"Society Often Forgives The Criminal; It Never Forgives The Dreamer."

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life would be so different if i was a bookshop owner in a small village near some forest who has a secret affair with the local poet

Personality

Personality is a very commonly used term, however it’s very difficult to define- some psychologists argue that it is biological and thus innate while others argue it is the accumulation of your individual experiences. An example is the idea behind Type A and Type B personalities- Type A people tend to be high strung, competitive, and ambitious. Type B people tend to be more laid back. 

Psychoanalytic Theory

Sigmund Freud believed that personality was set in early childhood, as children go through his proposed stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital). During the phallic stage, as pleasure moves towards the genitals, young boys go through the Oedipus crisis, and young girls go through the Electra crisis when they feel competition towards their same sex parent, and attraction to their opposite sex parent. Freud believed that as boys and girls notice their physical differences, girls experience penis envy (I really hate Sigmund Freud), and boys experience castration anxiety, where they fear they will be castrated if they misbehave. To protect themselves against this, they use identification as a defence mechanism. Identification is when people emulate and attach themselves to an individual they believe threatens them- this leads to boys attaching to their fathers and detaching from their mothers. Fixation on one of the stages of development can cause certain personality quirks- for instance, fixation on the anal stage may lead to someone with an anal expulsive personality, describing someone messy and disorganised. It may also cause an anal retentive personality, where the person is neat and hyperorganised. 

Freud believed most human behaviour comes from the unconscious. We spend a lot of mental energy keeping unacceptable thoughts in the unconscious mind. There is also the preconscious (containing everything we could potentially summon to conscious awareness) and the conscious (containing everything we are thinking of at a given moment). He also thought that the personality came from three parts: 

The id, which exists from birth is in the unconscious and is made of instincts and psychic energy- he thought there were two kinds of instincts, Eros (life instincts) and Thanatos (death instincts). Libido drives life instincts. The id is controlled by the pleasure principle which is the desire for immediate gratification.

The ego follows the reality principle. It emerges around ages 2 or 3, and operates partly in the conscious mind, and partly in the unconscious mind. It negotiates the desires of the id and the limitations of the environment.

The superego is also partially in the unconscious mind and partially in the conscious mind. It emerges around age 5 and is the conscience. The ego often has to act as the mediator of the superego and the id.

The ego uses defence mechanisms to protect the conscious mind from threatening thoughts. Some of these include:

Repression- Blocking thoughts from conscious awareness

Denial- Not accepting the truth

Displacement- Redirecting feelings towards another person or object.

Projection- Believing that the feelings one has towards someone else are actually held by the other person and directed at oneself

Reaction Formation- Expressing the opposite of how one truly feels

Regression- Returning to an earlier, comforting behaviour

Rationalisation- Coming up with a beneficial result of an undesirable circumstance

Intellectualisation- Undertaking an academic, unemotional study of a topic

Sublimation- Channelling one’s frustration towards another goal (often viewed as one of the more healthy defence mechanisms)

It should go without saying that a lot of Freud’s views are criticised for being nearly, if not completely impossible to study and prove. His theories have very little predictive power, and is seen as overestimating the importance of early childhood and sex. Finally, a lot of Freud’s views are very objectionable, and likely were guided by misogyny. His ideas of penis envy, and that women have weaker superegos seem to be based more on bias than empirical evidence. Feminists like Karen Horney and Nancy Chorodow suggested that if women were jealous of men, it was because of the advantages men enjoyed in society, rather than a simple desire to have a penis. They suggested the idea of womb envy, where mean are jealous of women’s reproductive capabilities. 

Psychodynamic Theories

Freud’s followers developed offshoots of his theories. These new approaches are referred to as psychodynamic or neo-Freudian approaches. Carl Jung proposed that the unconscious is made of 2 different parts: the personal unconscious, containing the painful memories and thoughts the person doesn’t want to confront, termed as complexes, and the collective unconscious which is passed down by species, explaining certain cultural similarities. The collective unconscious contains archetypes which are universal concepts we all share, such as the shadow which represents the evil side of personality, and the persona which is people’s creation of a public image. Alfred Adler focused less on the unconscious, and more on the conscious role of the ego. He believed people are motivated by the fear of failure (inferiority) and the desire to achieve (superiority).

Trait Theories

Trait theorists believe that personality can be described by specifying peoples main characteristics, which they view as stable and motivate people’s behaviour. Some trait theorists believe the same basic traits can describe all people’s personalities (this is a nomothetic approach). Hans Eysenck believed that by placing people on an introversion-extroversion scale and a stable-unstable scale that he could describe their personalities. Raymond Cattell developed the 16 PF (personality factor test). More modern psychologists like Paul Costa and Robert McCrae felt personality can be described using the big five personality traits; extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences, and emotional stability/neuroticism. In order to reduce the massive amounts of terms we use to describe people into 16 or 5 traits, factor analysis may be used. This is a statistical technique allowing researchers to use correlations between traits to see which cluster together as factors.

Other trait theorists (ideographic theorists) state that using the same set of terms to describe everyone is nonsensical. Instead, each person can be described using a unique set of traits. Gordon Allport believed that a full understanding of someone’s personality was impossible when disregarding their personal traits. Allport found that a small number of people are so intensely influenced by one trait that it informs nearly everything that they do. These traits are cardinal dispositions. There are two other types of dispositions: central dispositions and secondary dispositions. Central dispositions have a larger influence on personality than do secondary dispositions.

Biological Theories

One of the oldest personality theories was biological. Hippocrates believed that personality was determined by the level of the 4 humours - blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Biological theorists view genes, chemicals, and body types as the primary influencer of personality. There is growing evidence that the human personality is partially shaped by genetics. However, little evidence exists supporting the heritability of specific personality traits. This varies based on the type of trait- height is more heritable than intelligence, for example. However, evidence suggests that temperament (someone’s emotional style and way of dealing with the world) is heavily influenced by genes. One example of another early biological theory was William Sheldon’s somatotype theory. This theory identified 3 body types- endomorphs (fat), mesomorphs (muscular), and ectomorphs (thin) and associated different traits for each of these body types. A lot of Sheldon’s research, however, only showed correlation.

Behaviourist Theories

Behaviourists like B.F Skinner have a very different view on personality. They believe that behaviour is what determines personality- the reinforcement contingencies that one is exposed to is what creates personality, so by changing someone’s environment, you can change their personality

Social-Cognitive Theories

These theories meld together behaviourists view of the importance of the environment, and cognitive psychologists focus on patterns of thought. Albert Bandura believed that personality is created by the interaction between a persons traits, their environment, and their behaviour. He based his model on the idea of triadic reciprocality (reciprocal determinism)- meaning that each of these 3 factors influence the others in a looplike fashion. He also posited that personality is effected by a sense of self-efficacy- people with high self-efficacy are confident in their ability to do things while people with low self-efficacy feel powerless. The level of self-efficacy determines people’s actions, and as a result, the outcome of those actions. George Kelly created the personal-construct theory- suggesting that people, as they attempt to understand the world develop their own individual systems of personal constructs. Thus, personality is based on how people see the world. This theory is based on a fundamental postulate that states that behaviour is influenced by cognitions. Finally, Julian Rotter created the concept of locus of control. People either have an internal or external locus of control. Someone with an internal locus of control feels responsible for what happens to them (”hard work leads to success”). Someone with an external locus of control believe that luck and outside forces determine their destinies (”what family you’re born into determines success”)

Humanistic Theories

Most of the previous models, such as behaviourism and psychoanalysis are deterministic- which is the belief that what happens is dictated by what happened in the past. Neither support the idea of free will- which is the ability of someone to choose their own destiny (you goh the chance ta change yer fate!) The humanistic perspective is sometimes referred to as the third force as it arose in opposition to the determinism of behaviourism and psychoanalysis. Humanistic personality theories view people as innately good and able to determine their own destinies as they exercise free will. They stress the importance of someone’s self-concept (a person’s global feeling about themselves) and self-esteem (a person’s evaluation of their own self worth)

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are the two most influential humanistic psychologists. They both believed that people are motivated to self-actualise. Rogers created self-theory- the idea that although people are innately good, they need things like unconditional positive regard from their interactions with others in order to self-actualise.

Assessment Techniques

When assessing personality, reliability (consistency) and validity (accuracy) are extremely important. Depending on their theories, psychologists methods for studying personality may differ. 

Psychoanalysts tend to use projective tests, where they ask people to interpret ambiguous stimuli. For example, the Rorschach inkblot test, (where someone describes an inkblot) or the thematic apperception test (where someone describes what’s happening in a picture). Psychoanalysts believe these tests are outlets to project unconscious thoughts. Many people view projective tests as unreliable. A more simple and widespread method of personality assessment is self-report inventories where people take questionnaires, providing information about themselves. These kinds of tests are referred to as objective personality tests, versus an interview which would be called a subjective personality test, due to the potential for evaluator bias. An example is the Minnesota multi phasic personality inventory (MMPI-2) which is the most widely used. These tests can be viewed as invalid, however, as people may not be honest when answering questions. Radical behaviourists reject both of these assessments, preferring instead to observe behaviour in order to determine personality. 

People tend to be curious about what personality assessments say about them, however this curiousity tends to make them easier to deceive. People tend to see themselves in vague descriptions of personality- this phenomenon is named the Barnum effect (after P.T Barnum) and is abused by people like astrologers, psychics, and fortune tellers.

not me romanticizing my classes and pretending I’m a novelist in the 18th century about to publish my first draft when in fact I am just sitting in my dorm with a blank Google Doc

wind in my hair, i was there

"You will care for somebody, and you'll love him tremendously, and live and die for him. I know you will, it's your way, and you will and I'll watch."

And today I did my hair,went to the church

Met my parents after a month,brought home some duck eggs and some herbs.

Cleaned my tub and washed my breasts.

My plants were green and my apple was not rotten today.

White linen sheets and dirty curtains still made my bed.

I did all the things but didn't wait for someone again.

You come home. I welcome you with a kiss. I tell you how much I miss you, you chuckle. We sit on the couch, both holding a glass of wine, watching our favorite movie together. We know exactly what is about to happen, but we still watch it anyway, I think it's safer that way. I look at you, I can't believe you're here. I tell you I love you, you love me too. I never felt so happy in my life.

The movie ends and it's time to go to bed. You wrap your arms around me, tell me goodnight but I am already asleep. You smile to yourself. You have everything you want. You would never ask for more. I would never ask for more.

Another day, we're out. I made sandwiches, your favorite, you say, even though they taste terrible. We start to count the stars, as a joke. How far they all feel. I love you. I don't want you to go.

A new year. You come home. I welcome you with a kiss, and a smile. A strange smile, I may be crying. I can't tell. I put our record on. I take your hand. We sway. We dance slowly. Every night when you come home. In front of the window, dim lights, our song playing.

I love you. Forever. You never leave.

Every night. People of this town tell the story of the girl who dances alone by the window. The world stopped spinning, and the clocks stopped working for her. The girl whom nobody knows, they refuse to. Some pity her. Some accuse her of madness. But no one ever tells her. No one ever tells her that he stopped coming home for a long time.

“In November, we feel the hand of death closer at our backs. “Since the day of my birth,” writes Jean Cocteau, “my death began its walk. It is walking towards me without hurrying.””

— Nina MacLaughlin, from “Death’s Footsteps”, The Paris Review