ross, 1909- 3. Personal1ty--congresses. 4. Personal1ty Assess.ent--congresses. 5. Psycholog1cal Theory• -congresses. BF 698 F4691 BF698.F525 1993 155.2'09'04--dc20 DNLM/DLC for Llbrary of Congress 92-48903 CIP

ISBN 978-1-4899-2313-4

10 1993 Springer Science+Business Media New York Origina11y published by Plenum Press, New York in 1993 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover lst edition 1993

N o part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher To GoRDON W. ALLPORT AND Ross STAGNER in celebration of their contributions to personality psychology Contributors

Irving E. Alexander, Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27706 Roy F. Baumeister, Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Peter Borkenau, Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, N-4800 Bielefeld 1, Germany Bertram J. Cobler, Committee on Human Development, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637 Kenneth H. Craik, Institute of Personality and Social Research, Uni• versity of California, Berkeley, California 94720 Bella M. DePaulo, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903 Alan C. Elms, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, California 95616 Robert A. Emmons, Department of Psychology, U Diversity of Cali• fornia, Davis, California 95616 Garth J. 0. Fletcher, Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 1, New Zealand David C. Funder, Department of Psychology, University of Califor• nia, Riverside, California 92521 Robert Hogan, Department of Psychology, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104

vii viii CONTRIBUTORS

Oliver P. John, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 Salvatore R. Maddi, School of Social Ecology, University of Cali• fornia, Irvine, California 92717 Gerald A. Mendelsohn, Institute of Personality and Social Research, Berkeley, California 94720 Lawrence A. Pervin, Department of Psychology, Rutgers Univer• sity, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903 Richard W. Robins, Department of Psychology, University of Cali• fornia, Berkeley, California 94720 M. Brewster Smith, Board of Studies in Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064 Ross Stagner, Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202 David G. Winter, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Raymond N. Wolfe, Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Geneseo, New York, 14454 Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 Preface

This volume celebrates the textbooks Personality: A Psychological In• terpretation by Gordon W. Allport and Psychology of Personality by Ross Stagner, both first published in 1937. In 1987, several occasions were held to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the two volumes and to acknowledge their role in defining and establishing the identity of personality psychology as a distinctive field of scientific in• quiry within the United States. At any given time, the textbooks of a science offer revealing infor• mation about its intellectual structure and research program. Even more so, its ''founding'' textbooks provide a temporal anchor for gain• ing a historical perspective on the field and a source of insights con• cerning its subsequent development and current situation. In spring 1987, at the University of California's Institute of Per• sonality Assessment and Research (IPAR) (now the Institute of Person• ality and Social Research) in Berkeley, Ross Stagner was invited to offer his personal perspective on these two textbooks and the sub• sequent development of personality psychology. In addition, a special symposium was devoted to an appreciation of the life and works of Gordon W. Allport. In a third series of talks, invited speakers offered commentaries on issues that were central to personality psychology in 1937 and that continue to warrant our attention today. A£, part of its annual meetings in August 1987, the American Psychological Association's Division of Personality and Social Psychology held a spe• cial marathon four-hour symposium that was an expanded version of !PAR's celebrations. In this volume, we offer highlights of these occasions as well as additional contributions developed especially for this publication. The

ix X PREFACE book is organized into four sections. First, the introductory chapter presents a comparative analysis of the 1937 textbooks by Allport and Stagner and then uses this context to describe the origins and concep• tualization of our volume and to give a detailed account of its organiza• tion and contents. The second section of the volume includes three chapters dealing with the historical and personal background of the two textbooks. The third section groups three chapters concerning the cur• rent state of personality psychology and its contemporary textbooks. In the fourth section, we devote twelve chapters to gaining a present-day perspective on such abiding issues in personality psychology as the individual and the single case, motives and the self, judging persons, and personality assessment and prediction. Finally, the epilogue offers an optimistic view of the future of our field. This volume has three aims. First, we see it as a contribution to our ongoing task of gaining a historical perspective on the development of personality psychology as a scientific endeavor. Beyond its intellec• tual importance, such collective remembering holds the promise of serving valuable social functions for a community of researchers. For example, narrative accounts of a community's origins can generate vivid reminders of its members' shared aspirations. Second, we hope that the volume will bring about more explicit and concerted discussion of the possible forms and substance of contemporary textbooks in per• sonality psychology. Many pertinent issues have been raised in rather fragmented fashion over the years in textbook reviews published in Contemporary Psychology and elsewhere. This volume constitutes a beginning forum for reflecting on and joining opposing views on these matters. The third aim of the volume is to employ a historical vantage point as one means of gaining a comprehensive overview of our current research agenda in personality psychology. Has a particular research topic now perceived as "trendy'' in fact been an enduring concern of our field from the outset? Have some topics and methods fallen by the wayside that should not have been abandoned after all? The compara• tive analysis of textbooks over time can afford us a broad picture of such continuities and discontinuities in our field's research directions. Given these purposes, we have been remarkably fortunate in gain• ing the cooperation of an array of contributors who are authorities in the fields of their individual assignments. We greatly appreciate their willingness to take time away from their own research programs to aid in this effort at historical perspective taking. The logistics of assem• bling papers delivered at several different gatherings and arranging for additional new works for the volume have combined with our own geo• graphical separation to cause some delays in publication. At times we PREFACE xi feared that the materials for this book would themselves have become ''historic" by the time of their publication. We appreciate the patience and goodwill of our contributors in this regard. We also want to acknowl• edge the dispatch with which publication has been facilitated once the final manuscripts became available-thanks are due here to Eliot Werner and Patrick Connolly and their colleagues at Plenum and to Robert Brown and Cecil Reynolds, coeditors of Plenum's series Per• spectives on Individual Differences. Finally, we salute the sustaining interest and support of Ross Stagner throughout this project. Editing a volume can sometimes turn into a bit of a chore, but not so in this case. We have been happy to serve as agents of a scientific community delighted in sharing a worthy and inspiring heritage. That community encompasses our contributors, our symposia audiences, and now-we trust-the readers of this volume as well.

KENNETH H. CRAIK ROBERT HOGAN RAYMOND N. WOLFE Contents

PART I. INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 The 1937 Allport and Stagner Texts in Personality Psychology ...... 3 Kenneth H. Craik Allport and Stagner: Personal Backgrounds and Intentions ...... 4 Allport and Stagner: Convergences and Divergences ...... 5 Cross-Generational Differences in Vantage Points ...... 7 A Major Contrast: An Analysis of the Individual per se versus the Individual in Society ...... 10. Allport: The Individual Transcendent ...... 11 Stagner: The Individual in Society ...... 12. Planning and Organization of This Volume ...... 14 Contents ...... 16. . . References ...... 19 . .

PART II. HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL BACKGROUND OF THE 1937 TEXTS

Chapter 2 Fifty Years of the Psychology of Personality: Reminiscences ...... 23 . . Ross Stagner Some Personal Backgrounds ...... 26 Personality and Psychoanalysis ...... 33.

xiii xiv CONTENTS

Views on Methodology ...... 34. . Retrospections ...... 36 . . References ...... 37. . .

Chapter 3 Allport's Personality and Allport's Personality . . 39 Alan C. Elms Introduction ...... 39. . . Allport's Encounter with Freud ...... 40 Allport's Theory of the Clean Personality ...... 42 The Evolution of a Classic Textbook ...... 46 Not a Little Boy ...... 48 . . Allport as Unique Individual...... 50 Allport as an Adult ...... 51 . . Conclusion ...... 53. . . References ...... 54. . .

Chapter 4 Allport and Murray on Allport's Personality: A Confrontation in 1946-1947...... 57 M. Brewster Smith Allport on Allport ...... 58 . . The Neglect of Culture ...... 58 Uniqueness ...... 58. . . Issues of Motivational Theory ...... 59 Murray on Allport ...... 61 . . Allport in Rejoinder ...... 62. . Commentary ...... 63. . . References ...... 64. . .

PART III. CURRENT STATE OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS TEXTS

Chapter 5 Pattern and Organization: Current Trends and Prospects for the Future ...... 69 Lawrence A. Pervin The Units of Personality and Their Organization ...... 70 Concepts of Trait and Motive in Allport and Stagner ...... 70 The Goal Concept ...... 72 . . Affect...... 76 The Organization of the Self ...... 79 CONTENTS XV

CUITent Status and Prospects for the Future ...... 80 References ...... 83

Chapter 6 The Continuing Relevance of Personality Theory ...... 85 Salvatore R. Maddi Psychology, the Fragmented Discipline ...... 86 The Prevalence of Warring Factions ...... 86 The Prevalence of Middle-Level Theorizing ...... 89 Overspecialization ...... 90 Personality Theorizing as One Antidote ...... 91 Tasks and Components of Personality Theorizing ...... 92 Integrating Potential of Personality Theorizing ...... 94 The Empirical Spirit ...... 97 Teaching Personality ...... 98 A Final Word ...... 99 References ...... 100

Chapter 7 It's Time to Put Theories of Personality in Their Place, or, Allport and Stagner Got It Right, Why Can't We? ...... 103 Gerald A. Mendelsohn The Distinction between Theorizing about Personality and Theories of Personality ...... 104 The Genres of Textbooks in Personality ...... 105 The Critique of Theories of Personality ...... 107 Questionable Scientific Standing of the Theories ...... 107 Questionable Contemporary Relevance of the Theories ...... 109 Questionable Heuristic Value of the Theories ...... 111 What Is To Be Done? ...... 113 References ...... 115

PART IV. PRESENT-DAY PERSPECTIVES ON BASIC ISSUES

Chapter 8 Science and the Single Case ...... 119 Irving E. Alexander Study of the Individual: Inhibiting Forces ...... 121 Study of the Individual: Sustaining Forces ...... 123 xvi CONTENTS

The Current Situation ...... 126 . . References ...... 127 . . .

Chapter 9 Describing Lives: Gordon Allport and the "Science" of Personality ...... 131 Bertram J. Cohler Allport's Approach to the Study of the Person ...... 133. The Interpretive Perspective ...... 135. . The Interpretive Thrn and the Nomothetic-Idiographic Debate ...... 136 Personal Documents ...... 137 . . Allport's Construal of Personality Structure ...... 139. Traits ...... 139 Realization of Personal Integrity: The Proprium ...... 140 Conclusions ...... 142 . . . References ...... 143

Chapter 10 Gordon Allport and "Letters from Jenny" ..... 147 David G. Winter Gordon Allport and "Glenn" ...... 148. . Understanding the Case of Jenny ...... 150 "Jenny" and Allport's Theoretical Ideas ...... 152 Conflict and Mediation ...... 152 . . The Idiographic Approach ...... 153. . Therapeutic Skepticism ...... 154 . . Normal and Abnormal ...... 155 . . Functional Autonomy ...... 156 . . Jenny and Ross in Gordon Allport's Life ...... 157 Jenny as Mother ...... 158 Ross as Double ...... 159. . . References ...... 162 . . .

Chapter 11 Allport's Personal Documents: Then and Now ...... 165 Lawrence S. Wrightsman Overview ...... 165 . . . The Purposes of Personal Documents in Psychological Research . . 166 Theoretical Perspectives-Allport's and the Present ...... 170 Methodologies-Allport's versus the Present ...... 171. CONTENTS xvii

Conclusion ...... 173 . . . References ...... 174

Chapter 12 Conceptions of Self and Identity: A Modern Retrospective on Allport's View ...... 177. Roy F. Baumeister Allport's Views in Retrospect ...... 177. . Allport's Integrative Project ...... 180. . The Natural Self ...... 180. . . The Conceptual Self ...... 181 . . The Action Self ...... 183. . . Conclusion ...... 184 . . . References ...... 185 . . .

Chapter 13 Current Status of the Motive Concept ...... 187 Robert A. Emmons Introduction ...... 187 . . . Other Current Approaches ...... 190 Recommendations ...... 192 References ...... 193 . . .

Chapter 14 The Ability to Judge Others from Their Expressive Behaviors Bella M. DePaulo The Consistency of Expressive Behaviors ...... 197. The Deliberate Regulation of Expressive Behaviors ...... 198 Allport's Six Questions about the Face ...... 199 . References ...... 204 . . .

Chapter 15 Judgments of Personality and Personality Itself ...... 207 David C. Funder Allport on Personality Judgment ...... 207 Research on the Process of Judgment ...... 208 . Research on lnte:rjudge Agreement ...... 210 Criteria for Accuracy ...... 211. . . The Accuracy Project ...... 212. . . References ...... 213 . . . xviii CONTENTS

Chapter 16 Gordon Allport: Father and Critic of the Five-Factor Model ...... 215 Oliver P. John and Richard W. Robins Allport-Father of the Five-Factor Model ...... 216 Allport and Odbert's "Psycholexical Study" ...... 216 Replicating Allport and Odbert in German: A Prototype Model ...... 218 . . Reducing the Semantic Nightmare: Five Broad Dimensions Underlying Trait Terms ...... 219 The Empirical Basis of the Five Factors ...... 221 Research in the Lexical Tradition ...... 221 Research in the Questionnaire Tradition ...... 222. The Emerging Consensus and Heuristic Potential of the Big Five ...... 223. . . Conceptual Status of the Factors: From the Big Five to the Five-Factor Model ...... 223 Allport-Critic of the Five-Factor Model ...... 225 Trait Theory and Personality Theory ...... 225 . Description and Explanation ...... 225 Nomothetic and Idiographic ...... 228. . Molar Dimensions and Individual Traits ...... 230 Conclusions ...... 231 References ...... 232 . . .

Chapter 17 To Predict Some of the People More of the Time: Individual Traits and the Prediction of Behavior ...... 237 Peter Borkenau Allport's Critique of Hartshorne and May ...... 238 . Bern and Allen's Elaboration of Allport's Ideas ...... 240 Was Bern and Allen's Study Truly Idiographic? ...... 242 The Replicability of Bern and Allen's Findings ...... 244. Trait Relevance or Trait Extremity? ...... 244 . Who Are the Trait-Consistent Subjects? ...... 245 Was the Search for Moderators Successful? ...... 246 Conclusions ...... 247 References ...... 248 . . . CONTENTS xix

Chapter 18 The Scientific Credibility of Commonsense Psychology ...... 251 Garth J. 0. Fletcher A Realist Theory of Psychological Science ...... 252. Truth as a Scientific Aim ...... 253 . . The Relation between Theory and Data ...... 253. A Generative Concept of Causality ...... 255 . Evaluating the Layperson's Social Cognition: Scientist or Simpleton? ...... 255 Conclusion ...... 259 . . . Folk Personality-Social Psychology Theories: Touchstone or Crock? ...... 259 . . . Dispositions as Causal Explanations ...... 262 . Caveats and Conclusions ...... 265 References ...... 265 . . .

Chapter 19 A Commonsense Approach to Personality Measurement ...... 269 Raymond N. Wolfe Veridicality ...... 272 Devising Items ...... 275 Preliminary Assumptions ...... 275 . . From the Theory to the Item ...... 276. . From Itemmetrics to Psychometrics ...... 278 . From the Item to the Scale ...... 281. . Scale Breadth versus Scale Length ...... 282. . Constraints on the Kinds of Constructs That Can Be Measured ...... 284. . . Conclusions ...... 286 . . . References ...... 287 . . .

PART V. EPILOGUE

Chapter 20 An Optimistic Forecast ...... 293 . Robert Hogan References ...... 296 . . . XX CONTENTS

Author Index ...... 299

Subject Index ...... 307