Psychology for Dummies (34 page)
Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
In This Chapter
Recognizing the power of the ego
Greeting the people and objects around us
Exploring the possibilities of the self
Setting the personality thermostat
A personality is a stable system of tendencies to act, think, and feel a particular way. Describing someone’s personality is in essence developing a picture out of the various bits of information available about that person. Describing someone’s personality almost always means taking a bunch of behavioral characteristics and reducing them to a more restricted set of qualities and attributes.
Personality theories assume that a few general characteristics can serve as a summary for what a person is like. The qualities that first come to mind when I think about a person are usually the qualities that are most central to him or her. The more central that quality is, the more useful that aspect is in predicting his or her behavior and distinguishing him or her from other people.
The theories and ideas that I cover in this chapter all have at least one thing in common: They all emphasize adaptation as a major component of personality. In fact, the function of personality is adaptation and maximum adjustment within the world. From this perspective, personality is viewed as a survival tool of sorts. Animals evolved fur to keep them warm and sharp claws to defend themselves against the threats in their environment. We humans developed personalities!
An important thing to keep in mind as you read about these personality theories is that nobody fits perfectly into the categories presented. An important concept in psychology is the principle of
individual differences.
No one
is
a personality theory: The theories are
tools
for understanding the complexity of human behavior, thought, and emotion.
Whether we realize it or not, each of us has a theory of personality that we use as our own little way of classifying people so we can tell them apart. When I was in high school, people were classified as nerds, jocks, or partygoers. Such a simple-minded scheme, but it came in handy from time to time.
So, each of us is a little personality theorist, but many specific groups of personality theorists are also out there. Astrologers, psychics, theologians, poets, and many others have been trying to classify people for centuries, each using their own insights into personality to develop theories.
Take the following personality description:
You have a great deal of unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage.
Sometimes you have doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
At times you are sociable; at other times you keep to yourself.
Security is one of your goals in life.
Do these characteristics describe you? If so, is a secret personality-analyzing computer chip imbedded in the binding of this book? Or are the above descriptions so vague and general that they would apply to anyone reading them? I vote for the latter. The
Barnum effect
is when personality theories are so general that they could apply to most everyone and tell very little specific information about a particular individual. It was named after P.T. Barnum, the famous circus owner who allegedly perfected this technique in his sideshow fortune-telling acts. After learning about the Barnum effect, I hope you never again see another fortune cookie or horoscope in the same way.
Remember the ego? You know, that symbol of American freedom and the U.S. Postal Service? No, that’s an “eagle.” The ego is Freud’s master negotiator between desire and morality. (See Chapter 10 for more on Freud.) Remember now? Even though a lot of people were and remain pretty impressed with Sigmund’s ideas, many of Freud’s colleagues and contemporaries decided to go their own way and develop their own personality theories. Many of these individuals felt that Freud did not give the ego enough credit in shaping our personalities. Most of them felt that it was more than just a mediator. For some, the ego became synonymous with personality itself.
Feeling phrenological?In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a scientist named Franz Joseph Gall tried to classify people’s personalities based on the shapes of their skulls and the unique patterns of lumps on their heads. Don’t worry though, no one is using that technique anymore — apparently lumps tell us very little. Many thinkers who made legitimate contributions in other areas came up with relatively useless theories for personality. A good personality theory allows us to accurately describe individuals and distinguish them from one another. Bad personality theories are often guilty of something called the
Barnum effect
(see the section “Knowing Who’s a Nerd” earlier in this chapter).
H. Hartmann was a follower of Freud who lead the dissent and march toward emphasizing the Ego in personality. For Hartmann, the Ego played two key roles in shaping personality:
Reducing conflict
Promoting adaptation
Sigmund Freud talked a lot about conflict among the id, the ego, and the superego. Basically, a lot of tension exists between a person’s desire and the reality of satisfying that desire in a socially acceptable and appropriate manner. Hartmann’s Ego was similar to Freud’s in that it helped to satisfy the Id’s desire and appease the Superego’s rules. But his Ego was out for itself in a way that Freud never mentioned.
Hartmann’s Ego is a central part of the personality that has its own desire or need for satisfaction, while Freud’s Ego was more like a referee with no real agenda of its own. What satisfies the Ego according to Hartmann? Thinking, planning, imagining, and integrating are all the sexy stuff of Hartmann’s Ego. Built-in satisfaction occurs when humans engage in these processes, and this accomplishment pushes all of us toward greater independence and autonomy. Being independent and self-sufficient is a satisfying feeling. Children get pretty happy at the prospect of being seen as a “big boy” instead of a baby. Little do they know what’s waiting for them when they are actually grown up . . . poor things.
Balance is the keyMy ability to control my impulses and to adapt to the demands of the situation is called
ego control.
It’s important though, not to get carried away with too much ego control, so that it turns into over-control. All work and no play make Johnny a very dull boy. (I always wondered where that saying came from. I don’t think it came from psychologists.) Balance between complete lack of control and being too rigid is important. Flexibility is the key!