Theories of PERSONALITY SECOND EDITION eRe Calvin S. Hall UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA Gardner Lindzey UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AUSTIN, TEXAS JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. NEW YORK * LONDON * SYDNEY - TORONTOCopyright © 1957, 1970, by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Alll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language without the written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 76-110168 SBN 471 34225 4 Printed in the United States of America 0987654321TO OUR TEACHERS AND FRIENDS Gordon W. Allport Henry A. Murray Edward C. TolmanPREFACE Theories of Personality and the present edition, a number of changes in personality theory have taken place. Death has diminished the roll of the major theorists: Angyal (1960), Jung (1961), Goldstein (1965), and Allport (1967). Some of the theories have been substantially revised and elaborated by their originators. All of the theories to a greater or lesser ex- tent, have stimulated additional empirical activities. More importantly, new viewpoints have appeared on the scene that merit attention. Let us reflect on the new viewpoints. It was difficult to decide which of the new theories that have emerged since 1957 should be discussed here. Few readers will object strenuously to the choices we made. Friend and foe alike will agree that B. F. Skinner's viewpoint (dare we call it a theory?) has become a major influence in American psychology and should not be omitted from consideration. Nor could we ignore an important European contribution to personality theory. Existential psychology has acquired an impressive constituency in the past ten years, not only in its European home- Jand but also in the United States. It is one of the mainstreams of the flour- ishing humanist movement. Although there may be little disagreement with these choices, we anticipate complaints about the omissions, notably Piaget and cognitive theory. Both were given careful consideration and both would have been included if space had permitted. The final decision was based on the criterion of their centrality for the psychology of personality. Skinner and existential psychology seemed to us to meet this criterion somewhat better than does either Piaget’s developmental theory or cognitive theory. Space limitations also required some excisions. Cattell emerged as the principal representative of factor theory. Eysenck, who shared the stage with Cattell in the first edition, has been increasingly involved in behavior theory and appears in the stimulus response theory chapter (Chapter Eleven) as well as in the factor theory chapter (Chapter Ten). Murphy's biosocial T: the thirteen years that have intervened between the first edition of viiviii PREFACE theory was reluctantly sacrificed on the grounds that it is an eclectic theory and, as such, its main concepts are adequately represented in other chapters. All of the remaining chapters have been updated. Some of the chapters (particularly those that deal with Allport, factor theory, S-R theory, and Rogers) were extensively revised. Other chapters needed fewer alterations. The format of the chapters has not been changed. All of the viewpoints are still presented in a positive light. We have made every effort to depict with clarity and accuracy the essential features of each theory. We were extremely fortunate to have B. F. Skinner and Medard Boss, whose positions are represented in the two new chapters (Chapters Twelve and Fourteen), read and comment on what we had written concerning their viewpoints. Preparation of the new chapter on Skinner’s operant reinforce- ment theory and revision of the chapters on S-R theory and factor theories were greatly facilitated by the detailed and substantial contributions of Richard N. Wilton, Janet T. Spence, and John C. Loehlin. Also we are grate- ful to G. William Domhoff, Kenneth MacCorquodale, and Joseph B. Wheel- wright, who made critical contributions to the revision. Florence Strong and Allen Stewart were diligent proofreaders and indexers. Calvin S. Hall Gardner LindzeyPREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION there is no single source to which the student can turn for a survey of existing theories of personality. The present volume is intended to cor- rect this shortcoming. It provides compact yet comprehensive summaries of the major contemporary theories of personality written at a level of difficulty that is appropriate for undergraduate or graduate instruction, From this book the student can secure a detailed overview of personality theory and at the same time he can prepare himself to read original sources with more appreciation and greater facility. It is our hope that this volume will serve a function in the area of personality similar to that served by Hilgard’s Theories of Learning in the area of learning. What theories should be included in a volume on personality theory? Although it is not easy to specify precisely what a theory of personality is, it is even more difficult to agree as to what are the most important of these theories. As set forth in the first chapter, we are willing to accept any gen- eral theory of behavior as a theory of personality. In judging importance we have relied primarily upon our evaluation of the degree of influence the theory has had upon psychological research and formulation. Also involved in this complex judgment is the matter of distinctiveness. When two or more theories have appeared to us to be very similar, we have either treated them in a single chapter or selected one theory to focus upon to the exclusion of the others. Given these broad criteria of importance and distinctiveness, there will probably be little objection to the particular theories we have elected to include in the volume. There may be less unanimity, however, concerning our decision to omit certain theories from consideration. Notable among the omissions are McDougall’s Hormic Theory, Role Theory, I spite of the deepening interest of psychologists in personality theory, ixX PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION Guthrie's Contiguity Theory, Tolman’s Purposive Behaviorism, and some of the recently developed positions such as David McClelland’s, Julian Rotter’s, and George Kelly’s. We originally planned to include both McDougall’s Hormic Theory and Role Theory but limitations of space forced us to reduce the number of chapters and these were the theories we judged to be most expendable. Hormic Theory was omitted because its influence is somewhat more indirect than in the case of the other theories. Although we regard McDougall as a theorist of great importance, his contemporary impact is largely mediated by more recent theorists who have borrowed features of his theory. Role Theory, it seems to us, is less systematically developed than most of the other positions we elected to include. It is true that the theory contains a leading idea of considerable value and importance but this idea has not as yet been incorporated into a network of concepts which deal comprehen- sively with human behavior. Guthrie and Tolman were omitted in favor of Hiull’s reinforcement theory simply because there has been less extensive research application of these theories outside of the area of learning. McClel- land, Rotter, and Kelly were not included because of their recency and be- cause, in some respects, their positions resemble theories or combinations of theories that we have included. Having decided upon what theories to include, we were still faced with the problem of how to organize and describe these positions. Some consist- ency in mode of presentation seemed desirable; yet at the same time we wished to preserve the integrity of the individual theories. Our compromise consisted of providing general categories in terms of which the theories could be described while permitting ourselves a good deal of latitude within these categories so as to present each theory in the manner that seemed most natural. Even these general categories were not adhered to rigidly. In some instances new ones were necessary in order to represent a particular theory adequately, and in one or two cases it seemed advisable to combine cate- gories. Typically, however, each theory is introduced with an Orientation section which recounts briefly the personal history of the theorist, outlines the main lines of influence upon the theory, and provides a summary of the salient features of the theory. Next the reader will find a section on the Structure of Personality in which are included the concepts designed to rep- resent the acquisitions or enduring portions of personality. Following this is a section on Dynamics of Personality which sets forth the motivational or dispositional concepts and principles espoused by the theorist. Then comes a section on Development of Personality which deals with growth and change as represented by the theory. A section on Characteristic Research and Research Methods follows, in which representative investigations and empirical techniques are presented. There is a concluding section entitledPREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION Xi Current Status and Evaluation which outlines briefly the present state of the theory and summarizes the major contributions of the theory as well as the chief criticisms it has elicited. At the end of each chapter is a brief list of Primary Sources which represents the most important of the original sources concerning the theory. All of the publications referred to in the text are brought together in a final section at the end of each chapter entitled References. We have attempted to present each theory in a positive light, dwelling upon those features of the theory that seem to us most useful and suggestive. Although we have included a brief critique of each theory it has not been our primary intention to evaluate these theories. Rather, we have attempted to present them in expository terms that will demonstrate what they are good for or what promise they hold for the individual who adopts them. The length of a chapter does not reflect our judgment of the relative im- portance of the theory. Each theory is written in what seemed to us the smallest number of pages necessary to represent its essential features accu- rately and comprehensively. The reader will observe that in some chapters there appears to be more detailed and personal information concerning the theorist and the development of his theory than in other chapters. This was determined solely by availability of information. In those instances where we knew a good deal about the theorist, we decided to include as much of this information as seemed vital even though this would result in some chapters appearing more personalized than others. In the preparation of this volume we sought and received invaluable assistance from a number of colleagues. It is with deep gratitude and appre- ciation that we acknowledge the personal contribution made by many of the theorists whose work is presented here. They clarified our thinking upon a number of points and made numerous suggestions both as to form and content which greatly improved the manuscript. Whatever merit this book Possesses must be attributed in large measure to the meticulous care with which cach of the following theorists read and criticized the chapter de- voted to his theory: Gordon W. Allport, Raymond B. Cattell, H. J. Eysenck, Kurt Goldstein, Carl Jung, Neal E. Miller, Gardner Murphy, Henry A. Murray, Carl Rogers, Robert R. Sears, and William Sheldon. In addition to illuminating comments concerning the chapter dealing with his own theory, Gordon Allport provided us with penetrating criticisms and generative sug- gestions concerning all of the remaining chapters. He also used many of the chapters in his undergraduate and graduate courses and provided us with the comments and suggestions of these students. We are greatly indebted not only to these Harvard and Radcliffe students but also to many students at Western Reserve University who read and commented upon the chapters. We are pleased to acknowledge our further indebtedness to the followingxii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION individuals, each of whom read and improved by their suggestions one or more chapters in this book: John A. Atkinson, Raymond A. Bauer, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Arthur Combs, Anthony Davids, Frieda Fromm-Reich- mann, Eugene L. Hartley, Ernest Hilgard, Robert R. Holt, Edward E. Jones, George S. Klein, Herbert McClosky, George Mandler, James G. March, A. H. Maslow, Theodore M. Newcomb, Helen S. Perry, Stewart E. Perry, M. Brewster Smith, Donald Snygg, S. S. Stevens, Patrick Suppes, John Thibaut, Edward C. Tolman, and Otto A. Will, Jr. We are indebted to Heinz and-Rowena Ansbacher for providing us with page proof of their book The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler prior to its publication. It was very helpful to us in writing the section on Adler's theory of personal- ity. In the final preparation of the manuscript we received invaluable assist- ance from Virginia Caldwell, Marguerite Dickey, and Kenneth Wurtz, The completion of this volume was greatly facilitated by a half-year leave of absence granted by Western Reserve University to Calvin S. Hall and by a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences granted to Gardner Lindzey. The writing was also facilitated by the per- mission granted Lindzey to use the facilities of the Dartmouth College Library during the summer of 1954. Carvin S. Hatt Garpner LinpzeyTwo Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Eleven CONTENTS THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 1 FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 29 JUNG’S ANALYTIC THEORY 2B SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 117 MURRAY’S PERSONOLOGY 160 LEWIN’'S FIELD THEORY 209 ALLPORT’S PSYCHOLOGY OF THE INDIVIDUAL 258 ORGANISMIC THEORY 298 SHELDON’S CONSTITUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 338 CATTELL’S FACTOR THEORY 380 STIMULUS-RESPONSE THEORY 417 xiiixiv CONTENTS Twelve SKINNER’S OPERANT REINFORCEMENT THEORY Thirteen ROGERS’ SELF THEORY Fourteen EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY Fifteen PERSONALITY THEORY IN PERSPECTIVE NAME INDEX SUBJECT INDEX 476 515 552 582 605 615Theories of PERSONALITYCHAPTER ONE THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY site temporary theories of personality. In addition to providing a digest of each theory we will discuss relevant research and provide a general evaluation of the theory. Before proceeding with this task, however, some- thing should be said about what personality theories are as well as how the various personality theories can be distinguished from one another. Further, there is an obligation to place these theories in a general context, relating them to what has gone on historically in psychology as well as locating them in the contemporary scene. In this introductory chapter we commence with a very general and somewhat informal outline of the role of personality theory in the develop- ment of psychology, followed by a discussion of what is meant by the terms personality and theory. From these considerations it is an easy step to the question of what constitutes a personality theory. We will also con- sider very briefly the relation between personality theory and other forms of psychological theory, and present a number of dimensions by means of which personality theories can be compared with one another. These dimensions can be considered to represent the major theoretical issues in this area, while the theories themselves may be considered to represent 1 I this volume we will present an organized summary of the major con-2) THEORIES OF PERSONALITY the scientific viewpoints, attitudes, or images of man available to the person who wishes to study and understand human behavior broadly. PERSONALITY THEORY AND THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY A comprehensive view of the development of personality theory must surely begin with conceptions of man advanced by the great classical scholars such as Hippocrates, Plato, and Aristotle. An adequate account would also be obligated to deal with the contributions of dozens of thoughtful individuals, for example, Aquinas, Bentham, Comte, Hobbes, Kierkegaard, Locke, Nietzsche, and Machiavelli who lived in the intervening centuries and whose ideas are still to be detected in contemporary formulation. It is not our intention here to attempt any such general reconstruction. Our goal is much more limited. We shall merely consider in broad terms the gen- eral role personality theory has played in the development of psychology during the past six or seven decades. To begin with, let us examine some relatively recent sources of influence upon personality theory. A tradition of clinical observation beginning with Charcot and Janet but including most importantly Freud, Jung, and Mc- Dougall has done more to determine the nature of personality theory than any other single factor. In a moment we shall examine some of the effects of this movement. A second path of influence stems from the Gestalt tradi- tion and William Stern. These theorists were tremendously impressed with the unity of behavior and consequently were convinced that the segmental or fragmented study of small elements of behavior could never prove en- lightening. As we shall discover, this point of view is deeply embedded in current personality theory. There is also the more recent impact of ex- perimental psychology in general and learning theory in particular. From this avenue has come increased concern with carefully controlled empirical research, a better understanding of the nature of theory construction, and a more detailed appreciation of how behavior is modified. A fourth deter- minant is represented by the psychometric tradition with its focus upon the measurement and study of individual differences. This source has provided increasing sophistication in measurement and the quantitative analysis of data. There are numerous other paths of influence upon personality theory including genetics, logical positivism, and social anthropology but none of these seems, thus far, to have had such far-reaching implications as the four determinants we have just outlined. The specific background out of which each of the theories presented in this book emerged is briefly discussed in the following chapters. GeneralTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 3 discussions of the development of contemporary personality theory will be found in Allport (1937, 1961) and Boring (1950). The current status of personality theory and research is summarized in a series of chapters appearing in the Annual Review of Psychology commencing in 1950 (for example, Adelson, 1969; Holtzman, 1966; Klein et al. 1967; London and Rosenhan, 1965; Wiggins, 1968). There are also a number of worthwhile substantive treatments of the field including Byrne (1966), Sanford (1963), Sarnoff (1962), and Sarason (1966). Let us turn now to some of the distinctive features of personality theory. Although this body of theory is manifestly a part of the broad field of psy- chology, still there are appreciable differences between personality theory and research, and research and theory in other areas of psychology. These differ- ences are particularly pronounced in regard to personality theory in its early stages of development and they exist in spite of a great deal of varia- tion among personality theories themselves. The striking differences among personality theories, however, imply that almost any statement that applies with detailed accuracy to one theory of personality will be somewhat in- accurate when applied to many other theories. In spite of this, there are modal qualities or central tendencies inherent in most personality theories and it is upon these that we shall focus our discussion. Granted that there are important congruences in the streams of influ- ence which determined the early paths of general psychology and of per- sonality theory, still there are significant differences. It is true that Darwin was a potent factor in the development of both positions and it is also true that physiology of the nineteenth century had its influence upon personality theorists as well as a marked effect upon general psychology. Nevertheless the broad flavor of the factors influencing these two groups during the past three quarters of a century has been distinguishably different. While the personality theorist was drawing his leading ideas primarily from clinical experience, the experimental psychologist was paying heed to the findings of the experimental laboratory. Where the names Charcot, Freud, Janet, Mc- Dougall, and Stern are in the forefront of the work of early personality theorists, we find Helmholtz, Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, and Wundt cast in a comparable role in experimental psychology. The experimentalists derived their inspirations and their values from the natural sciences while personality theorists remained closer to clinical data and their own creative reconstructions. One group welcomed intuitive feelings and insights but scorned the trappings of science with its restriction upon the imagination and its narrow technical skills. The other applauded the rigor and precision of delimited investigation and shrank in distaste from the unrestrained use of clinical judgment and imaginative interpretation. In the end it was clear that early experimental psychology had little to say concerning problems4 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY of interest to the personality theorist and that the personality theorist had little respect for problems of central importance to the experimental psy- chologist. It is well known that psychology developed in the late nineteenth cen- tury as the offspring of philosophy and experimental physiology. ‘The origin of personality theory owes much more to the medical profession and to the exigencies of medical practice. In fact, the early giants in this area (Freud, Jung, and McDougall) were not only trained in medicine but practiced as psychotherapists. This historical link between personality theory and practical application has remained evident throughout the development of psychology and provides an important distinction between this brand of theory and certain other types of psychological theory. Consistent with what we have said thus far are two generalizations con- cerning personality theory. First, it is clear that personality theory has occu- pied a dissident role in the development of psychology. Personality theorists in their own times have been rebels. Rebels in medicine and in experimental science, rebels against conventional ideas and usual practices, rebels against typical methods and respected techniques of research, and most of all rebels against accepted theory and normative problems. The fact that personality theory has never been deeply embedded in the mainstream of academic psychology has had several important implications. On the one hand, it tended to free personality theory from the deadly grip of conventional modes of thought and preconceptions concerning human behavior. By being relatively uninvolved in the ongoing institution of psychology it was easier for personality theorists to question or reject assumptions which were widely accepted by psychologists. On the other hand, this lack of involvement also freed them from some of the discipline and the responsibility for reason- ably systematic and organized formulation which is the heritage of the well- socialized scientist. A second generalization is that personality theories are functional in their orientation. They are concerned with questions that make a difference in the adjustment of the organism. They center. about issues of crucial im- portance for the survival of the individual. At a time when the experi- mental psychologist was engrossed with such questions as the existence of imageless thought, the speed with which nerve impulses travel, specifying the content of the normal-conscious-human-mind, deciding whether there was localization of function within the brain, the personality theorist was concerned with why it was that certain individuals developed crippling neurotic symptoms in the absence of organic pathology, the role of child- hood trauma in adult adjustment, the conditions under which mental health could be regained, and the major motivations that underlay human behavior. Thus, it was the personality theorist, and only the personalityTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 5 theorist, who in the early days of psychology dealt with questions which to the average person seem to lie at the core of a successful psychological science. The reader should not construe what has just been said as an indictment of general psychology and a eulogy of personality theory. It is still not clear whether the path to a comprehensive and useful theory of human behavior will proceed most rapidly from the work of those who have aimed directly at such a goal, or whether it will eventually owe more to the efforts of those who have focused upon relatively specific and delimited problems. ‘The strategy of advance in an empirical discipline is never easy to specify and the general public is not usually considered an adequate final court for deciding what problems should be focused upon. In other words, while it is a statement of fact that personality theorists have dealt with issues that seem central and important to the typical observer of human behavior, it remains to be seen whether this willingness to tackle such issues will prove to advance the science. ‘As we have implied, there is no’ mystery concerning why personality theories were broader in scope and more practical in orientation than the formulations of most other psychologists. The great men of academic psy- chology in the nineteenth century were figures such as Wundt, Helmholtz, Ebbinghaus, Titchener, and Kiilpe who carried out their work within uni- versity settings with few pressures from the outside world. They were free to follow their own intellectual inclinations with little or no compulsion to deal with what others considered important or significant. In fact, they were largely able to define what was significant by their own values and activities. In contrast the early personality theorists were practitioners as well as scholars. Faced with the problems of everyday life, magnified by neurosis, it was natural that they should address themselves to formula- tions which had something to contribute to these problems. A set of cate- gories for the analysis of emotions which could be applied by trained sub- jects in a laboratory setting was of scant interest to a therapist who daily observed the operation of emotions that were hampering, disabling, and even killing fellow humans. Thus, the strong functional flavor of person- ality theories, their concern with problems of significance to the survival of the organism, seems a natural outgrowth of the setting in which these theories developed. It is clear that personality theorists have customarily assigned a crucial role to the motivational process. At a time when many psychologists ig- nored motivation or attempted to minimize the contribution of such factors in ‘their studies, the personality theorist saw in these same variables the key to understanding human behavior. Freud and McDougall were the first to give serious consideration to the motivational process. The wide gap6 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY between the arena of life and the theory developed by laboratory psycholo- gists is pictured by McDougall as he justifies his attempts to develop an adequate theory of social behavior (which was more of a theory of per- sonality than it was a theory of social behavior) : The department of psychology that is of primary importance for the social sciences is that which deals with the springs of human action, the impulses and motives that sustain mental and bodily activity and regulate conduct; and this, of all the departments of psychology, is the one that has remained in the most backward state, in which the greatest obscurity, vagueness, and confusion still reign (McDougall, 1908, pp. 2-3). Thus, variables that were primarily of nuisance value to the experi- mental psychologist became a matter for systematic study and focal interest on the part of the personality theorist. Related to this interest in the functional and motivational is the per- sonality theorist’s conviction that an adequate understanding of human be- havior will evolve only from the study of the whole person. Most person- ality psychologists insisted that the subject should be viewed from the van- tage of the entire functioning person in his natural habitat. They pleaded strongly for the study of behavior in context, with each behavioral event examined and interpreted in relation to the rest of the individual's be- havior. Such a point of view was a natural derivative of clinical practice where the entire person presented himself for cure and where it was indeed difficult to limit consideration to one sense modality or a limited array of experience. If we accept the intent of most personality theorists to promote the study of the whole, unsegmented person, it is easy to understand why many observers have considered that one of the most distinctive features of per- sonality theory is its function as an integrative theory. While psychologists in general have shown increased specialization, leading to the complaint that they were learning more and more about less and less, the personality theorist accepted at least partial responsibility for bringing together and organizing the diverse findings of specialists. The experimentalist might know a great deal about motor skills, audition, perception, or vision but he usually knew relatively little about the way in which these special func- tions related to one another. The personality psychologist was, in this sense, more concerned with reconstruction or integration than he was with analy- sis or the segmental study of behavior. From these considerations comes the somewhat romantic conception of the personality theorist as the indi- vidual who will put together the jigsaw puzzle provided by the discrete findings of separate studies within the various specialties that make up psychology. In broad terms, then, what has distinguished the personality theoristTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 7 from the traditional psychological theorist? He is more speculative and Jess tied to experimental or measuremental operations. The stiffening brush of positivism has spread much more lightly over the personality psycholo- gist than over the experimental psychologist. He develops theories that are multidimensional and more complex than those fashionable within general psychology and, consistently, his theories tend to be somewhat more vague and. less well specified than the experimentalist’s theories. He is willing to accept any aspect of behavior which possesses functional significance as legitimate data for his theoretical mill whereas most experimental psy- chologists are content to fix their attention upon a limited array of observa- tions or recordings. He insists that an adequate understanding of individual behavior can be achieved only when it is studied in a broad context which includes the total, functioning person. The personality theorist sees motiva- tion, the “why” or underlying impellents of behavior, as she crucial empiri- cal and theoretical problem whereas experimentalists see this as one of many problems and deal with it by means of a small number of concepts closely linked to physiological processes. ‘Thus far we have proceeded as though the reader and the writers were in good agreement concerning what the term personality means. Although this may be the case, it is by no means certain and before proceeding fur- ther it seems wise to examine the meaning of this term. WHAT IS PERSONALITY? There are few words in the English language that have such a fascina- tion for the general public as the term personality. Although the word is used in various senses, most of these popular meanings fall under one of two headings. The first usage equates the term to social skill or adroitness. An individual's personality is assessed by the effectiveness with which he is able to elicit positive reactions from a variety of persons under different circumstances. It is in this sense that schools that specialize in glamorizing the American female intend the term when they refer to courses in “person- ality training.” Likewise, the teacher who refers to a student as presenting a personality problem is probably indicating that his social skills are not ade- quate to maintain satisfactory relations with his fellow students and the teacher. The second usage considers the personality of the individual to inhere in the most outstanding or salient impression which he creates in others. A person may thus be said to have an “aggressive personality” or a “submissive personality” or a “fearful personality.” In each case the ob- server selects an attribute or quality which is highly typical of the subject and which is presumably an important part of the over-all impression which8 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY he creates in others and his personality is identified by this term. It is clear that there is an element of evaluation in both usages. Personalities as com- monly described are good and bad. While the diversity in ordinary use of the word personality may seem considerable, it is overshadowed by the variety of meanings with which the psychologist has endowed this term. Allport (1937) in an exhaustive survey of the literature extracted almost fifty different definitions which he classi- fied into a number of broad categories. Here we need concern ourselves with but a few of these definitions. It is important initially to distinguish between what Allport calls bio- social and biophysical definitions. The biosocial definition shows a close correspondence with the popular use of the term as it equates personality to the “social stimulus value” of the individual. It is the reaction of other individuals to the subject which defines his personality. One may even assert that the individual possesses no personality but that provided by the re- sponse of others. Allport objects vigorously to the implication that per- sonality resides only in the “responding-other” and suggests that a brophysical definition which roots the personality firmly in characteristics or qualities of the subject is much to be preferred. According to the latter definition, personality has an organic side as well as a perceived side and may be linked to specific qualities of the individual which are susceptible to objec- tive description and measurement. Another important type of definition is the rag-bag or omnibus defini- tion. This definition embraces personality by enumeration. The term per- sonality is used here to include everything about the individual and the theorist ordinarily lists the concepts he considers of primary importance in describing the individual and suggests that personality consists of these. Other definitions place primary emphasis upon the integrative or organi- zational function of personality. Such definitions suggest that personality is the organization or pattern that is given to the various discrete responses of the individual or else they suggest that the organization results from the personality which is an active force within the individual. Personality is that which gives order and congruence to all the different kinds of be- havior in which the individual engages. A number of theorists have chosen to emphasize the function of personality in mediating the adjustment of the individual. Personality consists of the varied and yet typical efforts at adjustment which are carried out by the individual. In other definitions, personality is equated to the waigue or individual aspects of behavior. In this case, it is a term to designate those things about the individual that are distinctive and set him apart from all other persons. Finally, some theorists have considered personality to represent the essence of man. These defini tions suggest that personality refers to that part of the individual which isTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 9 most representative of him, not only in that it differentiates him from other persons but, more important, because it is what he actually is. Allport’s suggestion that “personality is what a man really is” illustrates this type of definition. The implication here is that personality consists of what, in the final analysis, is most typical and deeply characteristic of the person. We could profitably spend much more time dealing with the problem of defining personality if it were not for the fact that in the ensuing chap- ters the reader will encounter many detailed definitions of personality in their natural context. Furthermore, it is our conviction that no substantive definition of personality can be applied with any generality. By this we mean simply that the way in which a given individual will define person- ality will depend completely upon his particular theoretical preference. Thus, if the theory places heavy emphasis upon uniqueness and the or- ganized, unified qualities of behavior, it is natural that the definition of personality will include uniqueness and organization as important attributes of personality. Once the individual has created or adopted a given theory of personality, his definition of personality will be rather clearly implied by the theory. Thus, we submit that personality is defined by the particular empirical concepts which are a part of the theory of personality employed by the observer. Personality consists concretely of a set of scores or descriptive terms which are used to describe the individual being studied according to the variables or dimensions which occupy a central position within the particular theory utilized. If this seems an unsatisfactory definition to the reader, let him take con- solation in the thought that in the pages to follow he will encounter a number of specific definitions any one of which will become his if he chooses to adopt that particular theory. In other words, what we have said is that it is impossible to define personality without coming to agreement con- cerning the theoretical frame of reference within which personality will be viewed. If we were to attempt a single substantive definition now, we would implicitly be settling many of the theoretical issues which it is the purpose of this book to explore. WHAT Is A THEORY? Just as everyone knows what a personality consists of, so everyone knows what a theory is! The most common conception is that a theory exists in opposition to a fact. A theory is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or a specu- lation concerning reality which is not yet definitely known to be so. When the theory is confirmed it becomes a fact. There is a grain of correspondence between this view and the usage we will advocate here for it is agreed that10 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY theories are not known to be true. There is also an element of disagree- ment as the commonsense view asserts that a theory will become true or factual when the appropriate data have been collected if these data are confirmatory. In our view, theories are never true or false although their implications or derivations may be either. The passages to follow represent a relatively conventional summary of the thinking of methodologists or logicians of science. There is by no means complete agreement concerning all of the issues to be raised but the point of view presented is intended to be modal rather than original. The beginning student may find it a little difficult to grasp fully some of these ideas and it is only fair to indicate that an understanding of them is not essential in order to read and appreciate the remainder of the volume. On the other hand, if he is seriously interested in the field and has not yet immersed himself in this area of scholarship, the student would do well to acquaint himself with methodology much more extensively than he can hope to do in this brief section. There are a number of excellent sources which provide a detailed treatment of these matters (for example, Conant, 1947; Feig] and Brodbeck, 1953; Feig] and Sellars, 1949; Frank, 1949; Kuhn, 1962; Hanson, 1958; Turner, 1967; Hempel, 1952). Let us commence by considering what a theory is and subsequently turn to the more important question of what are the functions of a theory. To begin with, a theory is a set of conventions created by the theorist. Viewing a theory as a “set of conventions” emphasizes the fact that theories are not “given” or predetermined by nature, the data, or any other determi- nant process. Just as the same experiences or observations may lead a poet or novelist to create any one of a multitude of different art forms, so the data of investigation may be incorporated in any of countless different theoretical schemes. The theorist in choosing one particular option to repre- sent the events in which he is interested is exercising a free creative choice that is different from the artist’s only in the kinds of evidence upon which it focuses and the grounds upon which its fruitfulness will be judged. We are emphasizing here the creative and yet arbitrary manner in which theo- ries are constructed and this leads naturally to the observation that we can specify how a theory should be evaluated or appraised but we cannot specify how a theory should be constructed. There is no formula for fruitful theory construction any more than there is a formula for making enduring literary contributions. The fact that a theory is a conventional choice, rather than something that is inevitable or prescribed by known empirical relations, emphasizes the lack of appropriateness of truth or falsity as attributes to be ascribed to a theory. A theory is only useful or not useful and these qualities are defined, as we shall see, primarily in terms of how efficiently the theory canTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 11 generate predictions or propositions concerning relevant events which turn out to be verified (true). Let us be somewhat more specific concerning what a theory is. Just what does a theory, in its ideal form, consist of? It should contain a cluster of relevant assumptions systematically related to each other and a set of empirical definitions! The assumptions must be relevant in that they bear upon the empirical events with which the theory is concerned. If it is a theory of audition the assumptions must have something to do with the process of hearing; if it is a theory of perception the assumptions must bear upon the perceptual process. Ordinarily the nature of these assumptions represents the distinc- tive quality of the theory. The good theorist is the person who can ferret out useful or predictive assumptions concerning the empirical events within his domain. Depending upon the nature of the theory these assumptions may be very general or quite specific. A behavioral theorist might choose to as- sume that all behavior is motivated, that events taking place early in life are the most important determinants of adult behavior, that the behavior of different animal species is governed by the same general principles; or he might assume that increased anxiety leads to a decrement in motor performance or that a particular variable has a normal distribution within a given population. These assumptions may also vary in form from the precision of mathematical notation to the relative inexactness of most of the assumptions we have just used as illustrations. Not only must the assumptions be stated clearly but also the assump- tions and the elements within the theory must be explicitly combined and related to one another. That is, there must be rules for the systematic inter- action between the assumptions and their embedded concepts. In order to give the theory logical consistency and permit the process of derivation, these internal relations must be clear. Without such specification it would be difficult or impossible to extract empirical consequences from the theory. Because of their similarity to the rules of grammar these statements are sometimes referred to as the syntax of the theory. We have already sug- gested that one might choose to assume that an increase in anxiety would lead to a decrement in motor performance. In addition, it might be as- sumed that an increase in self-esteem would lead to an improvement in motor performance. If we knew nothing more than this the relation be- tween these two assumptions would be clearly indeterminant as we need to find out something about the relation between anxiety and self-esteem before we car make any predictions concerning what may take place under circumstances where both variables are involved. An adequate statement of the theoretical assumptions would provide the user of the theory with a clear specification of the relation between these two assumptions.12 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY The empirical definitions (co-ordinating definitions) permit the more or less precise interaction of certain terms or concepts within the theory with empirical data. Thus, by means of these definitions the theory at certain prescribed places comes into definite contact with reality or observational data. These definitions are frequently called operational definitions as they attempt to specify operations by means of which the relevant variables or concepts can be measured. Emphasis upon empirical definitions is the mark of an investigative intent and it is safe to say that if a theory is eventually to make a contribution in an empirical discipline it must possess some means for empirical translation. On the other hand, it should be clear that these definitions exist on a continuum ranging from complete and exact specification to a very general and qualitative statement. Although the more precision the better, an early insistence upon complete specifica- tion can destroy many fruitful paths of inquiry. Defining intelligence as simply “what intelligence tests measure” or equating anxiety solely to cer- tain physiological changes as measured by the galvanometer may be exact, but neither definition alone seems likely to lead to much productive thought or inquiry. The proper attitude toward empirical definitions is that they should be as precise as present conditions within the relevant field permit. We have now seen, in general terms, of what a theory consists. The next question is, What does it do? First, and most important, it leads to the collection or observation of relevant empirical relations not yet observed. The theory should lead to a systematic expansion of knowledge concern- ing the phenomena of interest and this expansion ideally should be medi- ated or stimulated by the derivation from the theory of specific empirical propositions (statements, hypotheses, predictions) that are subject to empirical test. In a central sense, the core of any science lies in the discovery of stable empirical relationships between events or variables. The function of a theory is to further this process in a systematic manner. The theory can be seen as a kind of proposition mill, grinding out related empirical state- ments which can then be confirmed or rejected in the light of suitably controlled empirical data. It is only the derivations or propositions or ideas derived from the theory which are open to empirical test. The theory itself is assumed and acceptance or rejection of it is determined by its wtility, not by its truth or falsity. In this instance, utility has two components—verifia- bility and comprehensiveness. Verifiability refers to the capacity of the theory to generate predictions which are confirmed when the relevant empirical data are collected. Comprehensiveness refers to the scope or completeness of these derivations. We might have a theory which generated consequences that were often confirmed but which dealt with only a few aspects of the phenomena of interest. Ideally the theory should lead to accurate predictionsTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 13 which deal very generally or inclusively with the empirical events which the theory purports to embrace. It is important to distinguish between what may be called the systematic and the heuristic generation of research. It is clear that in the ideal case the theory permits the derivation of specific testable propositions and these in turn lead to specific empirical studies. However, it is also manifest that many theories, for example, Freud’s and Darwin's, have had a great effect upon investigative paths without the mediation of explicit propositions. This capacity of a theory to generate research by suggesting ideas or even by arousing disbelief and resistance may be referred to as the heuristic influence of the theory. Both types of influence are of great importance and at the present stage of development within psychology are to be valued equally. A second function which a theory should serve is that of permitting the incorporation of known empirical findings within a logically consistent and reasonably simple framework. A theory is a means of organizing and inte- grating all that is known concerning a related set of events. An adequate theory of psychotic behavior should be able to arrange all that is known concerning schizophrenia and other psychoses in an understandable and logical framework. A satisfactory learning theory must embrace in a con- sistent manner all of the dependable findings dealing with the learning process. Theories always commence with that which has thus far been ob- served and reported and in this sense begin in an inductive phase and are guided and to some extent controlled by what is known. However, if the theories did nothing more than make consonant and orderly what was presently known they would serve only a very minor function. Under such circumstances the dogged investigator would be justified in his con- yiction that theories are mere verbal fluff floating in the wake of the ex- perimenter who has done the real business of science. The empiricist who insists that theories are mere after-the-fact rationalizations of what the investigator has already reported fails to appreciate the main function of the theory which is to point out new and, as yet, unobserved relations. The productiveness of the theory is tested before the fact not after the fact. Simplicity or, as it is sometimes called, parsimony is also of importance but only after matters of comprehensiveness and verifiability have been settled. It becomes an issue only under circumstances where two theories generate exactly the same consequences. As long as the theories differ in the derivations that can be made concerning the same empirical events, the choice of the theory should be decided in terms of the extent to which these predictions differ in verification. Thus, it is only when you have a tautology—two theories arriving at the same conclusions from different14 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY terms—that simplicity becomes an important question. Suffice it to say that there are few examples of such a state of affairs in science and none, to our knowledge, in psychology. Simplicity as opposed to complexity be- comes, consequently, a matter of personal value or preference in person- ality theorizing, rather than an attribute which is necessarily to be prized or sought after. Another function which a theory should serve is that of preventing the observer from being dazzled by the full-blown complexity of natural or concrete events. The theory is a set of blinders and it tells its wearer that it is unnecessary for him to worry about all of the aspects of the event he is studying. To the untrained observer any reasonably complex behavioral event seems to offer countless different possible means for analyzing or de- scribing the event—and indeed it does. The theory permits the observer to go about abstracting from the natural complexity in a systematic and efficient manner. Abstract and simplify he will, whether he uses a theory or not, but if he does not follow the guide lines of an explicit theory the principles de- termining his view will be hidden in implicit assumptions and attitudes of which he is unaware. The theory specifies to the user a limited number of more or less definite dimensions, variables, or parameters which are of cru- cial importance. The other aspects of the situation can to a certain extent be overlooked from the point of view of this problem. A useful theory will detail rather explicit instructions as to the kinds of data that should be collected in connection with a particular problem. Consequently, as might be expected, individuals occupying drastically different theoretical posi- tions may study the same empirical event and share little in the way of common observations. In recent years a growing number of psychologists have adopted the theoretical reasoning and terminology of Thomas Kuhn (1962) who, in an engaging and insightful monograph, has suggested that scientific advance may be depicted most accurately as consisting of a series of revolutionary steps, each of them accompanied by its own characteristic and dominant paradigm. According to Kuhn, every scientific field emerges in a sprawling and uncoordinated manner, with the development of disparate lines of investigation and theoretical ideas that preserve their autonomous and competitive positions, until a particular set of ideas assumes the status of a paradigm. He suggests that these paradigms serve to: . . » define the legitimate problems and methods of a research field for succeed- ing generations of practitioners. They were able to do so because they shared two essential characteristics. Their achievement was sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity. Simultancously, [they were] .. . sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to re-THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 15 solve... . These are the traditions which the historian describes under such rubrics as ‘Ptolemaic astronomy’ (or ‘Copernican’), ‘Aristotelian dynamics’ (or ‘Newtonian’), ‘corpuscular optics’ (or ‘wave optics’), and so on (p. 10). It is interesting to speculate concerning the paradigmatic status of per- sonality theory and research. For those who adopt this idiom, it seems easiest to view this area as in a preparadigmatic state. That is, while there are plentiful sets of systematic, or somewhat systematic, ideas, none of these has gained a position of real dominance. There is no single theory that serves as a “paradigm” to order known findings, determine relevance, provide an establishment against which rebels may struggle, and dictate the major path of future investigation. If Kuhn’s historical analysis is ac- curate, it remains for the future to develop a systematic position that will sweep all, or most, of the field with it for at least an academic generation. A THEORY OF PERSONALITY We have agreed that personality is defined by the particular concepts con- tained within a given theory that are considered adequate for the complete description or understanding of human behavior. We have also agreed that a theory consists of a set of related assumptions concerning the relevant empirical phenomena, and empirical definitions to permit the user to move from the abstract theory to empirical observation. By simple addition we have the implication that a theory of personality must be a set of assump- tions relevant to human behavior together with the necessary empirical definitions. There is the further requirement that the theory must be relatively comprehensive. It must be prepared to deal with, or make predic- tions concerning, a wide range of human behavior. In fact, the theory should be prepared to deal with any behavioral phenomenon that can be shown to possess significance for the individual. What has been said to this point possesses a formal validity which, how- ever, cannot be sustained upon close scrutiny of existing theories of person- ality. Our discussion is of value in identifying the qualities toward which all theorists aspire and it also gives some idea of what, eventually, per- sonality theories should look like. It is clear, nevertheless, that at the present time they do not look like this. A word should be said concerning the manner in which they fail to resemble the ideal both in structure and in function. First of all, as we shall see, most of them lack explicitness. It is generally very hard to get at the assumptions or the axiomatic base of these theories. Personality theories are frequently packaged in a great mass of vivid word images which may serve very well as a means of persuading the16 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY reluctant reader but which frequently serve to cloak and conceal the specific assumptions that underlie the theory. In other words, most of the theories are not presented in a straightforward and orderly manner and many of them seem more oriented toward persuasion than exposition. Re- lated to this lack of definiteness is a frequent confusion between that which is given or assumed and that which is stated empirically and open to test. As we have already agreed, it is only the derivations or the predictions generated by the theory which are open to empirical test. The remainder of the theory is assumed or given and is not to be judged on grounds of confirmation or disconfirmation but rather in terms of how successfully it generates verified propositions. In general, then, the distinction between the personality theory itself and its implications or derivations is very poorly maintained. An inevitable consequence of the lack of explicitness concerning the nature of the assumptions underlying the theory is the existence of serious confusion in the process of deriving empirical statements from the theory. Thus, there is the possibility that different individuals using the same theory will arrive at conflicting derivations. Actually, the derivation Process in most personality theories is haphazard, obscure, and inefficient. This is not only a reflection of the lack of explicitness of these theories but also of the fact that most personality theorists have been oriented toward after-the-fact explanation rather than toward the generation of new predic- tions concerning behavior. Finally, it is clear that although personality theories vary in how carefully they specify empirical definitions none of these theories achieves a very high standard in absolute terms. ‘The statements we have just made concerning the formal status of per- sonality theories may seem sufficiently discouraging to warrant abandoning attempts to construct such theories at this time. Would it not be better at present to forget about theories and focus upon empirical tools and specific empirical findings? Emphatically no! Such a decision does not involve giv- ing up inadequate theory for no theory but rather involves the substitution of implicit theory for explicit theory. There is no such thing as “no theory”; consequently, the moment we attempt to forget about theory “for the pres- ent” we are really using implicit, personally determined and perhaps in- consistent assumptions concerning behavior and these unidentified assump- tions will determine what will be studied and how. The observation of any concrete empirical event is carried out under the dictates of some “theory” —that is, certain things are attended to and certain things are overlooked— and one of the purposes of theorizing is to make explicit the rules deter- mining this abstraction process. The possibility of improving upon the assumptions that are controlling research is eliminated the moment one gives up the attempt to define the theoretical base from which he operates.THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 17 Poor though personality theories may be when compared to the ideal, they still represent a considerable step forward when compared to the thinking of the naive realist who is convinced that he is embracing or viewing reality in the only way in which it can reasonably be viewed. Even though personality theories do not possess the degree of explicitness which one might wish, their mere existence makes it possible to work toward this goal in a systematic manner. In fact, it is clear that the present state of personality theory represents a considerable improvement over its formal status twenty years ago. Granted that personality theories do not ordinarily permit as explicit a derivation process as we might wish, just what function do they serve for the individual who wields them? At the very least they represent a cluster of attitudes (assumptions) concerning behavior which in a broad way limits the kinds of investigation to be considered crucial or important. In addition to stimulating certain general kinds of research, they also provide specific parameters or dimensions which are considered important in the exploration of these problems. Thus, even if the theory does not provide an exact proposition for test it orients the theorist toward certain problem areas and tells him that particular variables are of central im- portance in studying these problems. Moreover, there is the heuristic value of these theories to be considered. Taken as a group, personality theories are highly provocative and, as we shall discover, they have led to large quantities of research even though relatively little of this has been the re- sult of a formal derivation process. In other words, the capacity of these theories to generate ideas, to stimulate curiosity, to stir doubts, or to lead to convictions has resulted in a healthy flourishing of investigation in spite of their lack of formal elegance. PERSONALITY THEORY AND OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES Our discussion thus far has led us to the conclusion that a theory of person- ality should consist of a set of assumptions concerning human behavior together with rules for relating these assumptions and definitions to permit their interaction with empirical or observable events, At this point the ques- tion may be asked reasonably whether this definition in any way differenti- ates personality theories from other psychological theories. In answering this question it will be helpful to begin with a distinction between two types of psychological theory. It is evident that certain psychological theories appear ready to deal with any behavioral event that can be shown to be of significance in the18 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY adjustment of the human organism. Other theories specifically delimit themselves to behavior as it occurs under certain carefully prescribed con- ditions. These theories profess an interest in only limited aspects of human behavior. A theory which attempts to deal with all behavioral phenomena of demonstrated significance may be referred to as a general theory of be- havior and those theories that restrict their focus to certain classes of be- havioral events are called single-domain theories. Clearly, personality theories fal] into the first category; they are general theories of behavior. This simple observation serves to separate personality theory from the bulk of other psychological theories. Theories of percep- tion, audition, rote memory, motor learning, discrimination, and the many other special theories within psychology are single-domain theories and can be distinguished from personality theory on grounds of scope or compre- hensiveness. They make no pretense at being a general theory of behavior and are content to develop concepts appropriate for the description and prediction of a limited array of behavioral events. Theories of personality, however, have generally accepted the challenge of accounting for or in- corporating events of the most varied nature so long as they possess demon- strated functional significance for the individual. The question remains whether there are general theories of behavior which would not ordinarily be called personality theories. One possibility is that what has usually been called motivational theory may be a general theory of behavior and yet distinct from personality theory. Actually, insofar as the theory deals exclusively with the motivational process it is not a gen- eral theory, although, in fact, what are usually referred to as theories of motivation are also theories of personality, for example, psychoanalysis, hor- mic psychology, Murray's theory. As we shall discover, the motivational portion of theories of personality is of central importance to these theories. ‘Thus, if the theory deals only with motivation it is a single-domain theory; if it is more embracive it is simply a type of personality theory. A second possibility is that learning theory may in some instances be sufficiently generalized so that it constitutes a general theory of behavior. This is clearly the case and, as we shall see in detail later, a number of theorists have attempted to generalize learning theories so that they are comparable in comprehensiveness to any other general theory of behavior. In such instances, then, the theory of learning ceases to be merely a learning theory and becomes a personality theory or, if you like, a general theory of behavior. It is true that such generalized models possess certain distinctive characteristics which are reminiscent of their origin, but in intent and in logical properties they are no different from any other theory of personality. This lumping together of theories which have had their origins in the animal laboratories and theories which originated in the therapist's chambersTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 19 may appear forced to many observers. However, if we consider the theories from the point of view of what they intend to do and their general struc- ture, rather than from the point of where they come from or the detailed assumptions they make about behavior, it is clear that any general theory of behavior is the same as any other. In this sense all general theories of behavior are personality theories and vice versa. Within this large group of theories, of course, many distinctions can be made and the following section will deal with a number of attributes in terms of which theories of personality can be differentiated or compared. One could set up numerous subgroups or classifications on the basis of these dimensions. THE COMPARISON OF THEORIES OF PERSONALITY It is evident that when bodies of formulation as numerous and complex as personality theories are examined there are many qualities in terms of which they can be compared and distinguished. Here we shall point to only a few of the more important of these to provide a basis for whatever generaliza- tions may eventually seem worthwhile concerning the state of contem- porary personality theory. ‘These dimensions also serve to identify the main issues or options confronting the personality theorist today. The attributes divide naturally into those concerned with matters of formal adequacy and those concerned with the substantive nature of the theory. Formal Attributes. Here we are interested in how adequately the struc- ture of the theory is developed and presented. There is a definite evaluative aura to each of these qualities as they represent an ideal and the closer the theory comes to reaching this ideal the more effectively it can be used. The question of clarity and explicitness is of huge importance. This is a matter of how clearly and precisely the assumptions and embedded con- cepts that make up the theory are presented. In the limiting case the theory may be stated in terms of mathematical notation, with a precise definition of all but the primitive terms, so that the person who has been adequately trained can employ the theory with a minimum of ambiguity. Under such circumstances different individuals employing the theory independently will arrive at highly similar formulations or derivations. At the other ex- treme, we find theories presented with such a rush of vivid and complex description that it is extremely difficult for the individual who would em- ploy the theory to be certain of just what its nature is. Under these cir- cumstances there is little likelihood that individuals using the theory inde- pendently will arrive at the same formulations or derivations. It will be-20 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY come clear as we progress that there is no theory of personality that ap- proaches very far toward the ideal of mathematical notation; still, granted the free use of verbal description, we shall find that there is considerable variation among personality theories in the clarity of their exposition. A further question is the matter of how well the theory is related to em- pirical phenomena. Here we are concerned with the explicitness and prac- ticality of the definitions proposed to translate theoretical conceptions into measuremental operations. At one extreme we find theories which prescribe relatively exact operations for assessing or measuring each of the empirical terms within the theory, whereas in other cases the theorist appears to as- sume that the name which he assigns to the concept is a sufficient defining operation by itself. Perhaps this is an appropriate place to emphasize again our conviction that all matters of formal adequacy pale alongside the question of what empirical research is generated by the theory. However vague and poorly developed the theory, and however inadequate its syntax and empirical definitions, if it can be shown to have had a generative effect upon sig- nificant areas of research we would have to conclude that it passes the crucial test. Thus, the payoff question which overrides, and actually makes trivial, all questions of formal adequacy is the matter of how much impor- tant research the theory has produced. True, it is not easy to agree upon what is important research, particularly since importance will largely be determined by the theoretical position of the judge. It is also true that it is not always easy to say just what the process was which led to a particular investigation being conducted and thus the generative role of the theory may be difficult to assess. In spite of this there are clear and perceptible differ- ences between theories of personality in the extent to which they have been translated into investigations which are of general interest. Substantive Attributes. While the formal attributes we have just de- scribed all present a normative or valued standard in terms of which each theory can be compared, the following attributes possess no such evaluative implication. They are neutral in regard to good and bad and merely reflect the particular assumptions concerning behavior which the theory embraces. Differences between personality theories in content naturally reflect the major issues that currently exist in this area. Thus, in the following pages we shall not only be outlining dimensions which can be used for the com- parison of personality theories but we shall also be pointing to the major options which face a theorist in this area. We could with perfect appro- priateness label this section “issues in modern personality theory.” Older than the history of psychology is the question of whether man should be viewed as possessing purposive or teleological qualities. SomeTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 21 theories of behavior create a model of the individual in which goal- striving, purpose, and seeking are viewed as essential and central aspects of the individual’s behavior. Other theories assume that the striving and seeking aspects of behavior are unimportant and believe that behavior can be accounted for adequately without such an emphasis. The latter theorists consider the subjective elements of striving and seeking as an epiphe- nomenon, accompanying behavior but not playing a determinant role in its instigation. Generally theories which minimize the importance of pur- pose or teleology are labeled “mechanistic” although this term has come to have a disparaging quality which is undesirable when, after all, we are simply considering matters of theoretical option. Another ancient debate is concerned with the relative importance of conscious and unconscious determinants of behavior. In its archaic form this issue would be phrased in terms of the relative rationality or irration- ality of man. The term unconscious is used here simply to refer to de- terminants of behavior of which the individual is unaware and unable to bring to awareness except under special conditions. Theories of personality range from those that explicitly reject any consideration of unconscious de- terminants of behavior, or refuse to accept the existence of such determi- nants, to theories which consider them the most important or powerful determinants of behavior. A middle ground is occupied by those theorists who are willing to assign a central role to unconscious determinants in the behavior of disturbed or abnormal individuals while claiming that for the normal individual conscious motives are the ruling forces. The relative importance of hedonism, reward, or effect is likewise a question which has engrossed students of human behavior for centuries. In its earlier formulations, such as those of the utilitarians, Bentham and J. S. Mill, it was a question of whether man was primarily motivated by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Its contemporary form is the “law of effect.” ‘This law states that only those responses that are accompanied by a reward or reinforcement will be retained or learned. In either case the question is one of how important are reward or pleasure as determinants of behavior. Again we find that theories vary from those in which the crucial role of reward is the dominant assumption to those that minimize the importance of:reward or subsume its operation under other theoretical principles. Just as some theorists place the law of effect at the core of their theory, so others consider the principle of association (contiguity) to be of first im- portance. These theorists consider that more important than the reward or effect that follows a given response is the exact stimulus configuration ac- companying the response. In other words, it is the simultaneous or near- simultaneous occurrence of a stimulus and a response which leads to learn- ing, rather than the reward or reinforcement which follows the response.22 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Obviously these principles need not be mutually exclusive and, as we shall learn, there are theorists who have assigned to both principles a central role within the same theory. A fundamental distinction between theories of personality has to do with the extent to which the /earning process, or the modification of be- havior, is a matter for detailed and explicit attention. Some personality theorists see in the understanding of the learning process the key to all behavioral phenomena whereas for other theorists learning is an important but secondary problem. Although no personality theorist would deny the significance of learning, we shall find that some theorists prefer to focus upon the acquisitions or outcomes of learning rather than on the process itself. This issue thus becomes a matter of disagreement between those who propose to deal primarily with the process of change and those who show themselves most interested in the stable structures or acquisitions of personality at a given time. Closely related to the relative emphasis upon the learning process versus description of personality organization or structure is the distinction between theories that deal extensively with the content of behavior and its descrip- tion as opposed to those that deal chiefly with general principles, laws and formal analysis. Largely, this is a matter of whether the theorist concen- trates upon the concrete details of experience and behavior or whether he is principally concerned with laws or principles that can be very widely generalized. Typically, the more abstract the theory, the less the concern with the content or concrete details of behavior. An issue as old as man’s thoughts about man is the question of the relative importance of genetic or hereditary factors in determining behavior. Almost no one will deny that hereditary factors have some implications for behavior, but still there are many personality theorists who have dramatically undercut their importance, insisting that all of the major behavioral phe- nomena can be understood without recourse to the biological and genetic. In America the role of hereditary factors has generally been played down in favor of some brand of environmentalism but there is still considerable variation as to how much and how explicitly the various theorists are willing to deal with genetic factors. An additional dimension in terms of which personality theories show considerable variation has to do with the relative importance of early de- velopmental experiences. This is a question of whether the theory cedes a certain strategic and critical importance to events taking place in infancy and childhood which is not matched in importance by events taking place at later stages of development. As we shall discover, there are some theories which imply that the key to adult behavior is to be found in events that have taken place in the earliest years of development, while other theoriesTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 23 state quite explicitly that behavior can be understood and accounted for solely in terms of contemporary or ongoing events, Related to this question is the extent to which theorists consider the personality structure at a given point in time to be autonomous or functionally distinct from the experi- ences that have preceded this point in time. For certain theorists the under- standing of behavior in terms of contemporaneous factors is not only pos- sible but the only defensible path to understanding. For others a reasonable understanding of the present must always depend partly upon some knowl- edge of events that have taken place in the past. Naturally those who emphasize the contemporaneous point of view are convinced of the func- tional independence of the personality structure at any particular point in time, while those who emphasize the importance of past or early experi- ence are less convinced of the freedom of present structure from the in- fluence of past events. ‘ Closely related to the preceding issue is the question of the continuity or discontinuity of behavior at different stages of development. Most theories that emphasize the learning process and/or the importance of early de- velopmental experiences tend to view the individual as a continuously developing organism. The structure that is observed at one point in time is related in a determinant manner to the structure and experiences that occurred at an earlier point in time. Other theories tend to consider the organism as going through stages of development that are relatively inde- pendent and functionally separated from the earlier stages of development. The latter point of view may lead to the construction of drastically different theories for infant behavior and adult behavior. A major difference between personality theories lies in the extent to which they embrace holistic principles. That is, do they consider it legitimate to abstract and analyze so that at a given time, or in a particular study, only a small part of the individual is being examined? The individuals who adopt a holistic position consider behavior to be understandable only in context, so that the total, functioning person together with the signifi- cant portions of his environment must be given simultaneous considera- tion if there is to be a fruitful outcome. Other theories accept the fact that the very nature of science and investigation necessitates analysis and these positions usually show no special concern over violation to the integrity of the whole organism which may be involved in segmental studies. This emphasis upon the wholeness of the individual and his environ- ment can be broken down into two rather distinct forms. The first is usually referred to as an organismic position. Here there is great stress upon the in- terrelatedness of everything the individual does, upon the fact that each act he performs can be understood only against the background provided by his other acts, Not only is there an implication that all behavior is essen-24 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY tially interrelated and not susceptible to techniques of analysis but also there is usually an interest in the organic underpinnings of behavior. Conse- quently, behavior should be viewed against the perspective provided by the individual’s other acts as well as the perspective offered by accompany- ing physiological and biological processes. All of the person’s behavior and his biological functioning make up an organic whole that is not to be under- stood if it is studied segmentally. The second holistic position is usually referred to as a field emphasis. Here the theory is primarily concerned with the inextricable unity between a given behavioral act and the environmental context within which it oc- curs. To attempt to understand a given form of behavior without specifying in detail the “field” within which it occurs is to strive for understanding with a large proportion of the significant factors missing. Although be- havior is partially a result of determinants that inhere in the individual, there are equally compelling forces which act upon the person from without. It is only when the individual's significant environment is fully represented that these forces acting outside of the person can be given their due. There is a strong tendency for theorists who emphasize the importance of the “field” to minimize the importance of hereditary factors as well as events taking place early in development. This is not a logical necessity but in practice most theorists who have focused strongly upon the environmental context of the individual have emphasized the present rather than the past and have been more interested in what is “out there” rather than what in- heres in the individual. Related to the issue of holism is the matter of uniqueness or individu- ality. Certain theories place a heavy emphasis upon the fact that each indi- vidual and, in fact, each act is unique and not to be duplicated by any other individual or act. They point out that there are always distinctive and im- portant qualities which set off the behavior of any single individual from the behavior of all other persons. In general, the individual who strongly embraces a field or organismic point of view tends to stress uniqueness also. This follows naturally from the fact that if you broaden sufficiently the context which must be considered in connection with each behavioral event, the event will come to have so many facets that it is bound to display distinct differences in comparison to all other events. Some theories accept the fact that each individual is unique but propose that this uniqueness can be accounted for in terms of differences in the patterning of the same under- lying variables. Other theories maintain that individuals cannot even be compared fruitfully in terms of common or general variables as these dis- tort and misrepresent the individual’s uniqueness. Personality theories vary from those that make no special mention of uniqueness to those where this is one of the most central assumptions.THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 25 Intimately associated with the issues of holism and uniqueness is the breadth of the unit of behavior employed in the analysis of personality. Those theorists who are relative or absolute holists choose to analyze be- havior only at the level of the complete person while other personality theorists employ constructs of varying degrees of specificity or elementalism. On occasion this has been referred to as a choice between a molar (general) versus a molecular (specific) approach to the study of behavior. At the most segmental end of this continuum is the theorist who believes that be- havior should be analyzed in terms of reflexes or specific habits; at the other extreme is the observer who is unwilling to view behavior at any level more molecular than the entire functioning person. Some theories of personality demonstrate a primary concern for the operation of self-regulating mechanisms that serve to maintain a steady or balanced psychological state. Such theories see the operation of homeo- Static mechanisms as one of the most significant and characteristic aspects of human behavior. This process is conceived of as a vital, automatic tend- ency that disposes the individual to maintain unity, integrity or psy- chological equilibrium in much the same manner as the physiological mechanisms that control essential functions such as temperature control and hormonal secretions. Generally those theories that place a heavy emphasis upon change and the learning process are not likely to focus upon the tendency of the organism to make extensive use of self-correcting tendencies thao return the individual to a previous state of balance and adaptation. We shall discover that certain personality theorists have centered their theoretical position about the importance of the psychological environment or the subjective frame of reference. ‘This is a matter of emphasizing that the physical world and its events can affect the individual only as he per- ceives or experiences them. Thus, it is not objective reality which serves as a determinant of behavior but rather objective reality as it is perceived or as- signed meaning by the individual. It is the psychological environment, not the physical environment, which determines the manner in which the in- dividual will respond. In contrast, there are theoretical positions that assume a firm theory of behavior can never be built on the shifting sands of sub- jective report or the complicated inferences needed to infer “meaning” from physical events. Such theories maintain that greater progress can be achieved through largely overlooking individual differences in the manner in which the same objective event is experienced and focusing upon relations involving external and observable events. A further distinction between personality theorists has to do with whether or not they find it necessary to introduce a self-concept. For cer- tain theorists the most important single human attribute is the view or perception the individual has of himself and this self-viewing process is26 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY often seen as the key to understanding the multitude of puzzling behavioral events displayed by any single person. There are other theories where no such concept is elaborated and where the subject’s perception of himself is considered of little general significance. Personality theorists show great variation in the extent to which they explicitly emphasize cultural or group membership determinants of be- havior. In some theories these factors are assigned a primary role in shaping and controlling behavior; in others the emphasis is almost exclusively upon determinants of behavior which operate independently of the society or cultural groups to which the individual is exposed. In general, theorists who are characterized by a heavy organismic emphasis tend to play down the role of group-membership determinants while those who emphasize the field within which behavior occurs are more sympathetic to the role of sociocultural or group-membership determinants. The extreme examples of this position, usually referred to as examples of cultural determinism, are found among anthropological and sociological theorists although psy- chological theorists also show considerable variation on this issue. Related to the questions of hereditary determination and cultural de- termination is the more general question of how explicitly the personality theorist attempts to relate his theory to the theorizing and empirical find- ings in neighboring disciplines. This might be referred to as a question of interdisciplinary anchoring. Some personality theorists are relatively con- tent to deal with behavioral phenomena in terms of psychological concepts and findings with little or no attention to what is going on in neighboring disciplines. Others feel that psychological theorizing should lean heavily upon the formulations and findings of other disciplines. The “other- oriented” personality psychologists can be neatly divided into two basic types: those who look toward the natural sciences (biology, physiology, neu- rology, genetics) for guidance and those who look toward the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, economics, history) for guidance. Theories of personality show a great deal of variation in the number of motivational concepts they employ. In some cases one or two such con- cepts are considered to lie at the base of all behavior; for other theories there is an extremely large number of hypothesized motives; and for still others the number is theoretically limitless. There is also considerable difference between theories in how much attention is paid to primary or innate mo- tives as opposed to secondary or acquired motives. Further, some theories provide a relatively detailed picture of the process whereby acquired motives develop while others show very little interest in the derivation or acquisition of motives. Closely associated with the multiplicity of motives utilized by the theory is its preference for what Gordon Allport has referred to as simple andTHE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY 27 sovereign mechanisms rather than pluralistic mechanisms. The primary issue here is whether behavior is to be understood largely by means of a single overarching principle (for example, law of effect, functional auton- omy, striving for superiority) or whether a large number of related prin- ciples are necessary to shed much light on human behavior. As we will observe, current theories of personality show substantial variation in their complexity and the extent to which they invoke multiple mechanisms. We have now completed our list of dimensions for the comparison of theories of personality but we hope the reader will not put them from his mind. The very brief guide provided here can be given richer meaning and greater significance if these issues are considered while reading the chapters describing the individual theories of personality. It will also be- come clear that the most distinctive features of these theories have evolved from decisions concerning the issues we have just discussed. In the final chapter we shall reconsider these dimensions in the light of the specific theories of personality which by then will have been arrayed. This brings us to the close of our introductory discussion and we can now proceed to the essence of this volume—the theories of personality them- selves. If the reader is to retain a lone thought from what has been said to this point, let it be the simple impression that personality theories are at- tempts to formulate or represent significant aspects of human behavior and that the fruitfulness of these attempts is to be judged primarily by how effectively they serve as a spur to research. BIBLIOGRAPHY Adelson, J. Personality. In P. H. Mussen and M. R. Rosenzweig (Eds.) Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 20. Palo Alto, Calif: Annual Reviews, 1969, pp. 217-252. Allport, G. W. Personality: a psychological interpretation. New York: Holt, 1937. Allport, G. W. Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961. Boring, E. G, A history of experimental psychology. 2nd ed. New York: Appleton- Century.Crofts, 1950. Byrne, D, An introduction to personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. Conant, J. B. On understanding science. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1947. Feigl, H., and Brodbeck, May. Readings in the philosophy of science. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953.28 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Feigl, H., and Sellars, W. Readings in philosophical analysis, New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts, 1949. Frank, P. Modern science and its philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, Hanson, N. R. Patterns of discovery. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1958. Hempel, C. G. Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1952. Holtzman, W. H. Personality structure. In P. R. Farnsworth (Ed.) Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 17. Stanford, California: Annual Reviews, 1966, pp. 119-156. Klein, G. S., Barr, H. B. and Wolitzky, D. L. Personality. In P. R. Farnsworth (Ed.) Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 18. Stanford, Calif.: Annual Reviews, 1967, pp. 467-560. Kuhn, T. S. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962. London, P. and Rosenhan, D. Personality dynamics. In P. R. Farnsworth (Ed.) ‘Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 16, Stanford, Calif.: Annual Reviews, 1965, pp. 119-156. McDougall, W. An introduction to social psychology. Boston: Luce, 1908. Sanford, N. Personality: its place in psychology. In S. Koch (Ed.) Psychology: a study of a science. Vol. 5. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963, pp. 488-579. Sarason, I. G, Personality: an objective approach, New York: Wiley, 1966. Sarnoff, I. Personality dynamics and development. New York: Wiley, 1962. Turner, M. Philosophy and the science of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1967. Wiggins, J. S. Personality structure, In P. R. Farnsworth (Ed.) Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 19. Stanford, Calif: Annual Reviews, 1968, pp. 293-350.CHAPTER TWO FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY e5he Hen psychology emerged as an independent scientific discipline in Germany during the middle of the nineteenth century, it defined its task as the analysis of consciousness in the normal, adult human being. It conceived of consciousness as being made up of structural elements which were closely correlated with processes in the sense organs. Visual sensations of color, for example, were correlated with photochemical changes in the retina of the eye, and tones with events taking place in the inner ear. Complex experiences resulted from the joining together of a number of ele- mentary sensations, images, and feelings. ‘The task of psychology was to discover the basic elements of consciousness and to determine how they formed compounds. Psychology was often referred to as mental chemistry. Resistance to this kind of psychology came from many directions and for a variety of reasons. There were those who opposed the exclusive empha- sis on structure and who insisted with considerable vigor that the outstand- ing characteristics of the conscious mind are its active processes and not its passive contents. Sensing and not sensations, thinking and not ideas, imag- ining and not images—these, it was asserted, should be the principal subject matter of the science of psychology. Others protested that conscious experi- ence could not be dissected without destroying the very essence of experience, 2930 = THEORIES OF PERSONALITY namely, its quality of wholeness. Direct awareness, they said, consists of patterns or configurations, and not of elements joined together. Another large and vocal group asserted that mind is not amenable to investigation by the methods of science because it is too private and too subjective. They urged instead that psychology be defined as the science of behavior. Freud’s attack upon the traditional psychology of consciousness came from quite a different direction. He likened the mind to an iceberg in which the smaller part showing above the surface of the water represents the region of consciousness while the much larger mass below the water level represents the region of unconsciousness. In this vast domain of the un- conscious are to be found the urges, the passions, the repressed ideas and feelings—a great underworld of vital, unseen forces which exercise an im- perious control over the conscious thoughts and deeds of man. From this point of view, a psychology which limits itself to the analysis of conscious- ness is wholly inadequate for understanding the underlying motives of man’s behavior. For over forty years, Freud explored the unconscious by the method of free association and developed what is generally regarded as the first com- prehensive theory of personality. He mapped the contours of its topography, penetrated to the headwaters of its stream of energy, and charted the lawful course of its growth. By performing these incredible feats, he became one of the most controversial and influential figures in modern times. (For an account of the status of the unconscious before Freud see Whyte, 1962.) Sigmund Freud was born in Moravia, May 6, 1856, and died in London, September 23, 1939. For nearly eighty years, however, he resided in Vienna and left that city only when the Nazis overran Austria. As a young man he decided that he wanted to be a scientist and with this goal in mind he entered the medical school of the University of Vienna in 1873 from which he graduated eight years later. Freud never intended to practice medicine but the scanty rewards of scientific work, the limited opportunities for academic advancement for a Jew, and the needs of a growing family forced him to enter private practice. In spite of his practice, he found time for research and writing, and his accomplishments as a medical investigator earned him a solid reputation. Freud’s interest in neurology caused him to specialize in the treatment of nervous disorders, a branch of medicine which had lagged behind in the forward march of the healing arts during the nineteenth century. In order to improve his technical skills Freud studied for a year with the famous French psychiatrist, Jean Charcot, who was using hypnosis in the treatment of hysteria. Although Freud tried hypnosis with his patients, he was not impressed by its efficacy. Consequently, when he heard about a new method that had been devised by a Viennese physician, Joseph Breuer, a method byFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 31 which the patient was cured of his symptoms by talking about them, he tried it out and found it to be effective. Breuer and Freud collaborated in writing up some of their cases of hysteria which had been treated by the talking-out technique (1895). However, the two men soon parted company over the importance of the sexual factor in hysteria. Freud felt that sexual conflicts were the cause of hysteria while Breuer held a more conservative view. Thereafter, Freud worked pretty much alone developing the ideas which were to form the foundation of psychoanalytic theory and which culminated in the publication of his first great work, The interpretation of dreams (1900). Other books and articles soon brought his views to the attention of physicians and scientists throughout the world, and it was not long before Freud was surrounded by a group of disciples from various countries, among them Ernest Jones of England, Carl Jung of Zurich, A. A. Brill of New York, Sandor Ferenczi of Budapest, Karl Abraham of Berlin, and Alfred Adler of Vienna. Jung and Adler later withdrew from the circle and developed rival viewpoints. It is impossible within the brief space permitted us to cover even the highlights of Freud’s intellectual and personal life: the early years as a medical student and investigator; the decisive influence of the great German physiologist, Ernst Briicke, who was one of the leaders in the Helmholtz School of Medicine and from whom Freud learned to regard man as a dynamic system subject to the laws of nature (Amacher, 1965); his marriage to Martha Bernays and his lifelong devotion to her and to his six children, one of whom, Anna, followed her father’s calling; the stimulating year with Charcot in Paris; his bizarre relationship with Wilhelm Fliess; his searching self-analysis begun in the 1890’s and continuing throughout his life; the abortive attempt to account for psychological phenomena in terms of cerebral anatomy; the years of isolation from the medical community of Vienna; the invitation from G. Stanley Hall, the eminent American psychologist and president of Clark University, to address the meetings commemorating the founding of that university; the establishing of the International Psycho- analytic Association and the secession of such important disciples as Jung, Adler, Rank, and Stekel; the influence of World War I upon Freud’s thinking and his thoroughgoing revision of the basic tenets of psycho- analytic theory; the application of psychoanalytic concepts in all fields of human endeavor; Freud’s personal characteristics and the long torment of cancer of the jaw; and finally his melodramatic escape from the clutches of the Nazis. Fortunately, every nook and cranny of Freud’s long life has been surveyed by the foremost English psychoanalyst, Ernest Jones, and brilliantly related in a three-volume biography (1953, 1955, 1957). Nor does space permit us to list the published works of Freud. Beginning32 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY with The interpretation of dreams in 1900 and terminating in the posthu- mously published Outline of psychoanalysis in 1940, Freud’s psychological writings fill twenty-four volumes in the definitive, standard English edition (1953- ). For the reader who is unfamiliar with Freud’s theory of personal- ity, the following books are recommended: The interpretation of dreams (1900), The psychopathology of everyday life (1901), General introductory lectures on psycho-analysis (1917), New introductory lectures on psycho- analysis (1933), and An outline of psychoanalysis (1940). In the following account of Freud’s ideas we shall have to limit ourselves to those matters that pertain to Freud’s theory of personality, and exclude from consideration the psychoanalytic theory of neurosis, which, in any event, has been covered so well by Otto Fenichel (1945), the techniques of psychoanalysis, and the far-flung applications of Freudian psychology in the social sciences (see Hall and Lindzey, 1968), the arts, and the humanities. Nor shall we be able to take notice of the evolution of Freud’s thinking with respect to the basic concepts of his personality theory; it will have to suffice to present Freud’s final word on such concepts as we shall discuss. Regrettably, we cannot work in the contributions of his followers which have been numerous and in some instances represent substantial additions to psychoanalytic theory. THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY The personality is made up of three major systems, the #d, the ego, and the superego. Although each of these provinces of the total personality has its own functions, properties, components, operating principles, dynamisms, and mechanisms, they interact so closely with one another that it is difficult if not impossible to disentangle their effects and weigh their relative contribu- tion to man’s behavior. Behavior is nearly always the product of an inter- action among these three systems; rarely does one system operate to the ex- clusion of the other two. The Id. The id is the original system of the personality; it is the matrix within which the ego and the superego become differentiated. The id consists of everything psychological that is inherited and that is present at birth, including the instincts. It is the reservoir of psychic energy and furnishes all of the power for the operation of the other two systems. It is in close touch with the bodily processes from which it derives its energy. Freud called the id the “true psychic reality” because it represents the inner world of subjective experience and has no knowledge of objective reality. (For a recent discussion of the id, see Schur, 1966.)FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 33 The id cannot tolerate increases of energy which are experienced as un- comfortable states of tension. Consequently, when the tension level of the organism is raised, either as a result of external stimulation or of internally produced excitations, the id functions in such a manner as to discharge the tension immediately and return the organism to a comfortably constant and low energy level. This principle of tension reduction by which the id operates is called the pleasure principle. In order to accomplish its aim of avoiding pain and obtaining pleasure, the id has at its command two processes. These are reflex action and the primary process. Reflex actions are inborn and automatic reactions like sneezing and blinking; they usually reduce tension immediately. The organism is equipped with a number of such reflexes for dealing with relatively simple forms of excitation. The primary process involves a some- what more complicated psychological reaction. It attempts to discharge tension by forming an image of an object that will remove the tension. For example, the primary process provides the hungry person with a mental Ficture of food. This hallucinatory experience in which the desired object is present in the form of a memory image is called wish-fulfillment. The best example of the primary process in normal people is the nocturnal dream which Freud believed always represents the fulfillment or attempted fulfill- ment of a wish. The hallucinations and visions of psychotic patients are also examples of the primary process. Autistic or wishful thinking is highly colored by the action of the primary process. These wish-fulfilling mental images are the only reality that the id knows. Obviously the primary process by itself is not capable of reducing tension, The hungry person cannot eat mental images of food. Consequently, a new or secondary psychological process develops, and when this occurs the structure of the second system of the personality, the ego, begins to take form. The Ego. The ego comes into existence because the needs of the organism require appropriate transactions with the objective world of reality. The hungry person has to seek, find, and eat food before the tension of hunger can be eliminated. This means that he has to learn to differentiate between a memory image of food and an actual perception of food as it exists in the outer world. Having made this crucial differentiation it is then necessary for him to convert the image into a perception which is accomplished by locating food in the environment. In other words, the person matches his memory image of food with the sight or smell of food as they come to him through his senses. The basic distinction between the id and the ego is that the former knows only the subjective reality of the mind whereas the latter distinguishes between things in the mind and things in the external world.34 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY The ego is said to obey the reality principle and to operate by means of the secondary process. The aim of the reality principle is to prevent the dis- charge of tension until an object which is appropriate for the satisfaction of the need has been discovered. The reality principle suspends the pleasure principle temporarily because the pleasure principle is eventually served when the needed object is found and the tension is thereby reduced. The reality principle asks in effect whether an experience is true or false, that is, whether it has external existence or not, while the pleasure principle is only interested in whether the experience is painful or pleasurable. The secondary process is realistic thinking. By means of the secondary process the ego formulates a plan for the satisfaction of the need and then tests this plan, usually by some kind of action, in order to see whether or not it will work. The hungry person thinks where he may find food and then proceeds to look in that place. This is called reality testing. In order to perform its role efficiently the ego has control over all the cognitive and intellectual functions; these higher mental processes are placed at the service of the secondary process. The ego is said to be the executive of the personality because it controls the gateways to action, selects the features of the environment to which it will respond, and decides what instincts will be satisfied and in what manner. In performing these highly important executive functions, the ego has to try to integrate the often conflicting demands of the id, the superego, and the external world. This is not an easy task and often places a great strain upon the ego. It should be kept in mind, however, that the ego is the organized portion of the id, that it comes into existence in order to forward the aims of the id and not to frustrate them, and that all of its power is derived from the id. Tt has no existence apart from the id, and it never becomes completely independent of the id. Its principal role is to mediate between the instinctual requirements of the organism and the conditions of the surrounding environ- ment; its superordinate objectives are to maintain the life of the individual and to see that the species is reproduced. The Superego. The third and last system of personality to be developed is the superego. It is the internal representative of the traditional values and ideals of society as interpreted to the child by his parents, and enforced by means of a system of rewards and punishments imposed upon the child. The superego is the moral arm of personality; it represents the ideal rather than the real and it strives for perfection rather than pleasure. Its main concern is to decide whether something is right or wrong so that it can act in accord- ance with the moral standards authorized by the agents of society. ‘The superego as the internalized moral arbiter of conduct develops inFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 35 fesponse to the rewards and punishments meted out by the parents. To obtain the rewards and avoid the punishments, the child learns to guide his behavior along the lines laid down by the parents. Whatever they say is improper and punish him for doing tends to become incorporated into his conscience which is one of the two subsystems of the superego. Whatever they approve of and reward him for doing tends to become incorporated into his ego-ideal which is the other subsystem of the superego. The mech- anism by which this incorporation takes place is called introjection. The conscience punishes the person by making him feel guilty, the ego-ideal rewards the person by making him feel proud of himself. With the forma- tion of the superego, self-control is substituted for parental control. The main functions of the superego are (1) to inhibit the impulses of the id, particularly those of a sexual or aggressive nature, since these are the impulses whose expression is most highly condemned by society, (2) to persuade the ego to substitute moralistic goals for realistic ones, and (3) to strive for perfection. That is, the superego is inclined to oppose both the id and the ego, and to make the world over into its own image. However, it is like the id in being nonrational and like the ego in attempting to exercise control over the instincts. Unlike the ego, the superego does not merely postpone instinctual gratification; it tries to block it permanently. (A his- torical analysis of the superego has been made by Turiell, 1967.) In concluding this brief description of the three systems of the personality, it should be pointed out that the id, ego, and superego are not to be thought of as. manikins which operate the personality. They are merely names for various psychological processes which obey different system principles. Under ordinary circumstances these different principles do not collide with one another nor do they work at cross purposes. On the contrary, they work together as a team under the administrative leadership of the ego. The personality normally functions as a whole rather than as three separate segments. In a very general way, the id may be thought of as the biological component of personality, the ego as the psychological component, and the superego as the social component. THE DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY Freud was brought up under the influence of the strongly deterministic and positivistic philosophy of nineteenth century science and regarded the human organism as a complex energy system, which derives its energy from the food it consumes and expends it for such various purposes as circulation, respira- tion, muscular exercise, perceiving, thinking, and remembering. Freud saw ‘fo reason to assume that the energy which furnishes the power for breathing36 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY or digesting is any different, save in form, from the energy which furnishes the power for thinking and remembering. After all, as nineteenth century physicists were firmly insisting, energy has to be defined in terms of the work it performs. If the work consists of a psychological activity such as thinking, then it is perfectly legitimate, Freud believed, to call this form of energy psychic energy. According to the doctrine of the conservation of energy, energy may be transformed from one state into another state but can never be lost from the total cosmic system; it follows from this that psychic energy may be transformed into physiological energy and vice versa. The point of contact or bridge between the energy of the body and that of the personality is the id and its instincts. Instinct. An instinct is defined as an inborn psychological representation of an inner somatic source of excitation. The psychological representation is called a wish, and the bodily excitation from which it stems is called a need. Thus, the state of hunger may be described in physiological terms as a con- dition of nutritional deficit in the tissues of the body whereas psychologically it is represented as a wish for food. The wish acts as a motive for behavior. The hungry person seeks food. Instincts are considered therefore to be the propelling factors of personality. Not only do they drive behavior but they also determine the direction that the behavior will take. In other words, an instinct exercises selective control over conduct by increasing one’s sensitivity for particular kinds of stimulation. The hungry person is more sensitive to food stimuli, the sexually aroused person is more likely to respond to erotic stimuli, Parenthetically, it may be observed that the organism can also be activated by stimuli from the external world. Freud felt, however, that these environ- mental sources of excitation play a less important role in the dynamics of personality than do the inborn instincts. In general, external stimuli make fewer demands upon the individual and require less complicated forms of adjustment than do the needs. One can always flee from an external stimulus but it is imposible to run away from a need. Although Freud relegated environmental stimuli to a secondary place, he did not deny their importance under certain conditions. For example, excessive stimulation during the early years of life when the immature ego lacks the capacity for binding large amounts of free energy (tension) may have drastic effects upon the personal- ity, as we shall see when we consider Freud’s theory of anxiety. An instinct is a quantum of psychic energy or as Freud put it “a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work” (1905a, p. 168). All of the instincts taken together constitute the sum total of psychic energy available to the personality. As was previously pointed out, the id is the reservoir of this energy and it is also the seat of the instincts. The id may be consideredFREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 37 to be a dynamo which furnishes psychological power for running the manifold operations of personality. This power is derived, of course, from the metabolic processes of the body. An instinct has four characteristic features: a source, an aim, an odject, and an impetus. The source has already been defined as a bodily condition or a need. The aim is the removal of the bodily excitation. The aim of the hunger instinct, for example, is to abolish the nutritional deficiency, which is accomplished, of course, by eating food. All of the activity which inter- venes between the appearance of the wish and its fulfillment is subsumed under the heading of object. That is, object refers not only to the particular thing or condition which will satisfy the need but it also includes all of the behavior which takes place in securing the necessary thing or condition. For instance, when a person is hungry he usually has to perform a number of actions before he can reach the final consummatory goal of eating. ‘The impetus of an instinct is its force or strength which is determined by the intensity of the underlying need. As the nutritional deficiency becomes greater, up to the point where physical weakness sets in, the force of the instinct becomes correspondingly greater. Let us briefly consider some of the implications that inhere in this way of conceptualizing an instinct. In the first place, the model which Freud provides is a tension-reduction one. The behavior of a person is activated by internal irritants and subsides as soon as an appropriate action removes or diminishes the irritation. This means that the aim of an instinct is essentially regressive in character since it returns the person to a prior state, one which existed before the instinct appeared. This prior state to which the personality returns is one of relative quiescence. An instinct is also said to be conservative because its aim is to conserve the equilibrium of the organism by abolishing disturbing excitations. Thus, we can picture an instinct as a process which repeats as often as it appears a cycle of events starting with excitement and terminating with repose. Freud called this aspect of an instinct repetition compulsion. The personality is compelled to repeat over and over again the inevitable cycle from excitation to quiescence. (The term repetition com- pulsion is also employed to describe perseverative behavior which occurs when the means adopted for satisfying the need are not completely appro- priate. A child may perseverate in sucking its thumb when it is hungry.) According to Freud’s theory of instincts, the source and aim of an instinct remain constant throughout life, unless the source is changed or eliminated by physical maturation. New instincts may appear as new bodily needs develop. In contrast to this constancy of source and aim, the object or means by which.the person attempts to satisfy the need can and does vary consid- erably during the lifetime of the person. This variation in object choice is possible because psychic energy is displaceable; it can be expended in various38 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY ways. Consequently, if one object is not available either by virtue of its absence or by virtue of barriers within the personality, energy can be invested in another object. If that object proves also to be inaccessible another dis- placement can occur, and so forth, until an available object is found. In other words, objects can be substituted for one another, which is definitely not the case with either the source or the aim of an instinct. When the energy of an instinct is more or less permanently invested in a substitute object, that is, one which is not the original and innately deter- mined object, the resulting behavior is said to be an instinct derivative. Thus, if the first sexual object choice of the baby is the manipulation of his own sex organs and he is forced to give up this pleasure in favor of more innocuous forms of bodily stimulation such as sucking his thumb or playing with his toes, the substitute activities are derivatives of the sexual instinct. The aim of the sexual instinct does not change one whit when a substitution takes place; the goal sought is still that of sexual gratification. The displacement of energy from one object to another is the most important feature of personality dynamics. It accounts for the apparent plasticity of human nature and the remarkable versatility of man’s behavior. Practically all of the adult person’s interests, preferences, tastes, habits, and attitudes represent the displacements of energy from original instinctual object-choices. They are almost all instinct derivatives. Freud’s theory of motivation was based solidly on the assumption that the instincts are the sole energy sources for man’s behavior. We shall have a great deal more to say about displacement in subsequent sections of this chapter. Numser anp Kinps oF Instincts, Freud did not attempt to draw up a list of instincts because he felt that not enough was known about the bodily states upon which the instincts depend. The identification of these organic needs is a job for the physiologist, not the psychologist. Although Freud did not pretend to know how many instincts there are, he did assume that they could all be classified under two general headings, the Jife instincts and the death instincts. The life instincts serve the purpose of individual survival and racial propagation. Hunger, thirst, and sex fall in this category. The form of energy by which the life instincts perform their work is called libido. The life instinct to which Freud paid the greatest attention is that of sex, and in the early years of psychoanalysis almost everything the person did was attributed to this ubiquitous drive (Freud, 1905a). Actually, the sex instinct is not one instinct but many. That is, there are a number of separate bodily needs which give rise to erotic wishes. Each of these wishes has its source in a different bodily region which are referred to collectively as erogenous zones. An erogenous zone is a part of the skin or mucous membrane which is extremely sensitive to irritation and which when ma-FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 39 nipulated in a certain way removes the irritation and produces pleasurable feelings. The lips and oral cavity constitute one such erogenous zone, the anal region another, and the sex organs a third. Sucking produces oral pleasure, elimination anal pleasure, and massaging or rubbing genital pleas- ure. In childhood, the sexual instincts are relatively independent of one another but when the person reaches puberty they tend to fuse together and to serve jointly the aim of reproduction. The death instincts, or, as Freud sometimes called them, the destructive instincts, perform their work much less conspicuously than the life instincts, and for this reason little is known about them, other than that they in- evitably accomplish their mission. Every person does eventually die, a fact which caused Freud to formulate the famous dictum, “the goal of all life is death” (1920a, p. 38). Freud assumed specifically that the person has a wish, usually of course unconscious, to die. He did not attempt to identify the somatic sources of the death instincts although one may wish to specu- late that they reside in the catabolic or breaking-down processes of the body. Nor did he assign a name to the energy by which the death instincts carry on their work. Freud’s assumption of a death wish is based upon the constancy principle as, formulated by Fechner. This principle asserts that all living processes tend to return to the stability of the inorganic world. In Beyond the pleasure principle (1920a), Freud made the following argument in favor of the concept of the death wish. Living matter evolved by the action of cosmic forces upon inorganic matter. These changes were highly unstable at first and quickly reverted to their prior inorganic state. Gradually, however, the length of life increased because of evolutionary changes in the world but these unstable animate forms always eventually regressed to the stability of inanimate matter. With the development of reproductive mechanisms, living things were able to reproduce their own kind, and did not have to depend upon being created out of the inorganic world. Yet even with this advance the individual member of a species inevitably obeyed the constancy principle, since this was the principle that governed its existence when it was endowed with life. Life, Freud said, is but a roundabout way to death. Disturbed out of its stable existence, organic matter strives to re- turn to a quiescent state. The death wish in the human being is the psycho- logical representation of the constancy principle. An important derivative of the death instincts is the aggressive drive. Aggressiveness is self-destruction turned outward against substitute objects. A person fights with other people and is destructive because his death wish is blocked by the forces of the life instincts and by other obstacles in his personality which counteract the death instincts. It took the Great War of 1914-1918 to convince Freud that aggression was as sovereign a motive as sex.40 = THEORIES OF PERSONALITY ‘The life and death instincts and their derivatives may fuse together, neutralize cach other, or replace one another. Eating, for example, repre- sents a fusion of hunger and destructiveness which is satisfied by biting, chewing, and swallowing food. Love, a derivative of the sex instinct, can neutralize hate, a derivative of the death instinct. Or love can replace hate, and hate love. Since the instincts contain all of the energy by which the three systems of the personality perform their work, let us turn now to consider the ways in which the id, ego, and superego gain control over and utilize psychic energy. The Distribution and Utilization of Psychic Energy. The dynamics of personality consists of the way in which psychic energy is distributed and used by the id, ego, and superego. Since the amount of energy is a limited quantity there is competition among the three systems for the energy that is available. One system gains control over the available energy at the expense of the other two systems. As one system becomes stronger the other two necessarily become weaker, unless new energy is added to the total system. Originally the id possesses all of the energy and uses it for reflex action and wish-fulfillment by means of the primary process. Both of these activi- ties are in the direct service of the pleasure principle by which the id oper- ates. The investment of energy in an action or image which will gratify an instinct is called an instinctual object-choice or object-cathexis. The energy of the id is in a very fluid state which means that it can easily be shunted from one action or image to another action or image. The displaceable quality of this instinctual energy is due to the id’s inability to form fine discriminations between objects. Objects that are different are treated as though they were the same. The hungry baby, for instance, will take up almost anything that it can hold and put it to its lips. Since the ego has no source of power of its own it has to borrow it from the id. The diversion of energy from the id into the processes that make up the ego is accomplished by a mechanism known as identification. This is one of the most important concepts in Freudian psychology, and one of the most difficult to comprehend. It will be recalled from a previous discus- sion that the id does not distinguish between subjective imagery and ob- jective reality. When it cathects an image of an object it is the same as cathecting the object itself. However, since a mental image cannot satisfy a need, the person is forced to differentiate between the world of the mind and the outer world. He has to learn the difference between a memory or idea of an object which is not present and a sensory impression or perception of an object which is present. Then, in order to satisfy a need, he must learn to match what is in his mind with its counterpart in the externalFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 41 world by means of the secondary process. This matching of a mental repre- sentation with physical reality, of something that is in the mind with some- thing that is in the outer world, is what is meant by identification. Since the id makes no distinction between any of the contents of the mind, whether they be perceptions, memory images, ideas, or hallucinations, a cathexis may be formed for a realistic perception as readily as for a wish- fulfilling memory image. In this way, energy is diverted from the purely autistic psychological processes of the id into the realistic, logical, ideational processes of the ego. In both cases, energy is used for strictly psychological purposes, but in the case of the id no distinction is made between the mental symbol and the physical referent whereas in the case of the ego this distinction is made. The ego attempts to make the symbol accurately repre- sent the referent. In other words, identification enables the secondary proc- ess to supersede the primary process. Since the secondary process is so much more successful in reducing tensions, more and more ego cathexes are formed: Gradually the more efficient ego obtains a virtual monopoly over the store of psychic energy. This monopoly is only relative, however, be- cause if the ego fails to satisfy the instincts, the id reasserts its power. Once the ego has trapped enough energy it can use it for other purposes than that of gratifying the instincts by means of the secondary process. Some of the energy is used to bring the various psychological processes such as perceiving, remembering, judging, discriminating, abstracting, generalizing, and reasoning to a higher level of development. Some of the energy has to be used by the ego to restrain the id from acting impulsively and irrationally. These restraining forces are known as anticathexes in contradistinction to the driving forces or cathexes. If the id becomes too threatening, the ego erects defenses against the id. These defense mechanisms, which will be discussed in a later section, may also be used to cope with the pressures of the superego upon the ego. Energy, of course, is required for the mainte- nance of these defenses. Ego energy may also be displaced to form new object-cathexes, so that a whole: network of derived interests, attitudes, and preferences is formed within the ego. These ego-cathexes may not directly satisfy the basic needs of the organism but they are connected by associative links with objects that do. The energy of the hunger drive, for example, may fan out to include such cathexes as an interest in collecting recipes, visiting unusual restaurants, and selling chinaware. This spreading of cathexes into channels that are only remotely connected with the original object of an instinct is made pos- sible by the greater efficiency of the ego in performing its fundamental job of gratifying the instincts. The ego has a surplus of energy to use for other purposes. Finally, the ego as the executive of the personality organization uses42° THEORIES OF PERSONALITY energy to effect an integration among the three systems. The purpose of this integrative function of the ego is to produce an inner harmony within the personality so that the ego’s transactions with the environment may be made smoothly and effectively. The mechanism of identification also accounts for the energizing of the superego system. This, too, is a complex matter and takes place in the fol- lowing way. Among the first object-cathexes of the baby are those of the parents. These cathexes develop early and become very firmly entrenched because the baby is completely dependent upon his parents or parent-substi- tutes for the satisfaction of his needs. The parents also play the role of disciplinary agents; they teach the child the moral code and the traditional values and ideals of the society in which the child is raised. They do this by rewarding the child when he does the right thing and punishing him when he does the wrong thing. A reward is anything that reduces tension or promises to do so. A piece of candy, a smile, or a kind word may be an effective reward. A punishment is anything that increases tension. It may be a spanking, a disapproving look, or a denial of some pleasure. Thus, the child learns to identify, that is, to match his behavior with the sanctions and prohibitions laid down by the parents. He introjects the moral impera- tives of his parents by virtue of the original cathexes he has for them as need-satisfying agents. He cathects their ideals and these become his ego- ideal; he cathects their prohibitions and these become his conscience. Thus, the superego gains access to the reservoir of energy in the id by means of the child’s identification with his parents. The work performed by the superego is often, although not always, in direct opposition to the impulses of the id. This is the case because the moral code represents society’s attempt to control and even to inhibit the expres- sion of the primitive drives, especially those of sex and aggression. Being good usually means being obedient and not saying or doing “dirty” things. Being bad means being disobedient, rebellious, and lustful. The virtuous person inhibits his impulses, the sinful person indulges them. However, the superego can sometimes be corrupted by the id. This happens, for example, when a person in a fit of moralistic fervor takes aggressive measures against those whom he considers to be wicked and sinful. The expression of ag- gression in such instances is cloaked by the mantle of righteous indignation. Once the energy furnished by the instincts has been channeled into the ego and the superego by the mechanism of identification, a complicated interplay of driving and restraining forces become possible. The id, it will be recalled, possesses only driving forces or cathexes whereas the energy of the ego and the superego is used both to forward and to frustrate the aims of the instincts. The ego has to check both the id and the superego if it is to govern the personality wisely, yet it must have enough energy left overFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 43 to engage in necessary intercourse with the external world. If the id retains control over a large share of the energy, the behavior of the person will tend to be impulsive and primitive in character. On the other hand, if the superego gains control of an undue amount of energy, the functioning of the personality will be dominated by moralistic considerations rather than by realistic ones. The anticathexes of the conscience may tie up the ego in moral knots and prevent action of any sort, while the cathexes of the ego- ideal may set such high standards for the ego that the person is being continually frustrated and may eventually develop a depressing sense of failure. Moreover, sudden and unpredictable shifts of energy from one system to another and from cathexes to anticathexes are common, especially during the first two decades of life before the distribution of energy has become more or less stabilized. ‘These shifts of energy keep the personality in a state of dynamic flux. Freud was pessimistic about the chances of psychology ever becoming a very exact science because, as he pointed out, even a very small change in the distribution of energy might tip the scale in favor of one form of behavior rather than its opposite (Freud, 1920b). Who can say whether the man poised on the window ledge is going to jump or not, or whether the batter is going to strike out or hit a winning home run? In the final analysis, the dynamics of personality consist of the interplay of the driving forces, cathexes, and the restraining forces, anticathexes. All of the conflicts within the personality may be reduced to the opposition of these two.sets of forces. All prolonged tension is due to the counteraction of a driving force by a restraining force. Whether it be an anticathexis of the ego opposed to a cathexis of the id or an anticathexis of the superego op- posed to a cathexis of the ego, the result in terms of tension is the same. As Freud was fond of saying, psychoanalysis is “a dynamic [conception], which traces mental life back to an interplay between forces that favour or inhibit one another” (1910b, p. 213). Anxiety. The dynamics of personality is to a large extent governed by the necessity for gratifying one’s needs by means of transactions with ob- jects in the external world. The surrounding environment provides the hungry organism with food, the thirsty one with water. In addition to its role as the source of supplies, the external world plays another part in shaping the destiny of personality. The environment contains regions of danger and insecurity; it can threaten as well as satisfy. The environment has the power to produce pain and increase tension as well as to bring pleas- ure and reduce tension. It disturbs as well as comforts. ‘The individual’s customary reaction to external threats of pain and de- struction with which it is not prepared to cope is to become afraid. The44 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY threatened person is ordinarily a fearful person. Overwhelmed by excessive stimulation which the ego is unable to bring under control, the ego becomes flooded with anxiety. Freud recognized three types of anxiety: reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety, and moral anxiety or feelings of guilt (1926b). The basic type is reality anxiety or fear of real dangers in the external world; from it are derived the other two types. Neurotic anxiety is the fear that the instincts will get out of control and cause the person to do something for which he will be punished. Neurotic anxiety is not so much a fear of the instincts themselves as it is a fear of the punishment that is likely to ensue from instinctual gratification. Neurotic anxiety has a basis in reality, because the world as represented by the parents and other authorities docs punish the child for impulsive actions. Moral anxiety is fear of the conscience. The person with a well-developed superego tends to feel guilty when he does something or even thinks of doing something that is contrary to the moral code by which he has been raised. He is said to feel conscience-stricken. Moral anxiety also has a realistic basis; the person has been punished in the past for violating the moral code and may be punished again. The function of anxiety is to warn the person of impending danger; it is a signal to the ego that unless appropriate measures are taken the danger may increase until the ego is overthrown. Anxiety is a state of tension; it is a drive like hunger or sex but instead of arising from internal tissue conditions it is produced originally by external causes. When anxiety is aroused it motivates the person to do something. He may flee from the threatening region, inhibit the dangerous impulse, or obey the voice of conscience. Anxiety which cannot be dealt with by effective measures is said to be traumatic. It reduces the person to a state of infantile helplessness. In fact, the prototype of all later anxiety is the birth trauma. The neonate is bom- barded with stimuli from the world for which he is not prepared and to which he cannot adapt. The baby needs a sheltered environment until his ego has had a chance to develop to the point where it can master strong stimuli from the environment. When the ego cannot cope with anxiety by rational methods it has to fall back upon unrealistic ones. These are the so- called defense mechanisms of the ego which will be discussed in the fol- lowing section. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY Freud was probably the first psychological theorist to emphasize the de- velopmental aspects of personality and in particular to stress the decisiveFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 45 role of the early years of infancy and childhood in laying down the basic character structure of the person. Indeed, Freud felt that personality was pretty well formed by the end of the fifth year, and that subsequent growth consisted for the most part of elaborating this basic structure. He arrived at this conclusion on the basis of his experiences with patients undergoing psychoanalysis. Inevitably, their mental explorations led them back to early childhood experiences which appeared to be decisive for the development of a-neurosis later in life. Freud believed that the child is father of the man. It is interesting in view of this strong preference for genetic explanations of adult behavior that Freud rarely studied young children directly. He pre- ferred to reconstruct the past life of a person from evidence furnished by his adult recollections. Personality develops in response to four major sources of tension: (1) physiological growth processes, (2) frustrations, (3) conflicts, and (4) threats. As a direct consequence of increases in tension emanating from these sources, the person is forced to learn new methods of reducing tension. This learn- ing is what is meant by personality development. (For a lucid discussion of Freud’s theory of learning, see Hilgard and Bower, 1966.) Identification and displacement are two methods by which the individual learns to resolve his frustrations, conflicts, and anxieties. . Identification. This concept was introduced in an earlier section to help account for the formation of the ego and superego. In the present context, identification may be defined as the method by which a person takes over the features of another person and makes them a corporate part of his own personality. He learns to reduce tension by modeling his behavior after that of someone else. Freud preferred the term identification to the more familiar one imitation because he felt that imitation denotes a kind of superficial and transient copying behavior whereas he wanted a word that would convey the idea of a more or less permanent acquisition to personality. We choose as models those who seem to be more successful in gratifying their needs than we are. The child identifies with his parents because they appear to him to be omnipotent, at least during the years of early child- hood. As the child grows older, he finds other people to identify with whose accomplishments are more in line with his current wishes. Each period tends to have its own characteristic identification figures. Needless to say, most of this identification takes place unconsciously and not, as it may sound, with conscious intention. It is not necessary for a person to identify with someone else in every respect. He usually selects and incorporates just those features which he believes will help him achieve a desired goal. There is a good deal of trial and error in the identification process because one is usually not quite sure46 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY what it is about another person that accounts for his success. The ultimate test is whether the identification helps to reduce tension; if it does the quality is taken over, if it does not it is discarded. One may identify with animals, imaginary characters, institutions, abstract ideas, and inanimate objects as well as with other human beings. Identification is also a method by which one may regain an object that has been lost. By identifying with a loved person who has died or from whom one has been separated, the lost person becomes reincarnated as an incorporated feature of one’s personality. Children who have been rejected by their parents tend to form strong identifications with them in the hope of regaining their love. One may also identify with a person out of fear. The child identifies with the prohibitions of the parents in order to avoid punishment. This kind of identification is the basis for the formation of the superego. ‘The final personality structure represents an accumulation of numerous identifications made at various periods of the person’s life, although the mother and father are probably the most important identification figures in anyone's life. Displacement. When an original object-choice of an instinct is rendered inaccessible by external or internal barriers (anticathexes), a new cathexis is formed unless a strong repression occurs. If this new cathexis is also blocked, another displacement takes place, and so on, until an object is found which yields some relief for the pent-up tension. This object is then cathected un- til it loses its power to reduce tension, at which time another search for an appropriate goal object is instituted. Throughout the series of displace- ments that constitute, in such large measure, the development of personality, the source and aim of the instinct remain constant; it is only the object that varies. ‘A substitute object is rarely if ever as satisfying or tension-reducing as the original object, and the less tension is reduced the more remote the displacement is from the original object. As a consequence of numerous displacements a pool of undischarged tension accumulates which acts as a permanent motivating force for behavior. The person is constantly secking new and better ways of reducing tension. This accounts for the variability and diversity of behavior, as well as for man’s restlessness. On the other hand, the personality does become more or less stabilized with age owing to the compromises that are made between the urging forces of the instincts and the resistances of the ego and superego. As we have written in another place (Hall, 1954): Interests, attachments, and all the other forms of acquired motives endure be- cause they are to some degree frustrating as well as satisfying. They persistFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 47 because they fail to yield complete satisfaction... . Every compromise is at the same time a renunciation, A person gives up something that he really wants but cannot have, and accepts something second or third best that he can have (p. 104). Freud pointed out that the development of civilization was made pos- sible by the inhibition of primitive object-choices and the diversion of in- stinctual energy into socially acceptable and culturally creative channels (1930). A displacement which produces a higher cultural achievement is called a sublimation. Freud observed in this connection that Leonardo da Vinci’s interest in painting Madonnas was a sublimated expression of a longing for intimacy with his mother from whom he had been separated at a tender age (1910a). Since sublimation does not result in complete satis- faction, any more than any displacement does, there is always some residual tension. This tension may discharge itself in the form of nervousness or restlessness, conditions which Freud pointed out were the price that man paid for his civilized status (1908). The direction taken by a displacement is determined by two factors. These are (1) the resemblance of the substitute object to the original one, and (2) the sanctions and prohibitions imposed by society. The factor of resemblance is actually the degree to which the two objects are identified in the mind of the person. Da Vinci painted Madonnas rather than peasant women or aristocrats because he conceived of his mother as resembling the Madonna more than any other type of woman. Society acting through the parents and other authority figures authorizes certain displacements and outlaws others. The child learns that it is permissible to suck a lollipop but not to suck his thumb. The ability to form substitute object-cathexes is the most powerful mechanism for the development of personality. The complex network of interests, preferences, values, attitudes, and attachments that characterize the personality of the adult human being is made possible by displacement. If psychic energy were not displaceable and distributive there would be no development of personality. The person would be merely a mechanical robot driven to perform fixed patterns of behavior by his instincts. The Defense Mechanisms of the Ego. Under the pressure of excessive anxiety, the ego is sometimes forced to take extreme measures to relieve the pressure. These measures are called defense mechanisms. The principal de- fenses are repression, projection, reaction formation, fixation, and regression (Anna Freud, 1946). All defense mechanisms have two characteristics in common: (1) they deny, falsify, or distort reality, and (2) they operate unconsciously so that the person is not aware of what is taking place. Repression. This is one of the earliest concepts of psychoanalysis. Before48 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Freud arrived at his final formulation of personality theory in terms of the id, ego, and superego, he divided the mind into three regions, consciousness, preconsciousness, and unconsciousness. The preconscious consisted of psycho- logical material that could become conscious when the need arose. Material in the unconscious, however, was regarded by Freud as being relatively in- accessible to conscious awareness; it was said to be in a state of repression. When Freud revised his theory of personality, the concept of repression was retained as one of the defense mechanisms of the ego. (Gill, 1963, points out that Freud gave up a topography of the mind in terms of conscious, preconscious, and unconscious for a structural view in terms of id, ego, and superego because repression and what was repressed could not be in the same system. He assigned repression to the ego, and what was repressed in the id. See also, Arlow and Brenner, 1964.) Repression is said to occur when an object-choice that arouses undue alarm is forced out of consciousness by an anticathexis. For example, a disturbing memory may be prevented from becoming conscious or a person may not see something that is in plain sight because the perception of it is repressed. Repression can even interfere with the'normal functioning of the body. Someone may become sexually impotent because he is afraid of the sex impulse, or he may develop arthritis as a consequence of repressing feelings of hostility. Repressions may force their way through the opposing anticathexes or they may find expression in the form of a displacement. If the displacement is to be successful in preventing the reawakening of anxiety it must be dis- guised in some suitable symbolic form. A son who has repressed his hostile feelings towards his father may express these hostile feelings against other symbols of authority. Repressions once formed are difficult to abolish. The person must reas- sure himself that the danger no longer exists, but he cannot get such reassur- ance until the repression is lifted so that he can test reality. It is a. vicious circle. That is why the adult carries around with him a lot of childish fears; he never gets a chance to discover that they have no basis in reality. Proyzcrion. Reality anxiety is usually easier for the ego to deal with than is either neurotic or moral anxiety. Consequently, if the source of the anxiety can be attributed to the external world rather than to the individual’s own primitive impulses or to the threats of his conscience, he is likely to achieve greater relief for his anxious condition. This mechanism by which neurotic or moral anxiety is converted into an objective fear is called pro- jection. This conversion is easily made because the original source of both neurotic and moral anxiety is fear of punishment from an external agent. In projection, one simply says “He hates me” instead of “I hate him,” or “He is persecuting me” instead of “My conscience is bothering me.” Pro- jection often serves a dual purpose. It reduces anxiety by substituting aFREUD’s PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 49 lesser danger for a greater one, and it enables the projecting person to ex- press his impulses under the guise of defending himself against his enemies. Reaction Formation. This defensive measure involves the replacement in consciousness of an anxiety-producing impulse or feeling by its opposite. For example, hate is replaced by love. The original impulse still exists but itis glossed over or masked by one that does not cause anxiety. The question often arises as to how a reaction formation may be dis- tinguished from a genuine expression of an impulse or feeling. For instance, how can reactive love be differentiated from true love? Usually, a reaction formation is marked by extravagant showiness—the person protests too much—and by compulsiveness. Extreme forms of behavior of any kind usu- ally denote a reaction formation. Sometimes the reaction formation succeeds in satisfying the original impulse which is being defended against, as when a-mother smothers her child with affection and attention. Frxation anp Recression. In the course of normal development, as we shall see in the next section, the personality passes through a series of rather well-defined stages until it reaches maturity. Each new step that is taken, however, entails a certain amount of frustration and anxiety and if these become too great, normal growth may be temporarily or permanently halted. In other words, the person may become fixated on one of the early stages of development because taking the next step is fraught with anxiety. The overly dependent child exemplifies defense by fixation; anxiety prevents him from learning how to become independent. A closely related type of defense is that of regression. In this case, a person who encounters traumatic experiences retreats to an earlier stage of develop- ment. For example, a child who is frightened by his first day at school may indulge in infantile behavior, such as weeping, sucking his thumb, hanging on to the teacher, or hiding in a corner. A young married woman who has . difficulties with her husband may return to the security of her parents’ home, or a man who has lost his job may seek comfort in drink. The path of regression is usually determined by the earlier fixations of the person. That is, a person tends to regress to a stage upon which he has been previously fixated. If he was overly dependent as a child, he will be likely to become overly dependent again when his anxiety increases to an unbearable level. Fixation and regression are ordinarily relative conditions; a person rarely fixates or regresses completely. Rather his personality tends to include in- fantilisms, that is, immature forms of behavior, and predispositions to dis- play childish conduct when thwarted. Fixations and regressions are responsi- ble for the unevenness in personality development. Stages of Development. Freud believed that the child passes through a series of dynamically differentiated stages during the first five years of life,50 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY following which for a period of five or six years—the period of latency— the dynamics become more or less stabilized. With the advent of adolescence, the dynamics erupt again and then gradually settle down as the adolescent moves into adulthood. For Freud, the first few years of life are decisive for the formation of personality. Each stage of development during the first five years is defined in terms of the modes of reaction of a particular zone of the body. During the first stage, which lasts for about a year, the mouth is the principal region of dynamic activity. The oral stage is followed by the development of cathexes and anticathexes around the eliminative functions, and is called the anal stage. This lasts during the second year and is succeeded by the phallic stage in which the sex organs become the leading erogenous zones. These three stages, the oral, anal, and phallic, are called the pregenital stages. The child then goes into a prolonged latency period, the so-called quiet years dynami- cally speaking. During this period the impulses tend to be held in a state of repression. The dynamic resurgence of adolescence reactivates the pregenital impulses; if these are successfully displaced and sublimated by the ego, the person passes into the final stage of maturity, the genital stage. Te Orat Stace. The principal source of pleasure derived from the mouth is that of eating. Eating involves tactual stimulation of the lips and oral cavity, and swallowing or, if the food is unpleasant, spitting out. Later when the teeth erupt the mouth is used for biting and chewing. These two modes of oral activity, incorporation of food and biting, are the prototypes for many later character traits that develop. Pleasure derived from oral in- corporation may be displaced to other modes of incorporation such as the pleasure gained from acquiring knowledge or possessions. A gullible person, for example, is one who is fixated on the oral incorporative level of person- ality; he will swallow almost anything he is told. Biting or oral aggression may be displaced in the form of sarcasm and argumentativeness. By dis- placements and sublimations of various kinds, as well as by defenses against the primitive oral impulses, these prototypic modes of oral functioning pro- vide the basis for the development of a vast network of interests, attitudes, and character traits. Furthermore, since the oral stage occurs at a time when the baby is al- most completely dependent upon his mother for sustenance, when he is cradled and nursed by her and protected from discomfort, feelings of dependency arise during this period. ‘These feelings of dependency tend to persist throughout life, in spite of later ego developments, and are apt to come to the fore whenever the person feels anxious and insecure. Freud believed that the most extreme symptom of dependency is the desire to return to the womb. Tue Anat Sracz. After the food has been digested, the residue accumu-FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 51 lates in the lower end of the intestinal tract and is reflexly discharged when the pressure upon the anal sphincters reaches a certain level. The expulsion of the feces removes the source of discomfort and produces a feeling of relief. When toilet training is initiated, usually during the second year of life, the child has his first decisive experience with the external regulation of an instinctual impulse. He has to learn to postpone the pleasure that comes from relieving his anal tensions. Depending upon the particular method of toilet training used by the mother and her feelings concerning defecation, the consequences of this training may have far-reaching effects upon the formation of specific traits and values. If the mother is very strict and re- pressive in her methods, the child may hold back his feces and become constipated. If this mode of reaction generalizes to other ways of behaving, the child will develop a retentive character. He will become obstinate and stingy. Or under the duress of repressive measures the child may vent his rage by expelling his feces at the most inappropriate times. ‘This is the proto- type for all kinds of expulsive traits—cruelty, wanton destructiveness, temper tantrums, and messy disorderliness, to mention only a few. On the other hand, if the mother is the type of person who pleads with her child to have a bowel movement and who praises him extravagantly when he does, the child will acquire the notion that the whole activity of producing feces is extremely important. This idea may be the basis for creativity and produc- tivity. Innumerable other traits of character are said to have their roots laid down in the anal stage. ‘Tue Puaruic Srace. During this stage of personality development sexual and aggressive feelings associated with the functioning of the genital organs come into focus. The pleasures of masturbation and the fantasy life of the child which accompanies autoerotic activity set the stage for the appearance of the Ocdipus complex. Freud considered the identification of the Oedipus complex to be one of his greatest discoveries. The Oedipus complex is named for the king of Thebes who killed his father and married his mother. Briefly defined, the Oedipus complex consists of a sexual cathexis for the parent of the opposite sex and a hostile cathexis for the parent of the same sex. The boy wants to possess his mother and remove his father, the girl wants to possess her father and displace her mother. These feelings express themselves in the child’s fantasies during masturbation and in the alternation of loving and rebellious actions toward his parents. The behavior of the three- to five-year-old child is marked to a large extent by the oper- ation of the Oedipus complex, and although it is modified and suffers re- pression after the age of five it remains a vital force in the personality throughout life. Attitudes toward the opposite sex and toward people in authority, for instance, are largely conditioned by the Oedipus complex. The history and fate of the Oedipus complex differ for males and fe-52 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY males. To begin with, both sexes love the mother because she satisfies their needs and resent the father because he is regarded as a rival for the mother’s affections. These feelings persist in the boy but change in the girl. Let us consider first the sequence of events which characterize the development of the male Oedipus complex. The boy's incestuous craving for the mother and his growing resentment toward the father bring him into conflict with his parents, especially the father. He imagines that his dominant rival is going to harm him, and his fears may actually be confirmed by threats from a resentful and punitive father. His fears concerning what the father may do to him center around harm to his genital organs because they are the source of his lustful feelings. He is afraid that his jealous father will remove the offending organs. Fear of castration or, as Freud called it, castration anxiety induces a repression of the sexual desire for the mother and hostility toward the father. It also helps to bring about an identification of the boy with his father. By identi- fying with the father, the boy also gains some vicarious satisfaction for his sexual impulses toward the mother. At the same time, his dangerous erotic feeling for the mother is converted into harmless tender affection for her. Lastly, the repression of the Oedipus complex causes the superego to undergo its final development. In Freud’s words, the superego is the heir of the male Oedipus complex. It is the bulwark against incest and aggression. The sequence of events in the development and dissolution of the female Oedipus complex is more involved. In the first place, she exchanges her original love object, the mother, for a new object, the father. Why this takes place depends upon the gitl’s reaction of disappointment when she discovers that a boy possesses a protruding sex organ, the penis, while she has only a cavity. Several important consequences follow from this traumatic discovery. In the first place, she holds her mother responsible for her cas- trated condition which weakens the cathexis for the mother. In the second place, she transfers her love to the father because he has the valued organ which she aspires to share with him. However, her love for the father and for other men as well is mixed with a feeling of envy because they possess something she lacks, Penis envy is the female counterpart of castration anx- iety in the boy, and collectively they are called the castration complex. She imagines that she has lost something valuable, while the boy is afraid he is going to lose it. To some extent, the lack of a penis is compensated for when a woman has a baby, especially if it is a boy baby. In the girl the castration complex initiates the Oedipus complex by weakening her cathexis for the mother and instituting a cathexis for the father. Unlike the boy's Oedipus complex which is repressed or otherwise changed by castration anxiety, the girl’s Oedipus complex tends to persist although it undergoes some modification due to the realistic barriers thatFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 53 prevent her from gratifying her sexual desire for the father. But it does not fall under the strong repression that the boy's does. These differences in the nature of the Oedipus and castration complexes are the basis for many psychological differences between the sexes. Freud assumed that every person is inherently bisexual; each sex is at- stracted to members of the same sex as well as to members of the opposite sex. This is the constitutional basis for homosexuality, although in most people the homosexual impulses remain latent. This condition of bisexuality complicates the Oedipus complex by inducing sexual cathexes for the same sex parent. Consequently, the boy's feelings for his father and the girl’s feelings for her mother are said to be ambivalent rather than univalent in character. The assumption of bisexuality has been supported by investigations on the endocrine glands which show rather conclusively that both male and female sex hormones are present in each sex. The emergence and development of the Oedipus and castration com- plexes are the chief events of the phallic period, and leave a host of deposits in the personality. ‘Tu Genrta Stace. The cathexes of the pregenital periods are narcissistic in character. This means that the individual obtains gratification from the stimulation and manipulation of his own body and other people are cathected only because they help to provide additional forms of body pleasure to the child. During adolescence, some of this self-love or narcissism becomes channeled into genuine object choices. The adolescent begins to love others for altruistic motives and not simply for selfish or narcissistic reasons. Sexual attraction, socialization, group activities, vocational planning, and prepa- rations for marrying and raising a family begin to manifest themselves. By the end of adolescence, these socialized, altruistic cathexes have become fairly well stabilized in the form of habitual displacements, sublimations, and identifications. The person becomes transformed from a pleasure-seeking, narcissistic infant into a reality-oriented, socialized adult. However, it should not be thought that the pregenital impulses are displaced by genital ones. » Rather, the cathexes of the oral, anal, and phallic stages become fused and synthesized with the genital impulses. The principal biological function of the genital stage is that of reproduction; the psychological aspects help to achieve this end by providing a certain measure of stability and security. In spite of the fact that Freud differentiated four stages of personality growth, he did not assume that there were any sharp breaks or abrupt transitions in passing out of one stage into another. The final organization of personality represents contributions from all four stages.54 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTIC RESEARCH AND RESEARCH METHODS The empirical data upon which Freud based his theories consisted principally of the verbalizations and expressive behavior of patients undergoing psycho- logical treatment. Although Freud was schooled in the precise methods of nineteenth century science and had established a substantial reputation as a medical investigator before turning his attention to psychology, he did not employ experimental or controlled observational techniques in his investi- gations of the human mind. Freud was not a part of the movement of experimental psychology which had been initiated by Fechner in 1860 and developed into a science by Wundt during the following two decades. He was, of course, familiar with this movement and Fechner’s philosophy influ- enced him, but Freud was not an experimental psychologist. He did not perform controlled psychological experiments, nor did he collect data and analyze them quantitatively as other psychologists of the nineteenth century were doing. One looks in vain for a table or graph in his extensive writings. Nor did Freud ever employ a diagnostic test or any other kind of objective appraisal of personality. His theories germinated as he listened to the facts and fancies verbalized by sick personalities. Yet it would be a serious mistake to say that the verbalizations of people in treatment were the only ingredients out of which Freud fashioned his theories. Certainly as important as these raw data was the rigorously critical attitude that Freud brought to the analysis of his patients’ free associations. Today we would say that he analyzed his raw material by the method of internal consistency. Inferences made from one part of the material were checked against evidence appearing in other parts, so that the final con- clusions drawn from a case were based upon an interlocking network of facts and inferences. Freud proceeded in his work in much the same way as a detective assembling evidence or a lawyer summing up a case to the jury. Everything had to fit together coherently before Freud was satisfied that he had put his finger upon the correct interpretation. It should be remembered, moreover, that the material produced by one case who was seen five hours a week for as long as two or three years was of immense proportions, and that Freud had ample opportunity to check and recheck his hunches scores of times before deciding upon the final interpretation. By contrast, the subject in the typical psychological experiment performed under controlled conditions is observed or tested for only one or two hours on the average. Certainly two of Freud’s most important contributions to re- search strategy were the intensive study of the single case and the use of the method of internal consistency for testing hypotheses. Again and again Freud was forced to revise his theories because newFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 55, discoveries could not bé accounted for adequately by his current theories. Freud was reluctant to abandon a systematic position, once it had been formulated, but the history of the psychoanalytic theory of personality from its inception in the 1890’s down to the late 1920's demonstrates quite con- clusively that Freud's views were determined eventually by the weight of the evidence as he saw it. Although his close associates may have had some influence in shaping his ideas, it seems to be reasonably clear that the ulti- mate test of the validity of his theories was largely that of Freud’s own self- criticism and his willingness to be guided by new evidence. The storm of indignant attacks upon psychoanalysis that began as soon as Freud had enunciated his theory of the sexual etiology of hysteria and which continued for the rest of his life did not influence his thinking. There were few times in life when he replied to his critics. Nor did the disaffection of some of his closest associates cause Freud to alter his theories. Freud seems to have been endowed with an abundance of intellectual autonomy, which is without doubt one of the prerequisites for greatness, Freud’s Scientific Credo. Freud’s views on the way in which the scientist works to develop his science are succinctly set forth in one of his rare pro- nouncements on this topic. He writes: We have often heard it maintained that sciences should be built up on clear and sharply defined basic concepts. In actual fact no science, not even the most exact, begins with such definitions. The true beginning of scientific activity consists rather in describing phenomena and then in proceeding to group, classify and correlate them. Even at the stage of description it is not possible to avoid applying certain abstract ideas to the material in hand, ideas derived from somewhere or other but certainly not from the new observations alone. Such ideas—which will later become the basic concepts of the science—are still more indispensable as the material is further worked over. They must at first necessarily possess some degree of indefiniteness; there can be no question of any clear delimitation of their content. So long as they remain in this condi- tion, we come to an understanding about their meaning by making repeated references to the material of observation from which they appear to have been derived, but upon which, in fact, they have been imposed. Thus, strictly speak- ing, they are in the nature of conventions—although everything depends on their not being arbitrarily chosen but determined by their having significant relations to the empirical material, relations that we seem to sense before we can clearly recognize and demonstrate them. It is only after more thorough inves- tigation of the field of observation that we are able to formulate its basic scientific concepts with increased precision, and progressively so to modify them that they become serviceable and consistent over a wide area. Then, indeed, the time may have come to confine them in definitions, The advance of knowledge, however, does not tolerate any rigidity even in definitions. Physics furnishes56 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY an excellent illustration of the way in which even ‘basic concepts’ that have been established in the form of definitions are constantly being altered in their content (1915, p. 117). By choice, then, Freud preferred the more open, informal type of induc- tive theory-building which stays reasonably close to the empirical supports upon which it rests to the more formal deductive type of theory which starts with sharply defined concepts and carefully phrased postulates and corol- laries from which testable hypotheses are derived and subsequently tested. Moreover, as this quotation shows, Freud was fully aware of the importance of the “prepared mind” of the scientist in enabling him to make maximum use of his empirical data. These “abstract ideas” might come from various sources; in Freud’s case, from wide reading in the classics and other litera- ture, from his hobby of archeology, from his observations as the father of six children, from everyday experiences of all kinds, and most of all, perhaps, from his lifelong habit of self-analysis. Let us turn now to a consideration of some of the special data-collecting techniques employed by Freud. They were used, of course, in the therapeutic situation because this is where Freud gathered his data. Free Association and Dream Analysis. After a brief tryout of the method of hypnosis (1887-1889) which was then very much in vogue, es- pecially in France, Freud learned about a new method which had been used successfully by his friend and colleague, Dr. Joseph Breuer, in the treatment of a case of hysteria. This method which Breuer called catharsis or the “talking cure” consisted of the patient relating the details of the first ap- pearance of each of his symptoms, following which the symptoms disap- peared. Out of this method, Freud gradually evolved his own unique free- association method which Ernest Jones has called “one of the two great deeds of Freud’s scientific life,” the other being Freud’s self-analysis. In essence, the free-association method requires the patient to say every- thing that comes into consciousness, no matter how ridiculous or inappropri- ate it may sound. Unlike the cathartic method, the free-association method does not stop with the origin of symptoms; it allows—indeed it demands— that the patient talk about everything and anything that occurs to him, with- out restraint and without any attempt to produce a logical, organized, mean- ingful discourse. The role of the therapist is, to a great extent, a passive one. He sits and listens, prods occasionally by asking questions when the verbal flow of the patient dries up, but he does not interrupt the patient when he is talking. In order to reduce the influence of external distractions to a minimum, the patient ordinarily reclines on a couch in a quiet room. Freud observed that when these conditions prevail, the patient eventuallyFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 57 begins to talk about memories of carly childhood experiences. These memo- ries provided Freud with his first real insight into the formation of the personality structure and its subsequent development. This method of re- constructing the past from current verbalizations may be contrasted with the developmental method of observing the growth of personality from infancy to adulthood. Perhaps Freud’s most original insight about the undisciplined wander- ings of his patients’ verbalizations was that each statement is associated in some meaningful, dynamic manner with the preceding statement, so that a continuous chain of associations exist from first to last. Everything that the patient says is related, without exception, to what he has previously said. ‘There may be numerous circumlocutions and verbal blockages, but eventu- ally the history of the person’s mind and its present organization will be divulged to the listener by following the chain of associations through the verbal maze. The analysis of dreams is not a separate method from that of free as- sociation; it is a natural consequence of the instruction to the patient that he talk about everything that comes to his mind. Freud’s early patients spontaneously recalled their dreams and then proceeded to give free as- sociations to them. Freud soon realized that these reported dreams and the accompanying free associations were especially rich sources of information about the dynamics of human personality. As a result of this insight which he tested on his own dreams, Freud formulated the famous theory which states that the dream is an expression of the most primitive workings and contents of the human mind (1900). The primitive process which creates the dream Freud called the primary process. As we have seen, the primary process attempts to fulfill a wish or discharge a tension by inducing an image of the desired goal. By having his patients free-associate to their dreams, Freud was able to penetrate into the most inaccessible regions of the human mind and to discover the bedrock of personality. Freud’s Case Studies. The vast amount of raw material from which Freud fashioned his theory of personality will never be known. The few case his- tories that Freud chose to publish represent only an infinitesimal fraction of the cases he treated. Professional ethics partially restrained Freud from presenting his cases to the world since there was always the danger that the identity of his patients might be guessed by a curious public. Aside from the case histories appearing in Studies in hysteria (1895) which he wrote in collaboration with Breuer before psychoanalytic theory had taken definite shape in Freud’s mind, he published only six accounts of cases. One of these, the so-called Schreber case (1911), was not a patient of Freud’s. Freud based his analysis upon an autobiographical account of a58 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY case of paranoia written by Judge Daniel Schreber. Another case study con- cerned a phobia in a five-year-old boy, Little Hans (1909a), which was treated by the boy’s father, himself a physician, under Freud’s guidance and instructions. In the other four cases, Freud was the therapist. These are referred to as “Dora” (1905b), the “Rat Man” (1909b), the “Wolf Man” (1918), and a case of female homosexuality (1920b). Each of these cases was presented to bring out the salient features of one or more of Freud's theo- retical concepts. Dora was published, Freud says, in order to show how the analysis of dreams enables one to ferret out the hidden and repressed parts of the hu- man mind and to demonstrate that hysterical symptoms are motivated by the sexual impulse. Following a fairly lengthy account of the background factors and the current clinical picture, Freud presents a detailed analysis of two of Dora’s dreams. Much of the material consists of a verbatim ac- count of Dora’s free associations and Freud’s interpretations, and gives a remarkably lucid picture of the exact manner in which dreams are in- terpreted. In this case history, as in the others, we see how Freud wove the patterned fabric of personality out of the tangled verbal threads of a suf- fering person, and we obtain glimpses of Freud’s unusual talent for seeing relationships between widely disparate utterances. Operating on the assump- tion that everything that the person says or does is meaningful and fits into the total picture of the personality organization, Freud was a vigilant ob- server; the most commonplace statement or act was scrutinized for a deeper meaning. Freud did not regard his talent for observation as being in any way un- usual, as the following quotation indicates. When I set myself the task of bringing to light what human beings keep hidden within them, not by the compelling power of hypnosis, but by observing what they say and what they show, I thought the task was a harder one than it really is, He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If the lips are silent, he chatters with his finger tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. And thus the task of making conscious the most hidden recesses of the mind is one which it is quite possible to accomplish (1905b, pp. 77-78). Freud’s remarkable ability to draw inferences of great significance from commonplace behavior is seen to best advantage in what is probably the most popular of all of his writings, The psychopathology of everyday life (1901). This book is replete with examples of the dynamic import of simple slips of the tongue, errors of memory, accidents, and mistakes of various kinds. The case of Little Hans afforded Freud his first opportunity to verifyFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 59 his theory of infantile sexuality, which had been formulated on the basis of the adult memories, by observations made on a young child. Hans was afraid that a horse would bite him should he venture out in the street. From the careful notes kept by the boy’s father, many of which are presented verbatim in the published account, Freud was able to show that this phobia was an expression of the two most important sexual complexes of early child- hood: the Oedipus complex and the castration complex. The case of Little Hans exemplifies and corroborates the theory of infantile sexuality set forth by Freud in 1905. In the case of the Rat Man, who suffered from the revolting obsession that his girl friend arid his father would each be punished by having a potful of ravenous rodents fastened to their buttocks, Freud pieced together the involved dynamics and thought connections of an obsessional neurotic. Although the presentation is only fragmentary, this case clearly illustrates how Freud went about resolving the apparent contradictions, distortions, and absurdities in the disconnected ramblings of a sick personality, and made them into a logically coherent pattern. In reporting this case, Freud tells us that it is based upon notes made on the evening of the day of the treatment and not upon notes made during the analytic session. Freud was opposed to any note-taking by the therapist during the treatment period because he felt that the withdrawal of the therapist's attention would interfere with the progress of therapy. He believed in any event that the therapist would re- member the important material and forget the trivial details. Freud’s analysis of the Schreber case was based upon Schreber’s own account of his mental illness which was diagnosed as paranoia. Freud justi- fied his use of this autobiographical book on the grounds that paranoia is a type of disorder in which the written case history is as satisfactory as personal acquaintance with the case. The characteristic symptom of paranoia is the tortuous delusional system which the patient constructs. Schreber’s delusions consisted of thinking that he was the Redeemer and that he was being transformed into a woman. In an intricate analysis of these two delusions Freud showed that they were related, and that the motive power for both of them as well as for the other aspects of the case was that of latent homo- sexuality. In this case study, Freud set forth his famous hypothesis of the causal relationship between homosexuality and paranoia. Freud’s penchant for deriving a generalization of far-reaching power from a mass of particular facts is beautifully portrayed in the Schreber case. The Wolf Man is an account of an infantile neurosis which was brought to the surface during the analysis of a young man, and which was shown to be related dynamically to the present condition of the patient. Freud ob- served that the analysis of an experience which took place some fifteen years earlier has its advantages as well as its disadvantages when compared60 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY with the analysis of an event shortly after it occurs. The principal disad- vantage is that of the unreliability of memory for early experiences. On the other hand, if one tries to analyze a very young child there is the drawback that he cannot express himself verbally. The Wolf Man is the adult counter- part of Little Hans and both approaches, the reconstructive and the genetic, are shown to be valuable sources of empirical evidence for the theories of psychoanalysis, The principal feature of this case history is a lengthy analy- sis of a dream of wolves which the patient remembered from his early child- hood, and which was interpreted as being caused by the child’s reaction to the primal scene, Freud’s term for the child’s observation or fantasy of seeing his parents engage in sexual intercourse. ‘The last case reported by Freud was one that he had to break off because the resistance of the patient to giving up her homosexuality was so strong that no progress could be made. Nevertheless, as the published case history shows, Freud was able to arrive at a complete understanding of the origin and development of homosexuality. Homosexuality in both sexes is due to two primary factors, an inherent bisexuality in all living things and a reversal of the Oedipus complex. Instead of loving the father and identifying with the mother, this woman identified with the father and cathected the mother. In the case of male homosexuality, there would be an identification with the mother and a love for the father. This case also contains some of Freud’s views on suicide, since the reason for the woman's coming to Freud in the first place was an attempt at self-destruction. It is impossible to say with any assurance that these particular case histories which Freud chose to make public were the actual empirical sources for the theories that they exemplified, or whether they were merely con- venient and clear-cut examples of theoretical formulations that had already taken shape in Freud’s mind. It really does not make much difference whether the Schreber case, for example, was she case that revealed to Freud the dynamics of paranoia, or whether he had made the fundamental dis- covery on the basis of prior cases and merely applied them to this particular case. In any event, the type of material which Freud collected, the kind of techniques he employed, and the way in which he thought are revealed in these six case studies. Anyone who wishes to get close to the raw material with which Freud worked should read them. One should not confuse these case histories with the application of psycho- analytic theory for the better understanding of literature and the arts or for the purposes of social criticism. Freud did not learn about sublimation from his study of the life of Leonardo da Vinci and he did not discover the Oedipus complex by reading Sophocles, Shakespeare, or Dostoevski. Nor did he fathom the basic irrationality of man’s thinking by observing his religious or political behavior. The interpretation of a literary work or theFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 61 analysis of a social institution using the insights of psychoanalytic theory may have helped to confirm the usefulness of the insights and even to validate their authenticity and universality, but the literary and artistic productions and the social institutions themselves did not constitute any part of Freud’s empirical data. Freud’s Self-analysis. The material dredged up from his own unconscious constituted an important source of empirical data for Freud. As related by Ernest Jones (1953), Freud began his own self-analysis in the summer of 1897 with the analysis of one of his dreams. From this searching self-scrutiny, Freud confirmed to his own satisfaction the theory of dreams and the theory of infantile sexuality. He found in his own personality those conflicts and contradictions and irrationalities that he had observed in his patients, and this experience perhaps more than any other convinced him of the essential correctness of his views. In fact, Freud was reluctant to accept the validity of any hypothesis until he had tested it out on himself. Freud continued his self-analysis throughout his life, reserving the last half hour of each day for this activity. CURRENT STATUS AND EVALUATION During Freud’s lifetime, he was the master builder of psychoanalytic theory. He laid the foundations, guided the course of its development, and assumed sole responsibility for its major revisions. Although Freud was receptive to ideas advanced by his associates in the psychoanalytic movement and often credited them with new insights, he was adamant about preserving the main pillars upon which psychoanalysis had been founded. Anyone who attempted to weaken these pillars was no longer considered to be part of the move- ment. Inevitably, a number of psychoanalysts seceded and developed their own theoretical formulations, Notable among these were Adler, Jung, Rank, Reich, and Horney. It would be incorrect to say, as some have done, that Freud was personally vindictive or dictatorial. In Jung's case, for example, Freud made a great effort to persuade Jung of the incorrectness of his (Jung’s) ideas. But in the end Freud placed intellectual integrity above personal feelings. Upon the death of Freud in 1939, his followers were faced with the difficult task of deciding what should be done regarding the future develop- ment of psychoanalytic theory. The course many chose was to amplify the undeveloped aspects of Freud’s system, to make more explicit some of Freud’s postulates, to sharpen the definitions of some of the basic concepts, to extend the range of phenomena covered by psychoanalytic explanations62 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY (often called applied psychoanalysis), and to employ observational methods other than the psychoanalytic interview to validate propositions derived from Freudian theory. Changes in psychoanalytic therapy have also been insti- tuted, but this aspect of psychoanalysis lies outside the scope of the present volume. In much of the psychoanalytic literature, both past and present, the opening paragraphs of an article are devoted to a presentation of what Freud had to say concerning the topic under consideration. This is then followed by the writer’s amplification of the topic, and the presentation of new evidence. Freud’s writings are the primary authority, and quotations from them are sprinkled liberally throughout the article to justify the various points made by the writer. In spite of this strong allegiance to Freud’s ideas on the part of his followers, and their understandable tendency to treat the formidable corpus of his published works as sacred writings, some new trends can be detected in the literature of psychoanalysis since Freud’s death. Seven of these trends will be discussed. They are (1) the elaboration of the ego as a more or less autonomous system of personality, (2) the early emergence of relations with objects in the external world, (3) a greater emphasis upon noninstinctual determinants of personality, (4) the applica- tion of psychoanalysis to social and cultural phenomena, (5) observational studies of babies and children, (6) the experimental testing of psychoanalytic propositions, and (7) an increasing rapprochement of psychoanalysis and psychology. Ego Theory. Although Freud regarded the ego as the executive of the total personality, at least in the case of the healthy person, he never granted it an autonomous position; it always remained subservient to the wishes of the id. In what was to be his final pronouncement on psychoanalytic theory, Freud (1940) reiterated what he had said so many times before, “This oldest portion [the id] of the mental apparatus remains the most important throughout life” (p. 14). The id and its instincts express “the true purpose of the individual organism’s life.” There is no question as to how Freud felt regarding the relationship of the ego and the id: the id is the dominant member of the partnership. In sharp contrast to Freud’s position is that of some psychoanalytic theorists to enhance the role of the ego in the total personality. The leader of the new ego theory, or as it is sometimes referred to, “ego psychology”, is Heinz Hartmann (1958, 1964). This new ego theory not only embraces such topics as the development of the reality principle in childhood, the integrative or synthesizing functions of the ego, the auxiliary ego processes of perceiving, remembering, thinking, and acting, and the defenses of the ego but, more important, it has put forward the concept of the autonomy ofFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 63 the ego. Discussions of the autonomous functions of the ego usually begin by quoting from one of Freud’s last articles in which he wrote, “But we must not overlook the fact that id and ego are originally one, and it does not imply a mystical over-valuation of heredity if we think it credible that, even before the ego exists, its subsequent lines of development, tendencies and re- actions are already determined” (Freud, 1937, pp. 343-344). Proceeding from this quotation, Hartmann postulates that there is an undifferentiated phase early in life during which both the id and the ego are formed. The ego does not emerge out of an inborn id, but each system has its origin in inherent predispositions and each has its own independent course of development. Moreover, it is asserted that the ego processes are operated by neutralized sexual and aggressive energies. The aims of these ego processes can be in- dependent of purely instinctual objectives. Ego defenses do not have to be pathological or negative in character; they may serve healthy purposes in the formation of personality. Hartmann believes that a defense may become independent of its origin in combating the instincts and serve the functions of adjustment and organization. Ego theorists also attribute a conflict-free sphere to the ego. This means that some processes of the ego are not in conflict with the id, the superego, or the external world. The Harvard psychologist, Robert White (1963), has proposed that the ego not only has its own intrinsic energy, but that there are also intrinsic ego satisfactions which are independent of id or instinctual gratifications. These autonomous ego satisfactions are things such as exploration, manipula- tion, and effective competence in performing tasks. This trend of treating the ego as an autonomous system whose origin is parallel with the id and which is endowed with autonomous functions and energy sources has not gone unchallenged by other psychoanalysts. Nacht (1952), for example, deplores this new “ego psychology” which he considers sterile and regressive. The psychologist, Robert R. Holt (1965), has made a critical evaluation of the concept of ego autonomy as presented in the writings of Hartmann and Rapaport, and concludes that it will not come to occupy an important place in psychoanalytical thinking. Holt writes, “One would instead be mainly concerned to describe the relative roles of drive, external stimuli and press, and various inner structures in determining behavior, and the complex interactions between them” (p. 157). It might be pointed out that this is precisely what Freud was saying and doing throughout his life. Early Object Relations. Melanie Klein and her associates (1955), using play techniques, have been able to psychoanalyze children as young as two to three years of age. They have found that relations between the child and64 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY primary objects in his environment, for example, the mother’s breasts, are established soon after birth. These relations are marked by ambivalence—the good breast versus the bad breast—and cause the baby to feel that he is surrounded by objects that are unpredictably protective and persecutory in their effects on him. The baby’s reaction to this state of affairs is one of depression. Child analysis has also revealed that the Oedipus complex and the superego develop much earlier than Freud thought. Another British psychoanalyst who has stressed the early formation of object-relations is Ronald Fairbairn (1952). The ego, he believes, is present at birth (there is no id) and begins immediately to seck objects in the external world, Noninstinctual Determinants of Personality. The point has been made repeatedly by critics of psychoanalysis that Freud placed too much emphasis upon heredity and maturation and too little upon the social or environmental determinants of personality. There has been a noticeable tendency among current theorists identified with the psychoanalytic tradition to play down the role of the instincts and to bring to the fore psychological and social variables that are thought to shape personality. The concept of the death instinct, but not that of aggression, is either ignored or openly repudiated as being an untenable assumption. There is less discussion of such topics as the “nstincts and their vicissitudes” and libido theory and more discussion of how personality traits are acquired through experience and as a result of social conditioning. One consequence of this “debiologizing” is that the main source of conflict within the personality, between the instincts of the id and the moral imperatives of the superego, is removed, leaving only the conflict between the ego and the external world, including society and culture. By viewing the ego as an adaptive rather than as a defensive system, even this conflict is minimized. Although such individuals as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Abram Kardiner, and Harry Stack Sullivan have taken the lead in emphasizing social determinants (see Chapter IV for a discussion of their views), this trend is also noticeable in the writings of orthodox Freudians, especially those who favor an ego psychology. Erik Erikson, whose writings are widely read and whose influence upon psychologists has been considerable, has made it his chief task to demonstrate the relations of the ego to society. In Childhood and society, Erikson (1963) uses case studies of people living in different circumstances and in different cultures to show how the ego’s development is inextricably bound up with the nature of social organization. He has also demonstrated how the nature of the ego is related to changing historical reality (1947). Erikson’s principal concepts are those of ego identity and group identity.FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 65 Subjectively, ego identity is an awareness of the fact that there is continuity in the ego’s synthesizing methods, and the feeling that these methods are effective in safeguarding the stability and continuity of one’s meaning for other people. Group identity is the group’s basic way of organizing experi- ence for the members of the group. According to Erikson’s epigenetic con- ception of ego development (1959), the child passes through a sequence of developmental phases, each phase having its own specific crisis. This passage is ego psychology’s counterpart of Freud’s theory of psychosexual develop- ment. How the child meets each crisis is determined to a great extent by the solutions that are proffered or permitted by the parents and other caretakers, who in turn are influenced by society’s traditions and ideologies. Erikson has more to say about society’s effect on the person than about the person’s effect on society. The deemphasis of biological determinants by psychoanalytic theorists has not gone uncriticised. Marcuse (1955) has observed that in shifting from biological to-cultural factors “they cut off the roots of society in the instincts and instead take society at the level on which it confronts the individual as his ready made ‘environment’, without questioning its origin and legitimacy” (p. 5). The contrast between an id-oriented and an ego-oriented position is exemplified by two analyses of Martin Luther, one by Norman Brown (1959), the other by Erik Erikson (1958). A comparison of these two psycho- biographies has been made by Domhoff (in press). Applied Psychoanalysis, Although psychoanalysis started as a method of treating neurotic people and as a theory of neurosis it soon spilled over into the world outside the consulting room. The application of the insights of psychoanalysis to cultural and social phenomena began with Freud himself in such works as Psychopathology of everyday life (1901), Jokes and their relation to the unconscious (1905c), Jensen’s ‘Gradiva’ (1906), Totem and taboo (1913), Future of an illusion (1927), Civilization and its discontents (1930), and Moses and monotheism (1939), not to mention numerous other shorter pieces. Many of Freud’s early followers were trained in fields other than medicine and were interested in applying psychoanalysis to literature, art, religion, mythology, politics, social organization, and so forth. Gradually, psychoanalytic concepts were adopted and used by professionals in other fields. We recently surveyed the influence of psychoanalysis on the social sciences (Hall and Lindzey, 1968) and found that in some of them, such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology, the influence has been fairly large, and in others, such as economics, political science, and history, the influence has been fairly slight. Its impact upon the analysis of art and literature has been quite strong. (See also Marmor, 1968.) Two of the most influential critics of present-day society, Herbert Marcuse66 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY (1955, 1964) and Norman O. Brown (1959, 1966) base their analyses firmly upon orthodox psychoanalytic theory in an attempt to find a solution for man’s present plight. Another book that belongs in the same company with Marcuse and Brown is Brigid Brophy’s Black ship to hell (1962). This erudite book is replete with analyses of social phenomena using the insights of Freud. The writings of the distinguished Oxford historian, E. R. Dodds (1951, 1965) exemplify the wise use that can be made of Freudian concepts in history. It is, of course, impossible to tease out all of the ways in which psycho- analysis has been applied since so much of it has been covert. It appears likely that applied psychoanalysis will become even more widely practiced in the future. Observational Studies of Infants and Children. We have already noted the analysis of young children by Melanie Klein and her associates and their modifications of Freudian theory. In this section, we wish to call attention to another new trend, namely observational studies of babies and children. In 1957, Lois Murphy (1957) pointed out that psychoanalysis and child psy- chology had pursued divergent pathways so that there was little inter- penetration of the two fields. Psychoanalysis depended for the most part upon adult reconstructions of their childhood whereas child psychology made direct observations of children’s behavior. In an influential paper on the genetic approach in psychoanalysis, Hart- mann and Kris (1945) advocated supplementing the reconstruction approach with direct observations of children. A large number of developmental studies have been made in recent years by psychoanalytically trained in- vestigators, many of which are reported in the annual volumes of The psychoanalytic study of the child (Anna Freud et al., 1945-). Recent text- books of child psychology reveal a growing use of Freudian theory. Experimental Validation of Psychoanalytic Propositions. Related to the interest in direct observations of the growing child is the increasing use of other nonanalytical methods for testing empirical propositions derived from psychoanalytic theory (Ezriel, Farrell and Stengel, 1951; Isaacs, Rick- man, and Thouless, 1951; Masserman, 1952, 1958- _). This trend reflects the attitude of some psychoanalysts and many psychologists that verification of psychoanalytic theory should not depend exclusively on data secured from patients undergoing treatment, but the hypotheses should be tested in the laboratory and other settings where the variables can be manipulated and controlled. Psychoanalysts have been urged by their colleagues to make more use of experimental methods (Kubie, 1952, 1960) and comparative studies withFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 67 animals (Levy, 1952). Colby, a prominent psychoanalyst has written a primer (1960) for psychoanalysts wishing to undertake experimentation. The experimental verification of Freudian hypotheses has been pursued with ever increasing activity by psychologists in recent years. Because this new work is characterized by a more informed understanding of Freudian theory and by more sophisticated methodology, earlier reviews of the litera- ture by Sears (1943, 1944), Hilgard (1952), and Blum (1953) are now primarily of historical value. There is a recent short review by Hilgard (1968) and an up-to date discussion of theory construction and validation in psychoanalysis by Horwitz (1963), in which he points out that the major pitfall confronting the investigator is the oversimplification of complex theoretical constructs. Psychoanalysis and Psychology. Psychoanalysis and psychology have a common background in nineteenth century science, but they remained independent of one another for a number of years because of their different interests. In its early years, psychology was concerned with investigating the elements and processes of consciousness. Sensation, perception, memory, and thinking were its chief topics of interest. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, was a psychology of the unconscious; its interests were in the areas of motivation, emotion, conflict, neurotic symptoms, dreams, and character traits. Moreover, the science of psychology grew up in an academic and laboratory setting, whereas psychoanalysis developed in a clinical setting; so representatives of the two disciplines had little contact with each other. Gradually, the gap between the two disciplines began to diminish and following World War Il, the interpenetration of psychology and psycho- analysis has grown at an accelerated rate. Freudian psychology is now one of the dominant viewpoints in academic psychology. Shakow and Rapaport (1964) and Hall and Lindzey (1968) discuss the reasons why psychology and psychoanalysis have grown closer together in recent years. On the one hand, psychoanalysis, which Freud always regarded as being a branch of psychology, has shown more interest in “normal” behavior, culminating in the construction of an ego psychology. The extent to which the “psycholo- gizing” of psychoanalysis has progressed is indicated by the title of a book of essays honoring the father of ego psychology, Heinz Hartmann. It is called Psychoanalysis: @ general psychology (Loewenstein, Newmann, Schur, and Solnit, 1966.) Labeling psychoanalysis “a general psychology” goes beyond what Freud claimed for it—a part and not the whole of psychology. Psychology for its part began to take an interest in motivation and personality, and the field of clinical psychology burgeoned during and following World War II. Psychologists found much that was relevant to its new concerns in psychoanalysis. Even prior to the war, individual psychol-68 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY ogists such as Kurt Lewin and Henry Murray conducted empirical research that was related to, and in part inspired by psychoanalysis. During the late thirties the efforts that were made to bring about a rapprochement between Hiull’s reinforcement theory and aspects of psychoanalysis by such psychol- ogists as Neal Miller, Hobart Mowrer, and Robert Sears brought more experimentalists into contact with Freud’s conceptions of personality. More recently, some psychologists have found in Piaget a useful bridge to psycho- analysis (Cobliner, 1967). On the theoretical side, David Rapaport (1959, 1960) drew up a con- ceptual model of psychoanalysis which is closely interwoven with a number of traditional psychological concepts. Symposia which included both psychol- ogists and psychoanalysts interested in examining the mutual relations be- tween the two fields were also helpful in reducing the communication gap (Frenkel-Brunswik, Richfield, Scriven, and Skinner, 1954; Pumpian-Mindlin, 1952; Bellak, 1959). It would be incorrect, however, to conclude that psychology and psycho- analysis have reached complete accord and understanding. Psychoanalysis, at least in the United States, still maintains closer ties with medicine than it does with psychology. It is very difficult to become a psychoanalyst without a medical degree despite Freud’s strong advocacy of lay analysis (1926a). The close association of psychoanalysis with medicine has been deplored by some psychoanalysts, notably by K. R. Eissler (1965). He argues vigorously for the view that psychoanalysis is a science of man with broad applications in all of the social sciences, and that it is not and should not be exclusively a medical specialty. Psychoanalysts and psychologists have their own pro- fessional organizations, and they infrequently encounter one another pro- fessionally. Nor do their paths cross very often at the level of graduate training. All of these factors plus an undisclosed amount of mutual suspicion and hostility work to keep the two groups apart. Criticisms. No other psychological theory has been subjected to such searching and often such bitter criticism as has psychoanalysis. From every side and on every conceivable score, Freud and his theory have been attacked, reviled, ridiculed, and slandered. The only comparable case in modern science, in which both the theory and the theorist have been so ardently vilified, is that of Charles Darwin whose evolutionary doctrine shocked Victorian England. Freud’s chief offenses consisted of ascribing lustful and destructive wishes to the baby, attributing incestuous and perverted urges to all human beings, and explaining man’s behavior in terms of sexual motiva- tion. “Decent” people were infuriated by Freud’s view of man and called him a libertine and a pervert.FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 69 It is not our intention to review the criticism that has been leveled at psychoanalysis. Much of it was scarcely more than the sound and fury of overwrought people. A lot of the criticism has been outdated by subsequent developments in Freud’s thinking. And a sizable portion of the criticism, it can be seen now, was based upon misinterpretations and distortions of psychoanalysis. A philosopher, Jerry Canning (1966), has made a logical analysis of the criticisms leveled at psychoanalysis and concludes that “of the many criticisms considered none is found to be meaningful and reasonable in terms of scientific ideals, and adequately supported by evidence.” More- over, to review the criticisms of psychoanalysis in an adequate manner would require a book at least as large as the present one. Instead, we shall discuss several types of criticisms which have been leveled repeatedly at psycho- analysis and which are still widely discussed. One type of criticism asserts that there are grave shortcomings in the empirical procedures by which Freud validated his hypotheses. It is pointed out that Freud made his observations under uncontrolled conditions. Freud acknowledged that he did not keep a verbatim record of what he and the patient said and did during the treatment hour, but that he worked from notes made several hours later. It is impossible to say how faithfully these notes reflected the events as they actually occurred but judging from ex- periments on the reliability of testimony it is not unlikely that distortions and omissions of various kinds crept into the record. Freud’s assumption that the significant material would be remembered and the trivial incidents forgotten has never been proved and seems improbable. Critics of Freud’s methods have also objected to his accepting at face value what a patient said without attempting to corroborate it by some form of external evidence. They believed he should have secured evidence from relatives and acquaintances, documents, test data, and medical information. However, Freud maintained that what was important for understanding human behavior was a thorough knowledge of the unconscious which could only be obtained from free association and dream analysis. Given then what was surely an incomplete record and more than likely an imperfect one, Freud proceeded to draw inferences and reach conclusions by a line of reasoning that was rarely made explicit. For the most part what we find in Freud’s writings is the end result of his thinking—the conclusions without the original data upon which they were based, without an account of his methods of analysis, and without any systematic presentation, either qualitative or quantitative, of his empirical findings. The reader is asked to take on faith the validity of his inductive and deductive operations. Conse- quently, it is practically impossible to repeat any of Freud’s investigations with any assurance that one is proceeding in accordance with the original70 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY design. This may help to explain why other investigators have reached quite different conclusions, and why there are so many interpretations of ostensibly the same phenomenon. Freud eschewed any quantifying of his empirical data which makes it impossible to weigh the statistical significance and reliability of his observa tions. In how many cases, for example, did he find an association between paranoia and homosexuality, between hysteria and fixation on the oral stage, between a wish and a phobia, between the primal scene and adult instability? How many cases of a particular type did he study and from what classes and backgrounds did these cases come? What measures and criteria were used for assigning a case to a particular clinical category? Did Freud ever check his interpretations against those of another competent psychoanalyst in order to establish the reliability of his judgment? These and numerous other ques- tions of a similar nature trouble the quantitatively oriented psychologist. Freud's disinclination to follow the conventions of full scientific reporting of his data leaves the door open for many doubts regarding the scientific status of psychoanalysis (Hook, 1960). Did Freud read into his cases what he wanted to find there? Were his inferences guided more by his biases than by the material at hand? Did he select only that evidence which was in agreement with his hypotheses and disregard negative instances? Were the free associations of his patients really free or were they telling Freud what he wanted to hear? Did Freud rear an elaborate theory of personality which was alleged to hold for all people on inferences drawn from the verbal utterances of a relatively small number of atypical patients? How much solid evidence did Freud really have to support his grandiloquent specula- tions? What safeguards did he employ against the insidious influence of subjectivism? Questions of this kind have cast doubts upon the validity of psychoanalytic theory. Lawrence Kubie, a prominent psychoanalyst, has summarized the limita- tions of psychoanalysis as a basic science in the following way. In general, they [the limitations] can be summarized by saying that the basic design of the process of analysis has essential scientific validity, but that the difficulties of recording and reproducing primary observations, the consequent difficulty in deriving the basic conceptual structure, the difficulties in examining with equal ease the circular relationship from unconscious to conscious and from conscious to unconscious, the difficulties in appraising quantitatively the multi- plicity of variables, and finally the difficulty of estimating those things which increase and those things which decrease the precision of its hypotheses and the validity of its predictions are among the basic scientific problems which remain to be solved (1953, pp. 143-144). Another type of criticism attacks the theory itself, and says in effect that the theory is “bad” because many parts of it do not have and cannot be madeFREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 71 to have empirical consequences. For example, it is impossible to derive any empirical propositions from the postulation of a death wish. This being so, the death wish “remains shrouded in metaphysical darkness” and has no meaning for science. Although one may use the death wish to “explain” certain phenomena, such as suicide or accidents, such after-the-fact explana- tions mean very little. It is like betting on a horse after the race has been run. A good theory, on the other hand, is one that enables its user to predict in advance what is going to happen. Some people may prefer to bring together and organize a mass of apparently unrelated data under the single heading of the death wish, but preferences of this sort merely indicate the interests of the systematizer and not the “truth” of the heading. Used in this way, the death wish is scarcely more than a slogan. Freudian theory is markedly deficient in providing a set of relational rules by which one can arrive at any precise expectations of what will happen if certain events take place, What exactly is the nature of the rela- tionship between traumatic experiences, guilt feelings, repression, symbol formation, and dreaming? What connects the formation of the superego with the Oedipus complex? These and a thousand other questions have still to be answered regarding the tangled web of concepts and assumptions that Freud conjured up. The theory stands silent on the knotty problem of how the interplay of cathexes and anticathexes are to be measured quantitatively. In fact, there is no specification of how one is to go about estimating, even in the roughest terms, differences in quantity. How intense does an experience have to be before it is traumatic? How weak must the ego be before it can be over- ridden by an instinctual impulse? In what ways do the various quantities interact with one another to produce a given result? And yet everything depends in the final analysis upon just such specifications. Lacking them no laws can be derived. If one concedes that psychoanalytic theory is guilty of at least two serious faults, first that it is a “bad” theory and second that it has not been substanti- ated by scientifically respectable procedures (and also mindful of the fact that many other criticisms might have been cited), the question then arises as to why psychoanalytic theory is taken seriously by anybody, and why it was not relegated to oblivion long ago. How are we to account for its domi- nant and influential status in the world today? The fact of the matter is that all theories of behavior are pretty poor theories and all of them leave much to be desired in the way of scientific proof. Psychology has a long way to go before it can be called an exact science. Consequently, the psychologist must select the theory he intends to follow for reasons other than those of formal adequacy and factual evidence. What does psychoanalytic theory have to offer? Some people like the72 + THEORIES OF PERSONALITY picturesque language which Freud uses to project his ideas. They are attracted by the skillful way in which he employs literary and mythological allusions to put across fairly abstruse notions and his talent for turning a phrase or creating a figure of speech in order to illuminate a difficult point for the reader. His writing has an exciting literary quality which is rare among scientists. The style is matched by the excitement of the ideas. Many people find Freud’s concepts fascinating and sensational. Of course, sex is an alluring topic and has a sensation value even when it is discussed in scientific works. Aggression and destructiveness are almost as absorbing as sex. It is only natural, then, that people are attracted by Freud’s writings. But a fine literary style and an exciting subject matter are not the main reasons for the great esteem in which Freud is held. Rather it is because his ideas are challenging, because his conception of man is both broad and deep, and because his theory has relevance for our times. Freud may not have been a rigorous scientist nor a first-rate theoretician, but he was a patient, metic- ulous, penetrating observer and a tenacious, disciplined, courageous, original thinker. Over and above all of the other virtues of his theory stands this one—it tries to envisage a full-bodied individual living partly in a world of reality and partly in a world of make-believe, beset by conflicts and inner contradictions, yet capable of rational thought and action, moved by forces of which he has little knowledge and by aspirations which are beyond his reach, by turn confused and clearheaded, frustrated and satisfied, hopeful and despairing, selfish and altruistic; in short, a complex human being. For many people, this picture of man has an essential validity. BIBLIOGRAPHY Prowary Sources Freud, 8. The standard edition of the complete psychological works. J, Strachey (Ed.). London: Hogarth Press, 1953. Freud, S. The interpretation of dreams. In Standard edition, Vols. 4 and 5. London: Hogarth Press, 1953. (First German edition, 1900.) Freud, S. The psychopathology of everyday life, In Standard edition, Vol. 6. London: Hogarth Press, 1960, (First German edition, 1901.) 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New York: Inter- national Universities Press, 1958, Hartmann, H, Essays on ego psychology: selected problems in psychoanalytic theory. ‘New York: International Universities Press, 1964, Hartmann, H. and Kris, E. The genetic approach in psychoanalysis, In Anna Freud et al, (Eds.). The psychoanalytic study of the child. Vol. 1. New York: International Universities Press, 1945, pp. 11-30. Hilgard, E. R, Experimental approaches to psychoanalysis. In E. Pumpian-Mindlin (Ed.). Psychoanalysis as science. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1952, pp. 3-45. Hilgard, E, R. Psychoanalysis: experimental studies. In D. L, Sills (Ed.). Inter- national Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol. 13, New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1968, pp. 37-45. Hilgard, E. R. and Bower, G. Theories of learning, New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1966. Holt, R. R. Ego autonomy re-evaluated. Int. J. Psychiat., 1965, 46, 151-167. Hook, S, (Ed.). Psychoanalysis, scientific method and philosophy. New York: Grove, 1960, Horwitz, L. Theory construction and validation in psychoanalysis. In M. H. Marx (Ed.), Theories in contemporary psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1963, pp. 413-434, Isaacs, N., Rickman, J., and Thouless, R. H. Methodology and research in psycho- pathology, Brit. J. Med. Psychol., 1951, 24, 1-25.76 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Jones, E. The life and work of Sigmund Freud. New York: Basic Books, Vol. 1, 1953; Vol. 2, 1955; Vol. 3, 1957. Klein, Melanie, Heimann, Paula, and Money-Kyrle, R. E. (Eds.), New directions in psycho-analysis: the significance of infant conflict in the pattern of adult behaviour. London: Tavistock Publications, 1955. Kubie, L. S, Problems and techniques of psychoanalytic validation and progress. In E, Pumpian-Mindlin (Ed.). Psychoanalysis as science, Stanford, Calif.: Stan- ford Univ. Press, 1952, pp. 46-124. Kubie, L. $. 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Science and psychoanalysis, New York: Grane and Stratton, 1958. Murphy, Lois B, Psychoanalysis and child development, Bull, Menninger Clin., 1957, 21, 177-188; 248-258, Nacht, S. Discussion of “The mutual influences in the development of ego and id.” In Anna Freud et al, (Eds.), The psychoanalytic study of the child. Vol. 7. ‘New York: International Universities Press, 1952, pp. 54-59. Pumpian-Mindlin, E. (Ed.). Psychoanalysis as science. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1952. Rapaport, D. The structure of psychoanalytic theory: a systematizing attempt. In S, Koch (Ed.), Psychology: a study of a science. Vol, 3, New York: McGraw- Hill, 1959, pp. 55-183. Rapaport, D. The structure of psychoanalytic theory: a systematizing attempt. Psychol. Issues, 1960, No. 6. Schur, M. The id and the regulatory principles of mental functioning. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assoc., Monograph series, 1966, No. 4, 1-220. Sears, R. R. Survey of objective studies of psychoanalytic concepts. Soc. Sci. Res. Council Bull., 1943, No. 51. Sears, R. R. Experimental analyses of psychoanalytic phenomena, In J. McV, Hunt (Ed.). Personality and the behavior disorders, Vol. 1. New York: Ronald Press, 1944, pp. 306-332.FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 77 Shakow, D. and Rapaport, D. The influence of Freud on American psychology. ‘New York: International Universities Press, 1964. Turiell, E. A historical analysis of the Freudian concept of the superego. Psychoanal. Rev., 1967, 54, 118-140. White, R. W. Ego and reality in psychoanalytic theory: a proposal regarding inde- pendent ego energies. Psychol. Issues, 1963, 3, (3), 1-210. Whyte, L. L. The unconscious before Freud. Garden City, N-Y.: Doubleday, 1962.CHAPTER THREE JUNGS ANALYTIC THEORY hte then repels other strong personalities, Such is the history of Carl Jung’s relationship to Freud and his ideas. Jung read Freud’s Interpretation of dreams soon after it was published and proceeded to adduce proof for the validity of some of Freud’s statements. In 1906 a regular correspondence began between Freud and Jung, and the following year Jung paid his first visit to Freud in Vienna. Their admiration for one another was very great, and Freud decided that Jung was to be his successor. When the Interna- tional Psychoanalytic Association was founded in 1910, Jung became its first president, a position he held until 1914, In 1909, Freud and Jung traveled together to Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, both having been invited to deliver a series of lectures at the celebration of the twentieth year of the founding of the university. Three years later, however, the personal relationship between Freud and Jung began to cool until finally in early 1913 they terminated their personal correspondence, and a few months later their business correspondence. In April, 1914, Jung resigned his presidency of the association, and in August, 1914, he withdrew as a member. The break was then complete. Freud and Jung never saw one another again. There have been many accounts of the relationship between Freud 78 A strong personality like that possessed by Freud often attracts andJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 79 and Jung including those of the two participants (Freud, 1914, 1925; Jung, 1961), Freud’s biographer, Ernest Jones (1955), and others (Weigert, 1942; Dry, 1961). The articles published by Jung while he was still influenced by Freud, and his subsequent criticisms of Freudian psychoanalysis have been brought together in Volume 4 of the Collected works. Two other ar- ticles on Freud are included in Volume 15. The 330 letters that passed between Freud and Jung during the years 1906-1913 have not yet been published. Although the causes for the rupture in the once intimate relationship were complex and “overdetermined,” involving as they did both personal and intellectual incompatibilities, one important reason was Jung’s rejection of Freud’s pansexualism. “The immediate reason was that Freud . . . identi- fied his method with his sex theory, which I deemed to be inadmissible” (personal communication from Jung, 1954). Jung then proceeded to forge his own theory of psychoanalysis and his own method of psychotherapy, which became known as analytical psychology, the lines of which had been laid down before he met Freud and which he had been working on consistently during the period of his association with Freud (Jung, 1913). Before discussing the salient and distinctive characteristics of Jung’s viewpoint, let us briefly review some aspects of his life. Carl Gustav Jung was born in Kesswyl, a town on Lake Constance in the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland, July 26, 1875, and grew up in Basel. His father was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church. Jung entered the University of Basel with the intention of becoming a classical philologist and if possible an arche- ologist, but a dream is supposed to have aroused his interest in the study of the natural sciences and thus incidentally in medicine. After obtaining his medical degree from the University of Basel he became an assistant in the Burghélzli Mental Hospital, Zurich, and the Psychiatric Clinic of Zurich and thus embarked upon a career in psychiatry. He assisted and later collaborated with Eugen Bleuler, the eminent psychiatrist who developed the concept of schizophrenia, and studied briefly with Pierre Janet, Char- cot’s pupil and successor in Paris. In 1909 he gave up his work at the Burghélzli and in 1913 his instructorship in psychiatry at the University of Zurich in order to devote full time to private practice, training, research, traveling, and writing. For many years he conducted a seminar in English for English-speaking students, and following his retirement from active teaching a training institute named for him was started in Zurich. In 1944 a chair of medical psychology was founded especially for Jung at the Uni- versity of Basel, but poor health required his resigning the chair after a year. He died June 6, 1961 in Zurich at the age of 85. No full length biog- raphy of Jung comparable to Ernest Jones’ biography of Freud has been published yet. In the year of Jung’s death there was published an auto-80 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY biography, Memories, dreams, reflections (1961), which was in part di- rectly written by Jung and in part recorded and edited by his confidential secretary, Aniela Jaffe, and supplemented by material from talks given by Jung. Memories, dreams, reflections is primarily an inner or spiritual autobiography, although it also contains a great deal of information about the external events in Jung’s life. The tone of the book is set by the first sentence, “My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious.” Biographical material for Jung can be found in Frieda Fordham (1953), Bennet (1961), and Dry (1961). Carl Jung is acknowledged to be one of the foremost psychological thinkers of the 20th century. For sixty years, he devoted himself with great energy and with a singularity of purpose to analyzing the far-flung and deep-lying processes of human personality. His writings are voluminous and the extent of his influence incalculable. He is known not only to psy- chologists and psychiatrists but to educated people in all walks of life. Many honors were bestowed upon him, among them honorary degrees from Harvard University and Oxford University. He often lectured in the United States and has many followers and admirers in this country. Although Jung’s theory of personality is usually identified as a psycho- analytic theory because of the emphasis that it places upon unconscious processes, it differs in some notable respects from Freud’s theory of per- sonality, Perhaps the most prominent and distinctive feature of Jung’s view of man is that it combines teleology with causality. Man’s behavior is con- ditioned not only by his individual and racial history (causality) but also by his aims and aspirations (teleology). Both the past as actuality and the future as potentiality guide one’s present behavior. Jung’s view of personality is prospective in the sense that it looks ahead to the person’s future line of development and retrospective in the sense that it takes account of the past. To paraphrase Jung, “the person lives by aims as well as by causes.” This insistence upon the role of destiny or purpose in human development sets Jung clearly apart from Freud. For Freud, there is only the endless repeti- tion of instinctual themes until death intervenes. For Jung, there is constant and often creative development, the search for wholeness and completion, and the yearning for rebirth. Jung’s theory is also distinguished from all other approaches to per- sonality by the strong emphasis that it places upon the racial and phylo- genetic foundations of personality. Jung sees the individual personality as the product and container of its ancestral history. Modern man has been shaped and molded into his present form by the cumulative experiences of past generations extending far back into the dim and unknown origins of man. The foundations of personality are archaic, primitive, innate, un-JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 81. conscious, and probably universal. Freud stresses the infantile origins of personality whereas Jung emphasizes the racial origins of personality. Man is born with many predispositions that have been bequeathed to him by his ancestors; these predispositions guide his conduct and determine in part what he will become conscious of and respond to in his own world of ex- perience, In other words, there is a racially preformed and collective per- sonality which reaches out selectively into the world of experience and is modified and elaborated by the experiences that it receives. An individual's personality is a resultant of inner forces acting upon and being acted upon by outer forces. This great respect for man’s racial past and the bearing that it has upon man today meant that Jung, more than any other psychologist, probed into man’s history to learn what he could of the racial origins and evolution of personality. He studied mythology, religion, ancient symbols and rituals, the customs and beliefs of primitive people, as well as dreams, visions, the symptoms of neurotics, and the hallucinations and delusions of psychotics, in his search for the roots and developments of human personality. His learning and erudition, both as to breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding, are probably unsurpassed among present-day psychologists. Dry (1961) has identified some of the important intellectual develop- ments of the 19th century that presumably influenced Jung. First, there were the philosophers, particularly Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, and Nietzsche, with their conceptions of the unconscious, of polarity working toward unity, and the substitution of will or intuition for reasoning in compre- hending reality. Then there was the newly developed German and French psychiatry .. . ; the scientific dis- coveries of other fields, especially biology; the widespread acceptance of evolu- tionary theory .. . ; the application of evolutionary ideas to man, including the study of his social organization and religion, and the controversy between the proponents of psychic unity and cultural difusion in exploring similarities [among different societies]; the imagination-stirring finds of archeology; and the great literary, historical and theological traditions of Germany, with a strong tincture of Romanticism (pp. 19-20). Dry also feels that the neutrality and stability of Switzerland favored a life of thought and solitude. We will now present the principal features of Jung’s theory of personality. Although theoretical formulations are found throughout his voluminous writings, Volumes 7, 8, and 9, Part 1 of the Collected works contain the most systematic statements of his position.82 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY The total personality or psyche, as it is called by Jung, consists of a num- ber of differentiated but interacting systems. The principal ones are the ego, the personal unconscious and its complexes, the collective unconscious and its archetypes, the persona, the anima and animus, and the shadow. In addition to these interdependent systems there are the attitudes of intro- version and extraversion, and the functions of thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting. Finally, there is the se/f which is the center of the whole person- ality. ‘The Ego. The ego is the conscious mind. It is made up of conscious per- ceptions, memories, thoughts, and feelings. The ego is responsible for one’s feeling of identity and continuity, and from the viewpoint of the person himself it is regarded as being at the center of consciousness. The Personal Unconscious. The personal unconscious is a region ad- joining the ego. It consists of experiences that were once conscious but which have been repressed, suppressed, forgotten, or ignored and of ex- periences that were too weak in the first place to make a conscious im- pression upon the person. The contents of the personal unconscious, like those of Freud’s preconscious material, are accessible to consciousness, and there is a great deal of two-way traffic between the personal unconscious and the ego. Comptexes. A complex is an organized group or constellation of feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and memories which exists in the personal uncon- scious. It has a nucleus which acts as a kind of magnet attracting to it or “constellating” various experiences (Jung, 1934). Consider, for example, the mother complex (Jung, 1954a). The nucleus is derived in part from racial experiences with mothers and in part from the child’s experiences with his mother. Ideas, feelings, and memories re- lating to the mother are attracted to the nucleus and form a complex. The stronger the force emanating from the nucleus the more experiences it will pull to itself. Thus, someone whose personality is dominated by his mother is said to have a strong mother complex. His thoughts, feelings, and ac- tions will be guided by his conception of the mother, what she says and what she feels will mean a great deal to him, and her image will be upper- most in his mind. A complex may behave like an autonomous personality which has a mental life and a motor of its own. It may seize control of the personality and utilize the psyche for its own ends, as Tolstoi is said to have been dominated by the idea of simplification and Hitler by the lust for power.JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 83, The nucleus and many of the associated elements are unconscious at any particular time, but any of the associations and even the nucleus itself can and often do become conscious. The Collective Unconscious. The concept of a collective or transpersonal unconscious is one of the most original and controversial features of Jung’s personality theory. It is the most powerful and influential system of the psyche, and in pathological cases overshadows the ego and the personal unconscious (Jung, 1936, 1943, 1945). The collective unconscious is the storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from man’s ancestral past, a past that includes not only the racial history of man as a separate species but his prehuman or animal ancestry as well. The collective unconscious is the psychic residue of man’s evolu- tionary development, a residue that accumulates as a consequence of repeated experiences over many generations. It is almost entirely detached from any- thing personal in the life of an individual and it is seemingly universal. All human beings have more or less the same collective unconscious. Jung at- tributes the universality of the collective unconscious to the similarity of the structure of the brain in all races of men, and this similarity in turn is due to a common evolution. Racial memories or representations are not inherited as such; rather we inherit the possibility of reviving experiences of past generations. They are predispositions which set us to react to the world in a selective fashion. ‘These predispositions are projected on the world. For example, since human beings have always had mothers, every infant is born with the predisposi- tion to perceive and react to a mother. The individually acquired knowledge of the mother is a fulfillment of an inherited potentiality that has been built into man’s brain by the past experiences of the race. Just as man is born with the capacity for seeing the world in three dimensions and develops this capacity through experience and training, so man is born with many pre- dispositions for thinking, feeling, and perceiving according to definite pat- terns and contents which become actualized through individualized ex- petiences, Man is predisposed to be afraid of the dark or of snakes because it may be assumed primitive man encountered many dangers in the dark and was a victim of poisonous snakes. ‘These latent fears may never de- velop in modern man unless they are strengthened by specific experiences, but nonetheless the tendency is there and makes one more susceptible to such experiences. Some ideas are easily formed, such as the idea of a Supreme Being, because the disposition has been firmly imprinted in the brain and needs very little reinforcement from individual experience to make it emerge into consciousness and influence behavior. These latent or po- tential memories depend upon inherent structures and pathways that have84 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY been engraved on the brain as a result of the cumulative experiences of mankind. To deny the inheritance of these primordial memories, Jung as- serts, is to deny the evolution and inheritance of the brain. The collective unconscious is the inherited, racial foundation of the whole structure of personality. Upon it are erected the ego, the personal uncon- scious, and all other individual acquisitions, What a person learns as a result of experiences is substantially influenced by the collective unconscious which exercises a guiding or selective influence over the behavior of the person from the very beginning of life, “The form of the world into which he is born is already inborn in him as a virtual image” (Jung, 1945, p. 188). This virtual image becomes a concrete perception or idea by identi- fying itself with objects in the world that correspond to the image. One’s experiences of the world are shaped to a large extent by the collective un- conscious, although not completely so for otherwise there could be no varia- tion and development. The two unconscious regions of the mind, the personal and the collec- tive, can be of immense service to man. “It [the unconscious] holds possi- bilities which are locked away from the conscious mind, for it has at its disposal all subliminal contents, all those things which have been forgotten or overlooked, as well as the wisdom and experience of uncounted cen- turies, which are laid down in its archetypal organs” (Jung, 1943, p. 114). On the other hand, if the wisdom of the unconscious is ignored by the ego, the unconscious may disrupt the conscious rational processes by seizing hold of them and twisting them into distorted forms. Symptoms, phobias, delusions, and other irrationalities stem from neglected unconscious processes. Arcuryres. The structural components of the collective unconscious are called by various names: archetypes, dominants, primordial images, imagoes, mythological images, and behavior patterns (Jung, 1943). An archetype is a universal thought form (idea) which contains a large element of emotion. This thought form creates images or visions that correspond in normal waking life to some aspect of the conscious situation. For example, the archetype of the mother produces an image of a mother figure which is then jdentified with the actual mother. In other words, the baby inherits-a pre- formed conception of a generic mother which determines in part how the baby will perceive Ais mother, The baby’s perception is also influenced by the nature of the mother and by the infant’s experiences with her. Thus, the baby's experience is the joint product of an inner predisposition to per- ceive the world in a certain manner and the actual nature of that world. The two determinants usually fit together compatibly because the archetype itself is a product of racial experiences with the world, and these experiences are much the same as those that any individual living in any age and in any part of the world will have. That is to say, the nature of mothers—what theyJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 85 do—has remained pretty much the same throughout the history of the race, so that the mother archetype which the baby inherits is congruent with the actual mother with whom the baby interacts. How does an archetype originate? It is a permanent deposit in the mind of an experience that has been constantly repeated for many generations. For instance, countless generations of men have seen the sun make its daily excursion from one horizon to the other. The repetition of this impressive experience eventually became fixed in the collective unconscious as an arche- type of the sun-god, the powerful, dominating, light-giving, heavenly body that men deified and worshipped. Certain conceptions and images of a supreme deity are offshoots of the sun archetype. In a similar manner, man has been exposed throughout his existence to innumerable instances of great natural forces—earthquakes, waterfalls, floods, hurricanes, lightning, forest fires, and so forth. Out of these experiences there has developed an archetype of energy, a predisposition to perceive and be fascinated by power and a desire to create and control power. The child’s delight in firecrackers, the young person’s preoccupation with fast cars, and the adult’s obsessive interest in releasing the hidden energies of atoms have their roots in the archetype of energy. Man is driven by this archetype to seek new sources of energies. Our present age of energy represents the ascendance of the energy archetype. That is, archetypes function as highly charged autonomous centers of energy that tend to produce in each genera- tion the repetition and elaboration of these same experiences. Archetypes are not necessarily isolated from one another in the collective unconscious. They interpenetrate and interfuse with one another. Thus, the archetype of the hero and the archetype of the wise old man may blend together to produce the conception of the “philosopher king,” a person who is responded to and revered because he is both a hero leader and a wise seer. Sometimes, as seemed to be the case with Hitler, there is a fusion of the demon and hero archetypes so that one gets a satanic leader. ‘As we have already seen, the nucleus of a complex may be an archetype which draws experiences to it. The archetype can then penetrate into con- sciousness by way of these associated experiences. Myths, dreams, visions, rituals, neurotic and psychotic symptoms, and works of art contain a great deal of archetypal material, and constitute the best source of knowledge regarding archetypes. Jung and his associates have done a prodigious amount of work on archetypal representations in religions, myths, and dreams. There are presumed to be numerous archetypes in the collective uncon- scious. Some of the ones that have been identified are archetypes of birth, rebirth, death, power, magic, unity, the hero, the child, God, the demon, the old wise man, the earth mother, and the animal. Although all archetypes may be thought of as autonomous dynamic86 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY systems that can become relatively independent of the rest of the personality, some archetypes have evolved so far as to warrant their being treated as separate systems with the personality. These are the persona, the anima and animus, and the shadow. The Persona. The persona is a mask which is adopted by the person in response to the demands of social convention and tradition and to his own inner archetypal needs (Jung, 1945). It is the role assigned to him by society, the part that society expects him to play in life. The purpose of the mask is to make a definite impression upon others and often, although not necessarily, conceals the real nature of the person. The persona is the public personality, those aspects which one displays to the world or which public opinion fastens on the individual as contrasted with the private personality which exists behind the social fagade. If the ego identifies with the persona, as it frequently does, the individual becomes more conscious of the part that he is playing than he is of his genuine feelings. He becomes alienated from himself and his whole personality takes on a flat or two-dimensional quality. He becomes a mere semblance of a man, a reflection of society instead of an autonomous human being. The nucleus from which the persona develops is an archetype. This archetype, like all archetypes, originates out of the experiences of the race; in this case, the experiences consist of social interactions in which the assumption of a social role has served a useful purpose to man throughout his history as a social animal. The Anima and the Animus. It is fairly well recognized and accepted that man is essentially a bisexual animal. On a physiological level, the male secretes both male and female sex hormones, as does the female. On the psychological level, masculine and feminine characteristics are found in both sexes. Homosexuality is just one of the conditions, but perhaps the most striking one, that has given rise to the conception of human bisexuality. Jung ascribes the feminine side of man’s personality and the masculine side of woman’s personality to archetypes. The feminine archetype in man is called the anima, the masculine archetype in woman is called the animus (Jung, 1945, 1954b). These archetypes, although they may be conditioned by the sex chromosomes and the sex glands, are the products of the racial ex- periences of man with woman and woman with man. In other words, by living with woman throughout the ages man has become feminized; by living with man woman has become masculinized. Not only do these archetypes cause each sex to manifest characteristics of the opposite sex but they also act as collective images which motivateJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 87 each sex to respond to and understand members of the opposite sex. Man apprehends the nature of woman by virtue of his anima, and woman apprehends the nature of man by virtue of her animus. But the anima and animus may also lead to misunderstanding and discord if the archetypal image is projected without regard for the real character of the partner. ‘That is, if a man tries to identify his idealized image of woman with an actual woman, and does not take into account sufficiently the discrepancies between the ideal and the real, he may suffer bitter disappointment when he realizes that the two are not identical. ‘There has to be a compromise be- tween the demands of the collective unconscious and the actualities of the external world in order for the person to be reasonably well adjusted. ‘The Shadow. The shadow archetype consists of the animal instincts which man inherited in his evolution from lower forms of life (Jung, 1948a). Consequently, the shadow to begin with typifies the animal side of man’s nature. As an archetype the shadow is responsible for man’s conception of original sin; when it is projected outward it becomes the devil or an enemy. The shadow archetype is also responsible for the appearance in conscious- ness and behavior of unpleasant and socially reprehensible thoughts, feelings, and actions. These then may either be hidden from public view by the persona or repressed into the personal unconscious. Thus the shadow-side of personality which owes its origin to an archetype permeates the private aspects of the ego and a large part of the contents of the personal unconscious as well. The shadow with its vital and passionate animal instincts gives a full- bodied or three-dimensional quality to the personality. It helps to round out the whole person. The Self. In his earlier writings Jung considered the self to be equivalent to the psyche or total personality. However, when he began to explore the racial foundations of personality and discovered the archetypes, he found one that represented man’s striving for unity (Wilhelm and Jung, 1931). This archetype expresses itself through various symbols, the chief one being the mandala or magic circle (Jung, 1955a). In his book Psychology and alchemy (1944), Jung develops a psychology of totality based upon the mandala symbol. The main concept of this psychology of total unity is the self. The self is the mid-point of personality, around which all of the other systems are constellated. It holds these systems together and provides the personality with unity, equilibrium, and stability. If we picture the conscious mind with the ego as its centre, as being opposed to the unconscious, and if we now add to our mental picture the process of assimi-88 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY lating the unconscious, we can think of this ‘assimilation as a kind of approxima- tion of conscious and unconscious, where the centre of the total personality no longer coincides with the ego, but with a point midway between the conscious and unconscious. This would be the point of a new equilibrium, a new centering of the total personality, a virtual centre which, on account of its focal position be- tween conscious and unconscious, ensures for the personality a new and more solid foundation (Jung, 1945, p. 219). ‘The self is life’s goal, a goal that people constantly strive for but rarely reach. Like all archetypes, it motivates man’s behavior and causes him to search for wholeness especially through the avenues provided by religion. True religious experiences are about as close to selfhood as most men will ever come, and the figures of Christ and Buddha are as highly differentiated expressions of the self archetype as one will find in the modern world. It is not surprising to learn that Jung discovered the self in his studies and observations of the religions of the Orient, in which the striving for unity and oneness with the world through various ritualistic practices such as Yoga is further advanced than in western religions. Before a self can emerge it is necessary for the various components of the personality to become fully developed and individuated. For this reason, the archetype of the self does not become evident until the person has reached middle age. At this time, he begins to make a serious effort to change the center of personality from the conscious ego to one that is midway between consciousness and unconsciousness. This midway region is the province of the self. The concept of the self is probably Jung’s most important psychological discovery and represents the culmination of his intensive studies of arche- types. ‘The Attitudes. Jung distinguishes two major attitudes or orientations of personality, the attitude of extraversion and the attitude of introversion. ‘The extraverted attitude orients the person toward the external, objective world; the introverted attitude orients the person toward the inner, sub- jective world (1933a). These two opposing attitudes are both present in the personality but ordinarily one of them is dominant and conscious while the other is sub- ordinate and unconscious. If the ego is predominantly extraverted in its relation to the world, the personal unconscious will be introverted. The Functions. There are four fundamental psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting. Thinking is ideational and in- tellectual. By thinking man tries to comprehend the nature of the world and himself, Feeling is the evaluation function; it is the value of things,JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 89 whether positive or negative, with reference to the subject. The feeling function gives man his subjective experiences of pleasure and pain, of anger, fear, sorrow, joy, and love. Sensing is the perceptual or reality function. It yields concrete facts or representations of the world. Intuition is perception by way of unconscious processes and subliminal contents. The intuitive man goes beyond facts, feelings, and ideas in his search for the essence of reality. ‘The nature of the four functions may be clarified by the following ex- ample, Suppose that a person is standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado river. If the feeling function predominates he will experi- ence a sense of awe, grandeur, and breath-taking beauty. If he is controlled by the sensation function he will see the Canyon merely as it is or as a photograph might represent it. If the thinking function controls his ego he will try to understand the Canyon in terms of geological principles and theory. Finally, if the intuitive function prevails the spectator will tend to see the Grand Canyon as a mystery of nature possessing deep significance whose meaning is partially revealed or felt as a mystical experience. That there are exactly four psychological functions is, Jung states, “a matter of empirical fact.” But as the following consideration will show, a certain completeness is attained by these four. Sensation establishes what is actually given, thinking enables us to recognize its meaning, fecling tells us its value, and finally intuition points to the possibilities of the whence and whither that lic within the immediate facts. In this way we can orientate ourselves with respect to the immediate world as completely as when we locate a place geographically by latitude and longitude (jung, 1933b, p. 107). Thinking and feeling are called rational functions because they make use of reason, judgment, abstraction, and generalization. They enable man to look for lawfulness in the universe. Sensation and intuition are con- sidered to be irrational functions because they are based upon the perception of the concrete, particular, and accidental, Although a person has all four functions they are not necessarily equally well developed. Usually one of the four functions is more highly differen- tiated than the other three, and plays a predominant role in consciousness. This is called the superior function. One of the other three functions usually acts in an auxiliary capacity to the superior function. If the superior func- tion is prevented from operating the auxiliary function automatically takes its place. The least differentiated of the four functions is called the inferior function. It is repressed and unconscious. The inferior function expresses itself in dreams and fantasies. The inferior function also has an auxiliary function associated with it.90 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY If the four functions are placed equidistant from each other on the circumference of a circle, the center of the circle represents the synthesis of the four fully differentiated functions. In such a synthesis there are no supe- rior or inferior functions and no auxiliaries. They are all of equal strength in the personality. Such a synthesis can only occur when the self has become fully actualized. Since complete actualization of the self is impossible, the synthesis of the four functions represents an ideal goal towards which the personality strives. Interactions Among the Systems of Personality. The various systems and the attitudes and functions that go to make up the total personality interact with each other in three different ways. One system may compensate for the weakness of another system, one system may oppose another system, or two or more systems may unite to form a synthesis. Compensation may be illustrated by the interaction of the contrasting attitudes of extraversion and introversion. If extraversion is the dominant or superior attitude of the conscious ego, then the unconscious will com- pensate by developing the repressed attitude of introversion. This means that if the extraverted attitude is frustrated in some way, the unconscious inferior attitude of introversion will seize hold of the personality and exert itself. A period of intense extraverted behavior is ordinarily followed by a period of introverted behavior. Dreams are also compensatory so that the dreams of a predominantly extraverted person will have an introverted quality, and conversely, the dreams of an introvert will tend to be extra- verted. Compensation also occurs between functions. A person who stresses thinking and feeling in his conscious mind will be an intuitive, sensation type unconsciously. Likewise, the ego and the anima in a man and the ego and the animus in a woman bear a compensatory relationship to each other. The normal male ego is masculine while the anima is feminine and the normal female ego is feminine while the animus is masculine. In general, all of the contents of the conscious mind are compensated for by the contents of the unconscious mind. The principle of compensation provides for a kind of equilibrium or balance between contrasting elements which prevents the psyche from becoming neurotically unbalanced. Virtually all personality theorists of whatever creed or persuasion assume that the personality contains polar tendencies that may come into conflict with one another. Jung is no exception. He believes that a psychological theory of personality must be founded on the principle of opposition or conflict because the tensions created by conflicting elements are the very essence of life itself. Without tension there would be no energy and con- sequently no personality.JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 91 Opposition exists everywhere in the personality; between the ego and the shadow, between the ego and the personal unconscious, between the persona and the anima or animus, between the persona and the personal unconscious, between the collective unconscious and the ego, and between the collective unconscious and the persona. Introversion opposes extraversion, thinking opposes feeling, and sensation opposes intuition. The ego is like a shuttlecock that is batted back and forth between the outer demands of society and the inner demands of the collective unconscious..As a result of this struggle a persona or mask develops. The persona then finds itself under attack from other archetypes in the collective unconscious. The woman in man, that is, the anima, invades the male’s masculine nature and the animus chips away at the femininity of woman. The contest between the rational and irrational forces of the psyche never ceases. Conflict is a ubiquitous fact of life. ‘Must personality always be a house divided against itself? Jung believes not. Polar elements not only oppose one another, they also attract or seek one another. The situation is analogous to a husband and wife who quarrel with each other yet are held together by the very differences that provoke the disagreements. The union of opposites is accomplished by what Jung calls the transcendent function (see below). The operation of this function results in the synthesis of contrary systems to form a balanced, integrated personality. The center of this integrated personality is the self. An Examp.e or Interaction AMONG THE SysTEMs oF Personatiry. To illustrate the kinds of interactions that take place within the psyche, let us consider the relations between the anima and the other systems of personal- ity. Jung says “the whole nature of man presupposes woman .. . his sys- tem is tuned in to woman from the start...” (Jung, 1945, p. 188). The male infant, equipped with his archetype of woman, is instinctively attracted to the first woman he experiences, who is usually his mother. The establish- ing of a close relationship is nurtured, in turn, by the mother. However, as the child grows older these maternal bonds become restrictive and frustrat- ing, if not actually dangerous to the child, so that the mother complex which has been formed in the ego is repressed into the personal unconscious. At the same time that this development is taking place, feminine traits and attitudes which have been implanted in the ego by the anima are also repressed because they are alien to the role that society expects him to play as a male. In other words, his inborn femininity is repressed by a counter- force emanating from the persona and other archetypes. As a result of these two acts of repression, the child’s feelings for his mother and his femininity are driven from the ego into the personal un- conscious. Thus, man’s perception of women and his feelings and behavior92 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY toward them are directed by the combined forces of the personal and the collective unconscious. The integrative task imposed upon the ego as a consequence of these vicissitudes of the mother archetype and the feminine archetype (the anima) is to find a woman who resembles the mother imago and who also fulfills the needs of his anima. If he chooses a woman who is at variance with either or both of these unconscious models, he is headed for trouble, because his conscious positive feelings for her will be disturbed by unconscious negative feelings. They will make him dissatisfied with her and he will blame her for various fancied faults and shortcomings without becoming aware of the real reasons for his discontent. If the transcendent function is operating smoothly it will unite all of his contradictory impulses and cause him to select a mate with whom he can be happy. All of the important decisions in life require that due consideration be given unconscious as well as conscious factors if they are to be successful. Jung says that a great deal of maladjustment and unhappiness is due to a one-sided development of personality which ignores important facets of man’s nature. These neglected facets create personality disturbances and irrational conduct. For Jung, the personality is an exceedingly complex structure, Not only are there numerous components—the number of possible archetypes and complexes, for example, is legion—but the interactions between these com- ponents are intricate and involved. No other personality theorist has evolved such a rich and complex description of the structure of personality. THE DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY Jung conceives of the personality or psyche as being a partially closed energy system. It is said to be incompletely closed because energy from outside sources must be added to the system, for example, by eating, and energy is subtracted from the system, for example, by performing muscular work, It is also possible for environmental stimuli to produce changes in the distribution of energy within the system. This happens, for instance, when a sudden change in the external world reorients our attention and perception. The fact that the personality dynamics are subject to influences and modifications from external sources means that the personality cannot achieve a state of perfect stabilization, as it might if it were a completely closed system. It can only become relatively stabilized. Psychic Energy. The energy by which the work of the personality is per- formed is called psychic energy (Jung, 1948b). Psychic energy is a manifes-JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 93 tation of life energy which is the energy of the organism as a biological system. Psychic energy originates in the same manner as does all vital energy, namely, from the metabolic processes of the body. Jung’s term for life energy is libido but he also uses libido interchangeably with psychic energy. Jung does not take a positive stand on the relation of psychic energy to physical energy but he believes that some kind of reciprocal action between the two is a tenable hypothesis. Psychic energy is a hypothetical construct; it is not a concrete substance or phenomenon. Consequently it cannot be measured or sensed. Psychic energy finds concrete expression in the form of actual or potential forces. Wishing, willing, feeling, attending, and striving are examples of actual forces in the personality; dispositions, aptitudes, tendencies, inclinations, and attitudes are examples of potential forces. Psycuic Vatuzs. The amount of psychic energy invested in an element of the personality is called the value of that element. Value is a measure of intensity. When we speak of placing a high value upon a particular idea or feeling, we mean that the idea or feeling exerts a considerable force in instigating and directing behavior. A person who values truth will expend a great deal of energy on the search for it. One who places great value upon power will be highly motivated to obtain power. Conversely, if something is of trivial value it will have little energy attached to it. The absolute value of an idea or feeling cannot be determined, but its relative: value can be. One simple although not necessarily accurate way of determining relative values is to ask a person whether he prefers one thing more than another. The order of his preferences can be taken as a rough measure of the relative strengths of his values. Or an experimental situation can be devised to test whether an individual will work harder for one in- centive than for another. Observing someone closely for a period of time to see what he does yields quite a fair picture of his relative values. If he spends more time reading than he does playing cards, then it can be assumed that reading is more highly valued than card-playing. Tue Consrettatmc Power or a Compiex. Such observations and tests, useful though they may be for the determination of conscious values, do not shed much light upon the unconscious values. These have to be deter- mined by evaluating the “constellating power of the nuclear element of a complex.” The constellating power of a complex consists of the number of groups of items that are brought into association by the nuclear element of the complex. Thus, if one has a strong patriotic complex it means that the nucleus, love of one’s country, will produce constellations of experiences around it. One such constellation may consist of important events in the history of one’s nation, while another may be a positive feeling towards94 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY national leaders and heroes. A very patriotic person is predisposed to fit any new experience into one of the constellations associated with patriotism. What means are available for assessing the constellating power of a nuclear element? Jung discusses three methods; these are (1) direct observa- tion plus analytical deductions, (2) complex indicators, and (3) the intensity of emotional expression. Through observation and inference one can arrive at an estimate of the number of associations that are attached to a nuclear element. A person who has a strong mother complex will tend to introduce his mother or some- thing associated with his mother into every conversation whether it is ap- propriate or not. He will prefer stories and movies in which mothers play a prominent role and he will make a great deal out of Mother’s Day and other occasions on which he can honor his mother. He will tend to imitate his mother by adopting her preferences and interests, and he will be attracted to her friends and associates. And he will prefer older women to women his own age. ‘A complex does not always manifest itself publicly. It may appear in dreams or in some obscure form so that it is necessary to employ circum- stantial evidence in order to discover the underlying significance of the experience. This is what is meant by analytical deduction. A complex indicator is any disturbance of behavior which indicates the presence of a complex. It may be a slip of the tongue, for instance, when a man says “mother” when he intended to say “wife.” It may be an unusual blockage of memory as happens when a person cannot remember the name of a friend because the name resembles that of his mother or something associated with his mother. Complex indicators also appear in the word association test. Jung discovered the existence of complexes in 1903 by experiments using the word association test (Jung, 1918). This test, now so widely employed in the evaluation of personality, consists of a standard list of words which are read one at a time to the person being tested. The subject is instructed to reply with the first word that enters his mind. If he takes an unusually long time to reply to a particular word, this indicates that the word is con- nected in some manner with a complex. Repetition of the stimulus word and an inability to respond at all are also complex indicators. ‘The intensity of one’s emotional reaction to a situation is another meas- ure of the strength of a complex. If the heart beats faster, the breathing be- comes deeper, and the blood drains from the face, these are pretty good indi- cations that a strong complex has been tapped. By combining physiological measures such as the pulse, respiration, and electrical changes in the con- ductivity of the skin with the word association test, it is possible to make a fairly accurate determination of the strength of a person’s complexes.JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 95 The Principle of Equivalence. Jung bases his view of psycho-dynamics upon two fundamental principles, the principle of equivalence and that of entropy (Jung, 1948b). The principle of equivalence states that if energy is expended in bringing about a certain condition, the amount expended will appear elsewhere in the system. Students of physics will recognize this principle as the first law of thermodynamics or the principle of the con- servation of energy as propounded by Helmholtz. As applied to psychic functioning by Jung, the principle states that if a particular value weakens or disappears, the sum of energy represented by the value will not be lost from the psyche but will reappear in a new value, The lowering of one value inevitably means the raising of another value. For example, as the child’s valuation of his family decreases, his interest in other people and things will increase. A person who loses his interest in a hobby will usually find that another one has taken its place. If a value is repressed, its energy can be used to create dreams or fantasies. It is possible, of course, for the energy lost from one value to be distributed among several other values. In terms of the functioning of the total personality, the principle of equivalence states that if energy is removed from one system, for example the ego, it will appear in some other system, perhaps the persona. Or if more and more values are repressed into the shadow-side of personality, it will grow strong at the expense of the positive side of personality. Likewise, the de-energizing of the conscious ego is accompanied by the energizing of the unconscious. Energy is continuously flowing from one system of person- ality into other systems. These redistributions of energy constitute the dy- namics of personality. OE course, the principle of the conservation of energy cannot apply in any strict manner to a system like the psyche which is only partially closed. Energy is added to or subtracted from the psyche, and the rate at which it is added or subtracted can and probably does vary considerably. Con- sequently, the rise or fall of a value may be due not only to a transfer of energy from one part of the system to another but it may depend also upon the addition of energy from sources external to the psyche or by the subtraction of energy when muscular work is performed. One is invigorated mentally as well as physically after eating a meal or taking a rest, and one becomes mentally and physically tired after a period of work or exercise. It is these exchanges of energy between the psyche and the organism or the external world as well as the redistribution of energy within the psyche itself that are of great interest to Jung and to all dynamic psychologists. The Principle of Entropy. The principle of entropy or the second law of thermodynamics states, in effect, that when two bodies of different temperatures are placed in contact with one another heat will pass from the96 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY hotter to the colder body. Another example is that of the fow of water which is always in the direction of moving from a higher level to a lower level when a channel is available. ‘The operation of the principle of entropy results in an equilibrium of forces. The warmer object loses thermal energy to the colder one until the two objects have the same temperature. At that point, the energy exchange stops and the two objects are said to be in thermal balance. The principle of entropy as adapted by Jung to describe personality dynamics states that the distribution of energy in the psyche seeks an equilibrium or balance. Thus, to take the simplest case, if two values (energy intensities) are of unequal strength, energy will tend to pass from the stronger value into the weaker value until a balance is reached. How- ever, since the psyche is not a closed system, energy may be added to or subtracted from either of the opposing values and upset the equilibrium. Although a permanent balance of forces in the personality can never be established, this is the ideal state towards which the distribution of energy always strives. This ideal state in which the total energy is evenly distributed throughout the various fully developed systems is the self. Consequently, when Jung asserts that self-actualization is the goal of psychic development he means among other things that the dynamics of personality move to- wards a perfect equilibrium of forces. ‘The directed flow of energy from a center of high potential to one of low potential is a fundamental principle governing the distribution of energy among the systems of personality. The operation of this principle means that a weak system attempts to improve its status at the expense of a strong system and in so doing creates tension in the personality. If the con- scious ego, for example, is greatly overvalued relative to the unconscious, a great deal of tension will be generated in the personality by the attempt on the part of the energy to move from the conscious system into the uncon- scious. Likewise, the energy of the superior attitude, whether it be extra- version or introversion, tends to move in the direction of the inferior attitude. An overdeveloped extravert is under pressure to develop the intro- verted part of his nature. It is a general rule in Jungian psychology that any onesided development of personality creates conflict, tension, and strain, and an even development of all the constituents of personality produces harmony, relaxation, and contentment. However, as Jung points out, a state of perfect balance would be one in which no energy was being produced because the production of energy requires differences in potential between the various components of a sys- tem. A system runs down and stops when all parts of it are in even balance, or perfect entropy as it is called. Therefore, it is impossible for a living or- ganism to reach complete entropy.JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 97 The Use of Energy. The total psychic energy available to the personality is used for two general purposes. Some of it is expended in performing work that is necessary for the maintenance of life and for the propagation of the species. These are the: inborn, instinctive functions, as exemplified by hunger and sex. They operate according to natural biological laws. Any energy in excess of that needed by the instincts may be employed in cultural and spiritual activities. According to Jung, these activities constitute the more highly developed purposes of life. As the person becomes more efficient in satisfying his biological needs, more energy becomes available for the pursuit of cultural interests. Moreover, as the aging body makes fewer demands on energy, more energy is available for psychic activities. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY The most salient feature of Jung's theory of personality, aside from his conception of the collective unconscious with its archetypes, is the emphasis that he places upon the forward-going character of personality development. Jung believes that man is constantly progressing or attempting to progress from a less complete stage of development to a more complete one. He also believes that mankind as a species is constantly evolving more differentiated forms of existence. “Every reduction, every digression from the course that has been laid down for the development of civilization does nothing more than turn the human being into a crippled animal” (Jung, 1916a, p. 225). What is the goal of development? Towards what end are man and mankind striving? The ultimate goal is summed up by the term self-realiza- tion. Self-realization means the fullest, most complete differentiation and harmonious blending of all aspects of man’s total personality. It means that the psyche has evolved a new center, the se/f, which takes the place of the old center, the ego. All of evolution, as it manifests itself in psychic develop- ment, from the first primitive organisms down to the appearance of man, is a parade of progress. Progress did not stop with the creation of man; just as man represents an advance over all other species of animals, so does civilized man represent an improvement over primitive man. Even civilized man still has far to go before he will reach the end of his evolution- ary journey. It is the future of man that Jung finds so interesting and challenging, and about which he has so much to say in his extensive writings. Causality Versus Teleology. The idea of a goal that guides and directs man’s destiny is essentially a teleological or finalistic explanation. The teleological viewpoint explains the present in terms of the future. According to this viewpoint, man’s personality is comprehended in terms of where it98 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY is going, not where it has been. On the other hand, the present may be explained by the past. This is the viewpoint of causality which holds that present events are the consequences or effects of antecedent conditions or causes. One looks into man’s past in order to account for his present behavior. Jung maintains that both standpoints are necessary in psychology if a complete understanding of personality is sought. The present is not only determined by the past (causality) but it is also determined by the future (teleology). The psychologist in his quest for understanding has to be Janus-faced. With one face he looks into man’s past, with the other he looks into man’s future. The two views when combined yield a complete picture of man. “On the one side it [the mind] offers a picture of the precipitate of the past, and on the other side a picture of the germinating knowledge of all that is to come, in so far as the psyche creates its own future” (Jung, 1916a, Chapter 13). Jung admits that causality and teleology are merely arbitrary modes of thinking employed by the scientist for ordering and understanding natural phenomena. Causality and teleology are not themselves found in nature. Jung points out that a purely causal attitude is likely to produce resignation and despair in man since from the standpoint of causality he is a prisoner of his past. He cannot undo what has already been done. The finalistic attitude, on the other hand, gives man a feeling of hope and some- thing to live for. Synchronicity. Late in his life, Jung (1952a) proposed a principle which was neither causality or teleology. He called it the principle of synchronicity. This principle applies to events that occur together in time but that are not the cause of one another; for example, when a thought corresponds with an objective event. Nearly everyone has experienced such coincidences. One is thinking of a person and the person appears, or one dreams about the illness or death of a friend or relative and later hears the event took place at the exact time of the dream. Jung points to the vast literature on mental telepathy, clairvoyance, and other types of paranormal phenomena as evi- dence for the principle of synchronicity. He believes that many of these ex- periences cannot be explained as chance coincidences; instead they suggest that there is another kind of order in the universe in addition to that described by causality. He applies synchronicity to the concept of archetypes and argues that an archetype can fulfill itself psychically within a person at the same time that it expresses itself physically in the external world. The archetype does not cause both events but rather one event parallels the other. There is an acausal correspondence between the two manifestations. The principle of synchronicity would appear to be an improvement uponJUNG's ANALYTIC THEORY 99 the notion that a thought causes the materialization of the thing thought about. Heredity. Heredity is assigned an important role in Jungian psychology. In the first place, it is responsible for the biological instincts which serve the purposes of self-preservation and reproduction. The instincts constitute the animal side of man’s nature. They are the links with his animal past. An instinct is an inner impulsion to act in a certain manner when a particular tissue condition arises. Hunger, for example, evokes food-seeking activities and eating. Jung’s views on instincts are no different from those held by modern biology (Jung, 1929, 1948c). However, Jung deviates sharply from the position of modern biology when he asserts that there is, in addition to an inheritance of biological instincts, an inheritance of ancestral “experiences.” These experiences, or to speak with greater accuracy, the potentiality of having the same order of experiences as one’s ancestors, are inherited in the form of archetypes. As we have already seen, an archetype is a racial memory that has become a part of man’s heredity by being frequently and universally repeated over many generations. By accepting the notion of cultural inheritance Jung aligns himself with the doctrine of acquired characters, a doctrine whose validity has been questioned by most contemporary geneticists. Stages of Development. Jung does not specify in detail, as Freud does, the stages through which the personality passes from infancy to adulthood. In the very early years, libido is invested in activities that are necessary for survival, Before the age of five, sexual values begin to appear, and reach their height during adolescence. In one’s youth and early adult years, the basic life instincts and vital processes are in ascendance. The young person is energetic, vigorous, impulsive, and passionate, and he is still to a great extent dependent upon others. This is the period of life when the person is learning a vocation, getting married and having children, and establishing himself in the life of the community. When an individual reaches the late thirties or early forties a radical transvaluation occurs. Youthful interests and pursuits lose their value and are replaced by new interests which are more cultural and less biological. ‘The middle-aged person becomes more introverted and less impulsive. Wisdom and sagacity take the place of physical and mental vigor. His values are sublimated in social, religious, civic, and philosophical symbols. He is transformed into a spiritual man. This transition is the most decisive event in a person’s life. It is also one of the most hazardous because if anything goes amiss during the transfer- ence of energy the personality may become permanently crippled. This hap-100 = THEORIES OF PERSONALITY pens, for example, when the cultural and spiritual values of middle age do not utilize all of the energy formerly invested in instinctual aims. In that case, the excess energy is free to upset the equilibrium of the psyche. Jung had a great deal of success treating middle-aged people whose energies have failed to find satisfying outlets (Jung, 1931). Progtession and Regression. Development may follow cither a progres- sive, forward movement or a regressive, backward movement. By pro- gression, Jung means that the conscious ego is adjusting satisfactorily both to the demands of the external environment and to the needs of the uncon- scious. In normal progression, opposing forces are united in a co-ordinated and harmonious flow of psychical processes. When the forward-going movement is interrupted by a frustrating circumstance, the libido is thereby prevented from being invested in extra- verted or environment-oriented values. As a consequence, the libido makes a regression into the unconscious and invests itself in introverted values. That is, objective ego values are transformed into subjective values. Re- gression is the antithesis of progression. However, Jung believes that a regressive displacement of energy does not necessarily have a permanently bad effect upon adjustment. In fact, it may help the ego find a way around the obstacle and move forward again. This is possible because the unconscious, both personal and collective, contains the knowledge and wisdom of the individual and racial past which have either been repressed or ignored. By performing a regression the ego may discover useful knowledge in the unconscious that will enable him to overcome the frustration. Man should pay particular attention to his dreams because they are revelations of unconscious material. In Jungian psychology, a dream is regarded as a signpost that points the way forward to the development of potential resources. The interaction of progression and regression in development may be exemplified by the following schematic example. A young man who has detached himself from dependence upon his parents meets an insurmount- able barrier. He looks to his parents for advice and encouragement. He may not actually return to his parents in a physical sense, but rather his libido may make a regression into the unconscious and reactivate the parental imagoes that are located there. These parental images may then provide him with the knowledge and encouragement that he needs to overcome the frustration. The Individuation Process. That personality has a tendency to develop in the direction of a stable unity is a central feature of Jung’s psychology. Development is an unfolding of the original undifferentiated wholeness withJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 101 which man is born. The ultimate goal of this unfolding is the realization of selfhood. In order to realize this aim it is necessary for the various systems of personality to become completely differentiated and fully developed. For if any part of the personality is neglected, the neglected and less well- developed systems will act as centers of resistance which will try to capture energy from more fully developed systems. If too many resistances develop the person will become neurotic. This may happen when the archetypes are not allowed to express themselves through the medium of the conscious ego or when the wrappings of the persona become so thick that they smother the rest of the personality. A man who does not provide some satisfying out- let for his feminine impulses or a woman who stifles her masculine inclina- tions is storing up trouble because the anima or animus under these condi- tions will tend to find indirect and irrational ways of expressing themselves. In order to have a healthy, integrated personality, every system must be permitted to reach the fullest degree of differentiation, development, and expression. The process by which this is achieved is called the individuation process (Jung, 1939, 1950). The Transcendent Function. When diversity has been achieved by the operation of the individuation process, the differentiated systems are then integrated by the transcendent function (Jung, 1916b). This function is endowed with the capacity to unite all of the opposing trends of the several systems and to work toward the ideal goal of perfect wholeness (selfhood). The aim of the transcendent function is the revelation of the essential man and “the realization, in all of its aspects, of the person- ality originally hidden away in the embryonic germplasm; the production and unfolding of the original, potential wholeness” (Jung, 1943, p. 108). Other forces in the personality, notably repression, may oppose the operation of the transcendent function, yet in spite of any opposition the forward, unifying propulsion of development will take place, if not at a conscious level then at an unconscious one. The unconscious expression of a desire for wholeness is found in dreams, myths, and other symbolic representations. One such symbol that is always cropping up in myths, dreams, architecture, religion, and the arts is the mandala symbol. Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning circle. Jung has made exhaustive studies of the mandala because it is the perfect emblem of complete unity and wholeness in Eastern and Western religions. Sublimation and Repression. Psychic energy is displaceable. This means that it can be transferred from one process in a particular system to another102 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY process in the same or different system. This transference is made according to the basic dynamic principles of equivalence and entropy. If the dis- placement is governed by the individuation process and the transcendent function it is called sublimation. Sublimation describes the displacement of energy from the more primitive, instinctive, and less differentiated processes to higher cultural, spiritual, and more differentiated processes. For example, when energy is withdrawn from the sex drive and invested in religious values, the energy is said to have been sublimated. Its form has been changed in the sense that a new type of work is being performed; in this case, religious work replaces sexual work. When the discharge of energy either through instinctual or sublimated channels is blocked, it is said to be repressed. Repressed energy cannot just disappear; it has to go somewhere according to the principle of the con- servation of energy. Consequently, it takes up its residence in the uncon- scious. By adding energy to unconscious material, the unconscious may be- come more highly charged than the conscious ego. When this happens, en- ergy from the unconscious will tend to flow into the ego, according to the principle of entropy, and disrupt the rational processes. In other words, highly energized unconscious processes will try to break through the re- pression, and if they succeed, the person will behave in an irrational and impulsive fashion. Sublimation and repression are exactly opposite in character. Sublimation is progressive, repression is regressive. Sublimation causes the psyche to move forward, repression causes it to move backward. Sublimation serves rationality, repression produces irrationality. Sublimation is integrative, repression is disintegrative. However, Jung asks us to bear in mind that since repression is regressive it may enable the person to find the answers to his problems in his uncon- scious and thus move forward again. Symbolization. A symbol in Jungian psychology has two major functions. On the one hand, it represents an attempt to satisfy an instinctual impulse which has been frustrated; on the other hand, it is an embodiment of ar- chetypal material. The development of the dance as an art form is an ex- ample of an attempt to satisfy symbolically a frustrated impulse such as the sex drive. A symbolic representation of an instinctual activity can never be entirely satisfying, however, because it does ‘not attain the real object and discharge all of the libido. Dancing does not take the place completely of more direct forms of sexual expression; consequently, more adequate sym- bolizations of thwarted instincts are constantly being sought. Jung believes that the discovery of better symbols, that is, symbols that discharge moreJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 103 energy and reduce more tension, enables civilization to advance to higher and higher cultural levels. However, a symbol also plays the role of a resistance to an impulse. As long as energy is being drained off by a symbol, it cannot be used for impulsive discharge. When one is dancing, for example, one is not en- gaging in a direct sexual activity. From this standpoint a symbol is the same as a sublimation. It is a transmutation of libido. ‘The capacity of a symbol to represent future lines of personality develop- ment, especially the striving for wholeness, plays a highly significant role in Jungian psychology. It represents a distinctive and original contribution to the theory of symbolism. Jung returns again and again to a discussion of symbolism in his writings and has made it the subject of some of his most important books. The essence of Jung’s theory of symbolism is found in this quotation: “For the significance of a symbol is not that it is a dis- guised indication of something that is generally known but that it is an en- deavor to elucidate by analogy what is as yet completely unknown and only in the process of formation” (Jung, 1917, p. 468). Symbols are representations of the psyche. They not only express the stored-up racial and individually acquired wisdom of mankind but they can also represent levels of development that are far ahead of man’s present status. Man’s destiny, the highest evolution of his psyche, is marked out for him by symbols. The knowledge contained in a symbol is not directly known to man; he must decipher the symbol in order to discover its important message. The two aspects of a symbol, one retrospective and guided by the in- stincts, the other prospective and guided by the ultimate goals of mankind, are two sides of the same coin. A symbol may be analyzed from either side. The retrospective type of analysis exposes the instinctual basis of a symbol, the prospective type reveals the yearnings of mankind for completion, re- birth, harmony, purification, and the like. The former is a causal, reductive type of analysis, the latter a teleological, finalistic type of analysis. Both are necessary for 2 complete elucidation of the symbol. Jung believes that the prospective character of a symbol has been neglected in favor of the view that a symbol is solely a product of frustrated impulses. The psychic intensity of a symbol is always greater than the value of the cause that produced the symbol. By this is meant that there is both a driving force and an attracting force behind the creation of a symbol. The push is provided by instinctual energy, the pull by transcendental goals. Neither one alone suffices to create a symbol. Consequently, the psychic intensity of a symbol is the combined product of causal and finalistic determiners and is therefore greater than the causal factor alone.104 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTIC RESEARCH AND RESEARCH METHODS Jung was both a scholar and a scientist. He found his facts everywhere: in ancient myths and modern fairy tales; in primitive life and modern civiliza- tion; in the religions of the Eastern and Western worlds; in alchemy, as- trology, mental telepathy, and clairvoyance; in the dreams and visions of normal people; in anthropology, history, literature, and the arts; and in clinical and experimental research. In scores of articles and books, he set forth the empirical data upon which his theories are based. Jung insists that he is more interested in discovering facts than he is in formulating theories. “I have no system, I talk of facts” (personal communication to the authors, 1954). Since it is completely impossible to review the vast amount of empirical material that Jung brought together in his numerous writings, we will have to resign ourselves to the presentation of a minute portion of Jung’s char- acteristic research. Experimental Studies of Complexes. Jung’s first studies to attract the attention of psychologists made use of the word association test in con- junction with physiological measures of emotion (Jung, 1918). In the word association test, a standard list of words is read to the subject one at a time and he is instructed to respond with the first word that comes to mind. The time taken to respond to each word is measured by a stop watch. In Jung’s experiments, changes in breathing were measured by a pneumograph strapped to the chest of the subject and changes in the electrical conductivity of the skin by a psychogalvanometer attached to the palm of the hand. These two measures give additional evidence of emotional reactions that may appear to specific words in the list since it is well known that breathing and skin resistance are affected by emotion. Jung utilized these measures to uncover complexes in patients. A long period of delay in responding to the stimulus word plus respiratory and skin resistance changes indicates that a complex has been touched off by the word. For example, if a person’s breathing becomes irregular, his resist- ance to an electric current decreases because of sweating of the palms and his response to the word “mother” is unusually delayed, these factors sug- gest the presence of a mother complex. If other words related to “mother” are reacted to in a similar manner, it substantiates the existence of such a complex. Case Studies. As noted in the preceding chapter, Freud published six long case studies. In each of these studies, Freud attempted to characterize the dynamics of a specific pathological condition, for example, Dora andJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY — 105 hysteria, Schreber and paranoia. With the exception of a few short case studies which were published prior to his break with Freud, Jung did not write any case studies comparable to those of Freud. In Symbols of transfor- mation (1952b), Jung analyzed the fantasies of a young American woman whom he knew only through an article by the Swiss psychologist, Theodore Flournoy. This is in no sense a case study; nor is the analysis of a long dream series in Psychology and alchemy (1944) or the analysis of a series of paintings made by a patient in A study in the process of individuation (1950). In these cases, Jung used the comparative method employing history, myth, religion, and etymology to show the archetypal basis of dreams and fantasies. Following his rupture with Freud, the comparative method provided Jung with his basic data and the principal support for his concepts. The reader may not be able to assimilate such arcane volumes as Psychology and alchemy (1944), Alchemical studies (1942-1957), dion (1951), and Mysterium coniunctionis (1955b). The reader will find, however, in Flying saucers: a modern myth of things seen in the sky (1958), which Jung wrote late in his life, an easily digestible example of Jung’s comparative methodol- ogy. Comparative Studies of Mythology, Religion, and the Occult Sci- ences. Since the evidence for archetypes is difficult to secure froni contem- porary sources alone, Jung devoted a great deal of attention to researches in mythology, religion, alchemy, and astrology. His investigations took him into areas that few psychologists have explored and he acquired a vast amount of knowledge of such abstruse and complex subjects as Hindu religion, Taoism, Yoga, Confucianism, the Christian Mass, astrology, psy- chical research, primitive mentality, and alchemy. One of the most impressive examples of Jung’s attempt to document the existence of racial archetypes is found in Psychology and alchemy (1944). Jung believes that the rich symbolism of alchemy expresses many, if not all, of the archetypes of man, In Psychology and alchemy he examines an ex- tensive dream series collected from a patient (not one of Jung’s) against the intricate tapestry of alchemical symbolism, and concludes that the same basic features appear in both. It is a tour de force of symbolical anal- ysis which has to be read in its entirety in order to be appreciated. The few examples that we will present are merely to give the reader some idea of Jung’s method. The clinical material consists of over a thousand dreams and visions ob- tained from a young man. The interpretation of a selection of these dreams and visions occupies the first half of the book. The rest of the book is taken up with a scholarly account of alchemy and its relation to religious sym- bolism.106 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY In one dream a number of people are walking to the left around a square. The dreamer is not in the center but stands at one side. They say that a gibbon is to be reconstructed (p. 119). The square is a symbol of the work of the alchemist which consisted of breaking down the original cha- otic unity of the primal material into four elements preparatory to their being recombined into a higher and more perfect unity. Perfect unity is represented by a circle or mandala which appears in this dream as walking around a square. The gibbon or ape stands for the mysterious transforming substance of alchemy, a substance that transforms base material into gold. This dream signifies, therefore, that the patient must displace his conscious ego from the center of his personality in order to permit the repressed atavistic urges to be transformed. The patient can only achieve inner har- mony by integrating all of the elements of his personality just as the al- chemist could only reach his goal (which he never did) by the proper mixing of basic elements. In another dream, a glass filled with a gelatinous mass stands on a table before the dreamer (p. 168). The glass corresponds to the alchemical apparatus used for distillation and the contents to the amorphous substance which the alchemist hopes to turn into the /apis or philosopher’s stone. The alchemical symbols in this dream indicate that the dreamer is trying or hoping to transform himself into something better. When the dreamer dreams of water it represents the regenerative power of the alchemist’s aquavitae; when he dreams of finding a blue flower the flower stands for the birthplace of the filius philosophorum (the hermaph- roditic figure of alchemy); and when he dreams of throwing gold coins on the ground he is expressing his scorn for the alchemist’s ideal. When the patient draws a wheel Jung sees a connection between it and the al- chemist’s wheel which stood for the circulating process within the chem- ical retort by which the transformation of material was supposed to take place. In a similar vein, Jung interprets a diamond that appears in the patient’s dream as the coveted /apis and an egg as the chaotic prima materia with which the alchemist began his labors. Throughout all the dreams of the series, as Jung demonstrates, there are strong parallels between the symbols employed by the dreamer to repre- sent his problems and his goals and the symbols devised by medieval al- chemists to represent their endeavors. The striking feature of the dream series is the more or less exact portrayal in them of the material aspects of alchemy. Jung is able to point to exact duplications of objects in the dreams and in the illustrations found in old alchemical texts. He concludes from this that the personality dynamics of the medieval alchemist as projected into his chemical investigations and those of the patient are precisely the same. This exact correspondence of the images proves the existence of uni- versal archetypes. Moreover, Jung, who has carried on anthropologicalJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 107 investigations in Africa and other: parts of the world, finds the same arche- types expressed in the myths of primitive races. They are also expressed in religion and art, both modern and primitive. “The forms which the ex- perience takes in each individual may be infinite in their variations, but, like the alchemical symbols, they are all variants of certain central types, and these occur universally” (Jung, 1944, p. 463). Dreams. Jung, like Freud, paid a great deal of attention to dreams. He considered them to be prospective as well as retrospective in content, and compensable for aspects of the dreamer’s personality which have been ne- glected in waking life. For example, a man who neglects his anima will have dreams in which anima figures appear. Jung also differentiated be- tween “big” dreams in which there is much archetypal imagery, and “lit- tle” dreams whose contents are more closely related to the dreamer’s con- scious preoccupations. Tue Meraop or Ampurication. This method was devised by Jung to explicate certain elements in dreams which are thought to be of rich sym- bolic significance. It contrasts with the method of free association. In free associating, the person ordinarily gives a linear series of verbal responses to a dream element. The dream element is merely the starting point for the subsequent associations, and the associations may and usually do move away from the element. In the method of amplification, the dreamer is required to stand by the element and to give multiple associations to it. The responses he makes form a constellation around a particular dream element, and constitute the many-faceted meanings of it for the dreamer. Jung assumes that a true symbol is one which has many faces, and that it is never completely knowable. The analyst can also assist in amplifying the element by contributing what he knows about it. He may consult ancient writings, mythology, fairy tales, religious texts, ethnology, and etymological dictionaries in order to extend the meanings of the symbolic element. There are many examples of amplification in Jung’s writings, e. g., the fish (1951) and the tree (1954c). Tue Dream Series Mero. Freud, it will be recalled, analyzed dreams one at a time by having the patient free-associate to each successive com- ponent of the dream. Then, by using the dream material and the free asso- ciations, Freud arrived at an interpretation of the meaning of the dream. Jung, while not disavowing this approach, has developed another method for interpreting dreams. In place of a single dream, Jung utilizes a series of dreams obtained from a person. =» + they [the dreams] form a coherent series in the course of which the mean- ing gradually unfolds more or less of its own accord. The series is the context which the dreamer himself supplies, It is as if not one text but many lay before108 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY us, throwing light from all sides on the unknown terms, so that a reading of all the texts is sufficient to elucidate the difficult passages in cach individual one. . . . OF course, the interpretation of each individual passage is bound to be largely conjecture, but the series as a whole gives us all the clues we need to correct any possible errors in the preceding passages (1944, p. 12). In psychology, this is called the method of internal consistency, and is widely employed with qualitative material like dreams, stories, and fan- tasies, The use that Jung has made of it is displayed to advantage in his book Psychology and alchemy (1944) in which an extremely long dream series is analyzed. Tue Mernop oF Active Imacination. In this method, the subject is re- quired to concentrate his attention on an impressive but unintelligible dream image, or on a spontaneous visual image, and observe what happens to the image. The critical faculties must be suspended and the happenings observed and noted with absolute objectivity. When these conditions are faithfully observed, the image will usually undergo a series of changes which bring to light a mass of unconscious material. The following ex- ample is taken from Jung and Kerenyi’s Essays on a science of mythology (1949): I saw a white bird with outstretched wings. It alighted on the figure of a woman, clad in blue, who sat there like an antique statue. The bird perched on her hand, and in it she had a grain of wheat. The bird took it in its beak and flew into the sky again (p. 229). Jung points out that drawing, painting, and modeling can be used for representing the flow of images. In the foregoing example, the person painted a picture to accompany the verbal description. In the picture, the woman was portrayed as having large breasts which suggested to Jung that the vision represented a mother figure. ‘The fantasies produced by active imagination usually have better form than do nocturnal dreams because they are received by a waking conscious- ness rather than a sleeping one. CURRENT STATUS AND EVALUATION Jungian psychology has a number of devoted admirers and proponents throughout the world. Many of these are practicing psychoanalysts who use Jung’s method of psychotherapy and who have accepted his funda- mental postulates regarding personality. Some are theoreticians who have elaborated Jung’s ideas. Among these are Gerhard Adler (1948), MichaelJune's ANALYTIC THEORY 109 Fordham (1947), Esther Harding (1947), Erich Neumann (1954, 1955), Herbert Read (1945), Jolande Jacobi (1959), and Frances Wickes (1950). Jung also had powerful lay supporters. like Paul Mellon of the Pittsburgh Mellons, who is president of the Bollingen Foundation (named for Jung’s country residence on Lake Zurich). The Bollingen Foundation sponsors the publication of Jungian books through the Princeton University Press. The most ambitious project of the Bollingen Foundation to date is the translation and publication of Jung’s collected works in English under the editorial supervision of Read, Fordham, and Adler. Finally, centers of influence for the dissemination of Jung’s ideas are to be found in the Jung- ian Institutes which have been established in a number of cities. Jung’s influence outside of the fields of psychiatry and psychology has been considerable. Arnold Toynbee, the historian, acknowledges that he is indebted to Jung for opening up “a new dimension in the realm of life.” Philip Wylie, the writer, is a great admirer of Jung, as are Lewis Mum- ford, the author and critic, and Paul Radin, the anthropologist. Hermann Hesse also admired Jung (Serrano, 1966). Perhaps Jung’s greatest impact has been upon modern religious thought (Progoff, 1953). Jung was invited to give the Terry lectures at Yale University on Psychology and religion (1938). Jung was severely criticized for supporting Nazism (Feldman, 1945), although he and his followers vigorously deny the charges and claim that Jung has been misrepresented (Harms, 1946; Saturday Review, 1949). Jung has been attacked by psychoanalysts of the Freudian school beginning with Freud himself. Ernest Jones (1959) opined that after Jung's “great studies in association and dementia praecox, he had descended into a pseudo- philosophy out of which he has never emerged” (p. 165). Glover (1950), the English psychoanalyst, has made what is probably the most comprehen- sive assault upon analytical psychology. He ridicules the concept of archetypes as being metaphysical and incapable of proof. He believes that archetypes can be fully accounted for in terms of experience and that it is absurd to postulate racial inheritance. Glover says that Jung has no developmental concepts by which to explain the growth of the mind. Glover’s principal criticism, however, and one that he reiterates a number of times, is that Jung’s psychology is a retreat back to an outmoded psychology of con- sciousness. He accuses Jung of tearing down the Freudian concept of the unconscious and erecting a conscious ego in its place. Glover does not pre- tend to be impartial or detached in his evaluation of Jungian psychology. (For another comparison of the views of Freud and Jung, see Gray, 1949; also Dry, 1961.) Selesnick (1963) argues that Jung, during his association with Freud, influenced Freud's thinking in a number of significant ways. What influence has Jung’s theory of personality had upon the develop- ment of scientific psychology? Very little that one can directly perceive,110 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY except for the word association test and the concepts of introversion and extraversion. The word association test was not original with Jung. Galton is usually credited with the invention of the test, and it was introduced into experimental psychology by Wundt. Consequently, when Jung lectured on the word association method at Clark University in 1909 it did not sound strange and alien to the psychologists in his audience. Moreover, Jung's studies on word association employed a quantitative, experimental meth- odology that was bound to win favor with psychologists who prided them- selves on being scientific. The use of the word association test is discussed in a number of surveys of clinical psychology and projective techniques (Bell, 1948; Levy, 1952; Rotter, 1951; Anastasia, 1968). It is less easy to account for psychology’s interest in Jung’s typology. A number of tests of introversion-extraversion have been constructed and there is much psychological literature on the subject. Eysenck (1947), by means of factor analysis, identified introversion-extraversion as one of the three primary dimensions of personality, the other two being neuroticism and psychoticism. He considers his findings to represent an essential con- firmation of Jung’s ideas. Other factor analysis studies of Jung’s typology have been done by Gorlow, Simonson, and Krauss (1966) and Ball (1967). Tests which assess the four psychological functions of thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting in conjunction with the attitudes of introversion and extraversion have been constructed by Gray and Wheelwright (1964) and Myers and Briggs (1962). (For a critical and understanding discussion of introversion-extraversion, see Murphy, 1947, Chapter 25; see also Carrigan, 1960.) Analytical psychology has not been subjected to the searching criticism accorded Freudian psychoanalysis by psychologists. Nor has it found a sub- stantial place in the standard histories of psychology. Boring in his History of experimental psychology devotes six pages to Freud and four lines to Jung. Peters in his revision and abridgment of Brett's History of psy- chology, after giving a rather full discussion of Freud, devotes a page each to Adler and Jung. He finds Jung’s later work to be so mysterious as to be almost undiscussable. Flugel’s 4 hundred years of psychology spends more time on Jung but most of it has to do with the word asso- ciation test and typology. Murphy's Historical introduction to modern psy- chology devotes six pages to Jung as compared to a chapter of twenty-four pages given over to Freud, and those six pages come in a chapter entitled “The Response to Freud.” When 45 teachers of the history of psychology were asked to rate those who had made significant contributions to psy- chological theory, Jung stood thirtieth on the list (flanked by Guthrie and Rogers) which was headed by Freud. (Coan and Zagona, 1962). ‘Why has psychology ignored Jung’s analytical psychology when theJUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 111 world at large accords him so much respect and honor? One major reason is that Jung’s psychology is based upon clinical findings and historical and mythical sources rather than upon experimental investigations. It has ap- pealed to the toughminded experimentalist no more than Freudianism. In fact, Jung has had far less appeal than Freud because there is so much dis- cussion of occultism, mysticism, and religion in Jung’s writings that it ap- parently repels many psychologists. [‘This criticism infuriates Jung. He in- sists that his interest in the occult sciences of alchemy and astrology and in religion does not imply, in any sense, an acceptance of these beliefs. They are studied and appear in his writings because they provide evidence for his theory. Whether God exists or not is not for Jung to say; that most people believe in God is as true a fact as that water runs downhill. “God is an obvious psychic and non-physical fact, i, a fact that can be estab- lished psychically but not physically” (1952c, p. 464).] Moreover, he accepts such out-of-fashion ideas as acquired characters and teleology. Jung’s style of presenting his ideas has been found bafiling, obscure, confusing, and disorganized by many psychologists. As a consequence, Jung’s theories seem to have stimulated very little interest among psychologists and even less re- search. ‘The fact that Jung is thought of as a psychoanalyst has also contributed to the neglect of his system by psychology. When one thinks of psycho- analysis one usually thinks of Freud and only secondarily of Jung and Adler. Freud’s olympian stature in psychoanalysis diverts attention away from other luminaries in the field. The publication of Jung’s collected works in English could change the situation although the simultaneous publica- tion of Freud’s collected writings may cancel out the effect. Although Jung has not had much direct influence upon psychology, it may be that some recent developments in psychology owe more to Jung than is realized. Indirect influences are hard to evaluate because ideas that come into circulation may be due either to the influence of one man or they may arise more or less spontaneously in the minds of a number of men at about the same time due to the prevailing intellectual climate. It cannot be denied that many of Jung’s ideas are now in common circula- tion, whether he is responsible or not. Take, for example, the conception of self-realization. It or similar concepts are found in the writings of Gold- stein, Rogers, Angyal, Allport, and Maslow, to name only those psy- chologists whose views are presented in this book. In no instance do we find Jung being credited with developing the conception. This in itself does not mean that Jung has had no influence, whether directly or indirectly, upon these men. They may have borrowed from Jung unconsciously, or borrowed from other men who were influenced by Jung. Or consider the idea of development as proceeding from a global to a differentiated to an112 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY integrated state, which one finds in both Jung and Murphy. Did Jung in- fluence Murphy (the opposite is not tenable since Jung’s views were enunci- ated before Murphy’s) or did Jung influence someone else who did influ- ence Murphy or is there no connection between the two men other than their being contemporary figures living in Western civilization? ‘There is no evidence one way or the other. Is the optimism that characterizes many recent views of men, for example, Rogers and Allport, a reflection of Jung’s optimism or a reflection of the times? Has Jung’s emphasis upon goal- directed behavior set the stage for other purposive theories, or is purpose as a theoretical concept fashionable right now because nineteenth century science was so mechanistic? These are hard questions to answer and we cannot answer them. We feel fairly sure that what Jungian theory needs at this point is to be tested by the methods of scientific psychology. We have in mind not the clinical type of study (Adler, 1949; Fordham, 1949; Hawkey, 1947; Kirsch, 1949) nor type studies (for example, Eysenck, Gray and Wheel- wright, and Myers-Briggs) but a more experimental approach as found in the work of Bash (1952), Melhado (1964), and Meier (1965). When more studies of this type are done the status of Jung’s theories among psycholo- gists will tend to improve because psychologists. favor theories that gener- ate testable hypotheses and instigate research. It will take a good deal of ingenuity to formulate empirical propositions from the welter of Jungian theory. When all is said and done, Jung’s theory of personality as developed in his prolific writings and as applied to a wide range of human phenomena stands as one of the most remarkable achievements in modern thought. The originality and audacity of Jung’s thinking have few parallels in recent scientific history, and no other man aside from Freud has opened more conceptual windows into what Jung would choose to call “the soul of man.” It appears likely that with the growing trend in Western society, especially among young people, toward introversion, phenomenology, ex- istentialism, meditation, spirituality, mysticism, occultism, expansion of con- sciousness, individuation, transcendence, unity, and self-fulfillment, Jung will come to be recognized as the spiritual and intellectual leader of this “revolutionary” movement. It is evident that more college students are reading and reacting favorably to Jung today than was the case a few years ago. Certainly his ideas merit the closest attention from any serious student of psychology.JUNG’s ANALYTIC THEORY 113 BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Jung, C. G. Collected works, H. Read, M. Fordham, and G. Adler (Eds.). Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1953- Jung, C. G. The structure and dynamics of the psyche. In Collected works. Vol. 8. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1960. (First German edition, 1926-1958.) Jung, C. G. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. In Collected works. Vol. 9, Part I. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1959, (First German edition, 1936-1955.) Jung, C. G, The psychology of the unconscious. In Collected works. Vol. 7. Princeton: Princeton Univ, Press, 1953. (First German edition, 1943.) Jung, C. G. The relations between the ego and the unconscious. In Collected works, Vol. 7. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1953. 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New York: Grune and Stratton, 1952, 191-208.116 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Meier, C. A. Clinic and Research Centre for Jungian Psychology, Zurich. ]. analyt. Psychol., 1965, 10, 1-6. Melhado, J. J. Exploratory studies in symbolism. Ph.D. dissertation. Univ, of Texas, 1964. Murphy, G. Personality, New York: Harper, 1947. Myers, Isabel B. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Princeton: Educational Testing Service, 1962. Neumann, E. The origins and history of consciousness. New York: Pantheon Books, 1954, Neumann, E. The great mother. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955. Progoff, I. Jung’s psychology and its social meaning. New York: Julian, 1953. Read, H. E. Education through art. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945. Rotter, J. B. Word association and sentence completion methods. In H. H. Ander- son and Gladys L. Anderson (Eds.). An introduction to projective techniques New York: Prentice-Hall, 1951, 279-311. Saturday Review. Various writers. 1949, 32, July 9, p. 253 July 16, pp. 21, 23; July 30, pp. 6-8; Sept. 10, p. 27; Oct. 15, pp. 23-25. Selesnick, S. T. C. G. Jung’s contribution to psychoanalysis. Amer. J. Psychiat., 1963, 120, 350-356. Serrano, M. C, G. Jung and Hermann Hesse. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966. Weigert, E. V. Dissent in the carly history of psychoanalysis. Psychiatry, 1942, 5, 349-359, Wickes, Frances G. The inner world of man. London: Methuen, 1950. Wilhelm, R. and Jung, C. G. The secret of the golden flower, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1931.CHAPTER FOUR SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES: ADLER, FROMM, HORNEY, AND SULLIVAN site Jung were nurtured by the same positivistic climate that shaped the course of nineteenth century physics and biology. Man was re- garded primarily as a complex energy system which maintains itself by means of transactions with the external world. The ultimate purposes of these transactions are individual survival, propagation of the species, and an ongoing evolutionary development. The various psychological processes that constitute the personality serve these ends. According to the evolutionary doctrine some personalities are better fitted than others to perform these tasks. Consequently, the concept of variation and the distinction between adjustment and maladjustment conditioned the thinking of the early psycho- analysts. Even academic psychology was swept into the orbit of Darwinism and became preoccupied with the measurement of individual differences in abilities and with the adaptive or functional value of psychological processes. At the same time, other intellectual trends which were at variance with a purely biophysical conception of man were beginning to take shape. 117 Ti: psychoanalytic theories of personality formulated by Freud and118 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY During the later years of the nineteenth century, sociology and anthropology began to emerge as independent disciplines and their rapid growth during the present century has been phenomenal. While sociologists studied man living in a state of advanced civilization and found him to be a product of his class and caste, his institutions and folkways, anthropologists ventured into remote areas of the world where they found evidence that human be- ings are almost infinitely malleable. According to these new social sciences, man is chiefly a product of the society in which he lives. His personality is social rather than biological. Gradually, these burgeoning social and cultural doctrines began to seep into psychology and psychoanalysis and to erode the nativistic and physical- istic foundations of the sciences. A number of followers of Freud who became dissatisfied with what they considered to be his myopia regarding the social conditioners of personality withdrew their allegiance from classical psychoanalysis and began to refashion psychoanalytic theory along lines dictated by the new orientation developed by the social sciences. Among those who provided psychoanalytic theory with the twentieth century look of social psychology are the four people whose ideas form the content of the present chapter—Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Harry Stack Sullivan. Of these four, Alfred Adler may be regarded as the ancestral figure of the “new social psychological look” because as early as 1911 he broke with Freud over the issue of sexuality, and proceeded to develop a theory in which social interest and a striving for superiority became two of its most substantial conceptual pillars. No less an authority than Fromm acknowledges that Adler was the first psychoanalyst to emphasize the fundamental social nature of man. Later, Horney and Fromm took up the cudgels against the strong instinctivist orientation of psychoanalysis and insisted upon the relevance of social psychological variables for personality theory. Finally, Harry Stack Sullivan in his theory of interpersonal relations consolidated the position of a personality theory grounded in social processes. Although each of the theories has its own distinctive assumptions and con- cepts, there are numerous parallels among them which have been pointed out by various writers (James, 1947; Ruth Munroe, 1955; and H. L. and R. R. Ansbacher, 1956). Our choice of the major figure for this chapter, Harry Stack Sullivan, is dictated primarily by our belief that he brought his ideas to a higher level of conceptualization and consequently has been a more pervasively influential theorist. Sullivan was considerably more independent of prevailing psycho- analytic doctrines; although he earlier used the Freudian framework, in his later work he developed a theoretical system which deviated markedly from the Freudian one. He was profoundly influenced by anthropology and social psychology. Both Horney and Fromm, on the other hand, kept well withinSOCIAL PsycHOLOGICAL THEORIES 119 the province of psychoanalysis in their thinking; Adler, although a separatist from the Freudian school, continued to show the impact of his early associa- tion with Freud throughout his life. Horney and Fromm are usually referred to as. revisionists or neo-Freudians although Fromm objects to these labels. Neither of them engaged in developing a new theory of personality; rather they regarded themselves as renovators and elaborators of an old theory. Sullivan was much more of an innovator. He was a highly original thinker who attracted a large group of devoted disciples and developed what is sometimes called a new school of psychiatry. ALFRED ADLER Alfred Adler was born in Vienna in 1870 of a middle-class family and died in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1937 while on a lecture tour. He received a medical degree in 1895 from the University of Vienna. At first he specialized in ophthalmology and then, after a period of practice in general medicine, he became a psychiatrist. He was one of the charter members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and later its president. However, Adler soon began to develop ideas which were at variance with those of Freud and others in the Vienna Society, and when these differences became acute he was asked to present his views to the society. This he did in 1911 and as a consequence of the vehement criticism and denunciation of Adler’s position by other members of the society, Adler resigned as president and a few months later terminated his connection with Freudian psychoanalysis (Colby, 1951; Jones, 1955; H. L. and R. R. Ansbacher, 1956, 1964). He then formed his own group, which came to be known as Individual Psychology and which attracted followers throughout the world. During the First World War, Adler served as a physician in the Austrian army and after the war he became interested in child guidance and established the first guidance clinics in connection with the Viennese school system. He also inspired the establishment of an experimental school in Vienna which applied his theories of education (Furtmiiller, 1964). In 1935 Adler settled in the United States where he continued his practice as a psychiatrist and served as Professor of Medical Psychology at the Long Island College of Medicine. Adler was a prolific writer and an indefatigable Jecturer. He published a hundred books and articles during his lifetime. The practice and theory of individual psychology (1927) is probably the best introduction to Adler’s theory of personality. Shorter digests of Adler’s views appear in the Psychologies of 1930 (1930) and in the International Journal of Individual Psychology (1935). Heinz and Rowena Ansbacher (1956, 1964) have edited and annotated two volumes containing an extensive120 = THEORIES OF PERSONALITY selection from Adler’s writings. These two volumes are the best source of information about Adler's Individual Psychology. ‘Two book length biogra- phies of Adler have been published (Bottome, 1939; Orgler, 1963). Adler's ideas are promulgated in the United States by the American Society of Adlerian Psychology with branches in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and through its journal, The American Journal of Individual Psychology. In sharp contrast to Freud’s major assumption that man’s behavior is motivated by inborn instincts and Jung’s principal axiom that man’s conduct is governed by inborn archetypes, Adler assumed that man is motivated primarily by social urges. Man is, according to Adler, inherently a social being. He relates himself to other people, engages in co-operative social activities, places social welfare above selfish interest, and acquires a style of life which is predominantly social in orientation. Adler did not say that man becomes socialized merely by being exposed to social processes; social interest is inborn although the specific types of relationships with people and social institutions which develop are determined by the nature of the society into which a person is born. In one sense, then, Adler is just as biological in his viewpoint as are Freud and Jung. All three assume that man has an inherent nature which shapes his personality. Freud emphasized sex, Jung emphasized primordial thought patterns, and Adler stressed social interest. This emphasis upon the social determinants of behavior which had been overlooked or minimized by Freud and Jung is probably Adler's greatest contribution to psychological theory. It turned the attention of psychologists to the impor- tance of social variables and helped to develop the field of social psychology at a time when social psychology needed encouragement and support, es- pecially from the ranks of psychoanalysis. Adler’s second major contribution to personality theory is his concept of the creative self. Unlike Freud’s ego which consists of a group of psycho- logical processes serving the ends of inborn instincts, Adler’s self is a highly personalized, subjective system which interprets and makes meaningful the experiences of the organism. Moreover, it searches for experiences which will aid in fulfilling the person’s unique style of life; if these experiences are not to be found in the world the self tries to create them. This concept of a creative self was new to psychoanalytic theory and it helped to com- pensate for the extreme “objectivism” of classical psychoanalysis, which relied almost entirely upon biological needs and external stimuli to account for the dynamics of personality. As we shall see in other chapters, the concept of the self has played a major role in recent formulations regarding personal- ity. Adler’s contribution to this new trend of recognizing the self as an important cause of behavior is considered to be a very significant one. ‘A third feature of Adler’s psychology which sets it apart from classical psychoanalysis is its emphasis upon the uniqueness of personality. Adler considered each person to be a unique configuration of motives, traits,SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 121 interests, and values; every act performed by the person bears the stamp of his own distinctive style of life. In this respect, Adler belongs to the tradition of William James and William Stern who are said to have laid the founda- tion for personalistic psychology. Adler's theory of the person minimized the sexual instinct which in Freud’s early theorizing had played an almost exclusive role in the dynamics of behavior. To this Freudian monologue on sex, Adler added other signifi- cant voices. Man is primarily a social and not a sexual creature. He is motivated by social and not by sexual interest. His inferiorities are not limited to the sexual domain, but may extend to all facets of his being, both physical and psychological. He strives to develop a unique style of life in which the sexual drive plays a minor role, In fact, the way in which he satisfies his sexual needs is determined by his style of life and not vice versa. Adler’s dethroning of sex was for many people a welcome relief from the monotonous pansexualism of Freud. Finally, Adler made consciousness the center of personality which makes him a pioneer in the development of an ego-oriented psychology. Man is a conscious being; he is ordinarily aware of the reasons for his behavior. He is conscious of his inferiorities and conscious of the goals for which he strives. More than that, he is a self-conscious individual who is capable of planning and guiding his actions with full awareness of their meaning for his own self-realization. This is the complete antithesis of Freud’s theory which had virtually reduced consciousness to the status of a nonentity, a mere froth floating on the great sea of the unconscious. MAJOR CONCEPTS Alfred Adler, like other personality theorists whose primary training was in medicine and who practiced psychiatry, began his theorizing in the field of abnormal psychology. He formulated a theory of neurosis before broadening his theoretical scope to include the normal personality, which occurred during the 1920's (H. L. and R. R. Ansbacher, 1956). Adler’s theory of personality is an extremely economical one in the sense that a few basic concepts sustain the whole theoretical structure. For that reason, Ad- ler’s viewpoint can be rather quickly sketched under a few general rubrics. ‘These are (1) fictional finalism, (2) striving for superiority, (3) inferiority feelings and compensation, (4) social interest, (5) style of life, and (6) the creative self, FICTIONAL FINALISM Shortly after Adler dissociated himself from the circle that surrounded Freud, he fell under the philosophical influence of Hans Vaihinger whose122 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY book The psychology of “as if’ (English translation, 1925) had been pub- lished in 1911. Vaihinger propounded the curious and intriguing notion that man lives by many purely fictional ideas which have no counterpart in reality. These fictions, for example, “all men are created equal,” “honesty is the best policy,” and “the end justifies the means,” enable man to deal more effectively with reality. They are auxiliary constructs or assumptions and not hypotheses which can be tested and confirmed. They can be dispensed with when their usefulness has disappeared. Adler took over this philosophical doctrine of idealistic positivism and bent it to his own design. Freud, it will be recalled, laid great stress upon constitutional factors and experiences during early childhood as determiners of personality. Adler discovered in Vaihinger the rebuttal to this rigid histor- ical determinism; he found the idea that man is motivated more by his ex- pectations of the future than he is by experiences of the past. These goals do not exist in the future as a part of some teleological design—neither Vaihin- ger nor Adler believed in predestination or fatality—rather they exist subjec- tively or mentally here and now as strivings or ideals which affect present behavior. If a person believes, for example, that there is a heaven for virtuous people and a hell for sinners this belief, it may be presumed, will exercise considerable influence on his conduct. These fictional goals were, for Adler, the subjective causation of psychological events. Like Jung, Adler identified Freud’s theory with the principle of causality and his own with the principle of finalism. Individual Psychology insists absolutely on the indispensability of finalism for the understanding of all psychological phenomena. Causes, powers, instincts, im- pulses, and the like cannot serve as explanatory principles. The final goal alone can explain man’s behavior. Experiences, traumata, sexual development mecha nisms cannot yield an explanation, but the perspective in which these are regarded, the individual way of seeing them, which subordinates all life to the final goal, can do so (1930, p. 400). This final goal may be a fiction, that is, an ideal which is impossible to realize but which is nonetheless a very real spur to man’s striving and the ultimate explanation of his conduct. Adler believed, however, that the normal person could free himself from the influence of these fictions and face reality when necessity demanded, something that the neurotic person is incapable of doing. STRIVING FOR SUPERIORITY What is the final goal toward which all men strive and which gives consist- ency and unity to personality? By 1908, Adler had reached the conclusion that aggression was more important than sexuality. A little later, the aggres-SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 123 sive impulse was replaced by the “will to power.” Adler identified power with masculinity and weakness with femininity, It was at this stage of his thinking (circa 1910) that he set forth the idea of the “masculine protest,” a form of overcompensation that both men and women indulge in when they feel inadequate and inferior. Later, Adler abandoned the “will to power” in favor of the “striving for superiority,” to which he remained com- mitted thereafter. Thus, there were three stages in his thinking regarding the final goal of man: to be aggressive, to be powerful, and to be superior. Adler makes it very clear that by superiority he does not mean social distinction, leadership, or a pre-eminent position in society. By superiority, Adler means something very analogous to Jung’s concept of the self or Goldstein’s principle of self-actualization. It is a striving for perfect com- pletion. It is “the great upward drive.” I began to see clearly in every psychological phenomenon the striving for su- periority. It runs parallel to physical growth and is an intrinsic necessity of life itself, It lies at the root of all solutions of life’s problems and is manifested in the way in which we meet these problems. All our functions follow its direction, They strive for conquest, security, increase, either in the right or in the wrong direction. The impetus from minus to plus never ends, The urge from below to above never ceases. Whatever premises all our philosophers and psychologists dream of—self-preservation, pleasure principle, equalization—all these are but vague representations, attempts to express the great upward drive (1930, p. 398). Where does the striving for superiority or perfection come from? Adler says that it is innate; that it is a part of life; in fact, that it is. life itself. From birth to death, the striving for superiority carries the person from one stage of development to the next higher stage. It is a prepotent dynamic principle. There are no separate drives, for each drive receives its power from the striving for completion. Adler acknowledges that the striving for superiority may manifest itself in a thousand different ways, and that each person has his own concrete mode of achieving or trying to achieve perfec- tion. The neurotic person, for example, strives for self-esteem, power, and self-aggrandizement—in other words, for egoistic or selfish goals—whereas the normal person strives for goals that are primarily social in character. Precisely how do the particular forms of the striving for superiority come into being in the individual? In order to answer this question it is necessary to discuss Adler's concept of inferiority feelings. INFERIORITY FEELINGS AND COMPENSATION Very early in his career, while he was still interested in general medicine, Adler put forth the idea of organ inferiority and overcompensation (English translation, 1917). At that time, he was interested in finding the answer to124 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY the perennial question of why people, when they become sick or suffer some affiction, become sick or afflicted in a particular region of the body. One per- son develops heart trouble, another lung trouble, and a third lumbago. Adler suggested that the reason for the site of a particular affliction was a basic in- feriority in that region, an inferiority which existed either by virtue of her- edity or because of some developmental abnormality. He then observed that a person with a defective organ often tries to compensate for the weakness by strengthening it through intensive training. The most famous example of compensation for organ inferiority is that of Demosthenes who stuttered as a child and became one of the world’s greatest orators. Another more recent example is that of Theodore Roosevelt who was a weakling in his youth and developed himself by systematic exercise into a physically stalwart man. Shortly after he had published his monograph on organ inferiority Adler broadened the concept to include any feelings of inferiority, those that arise from subjectively felt psychological or social disabilities as well as those that stem from actual bodily weakness or impairment. At this time, Adler equated inferiority with unmanliness or femininity, the compensation for which was called “the masculine protest.” Later, however, he subordinated this view to the more general one that feelings of inferiority arise from a sense of incompletion or imperfection in any sphere of life. For example, the child is motivated by his feelings of inferiority to strive for a higher level of development. When he reaches this level, he begins to feel inferior again and the upward movement is initiated once more. Adler contended that inferiority feelings are not a sign of abnormality; they are the cause of all improvement in man’s lot. Of course, inferiority feelings may be ex- aggerated by special conditions such as pampering or rejecting the child, in which case certain abnormal manifestations may ensue, such as the devel- opment of an inferiority complex or a compensatory superiority complex. But under normal circumstances, the feeling of inferiority or a sense of incompleteness is the great driving force of mankind. In other words, man is pushed by the need to overcome his inferiority and pulled by the desire to be superior. Adler was not a proponent of hedonism. Although he believed that inferiority feelings were painful he did not think that the relief of these feelings was necessarily pleasurable. Perfection, not pleasure, was for him the goal of life. SOCIAL INTEREST During the early years of his theorizing when he was proclaiming the ag- gressive, power-hungry nature of man and the idea of the masculine protest as an overcompensation for feminine weakness, Adler was severely criticized for emphasizing the selfish drives of man and ignoring his social motives.SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 125 Striving for superiority sounded like the war cry of the Nietzschean super- man, a fitting companion for the Darwinian slogan of survival of the fittest. Adler, who was an advocate of social justice and a supporter of social democracy, enlarged his conception of man to include the factor of social interest (1939). Although social interest takes in such matters as co-opera- tion, interpersonal and social relations, identification with the group, em- pathy, and so forth, it is much broader than all of these. In its ultimate sense, social interest consists of the individual helping society to attain the goal of a perfect society. “Social interest is the true and inevitable compen- sation for all the natural weaknesses of individual human beings” (Adler, 1929b, p. 31). The person is embedded in a social context from the first day of life. Co-operation manifests itself in the relationship between the infant and the mother, and henceforth the person is continuously involved in a network of interpersonal relations which shape his personality and provide concrete outlets for his striving for superiority. Striving for superiority becomes socialized; the ideal of a perfect society takes the place of purely personal ambition and selfish gain. By working for the common good, man compen- sates for his individual weakness. Adler believed that social interest is inborn; that man is a social creature by nature, and not by habit. However, like any other natural aptitude, this innate predisposition does not appear spontaneously but has to be brought to fruition by guidance and training. Because he believed in the benefits of education Adler devoted a great deal of his time to establishing child guidance clinics, to improving the schools, and to educating the public regarding proper methods of rearing children. It is interesting to trace in Adler’s writings the decisive although gradual change that occurred in his conception of man from the early years of his professional life when he was associated with Freud to his later years when he had achieved an international reputation. For the young Adler, man is driven by an insatiable lust for power and domination in order to compen- sate for a concealed deep-seated feeling of inferiority. For the older Adler, man is motivated by an innately given social interest which causes him to subordinate private gain to public welfare. The image of the perfect man living in a perfect society blotted out the picture of the strong, aggressive man dominating and exploiting society. Social interest replaced selfish in- terest. STYLE OF LIFE This is the slogan of Adier’s personality theory. It is a recurrent theme in all of Adler’s later writings (for example, 1929a, 1931) and the most distinctive126 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY feature of his psychology. Style of life is the system principle by which the individual personality functions; it is the whole that commands the parts. Style of life is Adler’s chief idiographic principle; it is the principle that ex- plains the uniqueness of the person. Everyone has a style of life but no two people develop the same style. Precisely what is meant by this concept? This is a difficult question to answer because Adler had so much to say about it and because he said different and sometimes conflicting things about it in his various writings. Then, too, it is difficult to differentiate it from another Adlerian concept, that of the creative self. Every person has the same goal, that of superiority, but there are innu- merable ways of striving for this goal. One person tries to become superior through developing his intellect, while another bends all of his efforts to achieving muscular perfection. The intellectual has one style of life, the athlete another. The intellectual reads, studies, thinks; he lives a more sedentary and more solitary life than the active man does. He arranges the details of his existence, his domestic habits, his recreations, his daily routine, his relations to his family, friends, and acquaintances, his social activities, in accordance with his goal of intellectual superiority. Everything he does he does with an eye to this ultimate goal. All of a person’s be- havior springs from his style of life. He perceives, learns, and retains what fits his style of life, and ignores everything else. The style of life is formed very early in childhood, by the age of four or five, and from then on experiences are assimilated and utilized according to this unique style of life. His attitudes, feelings, apperceptions become fixed and mechanized at an early age, and it is practically impossible for the style of life to change thereafter. The person may acquire new ways of expressing his unique style of life, but these are merely concrete and par- ticular instances of the same basic style that was found at an early age. What determines the individual’s style of life? In his earlier writings, Adler said that it is largely determined by the specific inferiorities, either fancied or real, that the person has. The style of life is a compensation for a particular inferiority. If the child is a physical weakling, his style of life will take the form of doing those things which will produce physical strength. The dull child will strive for intellectual superiority. Napoleon’s conquer- ing style of life was determined by his slight physical stature, and Hitler’s rapacious craving for world domination by his sexual impotence. This simple explanation of man’s conduct which appealed to so many of Adler's readers and which was widely applied in the analysis of character during the 1920's and 1930's did not satisfy Adler himself. It was too simple and too mechanistic. He looked for a more dynamic principle and found the creative self,SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 127 THE CREATIVE SELF This concept is Adler’s crowning achievement as a personality theorist. When he discovered the creative power of the self, all of his other concepts were subordinated to it; here at last was the prime mover, the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, the first cause of everything human for which Adler had been searching. The unitary, consistent, creative self is sovereign in the personality structure. Like all first causes, the creative power of the self is hard to describe. We can see its effects, but we cannot see it. It is something that intervenes be- tween the stimuli acting upon the person and the responses he makes to these stimuli. In essence, the doctrine of a creative self asserts that man. makes his own personality. He constructs it out of the raw material of heredity and experience. Heredity only endows him with certain abilities. Environment only gives him certain impressions. These abilities and impressions, and the manner in which he ‘experiences’ them—that is to say, the interpretation he makes of these ex- periences—are the bricks, or in other words his attitude toward life, which de- termines this relationship to the outside world (Adler, 1935, p. 5). The creative self is the yeast that acts upon the facts of the world and transforms these facts into a personality that is subjective, dynamic, unified, personal, and uniquely stylized. The creative self gives meaning to lifes it creates the goal as well as the means to the goal. The creative self is the active principle of human life, and it is not unlike the older concept of soul. In summary, it may be said that Adler fashioned a humanistic theory of personality which was the antithesis of Freud’s conception of man. By endowing man with altruism, humanitarianism, co-operation, creativity, uniqueness, and awareness, he restored to man a sense of dignity and worth that psychoanalysis had pretty largely destroyed. In place of the dreary materialistic picture which horrified and repelled many readers of Freud, Adler offered a portrait of man which was more satisfying, more hopeful, and far more complimentary to man. Adler’s conception of the nature of personality coincided with the popular idea that man can be the master, and not the victim, of his fate. CHARACTERISTIC RESEARCH AND RESEARCH METHODS Adler’s empirical observations were made largely in the therapeutic set- ting and consist for the most part of reconstructions of the past as remem-128 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY bered by the patient and appraisals of present behavior on the basis of ver- bal reports. There is space to mention only a few examples of Adler’s in- vestigative activities. ORDER OF BIRTH AND PERSONALITY In line with his interest in the social determiners of personality, Adler ob- served that the personalities of the oldest, middle, and youngest child in a family were likely to be quite different (1931, pp. 144-154). He attributed these differences to the distinctive experiences that each child has as a mem- ber of a social group. The first-born or oldest child is given a good deal of attention until the second child is born; then he is suddenly dethroned from his favored posi- tion and must share his parents’ affections with the new baby. This experi- ence may condition the oldest child in various ways, such as hating people, protecting himself against sudden reversals of fortune, and feeling insecure. Oldest children are also apt to take an interest in the past when they were the center of attention. Neurotics, criminals, drunkards, and perverts, Adler observes, are often first-born children. If the parents handle the situation wisely by preparing the oldest child for the appearance of a rival, the oldest child is more likely to develop into a responsible, protective person. ‘The second or middle child is characterized by being ambitious. He is constantly trying to surpass his older sibling. He also tends to be rebellious and envious but by and large he is better adjusted than either his older or younger sibling. ‘The youngest child is the spoiled child. Next to the oldest child he is most likely to become a problem child and a neurotic maladjusted adult. Although early tests of Adler’s birth-order theory failed to lend much support to it (Jones, 1931), the more sophisticated work of Schachter (1959) has provided impressive confirmation of the Adlerian thesis and has opened the subject for an immense amount of research. EARLY MEMORIES Adler felt that the earliest memory a person could report was an important key to understanding his basic style of life (1931). For example, a gir] began an account of her earliest memory by saying, “When I was three years old, my father...” This indicates that she is more interested in her father than in her mother. She then goes on to say that the father brought home a pair of ponies for an older sister and her, and that the older sister led herSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 129 pony down the street by the halter while she was dragged along in the mud by her pony. This is the fate of the younger child—to come off second best in the rivalry with an older sibling—and it motivates her to try to surpass the pacemaker. Her style of life is one of driving ambition, an urge to be first, a deep feeling of insecurity and disappointment, and a strong fore- boding of failure. A young man who was being treated for severe attacks of anxiety re- called this early scene. “When I was about four years old I sat at the window and watched some workmen building a house on the opposite side of the street, while my mother knitted stockings.” This recollection indicates that the young man was pampered as a child because his memory includes the solicitous mother. The fact that he is looking at others who are working suggests that his style of life is that of a spectator rather than a participant. This is borne out by the fact that he becomes anxious whenever he tries to take up a vocation. Adler suggested to him that he consider an occupa- tion in which his preference for looking and observing could be utilized. The patient took Adler's advice and became a successful dealer in art objects. Adler used this method with groups as well as individuals and found that it was an easy and economical way of studying personality. Early recollections are now being used as a projective technique (Mosak, 1958). CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES Adler was particularly interested in the kinds of early influences that pre- dispose the child to a faulty style of life. He discovered three important factors: (1) children with inferiorities, (2) spoiled children, and (3) neg- lected children. Children with physical or mental infirmities bear a heavy burden and are likely to feel inadequate in meeting the tasks of life. They consider themselves to be, and often are, failures. However, if they have understanding, encouraging parents they may compensate for their inferiori- ties and transform their weakness into strength. Many prominent men started life with some organic weakness for which they compensated. Over and over again Adler spoke out vehemently against the evils of pamper- ing for he considered this to be the greatest curse that can be visited upon the child. Pampered children do not develop social feeling; they become despots who expect society to conform to their self-centered wishes. Adler considered them to be potentially the most dangerous class in society. Neglect of the child also has unfortunate consequences. Badly treated in childhood, as adults they become enemies of society. Their style of life is dominated by the need for revenge. These three conditions—organic in- firmity, pampering, and rejection—produce erroneous conceptions of the world and result in a pathological style of life.130 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY ERICH FROMM Erich Fromm was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1900 and studied psychol- ogy and sociology at the Universities of Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Munich. After receiving a Ph.D. degree from Heidelberg in 1922, he was trained in psychoanalysis in Munich and at the famous Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. He came to the United States in 1933 as a lecturer at the Chicago Psycho- analytic Institute and then entered private practice in New York City. He has taught at a number of universities and institutes in this country and now re- sides in Mexico where he teaches at the National University. Not only have his books received considerable attention from specialists in the fields of psy- chology, sociology, philosophy, and religion but also from the general public. Fromm has been heavily influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, particularly by an early work The economic and philosophical manuscripts composed in 1844. This work in an English translation by T. B. Bottomore is included in Fromm’s Marx's concept of man (1961). In Beyond the chains of illusion (1962), Fromm compares the ideas of Freud and Marx, noting their contradictions and attempting a synthesis. Fromm regards Marx as a more profound thinker than Freud and uses psychoanalysis mainly to fill in the gaps in Marx. Fromm (1959) wrote a highly critical, even polemical, analysis of Freud’s personality and influence and by way of contrast an unconditional eulogy of Marx (1961). Although Fromm could be accurately called a Marxian personality theorist, he himself prefers the label dialectic humanist. Fromm’s writings are inspired by his extensive knowledge of history, sociology, literature, and philosophy. The essential theme of all of Fromm’s writings is that man feels lonely and isolated because he has become separated from nature and from other men. This condition of isolation is not found in any other species of animal; it is the distinctive human situation. The child, for example, gains freedom from the primary ties with his parents with the result that he feels isolated and helpless. The serf eventually secured his freedom only to find himself adrift in a predominantly alien world. As a serf, he belonged to someone and had a feeling of being related to the world and to other people, even though he was not free. In his book, Escape from freedom (1941), Fromm develops the thesis that as man has gained more freedom throughout the ages he has also felt more alone. Freedom then becomes a negative condition from which he tries to escape. What is the answer to this dilemma? Man can either unite himself with other people in the spirit of love and shared work or he can find security by submitting to authority and conforming to society. In the one case, man uses his freedom to develop a better society; in the other, heSOCIAL PsycHoLoarcaL THEORIES 131 acquires a new bondage. Escape from freedom was written under the shadow of the Nazi dictatorship and shows that this form of totalitarianism appealed to people because it offered them a new security. But as Fromm points out in subsequent books (1947, 1955, 1964) any form of society that man has fashioned, whether it be that of feudalism, capitalism, fascism, socialism, or communism, represents an attempt to resolve the basic con- tradiction of man. This contradiction consists of man being both a part of nature and separate from it, of being both an animal and a human being. As an animal he has certain physiological needs which must be satisfied. ‘As a human being he possesses self-awareness, reason, and imagination. Experiences that are uniquely human are feelings of tenderness, love, and compassion; attitudes of interest, responsibility, identity, integrity, vulnera- bility, transcendence, and freedom; and values and norms (1968). The two aspects of man being both animal and human being constitute the basic conditions of man’s existence. “The understanding of man’s psyche miust be based on the analysis of man’s needs stemming from the conditions of his existence” (1955, p. 25). What are the specific needs that rise from the conditions of man’s ex- istence? They are five in number: the need for relatedness, the need for transcendence, the need for rootedness, the need for identity, and the need for a frame of orientation. The need for relatedness (also called the frame of devotion in Revolution of hope, 1968) stems from the stark fact that man in becoming man has been torn from the animal’s primary union with nature, “The animal is equipped by nature to cope with the very conditions it is to meet” (1955, p. 23) but man with his power to reason and imagine has lost this intimate interdependence with nature. In place of those in- stinctive ties with nature which animals possess man has to create his own relationships, the most satisfying being those which are based upon produc- tive love. Productive love always implies mutual care, responsibility, respect, and understanding. The urge for transcendence refers to man’s need to rise above his animal nature, to become a creative person instead of remaining a creature. If his creative urges are thwarted, man becomes a destroyer. Fromm points out that love and hate are not antithetical drives; they are both answers to man’s need to transcend his animal nature. Animals can neither love nor hate, but man can. Man desires natural roots; he wants to be an integral part of the world, to feel that he belongs. As a child, he is rooted to his mother but if this relationship persists past childhood it is considered to be an unwholesome fixation. Man finds his most satisfying and healthiest roots in a feeling of brotherliness with other men and women. But man wants also to have a sense of personal identity, to be a unique individual. If he cannot attain this132 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY goal through his own creative effort, he may obtain a certain mark of dis- tinction by identifying himself with another person or group. The slave identifies with the master, the citizen with his country, the worker with his company. In this case, the sense of identity arises from belonging to someone and not from being someone. Finally, man needs to have a frame of reference, a stable and consistent way of perceiving and comprehending the world. The frame of reference that he develops may be primarily rational, primarily irrational, or it may have elements of both. For Fromm these needs are purely human and purely objective. They are not found in animals and they are not derived from observing what man says he wants. Nor are these strivings created by society; rather they have become embedded in human nature through evolution. What then is the relation of society to the existence of man? Fromm believes that the specific manifestations of these needs, the actual ways in which man realizes his inner potentialities, are determined by “the social arrangements under which he lives” (1955, p. 14). His personality develops in accordance with the opportunities that a particular society offers him. In a capitalistic so- ciety, for example, he may gain a sense of personal identity by becoming rich or develop a feeling of rootedness by becoming a dependable and trusted employee in a large company. In other words, man’s adjustment to society usually represents a compromise between inner needs and outer de- mands. He develops a social character in keeping with the requirements of the society. Fromm has identified and described five character types that are found in today’s society: receptive, exploitative, hoarding, marketing, and pro- ductive. Only the last of these is considered by him to be healthy and ex- press what Marx called “free conscious activity.” More recently, Fromm (1964) has described a sixth pair of character types, the necrophilous who is attracted to death versus the biophilous who is in love with life. Fromm notes that what might be considered a parallel between this formulation and Freud’s life and death instincts is actually not a parallel. For Freud, both life and death instincts are inherent in the biology of man, whereas for Fromm, life is the only primary potentiality. Death is merely secondary and only enters the picture when the life forces are frustrated. From the standpoint of the proper functioning of a particular society it is absolutely essential that the child’s character be shaped to fit the needs of society. The task of the parents and of education is to make the child want to act as he has to act if a given economic, political, and social system is to be maintained. Thus, in a capitalistic system the desire to save must be implanted in people in order that capital is available for an expanding economy. A society which has evolved a credit system must see to it thatSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 133 people will feel an inner compulsion to pay their bills promptly. Fromm gives numerous examples of the types of character that develop in a demo- cratic, capitalistic society (1947). By making demands upon man which are contrary to his nature, society warps and frustrates man. It alienates him from his “human situation” and denies him the fulfillment of the basic conditions of his existence. Both capitalism and communism, for example, try to make man into a robot, a wage slave, a nonentity, and they often succeed in driving him into insanity, antisocial conduct or self-destructive acts. Fromm does not hesitate to stigma- tize a whole society as being sick when it fails to satisfy the basic needs of man (1955). Fromm also points out that when a society changes in any important respect, as occurred when feudalism changed into capitalism or when the factory system displaced the individual artisan, such a change is likely to produce dislocations in the social character of people. The old character structure does not fit the new society, which adds to man’s sense of alien- ation and despair. He is cut off from traditional ties and until he can de- velop new roots and relations he feels lost. During such transitional periods, he becomes a prey to all sorts of panaceas and nostrums which offer him a refuge from loneliness. The problem of man’s relations to society is one of great concern to Fromm, and he returns to it again and again, Fromm is utterly convinced of the validity of the following propositions: (1) man has an essential, in- born nature, (2) society is created by man in order to fulfill this essential nature, (3) no society which has yet been devised meets the basic needs of man’s existence, and (4) it is possible to create such a society. What kind of a society does Fromm advocate? It is one «in which man relates to man lovingly, in which he is rooted in bonds of brotherliness and solidarity . . . ; a society which gives him the possibility of transcending nature by creating rather than by destroying, in which everyone gains a sense of self by experiencing himself as the subject of his powers rather than by conformity, in which a system of orientation and devotion exists without man’s needing to distort reality and to worship idols (1955, p. 362). Fromm even suggests a name for this perfect society: Humanistic Com- munitarian Socialism. In such a society everyone would have equal op- portunity to become fully human. There would be no loneliness, no feelings of isolation, no despair. Man would find a new home, one suited to the “human situation.” Such a society would realize Marx’s goal of transforming man’s alienation under a system of private property into an opportunity for self-realization as a social, productively active human being under socialism. Fromm has extended the blueprint of the ideal society by spelling out how134 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY our present technological society can be humanized (1968). Fromm’s views have been sharply criticized by Schaar (1961). KAREN HORNEY Karen Horney was born in Hamburg, Germany, September 16, 1885, and died in New York City, December 4, 1952. She received her medical training at the University of Berlin and was associated with the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute from 1918 to 1932. She was analyzed by Karl Abraham and Hans Sachs, two of the pre-eminent training analysts in Europe at that time. Upon the invitation of Franz Alexander, she came to the United States and was Associate Director of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute for two years. In 1934 she moved to New York where she practiced psychoanalysis and taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Becoming dissatisfied with orthodox psychoanalysis, she and others of similar convictions founded the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the American Institute of Psychoanalysis. She was Dean of this institute until her death. Horney conceives of her ideas as falling within the framework of Freud- ian psychology, not as constituting an entirely new approach to the under- standing of personality. She aspires to eliminate the fallacies in Freud's thinking—fallacies which have their root, she believes, in his mechanistic, biological orientation—in order that psychoanalysis may realize its full po- tentialities as a science of man. “My conviction, expressed in a nutshell, is that psychoanalysis should outgrow the limitations set by its being an in- stinctivistic and a genetic psychology” (1939, p. 8). Horney objects strongly to Freud’s concept of penis envy as the de- termining factor in the psychology of women. Freud, it will be recalled, observed that the distinctive attitudes and feelings of women and their most profound conflict grew out of their feeling of genital inferiority and their jealousy of the male. Horney believes that feminine psychology is based on lack of confidence and an overemphasis of the love relationship, and has very little to do with the anatomy of her sex organs. Regarding the Oedipus complex, Horney feels that it is not a sexual-aggressive conflict between the child and his parents but an anxiety growing out of basic disturbances, for example, rejection, overprotection, and punishment, in the child’s relationships with his mother and father. Aggression is not inborn as Freud stated, but is a means by which man tries to protect his security. Narcissism is not really self-love but self-inflation and overevaluation owing to feelings of insecurity. Horney also takes issue with the following Freud- ian concepts: repetition compulsion, the id, ego, and superego, anxiety, and masochism (1939). On the positive side, Horney asserts that Freud’s funda-SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 135 mental theoretical contributions are the doctrines of psychic determinism, unconscious motivation, and emotional, nonrational motives. Horney’s primary concept is that of basic anxiety, which is defined as .«. the feeling a child has of being isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile world, A wide range of adverse factors in the environment can produce this in- security in a child: direct or indirect domination, indifference, erratic behavior, lack of respect for the child’s individual needs, lack of real guidance, disparag- ing attitudes, too much admiration or the absence of it, lack of reliable warmth, having to take sides in parental disagreements, too much or too little respon- sibility, overprotection, isolation from other children, injustice, discrimination, unkept promises, hostile atmosphere, and so on and so on (1945, p. 41). In general, anything that disturbs the security of the child in relation to his parents produces basic anxiety. é The insecure, anxious child develops various strategies by which to cope with his feelings of isolation and helplessness (1937). He may become hostile and seek to avenge himself against those who have rejected or mis- treated him. Or he may become overly submissive in order to win back the love that he feels he has lost. He may develop an unrealistic, idealized picture of himself in order to compensate for his feelings of inferiority (1950). He may try to bribe others into loving him, or he may use threats to force people to like him. He may wallow in self-pity in order to gain people's sympathy. . If he cannot get love he may seek to obtain power over others. In that way, he compensates for his sense of helplessness, finds an outlet for hostility, and is able to exploit people. Or he becomes highly competitive, in which the winning is far more important than the achievement. He may turn his aggression inward and belittle himself, ‘Any one of these strategies may become a more or less permanent fixture in the personality; a particular strategy may, in other words, assume the character of a drive or need in the personality dynamics. Horney presents a list of ten needs which are acquired as a consequence of trying to find solutions for the problem of disturbed human relationships (1942). She calls these needs “neurotic” because they are irrational solutions to the problem. 1. The neurotic need for affection and approval. This need is character- ized by an indiscriminate wish to please others and to live up to their ex- pectations. The person lives for the good opinion of others and is extremely sensitive to any sign of rejection or unfriendliness. 2. The neurotic need for a “partner” who will take over one's life. The person with this need is a parasite. He overvalues love, and is extremely afraid of being deserted and left alone.136 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY 3. The neurotic need to restrict one’s life within narrow borders. Such a person is undemanding, content with little, prefers to remain inconspicu- ous, and values modesty above all else. 4. The neurotic need for power. This need expresses itself in craving power for its own sake, in an essential disrespect for others, and in an in- discriminate glorification of strength and a contempt for weakness. People who are afraid to exert power openly may try to control others through intellectual exploitation and superiority. Another variety of the power drive is the need to believe in the omnipotence of will. Such people feel they can accomplish anything simply by exerting will power. 5. The neurotic need to exploit others. 6. The neurotic need for prestige. One's self-evaluation is determined by the amount of public recognition received. 7. The neurotic need for personal admiration. A person with this need has an inflated picture of himself and wishes to be admired on this basis, not for what he really is 8. The neurotic ambition for personal achievement. Such a person wants to be the very best and drives himself to greater and greater achievements as a result of his basic insecurity. 9. The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence. Having been disappointed in his attempts to find warm, satisfying relationships with people, the person sets himself apart from others and refuses to be tied down to anyone or anything. He becomes a lone wolf. 10. The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability. Fearful of mak- ing mistakes and of being criticized, the person who has this need tries to make himself impregnable and infallible. He is constantly searching for flaws in himself so that they may be covered up before they become obvious to others. These ten needs are the sources from which inner conflicts develop. ‘The neurotic’s need for love, for example, is insatiable; the more he gets the more he wants, Consequently, he is never satisfied. Likewise, his need for independence can never be fully satisfied because another part of his personality wants to be loved and admired. The search for perfection is a lost cause from the beginning. All of the foregoing needs are unrealistic. In a later publication (1945), Horney classifies these ten needs under three headings: (1) moving toward people, for example, need for love, (2) moving away from people, for instance, need for independence, and (3) moving against people, for example, need for power. Each of the rubrics represents a basic orientation toward others and oneself. Horney finds in these different orientations the basis for inner conflict. The essential dif- ference between 2 normal and a neurotic conflict is one of degree. “. . . theSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 137 disparity between the conflicting issues is much less great for the normal person than for the neurotic” (1945, p. 31). In other words, everyone has these conflicts but some people, primarily because of early experiences with rejection, neglect, overprotection, and other kinds of unfortunate parental treatment, possess them in an aggravated form. While the normal person can resolve these conflicts by integrating the three orientations, since they are not mutually exclusive, the neurotic person, because of his greater basic anxiety, must utilize irrational and artificial solutions. He consciously recognizes only one of the trends and denies or represses the other two. Or he creates an idealized image of himself in which the contradictory trends presumably disappear, although actually they do not. In a later book (1950), Horney has a great deal more to say about the unfortunate consequences that flow from the development of an unrealistic conception of the self and from attempts to live up to this ideal- ized picture. The search for glory, feelings of self-contempt, morbid de- pendency upon other people, and self-abasement are some of the unhealthy and destructive results that grow out of an idealized self. A third solution employed by the neurotic person for his inner conflicts is to externalize them. He says, in effect, “I don’t want to exploit other people, they want to exploit me.” This solution creates conflicts between the person and the outside world. All of these conflicts are avoidable or resolvable if the child is raised in a home where there is security, trust, love, respect, tolerance, and warmth. That is, Horney, unlike Freud and Jung, does not feel that conflict is built into the nature of man and is therefore inevitable. Conflict arises out of social conditions. “The person who is likely to become neurotic is one who has experienced the culturally determined difficulties in an accentuated form, mostly through the medium of childhood experience” (1937, p. 290). HARRY STACK SULLIVAN Harry Stack Sullivan is the creator of a new viewpoint which is known as the interpersonal theory of psychiatry. Its major tenet as it relates to a theory of personality is that personality is “the relatively enduring pattern of re- current interpersonal situations which characterize a human life” (1953, p. 111). Personality is a hypothetical entity which cannot be isolated from interpersonal situations, and interpersonal behavior is all that can be ob- served as personality. Consequently, it is vacuous, Sullivan believes, to speak of the individual as the object of study because the individual does not and cannot exist apart from his relations with other people. From the first day of life, the baby is a part of an interpersonal situation, and throughout138 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY the rest of his life he remains a member of a social field. Even a hermit who has resigned from society carries with him into the wilderness memo- ries of former personal relationships which continue to influence his think- ing and acting. ‘Although Sullivan does not deny the importance of heredity and matu- ration in forming and shaping the organism, he feels that that which is distinctly human is the product of social interactions. Moreover, the inter- personal experiences of a person may and do alter his purely physiological functioning, so that even the organism loses its status as a biological entity and becomes a social organism with its own socialized ways of breathing, digesting, eliminating, circulating, and so forth. For Sullivan, the science of psychiatry is allied with social psychology, and his theory of personality bears the imprint of his strong preference for social psychological concepts and variables. He writes, The general science of psychiatry seems to me to cover much the same field as that which is studied by social psychology, because scientific psychiatry has to be defined as the study of interpersonal relations, and this in the end calls for the use of the kind of conceptual framework that we now call field theory. From such a standpoint, personality is taken to be hypothetical. That which can be studied is the pattern of processes which characterize the interaction of person- alities in particular recurrent situations or fields which “include” the observer (1950, p. 92). Harry Stack Sullivan was born on a farm near Norwich, New York, on February 21, 1892, and died on January 14, 1949, in Paris, France, on his way home from a meeting of the executive board of the World Federation for Mental Health in Amsterdam. He received his medical degree from the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery in 1917, and served with the armed forces during the First World War. Following the war he was a medical officer of the Federal Board for Vocational Education and then be- came an officer with the Public Health Service. In 1922 Sullivan went to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he came under the influence of William Alanson White, a leader in American neuropsychiatry. From 1923 until the early thirties he was associated with the Medical School of the University of Maryland and with the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in ‘Towson, Maryland. It was during this period of his life that Sullivan conducted investigations of schizophrenia which established his reputation as a clinician. He left Maryland to open an office on Park Avenue in New York City for the express purpose of studying the obsessional proc- ess in office patients. At this time he began his formal analytic training with Clara Thompson, a student of Sandor Ferenczi. This was not Sul- livan’s first exposure to psychoanalysis. He had about 75 hours of analysisSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 139 while he was still a medical student. In 1933 he became president of the William Alanson White Foundation, serving in that office until 1943. In 1936, he helped found and became director of the Washington School of Psychiatry, which is the training institution of the foundation. The journal Psychiatry began publication in 1938 to promote Sullivan’s theory of inter- personal relations. He was its coeditor and then editor until his death. Sul- livan served as consultant for the Selective Service System in 1940-1941; he was a participant during 1948 in the UNESCO Tensions Project established by the United Nations to study tensions affecting international understand- ing; and he was appointed a member of the international preparatory commission for the International Congress of Mental Health in the same year. Sullivan was a scientific statesman as well as a prominent spokesman for psychiatry, the leader of an important school for training psychiatrists, a remarkable therapist, an intrepid theorist, and a productive medical scien- tist. By his vivid personality and original thinking, he attracted a number of people who became his disciples, students, colleagues, and friends. Aside from William Alanson White, the chief influences on Sullivan’s intellectual development were Freud, Adolph Meyer, and the Chicago School of Sociology which consisted of George Herbert Mead, W. I. Thomas, Edward Sapir, Robert E. Park, E. W. Burgess, Charles E, Merriam, William Healy, and Harold Lasswell. Sullivan felt particularly close to Edward Sapir who was one of the pioneers in advocating a closer working relation- ship between anthropology, sociology, and psychoanalysis. Sullivan began to formulate his theory of interpersonal relations in 1929 and had consolidated his thinking by the mid-1930's. During his lifetime Sullivan published only one book setting forth his theory (1947). However, he kept detailed notebooks and many of his lec- tures to the students of the Washington School of Psychiatry were recorded. These notebooks and recordings, as well as other unpublished material, have been turned over to the William Alanson White Psychiatric Foun- dation. Five books based upon the Sullivan material have been published, the first three with introductions and commentaries by Helen Swick Perry and Mary Gavell, the last two by Mrs. Perry alone. The interpersonal theory of psychiatry (1953) consists mainly of a series of lectures given by Sullivan in the winter of 1946-1947 and represents the most complete account of his theory of interpersonal relations. The psychiatric interview (1954) is based upon two lecture series that Sullivan gave in 1944 and 1945, and Clinical studies in psychiatry (1956) is drawn from lectures given in 1943, Sullivan’s papers on schizophrenia, most of which date back to the time he was as- sociated with the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, have been brought together and published under the title Schizophrenia as a human process140 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY (1962). The last volume that has appeared is The fusion of psychiatry and social science (1964). The first and last volumes in this series of five are the most pertinent for gaining an understanding of Sullivan's social-psychologi- cal theory of personality. Patrick Mullahy, a philosopher and disciple of Sullivan, has edited several books dealing with the theory of interpersonal relations. One of these, A study of interpersonal relations (1949), contains a group of papers by people associated with the Washington School and the William Alanson White Institute in New York City. All of the articles were originally printed in Psychiatry, including three by Sullivan. Another book entitled The contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan (1952) consists of a group of papers presented at a memorial symposium by representatives of various disciplines, including psychiatry, psychology, and sociology. This book contains a suc- cinct account of interpersonal theory by Mullahy and a complete bibliogra- phy of Sullivan’s writings through 1951. A similar digest of Sullivan’s views also appears in Mullahy’s book, Oedipus—myth and complex (1948). Sul- livan’s interpersonal theory has been treated at length by Dorothy Blitsten (1953). THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY Sullivan insists repeatedly that personality is a purely hypothetical entity, “an illusion,” which cannot be observed or studied apart from interpersonal situations. The unit of study is the interpersonal situation and not the per- son. The organization of personality consists of interpersonal events rather than intrapsychic ones. Personality only manifests itself when the person is behaving in relation to one or more other individuals. These people do not need to be present; in fact they can even be illusory or nonexistent figures. ‘A person may have a relationship with a folk hero like Paul Bunyan or a fictional character like Anna Karenina or with his ancestors or with his as yet unborn descendants. “Psychiatry is the study of phenomena that occur in interpersonal situations, in configurations made up of two or more people all but one of whom may be more or less completely illusory” (1964, p. 33). Perceiving, remembering, thinking, imagining, and all of the other psycho- logical processes are interpersonal in character. Even nocturnal dreams are interpersonal, since they usually reflect the dreamer’s relationships with other people. Although Sullivan grants personality only hypothetical status, nonethe- less he asserts that it is a dynamic center of various processes which occur in a series of interpersonal fields. Moreover, he gives substantive status to some of these processes by identifying and naming them and by concep- tualizing some of their properties. The principal ones are dynamisms, personifications, and cognitive processes.SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 141 DYNAMISMS A dynamism is the smallest unit which can be employed in the study of the individual. It is defined as “the relatively enduring pattern of energy transformations, which recurrently characterize the organism in its dura- tion as a living organism” (1953, p. 103). An energy transformation is any form of behavior. It may be overt’ and public like talking, or covert and private like thinking and fantasying. Because a dynamism is a pattern of behavior that endures and recurs, it is about the same thing as a habit. Sullivan’s definition of pattern is quaintly phrased; he says it is “an envelope of insignificant particular differences” (1953, p. 104). This means that a new feature may be added to a pattern without changing the pattern just as long as it is not significantly different from the other contents of the envelope. If it is significantly different it changes the pattern into a new pattern. For example, two apples may be quite different in appearance and yet be identified as apples because their differences are not important. How- ever, an apple and a banana are different in significant respects and conse- quently form two different pattern: The dynamisms which are distinctively human in character are those which characterize one’s interpersonal relations. For example, one may be- have in a habitually hostile way toward a certain person or group of persons, which is an expression of a dynamism of malevolence. A man who tends to seek out lascivious relationships with women displays a dynamism of lust. A child who is afraid of strangers has a dynamism of fear. Any habitual reaction towards one or more persons, whether it be in the form of a feeling, an attitude, or an overt action, constitutes a dynamism. All people have the same basic dynamisms but the mode of expression of a dynamism varies in accordance with the situation and the life experience of the individual. A dynamism usually employs a particular zone of the body such as the mouth, the hands, the anus, and the genitals by means of which it interacts with the environment. A zone consists of a receptor apparatus for receiving stimuli, an effector apparatus for performing action, and a connecting ap- paratus called eductors in the central nervous system which connects the receptor mechanism with the effector mechanism. Thus, when the nipple is brought to the baby’s mouth it stimulates the sensitive membrane of the lips which discharges impulses along nerve pathways to the motor organs of the mouth which produce sucking movements. Most dynamisms serve the purpose of satisfying the basic needs of the organism. However, there is an important dynamism which develops as a result of anxiety. This is called the dynamism of the self or the self-system. The self-system. Anxiety is a product of interpersonal relations, being142 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY transmitted originally from the mother to the infant and later in life by threats to one’s security. In order to avoid or minimize actual or potential anxiety, the person adopts various types of protective measures and super- visory controls over his behavior. He learns, for example, that he can avoid punishment by conforming to his parents’ wishes. These security measures form the self-system which sanctions certain forms of behavior (the good-me self) and forbids other forms (the bad-me self). The self-system as the guardian of one’s security tends to become isolated from the rest of the personality; it excludes information that is incongruous with its present organization and fails thereby to profit from experience. Since the self guards the person from anxiety, it is held in high esteem and is protected from criticism. As the self-system grows in complexity and independence, it prevents the person from making objective judgments of his own behavior and it glosses over obvious contradictions between what the person really is and what his self-system says he is. In general, the more experiences the person has with anxiety, the more inflated his self-system becomes and the more it becomes dissociated from the rest of his personality. Although the self-system serves the useful purpose of reducing anxiety, it interferes with one’s ability to live constructively with others. Sullivan believes that the self-system is a product of the irrational aspects of society. By this he means that the young child is made to feel anxious for reasons that would not exist in a more rational society; he is forced to adopt unnatural and unrealistic ways of dealing with his anxiety. Although Sul- livan recognizes that the development of a self-system is absolutely necessary for avoiding anxiety in modern society, and perhaps in any kind of society which man is capable of fashioning, he also acknowledges that the self- system as we know it today is “the principal stumbling block to favorable changes in personality” (1953, p. 169). Perhaps with tongue-in-check, he wrote, “The self is the content of consciousness at all times when one is thoroughly comfortable about one’s self respect, the prestige that one enjoys among one’s fellows, and the respect and deference which they pay one” (1964, p. 217). PERSONIFICATIONS A personification is an image that an individual has of himself or of an- other person. It is a complex of feelings, attitudes, and conceptions that grows out of experiences with need-satisfaction and anxiety. For exam- ple, the baby develops a personification of a good mother by being nursed and cared for by her. Any interpersonal relationship which involves sat- isfaction tends to build up a favorable picture of the satisfying agent.SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 143 On the other hand, the baby’s personification of a bad mother results from experiences with her that evoke anxiety. The anxious mother becomes personified as the bad mother. Ultimately, these two personifications of the mother along with any others that may be formed, such as the seductive mother or the overprotective mother, fuse together to form a complex personification. These pictures that we carry around in our heads are rarely accurate descriptions of the people to whom they refer. They are formed in the first place in order to cope with people in fairly isolated interpersonal situations, but once formed they usually persist and influence our attitudes towards other people. Thus a person who personifies his father as a mean and dicta- torial man may project this same personification onto other older men, for example, teachers, policemen, and employers. Consequently, something that serves an anxiety-reducing function in early life may interfere with one’s interpersonal relations later in life. These anxiety-fraught pictures distort one’s conceptions of currently significant people. Personifications of the self such as the good-me and the bad-me follow the same principles as personifi- cations of others. The good-me personification results from interpersonal experiences which are rewarding in character, the bad-me personification from anxiety-arousing situations. And like personifications of other people, these self-personifications tend to stand in the way of objective self-evaluation. Personifications which are shared by a number of people are called stereotypes. These are consensually validated conceptions, that is, ideas which have wide acceptance among the members of a society and are handed down from generation to generation. Examples of common stereotypes in our culture are the absent-minded professor, the unconventional artist, and the hard-headed businessman. COGNITIVE PROCESSES Sullivan’s unique contribution regarding the place of cognition in the af- fairs of personality is his threefold classification of experience. Experi- ence, he says, occurs in three modes; these are prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic. Prototaxic experience “may be regarded as the discrete series of momentary states of the sensitive organism” (1953, p. 29). This type of experience is similar to what James called the “stream of consciousness,” the raw sensations, images, and feelings that flow through the mind of a sensate being. They have no necessary connections among themselves and possess no meaning for the experiencing person. The prototaxic mode of experience is found in its purest form during the early months of life and is the necessary precondition for the appearance of the other two modes.144 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY The parataxic mode of thinking consists of seeing causal relationship between events that occur at about the same time but which are not logically related. The eminent Czech writer, Franz Kafka, portrays an interesting case of parataxic thinking in one of his short stories. A dog who lived in a kennel surrounded by a high fence was urinating one day when a bone was thrown over the fence. The dog thought, “My urinating made that bone appear.” Thereafter whenever he wanted something to eat he lifted his leg. Sullivan believes that much of our thinking does not advance beyond the level of parataxis; that we see causal connections between experiences that have nothing to do with one another. All superstitions, for instance, are examples of parataxic thinking. The third and highest mode of thinking is the syntaxic, which consists of consensually validated symbol activity, expecially of a verbal nature. A consensually validated symbol is one which has been agreed upon by a group of people as having a standard meaning. Words and numbers are the best examples of such symbols, The syntaxic mode produces logical order among experiences and enables people to communicate with one another. In addition to this formulation of the modes of experience, Sullivan emphasizes the importance of foresight in cognitive functioning. “Man, the person, lives with his past, the present and the neighboring future all clearly relevant in explaining his thought and action” (1950, p. 84). Foresight de- pends upon one’s memory of the past and interpretation of the present. Although dynamisms, personifications, and cognitive processes do not complete the list of the constituents of personality, they are the chief dis- tinguishing structural features of Sullivan’s system. YHE DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY Sullivan, in common with many other personality theorists, conceives of personality as an energy system whose chief work consists of activities that will reduce tension. Sullivan says there is no need to add the term “mental” to either energy or tension since he uses them in exactly the same sense as they are used in physics. ‘Tenston. Sullivan begins with the familiar conception of the organism as a tension system which theoretically can vary between the limits of absolute relaxation, or euphoria as Sullivan prefers to call it, and absolute tension as exemplified by extreme terror. There are two main sources of tension: (1) tensions that arise from the needs of the organism, and (2) tensions that result from an anxiety. Needs are connected with the physio- chemical requirements of life; they are such conditions as lack of food or water or oxygen which produce a disequilibrium in the economy of the organism. Needs may be general in character, such as hunger, or they maySOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 145 be more specifically related to a zone of the body, such as the need to suck. Needs arrange themselves in a hierarchical order; those lower down on the ladder must be satisfied before those higher on the ladder can be accom- modated. One result of need reduction is an experience of satisfaction. “Ten- sions can be regarded as needs for particular energy transformations which will dissipate the tension, often with an accompanying change of ‘mental’ state, a change of awareness, to which we can apply the general term, satis- faction” (1950, p. 85). The typical consequence of prolonged failure to satisfy the needs is a feeling of apathy which produces a general lowering of the tensions. Anxiety is the experience of tension that results from real or imaginary threats to one’s security. In large amounts, it reduces the efficiency of the individual in satisfying his needs, disturbs interpersonal relations, and pro- duces confusion in thinking. Anxiety varies in intensity depending upon the seriousness of the threat and the effectiveness of the security operations that the person has at his command. Severe anxiety is like a blow on the head; it conveys no information to the person but instead produces utter confusion and even amnesia. Less severe forms of anxiety can be informative. In fact, Sullivan believes that anxiety is the first greatly educative influence in living. Anxiety is transmitted to the infant by the “mothering one” who is, herself expressing anxiety in her looks, tone of voice, and general de- meanor. Sullivan admits that he does not know how this transmission takes place, although it is probably accomplished by some kind of empathic proc- ess whose nature is obscure. As a consequence of this mother-transmitted anxiety, other objects in the near surroundings become freighted with anx- iety by the operation of the parataxic mode of associating contiguous experi- ences. The mother’s nipple, for example, is changed into a bad nipple which produces avoidance reactions in the baby. The infant learns to veer away from activities and objects that increase anxiety. When the baby cannot escape anxiety, he tends to fall asleep. This dynamism of somnolent detach- ment, as Sullivan calls it, is the counterpart of apathy, which is the dynamism aroused by unsatisfied needs. In fact, these two dynamisms cannot be ob- jectively differentiated. Sullivan says that one of the great tasks of psychology is to discover the basic vulnerabilities to anxiety in interpersonal relations rather than to try to deal with the symptoms resulting from anxiety. ENERGY TRANSFORMATIONS Energy is transformed by performing work. Work may be overt actions involving the striped muscles of the body or it may be mental such as per- ceiving, remembering, and thinking. These overt or covert activities have146 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY as their goal the relief of tension. They are to a great extent conditioned by the society in which the person is raised. “What anyone can discover by investigating his past is that patterns of tensions and energy transformations which make up his living are to a truly astonishing extent matters of his education for living in a particular society” (1950, p. 83). Sullivan does not believe that instincts are important sources of human motivation nor does he accept the libido theory of Freud. An individual earns to behave in a particular way as a result of interactions with people, and not because he possesses innate imperatives for certain kinds of action. ‘THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY Sullivan was very assiduous in spelling out the sequence of interpersonal situations to which the person is exposed in passing from infancy to adult- hood, and the ways in which these situations contribute to the formation of personality. More than any other personality theorist, with the possible ex- ception of Freud, Sullivan viewed personality from the perspective of definite stages of development. Whereas Freud held the position that development is largely an unfolding of the sex instinct, Sullivan argued persuasively for a more social-psychological view of personality growth, one in which the unique contributions of human relationships would be accorded their proper due. Although Sullivan did not reject biological factors as conditioners of the growth of personality, he did subordinate them to the social determiners of psychological development. Moreover, he was of the opinion that some- times these social influences run counter to the biological needs of the per- son and have detrimental effects upon his personality. Sullivan was not one to shy away from recognizing the deleterious influences of society. In fact, Sullivan, like other social-psychological theorists, was a sharp, incisive critic of contemporary society. STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT Sullivan delineates six stages in the development of personality prior to the final stage of maturity. These six stages are typical for Western European cultures and may be different in other societies. They are (L) infancy, (2) childhood, (3) the juvenile era, (4) preadolescence, (5) early adolescence, and (6) late adolescence. ‘The period of infancy extends from birth to the appearance of articulate speech. It is the period in which the oral zone is the primary zone of inter- action between the baby and his environment. Nursing provides the baby with his first interpersonal experience. The feature of the environment which stands out during infancy is the object which supplies food to theSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 147 hungry baby, either the nipple of the mother’s breast or the nipple of the bottle. The baby develops various conceptions of the nipple depending upon the kinds of experiences he has with it. These are: (1) the good nipple which is the signal for nursing and a sign that satisfaction is forthcoming, (2) the good but unsatisfactory nipple because the baby is not hungry, (3) the wrong nipple because it does not give milk and is a signal for rejection and subsequent search for another nipple, and (4) the bad nipple of the anxious mother which is a signal for avoidance. Other characteristic features of the infantile stages are (1) the appear- ance of the dynamisms of apathy and somnolent detachment, (2) the transition from a prototaxic to a parataxic mode of cognition, (3) the organi- zation of personifications such as the bad, anxious, rejecting, frustrating mother and the good, relaxed, accepting, satisfying mother, (4) the organi- zation of experience through learning and the emergence of the rudiments of the self-system, (5) the differentiation of the baby’s own body so that the baby learns to satisfy his tensions independently of the mothering one, for example, by thumbsucking, and (6) the learning of co-ordinated moves involving hand and eye, hand and mouth, and ear and voice. ‘The transition from infancy to childhood is made possible by the learning of language and the organization of experience in the syntaxic mode. Child- hood extends from the emergence of articulate speech to the appearance of the need for playmates. The development of language permits, among other things, the fusion of different personifications, for instance, the good and bad mother, and the integration of the self-system into a more coherent structure, The self-system begins to develop the conception of gender: the little boy identifies with the masculine role as prescribed by society, the little girl with the feminine role. The growth of symbolic ability enables the child to play at being a grownup—Sullivan calls these as-if performances drama- tizations—and to become concerned with various activities both overt and covert which serve the purpose of warding off punishment and anxiety— Sullivan calls these preoccupations. One dramatic event of childhood is the malevolent transformation, the feeling that one lives among enemies. This feeling, if it becomes strong enough, makes it impossible for the child to respond positively to the af- fectionate advances of other people. The malevolent transformation distorts the child’s interpersonal relations and causes the child to isolate himself. He says, in effect, “Once upon a time everything was lovely, but that was before I had to deal with people.” The malevolent transformation is caused by painful and anxious experiences with people, and may lead to a regres- sion to the less threatening stage of infancy. Sublimation, which Sullivan defines as “the unwitting substitution for a behavior pattern which encounters anxiety or collides with the self-system,148 = THEORIES OF PERSONALITY of a socially more acceptable activity pattern which satisfies parts of the motivational system that caused trouble” (1953, p. 193), appears during childhood. The excess of tension which is not discharged by sublimation is expended in symbolic performances, for instance, in nocturnal dreams. The juvenile stage extends throughout most of the grammar-school years. It is the period for becoming social, for acquiring experiences of social sub- ordination to authority figures outside of the family, for becoming com- petitive and co-operative, for learning the meaning of ostracism, disparage- ment, and group feeling, The juvenile learns to be inattentive to external circumstances that do not interest him, to supervise his behavior by internal controls, to form stereotypes in his attitudes, to develop new and more effective modes of sublimation, and to distinguish more clearly between fantasy and reality. One great event of this period is the emergence of a conception of orientation in living. One is oriented in living to the extent to which one has formulated, or can easily be led to formulate (or has insight into), data of the following types: the inte- grating tendencies (needs) which customarily characterize one’s interpersonal relations; the circumstances appropriate to their satisfaction and relatively anx- iety-free discharge; and the more or less remote goals for the approximation of which one will forego intercurrent opportunities for satisfaction or the enhance- ment of one’s prestige (1953, p. 243). ‘The relatively brief period of preadolescence is marked by the need for an intimate relationship with a peer of the same sex, a chum in whom one can confide and with whom one can collaborate in meeting the tasks and solving the problems of life. This is an extremely important period because it marks the beginning of genuine human relationships with other people. In earlier periods, the interpersonal situation is characterized by the de- pendence of the child upon an older person. During preadolescence, the child begins to form peer relationships in which there are equality, mutu- ality, and reciprocity between the members. Without an intimate companion, the preadolescent becomes the victim of a desperate loneliness. The main problem of the period of early adolescence is the development of a pattern of heterosexual activity. The physiological changes of puberty are experienced by the youth as feclings of lust; out of these feelings the lust dynamism emerges and begins to assert itself in the personality. The lust dynamism involves primarily the genital zone, but other zones of inter- action such as the mouth and the hands also participate in sexual behavior. ‘There is a separation of erotic need from the need for intimacy; the erotic need takes as its object a member of the opposite sex while the need for intimacy remains fixated upon a member of the same sex. If these two needsSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 149 do not become ‘divorced, the young person displays a homosexual rather than a heterosexual orientation. Sullivan points out that many of the conflicts of adolescence arise out of the opposing needs for sexual gratification, se- curity, and intimacy. Early adolescence persists until the person has found some stable pattern of performances which satisfies his genital drives. “Late adolescence extends from the patterning of preferred genital activity through unnumbered educative and eductive steps to the establishment of a fully human or mature repertory of interpersonal relations as permitted by available opportunity, personal and cultural” (1953, p. 297). In other words, the period of late adolescence constitutes a rather prolonged initiation into the privileges, duties, satisfactions, and responsibilities of social living and citizenship. The full complement of interpersonal relations gradually takes form and there is a growth of experience in the syntaxic mode which permits a widening of the symbolic horizons. The self-system becomes stabilized, more effective sublimations of tensions are learned, and stronger security measures against anxiety are instituted. When the individual has ascended all of these steps and reached the final stage of adulthood, he has been transformed largely by means of his interpersonal relations from an animal organism into a human person. He is not an animal, coated by civilization and humanity, but an animal that has been so drastically altered that he is no longer an animal but a human being —or, if one prefers, a human animal. DETERMINERS OF DEVELOPMENT Although Sullivan firmly rejects any hard and fast instinct doctrine he does acknowledge the importance of heredity in providing certain capacities, chief among which are the capacities for receiving and elaborating experi- ences. He also accepts the principle that training cannot be effective before maturation has laid the structural ground-work. Thus, the child cannot learn to walk until the muscles and bony structure have reached a level of growth which will support him in an upright position. Heredity and ma- turation provide the biological substratum for the development of person- ality, that is, the capacities and predispositions and inclinations, but the culture operating through a system of interpersonal relations makes mani- fest the abilities and the actual performances (energy transformations) by which the person reaches the goal of tension reduction and need-satisfaction. The first educative influence is that of anxiety which forces the young organism to discriminate between increasing and decreasing tension and to guide his activity in the direction of the latter. The second great educational force is that of trial and success. Success, as many psychologists have pointed150 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY out, tends to stamp in the activity which has led to gratification. Success may be equated with the earning of rewards—a mother’s smile or a father’s praise; failure with punishments—a mother’s forbidding look or a father’s words of disapproval. One may also learn by imitation and by inference; for the latter type of learning Sullivan adopts the name proposed by Charles Spearman: eduction of relations. Sullivan does not believe that personality is set at an early age. It may change at any time as new interpersonal situations arise because the human organism is extremely plastic and malleable. Although the forward thrust of learning and development predominates, regressions can and do occur when pain, anxiety, and failure become intolerable. CHARACTERISTIC RESEARCH AND RESEARCH METHODS Harry Stack Sullivan, in common with other psychiatrists, acquired his empirical knowledge of personality by working with patients suffering from various types of personality disorders but chiefly with schizophrenics and ob- sessional cases. (A good short account of Sullivan’s use of case material for formulating ideas about personality may be found in his article The data of psychiatry, 1964, pp. 32-55.) As a young psychiatrist, Sullivan discovered that the method of free association did not work satisfactorily with schizo- phrenics because it aroused too much anxiety. Other methods were tried but these also proved to provoke anxiety which interfered with the communica- tion process between patient and therapist. Consequently, Sullivan became interested in studying the forces that impede and facilitate communication between two people. In so doing, he found that the psychiatrist was much more than an observer; he was also a vital participant in an interpersonal situation. He had his own apprehensions, such as his professional compe- tence and his personal problems, to deal with. As a result of this discovery Sullivan developed his conception of the therapist as a participant observer. The theory of interpersonal relations lays great stress on the method of partici- pant observation, and relegates data obtained by other methods to at most a secondary importance. This in turn implies that skill in the face to face, or per- son to person psychiatric interview is of fundamental importance (1950, p. 122). In another place, he wrote, “The crying need is for observers who are growing observant of their observing” (1964, p. 27). THE INTERVIEW The psychiatric interview is Sullivan’s term for the type of interpersonal, face to face situation that takes place between the patient and the therapist. There may be only one interview or there may be a sequence of interviewsSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 151 with a patient extending over a long period of time. Sullivan defines the interview as “a system, or series of systems, of interpersonal processes, aris- ing from participant observation in which the interviewer derives certain conclusions about the interviewee” (1954, p. 128). How the interview is con- ducted and the ways in which the interviewer reaches conclusions regarding the patient form the subject matter of Sullivan’s book, The psychiatric interview (1954). Sullivan divides the interview into four stages: (1) the formal inception, (2) reconnaissance, (3) detailed inquiry, and (4) the termination. The interview is primarily a vocal communication between two people. Not only what the person says but how he says it—his intonations, rate of speech, and other expressive behavior—are the chief sources of information for the interviewer. He should be alert to subtle changes in the patient's vocalizations, for example, changes in volume, because these clues often reveal vital evidence regarding the patient’s focal problems and attitudinal changes towards the therapist. In the inception, the interviewer should avoid asking too many questions but should maintain an attitude of quiet obser- vation. He should try to determine the reasons for the patient's coming to him and something as to the nature of his problems. Sullivan is very explicit about the role of the therapist in the interview situation. He should never forget that he is earning his living as an expert in the area of interpersonal relations, and that the patient has a right to expect he is going to learn something which will benefit him. The patient should fee] this from the very first interview, and it should be continually reinforced throughout the course of treatment. Only by having such an at- titude will the patient divulge information from which the interviewer can reach the proper conclusions regarding the patterns of living which are causing trouble for the patient. Obviously, the psychiatrist should not use his expert knowledge to obtain personal satisfaction or to enhance his prestige at the expense of the patient. The interviewer is not a friend or enemy, a parent or lover, a boss or employee, although the patient may cast him in one or more of these roles as a result of distorted parataxic thinking; the in- terviewer is an expert in interpersonal relations. The period of reconnaissance centers about finding out who the patient is. The interviewer does this by means of an intensive interrogatory into the past, present, and future of the patient. These facts about the patient's life fall under the heading of personal data or biographical information. Sullivan does not advocate a hard-and-fast, structured type of questioning which adheres to a standard list of questions. On the other hand, Sullivan insists that the interviewer should not let the patient talk about irrelevant and trivial matters. The patient should learn that the interview is serious business and that there should be no fooling around. Nor should the interviewer152 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY ordinarily make notes of what the patient says at any time during the course of treatment because note-taking is too distracting and tends to inhibit the communication process. Sullivan does not believe that one should start with any formal prescrip- tion to the effect “say everything that comes into your mind.” Rather the therapist should take advantage of the patient’s memory lapses during the interrogatory to teach him how to free-associate. In this way, the patient not only learns how to free-associate without becoming alarmed by this un- familiar mode of discourse but he also experiences the usefulness of the free-association technique before he has been given any formal explanation of its purpose. By the end of the first two stages of the interview process the psychiatrist should have formed a number of tentative hypotheses regarding the patient’s problems and their origins. During the period of detailed inquiry, the psychiatrist attempts to ascertain which of several hypotheses is the correct one. He does this by listening and by asking questions, Sullivan suggests a number of areas which should be inquired into—such matters as toilet training, attitude toward the body, eating habits, ambition, and sexual activities—but here again he does not insist upon any formal prospectus which should be rigidly followed. ‘As long as everything runs smoothly the interviewer is not likely to learn anything about the vicissitudes of interviewing, chief of which is the impact of the interviewer's attitudes upon the patient’s capacity for com- munication. But when the communication process deteriorates, the inter- viewer is forced to ask himself, “What did I say or do which caused the patient to become anxious?” There is always a good deal of reciprocity between the two parties—Sullivan’s term for it is reciprocal emotion—and each is continually reflecting the feelings of the other. It is incumbent upon the therapist to recognize and to control his own attitudes in the interest of maximum communication. In other words, he should never forget his role as an expert participant observer. A series of interviews is brought to ter- mination by the interviewer making a final statement of what he has learned, by prescribing a course for the patient to follow, and by assessing for the patient the probable effects of the prescription upon his life. It is quite apparent from reading Sullivan’s sage remarks on interviewing that he considers it to be an immense challenge to the accuracy of observa- tion of the participant observer. The reader may be interested in contrasting the type of interviewing advocated by Sullivan with the wide variety of interviewing procedures discussed by the Maccobys (1954) and by Cannell and Kahn (1968), and with the techniques of clinical interviewing set forth in the book, The clinical interview (1955), edited by Felix Deutsch and William Murphy. Sullivan’s principal research contribution in psychopathology consists ofSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 153 a series of articles on the etiology, dynamics, and treatment of schizophrenia. These studies were conducted for the most part during his period of associa- tion with the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Maryland and were published in psychiatric journals during the years 1924 to 1931. They reveal Sullivan’s great talents for making contact with and understanding the mind of the psychotic. Empathy was a highly developed trait in Sullivan’s person- ality, and he used it to excellent advantage in studying and treating the victims of schizophrenia. For Sullivan, these victims are not hopeless cases to be shut away in the back wards of mental institutions; they can be treated successfully if the psychiatrist is willing to be patient, understanding, and observant. While Sullivan was at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital he established a special ward for patients. It consisted of a suite of two bedrooms and a sitting room for six male schizophrenics. This ward was isolated from the rest of the hospital and was staffed by six male attendants who were hand- picked and trained by Sullivan. He made it a practice of having an attendant in the room with him while he was interviewing a patient because he found it was reassuring to the patient. No female nurses—in fact, no women—were allowed in the ward. Sullivan believed in the effectiveness of the homogeneous ward consisting of patients of the same sex, the same age group, and the same psychiatric problem. Sullivan was also instrumental in stimulating other psychiatrists and social scientists to carry on research related to interpersonal theory. Many of these studies are reported in the journal Psychiatry, which was founded largely to promote and advance Sullivan's ideas. Three books which owe a great deal to Sullivan may be mentioned here. In Communication, the social matrix of psychiatry (1951), Ruesch and Bateson apply Sullivan's concepts to problems of human relations and to the interrelations between culture and personality. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann in her influential book, Principles of intensive psychotherapy (1950), has elaborated many of Sulli- van's ideas regarding the therapeutic process. The study of a mental hospital by Stanton and Schwartz. (1954) depicts very clearly the kinds of inter- personal situations that exist in an institution and the effect of these situations upon the patients and personnel alike. Sullivan’s role as a political psychiatrist was also evident in some of his research activities. He believed that one had “to serve in order to study.” He did research on southern Negroes with Charles S. Johnson and on Washing- ton Negroes with E. Franklin Frazier (Sullivan, 1964). His work during the war consisted of setting up procedures for screening draftees, of building morale, and of developing effective leadership. And we have already noted his intense concern with working for a world free of tensions and conflicts. Of the four theorists presented in this chapter, Sullivan's interpersonal theory has probably been the greatest stimulus to research. One reason for154 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY this is that Sullivan employed a more objective language in describing his theory, a language which helped to span the gap between theory and observa- tion. Sullivan kept his conceptual constructions quite closely tied to empirical observation, with the result that he seemed to be describing at close quarters the behavior of real people. In spite of the abstractness of his thought, he did not become so abstruse as to lose touch with concrete, one might almost say everyday, conduct of individuals. Interpersonal theory is a down-to-earth proposition mill which invites and encourages empirical testing. CURRENT STATUS AND EVALUATION ‘The four theories which have been presented in this chapter belong to- gether because they all emphasize the influence of social variables in shaping personality. All of them, in one way or another, constitute a reaction against the instinctivist position of Freudian psychoanalysis, yet each of the theorists acknowledges his indebtedness to the seminal thinking of Freud. They have all stood on Freud’s shoulders, and have added their own cubits to his tow- ering height. They have invested personality with social dimensions equal if not superior in importance to the biological dimensions provided by Freud and Jung. Moreover, these theories have helped to place psychology in the sphere of the social sciences. In spite of the common ground which they occupy each theory stresses somewhat different clusters of social variables. Erich Fromm devotes most of his attention to describing the ways in which the structure and dynamics of a particular society mold its members so that their social character fits the common values and needs of that society. Karen Horney, although she recognizes the influence of the social context in which a person lives, dwells more upon the intimate factors within the family setting which shape personality. In this respect, Sullivan’s interpersonal theory resembles Horney’s views more than it does Fromm’s. For Sullivan the human relationships of infancy, childhood, and adolescence are of paramount concern, and he is most eloquent and persuasive when he is describing the nexus between the “mothering one” and the baby. Adler, on the other hand, roams widely throughout society looking for factors that are relevant to personality and finds them everywhere. Although all four theories strenuously oppose Freud’s instinct doctrine and the fixity of human nature, none of the four adopts the radical environ- mentalist position that an individual’s personality is created solely by the conditions of the society into which he is born. Each theory, in its own way, agrees that there is such a thing as human nature which the baby brings with him, largely in the form of fairly general predispositions or potential- ities rather than as specific needs and traits. These generalized potentialities as exemplified by Adler’s social interest and Fromm’s need for transcendenceSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 155 are actualized in concrete ways by means of the formal and informal educative agencies of the society. Under ideal conditions, these theories agree, the individual and society are interdependent; the person serves to further the aims of the society and society in turn helps man to attain his goals. In short, the stand adopted by these four theorists is neither exclusively social or sociocentric nor exclusively psychological or psychocentric; it is truly social- psychological in character. Furthermore, each theory not only asserts that human nature is plastic and malleable but also that society is equally plastic and malleable. If a particular society does not fulfill the demands of human nature it can be changed by man. In other words, man creates the kind of society he thinks will benefit him the most. Obviously, mistakes are made in developing a society and once these errors have become crystallized in the form of social institutions and customs it may be difficult to change them. Yet each theorist was optimistic regarding the possibility of change, and each in his own way tried to bring about fundamental changes in the structure of society. Adler supported social democracy, pressed for better schools, started child guidance centers, urged reforms in the treatment of criminals, and lectured widely on social problems and their cures. Fromm and Horney through their writings and talks have pointed the way to a better society. Fromm, in particular, has spelled out some of the basic reforms that need to be made in order to achieve a sane society. Sullivan was actively engaged in trying to bring about social amelioration through the medium of international cooperation at the time of his death. All four of them in their professional capacities as psychotherapists had extensive experiences with the casualties of an im- perfect social order; consequently, they spoke from personal knowledge and practical experience in their roles as critics and reformers. Another assumption which each theory makes is that anxiety is socially produced. Man is not by nature “the anxious animal.” He is made anxious by the conditions under which he lives—by the specter of unemployment, by intolerance and injustice, by threat of war, by hostile parents. Remove these conditions, say our theorists, and the wellsprings from which anxiety gushes forth will dry up. Nor is man by nature destructive as Freud believed. He may become destructive when his basic needs are frustrated, but even under conditions of frustration other avenues such as submission or withdrawal may be taken. All of the theories with the exception of Sullivan’s also underscore the concepts of the unique individual and the creative self. In spite of attempts by society to regiment people, each person manages to retain some degree of creative individuality. Indeed, it is by virtue of man’s inherent creative powers that he is able to effect changes in society. People create different kinds of societies on different parts of the globe, and at different times in history, in part, because people are different. Man is not only creative; he is156 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY also self-conscious. He knows what he wants and he strives consciously to reach his goals. The idea of unconscious motivation is not accorded much weight by these social-psychological theorists. In general, the theories developed by Adler, Fromm, Horney, and Sulli- van enlarged the scope of Freudian psychology by providing room for the social determinants of personality. A number of critics, however, have dis- paraged the originality of these social-psychological theories. They say that such theories merely elaborate upon one aspect of classical psychoanalysis, namely, the ego and its defenses. Freud saw clearly that personality traits often represented the person’s habitual defenses or strategies against inner and outer threats to the ego. The needs, trends, styles, orientations, personifi- cations, dynamisms, and so forth, in the theories treated in this chapter are accommodated in Freudian theory under the heading of ego-defenses. There- fore, these critics conclude, nothing new has been added to Freud, and a great deal has been subtracted. By reducing personality to the single system of the ego, the social-psychological theorist has cut the personality off from the vital springs of human behavior, springs that have their ultimate sources in the evolution of man as a species. By enlarging upon the social character of man’s personality, they have alienated man from his great biological heritage. A criticism which is sometimes voiced against the conception of man evolved by Adler, Fromm, and Karen Horney (it does not apply to Sulli- van) is that it is too sugar-coated and idealistic. In a world which has been torn apart by two great wars and the threat of a third one, not to mention the many other forms of violence and irrationality that men display, the picture of a rational, self-conscious, socialized man. strikes one as being singularly inappropriate and invalid, One can, of course, blame society and not man for this deplorable state of affairs, and this is what these theorists do, But then they say, or at least imply, that rational man created the kind of social arrangements which are responsible for his irrationality and un- happiness. This is the great paradox of these theories. If man is so self conscious, so rational, and so social, why has he evolved so many imperfect social systems? It has been pointed out by a philosopher, Isaac Franck (1966), that the conception of man presented by Fromm and other social and humanistic psychologists is less a product of research and more a result of their norma- tive preconceptions. They are moralists and not scientists. Franck insists that human propensities and traits are ethically neutral and therefore ethical prescriptions cannot be deduced from factual statements about man. It would be difficult, however, to find any personality theorist from Freud to Fromm who does not openly or covertly make moralistic and ethical judgments about the harmful effects of the social environment upon man. And manySOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 157 of them do prescribe remedies. Participant-observers are not likely to remain neutral, however scientific they may be. Another less devastating criticism, but one which carries more weight with psychologists as distinguished from psychoanalysts, is the failure of these social-psychological theories to specify the precise means by which a society molds its members. How does a person acquire his social character? How does he learn to be a member of society? This evident neglect of the learning process in theories which depend so heavily upon the concept of learning to account for the ways in which personality is formed is considered to be a major omission. Is it enough just to be exposed to a condition of society in order for that condition to affect the personality? Is there a mechanical stamping in of socially approved behavior and an equally me- chanical stamping out of socially disapproved behavior? Or does the person react with insight and foresight to the social milieu, selecting those features which he thinks will produce a better organization of personality and reject- ing other features which he feels are inconsistent with his self-organization? For the most part these theories stand silent on the nature of the learning process, in spite of the fact that learning has been a central topic in American psychology for a good many years. Although these social-psychological theories have not stimulated a great deal of research in comparison with some other theories, they have served to foster an intellectual climate in which social-psychological research could flourish and has done so. Social psychology is no longer the stepchild of psychology. It is a large and exceedingly active component part in the science of psychology. Adler, Fromm, Karen Horney, and Sullivan are not solely responsible for the rise of social psychology, but their influence has been considerable. Each of them has contributed in no small measure to the picture of man as a social being. This is their great value in the contemporary scene. BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Adler, A. The practice and theory of individual psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1927. Ansbacher, H. L., and Rowena R. (Eds.). The Individual-Psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Basic Books, 1956. Ansbacher, H. L, and Rowena R. (Eds.). Superiority and social interest by Alfred Ad- ler, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1964. Fromm, E. Escape from freedom. New York: Rinehart, 1941. Fromm, E. Man for himself. New York: Rinehart, 1947. Fromm, E. The heart of man. New York: Harper and Row, 1964. Fromm, E. The revolution of hope. New York: Harper and Row, 1968. Fromm, E. The sane society. New York: Rinehart, 1955.158 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Horney, Karen, Neurotic personality of our times. New York: Norton, 1937. Horney, Karen. New ways in psychoanalysis, New York: Norton, 1939. Horney, Karen, Self-analysis. New York: Norton, 1942. Horney, Karen, Our inner conflicts. New York: Norton, 1945. Horney, Karen. Neurosis and human growth. New York: Norton, 1950. Sullivan, ELS, The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: Norton, 1953. Sullivan, H. 8. The fusion of psychiatry and social science. New York: Norton, 1964. REFERENCES Adler, A. Study of organ inferiority and its psychical compensation. New York: Nerv- ous and Mental Diseases Publishing Co,, 1917. Adler, A. Practice and theory of individual psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1927. Adler, A. The science of living. New York: Greenberg, 1929a. Adler, A. Problems of neurosis. London: Kegan Paul, 1929b. Adler, A. Individual Psychology. In C. Murchison (Ed.), Psychologies of 1930. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1930, pp. 395-405. Adler, A. What life should mean to you. Boston: Little, Brown, 1931, Adler, A. ‘The fundamental views of Individual Psychology, Int, J. Indiv. Psychol., 1935, 1, 5-8. Adler, A. Social interest. New York: Putnam, 1939. Ansbacher, H. L., and Rowena R. (Eds.). The Individual-Psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Basic Books, 1956. Ansbacher, H. L. and Rowena R. (Eds.). Superiority and social interest by Alfred ‘Adler. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1964. Blitsten, Dorothy R. The social theories of Harry Stack Sullivan, New York: The William-Frederick Press, 1953. Bottome, Phyllis. Aljred Adler; a biography. New York: Putnam, 1939. Cannell, C. F. and Kahn, R. L. Interviewing. In G. Lindzey and E, Aronson (Eds.). Handbook of social psychology. Vol. 2. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1968, pp. 526-595. Colby, K. M. On the disagreement between Freud and Adler. Amer. Imago, 1951, 8, 229-238. Deutsch, F., and Murphy, W. F. The clinical interview. New York: International Uni- versities Press, 1955. Franck, I. The concept of human nature: a philosophical analysis of the concept of human nature in the writings of G. W. Allport, S. E. Asch, Erich Fromm, A. H. ‘Maslow, and C. R. Rogers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Univ. of Maryland, 1966. Fromm, E. Escape from freedom. New York: Rinchart, 1941. Fromm, E. Man for himself, New York: Rinehart, 1947. Fromm, E. The sane society. New York: Rinehart, 1955. Fromm, E. Sigmund Freud’s mission. New York: Harper, 1959. Fromm, E. Marx's concept of man. New York: Ungar, 1961. Fromm, E. Beyond the chains of illusion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962. Fromm, E. The heart of man. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES 159 Fromm, E. The revolution of hope. New York: Harper and Row, 1968. Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda. Principles of intensive psychotherapy. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1950. Furtmiiller, C. Alfred Adler: a biographical essay. In H. L. and Rowena R. Ansbacher (Eds,). Superiority and social interest by Alfred Adler. Evanston, Ill.: North. western Univ. Press, 1964, 311-393. Horney, Karen. Neurotic personality of ou* times, New York: Norton, 1937. Horney, Karen. New ways in psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, 1939. Horney, Karen. Selj-analysis. New York: Norton, 1942. Horney, Karen, Our inner conflicts. New York: Norton, 1945. Horney, Karen, Neurosis and human growth. New York: Norton, 1950. James, W. T. Karen Horney and Erich Fromm in relation to Alfred Adler. Indiv. Psychol. Bull., 1947, 6, 105-116. Jones, E. The life and work of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 2, New York: Basic Books, 1955. Jones, H. E. Order of birth in relation to the development of the child. In C. Murchison (Ed.). Handbook of child psychology. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1931, 204-241. : Maccoby, Eleanor E., and Maccoby, N. The interview: a tool of social science. In G. Lindzey (Ed.). Handbook of social psychology. Volo 1. Cambridge: Addison-Wes- ley, 1954, 449-487. Mosak, H. H, Early recollections as a projective technique. J. Projective Techniques, 1958, 22, 302-311. Mullahy, P. Oedipus—myth and complex. New York: Hermitage House, 1948. Mallahy, P. (Ed.). A study of interpersonal relations. New York: Hermitage House, 1949. Mullahy, P. (Ed.). The contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan. New York: Hermitage House, 1952. Munroe, Ruth. Schools of psychoanalytic thought. New York: Dryden Press, 1955. Orgler, Hertha. Alfred Adler: the man and his work. New York: Liveright, 1963. Ruesch, J., and Bateson, G. Communication, the social matrix of psychiatry. New York: Norton, 1951 Schaar, J. H. Escape from authority: the perspectives of Erich Fromm. New York: Basic Books, 1961. Schachter, $, The psychology of affiliation. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1959. Stanton, A. H., and Schwartz, M. S. The mental hospital. New York: Basic Books, 1954. Sullivan, H. 8, Conceptions of modern psychiatry. Washington, D. C.: William Alan- son White Psychiatric Foundation, 1947. Sullivan, H. $. Tensions interpersonal and international: a psychiatrist's view. In H. Cantril (Ed.), Tensions that cause war. Urbana, Ill: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1950, 79-138. Sullivan, H. 8. The interpersonal theory of psychiatry, New York: Norton, 1953. Sullivan, H. $. The psychiatric interview. New York: Norton, 1954. Sullivan, H. 8. Clinical studies in psychiatry. New York: Norton, 1956. Sullivan, H. 8. Schizophrenia as a human process. New York: Norton, 1962. Sullivan, H. 8. The fusion of psychiatry and social science. New York: Norton, 1964. Vaihinger, H. The philosophy of “as if.” New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1925.CHAPTER FIVE MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY ssh science, clinical practice, and academic psychology which Henry A. Murray brings to his theoretical efforts. As a rich integrative force for these diverse talents Murray possesses a brilliant writing style nurtured by a deep and enduring interest in literature and the humanities. The theory that has evolved from these sources shows a considerable respect for the determi- nant importance of biological factors, a full appreciation for the individual complexity of the human organism, and an interest in representing behavior in such a manner that controlled investigation is a natural outcome of these formulations. The focus of this theory is upon the individual in all his complexity and this point of view is highlighted by the term “personology” which was introduced by Murray (1938) as a label for his own efforts and those of others who were primarily concerned with a full understanding of the individual case. He has emphasized consistently the organic quality of be- havior, indicating that a single segment of behavior is not to be understood in isolation from the rest of the functioning person. In contrast to many other theorists who share this belief, Murray is perfectly willing to engage in the abstraction necessary to permit various kinds of specialized study— 160 U NIQUE among personality theorists is the sophistication in biologicalMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 161 always insisting that the task of reconstruction must be engaged in after analysis is completed. A further contrast to some holistic theorists is his “field” orientation: his insistence that the environmental context of be- havior must be thoroughly understood and analyzed before an adequate account of individual behavior is possible. Not only has Murray placed general emphasis upon the importance of environmental determinants but, more distinctively, he has developed an claborate set of concepts designed to represent these environmental forces. The past or history of the individual is fully as important in Murray's view as the present individual and his environment. His theory shares with psychoanalysis the assumption that events taking place in infancy and child- hood are crucial determinants of adult behavior. A further similarity be- tween this position and psychoanalysis lies in the considerable importance attributed to unconscious motivation and the deep interest displayed in the subjective or free, verbal report of the individual, including his imaginative productions. In many ways the most distinctive feature of this theory is its highly differ- entiated and carefully specified treatment of motivation. Murray’s scheme of motivational concepts has seen wide usage and has been of great in- fluence. A further unusual feature of the theory is the consistent emphasis upon the coexisting and functionally linked physiological processes which accompany all psychological processes. His concept of “regnancy,” which we shall discuss later, serves to keep the theorist continuously oriented toward the brain as the locus of personality and all its component parts. Mur- ray has often emphasized the importance of detailed description as a necessary prelude to complicated theoretical formulation and investigation. Consistent with this point of view is his deep interest in taxonomy and the exhaustive classifications which he has established for many aspects of behavior. Murray has made serious efforts to effect a compromise between the often conflicting demands of clinical complexity and investigative economy. He has devised means of representing, at least in part, the tremendous diversity of human behavior; and at the same time he has focused upon the task of constructing operations for assessing variables that occupy a central role in this theoretical scheme. This twofold emphasis has led naturally to narrowing the gap between clinical practice and the psychologi- cal laboratory. We have now seen the broad outlines of Murray’s personology, but what of the man who constructed this theory? Henry Murray was born in New York City on May 13, 1893, and received his education at Groton School and Harvard College, securing his A.B. from the latter institution in 1915 with a major in history. Following graduation from Harvard he enrolled in the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons where he graduated162 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY at the head of his class in 1919. In 1920 he received an M.A. in biology from Columbia and served briefly as an instructor in physiology at Harvard Uni- versity following which he served a two-year surgical interneship at Presby- terian Hospital in New York. He then joined the staff of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City where as an assistant he carried on embryological research for two years. Following this came a period of study at Cambridge University where he conducted biochemical research which led to his securing a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cambridge in 1927. It was during this interval of European study that his interests first began to turn seriously toward psychology. This intellectual evolution is best de- scribed in Murray's own words: At college a bud of interest in psychology was nipped by the chill of Professor Miinsterberg’s approach. In the middle of his second lecture I began looking for the nearest exit. There was more bread (and fewer stones) in biology and chem- istry, and afterwards in medicine. During my fourth year at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, while waiting for calls to deliver babies in Hell’s Kit- chen, I completed a modest study of 25 of my classmates, in which 40 anthro- pometric measures were correlated with 30 traits. Here I had the symphony of the endocrines in mind. Later, as an interne in a hospital, I spent more time than was considered proper for a surgeon, inquisitively secking psychogenic fac- tors in my patients. Whatever I succeeded in doing for some of them—the dope fiend, the sword-swallower, the prostitute, the gangster—was more than repaid when, after leaving the hospital, they took me through their haunts in the under- world. This was psychology in the rough, but at least it prepared me to recognize the similarity between downtown doings and uptown dreams. . .. Then psy- chology was put aside, and did not come up again until I began to wonder, after several years of research in biochemistry and physiology, why some of the men with whom I was associated at the Rockefeller Institute clung so tena- ciously to diametrically opposing views about the simplest phenomena. In the hope of shedding light on conceptual preferences as functions of personality, I sent out a long questionnaire to fifty creative thinkers (mostly scientists); and still puzzled, I took courses in philosophy with Professor Morris Cohen and later at Cambridge with Professor Broad. But it was Jung’s book, Psychological Types, which, by providing a partial answer to my question, started me off in earnest toward psychology. There were besides this, another book, a woman, some German music and several other fructifying influences that made me feel and think at once, instead of separately. On the crest of a wave I visited Dr. Jung in Zurich supposedly to discuss abstrac- tions; but in a day or two to my astonishment enough affective stuff erupted to invalid a pure scientist. This was my first opportunity to weigh psychoanalysis in a balance; and I recommend it as one method of measuring the worth of any brand of personology. Take your mysteries, your knottiest dilemmas, to a fit exponent of a system and judge the latter by its power to order and illumine your whole being... . In 1925... I had no scales to weigh out Dr. Jung,MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 163 the first full-blooded, spherical—and Goethian, I should say—intelligence I had ever met, the man whom the judicious Prinzhorn called “the ripest fruit on the tree of psycho-analytical knowledge.” We talked for hours, sailing down the lake and smoking before the hearth of his Faustian retreat. “The great flood- gates of the wonder-world swung open,” and I saw things that my philosophy had never dreamt of. Within a month a score of bi-horned problems were re- solved, and I went off decided on depth psychology. I had experienced the un- conscious, something not to be drawn out of books (Murray, 1940, pp. 152-153). Thus, deeply interested in psychology Murray returned to this country and the Rockefeller Institute where he remained for one year as an associate before accepting in 1927 an invitation to come to Harvard University as an instructor in psychology. This unconventional choice of an unusual man, untrained in academic psychology, by a distinguished, traditional depart- ment of psychology was arranged by Morton Prince who had just founded the Harvard Psychological Clinic. The clinic was endowed with the explicit provision that it be devoted to the study and teaching of abnormal and dy- namic psychology and Prince, searching for a young and promising scholar to guide the future of the clinic, selected Murray. In 1928 Murray was made an assistant professor and director of the Psychological Clinic, and in 1937 he was made an associate professor. He was one of the founding members of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and by 1935 had completed his training in psychoanalysis under Franz Alexander and Hans Sachs. A fascinating account of his training analysis and his attitudes toward psychoanalysis is contained in a symposium concerning psychologists and psychoanalysis (Mur- ray, 1940), During the roughly fifteen years that transpired before war interrupted, the Harvard Psychological Clinic, under the intellectual and spiritual lead- ership of Henry Murray, was the scene of an intensely creative theoretical and empirical enterprise. Murray gathered about him a group of able young students whose joint efforts to formulate and investigate the human per- sonality were exceedingly fruitful. The Explorations in personality volume (1938) contains a partial record of the generativeness of this era but the most important outcomes were carried away in the form of values, concep- tions, and intentions by individuals such as Donald W. MacKinnon, Saul Rosenzweig, R. Nevitt Sanford, Silvan S. Tomkins, and Robert W. White. Here at the Clinic for the first time psychoanalytic theory was given a serious academic audience and earnest efforts were made to devise means of translating the brilliant clinical insights of Freud into experimental op- erations which would permit some degree of empirical confirmation or rejection. Not only did Murray create a sense of excitement and imminent discovery among his own students but also the clinic opened its doors to mature scholars from a variety of fields (Erik Homburger Erikson, Cora164 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY DuBois, Walter Dyk, H. Scudder McKeel) so that there was a marked interdisciplinary aura to the enterprise. In 1943 this era came to a close as Murray left Harvard to join the Army Medical Corps where as a major, and subsequently lieutenant colonel, he established and directed an assessment service for the Office of Strategic Services. His organization was given the difficult task of screening candi- dates for complex, secret, and dangerous missions. The activities of this group have been summarized in Assessment of men (1948). His work with the Army led to his being awarded the Legion of Merit in 1946. In 1947 he returned to Harvard on a part-time basis as a lecturer on clinical psy- chology in the newly formed Department of Social Relations and in 1950 he was appointed professor of clinical psychology. He established the Psy- chological Clinic Annex at Harvard University in 1949 where he and a few colleagues and graduate students conducted studies of personality in- cluding the collection of 88 copious case histories. Murray became emeritus professor in 1962. He has been awarded the Distinguished Scientific Con- tribution Award of the American Psychological Association as well as the Gold Medal Award of the American Psychological Foundation for a lifetime of contribution to the field. In addition to revising and expanding his theoretical views, Murray has turned his attention to some of the broader problems of contemporary life. These include the abolition of war, the creation of a world state, im- provement in human relationships (including those involving two people— as in friendship and marriage), and the development of a new religion with a testament of writings that would provide a set of positive values and guides for living a full and satisfying life (Murray, 1960a, 1961, 1962b). Murray is an ardent champion of the power of creative imagination tem- pered by reason for solving any problem besetting man. He has been sharply critical of psychology for projecting a negative image of man and for its “malignant narcissism.” In the majority of our personological formulations there are no provisions for creativity, no admitted margins of freedom for voluntary decisions, no fitting recognitions of the power of ideals, no bases for selfless action, no ground at all for any hope that the human race can save itself from the fatality that now con- fronts us (1962a, p. 53). Murray stands firmly for a humanistic, optimistic psychology. ‘As the preceding paragraphs make clear, Murray is not a person whose intellectual antecedents are easy to specify. The number and diversity of theoretical exemplars to which he has been exposed are so great that we can hope to do no more than select a few of the more prominent. Clearly psychoanalysis, in the broadest sense of the term, has had a great deal to do with his intellectual development. In a direct and personal sense Jung,MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 165 Alexander, and Sachs have all influenced him and Freud, primarily through his writing, has had great impact. The depth of the influence of psycho- analysis upon Murray's view of behavior is clearly revealed in the following passage: Tcan hardly think myself back to the myopia that once so seriously restricted my view of human nature, so natural has it become for me to receive impressions of wishes, dramas and assumptions that underlie the acts and talk of everyone I meet. Instead of seeing merely a groomed American in a business suit, travelling to and from his office like a rat in a maze, a predatory ambulating apparatus of reflexes, habits, stereotypes, and slogans, a bundle of consistencies, conformities, and allegiances to this or that institution—a robot in other words—I visualize (just as I visualize the activity of his internal organs) a flow of powerful sub- jective life, conscious and unconscious; a whispering gallery in which voices echo from the distant past; a gulf stream of fantasies with floating memories of past events, currents of contending complexes, plots and counterplots, hopeful intimations and ideals. To a neurologist such perspectives are absurd, archaic, tender-minded; but in truth they are much closer to the actualities of inner life than are his own neat diagrams of reflex arcs and nerve anastomoses. A per- sonality is a full Congress of orators and pressure-groups, of children, dema- gogues, communists, isolationists, war-mongers, mugwumps, grafters, log-rollers, lobbyists, Caesars and Christs, Machiavellis and Judases, Tories and Promethean revolutionists. And a psychologist who does not know this in himself, whose mind is locked against the fux of images and feelings, should be encouraged to make friends, by being psychoanalyzed, with the various members of his house- hold (Murray, 1940, pp. 160-161). Murray’s medical and biological research and training have contributed to the deep respect he has consistently shown for the importance of physical and biological factors in behavior. His experience in medical diagnosis has had an obvious outcome in his belief that personality should ideally be assessed by a team of specialists and that in this assessment the subject's statements about himself should be given serious audience. His interest in the taxonomy or classification of behavior, as well as his conviction that the careful study of individual cases is an essential to future psychological prog- ress, are also highly congruent with his medical background. His detailed awareness of mythology (1960b) and of the great literary creations of our own and past eras, and particularly his expert knowledge of Melville and his works, have provided him with an inexhaustible source of ideas con- cerning man and his potentialities for good and evil. The exquisite mind of Alfred North Whitehead provided a model of logical and synthetic thought, while the truculent but brilliant Lawrence J. Henderson served as a model of rigor and critical orientation. His thinking has absorbed much from academic psychologists with Lewin and McDougall as perhaps the most significant of these sources of influence. Cultural anthropology, with Clyde Kluckhohn as the most important agent, also contributed its share to his166 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY thinking. His debt to these men and to numerous others, including several generations of students, is amply acknowledged in four very personal docu- ments (1940, 1959, 1967, 1968a). From such a complex lineage it is no wonder that the evolved product is an elaborate and many-sided structure. It is clear to all who have known him that Henry Murray’s talent and devotion to the study of the human personality are only partially revealed in his published works. His casual remarks and free-ranging speculations concerning an endless variety of topics, which were so integral a part of lunches at the Psychological Clinic, have provided fruitful research ideas for dozens of his students and colleagues. Unfortunately not all of these mes- sages fell on fertile ground and one can only regret that the spoken word has not been preserved to enrich the written record. Murray's tendency to reveal only occasional fruits of his intellect is clearly demonstrated in the publications that have stemmed from his twenty-five years of intensive study of Herman Melville. These years of dedicated scholarship have earned him a reputation among students of Melville that is without parallel and yet he has thus far published but two papers dealing with this engrossing writer. One is a brilliant analysis of the psychological meaning of Moby Dick (Murray, 1951c), about which we shall have more to say later, and the other an introduction to and penetrating analysis of Pierre (Murray, 1949a), one of Melville’s most intriguing and baffling novels. Granted the inadequacy of the written record, we find that Murray’s psychological theorizing and research are best represented in Explorations in personality (1938), which summarizes the thought and research of the Psychological Clinic staff at the end of its first decade of existence. A partial record of some of the subsequent research is contained in A clinical study of sentiments (1945), which was written with his long-time collaborator Christiana Morgan, and in Studies of stressful interpersonal disputations (1963). The major changes that his theoretical convictions have undergone during the subsequent years are best represented in a chapter written jointly with Clyde Kluckhohn (1953), a chapter published in Toward a general theory of action (195la), an article published in Dialectica (1951b), a talk he gave at Syracuse University (1958), a chapter written for Psychology: a study of a science (1959), and an article written for the International encyclopedia of the social sciences (1968b). The Manual of Thematic Ap- perception Test (1943) serves as the best introduction to this personality in- strument, devised jointly with Christiana Morgan (Morgan and Murray, 1935), which has become one of the most important and widely used em- pirical tools of the clinician and personality investigator. The great sensi- tivity and ingenuity which Murray has shown in developing means of ap- praising and analyzing man’s capacities and directional tendencies are vividly revealed in Assessment of men (1948).MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 167 THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY ‘The nature of personality and its acquisitions and attainments have occupied a considerable portion of Murray's theoretical attention. His views on the structure of personality have been heavily influenced by psychoanalytic the- ory and yet in many respects they are strikingly differentiated from an orthodox Freudian view. Murray is somewhat wary of the word “structure” because of its connotations of permanence, regularity, and lawfulness. He recognizes that personality is usually in a state of flux. Here we shall con- sider Murray's definition of personality and the concepts he has elaborated in the attempt to represent the nature of personality. Definition of Personality. Although Murray has proposed many defini- tions of personality at different times the major elements of these definitions are contained in the following illustrations: The term “personality” has been reserved for the hypothetical structure of the mind, the consistent establishments and processes of which are manifested over and over again (together with some unique or novel elements) in the internal and external proceedings which constitute a person’s life. Thus personality is not a series of biographical facts but something more general and enduring that is inferred from the facts (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 30). Personality is the governing organ of the body, an institution, which, from birth to death, is ceasclessly engaged in transformative functional operations (Murray, 195la, p. 436). A personality at any designated moment of its history is the then-existing brai located imperceptible and problematical hierarchical constitution of an indi- vidual’s entire complex stock of interrelated substance-dependent and structure- dependent psychological properties (elementary, associational, and organiza- tional) (1968b, p. 6). These definitions contain several important components. First, they make clear the abstract nature of personality, the fact that it is a construction of the theorist which, although related to specific empirical events, is not simply a summary of these events. The individual’s personality will clearly vary depending upon the theorist who is representing or formulating it. Second, there is the implication that the individual’s personality refers to a series of events which in the ideal case span his entire lifetime. This longi- tudinal emphasis is expressed more strongly in the phrase “the history of the personality is the personality” which appears time and again throughout Murray's writing. Third, the definitions imply that personality should re- flect the enduring and recurrent elements of behavior as well as the novel and unique. Fourth, personality is the organizing or governing agent of the individual. It is the personality which produces order and integration168 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY among the disparate impulses and constraints to which the individual is exposed. ‘The conception of personality as an organizing and integrating force readily suggests the question of what the major functions of personality are. Murray has described these as follows: . .. the general functions of personality are to exercise its processes, to express itself, to learn to generate and reduce insistent need-tensions, to form serial pro- grams for the attainment of distant goals, and, finally, to lessen or resolve con- flicts by forming schedules which more nearly permit the frictionless appease- ment of its major needs (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 39). To this list Murray subsequently adds the functions of adjusting aspira- tion levels so as to increase the likelihood of their being attained and con- trolling behavior so as to conform to social expectation. The major relevant theme in Murray’s writings thus far omitted is the emphasis upon the physiological ground of personality. Consistent with his experience in biological science Murray has chosen to stress the biologi- cal processes accompanying or underlying all of the events with which the psychologist concerns himself. In fact he has suggested that: Personality may be biologically defined as the governing organ, or superordinate institution, of the body. As such, it is located in the brain. No brain, no per- sonality (Murray, 1951b, p. 267). Thus, Murray throughout all of his writings has chosen to anchor per- sonality firmly in the brain, pointing out that all we know of the physiologi- cal processes necessary for behavioral function indicates that the brain must be the seat of the organizing and executive functions—the personality. « since all complex adaptive behavior is evidently co-ordinated by excitations in the brain, the unity of the organism's development and behavior can be ex- plained only by referring to organizations occurring in this region. It is brain processes, rather than those in the rest of the body, which are of special interest to the psychologist (Murray, 1938, p. 45). ‘As we shall see later, not only the personality but all of the specific variables employed in representing personality are considered to have their accompanying brain processes. In spite of this insistence upon giving the personality a locus in the brain, we find Murray convinced that the psychologist. must make his advances independently of contributions from physiology and neurology. He feels that: . .« the behaviors of human personalities are on a different level from physio- logical phenomena, and hence should be studied and conceptualized in their ownMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 169 right without waiting for more “basic” sciences to provide a complete formula- tion (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 4). Thus, Murray's attempts at a definition of personality make clear that he is strongly oriented toward a view which gives adequate weight to the past of the organism, to the organizing function of personality, to the re- current and novel features of the individual’s behavior, to the abstract or conceptual nature of personality, and to the physiological processes under- lying the psychological. Personality as a Partial Formation. Murray has emphasized that prop- erly one should speak of formulation rather than diagnosis when describing what the psychologist does in portraying a personality. Diagnosis implies a fixed component or identity in terms of which the individual is compared whereas what the personality psychologist actually does is “. . . an exercise in constructive conceptualization, hypothetical and tentative, a step, at best, in the direction of a typology” (Murray, 1951b, p. 276). Thus, the term formulation emphasizes the fact that personality description is still in part an artistic process with few firm guide lines and rules of procedure. It also points to the abstract nature of the process and, consistent with Mur- ray’s definition of personality, reminds the user that the personality formu- lated is in part determined by the particular theorist or the theoretical con- structs employed. Not only must a personality description be considered a formulation rather than a description but also this formulation is always incomplete or partial, designed to serve certain particular functions rather than to predict all behavior at all times. A complete formulation would require so much detail and would be so cumbersome as to be impractical. Proceedings and Serials. The basic data of the psychologist are proceed- ings, which are subject-object interactions, or subject-subject interactions, of sufficient duration to include the significant elements of any given behavioral sequence. In Murray’s words: + + proceedings are the things which we observe, and try to represent with ‘models, and to explain, the things which we attempt to predict, the facts against which we test the adequacy of our formulations (Murray, 1951b, pp. 269-270). Although in certain settings it is possible to define a proceeding exactly, for example, a verbal response and its reply, it is usually possible to provide only a very general definition. In this spirit Murray suggests that, “Ideally, the duration of a proceeding is determined by (1) the initiation, and by170 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY (2) the completion, of a dynamically significant pattern of behavior . . .” (Murray, 1951b, p. 269). This conception of the basic unit of the psychologist as consisting of proceedings reflects Murray’s conviction that behavior is inextricably caught in a time dimension. Thus, the proceeding is a compromise between the practical limitations imposed by the intellect and techniques of the investi- gator and the empirical given that behavior exists in a time dimension. Murray suggests that proceedings can be classified in terms of whether they are internal (daydreaming, problem-solving, planning in solitude) or external (interacting with persons or objects in the environment). External pro- ceedings have two aspects: a subjective experiential aspect and an objective behavioral aspect. Murray has emphasized that at any single moment an individual may be engaged in a multitude of proceedings. He may be watching television, talking to a friend, drinking, listening for the sound of a waking child, petting his dog, scowling at his wife, all during the same short period of time. Thus, if the individual’s behavior is examined closely one will usually discover a number of overlapping proceedings occurring simultaneously. The term durance is used to designate a temporal unit of living including all of the overlapping proceedings, a unit which embraces the natural com- plexity of the person’s existence. The concept of durance makes clear that the single proceeding is ordinarily an abstraction from the complexity of ongoing behavior and represents only one trend or aspect among many. It is possible to divide the individual's life into long durances (childhood, adolescence, old age) or into short durances (responding to a stimulus for ‘one minute, a traumatic experience of ten minutes’ duration). For many purposes the representation of behavior in terms of proceedings is perfectly adequate. However, under some circumstances it is necessary to include in a single unit or formulation behavior taking place over a longer period of time. This longer functional unit of behavior is referred to as a serial. .. a directionally organized intermittent succession of proceedings may be called a serial, Thus, a serial (such as friendship, a marriage, a career in business) is a relatively long functional unit which can be formulated only roughly. One must obtain records of critical proceedings along its course and note such indices of development as changes of disposition, increase of knowledge, increase of ability, improvement in the quality of the work accomplished, and so forth. No one proceeding in the serial can be understood without reference to those which have led up to it and without reference to the actor’s aims and expecta- tions, his design for the future (Murray, 1951b, p. 272). Thus, representation of behavior in terms of serials is made necessary because certain proceedings are so intimately related to one another that itMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 171 is impossible to study them separately wihtout destroying their full meaning. Serial Programs and Schedules. A very important function for the indi- vidual is served by serial programs, which are orderly arrangements of sub- goals that stretch into the future perhaps for months or years and which, if all goes well, will lead eventually to some desired end state. Thus, the indi- vidual aspires to the goal of becoming a medical doctor but intervening between his present situation and this goal are years of study and special training. If he develops a set of subgoals, each of which plays a part in bring- ing him closer to his medical degree, this would be referred to as a serial program. Likewise of importance are schedules which represent devices for re- ducing conflict among competing needs and goal objects by arranging for ex- pression of these tendencies at different times. By means of a schedule the individual may give a maximum of expression to his various aims. If he is efficient at constructing schedules he can greatly diminish the quantity and intensity of his conflicts. Murray has recently subsumed serial programs and schedules under the term ordination which includes the process of plan-making as well as the outcome of the process—an established program or schedule. According to Murray’s present views, ordination is a higher mental process on the same evel as cognition, The aim of cognition is a complete conceptual understand- ing of the environment, but once the external situation has been sufficiently understood, the process of ordination asserts itself in order to arrange policy- making and planning of strategy and tactics. Abilities and Achievements. In contrast to many personality psycholo- gists, Murray has shown a consistent interest in ability and achievement and considers these qualities an important part of the personality. These com- ponents of the individual serve a central function in mediating between dis- positions to action and the end results toward which these dispositions are oriented. In virtually all of his personality research subjects have been ap- praised in terms of a variety of different areas of ability and achievement: physical, mechanical, leadership, social, economic, erotic, and intellectual. Establishments of Personality. Even if we accept personality as an ever- changing phenomenon, still there are certain stabilities or structures that appear over time and which are crucial to an understanding of behavior. In representing these mental structures, Murray borrows the terms ego, id, and superego from psychoanalysis but introduces certain distinctive elements in his development of these concepts. Murray agrees with Freud in conceiving of the id as the repository of172 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY primitive and unacceptable impulses. Here is the origin of energy, the source of all innate motives, the unseeing and unsocialized self. More than this, insists Murray, the id includes impulses which are acceptable to the self and society. In making clear his difference with orthodox psychoanalytic theory on this score he states: In due time it became apparent to other analysts, if not to Freud, that the con- cept of id could not be limited to unacceptable dispositions. In infancy, for ex- ample, when the ego system is non-existent or at best very rudimentary, the mind is a hive of involuntary spontaneitics, emotions, and needs, many of which are not only acceptable to the child and its mother during these early years, but continue to be acceptable and, what is more, culturally encouraged throughout life. It would not be proper to say that respiration, ingestion of food, defecation, expressions of affection, endeavors to master the environment, and so forth, had their sources in the ego. . . . It seems best to think of the id as consisting of all the basic energies, emotions, and needs (value-vectors) of the personality, some of which are wholly acceptable . . . when expressed in a culturally approved form, towards a culturally approved object, in a culturally approved place, at a culturally approved time (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 24). Not only does the id contain impulses toward both good and evil but the strength of these tendencies varies between individuals. Thus the task facing different individuals in controlling or directing their id tendencies is by no means of equal difficulty. ‘We have already seen that in Murray’s theory the id is not wholly wicked and asocial. Further, the ego is not solely an inhibitor and repressor. Not only must the ego hold back or repress certain impulses or motives but more importantly it must arrange, schedule, and control the manner in which other motives are to appear. The ego, consistent with psychoanalytic theory, is viewed as the central organizer or integrator of behavior. Part of this or- ganization, however, is intended to facilitate or promote the expression of certain id impulses. The strength and effectiveness of the ego is an impor tant determinant of the individual’s adjustment. ‘The superego in Murray's theory, as in Freud’s, is considered to be a cultural implant. It is an internalized subsystem which acts within the individual to regulate behavior in much the same manner that agents out- side the individual once acted. These agents, typically the parents, acted as surrogates of the culture so that internalizing their prescriptions represents a move in the direction of internalizing cultural prescriptions. The nature of the superego is determined in large part by the kinds of experiences in- volving parents and authority figures to which the individual is exposed. Murray suggests that in addition to this important source of influence, however, there is also the impact of peer groups as well as the significantMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 173 contribution of literary and mythological figures. The standards acquired from these sources become internalized and act as a source of reward or punishment depending upon how well the action of the individual meets these standards. Intimately related to the superego is the ego-ideal which consists of an idealized picture of the self—an aspired self, or a set of personal ambitions toward which the individual strives. One of the important establishments of personality is the ego ideal, an integrate of images which portrays the person “at his future best,” realizing all his am- bitions, More specifically, it is a set of serial programs, each of which has a different level of aspiration. Ego ideals run all the way from the Master Crimi- nal to the Serene Sage. They are imaginatively created and recreated in the course of development in response to patterns offered by the environment— mythological, historical, or living exemplars. Thus the history of the ideal self may be depicted as a series of imaginative identifications, of heroes and their worship (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 40). The ego-ideal may be entirely divorced from the superego, as in the case of the individual who aspires to be a Dillinger, or it may be closely related, so that the individual moves toward personal ambitions in a manner con- forming exactly with the sanctions of his society. If the superego is domi- nant and the ego-ideal is suppressed, the person may attempt to serve “God’s will” or the “welfare of the society” at the expense of giving up all personal ambition. It is important to note that Murray’s conception of the superego and ego-ideal provides more latitude for alteration and development in the years subsequent to childhood than does the orthodox psychoanalytic view. Murray also indicates that a prime function of the superego is the instiga- tion of time-place-mode-object formulae for the expression of various needs. That is, the individual internalizes from his exemplars prescriptions as to when a given need should be expressed, where it should be expressed, how it should be expressed, and toward which objects it should be directed. It is less a matter of the individual being totally unable to express certain needs than it is a matter of his being able to express these needs only under sanctioned circumstances. In normal development the relation between these three institutions changes so that where once the id ruled supreme, the superego and eventu- ally the ego come to have determinant roles. In the happiest of instances a benign superego and a strong and ingenious ego combine to permit ade- quate expression of id impulses under circumstances that are culturally ap- proved, In a later revision of his theory, Murray (1959) has stressed the more positive establishments of the personality. There are, he believes, forma-174 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY tive and constructive processes that are not just useful for survival or as defenses against anxiety but that have their own energies, goals, and ful- fillments. A person needs to be creative and imaginative, to compose and construct if he is to remain psychologically healthy. Creative imagination may, in fact, be the strongest feature of a personality, and the one that is often given the least opportunity to express itself. THE DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY It is in the representation of man’s striving, seeking, desiring, wishing, and willing that Murray's contributions to psychological theory have been most distinctive. One might fairly say that his position is primarily a motiva- tional psychology. This focusing upon the motivational process is perfectly congruent with Murray's conviction that the study of man’s directional tendencies holds the key to understanding human behavior. “. . . the most important thing to discover about an individual . . . is the superordinate directionality (or directionalities) of his activities, whether mental, verbal, or physical” (Murray, 1951b, p. 276). Murray's interest in directionality has Jed to the most complex and carefully delineated system of motivational constructs that can be found on the contemporary psychological scene. His taxonomic interests are clearly revealed here in the patient and absorbed classifying of the elements of human behavior in terms of their underlying determinants or motives. Murray is certainly not the first person to place heavy emphasis upon the importance of motivational analysis. However, his formulations possess several distinctive elements. While the prevailing tides in psychology have flowed in the direction of simplicity and a small number of concepts, Mur- ray has insisted that an adequate understanding of human motivation must rest upon a system that employs a sufficiently large number of variables to reflect, at least partially, the tremendous complexity of human motives in the raw. He also has made serious efforts to provide empirical definitions for his variables which, if imperfect, at least far exceed the operational effectiveness of most of the preceding schemes in the field of human mo- tivation. The result of these efforts is a set of concepts which makes a bold attempt to bridge the gap between clinical description and the demands of empirical research. In considering Murray’s theory of motivation we shall begin with a discussion of the need concept, which from the beginning has been the focus of his conceptual efforts, and follow this with a discussion of such related concepts as press, tension reduction, thema, need integrate, unity-MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 175 thema, and regnancy. Finally we shall turn to his related value and vector concepts which represent a more recent turn in his theorizing. Need. Although the concept of need has been widely used in psychology, no other theorist has subjected the concept to so careful an analysis nor provided such a complete taxonomy of needs as has Murray. The detail of Murray’s analysis of this concept is suggested by his definition: A need is a construct (a convenient fiction or hypothetical concept) which stands for a force . . . in the brain region, a force which organizes perception, apperception, intellection, conation and action in such a way as to transform in a certain direction an existing, unsatisfying situation. A need is sometimes provoked directly by internal processes of a certain kind ... but, more fre- quently (when in a state of readiness) by the occurrence of one of a few com- monly effective press [environmental forces]... . Thus, it manifests itself by leading the organism to search for or to avoid encountering or, when encountered, to attend and respond to certain kinds of press... . Each need is characteris- tically accompanied by a particular feeling or emotion and tends to use certain modes . . . to further its trend. It may be weak or intense, momentary or en- during. But usually it persists and gives rise to a certain course of overt behavior (or fantasy), which . . . changes the initiating circumstance in such a way as to bring about an end situation which stills (appeases or satisfies) the organism (Murray, 1938, pp. 123-124). We find from this definition that the concept of need, as was true for the concept of personality, is ceded an abstract or hypothetical status but is nevertheless linked to underlying physiological processes in the brain. It is also conceived that needs may be either internally aroused or set into action as a result of external stimulation. In either case the need produces activity on the part of the organism and maintains this activity until the organism-environment situation has been altered so as to reduce the need. Some needs are accompanied by particular emotions or feelings, and they are frequently associated with particular instrumental acts which are effective in producing the desired end state. Murray states that the existence of a need can be inferred on the basis of: (1) the effect or end result of the behavior, (2) the particular pattern or mode of behavior involved, (3) the selective attention and response to a particular class of stimulus objects, (4) the expression of a particular emotion or affect, and (5) the expression of satisfaction when a particular effect is achieved or disappointment when the effect is not achieved (1938, p. 124). Subjective reports regarding feclings, intentions, and goals provide additional criteria. Given the general definition and the above criteria for inferring or classifying needs, Murray, following the intensive study of a176 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY small number of subjects, arrived at a tentative list of twenty needs. Al- though this list has been subjected to considerable modification and elabora- tion the original twenty needs remain highly representative. These variables were presented in Explorations in personality (1938) with an outline of pertinent facts concerning each need, including questionnaire items for measuring the need, accompanying emotions, and illustrations of the need. ‘The twenty needs are briefly listed and defined in Table 1. TABLE 1 ILLUSTRATIVE LIST OF MURRAY'S NEEDS * Need Brief Definition n Abasement To submit passively to external force. To accept injury, blame, criticism, punishment. To surrender. To become resigned to fate. To admit inferiority, error, wrongdoing, ot defeat. To confess and atone. To blame, belittle, or mutilate the self. To seck and enjoy pain, punishment, illness, and misfortune. n Achievement To accomplish something difficult. To master, manipulate, or organize physical objects, human beings, ot ideas. To do this as rapidly and as independently as possible. To overcome obstacles and attain a high standard. To excel oneself. To rival and surpass others. To increase self-regard by the successful exercise of talent. n Affiliation To draw near and enjoyably co-operate or reciprocate with an allied other (an other who resembles the subject or who likes the subject). To please and win affection of a cathected object. To adhere and remain loyal to a friend. n Aggression To overcome opposition forcefulty. To fight. To revenge an injury. To attack, injure, or kill another. To oppose forcefully of punish another. n Autonomy To get fee, shake off restraint, break out of confinement. To resist coercion and restriction. To avoid or quit activities prescribed by domincering authorities. To be independent and free to act ac- cording to impulse. To be unattached, irresponsible. To defy convention. nCounteraction To master or make up for a failure by restriving. To obliterate a humiliation by resumed action. To overcome weaknesses, to repress fear. To effacc a dishonor by action. To search for obstacles and difficulties to overcome. To maintain self-respect and pride on a high level. nDefendance ‘To defend the self against assault, criticism, and blame. To conceal or justify a misdeed, failure, or humiliation. To vindicate the ego. n Deference To admire and support a superior. To praise, honor, ot culogize. To yield eagerly to the influence of an allied other. To emulate an exemplar. To conform to custom.MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 177 TABLE 1(Continued) Need Brief Definition n Dominance n Exhibition n Harmavoidance n Infavoidance n Nurturance n Order n Play 1 Rejection n Sentience n Sex n Succorance n Understanding To control one’s human environment. To influence or direct the behavior of others by suggestion, seduction, persuasion, or com- mand. To dissuade, restrain, or prohibit. To make an impression. To be scen and heard. To excite, amaze, fascinate, entertain, shock, intrigue, amuse, or entice others. To avoid pain, physical injury, illness, and death. To escape from a dangerous situation. To take precautionary measures. To avoid humiliation. To quit embarrassing situations or to avoid conditions which may lead to belittlement: the scorn, derision, or indifference of others. To refrain from action because of the fear of failure. To give sympathy and gratify the needs of a helpless object: an infant or any object that is weak, disabled, tired, inexperienced, infirm, defcated, humiliated, lonely, dejected, sick, mentally con- fused. To assist an object in danger. To feed, help, support, console, protect, comfort, nurse, heal To put things in order. To achicve cleanliness, atrangement, organization, balance, neatness, tidiness, and precision. To act for “fun” without further purpose. To like to laugh and make jokes. To seek enjoyable relaxation of stress. To participate in games, sports, dancing, drinking parties, cards To separate oneself from a negatively cathected object. To ex- clude, abandon, expel, or remain indifferent to an inferior object. To snub or jilt an object. To seek and enjoy sensuous impressions To form and further an erotic relationship. To have sexual intercourse To have one’s needs gratified by the sympathetic aid of an allied object. To be nursed, supported, sustained, surrounded, protected, loved, advised, guided, indulged, forgiven, consoled. To remain close to a devoted protector. To always have a supporter. To ask or answer general questions. To be interested in theory. To speculate, formulate, analyze, and generalize. * Adapted from Murray, 1938, pp. 152-226. Typrs or Neeps. Thus far, we have seen how Murray defines need, we have examined the criteria he provides for their identification, and we have seen a typical list of needs. In addition to this it is important to consider the basis for distinguishing between different types of needs. First of all, there is the distinction between primary and secondary needs. The primary178 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY or viscerogenic needs are linked to characteristic organic events and typi- cally refer to physical satisfactions. Illustrative of these are the needs for air, water, food, sex, lactation, urination, and defecation. The secondary or psychogenic needs are presumably derived from the primary needs and are characterized by a lack of focal connection with any specific organic processes or physical satisfactions. Illustrative of these are the needs for acquisition, construction, achievement, recognition, exhibition, dominance, autonomy, and deference. Second, we have the distinction between overt needs and covert needs, that is, manifest needs and latent needs. Here we are differentiating be- tween those needs that are permitted more or less direct and immediate expression and those that are generally restrained, inhibited, or repressed. One might say that overt needs typically express themselves in motor be- havior while covert needs usually belong to the world of fantasy or dreams. The existence of covert needs is in large part the outcome of the develop- ment of internalized structures (superego) that define proper or acceptable conduct. Certain needs cannot be given free expression without violating the conventions or standards that have been taken over from society by means of the parents and these needs often operate at a covert level. Third, there are focal needs and diffuse needs. Some needs are closely linked to limited classes of environmental objects whereas others are so generalized as to be applicable in almost any environmental setting. Mur- ray points out that unless there is some unusual fixation a need is always subject to change in the objects toward which it is directed and the man- ner in which these are approached. That is, the sphere of environmental events to which the need is relevant may be broadened or narrowed and the instrumental acts linked to the need may be increased or decreased. If the need is firmly attached to an unsuitable object this is called a fixation and is customarily considered pathological. However, as Murray indicates, the inability of the need to show any enduring object preference may be just as pathological as a fixation. Fourth, there are proactive needs and reactive needs. The proactive need is one that is largely determined from within, one that becomes “spontane- ously kinetic” as the result of something in the person rather than some- thing in the environment. Reactive needs on the other hand are activated as a result of, or in response to, some environmental event. The distinction here is largely that between a response elicited by appropriate stimulation and a response produced in the absence of any important stimulus variation. Murray uses these concepts also to describe interaction between two or more persons where usually one individual can be identified as the proactor (ini- tiates the interaction, asks the questions, in general provides the stimulus toMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 179 which the other must respond) and another individual can be identified as’ the reactor (reacts to the stimuli provided by the proactor). Fifth, there is the distinction between process activity, modal needs, and effect needs. American psychologists with their conventional emphasis upon function and utility have consistently emphasized effect needs—needs which lead to some desired state or end result. Murray, however, has insisted upon the equal importance of process activity and modal needs—tendencies to perform certain acts for the sake of the performance itself. The random, unco-ordinated, nonfunctional operation of various processes (vision, hear- ing, thought, speech, and so forth) which occurs from birth on is called process activity. This is “sheer function pleasure,” doing for the sake of doing. More basic and elementary than integrated goal-directed activities are the some- what anarchic, unco-ordinated medley of tentative, shortlived mental processes which characterize the stream of consciousness during periods of rest and day dreaming, at one extreme, and during periods of intense emotional excitement or lunacy, at the other. For these spontaneous, random, ungoverned, but yet expressive cacophonies of energy we have proposed the term “process activity.” This is pure Being, a state in which the mind moves in its own inherent man- ner for its own intrinsic pleasure. We have only to conceptualize a free, irre- sponsible and playful release of vitality, enjoyed for its own sake (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 37). Modal needs, on the other hand, involve doing something with a certain degree of excellence or quality. It is still the activity which is sought and enjoyed but it is now rewarding only when it is performed with a certain degree of perfection. These needs are satisfied by = excellence of form (musical patterns, logical clarity and coherence, gra- cious social manners, executive efficiency as an art, verbal eloquence, beauty of physique and movement) and are different from process needs insofar as they require perfected expressions, most of which can be achieved only by diligent application and discipline (Murray, 1951a, p. 446). Inverrezation or Negps. It is evident that needs do not operate in com- plete isolation from each other and the nature of this interaction or mutual influence is of crucial theoretical importance. Murray accepts the fact that there exists a hierarchy of needs with certain tendencies taking precedence over others. The concept of prepotency is used to refer to needs which “be- come regnant with the greatest urgency if they are not satisfied” (Murray, 195la, p. 452). Thus, in situations where two or more needs are aroused simultaneously and motivate incompatible responses, it is the prepotent need (such as pain, hunger, thirst) which ordinarily will be translated into180 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY action as prepotent needs cannot be postponed. A minimal satisfaction of such needs is necessary before other needs can operate. In his investiga- tion of personality Murray has habitually employed a set of concepts to represent conflict involving important needs. Thus, it is customary in his research to secure estimates for each subject of the intensity of conflict in certain key areas, for example, autonomy versus compliance, achievement versus pleasure. Under certain circumstances multiple needs may be gratified by a single course of action. In instances where the outcome of different needs is be- haviorally the same Murray speaks of fusion of needs. Another important Kind of relation among needs is referred to by the concept of subsidiation. A subsidiary need is one which operates in the service of another; for in- stance, the individual may show aggressive needs but these may be serving only to facilitate acquisitive needs. In any instance where the operation of one need is merely instrumental to the gratification of another we speak of the first need.as subsidiary to the second. Tracing chains of subsidiation can be of great value in revealing the dominant or root motives of the in- dividual. We have now examined in a tentative fashion the manner in which Murray chooses to represent the motivation of the individual. However, these personal motivations are intimately linked with events taking place outside of the individual and it remains for us to scrutinize the manner in which Murray proposes to represent these significant environmental happenings. One may justifiably question the decision to consider environ- mental events in a section devoted to “dynamics of behavior.” However, the motivational state of the individual and the operant environmental forces are so closely intertwined in Murray's view that it would be a serious distortion to separate them in our treatment here. Press. Just as the concept of “need” represents the significant determinants of behavior within the person so the concept of “press” represents the effec- tive or significant determinants of behavior in the environment. In simplest terms a press is a property or attribute of an environmental object or person which facilitates or impedes the efforts of the individual to reach a given goal. Press are linked to persons or objects that have direct implications for the efforts of the individual to satisfy his need strivings. “The press of an object is what it can do to the subject or for the subject—the power that it has to affect the well-being of the subject in one way or another” (1938, p. 121). By representing the environment in terms of press the investigator hopes to extract and classify the significant portions of the world in which the individual lives. Clearly we know a great deal more about what an in- dividual is likely to do if we have a picture not only of his motives or di-MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 181 rectional tendencies but also a picture of the way in which he views or interprets his environment. It is this later function which the press con- cepts are designed to fulfill. Murray has developed various lists of press for particular purposes. Repre- sentative of these is the classification contained in Table 2 which was de- TABLE 2 ABBREVIATED LIST OF PRESS* 1. p Family Insuppore 4. p Retention, Withholding Objects a, Cultural Discord 5. p Rejection, Unconcern, and Scorn b. Family Discord 6. p Rival, Competing Contemporary ©, Capricious Discipline 7. p Birth of Sibling 4, Parental Separation 8. p Aggression ¢. Absence of Parent: Father, Mother a. Maltreatment by Elder Male, Elder Female £. Parental Illness: Father, Mother b, Maltreatment by Contemporaries g. Death of Parent: Father, Mother ¢. Quarrelsome Contemporaries h, Inferior Parent: Father, Mother 9. p Dominance, Coercion, and Prohibition i, Dissimilar Parent: Father, Mother a. Discipline j. Poverty b. Religious Training k, Unsettled Home 10. p Nurturance, Indulgence 2. p Danger or Misfortune 11. p Succorance, Demands for Tenderness a. Physical Insupport, Height 12. p Deference, Praise, Recognition b. Water 13. p Affiliation, Friendships c. Aloneness, Darkness 14. p Sex 4, Inclement Weather, Lightning a, Exposure e. Fire b. Seduction; Homosexual, Heterosexual f. Accident ¢. Parental Intercourse g. Animal 15. p Deception or Betrayal 3. p Lack or Loss 16. p Inferiority a. of Nourishment a. Physical D. of Possessions b. Social ¢. of Companionship ¢. Intellectual 4. of Variery * Adapted from Murray, 1938, pp. 291-292. signed to represent significant childhood events or influences. In practice these press are not only identified as operating in a given individual's ex- perience but they are also assigned a quantitative rating to indicate their strength or importance in the individual’s life. It is important to distinguish between the significance of environmental objects as they are perceived or interpreted by the individual (beta press) and the properties of those environmental objects as they exist in reality or as objective inquiry discloses them (alpha press). The individual’s be- havior is most closely correlated with the beta press but it is nevertheless182 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY important to discover situations in which there is a wide discrepancy be- tween the beta press to which the individual is reacting and the alpha press which actually exist. CarHexis anp SENTIMENT. Murray adopts the conventional Freudian term “cathexis” for referring to the capacity of an environmental object to attract or repel the individual. A positive cathexis is said to exist if the individual likes or is attracted to a given object while a negative cathexis exists when an object arouses dislike and avoidance. In cases where an object is both attractive and repellent the individual is said to be ambivalent to- ward the object. The concept of cathexis is also useful in describing a per- son’s effects, whether positive or negative, on other people. The concept of “sentiment” represents a different way of viewing the same phenomenon. Where cathexis refers to the capacity of the object to at- tract or repel, sentiment refers to the tendency within the individual to be attracted to or repelled by certain objects. Murray defines a sentiment as: “ more or less enduring disposition . . . in a personality to respond with a positive or a negative affect to a specified entity” (Murray and Morgan, 1945). When an investigator is primarily interested in the object he normally uses the concept of cathexis, but when his focus is upon the individual the concept of sentiment is ordinarily preferred. The Clinical study of sentiments (Murray and Morgan, 1945) reports an intensive study of eleven subjects focused about sentiments toward war, religion, parents, and sex. One might fairly say that in this study Murray extends the concepts of cathexis and sentiment so that they can be applied to any person, object, or thought with which an individual can have trans- actions. He also considers the relation of cathexis and sentiment to other traditional psychological concepts and proposes a number of attributes and distinctions relative to the study and understanding of these aspects of be- havior. Tension Reduction. We have already seen that Murray conceives of the individual as set into action by a complex set of motives. Further, he grants that when a need is aroused the individual is in a state of tension, and satis- faction of the need involves reduction of the tension. Finally, the organism will learn to attend to objects and perform acts that it has found in the past to be associated with tension reduction. Although this conventional formulation meets with Murray’s approval he contends that it is an incomplete picture. Not only does the individual learn to respond in such a manner as to reduce tension and thus experience satis- faction but also he learns to respond in such a manner as to develop tension so that it can later be reduced. It is important to note that it is not a tensionless state, as Freud supposed, whichMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 183 is generally most satisfying to a healthy organism, but the process of reducing tension, and, other factors being equal, the degree of satisfaction is roughly pro- portional to the amount of tension that is reduced per unit of time... . A ten- sionless state is sometimes the ideal of those who suffer from chronic anxiety or resentment or a frustrated sex drive; but, as a rule, the absence of positive need- tensions—no appetite, no curiosity, no desire for fellowship, no zest—is very distressing. TThis calls our attention to the fact that the formula, tension — reduc- tion of tension, takes account of only one side of the metabolic cycle. It covers catabolism, but not anabolism (which is the synthetic growth process by which tissues and potential energies are not only restored but, during youth, actually in- creased). The principle of homeostasis represents conservation but not construc- tion. . | . These considerations lead us to submit tentatively a more inclusive formula: generation of tension > reduction of tension. ‘This formula represents a temporal pattern of states instead of an end state, a way of life rather than a goal; but it applies only to the positive need systems, The conservative systems that are directed towards withdrawals, avoidances, defenses, and preventions, are adequately covered by the reduction-of-tension formula (Murray and Kluck- hoha, 1953, pp. 36-37). Thus, satisfaction or pleasure accompanies tension reduction and the individual may increase this satisfaction by increasing the amount of tension he has to reduce. One should note that this formulation applies only to effect needs. In process activity and modal needs the satisfaction is intrinsic to the activity and may be just as intense at the beginning or middle as at the end. Murray accepts the proposition that man acts in such a way.as to intend the increase of satisfaction and decrease of tension. However, this is only an intention or belief on the actor’s part and it does not always turn out that the act which he believes will reduce tension, and lead to satisfaction, is successful in attaining this goal. Moreover, man is not motivated to in- crease satisfaction in general; it is always a specific tension relevant to a particular need which he is attempting to reduce. Satisfaction is thus largely an outcome or result of need states and their behavioral consequences. As Murray suggests, “Need, then, is the fundamental variable, and degree of satisfaction (hedone) the best indicator of its state of progress” (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 18). Thema. A thema is simply a molar and interactive behavioral unit. It in- cludes the instigating situation (press) and the need that is operating. Thus, it deals with the interaction between needs and press and permits a more global and less segmental view of behavior. By means of this con- cept the theorist can represent the situations that instigate or lead to the operation of particular needs, as well as the outcome or resultants of the operation of these needs. Themas vary from simple formulations of a single subject-object inter-184 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY action to more general and cruder formulations of longer transactions, and include formulations that represent the combination of a number of simple themas (serial themas). The thema as an analytic unit is a natural outcome of Murray’s conviction that interpersonal relations should be formulated as a dyadic unit, That is, the theorist must represent not only the subject who is his focus of interest but he must also represent fully the nature of the person with whom the subject is interacting. He must show an equal concern for the details of both subject and object if he is to predict con- crete social interactions between two people. Need Integrate. Although needs are not necessarily linked to specific ob- jects in the environment, it often happens that with experience the individual comes to associate particular objects with certain needs. Likewise particular modes of response, or means of approaching or avoiding these objects, may be acquired and associated with the need, When this integration of the need and the image or thought of the environmental object, as well as in- strumental acts, has taken place, Murray speaks of a need integrate. A need integrate is a well-established “thematic disposition’—a need for a certain kind of interaction with a certain kind of person or object. Under circum- stances where a need integrate exists the arousal of the need will ordinarily lead the person to seek in an appropriate way the environmental object corresponding to the image that was a part of the need integrate. Unity-Thema. The unity-thema is essentially the single pattern of related needs and press, derived from infantile experience, which gives meaning and coherence to the largest portion of the individual’s behavior. It oper- ates largely as an unconscious force. It is not always possible to discover a unity-thema, although one can usually arrive at a developmental formu- lation which sheds light upon all or most of the individual’s behavior and without which it would not be possible to bring much order to his behavior. Murray refers to a man’s unity-thema as the “key to his unique nature” and suggests: A unity-thema is a compound of interrelated—collaborating or conflicting— dominant needs that are linked to press to which the individual was exposed on one or more particular occasions, gratifying or traumatic, in early childhood. The thema may stand for a primary infantile experience or a subsequent reac- tion formation to that experience. But, whatever its nature and genesis, it re- peats itself in many forms during later life (1938, pp. 604-605). Regnant Processes. A regnant process is the physiological accompaniment of a dominant psychological process. We have already seen in Murray's defi nition of personality, as well as in our discussion of the need concept, thatMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 185 he places great emphasis upon the importance of the physiological or neuro- logical processes which underlie the phenomena of interest to the psycholo- gist. This clear intention of locating or referring all psychological processes to brain function led to the development of a specific concept (regnancy) de- signed to keep this brain-personality identity in the forefront of the theorist’s attention. In defining this concept Murray suggests: It may prove convenient to refer to the mutually dependent processes that con- stitute dominant configurations in the brain as regnant processes; and, further, to designate the totality of such processes occurring during a single moment (a unitary temporal segment of brain processes) as a regnancy.... To a cet- tain extent the regnant need dominates the organism (1938, p. 45). Murray also makes clear that all conscious processes are regnant but that not all regnant processes are conscious. Thus, consciousness is just one prop- erty of a dominant psychological process, and this may or may not be pres- ent in a given instance. Consistent with this emphasis upon physiological factors is Murray's willingness to accept constitutional factors as playing an important role in determining behavior. Although this point of view is not given heavy emphasis in his writings it is clear from many statements, for example, the suggestion that certain constitutional types may be expected to find cultural prescriptions more difficult to conform to than other types, or the implication that individuals vary in the strength of their id tendencies, that he considers constitutional and genetic factors to play an important role in behavior. Vector-Value Scheme. One of the marked shortcomings of the concepts of need and press as they have been elaborated above is the fact that they do not show sufficient respect for the embeddedness of behavior, for the ex- tent to which given needs are linked with specific press and other needs. True, there are the concepts of subsidiation, need integrate, and thema; but these are sometimes difficult to apply and, in any case, they are efforts to remedy an evil introduced by the original method of analysis. Recently Murray has made serious efforts to represent more adequately this inter- action among the determinants of behavior. Specifically, he has reasoned that needs always operate in the service of some value, or with the intent of bringing about some end state and, therefore, this value should be made a part of the analysis of motives: Since observation and experience testify to the fact that aggression, as well as every other kind of action, has an effect (function) which can be best defined in terms of some valued entity (its construction, conservation, expression, or repro- duction), the naming of the valued entity in conjunction with the named activity186 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY should contribute a good deal to our understanding of the dynamics of behavior (1951b, p. 288). In this recent scheme Murray proposes that behavioral tendencies be represented in terms of vectors which represent broad “physical or psy- chological directions of activity.” The values which the vectors serve are represented by a series of value concepts. Although the scheme is not com- pletely worked out Murray has provided tentative lists of values and vec- tors. The vectors consist of rejection, reception, acquisition, construction, conservation, expression, transmission, expulsion, destruction, defendance, and avoidance. The values consist of body (physical well-being), property (useful objects, wealth), authority (decision-making power), affiliation (in- terpersonal affection), knowledge (facts and theories, science, history), aesthetic form (beauty, art), and ideology (system of values, philosophy, religion). In practice it is intended that these vectors and values be arranged in a matrix of intersecting rows and columns so that each cell in the matrix will represent behavior that corresponds to a particular vector in the service of a particular value. Although the development of these concepts is far from complete Murray has demonstrated the operation of these values and vectors in the form of such a matrix with each cell containing examples or illustrations of behavioral events which typify the operation of such a vector in the service of that value. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY We have now examined the elaborate set of concepts developed by Murray to represent the dispositions or striving of the individual and we have also viewed the concepts with which he proposes to represent significant envi- ronmental events. Thus, it is now possible to represent the individual at any point in time as a complex integrate of needs and press or vectors and values, as well as personality structures, abilities, achievements, and senti- ments. However, we have also learned that the “history of the organism is the organism,” and this clearly indicates that representing the individual at a single point in time is not sufficient. The longitudinal study of the indi- vidual is a matter of prime importance and Murray has a good deal to say about the path of psychological development. The variables we have already considered can, of course, be applied at any point in development. In addition to these concepts, however, Murray has elaborated and refined the psychoanalytic conception of “complex” so as to represent a particularly important set of early childhood experiences. Although Murray’s treatment of development is heavily flavored by psy- choanalytic theorizing, he introduces novel dimensions into his use ofMURRAY’S PERSONOLOGY 187 these conceptions and has been particularly inventive in devising means of measuring some of the important variables. In discussing development we shall begin with a consideration of the infantile complexes and follow this with a brief summary of Murray’s position in regard to several theoretical issues including genetic-matura- tional determinants, learning, sociocultural determinants, uniqueness of the individual, the role of unconscious factors, and the socialization process. Infantile Complexes. If we accept the fact that events taking place early in the individual’s life are of unusual importance as determinants of adult behavior we find an empirical dilemma posed by the fact that these events take place, for the most part, prior to the development of language. Con- sequently, the usual methods of appraisal or measurement are inappropriate and the investigator must depend upon external observation of the child and vague reconstructions which the individual can make after language has developed. Utilization of these two sources of data has led to the isolation of certain areas of experience as possessing particular importance for the development of the child and subsequently the adult. Murray suggests that these are: . . - five highly enjoyable conditions or activities, each of which is terminated, frustrated or limited (at some point in development) by external forces: (1) the secure, passive and dependent existence within the womb (rudely interrupted by the painful experience of birth); (2) the sensuous enjoyment of sucking good nourishment from the mother’s breast (or from a bottle) while lying safely and dependently in her arms (brought to a halt by weaning); (3) the free enjoy- ment of the pleasurable sensations accompanying defecation (restricted by toilet training); (4) the pleasant sense impressions accompanying urination . . . ; and (5) the thrilling excitations that arise from genital friction (prohibited by threats of punishment) (1938, pp. 361-362). Alll of these areas have been indicated by the psychoanalyst as posing special problems for the growing child, Murray's contributions here represent an elaboration and clarification of the orthodox Freudian views. In cases where the effects of these infantile experiences upon later be- havior are clear and extensive we speak of a complex. Actually it is presumed that all individuals have “complexes” of varying severity and it is only in extreme cases that this implies abnormality. In Murray's terms a complex is “An enduring integrate (derived from one of the above-mentioned enjoyed conditions) that determines (unconsciously) the course of later develop- ment . . .” (1938, p. 363). Murray defines and provides rough specification for the measurement of five complexes: claustral, oral, anal, urethral, and castration. Each repre-188 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY sents the outcome of happenings involving one of the five areas of pleasur- able experience outlined above. The claustral complexes represent residuals of the uterine or prenatal experience of the individual. This area of experience has been dealt with by analysts including Freud and Rank. Murray brought together and sys- tematized these ideas, elaborated upon them, and added a suitable label. He suggests that under this gencral heading there are three specific types of complex: . . « 1) a complex constellated about the wish to reinstate the conditions similar to those prevailing before birth; 2) a complex that centres about the anxiety of insupport and helplessness, and 3) a complex that is anxiously directed against suffocation and confinement (1938, p. 363). Having provided a general specification of the complexes Murray pro- ceeds to provide detailed symptoms or criteria in terms of which each of the three types of claustral complex may be identified. The simple claus- tral complex (reinstatement of uterine conditions) is characterized by: cathexis for claustra (womblike enclosures), nurturant or motherly objects, death, the past, and resistance to change, needs for passivity, harmavoidance, seclusion, and succorance. Thus, the overall picture is of a passive, depend- ent person who is oriented toward the past and generally resistant to novelty or change. The fear of insupport complex manifests itself in fear of open spaces, falling, drowning, earthquake, fire, and family insupport. The egres- sion complex is concerned with escaping or departing and displays itself in cathexis for open spaces and fresh air, need to move and travel, cathexis for change, claustrophobia, and a strong need for autonomy. Thus, the individual who displays this complex is in most respects the opposite of the person displaying the simple claustral complex. The oral complexes represent derivatives of carly feeding experiences and again we find that Murray has proposed three specific subcomplexes, all of which involve the mouth but each of which implies a distinctive kind of activity. The oral succorance complex involves oral activity in combination with passive and dependent tendencies. ‘The existence of this complex can be inferred from oral automatisms such as sucking; cathexis for oral ob- jects such as the nipple, breast, or thumb; compulsive eating and drink- ing; need for passivity and succorance; cathexis for words, nurturant ob- jects; and inhibited aggressive needs. The oral aggression complex com- bines oral activity with aggression and is manifested in oral automatisms such as biting; cathexis for solid oral objects (meat, bones); strong aggres- sive needs; ambivalence toward authority figures; projection of oral ag- gression (seeing the environment as full of biting aggressive objects); need for harmavoidance; phobia for biting objects; and stuttering. The oralMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 189 rejection complex involves spitting out and disgust over oral activities and objects. More specifically it is revealed in a negative cathexis for certain foods, low need for food, fear of oral infection or injury, need to reject, need for seclusion and autonomy, and dislike for nurturant objects. The anal complexes are derived from events associated with the act of defecating and bowel training. Murray suggests, following Freud and Abra- ham, that there are two specific complexes here, one concerned primarily with the tendency to expel and the other with the tendency to retain. The anal rejection complex includes diarrhea and cathexis for feces and fur- ther involves need for aggression, particularly involving disorder and dirty- ing or smearing; anal theory of birth, need for autonomy, anal sexuality. The anal retention complex involves an underlying cathexis for feces but this is concealed behind an apparent disgust, prudishness, and negative reaction to defecation. This complex also is associated with the anal theory of birth and anal sexuality as well as the need for autonomy, although in this instance the autonomy is displayed through resistance to suggestion rather than seeking for independence or freedom. There is a strong need for order and cleanliness, and also a need to retain possessions. This complex, of course, restates the famous Freudian trilogy of “parsimony, cleanliness, and obstinacy” which were suggested as typifying the “anal character.” Originally Murray (1938) considered the urethral complex of rather minor importance. He indicated initially that the complex involved bed- wetting, urethral soiling, and urethral erotism. Postwar research has con- vinced him of the central importance for many individuals of this area of experience, and he has since provided a further description of the complex as well as a series of empirical devices for assessing it, although as yet this material has not been published. He has also suggested that the syndrome be called the Icarus complex after the mythological figure who flew too near the sun against his father’s advice, with the result that his artificial wings melted and he plunged to his death. A detailed case history of an American Icarus has been published (Murray, 1955). In his recent formu- lations he has indicated that the individual who is an Icarian typically dis- plays such qualities as cathexis for fire, a history of enuresis, a craving for immortality, strong narcissism, and a lofty ambition which dissolves in the face of failure. The castration complex is also given less attention in Murray's early writing than the first three complexes. He suggests that the complex should be given a more limited meaning or significance than that commonly assigned to it by the psychoanalysts: To us it seems better to confine the term castration complex to its literal mean- ing; anxiety evoked by the fantasy that the penis might be cut off. This complex190 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY occurs often enough, but it does not scem possible that it is the root of all neurotic anxiety. It usually comes as a resultant of the fantasies associated with infantile masturbation (1938, p. 385 Space limitations have forced us to omit the detailed discussion Murray provides of the experiential links between the attributes we have listed as diagnostic of the various complexes. These clusters of variables represent the distillates of considerable research and in his presentation they are further cemented by logical and theoretical considerations. In Murray's investigations of personality it has been customary to rank or rate each subject in terms of the importance of each of these complexes as a de- terminant of his behavior. Genetic-Maturational Determinants. In a recent formulation of his views, Murray (1968b) ascribes an important role to genetic and maturational factors in the development of personality. He conceives of genetic-matura- tional processes as being responsible for programming a succession of eras throughout an individual’s life. During the first era—that of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood—new structural compositions emerge and multiply. The middle years are marked by conservative recompositions of the already emerged structures and functions. In the final era, senescence, the capacity for forming new compositions and recompositions decreases and the atrophy of existing forms and functions increases. Within cach period, there are numerous smaller programs of behavioral and experiential events that run off under the guidance of genetically controlled matura- tional processes. Murray attributes these developments to metabolic processes. In the first era, anabolism outdistances catabolism; in the second, the two are about equal; and in the third, catabolism is greater than anabolism. Mur- ray favors a metabolic model because “it conforms with a conception of reality that is not expressible in terms of spatial structures of matter as such but in terms of the interdependent, operating properties of matter—that is, in terms of process, time, and energy” (1968b, p. 9). Moreover, it is a model that provides for progression, creativity, and self-actualization, which are not accounted for by a purely psychoanalytic formulation. Learning. Genetic factors cannot be overlooked in discussing learning since Murray believes they are responsible for the presence of pleasure (hedonic) and displeasure (anhedonic) centers in the brain. Learning consists of dis- covering what generates pleasure and what generates distress for the in- dividual. These hedonic and anhedonic generators may be classified in several ways. They may be retrospective (memories of past experiences that were delightful or distressful), spective (current experiences), or prospec-MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 191 tive (anticipations of future pleasures or pains). Current generators may be classified according to whether they are located predominantly in the person, in the environment, or in an interpersonal transaction. These gen- erators may be further subdivided. For example, generators in the person may be located in the body, in some emotional center of the brain, in some type of psychological process, or in the judgments of conscience. Murray specifically rejects any concept such as habit or fixation as be- ing of primary importance in personality development. He says such regu- larities of behavior would be correct if the genetical program, with its potentialities for self-actualization ceased to op- erate at puberty; if the subject were not easily bored and not eager for new sights and new ventures; if the subject were commonly rewarded for frequent repe- titions of the same information (old news), the same jokes, etc; if the human environment, parents, teachers, and peers, were unanimous in their support of the same beliefs, codes, manners, political sentiments, and tastes; if the person were not ambitious to emulate successively the more impressive performances and deeds of others; if for the subject the very meaning of achievement (some- thing to be proud of) did not consist in the accomplishment of something new, extraordinary, more difficult or hazardous; if the person were not enticed by future-oriented imagents (fantasies) of unexperienced delights or of untried ways and means; if no person were ever radically transformed by a “second birth,” “great emancipation,” or religious conversion; and finally, if no person were ever to discover that the creation of an unprecedented, propitious form of living or of culture (scientific, literary, exc.) could be more profoundly joyous than any experience he had had (1968b, p. 12). Obviously, Murray believes that all of the statements following the ifs are false and that consequently reinforcement or contiguity learning theories are deficient to the extent that they presuppose strict regularities or repeti- tions of behaviors. Sociocultural Determinants. Murray, in marked contrast to most theorists who have drawn heavily from psychoanalytic theory, has deliberately as- signed a major role in development to environmental factors. We have already seen that in distinction to most students of motivation he has de- veloped an elaborate set of concepts (press) designed to represent the en- vironment of the individual. He has done so partly on the basis of Darwin’s theory that the group more than the individual is the evolutionary unit. Survival of the fittest applies to rival groups. Accordingly, Murray writes, “This theory of group evolution helps us to understand why man is a social . . , creature, and why as a social creature he is both humane and brutal” (1959, p. 46). Further, he has made frequent reference to the fact that the path of development cannot be adequately understood without a192 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY full picture of the social setting in which the process evolves. Consistently, his concepts of “proceeding” and “thema” imply an interactionist belief—a conviction that full understanding of behavior will follow only when both subject and object are adequately represented. All of these considerations make clear that Murray accepts and accentuates the importance of a “field” view of behavior. While his field emphasis preceded the period during which he and Clyde Kluckhohn have been professionally associated, there is little doubt that collaboration with his anthropologist friend has served to cement his field convictions and to produce a somewhat more explicit consideration of institutional and cultural variables. The following statement by Murray and Kluckhohn bears strong testimony to Murray’s convictions in this area. A person is an emergent entity of and in a certain physical, social, and cultural milieu. He cannot be properly represented in isolation from his locale, or from the structure of that group of which he is a member, or from his status (role) in the structure of that group. Basically, every person is a social person, an interde- pendent part of a system of human interactions (1953, p. 6). Society is believed to exert a tremendous influence upon the individual. Thus, it is important to represent the significant elements in the environ- ment not only through concepts such as press but also through variables related to the cultural milieu of the individual. Uniqueness. In spite of his attention to general categories of analysis Mur- ray has always taken the essential uniqueness of each person, and even of each behavioral event, as self-evident facts. His respect for naturalistic ob- servation and his creative and intuitive literary talents make it easy for him to grasp and express compellingly the individuality and elusive complexity of each subject or event. In his words: Every proceeding leaves behind it some trace of its occurrence—a new fact, the germ of an idea, a re-evaluation of something, a more affectionate attachment to some person, a slight improvement of skill, a renewal of hope, another reason for despondency. Thus, slowly, by scarcely perceptible gradations—though some- times suddenly by a leap forward or a slide backward—the person changes from day to day. Since his familiar associates also change, it can be said that every time he meets with one of them, both are different. In short, every proceeding is in some respects unique (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 10). It is this respect for the complexity and uniqueness of the individual which has led Murray to develop such a manifold and complicated scheme of vari- ables for dealing with human behavior. Further, this awareness has led him to examine small numbers of subjects intensively while shunning studies that would involve securing no more than two or three measures for each subject studied.MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 193 ‘Thus, we find that Murray shows full respect for the individuality and uniqueness of behavior and has taken strong measures to give this quality adequate conceptual representation. However, he also accepts the necessity of abstraction in the process of empirical investigation and he has not hesitated to engage in operations which involve dealing with components of behavior in terms of common or general variables. He would insist, nevertheless, that the results of such segmental studies could be adequately interpreted only when the investigator knew a great deal about each indi- vidual subject. Unconscious Processes. Among academic psychologists Murray was among the first to accept the insidious and pervasive role of unconscious determi- nants of behavior (Murray, 1936). As we have observed, in his first major theoretical statement (1938) he made clear that not all regnant processes have conscious correlates and, naturally enough, those that do not, determine behavior without the individual’s awareness. Not only is the individual unaware of certain tendencies that influence his behavior but, more impor- tant, some of these tendencies are actively defended against or warded off from consciousness. Thus, Murray not only accepts the role of unconscious determinants of behavior but also recognizes the operation of the Freudian mechanisms of repression and resistance. The distinction between latent and overt needs, which we have already mentioned, and the importance which Murray attributes to the infantile complexes make clear that his theory assigns a central role to unconscious processes even in the normal individual. It is true, however, that he places a somewhat less extreme emphasis upon unconscious determinants than does orthodox psychoanalytic theory. The Socialization Process. Murray has suggested that the human person- ality is a compromise between the individual’s own impulses and the de- mands and interests of other people. These demands of other people are represented collectively by the institutions and cultural patterns to which the individual is exposed, and the process whereby his own impulses are compromised by these forces is referred to as the socialization process. Con- flicts between the individual and the approved patterns of his social milieu are customarily solved by means of the individual conforming to the group patterns in some manner. Only occasionally and in unusual individuals is it possible for the person to bring about a change in the cultural patterns which will ease the conflict with his own impulses. For the most part it is the personality that is more malleable and therefore the conflict is usually reduced by altering the person.194 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY The exact aims of socialization vary from one society to another but there are certain general aims which hold true across different societies: Beginning in the nursery, the process of socialization continues throughout life. ‘Among other things, what must be learned are: the power to inhibit, or to mod- erate, the expression of unacceptable needs; the ability to transfer cathexis from a prohibited goal-object to an acceptable substitute; the habitual and automatic use of a large number of approved action patterns (methods, manners, and emo- tional attitudes); and the ability to adapt to schedules (to do things at the proper time, keep appointments, etc.) (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953, p. 45). All of these things are necessary if the individual is to live comfortably with himself and with his fellow man. ‘An essential element in achieving the above goals is the development of an adequate superego. As we have already seen, by internalizing aspects of the authority figures to whom he has been exposed, the person develops an internal structure which serves to reward and punish him when he is be- having appropriately or inappropriately in terms of the culture pattern as interpreted by these authority figures. This implies that the parents, as the most important authority figures, are the chief agents of the socialization process. The effectiveness of the parents in rewarding approved and pun- ishing disapproved patterns of behavior will largely determine the success of this developmental process. An important component of the parent's role as socializer is the effectiveness with which he develops a mutually affec- tionate relationship with the child so that mere approval or disapproval can serve as significant motivating conditions in controlling the child’s behavior. Murray points out that in the well-socialized individual it is legitimate to speak of a need for roleship, that is, a need to be a member of an existing group or groups and to have a defined and accepted role and status within the group. Thus, the tendency on the part of the individual to conform to the decrees of his society is, in part, accounted for by means of this general need to belong to and participate in a functioning group. Socialization is not without its negative qualities. An individual can be oversocialized, and conceivably an entire society may be exposed to socialization processes that are debilitating rather than preparatory for a fruitful life. As Murray suggests, man is fundamentally an animal and to the extent that socialization denies this fundamental, biological nature it may destroy the creative spontaneity and vigor which are essential to the most important kinds of human advances.MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 195 CHARACTERISTIC RESEARCH AND RESEARCH METHODS We have already pointed out that Murray’s research has been distinguished primarily by its originality and this very fact makes it singularly difficult to characterize in a representative fashion the investigations he has inspired and conducted. Before turning to the difficult task of selecting representative investigations to summarize, let us examine very briefly several distinctive qualities of Murray’s general approach to personality research. The inter- ested reader will find several papers in which Murray has outlined his conception of how personality research should be pursued (Murray, 1947, 1949b, 1963). Intensive Study of Small Numbers of Normal Subjects. The large- scale study of human behavior, in which findings consist of group tendencies or over-all relations which may characterize very poorly any single individual within the group, represents a limited avenue to understanding human be- havior. Murray is convinced, with the wisdom of the naturalist and clinician, that an adequate understanding of behavior must follow a complete and detailed study of individual subjects. Just as case study has provided indis- pensable assistance in the growth and development of medical science, so the future of psychology is linked to the willingness of investigators to take the time and effort to understand thoroughly individual cases. Group relations are important only when accompanied by a careful inquiry into the deviations within the group, and conditions which. cause or accompany these deviations. To report a finding which characterizes 80 per cent of a specified group is of little value unless some explanation can be provided for the failure of the other 20 per cent to fit into this pattern. Murray's consistent emphasis on this point is one of his principal contributions to research methods. If we are interested in the individual subject and also concerned with reasons for subjects representing exceptions to general relationships, it is clear that we must secure a very large amount of information concerning each subject with which we deal. Thus, it is inevitable that Murray's position should lead him to the intensive study of his subjects and this, of course, has the natural result of reducing the number of subjects who can be studied at any one time and the total number of studies that can be carried out by any one investigator in a given number of years. The contrast between Murray’s interests in human behavior and the in- terests of many academic psychologists is adeptly highlighted in the follow- ing passage:196 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY At first I was taken aback, having vaguely expected that most academic psy- chologists would be interested in Man functioning in his environment, But not at all: almost everyone was nailed down to some piece of apparatus, measuring a small segment of the nervous system as if it were isolated from the entrails. I was in the position, let us imagine, of a medical student who suddenly dis- covers that all his instructors are eye, ear, nose and throat specialists, The phe- nomena that intrigued me were not mentioned, since these were not susceptible to exact experimental validation, a standard that rules out geology, paleontology, anthropology, embryology, most of medicine, sociology, and divine astronomy. If my chief aim had been to “work with the greatest scientific precision” I would never have quit electrolytes and gases. I had changed because of a consuming interest in other matters, in problems of motivation and emotion. To try to work these out on human subjects was to become a “literary” or applied psychologist, a practitioner of mental hygiene, outside and looking in upon the real psy- chologists who, I concluded, were obsessed by anxious aims to climb the social scale of scientists and join the elect of this day's God at any cost. What else could account for their putting manners (appliances and statistics) so far ahead of ends (importance of the problems studied)? No matter how trivial the conclusions, if his coefficients were rcliable, an experimenter was deemed pure and sanctified (Murray, 1940, p. 154). As Murray points out, this was an initial impression that has since been moderated. But the core complaint remains: psychologists all too often are not interested in the full range of human behavior. A further distinctive quality of his research has been its emphasis upon the study of normal individuals in natural settings. In general, the intensive study of individual cases has been reserved for the clinical setting where the pathology of the patient has made him a subject of particular interest or else the demands of diagnostic or therapeutic expediency have necessitated extensive information. Thus, Murray’s choice of the normal subject as the focus of his research provided a natural complement to the case histories available from psychiatric settings. Murray (1958) believes that the ultimate concern of the personologist is to explain and predict the individual’s activities in everyday life. For that reason, he should not be content to limit his predictions to the subculture of the laboratory nor to try to understand the individual merely by validating one test against the other. He was also one of the pioneers in interdisciplinary co-operation in personality research. The Harvard Psychological Clinic staff habitually included representatives of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, and other disciplines, in an era when this was anything but commonplace. The Diagnostic Council. Murray has placed great emphasis upon the importance of the observer or the psychologist as an instrument in psycho-MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 197 logical research. Although we may use rating scales, category sets, or psychological tests to appraise personality, still, at the base of all these instruments is the sensitive observation of the investigator or clinician. Because of the root status of the observer Murray is convinced that more attention should be paid to his frailties and more serious efforts directed at improving his powers of observation. These considerations have led him to refer to the psychologist himself as the most important “instrument of precision” in psychological research. One evident means of placing checks upon, and improving the quality of, observation is to have multiple observers all examining the same data from a different perspective. Thus, using a number of investigators to study the same individual, or individuals, offers unique rewards in the form of canceling out limitations posed by the biases of particular observers or the limitations offered by specialized sets of data. Not only is the end result of such group observation presumably superior to individual observation but the members of the group should sharpen and improve their powers of observation as a result of the corrective function of the observations of others. 7 These considerations led Murray to devise the diagnostic council which involves many observers all studying the same subjects from different points of view, and with the opportunity for a final discussion and synthesis of the information secured from these different vantage points. After a period of individual observation during which each investigator studies the sub- jects through his own specialized techniques there is a conference for each subject. At this time every investigator presents his data and their in- terpretation with a full opportunity for the observations and interpretations of other observers to support or suggest modifications in the report. A single investigator has primary responsibility for assembling and presenting the synthesis of each case but each member of the council is given an unlimited opportunity for contributing to this final product. Instruments of Personality Measurement. Among contemporary psy- chologists there is no one who has made more significant contributions to personality assessment than Murray. He has devised a very large number of ingenious devices for the measurement of personality, only a small number of which have been systematically exploited, The volumes, Explorations in personality and Assessment of men, provide ample illustration of the in- genuity and diversity of the instruments which he has devised or been in- fluential in developing. One of these, the Thematic Apperception Test, has become, next to the Rorschach Test, the most widely used projective tech- nique in current use (Lindzey, 1961; Murstein, 1963; Zubin, Eron, and Schumer, 1965).198 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Almost all of Murray’s instruments have been congruent with his funda- mental conviction that an ultimate understanding of human behavior will derive not from the study of lower organisms or the study of humans under highly restricted conditions but rather from the complex study of individual behavior, That is, Murray has argued for the collection of rich and multi- form data which can be expected to reflect a wide range of behavioral tend- encies and capacities. He is convinced that one of the natural advantages of the psychologist is the fact that he deals with a talking organism and that this should be capitalized upon fully. In contrast to the biologist, the zoolo- gist, or the physicist, the psychologist deals with a subject who can tell a great deal about internal processes that operate, about external events that are attended to, about the major determinants of behavior. It is true that these reports must be assessed carefully, and that they cannot always be taken at their face value, but nevertheless they represent a crucial beginning in the attempt to unravel the secrets of human behavior. Given this interest in subjectivity it is quite natural that Murray should have pioneered in developing personality instruments which explore the full mental content of the subject. His instruments typically do not limit the response alternatives of the subject by means of predetermined categories but rather they permit and encourage a full and subjective exposition on the part of the subject. Imagination and fantasy are permitted full participation by these techniques. They provide the investigator with a fullness of data which is at the same time richly promising and complexly discouraging. Personality Explorations. In order to give the reader some impression of the diversity of Murray’s research we have elected to summarize two studies that are not part of a program of research. These investigations illustrate the originality and adeptness with which Murray has made forays into a variety of important areas of personality research. The first study is a pioneer investigation of the influence of emotional factors upon perception, the second is an application of psychological principles in the attempt to understand a literary masterpiece, Moby Dick. ‘Tue Errecr or Fear upon Jupoments oF Personatrry. Murray set out in this study, making ingenious use of a natural setting, to explore the extent to which an individual’s ascription of personality characteristics to others was influenced by his own emotional state. The data for the study were collected during a week-end house party given by his daughter for four girl friends. As part of the entertainment it was planned that the children would’ play a game called “murder.” The game is played in complete darkness and involves an initial drawing of lots at which time one of the participants is assigned the role of detective and another (secretly) the role of murderer. After the drawing the participants go off in the dark exceptMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 199 for the detective. The murderer then kills one of the players by touching him, whereupon the victim announces his demise by shouting, and the par- ticipants are reassembled. It is then the task of the detective to decide who committed the crime by questioning the players. They must all tell the truth except for the murderer who is free to deceive as much as he wishes. As the five subjects were only eleven years old and as four of them were in a strange and darkened house it seemed a plausible hypothesis that this experience would arouse fear in the subjects. That the game was successful in this respect is attested to by several observations. First, some of the sub- jects volunteered the fact that they had been frightened during the game. Second, and more convincing, is the fact that one of the girls awakened during the night following the game with the conviction that there had been burglars ransacking the house and that she had watched them. Al- though no such event had taken place, two of the other girls eventually came to believe her story and on the following evening insisted upon numerous precautions to protect them during the night from the imaginary burglars. ‘The effects of this fear-arousing experience were assessed by having the subjects make judgments of the goodness (benevolence) or badness (ma- liciousness) of thirty photographs taken from a newsweekly. The thirty photographs were divided into two series of fifteen pictures each, with the two series roughly matched with each other in terms of the positive and negative appearance of the face. One series (half the pictures) was admin- istered under neutral conditions on the same day but prior to the game of murder. The second series was administered under neutral conditions on the day following the experiment. The entire series of pictures was administered immediately following two games of murder as the experi- mental test. The girls were asked to rate each picture on a nine-point scale ranging from (1) extremely good (generous, kind, loving, and tender) to (9) extremely bad (cruel, malicious, and wicked). The results of the study showed a clear tendency for the girls to rate the pictures as more malicious or bad immediately following the fear-arousing game than they did at the time of either control rating. Thus, the findings of the study provide a strong confirmation for the belief that the emotional state of the individual influences his judgments of the personality of others. Characteristically, Murray, in reporting this study, deals in great detail with the individual differences in the subjects’ response, relating these to personal- ity characteristics of the girls as well as to particular observations made during the study. In discussing these findings Murray distinguishes between two principal types of projection. The first is commonly referred to as complementary projection and refers to the tendency on the part of the subject to perceive200 = THEORIES OF PERSONALITY or understand his environment in such a manner as to make it congruent with or justify his needs, affects, and impulses. The second is called supple- mentary projection. In this case the subject endows objects or persons in the environment with attributes which he himself possesses and which in the usual case are unacceptable to him. The results of Murray's study clearly exemplify complementary projection as the subjects perceived their environ- ments as more malicious which was a complement to their increased fear- fulness. Tue Mganinc or Mory Dick. The most fascinating of Murray's inves- tigations is contained in a paper entitled In Nomine Diaboli (Murray, 1951c) which, summarizing the results of years of careful study, presents a psychological interpretation of the meaning of Moby Dick as intended by Melville. This interpretation rests upon a complex combination of sophistica- tion in psychological theory, detailed knowledge of Melville and his work, and an intimate familiarity with the novel Moby Dick. It is impossible to do full justice to this paper here, for an integral part of the analysis lies in the style with which Murray expresses his ideas and the detail in which each interpretation is anchored firmly in multiple supporting observations. The predictable reservations of a student of literature for the methods of psychology are expressed in an early passage of this paper: ‘The habit of a psychologist is to break down the structure of each personality he studies into elements, and so in a few strokes to bring to earth whatever merit that structure, as a structure, may possess. Furthermore, for reasons I need not mention here, the technical terms for the majority of these elements have deroga- tory connotations. Consequently, it is difficult to open one’s professional mouth today without disparaging a fellow-being. Were an analyst to be confronted by that much-heralded but still missing specimen—the normal man—he would be struck dumb, for once, through lack of appropriate ideas. If I am able to surmount to some extent any impediments of this origin, you may attribute my good fortune to a providential circumstance. In the procession of my experiences Moby Dick anteceded Psychology, that is, I was swept by Melville’s gale and shaken by his appalling sea dragon before I had acquired the all-leveling academic oil that is poured on brewed-up waters, and before I possessed the weapons and tools of science—the conceptual lance, harpoons, cut- ting irons, and what-nots—which might have reduced the “grand hooded phan- tom” to mere blubber. Lacking these defenses I was whelmed. Instead of my changing this book, this book changed me (pp. 436-437). Wee see revealed in this passage not only Murray’s deep and enduring in- terest in Moby Dick but also a conviction Murray has long felt concerning the nature of psychological: theory. He suggests with convincing phrases that psychological theory is at its best in dealing with the worst of behavior and somewhat at a loss when confronted with the positive and creativeMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 201 aspects of behavior. Thus, Murray’s own theoretical position has under- standably given somewhat more emphasis to positive and self-determining aspects of behavior than has been true of most other psychological theories. Murray also deals with the question of whether it may not be that there is no “meaning” to Moby Dick. That is, it may be that the artist created the story simply as a vivid narrative of the sea so that there is no “meaning,” conscious or unconscious, implied by the story other than that which is manifest. Murray rejects this point of view chiefly on the ground of state- ments by Melville which make clear that in writing this book he had a definite intention of creating an underlying meaning. The bulk of the paper is devoted to developing and documenting several hypotheses concerning the significance of characters within this story. The first hypothesis states in simplest terms that Captain Ahab represents Satan or the Devil and his forces of evil. In psychological terms Ahab represents the primitive and largely evil forces of the id. This hypothesis is supported with characteristic care and attention to detail in a series of passages typified by the following: That it was Melville’s intention to beget Ahab in Satan’s image can hardly be doubted, He told Hawthorne that his book had been broiled in hell-fire and secretly baptized not in the name of God but in the name of the Devil. He named his tragic hero after the Old Testament ruler who “did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the Kings of Israel that were before him.” King Ahab’s accuser, the prophet Elijah, is also resurrected to play his original role, though very briefly, in Melville’s testament. We are told that Cap- tain Ahab is an “ungodly, god-like” man who is spiritually outside Christendom. He is a well of blasphemy and defiance, of scorn and mockery for the gods— “cricket-players and pugilists” in his cyes. Rumor has it that he once spat in the holy goblet on the altar of the Catholic Church at Santa, “I never saw him kneel,” says Stubb. He is an “anaconda of an old man.” His self-assertive sadism is the linked antithesis of the masochistic submission preached by Father Mapple (Murray, 1951c, pp. 441-442). The second hypothesis is that Moby Dick is the antithesis of the un- bridled forces of evil—the superego. As such, the whale represents not only the moral forces within the individual but also the conventional in- stitutions of Melville's society. Stated in psychological concepts, Ahab is captain of the culturally repressed dis- positions of human nature, that part of personality which psychoanalysts have termed the “Id.” If this is true, his opponent, the White Whale, can be none other than the internal institution which is responsible for these repressions, namely the Freudian Superego. This then is my second hypothesis: Moby Dick is a veritable spouting, breaching, sounding whale, a whale who, because of his whiteness, his mighty bulk and beauty, and because of one instinctive act202 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY that happened to dismember his assailant, has received the projection of Captain Ahab’s Presbyterian conscience, and so may be said to embody the Old Testa- ment Calvinistic conception of an affrighting Deity and his strict commandments, the derivative puritan ethic of nineteenth-century America, and the society that defended this ethic. Also, and most specifically, he symbolizes the zealous par- ents whose righteous sermonizings and corrections drove the prohibitions in so hard that a serious young man could hardly reach outside the barrier, except possibly far away among some tolerant, gracious Polynesian peoples. The em- phasis should be placed upon that unconscious (and hence inscrutable) wall of inhibition which imprisoned the puritan’s thrusting passions. “How can the prisoner reach outside,” cries Ahab, “except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the White Whale is that wall, shoved near to me... . I see in him out- rageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it.” As a symbol of a sounding, breaching, white-dark, unconquerable, New England conscience what could be better than a sounding, breaching, white-dark, unconquerable sperm whale? (pp. 443-444) ‘These then are the major revelations of Murray's analysis. To secure an adequate impression of the strength and beauty of Murray's interpre- tations it is necessary to refer to the original article. Some may question whether this is in fact psychological research. Cer- tainly there is no control group, no distribution of numbers, no index of reliability, no statistical analysis. In spite of these ritual violations, however, Murray has asked an interesting psychological question and has arrayed evidence that bears upon this question. Further, in the process of presenting the question and his findings, he employed assumptions concerning human behavior that are an integral part of the theory we have just expounded. Most important of all is the fact that these passages contain speculations and generalizations concerning human behavior that are almost certain to have a generative effect upon the reader. There are few experimentalists within psychology who could not profit from exposure to the kinds of ideas so vividly and provocatively presented in this paper. CURRENT STATUS AND EVALUATION We have already seen that Murray’s theoretical conceptions undergo a con- stant process of re-examination and modification. Even in the face of this constant flux, however, certain elements stand firm. At no time has his deep interest in the motivational process wavered nor has he shown any inclination to desert his descriptive and taxonomic activities. Similarly, his theory has always emphasized the importance of unconscious sources ofMURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY 203 motivation and has throughout stressed the relation of psychological process to brain process. Murray’s formulations have been found useful not only by his students but also by many other investigators and clinicians interested in studying personality. His concepts of need and press have had a wide usage, par- ticularly among clinicians and investigators who have used the Thematic Apperception Test. Few persons who have been concerned with the details of classifying human behavior have failed to gain something from the several important classifications which Murray has proposed. As we have indicated, his influence upon the current methods or procedures for assessing personality has been profound. Both in the development of specific instru- ments and in the presentation of a point of view his work has had a great deal to do with contemporary developments in this area. Fully as important as these substantive contributions has been Murray’s capacity to intrigue, excite, and inspire his students and colleagues. The enthusiasm and con- viction’ with which he has imbued his students is undoubtedly responsible to a considerable extent for the fact that they have played such an important role in the development of personality research. Which of the features of his theoretical position have been of most influence? Perhaps the most distinctive component in Murray’s position, as suggested earlier, is the careful and sensitive treatment of the motivational process. There has been a strong tendency on the part of recent personality theorists to deal with motivation through one of two rather simple paths. ‘The first path assigns all behavior to a remarkably small number of cardinal motives so that everything can be viewed as stemming from these master motives. The second path assumes that the number of motives is legion and that each individual is driven by motives which are so complex and so uniquely different from those of other individuals that it is not possible to specify motives which can be usefully applied to more than one person. This alternative denies the utility of any attempt at a general classification of motives. Murray's position is clearly between these easy extremes. He grants the complexity of human motivation and firmly avers his conviction that the process cannot be represented adequately in terms of two, three, four, or five general motives. However, he insists that there are motives of suffi- cient generality so that they can be used fruitfully to represent the behavior of all or most individuals within specified groups. Thus, he faces realisti- cally the task of developing a set of constructs which will do justice to the complexity of human behavior, but at the same time will be carefully specified so that they can be used repeatedly by different investigators. The result, as we have seen, is a classification of motives that is probably more widely useful than any other comparable classification. One need only look204 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY at the massive amount of research concerned with need affiliation and need achievement (for example, Atkinson, 1958) to gain an impression of the impact of Murray upon research in the area of human motivation. Murray’s theory and his research have played a crucial role in promoting a more serious interest in psychoanalytic theory on the part of academic psychologists. In the era when Murray first came to the Harvard Psychologi- cal Clinic psychoanalysis was largely an alien and a trespasser within the domain of psychology. The subsequent years have found Freud firmly ensconced as one of the intellectual giants of our field, and this shift is in no small part attributable to the importance of Murray's example. As we have seen, his theory possesses the unique feature of a simultane- ous emphasis upon the importance of the past of the organism and the present context within which behavior takes place. In a psychological world where most theorists have self-consciously developed a preoccupation with the contemporary field, or else have turned to the past of the organism as the sole key to understanding behavior, it is decidedly healthy to have one position where both of these classes of determinants are given their due. His interest in the field or environment within which behavior takes place led to the distinctive system of press concepts which permits the investigator to represent the perceived environment as well as the objective environment. It is one thing to speak generally of the importance of the environment and quite another thing to undertake the grim and exacting task of specifying categories in terms of which the significant aspects of the environment can be represented. Murray is one of a remarkably small number of theorists who have undertaken this task. The negative aspects of Murray’s theory are in many respects the mirror image of the positive. To a considerable extent the main criticisms of the theory are closely related to the originality, the incorporativeness, and the complexity of the theory. We have already agreed that the most serious allegation which can be leveled against any theory is the charge that it does not lead to research. The critic may maintain that in Murray’s system there is definitely a set of concepts, and a related set of empirical definitions, but that there is o set of explicitly stated psychological assumptions linked to these concepts in such a manner as to produce testable consequences. Cer- tainly it is true, as the studies we have briefly sampled reveal, that the research which Murray and his students have done is not to be considered in any direct way the consequence of his theory. His investigations have not been focused on testing predictions which derive explicitly from his theoretical position. In defense of the theory it must be admitted that its assumptions and concepts do provide a general point of view concerning behavior which clearly has a lot to do with the specific manner in which particular research problems are approached. Further, the defined variablesFSCHAPTER SIX LEWIN’S FIELD THEORY ese the course of newer sciences like psychology by furnishing them ways of thinking about and conceiving of natural phenomena. As new viewpoints develop in physics and chemistry it is almost inevitable, considering the basic unity of all sciences, that they should be taken over by the Jess mature sciences and applied in their special provinces. It is not surprising, therefore, that the field concept of physics, initiated by the work of Faraday, Maxwell, and Hertz on electromagnetic fields in the nineteenth century and culminating in Einstein's powerful theory of relativity in the twentieth century, has had an impact on modern psychological thought. It should be pointed out, however, as Deutsch does (1968), that it is the method of representing reality and not the actual physical concepts and facts them- selves that has been incorporated into psychology. The first important manifestation of the influence of physical field theory in psychology appeared in the movement known as Gestalt psychology which was initiated by three German psychologists, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kéhler, and Kurt Koffka, in the years immediately preceding the First World War. The chief tenet of Gestalt psychology is that the way in which an object is perceived is determined by the total context or configuration in 209 T: older sciences of physics and chemistry have often influenced210 = THEORIES OF PERSONALITY which the object is embedded. Relationships among components of a per- ceptual field rather than the fixed characteristics of the individual com- ponents determine perception. Kurt Lewin was associated with Wertheimer and Kéhler at the Univer- sity of Berlin in the years following World War I. Born in Prussia in 1890, Lewin attended the Universities of Freiberg, Munich, and Berlin from which he received his doctorate in 1914. After serving in the German army for four years, he returned to the University of Berlin as an instructor and a research assistant in the Psychological Institute. In 1926, he was appointed professor of philosophy and psychology. At the time of Hitler’s rise to power, Lewin was a visiting professor at Stanford University. He returned briefly to Germany to get his family and settle his affairs; this done, he established his permanent residence in the United States. He was professor of child psychology at Cornell University for two years, 1933-1935, before being called to the University of Iowa as professor of psychology in the Child Welfare Station. In 1945, Lewin accepted an appointment as professor and director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology. He died in Newtonville, Massachusetts, February 12, 1947, at the age of 56. Lewin is considered by many of his peers to be one of the most brilliant figures in contemporary psychology (G. W. Allport, 1947; Tolman, 1948). His theoretical writings (Lewin, 1935a, 1936a, 1938, 1951) and his exper- imental work have left an indelible mark upon the development of psy- chology. Lewin stood first and foremost for the application of field theory in all branches of psychology. For Lewin, field theory is not a new system of psychology limited to a specific content; it is a set of concepts by means of which one can represent psychological reality (1936a, pp. 6-7). These concepts should be broad enough to be applicable to all kinds of behavior, and at the same time specific enough to represent a definite person in a concrete situation. Lewin also characterized field theory as “a method of analyzing causal relations and of building scientific constructs” (1951, p. 43). The principal characteristics of Lewin’s field theory may be summarized as follows: (1) behavior is a function of the field which exists at the time the behavior occurs, (2) analysis begins with the situation as a whole from which are differentiated the component parts, and (3) the concrete person in a concrete situation can be represented mathematically. Lewin also em- phasizes underlying forces as determiners of behavior and expresses a preference for psychological as opposed to physical or physiological descrip- tions of the field. A field is defined as “the totality of coexisting facts which are conceived of as mutually interdependent” (Lewin, 1951, p. 240). The concepts of field theory have been applied by Lewin to a wide variety of psychological and sociological phenomena including infant andLEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 211 child behavior (Lewin, 1951, Chapter X), adolescence (1951, Chapter VI), fecblemindedness (1935a, Chapter VII), minority group problems (1935b, 1946), national character differences (1936b), and group dynamics (Lewin, 1948). Lewin, like so many other personality theorists, was not an ivory- tower thinker who turned aside from the problems of the world. A person of broad humanitarian sympathies and democratic values, he attempted rather directly to ameliorate some of the problems facing mankind by undertaking the type of investigation which is known as action research. Action research has as its objective the changing of social conditions. Examples of action research performed by Lewin and his associates will be found in Bavelas and Lewin (1942) and Lewin (1943, 1946, 1947, 1948). In the present chapter, we shall focus our attention upon Lewin’s theory of the structure, dynamics, and development of the person. We shall have to consider the psychological environment as well, since the person and his environment are interdependent regions of the life space, which is Lewin’s term for the total psychological field. The influential fields of action re- search and group dynamics which Lewin fathered will not be discussed here. This aspect of Lewin’s thinking has been treated by Deutsch (1968) and recent research in the area of group dynamics has been surveyed by Gerard and Miller (1967). Applied group dynamics is the subject of a recent book by Schein and Bennis (1965). THE STRUCTURE’ OF PERSONALITY ‘The first step in defining the person as a structural concept is to represent him as an entity set apart from everything else in the world. This setting apart can be done in words as a dictionary definition does, for example, a person is an individual human being (Webster), or it can be done by making a spatial representation of the person. Because spatial representations can be treated mathematically and ordinary verbal definitions cannot be, Lewin prefers to define his structural concepts spatially. In this way, Lewin attempts to mathematize his concepts from the very beginning. One impor- tant advantage of this type of scientific strategy according to Lewin is that mathematical representations require precise formulation whereas verbal definitions are more likely to be inexact and ambiguous. Furthermore, mathematical representations can be made to divulge important information by performing various mathematical operations on them. Unknowns can be solved for, rational equations connecting different concepts can be_ written, and functional relationships can be formulated. Words, on the other hand, only lead to more words. Mathematics, Lewin reminds us, is the proper language of scientific discourse, although the type of mathematics employed212 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Non-P Non-P Figure 1 by Lewin for representing psychological concepts is not the kind with which most people are familiar. Lewin’s mathematics is nonmetrical in character and describes spatial relationships in other than Euclidean terms. It is essentially a mathematics for describing interconnections and intercommu- nications among spatial regions without regard to size or shape. The separation of the person from the rest of the universe is accomplished by drawing an enclosed figure. The boundary of the figure defines the limits of the entity known as the person. Everything lying inside the boundary is P (the person); everything lying outside the boundary is non-P. It does not make any difference whether the figure drawn is a circle, a square, a tri- angle, an octagon, or irregular shape just as long as it is completely bounded. Before proceeding let us pause to consider what has been conceptualized by representing the person as an enclosed figure. Since absolute size and shape are irrelevant properties of the representation, the only significant feature of Figure 1 is that it portrays a completely bounded area lying within a larger area. Thus it follows that two properties of the person are conceptualized by drawing a circle on a piece of paper. These are (1) separation from the rest of the world by means of a continuous boundary, and (2) inclusion in a larger area. The first property is that of differentiation, the second of the part-whole relationship. In short, the person is represented as being separated from yet included within a larger totality. Such a con- ception is not at variance with common sense since the skin or the indi- vidual’s garments are visible boundaries which set him off from the larger universe through which he moves and of which he is so evident a part. The Psychological Environment. Were we only interested in the person and not in the world of which he is a part, we could restrict our attention to the properties of the area circumscribed by the circle and ignore the boundary and its hinterland. To proceed in this manner, however, would be to overlook the important interactions between the person and his environment. The next step, then, in the representation of psychological reality is to draw another bounded figure which is larger than and encloses the person. The shape and size of this enclosing figure are not important as long as itLEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 213 fulfills the two conditions of being bigger than and including the person. For this representation Lewin prefers a figure that is roughly elliptical in form. An additional qualification is also necessary. The new figure cannot share any part of the boundary of the circle which represents the person. There must be a space left between the boundary of the person and the boundary of the larger figure. Aside from this restriction, the circle may be placed anywhere inside the ellipse. The sizes of the two forms relative to one another are immaterial. We now have a picture of a circle enclosed by but not touching an ellipse (Figure 2). The region between the two perimeters is the psychological environment, E. The total area within the ellipse, including the circle, is the life space, L. The space outside the ellipse represents the nonpsychological aspects of the universe. For the sake of convenience, we shall call this region the physical world, although it is not restricted to physical facts alone. There are, for example, social facts as well in the nonpsychological world. Although this simple exercise in drawing figures may appear to be in- consequential, it is absolutely indispensable for an understanding and appre- ciation of Lewin’s theory. It is essential, Lewin maintains, to start with an over-all picture of psychological reality, a picture of the greatest general validity, and then proceed, step by step, to differentiate out of this broad panorama the details by which a precise understanding of the concrete psychological situation can be achieved. For it is Lewin’s contention that if the general picture of psychological reality is inaccurate, the more detailed picture cannot be correct. The circle-in-the-ellipse is not merely an illustration or a teaching device; it is a faithful representation of the most general structural concepts of Lewin’s theory, namely, the person, the psychological environment, and the life space. The circle-in-the-ellipse is a map or conceptual representation of reality, and like any map its function is to guide its user through unfamiliar territory and in so doing to acquaint him with new facts about reality. The Life Space. Although we began with the person and subsequently surrounded him with a psychological environment, it would have been more in keeping with Lewin’s rule of going from the general to the particular to Nonpsychological (E @) E)) Nonpsychological (P+ E= Life space, L) Figure 2214 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Foreign hull Foreign hull Figure 3 have started with the life space and differentiated from it the person and the environment. For the life space is the psychologist’s universe; it is the whole of psychological reality. It contains the totality of possible facts which are capable of determining the behavior of an individual. It includes everything that has to be known in order to understand the concrete behavior of an individual human being in a given psychological environment at a given time. Behavior is a function of the life space. B=F(L). “The task of dynamic psychology is to derive univocally the behavior of a given individual from the totality of the psychological facts that exist in the life space at a given moment” (Lewin, 1936a). ‘The fact that the life space is surrounded by the physical world does not mean that the life space is a part of the physical world (Figure 3). Rather, the life space and the space beyond it are differentiated and separate regions of a larger totality. Whether this larger totality, the universe, is finite or in- finite, chaos or cosmos, is of no concern to psychology except in one very important respect. Facts that exist in the region outside and adjacent to the boundary of the life space, a region which Lewin calls “the foreign hull of the life space,” can materially influence the psychological environment. That is, nonpsychological facts can and do alter psychological ones. Lewin has suggested that the study of the facts in the foreign hull be called “psycho- logical ecology” (1951, Chapter VIII). The first step in making a psycho- logical investigation is to establish the nature of the facts which exist at the boundary of the life space since these facts help to determine what is and what is not possible, what might or might not happen in the life space. Lewin did this before he undertook to investigate the food habits of people and how they might be changed (1943; 1951, Chapter VIII). Facts in the psychological environment can also produce changes in the physical world. There is two-way communication between the two realms. Consequently, it is said that the boundary between the life space and the outer world is endowed with the property of permeability. A boundary resembles a permeable membrane or screen more than it does a wall or rigid barrier. Parenthetically, it should be noted that the physical world cannotLEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 215 communicate directly with the person, nor can the person communicate directly with the outer world. A fact must exist in the psychological environ- ment before it can influence or be influenced by the person. This is evident from the diagram which depicts the person as being completely surrounded by the region of the psychological environment. ‘The implication of a permeable boundary between the life space and the physical world is of far-reaching significance. Since a fact in the nonpsycho- logical world may radically change the whole course of events in the life space, prediction from a knowledge of psychological laws alone is usually futile. One can never be sure beforehand that a fact from the foreign hull may not penetrate the boundary of the life space and turn everything topsy- turvy in the psychological environment. A chance meeting, an unexpected telephone call, an automobile accident, have been known to change the course of one’s life. Therefore, as Lewin emphasizes, it is more feasible for a psychologist to try to understand the momentary, concrete psychological situation by describing and explaining it in field-theoretical terms than it is for him to attempt to predict how a person is going to behave at some future time. Another property of the life space should be noted. Although the person is surrounded by his psychological environment, he is not a part of or included in the environment, The psychological environment stops at the perimeter of the circle just as the nonpsychological world stops at the perimeter of the ellipse. However, the boundary between the person and the environment is also a permeable one. This means that environmental facts can influence the person, P = F(E), and personal facts can influence the en- vironment, E=F(P). Before considering the nature of this influence, a further differentiation within the structure of the person and of the environ- ment must be made. The Differentiated Person. Up to this point, the person has been rep- resented as an empty circle. Such a representation would be appropriate if the person were a perfect unity, which he is not. Lewin maintains that the structure of the person is heterogeneous not homogeneous, that it is sub- divided into separate yet intercommunicating and interdependent parts. To represent this state of affairs, the area within the circle is divided into zones. One proceeds in the following manner. First, divide the person into two parts by drawing a concentric circle within the larger circle. The outer part represents the perceptual-motor region (P-M), the central part represents the inner-personal region (I-P). The inner-personal region is completely. sur- rounded by the perceptual-motor area, so that it has no direct contact with the boundary separating the person from the environment (Figure 4). ‘The next step is to divide the inner-personal region into cells (Figure 5).216 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Perceptual Inner personal Figure 4 Figure 5 ‘The cells adjacent to the perceptual-motor region are called peripheral cells, p; those in the center of the circle are called central cells, c. Lewin is not explicit regarding the differentiation of the perceptual-motor area into smaller regions. He feels that the motor system acts as a unit since it can ordinarily perform only one action at a time. Similarly, the perceptual system usually functions in a unified manner, that is, a person can attend to and perceive only one thing at a time. It is clear, however, that the motor system should be separated from the perceptual system because they are independent systems. How this separation is to be conceptualized spatially is not divulged. Perhaps the best solution and one that Lewin apparently adopts is to leave the perceptual-motor system unstructured, with the understanding that when the direction of influence is from the environment to the person the region surrounding the inner-personal sphere represents perceptual processes, and when the direction of influence is from the person to the envi- ronment this same region stands for the motorium. This would agree with the common-sense view that input involves perception and output involves motor action. We now have an accurate conceptual representation of the structure of the person. The person is defined as a differentiated region in the life space. Now let us consider the psychological environment. The Differentiated Environment. A homogeneous or undifferentiated environment is one in which all the facts are equally influential upon the person. In such an environment the person would have perfect freedom of movement since there would be no barriers to impede him. Such complete freedom of movement obviously does not represent the true state of affairs. Therefore, it is necessary to subdivide the environment into part regions (Figure 6).AA222 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY As the person begins to regain his composure, he may see that one part of his environment offers security. At this moment, the environment becomes differentiated into a safe area and a danger area. In short, a new region is differentiated out of the life space whenever a new fact comes into existences a region disappears whenever a fact disappears or merges with another fact. A psychological fact is co-ordinated with a psychological region. he number of regions in the person is also determined by the number of personal facts that exist. If the fact of feeling hungry is the only one that exists, then the inner-personal sphere will consist of only one region. But if in addition to the fact of hunger there is also a need to finish a given job, the inner-personal region has to be divided into two regions. As we shall see later, the principal facts of the inner-personal region are called needs, while the facts of the psychological environment are called valences. Each need occupies a separate cell in the inner-personal region and each valence occupies a separate region in the psychological environment. The Person in the Environment. Earlier when we were discussing the placing of the person in the environment, we said it did not make any difference where the circle was placed inside the ellipse just as long as their two boundaries did not touch. This holds true only for an undifferentiated, homogencous environment where all the facts are in one and the same region, that is, where all the facts are identical. As soon as the environment becomes differentiated into bounded regions, then it makes considerable difference where the circle is placed. For whatever region it is placed in, the facts of that region are closer to and have more influence on the person than do the facts of any other region. An understanding of a concrete psycho- logical situation requires, therefore, that we know where the person is in his psychological environment. Physically he may be sitting in a schoolroom, but psychologically he may be replaying a baseball game on the playground. Some facts that exist in the schoolroom, such as what the teacher is saying, may not impinge upon him at all, whereas others, for example, a note from a girl sitting at the next desk, may casily divert his thoughts from the ball game. Locomotion and Communication, The way in which the regions that make up the life space are interconnected represents the degree of influence or accessibility btween regions. Precisely how does this influence or acce: bility express itself? In the preceding example of the boy who is accessible to the note from the girl but inaccessible to what the teacher is saying, ac- cessibility means that the boy can move more easily into the region of the girl than into the region of the teacher. When the girl performs the action of passing the boy a note, he may move out of the baseball region and intoLEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 223 her region. He has performed what Lewin calls a locomotion. Two regions are closely connected, accessible to one another, and mutually influential, if locomotions may be made easily between the regions. A locomotion in the psychological environment does not mean that the person has to make a physical movement through space; in fact, most of the locomotions that are of interest to the psychologist involve very little physical movement. There are social locomotions such as joining a club, vocational locomotions such as being promoted, intellectual locomotions such as solving a problem, and many other types of locomotions. We now see that an important property of the psychological environ- ment is that it is a region in which locomotion is possible. “One can treat everything as environment in which, toward which, or away from which the person as a whole can perform locomotions” (Lewin, 1936a, p. 167). In performing a locomotion, the person traverses a path through the environ- ment. The direction of the path and the regions through which it passes are determined in part by the strength of the boundaries and the fluidity of the regions, and in part by dynamic factors yet to be discussed. ‘The influence, then, of environmental regions upon one another is ex pressed by the ease with which the person can move from one region to another. Is locomotion also the mode by which regions of the person reveal their influence upon one another? Lewin says not. “The person himself cannot ... be considered as a medium within which an object carries out locomotions from one part region to another” (1936a, p. 168). Regions of the person are said to communicate with one another. The perceptual region communicates with the peripheral cells of the inner-personal region, and they in turn communicate with the more centrally located cells. Inner- personal cells can communicate with one another and with the motor sphere. Which regions will communicate with one another and the path by which the communication is transmitted through a number of regions are deter- mined in part by such structural features as the width of the boundaries and the nature of the medium, and in part by dynamic factors. Locomotion and communication are said to be events since they result from an interaction of facts. A fact, it will be recalled, is represented by a region. Accordingly, an event represents an interaction between two or more regions. Lewin says that in deriving an event, for example, a locomo- tion or a communication, from the life space three principles should be followed. The first one which is called the principle of relatedness has al- ready been mentioned. It states that an event is always the result of an interaction between two or more facts. One fact alone cannot cause an event. It is necessary to have at least two facts, for example, the person and the environment, before there can be any locomotion. The second principle, that of concreteness, says that only concrete facts can have effects. A con-224 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY crete fact is one that actually exists in the life space. Potential or possible facts, that is, facts which may come into existence sometime in the future but which do not exist now, cannot be the cause of present events. Closely related to the principle of concreteness is the principle of contemporaneity, which states that only present facts can produce present behavior. Facts that once existed but no longer do cannot influence the present. The facts of infancy or childhood can have no bearing upon the behavior of the adult unless those facts have managed to remain in some sort of existence throughout the intervening years (Lewin, 1936a, pp. 18-36). Restructuring of the Life Space. Locomotion and communication are not the only events that may occur as the result of one fact (region) imping- ing upon another fact (region). Other consequences may follow. The num- ber of regions may be increased or decreased depending upon whether new facts are added or old facts are subtracted from the life space. The position of regions relative to each other may be altered. Two regions that were far apart may draw closer and regions that were close together may draw apart. Changes in the boundary may occur. A permeable boundary may become firm, a strong boundary may become weak. Finally, there may be alterations in the surface qualities of regions. A fluid region may stiffen up, a rigid region relax. All of these structural changes or events may be subsumed under the general heading, restructuring of the life space (Lewin, 1951, p. 251). Levels of Reality. Thus far in our discussion of Lewin’s structural concepts two dimensional spatial representations have sufficed. However, a third dimension is necessary in order to give a complete representation of the life space. This third dimension is co-ordinated with the concept of degrees of reality and unreality. Reality consists of an actual locomotion whereas unreality consists of an imaginary locomotion. There are various degrees or levels between actuality and pure imagination. For example, a person can join a club, change his job, or work out a problem, or he can plan to do these things, or he can daydream about doing them. Planning or think- ing is an intermediate level between the most realistic level of performance and the most unrealistic level of pure fantasy. By and large, locomotions are easier to make as one moves up the ladder towards unreality; the boundaries become less firm and the surface qualities of the regions become more fluid. Lewin believes that the concept of levels of reality applies not only to the structure of the environment but also to the structure of the person. Although he does not elaborate on this point, it appears that he meansLEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 225 that communications between regions of the person can be more or less realistic. For example, an inner-personal cell may actually affect the motor region or it may do so in an imaginary way. A person may speak his mind or he may only daydream about doing so. The Time Dimension or Perspective. Although neither the past nor the future can affect present behavior, according to the principle of contem- poraneity, the person’s attitudes, feelings, and thoughts about the past and the future may have considerable influence upon his conduct. The hopes of the future may be much more important to a person than the hardships of the present. Just as expectations of things to come may lighten current burdens so may shadows from the past darken the present. The present, therefore, must be represented as containing both a psychological past and a psychological future (Lewin, 1951, pp. 53-56). This dimension may be long or short. It may be well-defined or hazy. Its structure may be simple or complex, and its boundaries may be weak or firm. Résumé. The principal structural concepts discussed in this section are a life space consisting of a person surrounded by a psychological environment. The person is differentiated into a perceptual-motor region and an inner- personal region. ‘The inner-personal region is subdivided into a group of peripheral cells and central cells. The psychological environment is also differentiated into regions. The life space is surrounded by a foreign hull which is part of the nonpsychological or objective environment. Regions of the person and of the environment are separated by bound- aries which possess the property of permeability. The regions of the life space are interconnected so that a fact in one region can influence a fact in another region. When such an influence occurs between two facts it is called an event. The degree of connectedness or the extent of the influence between regions is determined by the firmaess of the boundaries, the number of regions intervening, and the surface qualities of the regions. Regions of the environment are said to be connected when the person can perform a locomotion between the regions. Regions of the person are said to be connected when they can communicate with one another. Two other dimensions of the life space are those of reality-unreality and past-future. Lewin represents (defines) the foregoing concepts in spatial terms so that they may be handled by a branch of mathematics known as topology. Topology deals with spatial relations. It is not concerned with size or shape, nor with magnitudes, distances, and other conventional characteristics of space. Topology involves such spatial relationships as “being included226 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY in,” “part-whole,” and “connectedness and disconnectedness.” Since Lewin represents his structural concepts topologically he calls this part of his system topological psychology (1936a).. In order to represent dynamic concepts such as direction, distance, and force, Lewin had to invent a new kind of space which he called hodolog- ical. Hodology is the science of paths. A path is the same as a locomotion. The properties of Lewin’s hodological space have also been expressed by linear graphs in which each region is represented by a point and each boundary between regions by a line connecting these points (Harary, Norman, and Cartwright, 1965). We turn now to a discussion of Lewin’s dynamic concepts which taken together constitute what Lewin calls vector psychology. THE DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY A structural representation of the life space is like a road map. A good road map contains all of the information one needs to know in order to plan any sort of a trip just as a good structural representation of the person and his environment contains all of the facts one needs to know in order to account for any possible kind of behavior. But just as a road map cannot tell us what trip a person will actually decide to take, neither can a detailed picture of the life space tell us how a person is going to behave. Structural or topological concepts alone cannot explain concrete behavior in an actual psychological situation. For this kind of understanding dynamic concepts are needed. Lewin’s principal dynamic concepts are energy, tension, need, valence, and force or vector. Energy. Lewin, in common with most personality theorists, assumes that the person is a complex energy system. The kind of energy that performs psychological work is called psychical energy. Since Lewin’s theory is exclusively psychological in character, it is not necessary for him to deal with the question of the relation of psychical energy to other kinds of energy. Psychical energy is released when the psychic system (the person) at- tempts to return to equilibrium after it has been thrown into a state of disequilibrium. Disequilibrium is produced by an increase of tension in one part of the system relative to the rest of the system, either as a result of external stimulation or internal change. When tension throughout the system becomes equalized again, the output of energy is halted and the total system comes to rest.LEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 227 Figure 17 Figure 18 Tension. Tension is a state of the person, or speaking more precisely, it is a state of an inner-personal region relative to other inner-personal regions. When Lewin refers to the dynamic properties of a region or cell of the inner-personal sphere, he calls the region a system. Tension has two important conceptual properties. The first property is that a state of tension in a particular system tends to equalize itself with the amount of tension in surrounding systems. If system a, for example, is in a state of high tension, and if the surrounding systems, 4, ¢, d, e» and f, are in a state of low tension (Figure 17), then tension will tend to pass from a into b,c, d,¢, and f until there is an equality of tension throughout the whole system (Figure 18). ‘The psychological means by which tension becomes equalized is called a process. A process may be thinking, remembering, feeling, perceiving, acting, or the like. For instance, a person who is faced with the task of solving a problem becomes tense in one of his systems. In order to solve the problem and thereby reduce the tension he engages in the process of thinking. Thinking continues until a satisfactory solution is found, at which time the person returns to a state of equilibrium. Or the intention may be one of remembering a name. The memory process goes into action, recalls the name, and enables the tension to subside. Although tension always moves towards a condition of equilibrium, this conceptual property applies only to the system as a whole, and not necessarily to all of the part systems. A part system may actually become more and more tense during the time that the whole system is returning to a balanced condition. This happens when a person has to take a circuitous route in solving a problem. During the detour, tension may mount in one of the subregions although the over-all process will eventually bring the person back to a state of equilibrium. For example, someone228 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY may undertake a task, knowing full well that he will have to endure in- creasing tension, but at the same time he anticipates that the end result will be a more perfect balance of forces. A state of equilibrium does not mean that the system is without tension. Probably no organism can achieve a completely tension-free state and re- main alive. Equilibrium means cither that the tension throughout the total system is equalized or that a subsystem in which an unequal amount of tension exists is firmly walled off and isolated from the other inner-personal systems (Figure 19). Such a tense system may remain segregated for a long period of time and constitute a more or less permanent reservoir of energy. There may be a number of such firmly segregated tense systems in the personality, which furnish a continuous supply of energy for the operation of psychological processes. A person who has established an equilibrium on a high tension level differs appreciably from a person who has established an equilibrium on a low tension level. In the former case, the pressure on the motoric will be greater and there is likely to be a continual seepage of energy into the motoric. Such a person will show a great deal of diffuse, restless activity. A second conceptual property of tension is that it exerts pressure upon the boundary of the system. If the boundary is particularly firm, the diffu- sion of tension from one system to adjacent systems will be impeded, but if the boundary is weak tension will flow readily from one system into other systems. Ordinarily, a particular tension system shares its boundary with more than one other tension system. In such cases, the resistance of one part of the boundary may be weaker than that at other parts of the boundary. ‘This will permit tension to pass in certain directions more freely than in other directions. In other words, dynamic communication between systems is a variable condition. Tension system a may be in close communication Figure 19LEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 229 Figure 20 Figure 21 with tension system } so that exchanges of energy are easily made, whereas a may be remotely connected with ¢, d, e, and f so that exchanges of energy are difficult to make (Figure 20). Dynamically speaking, a boundary is a region of resistance or a barrier. As a barrier it corresponds to a restraining force. Does the boundary itself have the property of being a tension system? Lewin thinks not. It is more likely that the force exerted at the region of the boundary of @ against the force which is generated within a is determined by the states of tension in the surrounding systems. That is, the opposing force is really the tension being’exerted on the boundary from adjacent systems (Figure 21). Need. An increase of tension or the release of energy in an inner-personal region is caused by the arousal of a need. A need may be a physiological condition such as hunger, thirst, or sex; it may be a desire for something such as a job or a spouse; or it may be an intention to do something-such as completing a task or keeping an appointment. A need is, therefore, a motivational concept and is equivalent to such terms as motive, wish, drive, and urge. Lewin refrains from systematically discussing the nature, source, number, and kinds of needs because he is not at all satisfied with the concept. He feels that eventually the term need will be dropped from psychology in favor of a more suitable concept, one that is more observable and measur- able. Nor does he feel that it is worthwhile to set forth a list of needs as so many psychologists do. In the first place, the list would be of almost infinite length, and in the second place, the only thing that really matters in the description of psychological reality is to represent those needs that actually exist in the momentary situation. These are the only needs that are producing effects. On an abstract level, it may be said that everyone is capa- ble of feeling hungry but it is only when the hunger drive is actually dis turbing the equilibrium of a person that it has to be taken into account.230 ‘THEORIES OF PERSONALITY It is apparent that Lewin is extremely pluralistic in his conception of needs. There are as many needs as there are specific and distinguishable cravings. One can have a need for the kind of rare beefsteak that is served in only one particular restaurant or a need to hear a particular movement of a Sibelius symphony played by a specific orchestra. Lewin does not attempt to reduce a number of specific needs down to one general need, for as he says: The problem of the emergence of needs lies at the crossroad of cultural an- thropology, developmental psychology, and the psychology of motivation. Its investigation has been hampered by premature speculative attempts to systematize needs into a few categories (1951, p. 280). Each need is a concrete fact, and unless it is described in all of its particu- larity and detail, one is not able to understand true psychological reality. Lewin does say regarding needs that three states can be distinguished, a state of hunger, of satiation, and of oversatiation. “These states correspond to a positive, a neutral, and a negative valence of the activity regions which are related to a particular need” (1951, p. 282). Oversatiation means that the formerly desired object or activity has become distasteful through continued experience with it. Too much of anything produces surfeit and disgust. Lewin also distinguishes between needs and quasi needs. A need is due to some inner state, such as hunger, while a quasi need is equivalent to a specific intention, like satisfying one’s hunger by eating at a particular restau- rant. Lewin feels that the needs of a person are determined to a large extent by social factors (1951, p. 289). Tension and Motoric Action. Thus far, we have been concerned pri- marily with the internal dynamics of tension systems, that is, with the dynamic interdependence and communication between systems. What is the relation of tension to action? One might conjecture that energy flowing from an inner-personal region into the motoric would result directly in a psychological locomotion. Lewin, however, rejects such a position. Tension pressing on the outer boundary of the person cannot cause a locomotion. ‘Therefore, instead of linking need or tension directly to action by way of the motoric, he links need with certain properties of the environment which then determine the kind of locomotion that will occur. This is a very in- genious way of connecting motivation with behavior. Two additional concepts are required in order to accomplish this pur- pose. They are valence and force. Valence. A valence is a conceptual property of a region of the psychologi- cal environment. It is the value of that region for a person. There are two kinds of value, positive and negative. A region of positive value is one thatLEWIN’S FIELD THEORY 231 Food Frightened Dog + P - Figure 22 Figure 23 contains a goal object which will reduce tension when the person enters the region. For example, a region that contains food will have a positive valence for a person who is hungry (Figure 22). A region of negative value is one that will increase tension. For a person who is afraid of dogs any region that contains a dog will have a negative valence (Figure 23). Positive va- lences attract, negative valences repel. A valence is co-ordinated with a need. This means that whether a particu- lar region of the environment has a positive or negative value depends directly upon a system in a state of tension. Needs impart values to the environment. They organize the environment into a network of inviting and repelling regions. However, this network of valences depends also upon alien factors which do not fall within the scope of psychological laws. The presence or absence of the needed objects themselves obviously plays an important part in structuring the psychological environment. Whether food is present and recognizable, what kind of food it is and in what quantity, its availability and its proximity to objects that possess negative valence, are all nonpsychological factors that influence the valence of a region for a hungry person. ‘A valence is a variable quantity; it may be weak, medium, or strong. ‘The strength of a valence depends upon the strength of the need plus all of the nonpsychological factors mentioned above. A valence is not a force. It steers the person through his psychological environment but it does not supply the motive power for the locomotion. As we have already seen, neither does a system in a state of tension produce a locomotion. Another concept is needed. This is the concept of force or vector. Force or Vector. A locomotion occurs whenever a force of sufficient strength acts upon a person. A force is co-ordinated with a need, but it is not a tension. A force exists in the psychological environment while a tension is a property of an inner-personal system.