9780198811398_Ch1

Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality Psychology 10

Such study design might be well received in contem porary scientific journals more than 100 years later! However, despite the impressive nature of this seminal piece of research work, it was not as influential as it deserved to be. When thinking about Webb’s seminal study, ask yourself: 1. What might be the reasons why Webb’s study was neglected in personality psychology for so many years? 2. ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ is a frequently used phrase in science. What do you think it means? 3. When thinking about the phrase in question 2, is it possible that Webb’s study was not recognized be cause he did not ‘stand on anyone’s shoulders’, that is, is it sometimes problematic to outpace others with your ideas? These were specific personality psychology books. In contrast, the perspectives of the ‘grand’ theories of the kind epitomized by psychodynamic and be havioural theories emerged quite independently and were never specifically about personality. However, they did hold important implications, as we explore in the following two chapters. Freud’s work was particu larly influential, especially as it had the power to capti vate the public mind, fuelled as it was by much talk of sexual tension, unconscious motivation, intra-psychic conflicts, motivated slips of the tongue, dreams, and also an account of cultural expressions and artefacts (e.g. works of art seen as a ‘neurotic’ coping mecha nism). There were even attempts to marry Freud’s theory with Marxist political philosophy to explain the emergence of Fascism in Germany and Italy—as a form of repressed sexual desire (Erich Fromm, famous for such works as The Fear of Freedom , 1942). The re sulting ‘madness’ of war gave many observers ample reason to believe in the basic irrationality of humans and the tendency to destruction and death ( thanatos ). biological and experimental approaches epitomized by Ivan Pavlov in Russia (discussed briefly in section 1.5.4 and in Chapter 3).

CLASSICS REVISITED Today it is assumed by researchers of the psychology of individual differences that people can be described in terms of a limited number of personality traits (as we will see later in Chapter 6), but this was not always so. This was made possible by early research, the most prominent being that of Edward Webb (1915). As Deary (2019, p. 11) says, ‘it is important because it was arguably the first study scientifically to discover a per sonality trait using recognizably modern methods’. In his research, Webb discovered a personality trait that he called ‘persistence of motives’, meaning ‘consisten cy of action resulting from deliberate volition, or will’ (Webb, 1915, p. 6). Webb was cognizant of the fact that he was taking personality from pre-science to science. Webb took great pains in his study to get reliable and detailed data on many qualities of his 194 subjects— two judges worked independently, observing their subjects on a daily basis in a teacher training college. Scientific personality psychology owes much to the year 1937, although see ‘Classics Revisited’. This was when Gordon Allport published his seminal book, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation , and in the same year, Ross Stagner’s Psychology of Personality . Both books were quickly followed by Henry Murray’s book, Explorations in Personality (1938), consisting of a set of experimen tal and clinical studies. Then, not too long afterwards, Gardner Murphy’s comprehensive book, Personality: A Biosocial Approach to Origins and Structure (1947). In the UK, 1947 saw the publication of Hans Eysenck’s Dimensions of Personality , consisting of an attempt to provide an experimental basis for the statistical factors of Extraversion and Neuroticism identified in an earlier 1944 statistical study of psychiatric signs and symptoms (see Chapter 5).All of these developments were founded on earlier philosophical and psychiatric, as well as psy chological,works (e.g.William James’,1890,monumental two-volume work, The Principles of Psychology ), but also 1.1.1 THE BEGINNINGS OF A SCIENTIFIC PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY

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© Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press