Dan McAdams is currently a professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University. He was born on February 7, 1954, in Gary, Indiana. Extrovert personalities intrigue McAdams. He is interested in conducting psychoanalysis. George W. Bush is one of the characters McAdmas analyzed. He emphasizes that “our stories are our identities” McAdams categorized personality into three different levels: dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, and narrative identity.
Three Levels of Personality
Dispositional Traits – general traits and behaviors
Characteristic Adaptations – beliefs and desires
narrative identity – sense of meaning and purpose through stories
McAdams believes that his theory could explain why certain stories are associated with specific age groups. His theory analyzes the different stages of life and how these influence later life and an individual’s decision making. McAdams proposed four principles of personality that he argues provides a framework of an individual’s “complete” personality.
Principle 1: Evolution and Human Nature
Principle 2: The Dispositional Signature
Principle 3: Characteristic Adaptation
Principle 4: Life Narratives and the Challenge of Modern Identity
Lewis Goldberg is an American personality psychologist. He is well-known for his Big Five personality traits. He was born on June 23, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois. He was one of the contributors to the scientific literature in Personality and Psychological Assessment. He continues to research on the effects of personality traits on health and the structure of personality traits and the role that they play.
Goldberg’s Five Life lessons:
LESSON NUMBER 1: Send everything that you write to everyone you know (and ask for their help)
LESSON NUMBER 2: Don’t be afraid to pick up what’s been dropped by others
LESSON NUMBER 3: Don’t be afraid to go away and then to stay away a long time
LESSON NUMBER 4: Remember good ideas – they can be useful in the future
LESSON NUMBER 5: Shave your head, stay healthy, and outlive the competition
During Goldberg’s childhood, a lot was going on in the world. Goldberg grew up facing many economic and emotional difficulties due to the great depression and the war. Psychology was something new during the time period. Radio psychology became common. This all led up to Goldberg’s Big Five Personality Traits model that was created to assess one’s personality and psyche.
There were many critiques regarding this theory. Critics believed that these types of standardized personality tests capture only a part of an individual’s personality. The Big Five theory is still used today by many psychologists to gain a better understanding of personality disorders. It is also common in the workplace for recruitment and candidate assessment.
The article, The critical impact of Frantz Fanon and Henri Collomb: Journal of the History of the Behavioral by Frantz Fanon and Henri Collomb would agree with the critiques. Fanon and Collomb argue that although these types of standardized personality and projective tests are helpful in analyzing personality, they do not provide extensive reasoning which can be misleading. The authors of the articles, Historical origins of psychological research and Handbook of qualitative research by Danziger and Guba would agree to Frantz and Collomb. Danzinger and Guba emphasize the importance of qualitative research, which helps avoid epistemological violence.
Bullard, A. (2005). The critical impact of Frantz Fanon and Henri Collomb: Race, gender, and personality testing of North and West Africans. Journal of the History of the Behavioral
Danziger, K. (1994). Constructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research. Cambridge University Press.
Guba, E.G., &Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp.105-117). Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage.
Gordon Allport was an American psychologist. He was one of the first psychologists to study personality. Allport was born on November 11, 1987, and died on October 9, 1967. He was born in Montezuma, Indiana to methodist parents. Allport defined personality as” the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his uniqueness adjustments to the environment.” (1937). “Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought” (1961). Allport proposed the seven functions of the self, which he referred to as the Proprium.
Development of the Proprium (Self)
Sense of Body ( first 2 years)
Self-Identity (first 2 years)
Self-esteem (2-4 years) – recognition of one’s value
Self-extension (4-6 years)
Self-image (4-6 years) – “me as others see me”
Rational coping (6-12 years) – development of abilities to deal with life problems on their own
Propriate striving ( after 12 years) – self-goals, plans, ideas
Allport defined trait as a personal characteristic that stays constant over time and is resistant to change. He categorized traits into three different categories: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits.
Raymond Cattell was an American/British psychologist. He was born on March 20, 1905, and died on February 2, 1998. Cattell was born in Birmingham, England. WWI had a great impact on Cattell’s life. The new technological advancements intrigued him. He helped create tests for incoming officers for WWII. Cattell’s personality theory created Taxonomy of human personality. He classified people based on their different personalities. In doing so, he collected three types of data: life data, experimental data, and questionnaire data. Life data was collected by observing the everyday life behavior patterns. The experimental data observed and measured reactions to standardized experimental situations. The questionnaire data involves self-examinations of one’s own behaviors and reactions. Cattell believed that this type of direct data collection was able to assess internal states of an individual that cannot be measured externally.
16 Personality Traits
Cattell believed that each individual contains a total of 16 traits, but varies in the level (high or low) of each trait. He believed that all 16 traits are correlated to one another and help provide a measure of an individual’s personality, a range measurement of anxiety, adjustment, emotional stability and behavioral problems.
Hans Eysenck was a psychologist who is well known for his work on intelligence and personality. He was born on March 4, 1916, and died on September 4, 1997. Eysenck was born in Germany. He was the only child of film-star, Ruth Werner and nightclub entertainer, Eduard Anton Eysenck. Eysenck was raised by his grandmother who was later killed in a concentration camp. His parents separated when he was two. He moved to England to escape from the Nazi regime, but his father stayed and joined the Nazi regime. He faced many difficulties finding a job due to his German identity. Eysenck was very active in politics and greatly impacted his work on personality.
Pen Model
He is well known for his Pen Model, which focuses on temperament that he thought was due to genetics. It illustrates two dimensions of traits: extraversion vs. introversion and emotionally stability vs. neuroticism/ emotional instability. Eysenck defined neuroticism as a person who is nervous and anxious. He concluded that this was due to genetics, so he looked at the Sympathetic Nervous System for validity. He found that people who are anxious and nervous have a hyperactive sympathetic nervous system. Eysenck believed that the extraversion vs. introversion dimension is a matter of balance between inhibition and excitation. He hypothesized that extroverts have stronger inhibitions than introverts when dealing with trauma. Eysenck proposed that psychoticism is due to abnormal levels of gonadal hormones and enzymes. When the two dimensions interact it leads to many psychological problems.
Walter Mischel is an American psychologist. He focuses more on personality theory and social psychology. He was born on February 22, 1930, in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish family. Due to the Nazis, Mischel and his family immigrated to the United States. Mischel was raised in Brooklyn, New York.
In 1968, Mischel published a book called, Personality and Assessment. This book challenged the accuracy of trait assessments. In the book, he disagreed with the assumption that an individual’s behavior along with personality traits remain consistent throughout different experiences and situations. Mischel argued that behavior is influenced by the current situation and is subject to change.
He then concluded with the situation behavior. In which he states that personality is made from both personality and traits.
In 1972, Mischel proposed the Marshmallow test to assess one’s ability to delay gratification and observe self-control. This experimented was tested on preschoolers. They were told they could eat one marshmallow now or they can wait fifteen minutes and have two marshmallows. The study went on over a span for forty years and checked in on the children. The study resulted that the ones who waited the fifteen minutes had healthier lives, higher achievements, and better relationships.
Albert Bandura is a psychologist, well-known for his self-efficacy theory. He was born on December 4, 1925, in Mundare, Canada. He currently teaches at Stanford University. He works with many people around the world using his theory of self-efficacy to improve social status, to prevent HIV, to help patients with heart conditions and even to study one’s control on behavior during certain events. He believes that by having a perceived sense of control over any traumatic, distressful event, one can overcome the pain, fear and be able to move forward. Bandura believes that his theory is more than just a psychological theory, it is more of a lifestyle.
Bandura proposed the social learning theory. He studied human learning and how children can imitate certain behaviors observed in others. Bandura proposes that there are four systems that help control and carry out behavior: attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. Bobo doll is one of the known experiments conducted by Bandura to assess, children’s behavior after watching an aggressive model act performed by an adult. In conclusion, Bandura found that children were more likely to act aggressively than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model act.
Abraham Maslow was an American humanistic psychologist, best known for his Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He was born on April 1, 1908, and died on June 8, 1970. Maslow was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents.
“I was a little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in an all-white school. I was isolated and unhappy. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends” (Hall, 1968, p. 37).
Maslow’s theories included the hierarchy of needs and the concept of self-actualization. He focused more on an individual’s potential and the importance of growth and self-actualization. Maslow proposed the five hierarchy of needs listed in priority that are essential to psychological health and success. Self-actualization was the most important to Maslow. He believed that self-actualization is independent, unique and personal for each individual, thus provides a better insight of a person’s personality.
Maslow’s theories are still relevant today. His concept of self-actualization is a part of contemporary psychology and is a term that highly common and associated with long-term goals and to achieve happiness and fulfillment.
Carl Rogers was an American psychologist and one of the founders od the humanistic approach to psychology. He was born on January 8, 1902, and died on February 4, 1987. Rogers was born in Oak Park Illinois. He grew up in a conservative protestant household. His family owned a farm, which added to his interest in agriculture.
“The Self”
Rogers believed that the personality develops through the self, which he defines as the beliefs and perceptions one has about oneself. According to his theory, the self-concept is essential to personality development and is influenced by childhood experiences and the perceptions of others about the individual.
Self-Actualization Model
The Fully Functioning Person
Rogers identified self-actualization as the basic human motive. In order to achieve self-actualization, one must be in a state of congruence, and therefore a person’s ideal self would be congruent with their self-worth and self-image. Rogers identified five characteristics that define a fully functioning person: open to experience, fulfilled life, creativity, trust feelings, and existential living.
Rogers proposed the Client-Centered therapy, which correlates to Freud’s belief about the importance of conversation. In the client-centered therapy, the therapist engages the client in a conversation according to the client’s desire and comfort. The three main principles of this therapy are; honesty, unconditional positive regard, and empathy. The purpose of this therapy is to make the client feel comfortable so that the client can open up and speak about whatever they desire without worrying about being judged by others.
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