0.9 Trait theories of personality  (Page 11/41)

The Assessment of Personality

Personality is so complex a thing that every legitimate method must be employed in its study. (pg. 369; Allport, 1937)

In Chapter 1 we examined the common procedures used to assess personality today, and Allport reviewed similar concepts, as well as procedures that were available at the time. It is interesting to note that, in his 1937 text, the very first topic in Allport’s survey of assessment methods is the importance of evaluating the cultural setting. Two other topics were also of particular interest to Allport: the study of expressive behavior and the use of personal documents .

Allport’s first two books, Studies in Expressive Movement (Allport&Vernon, 1933) and The Psychology of Radio (Cantril&Allport, 1935), both addressed what Allport considered to be the second level at which personality is evaluated (the first level consists of the traits, interests, attitudes, etc., that compose the “inner” personality). He considered the study of expressive movement to be a more direct analysis of personality, since it is based on observation, and does not require the use of tests that only indirectly address the inner dispositions revealed in the first level of analysis. For example, what a patient says or writes while taking the Rorschach test is projective , but how they say or write it, the tone of their voice or the style of their handwriting, is expressive (Allport, 1961). Perhaps the primary value of expressive behavior is that it is freely emitted by the person being observed. It can include all aspects of behavior, including walking, talking, handwriting, gesturing, shaking hands, sketching, doodling, etc. Cantril and Allport examined a variety of curious aspects of radio voices. For example, a natural voice is more revealing of personality than a voice transmitted over the radio. They also found that blind people are not better at judging personality from voices than other people, perhaps dispelling the common belief that when people lose one sense they enhance their ability to rely on other senses. Much of what they found was difficult to interpret, however. Voice definitely conveyed accurate measures of personality, but there are no characteristics of personality that are always revealed correctly. Most people preferred to hear a male voice on the radio, but no one could actually explain why, and there were a variety of differences based on the specific aspects of the message or its content (Cantril&Allport, 1935). As for handwriting analysis, Allport felt that through careful research it could become a valid tool for personality analysis. He acknowledged that this was a difficult and complex task, but he concluded that both handwriting and gestures reflect essentially stable and consistent individual styles (Allport&Vernon, 1933).

There are many types of personal documents, including letters, diaries, recorded interviews, and autobiographies. Perhaps the richest of these sources, personal letters, may well become a thing of the past. Letter writing has become much less formal with the advent of phone calls and email. Today, text messages don’t even rely on whole words. Politicians often rely on speech writers, so even their written words aren’t necessarily their own. Of greater concern, according to Allport, is that personal documents are not representative samples and they are not objective (Allport, 1942, 1961). However, if they can still provide insight into the nature of an individual’s personality, then why shouldn’t they be used with caution? Allport had a unique set of letters that had been written over a number of years by a woman, between the ages of 58 and 70, to a young married couple. The young husband had been her son’s college roommate. Seeing value in the letters as a source of psychological material, the couple made them available for publication, and they came into Allport’s possession to be published. For many years he used the letters to provide examples in his own classes, and eventually Allport published them again, along with his analysis of the woman’s personality, in Letters from Jenny (Allport, 1965). Of particular interest, is that Allport interpreted the letters in a variety of ways, including existential, Jungian, Adlerian, and Freudian perspectives. Allport concluded by addressing whether or not Jenny was normal, a point on which some people disagreed. Using his six characteristics of a mature personality, he assigned relatively low scores to Jenny based on her letters, but he also found some strengths within each characteristic. Thus, although Jenny appears to have been troubled, Allport concludes that it is not a simple matter to say she is normal or abnormal, but “her tangled life has contributed stimulus and challenge to posterity” (pg. 223; Allport, 1965).