0.9 Trait theories of personality  (Page 8/41)

Discussion Question: Allport described the persona as something vital and internal, yet external and false. How can this be? Can you think of different aspects of your personality that fit both perspectives, and if so, how do those aspects of your personality fit together?

Personal Dispositions

Having acknowledged that there is logic to examining common traits as opposed to individual traits, Allport then returned to each individual’s unique personality by addressing personal dispositions . A personal disposition is based on traits, but somewhat more complex, such as in a unique combination of traits (e.g., someone who is tentatively aggressive, as opposed to someone who is belligerently aggressive). In another important change between the 1937 and 1961 editions of Allport’s general personality text, the latter book discusses cardinal, central, and secondary dispositions, rather than cardinal, central, and secondary traits.

A cardinal disposition is one that dominates an individual’s entire life. It cannot remain hidden, and the individual will be known by it. Historically, some commonly used terms have adopted the reputation of famous figures, including at least one that appears in the DSM-IV-TR: the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (named after Narcissus, from Greek mythology). Another example would be to describe someone as Christ-like. Personalities that posses one cardinal disposition, however, are quite unusual.

Much more common are central dispositions . If you were asked to describe a good friend, you would most likely offer a handful of distinguishable central dispositions. The interesting question, of course, is how many central dispositions does a typical personal have? Allport suggested that a person’s central dispositions would be those things one would mention in a carefully written letter of recommendation, a response that might make sense to someone like a professor, who often writes such letters.

Of lesser importance, according to Allport, are the secondary dispositions . These are less conspicuous, less consistent, and are less often called into play. In concluding his discussion of cardinal, central, and secondary dispositions, Allport acknowledged that these gradations are arbitrary, and presented primarily for convenience. In reality, he said, there are many degrees of personality organization, from the most loosely structured and unstable to the most pervasive and firmly structured. The value of these distinctions is to provide a relative measure of the influence of traits and dispositions when discussing personality.

Personality Development, Functional Autonomy, and the Mature Personality

According to Allport, a newborn infant has no personality, for it has not experienced the world in which it will live and it has had no opportunity to develop its distinctive modes of adjusting to that environment. Personality exists only later, after the common elements of human nature have interacted and produced the unique, self-continuing, and evolving systems that form the individual’s personality. The basic aspects of growth, following the infant’s initial random and diffuse behavior, involve differentiation , integration , maturation , and learning . As the child’s nervous system develops, it gradually gains finer control over its movement. Little by little, the young child differentiates more efficient and adaptive patterns of behavior, including vocal behavior. Psychologically, this differentiation involves more than just behaviors themselves, it also includes the ability to control the initiation of those behaviors. Very young children have little capacity for delaying their actions; they want to do things now! As the child’s behavioral repertoire increases, it becomes just as necessary and adaptive to begin integrating some of those behaviors into coordinated actions. Once again, if applied to psychological and cognitive processes, the development of traits and dispositions begins with the integration of life’s experiences. As these processes are occurring, the child is also maturing physically. Allport did not view maturation as something that contributed directly to personality, but it does indirectly by bringing out every inherited feature of the individual, including temperament, intellectual capacity, physical features, etc. All of these factors, plus the extensive contribution of different types of learning, contribute to the manner in which the individual experiences their environment (Allport, 1937). However, we can never truly know the personality that develops: