Your Theory Of Personality

Writing a theory is a great way to consolidate your ideas. There’s something about seeing it in print that helps solidify your thinking. You can see where you got it right, where it’s wrong, and where it’s merely confusing. To help you write your theory, I’ve included my own theory of personality as an example…of what not to do.

Your theory need not be complex or complete. But the process of thinking about your assumptions and writing down your conclusions can be very helpful.

Don’t worry that your theory is not unique. There is no requirement in life that you start from Square One. Indeed, everyone benefits from the wisdom of others. Sometimes you’ll be delighted when someone expresses just what you were thinking. Other times the greatest help seems to be from encountering ideas which are contrary to yours.

Although finding yourself in relationship to others is helpful, be sure to add your unique spin on things. No one is quite like you, so feel free to include your own impressions. As a case in point, I’ve included my theory of personality. I steal from everyone and reject everyone all at the same time. I present it as a tool for you. Use it to help develop your own thinking.

You Deserve Your Own Theory

You’ve read a lot of theories in psychology. You have ideas of what makes people tick. It’s time to write your own theory of psychology!

Or you could start a bit smaller with your theory of personality. I wrote one. You can too. It’s just putting your thoughts down on paper. I’ll even help you.

Start with the story of your life. From your own experience, identify what do you know to be true about yourself and other people. Start with what you know: your friends, family, bosses and enemies. Identify the basics.

There is no list of what must be included. It is up to you. But if you don’t know where to start, here is an outline of what you might want consider:

The unconscious, pre-conscious, subconscious
Self-concept, self-esteem & personal identity
Depression, anxiety & emotional disorders
Self-awareness & self-consciousness
Do personality traits really exist?
Moral character & development
Heredity versus environment
Personality and relationships
Personal efficacy & expertise
Control (internal, external)
The biology of personality
Personality measurement
Personality development
Dualism versus monism
Change versus stability
Optimism/pessimism
Personality disorders
Stress and illness
Motives & drives
Human sexuality
Sex and gender
Soul & spirit
Aggression
Creativity
Thinking
Emotion

And some theorists to consider:

Adler, Alfred
Allport, Gordon
Bandura, Albert
Beck, Aaron
Breuer, Joseph
Cattell, Raymond
Costa & McCrae; Tupes & Christal; Digman & Goldberg (Big Five)
Dollard & Miller
Ellis, Albert
Erikson, Erik
Eysenck, Hans
Fliess, Wilhelm
Frankl, Viktor
Freud, Anna
Freud, Sigmund
Fromm, Erich
Galen
Gall, Franz
Hippocrates
Horney, Karen
Jung, Carl
Klein, Melanie
Maslow, Abraham
May, Rollo
Morgan, Christiana
Murray, Henry
Pavlov (Ivan) & Watson (John)
Perls, Fritz (Gestalt Theory)
Rogers, Carl
Rotter, Julian
Sheldon, William
Skinner, BF
Tangen (of course)

Tangen’s Example

Having given you some ideas of what should be included in your theory of personality, it seems only fair for me to propose my version. This is my theory as first presented in June 4, 2008. It is subject to change without notice. But I pretty much still agree with it.

We sometimes forget we are animals, subject to all of the principles that impact other animals. We sometimes forget we are more than just animals, hence I call my theory Animals PLUS.

Animals PLUS

I think of personality as a summary of what we know about people. So let me start with my top two basic principles: (a) people have a tremendous capacity to change, and (b) they seldom do.

We’re pretty consistent. We might be less impulsive when we’re old but probably not by much. We tend to do the same things in the same situations. We tend to act the same way when around the same people. We are remarkably reliable. You can almost always count on us to be the same as we’ve always been. We shouldn’t expect the person we’re dating to change dramatically after we’re married. We’re unlikely to reform them or change them. And they’re unlikely to change us.

Yet we can change. And do. Sometimes we make gigantic leaps toward. We grow up, wise up, sober up, and shake up our lives. We have the capacity. We have the ability. So why don’t we? That’s really what personality is about: what holds us together? Why are we so consistent?

I believe part of our consistency is hardware based. We are, of course, biological entities living in an environmental setting. And that biology gives us certain limits. Everyone seems to agree that biology and heredity do impact our behavior. The question is how much. Albert Ellis says it’s 80% but I think he just pulled that number out of his hat.

I don’t know how much biology determines behavior. I think of it more as limits that causation. This may come from my being disabled by congenitally poor eyesight. So I tend to think of biology as restrictions or a predisposition for certain parts to break. I use cheap ballpoint pens that have caps I always lose. These pens have a basic weakness in their design, from my point of view. If I put the cap on the back of the pen to avoid losing it, it’s not comfortable in my hand. Preferring comfort to neatness, I pull off the caps and toss them. It’s not that there aren’t other designs available (pens that click, fountain pens, chalk, crayons and pencils). This one works good enough for me.

Our bodies work good enough. They have limits. We can’t worry ourselves taller, or think ourselves a different color. Not that I haven’t tried. When I was about 10, I decided I was tired of being an albino. I didn’t want to stay inside on a hot summer day. So I simply reward increases the whole class. If rewarded for answering the phone, you are rewarded for phone-answering-ness: all phone answering, not happy-phone-voice or sad-phone-voice. To get more precise, you have to shape the behavior.

Shaping is selectively rewarding approximations over a period of time. Since no one acts exactly the same every time, shaping is like presenting overlapping rewards. In each trial, all behavior is rewarded but each trial will have different behaviors present because other things in life will have changed: different time of day, different attitude, different amount of sleep, etc. The idea is that on the first session, all behavior present will be rewarded. On the second trial, all behavior present will be rewarded but only those behaviors that were present on the first trial will have received more reward. Gradually only the desired behaviors will emerge.

I think of reinforcement as fertilizing plants. If you fertilize all the plants (weeds and flowers), both will grow. Because it’s a static situation, eventually the weeds will be tall enough to pull out, leaving you flowers. Plants are stuck in ground and the ground doesn’t change. However, with animals it is a dynamic situation; the soil is constantly changing. The context within which behaviors occurs shifts and changes. You can fertilize all behaviors (reinforce) and know that each day a new set of behaviors is occurring.

Skinner also showed that punishment works but badly. There are at least three problems with punishment: (a) it stops all behavior, (b) it causes unwanted emotional reactions, and (c) the punisher must be present. By their nature, punishments, like rewards, are general and diffuse. They cover a lot of behaviors. Unlike rewards, overlapping doesn’t work. Multiple punishments continue to suppress everything. And without behavior, no reinforcement can be given. So you can punish a dog into inaction, or punish a person into emotional shut down. But when you’re done punishing, there is nothing left. Your poison has destroyed both weeds and flowers.

Operant conditioning explains a lot of human behavior. Counselors who say they are getting people to express their emotions are simply shaping the behaviors they want. The client sobs, the counselor smiles, and sobbing is reinforced. In a less extreme example, counselors nod, lean forward, and soften their voices. All of these are reinforcers for subtle changes in client behavior.

Third, in addition to classical and operant conditioning, dogs are explained by drive theory…somewhat. Clearly, all animals have survival drives, such as hunger and thirst. Beyond those situations where physical survival is at stake, I’ll accept a general adaptation tendency in animals and humans. We adapt to the environment, and this automatic process could be thought of as a drive. But drive reduction is of limited explanatory value for animal and human behavior. It might explain Dollard & Miller’s rats running toward food in a maze but that’s a very limited, confined circumstance. And I don’t believe the complexity of animal or human behavior is well explained by drive theory.

Fourth, the impact of heredity on behavior is advocated by many but I don’t give much weight to it. It’s true that certain breeds of dogs are more likely to play with a ball or herd sheep. And it might explain why my dog turns around three times before lying down but I don’t think heredity is very helpful in explaining the majority of canine behavior. Similarly, I’ll accept that some people’s genetic makeup makes them more prone to certain hardware failures. Bipolar, OCD, and schizophrenia might have a genetic component, but it appears to me that there is a complex interplay of heredity and environment in those conditions. The frequency of schizophrenia, for example, follows the same pattern as flu season. A combination of heredity, flu in the third trimester of pregnancy, and other unspecified factors might be causal agents. But there usually are “unspecified factors” in these explanations. As specific predictors of behavior, I don’t believe heredity plays much of a role, particularly in humans.

Fifth, habits are noted in both animal and human behavior. But habits as causation is a circular argument. “I do this because of my habit; I got my habit because I do this.” Aside from saying that certain behavior patterns are difficult to change, I don’t find habits helpful in explaining why animals or people do what they do.

None of the factors that impact animals (classical, operant, drive, heredity or habits) requires a cortex. Classical and operant conditioning appear to be primarily located in the brain stem. They provide quick response to new input. Similarly, drive is a lower brain function. Heredity is a structural explanation of brain connections or processes. And habits are more descriptors of behavior patterns than causes, and don’t presuppose large amounts of cortical processing. This leads us to the Plus of animals+.

The plus of animals+ is having a cortex. Dogs have two hemispheres and a corpus collosum to connect them, but their cerebrum is quite simple in structure. You’ll have to do your own study of comparative anatomy but I think you’ll conclude that the human brain has significant design improvements. It’s true we don’t get the extensive olfactory bulb of the dog, but we get occipital lobes for incredible color vision, parietal lobes for processing pain and temperature, temporal lobes for languages, and frontal lobes for thinking. When it comes to brains, more complex is better.

These hardware differences between humans and other animals result is massive differences in performance. The hardware makes it possible for the software to perform incredible feats. Let me use the letters of PLUS to illustrate some of those functions. For quick reference, PLUS = perception, logic, universals, and social interaction.

PLUS Explained

PERCEPTION

Perception was originally characterized as a linear process. Stimuli hit sensors (sensation) and then the brain interprets the data (perception). But it turns out that it is actually a bottom-up and top-down process at the same time. We don’t simple wait for data, we anticipate it. Consequently, what we expect to see impacts what we actually see. The Little Riding Hood Effect is a good case in point. If you see someone dressed like Gramma, lying in Gramma’s bed, you assume it is Gramma. That’s why you get confused when you greet the security guard at your office, only to discover that it’s not Calton after all. It’s someone new. This also explains why people get shot during hunting season. You expect to see a deer coming through the brush, so you ignore the fact that it’s wearing an orange vest, and shoot it. Our expectations can lead to tragic consequences.

Our expectations come from our schemas. Schemas are representations. They are thoughts but psychologists don’t like using that word. To say that people think is pretty broad. Of course, saying that we represent is imprecise too but we feel more scientific when we use words like it.

One benefit of using “represent” is that it reminds us that inside we make an inexact copy of outside reality. We can’t perceive enough of reality to input everything. So we make notes instead. We use a mental shorthand that is easier for us to handle. Instead of dealing with the world, we make a representation or model of it, and use that construction as the basis for making decisions. We don’t input all of the characteristics of a bridge; we make a quick sketch of it that we can use to aim our car over the bridge.

As sketches, schemas can be rough or very complex. They can be detailed and concrete representations, or broadly applicable abstractions. And like drawings, schemas can contain other schemas nested in them; sort of a picture in a picture. Also, schemas are summaries of knowledge and experience. They are not rules as much as they are filters for our perceptions.

For simplicity, let’s say there are two types of schemas. Person-schemas are composed of our knowledge of other people. This would include our beliefs about people’s consistency, honesty, and general characteristics. Similarly, self-schemas consist of our general knowledge about ourselves. We have many self-schemas, each of which would hold information about our abilities, goals or traits.

In a study on incidental encoding (Brewer & Treyens, 1981), people were put in a “waiting room” for less than one minute. The room was actually a utility closet with a desk and chair added. The subjects were taken from the waiting room and given a test of what they remembered about the room. About a third of them remembered books, but there were no books. Those who thought they had waited in an office tended to remember office fixtures, even if they weren’t actually present. In an earlier study, Pichert & Anderson (1977) found that people remember different details of a house depending on their schema. Subjects read a description of a house and were asked to recall details about the house. If told to recall it as if they were a burglar, they remembered different information than when they pretended they were buying the house. Their schema helped organize the information.

Probably the most famous study on schemas was done by Sir Frederic Bartlett in 1932. Bartlett (a Brit.) wanted to present his subjects (also British) with a story they didn’t know. He used a North American Indian folk tale called the War of the Ghosts. When faced with unfamiliar imagery, Bartlett’s subjects omitted features that didn’t fit with their prior experience or changed them. Instead of something black coming out of the mouth, it was remembered as frothing at the mouth.

Notice the importance of schemas. We actively filter the world through our schemas but destroy, omit or distort the information that doesn’t fit our experience. We would rather distort reality than change a schema.

LOGIC

Logic is another characteristic of human behavior. We make logical decisions. The trouble is that since we are multi-goal directed, the logic of one decision isn’t compared to that of another decision. Each sub-decision is logical but not integrated. The woman who moves out of the house so her husband will pursue her (thus proving his love) is using logic. Yes, it’s immature logic (if I leave, he will do what I want) but logic all the same. Our logic is often a series of if-then statements. We use a rule-based system. Understanding these rules is critical to understanding the individual.

Of course, our rules can be very complex. Even for unimportant things, we can have complex rules. We might have a rule that says to eat your lunch at the cafeteria on Tuesday, unless it’s tuna-casserole-day and/or there are more than three friends available for conversation. So it’s no surprise that we have complex rules for how to relate to each other, when to share our feelings, and what to be when we grow up.

Since we are rule-based entities, we use rules in addition to our simple hardware solutions. We respond very well to rewards but we use our massive computers to augment the impact of operant conditioning. Upon receiving a reward, we can use our logic to predict the future. We calculate the size of the reward, its availability, and the circumstances (friendliness of the giver, presence of a peer group, etc.).

Some rules are obvious: rewards are good, punishment is bad. But our rule system is not well managed. We make rules without checking to see what other rules currently exist. This gives us quick response: see a situation, make a rule. But it also gives us poor organization. Some parts of the brain are well organized (vision, motor cortex) and some are not so neat (pain and pressure). Rules seem to have a combination of both. We are vividly aware of some of our rules, and others are really organized, they’re just thrown into a shoe box.

UNIVERSALS

Universals are global rules. They include beliefs (assumptions) and values (ratings of importance). Beliefs are propositions in which we place our trust. We assume that when we enter an elevator that it is going to go up and down, not left and right. So when you take an “inclinator” in the Las Vegas Luxor hotel, going up the pyramid at an angle (39 degrees) can be quite confusing. Similarly, we might believe life should be smooth and painless. This assumption might work well when you’re a child. But as an adult, the bumps of life make it more difficult to maintain that view. To understand an individual, we must understand their belief system. In particular, we must understand their distortions and assumptional jumps.

Assumptional jumps are the leaps of faith we take, our irrational beliefs. You’ll notice that in my world irrational is not the same as illogical. I think of irrational as a glitch in the logic. In computer terms, the program is working logically, step by step. But we’re running code that has not been complied. We start with “I’m not getting along with my parents, I don’t have any friends, so I’m going to run off and join the circus.” it starts out as a straight path (A is bad, B is Bad) and then jumps not to “I should work on my relationships” but “I’m outta here.”

Irrational is also un-examined. We write these little programs and run them without reviewing them. Essentially, we produce beta-ware instead of refined software. So we over-generalize a specific failure as a belief that we will always fail. Our rules can be quite unrealistic (I must do well or I must be perfect), restrictive (all or nothing), and self-punishing (I ate a donut, so I’m a bad person).

Beliefs can be about what other people do (you should be nice to me and do things my way) or about the world in general (life should be fair). They are assumptions we don’t usually test or question. Since beliefs form the basic structure, we tend to leave them be. We see no need to question our prejudices. We see them as being built in.

Similarly, we use values as universal statements too. Like beliefs, values are generalized rules. In particular, values are ratings of importance. Importance is, of course, relative importance. A value implies a comparison. We might value cleanliness, friendliness and fun. We hold these values all at the same time. What we see in behavior is how those values are ranked. If you’re wearing a brand new outfit, do you take the hug offered by a muddy child? Behavior reflexes the relative importance of our values.

I have two boxes on my computer desk to support a monitor and hold junk. One was right in the middle to support the monitor. The other sat on the corner. There was nothing on the opposite corner. I decided to add a third box but new one was a different color. Could I add it to the empty corner of the desk? No, I had to rearrange everything on the desk so that it was symmetrical: the black one in the middle, and a gray one on each end. This, of course, is normal. It’s not unusual. Everyone does this. Okay, maybe it’s not normal. But it’s normal for me. I like things organized. I like everything in its place. I value symmetry.

I am clear about my enjoyment for symmetry but values are not always articulated. Values clarification is the process of trying to identify what is important to you, and how it relates to other things that you value. For example, although I love symmetry and order, my office is often a mess. I have stacks over there and boxes over here. So there is an interplay between my values. Apparently I value symmetry over order. I’m happy with piles of books and papers, as long as they balance each other out.

SOCIAL INTERACTION

Social interaction is the last component of my acrostic. Most theories of personality don’t do a very good job of explaining human interaction. Consequently, most theories of counseling focus on the individual, not on couples, families or groups. Let’s see if I can help correct that.

From my point of view, social interaction is so important that we have a whole system to manage it. We don’t leave it to chance. We like to know what to expect in any situation, and make detailed patterns of what to expect. These scripts are a basic part of our culture and personality.

A script is collection of cultural assumptions (Schank & Abelson, 1977). They are conversations. We develop them for common social events, and use them to predict what should come next. For example, if you enter a room and someone says “Hi,” you are supposed to say “Hi.” Then they say “How are you?” and you say: ___________ (You know you’re supposed to say “Fine, thanks. How are you?”). This is a normal social interaction. And if you break this script, people get confused and unsettled.

We have scripts for many common social interactions. We have a script for catching a bus: you sit or stand at the designated area, wait patiently until the bus arrives and stops. You take turns getting on the bus, smile but use minimal language upon boarding. You find a place to sit, keep to yourself and don’t talk incessantly to the person beside you. You don’t yell and wave; no screaming is allowed.

We have scripts for restaurants. You know when you go to fast food outlet that you don’t stand at the door and wait to be seated by the maître’d. You know you should step right up to the counter and order your food from the menu on the wall.

When couples fight, they tend to follow the same script they always use. And when you go back to your childhood home, you and your siblings tend to follow the scripts developed in childhood. When we find ourselves not feeling ourselves, not able to act as adult as we want, not as in charge of our lives, we are following an old script.

Tangen Applied

A good theory needs to be applied. Take your theory of personality and think about how it would work in the real world. To give you a head start, here are my thoughts on applying my theory.

Counseling is simply the application of personality theory to specific problems. It is the practical side of personality theory, and it comes down to three questions: (a) why are people the way they are; (b) can people change; and (c) how do they change?

Why we are the way we are is clearly delineated by your theory of personality. If you are Freudian, our behavior is the result of conscious drives and processes. If you are Rogerian, our behavior is the result of a natural trend toward growth. If you are existential, our behavior is a product of dealing with our existential angst. If you are Tangenian, behavior is the result of being animalsPLUS.

Whether people can change is also reflected in your personality theory. If you are a trait theorist, behavior might be the result of the stars and moon, bumps on your head, or biologically determined. If you are Freudian, behavior can’t change without changing the entire personality structure. If you believe attachment theory or object relations, you believe people can change but only if they have a corrective emotional experience. If you are Tangenian, people can change at any time but they would rather distort their perceptions than change their behavior.

PERSONALITY APPLIED: THERAPY

As to how people change, Freudians say it is through the analysis of defense mechanisms, object relations says it’s through reattachment, and classical conditioning says behavior changes by changing the stimuli. Operant conditioning says to change the rewards, humanism says to make a safe environment, and cognitive theories say that changing thinking changes behavior.

In my view, therapy is primarily the utilization of functional analysis. The content of the conversation is less important than the pattern. I ask myself what behaviors are being displayed in the session, what rewards seem to work for this person, and what punishments are they trying to avoid. What is the pattern of behavior?

Pattern recognition is essential to good therapy. The primary difference between talking to your friends or Aunt Lucy is that they are trained to look for patterns. Aunt Lucy will be friendly, supportive, and keep your confidence. She won’t look at how what you’re doing now is similar to what you’ve done in prior relationships. She’s a terrific person but she’s not trained to look for patterns.

I think the same is true of relational counseling. My basic premise is that the key to understanding relationships is the same as for understanding the individual: look at behavioral patterns. What do we do in reaction to our spouse? How do we act when we want something or try to avoid something? What rewards do we seek; what punishments can’t we endure? What filters are we using and what script are we playing out?

I have a simple, nontechnical model of counseling. When clients talk, I categorize what they say as being an indication of the screens they are using, something that triggers them, an action they’ve taken, or a reaction they’ve had. I could do more categories but I’d get lost. It’s okay if the client is lost; not so good if the therapist is lost. So I stick to four factors. I call it STAR, which stands for Screens, Triggers, Actions and Reactions. Have you noticed that I like acrostics?

Screens are all of the PLUS components of humans. The term includes perceptions, logic (including logic errors), universals (schemas, beliefs, and values) and scripts. While listening to the story, I try to understand the filters being used. I spend a lot of time in this area: identifying values, discovering beliefs, and reframing how they see the world. In restating a problem, I often say things like “Your challenge is to…” I want clients to know that they have to work at change but to view it in a positive way.

Triggers are the stimuli that set off a chain reaction. Although much of our input is filtered by our perceptual and cognitive systems, some stimuli are not filtered. Classical conditioning, for example, requires no thinking. It’s an automatic response to an unfiltered stimulus. Similarly, habits and mental sets are subroutines that get triggered by particular circumstances. Skinner showed that punishment shuts down behavior, so when I see people emotionally shut down, I know they’ve been punished. I look to see what shut them down. Was it an environment, something their spouse did, or something I just stupidly said? I look for things that set you off, calm you down, or bring a tear to your eye.

Actions are all of the behaviors you do. I actually start here. I look for patterns of behavior (including attitudes). How do you typically cope with stress? What do you do in an ambiguous setting? What is maintaining that behavior? What punishers are in operation? One way to discover values and beliefs is to look at what people do.

Reactions are environmental, behavioral and emotional. Environmental reactions are, of course, the basis of operant conditioning. According to Skinner, what happens after a behavior determines what will happen next time. Clients sometimes have unrealistic expectations of what will happen in the environment as a result of their actions. They underestimate their power (learned helplessness) or overestimate their power (perfectionism or mania).

Behavioral reactions are follow-up actions. You do something, followed by doing something else. Behaviors are just actions; they also are chains of actions. Think of all the things you do to get out of a speeding ticket: smiling, flirting, pleading, arguing… It can be quite a long chain.

Emotional reactions are natural too. Emotions are like the lights on the dashboard of your car. The lights can be happiness and joy, like having the radio light up. Or you can have lights of warning or trouble. Sometimes you know what they mean; it’s clear to you what you’re feeling and why. But often our emotional lights flash, and the brain has to figure out what’s going on. Your hands are sweating. You’re tapping your foot, and sighing. You’re waiting impatiently or you’re unusually happy. Although dogs live in the moment of the emotion, sometimes humans have to figure out why we feel the way we do.

Treatment is reflected in the four categories too. Fear is classically conditioned; there is a trigger and an action. So systematic desensitization and Guthrie’s four ways of breaking habits is helpful here. Cognitive distortions in one’s screens can be countered with reality testing.

The four components are not meant to be strictly linear. I’m suggesting that human behavior is a complex interplay of these four elements. Each might well occur more than once. Emotions are good example: they can be a trigger or a reaction, or both.

What you think might determine what you do or feel. For example, Albert Ellis suggests that emotions are the result of thinking. You hear a sound which activates a belief, and the consequence is an emotion. If the belief is someone is trying to break into your house, the emotion is fear. If the belief is someone fell out of bed, your emotion might be worry. If the belief is your friend has finally arrived for a visit, the emotion might be joy. Same stimulus but different emotions. Because beliefs trigger emotions. The screening occurs before the emotion.

On the other hand, William James maintains that emotion follows behavior. You see a bear, run away and then feel fear. On a smaller scale, you hear a sound, the adrenal system kicks in and you jump. Then the brain tries to figure out what emotion that was. According to this approach, emotions are reactions.

I think of emotions as hardware: something you can’t directly change. Sometimes you can override the system or work around it but all in all, you’re stuck with having emotions, some of which you’ll like and some which you won’t like.

Things I Accept From Others

I accept data from everyone. I believe Piaget’s observations but not his interpretations. If you say you saw a blue light hovering in the sky, I believe you experienced it. I might not accept your explanation of its being a spaceship but I believe what people report.

Trait theory emphasizes the consistency of human behavior. I like that. I understand that people want to feel that life in under control. And I understand how appealing simple solutions can be. But I take very little from trait theory. I believe people are introverted or extroverted based on circumstances and not personality traits. Similarly, I accept the Big Five as temporary states but not as independent dimensions. I think of the Big Five as being two dimensions: are people easy to get along with (open, agreeable, extrovert) and can you trust them (conscientious, non-neurotic). I reject body types, proprium, projective tests, and needs and presses (though I like the terms). I don’t think trait theory explains personality well. It simply labels general predispositions or patterns of behavior. It’s not predictive, and it doesn’t explain how or why individual differences develop.

As for Freud, I reject unconscious motivation; being unaware is not the same as being pushed by internal warring forces. I reject the structural explanation of personality (id, ego and superego) but I keep (and tweak) defense mechanisms. I accept Freud’s description of children at certain ages (infants sticking things in their mouths, toddlers learning toilet skills, and kindergarteners mimicking parents) but I don’t ascribe any psychosexual significance to the events or rely on fixation as an explanatory device.

I see denial as a natural state of shock or as a rule (it’s not true if I don’t say it). Similarly, I see displacement as stimulus overload, not as unconscious motivation. Projection (seeing your faults in others) shows that external perception is easier than reflection. Schemas about self are very hard to change. I think rationalization proves that we use a rule system. We might use really stupid or illogical reasons for failure (I’m a good dancer but the floor was sticky, and I had on the wrong shoes). The illogic comes from trying to reach multiple goals at once. We want to do well, we want feel good about ourselves, and we don’t want to look foolish or have people laugh at us.

I reject repression. I believe it is supported by memory research. For general memories, we have a Pollyanna Effect (tendency to remember good things) but for overwhelming memories, people have a great deal of trouble forgetting them. Combined with the research on how easy it is to induce false memories, I reject repressed memories (particularly those acquired under hypnosis or suggested by a therapist).

I like Adler’s observation that people compensate as a normal process, and that over-compensation is an ineffective coping strategy. I like his emphasis on the family constellation because I think personality theories in general don’t include a social or interpersonal component. I’m more family-systems oriented than Adler but I appreciate this attempt to highlight this area. Although I agree that pampering a child can be bad parenting, there so many other ways to screw up as parents that I wouldn’t want to limit it to one. I reject Adler’s three gates to mental life (birth order, early memories and dreams). Birth order is not a good predictor, infantile amnesia prevents early memories from forming (there’s no storage area before 2 years old), and dreams are simply screensavers for your brain.

I like Jung’s archetypes as social patterns. Plays, movies and books often have a specific flow and pattern to them. Play are in three acts (or four segments if there is an intermission), movies have turning points at 15, 30, 45 and 90 minutes, etc. I think this is evidence of our love of ritual, tradition and order. I like the idea of synchronicity (meaningful coincidences) but I prefer a mystical God as explanation for such events. I reject amplification, persona-shadow, primordial images and the collective unconscious. I also reject the test based (or loosely based) on Jung’s theory: TAT, Rorschach, Myers-Briggs and the use of sand trays (unless it’s big enough for dump trucks or 4-wheeling).

I accept Karen Horney’s warning about should. I think they are part of the screens people use to restrict their lives. I reject Erikson, Fromm and all of object relations (including attachment theory), at least in terms of the causal reasoning. I like any theory that emphasizes patterns. So to extent that developmental theories describe how people act (“You’re acting like a four-year-old”), I accept it too. The same is true of object relations and attachment theory. I accept the idea that adults display patterns of behavior that they’ve practiced since childhood. And I observe people who are overly attached to their pets but I see that as faulty logic, not childhood trauma. While I agree that ineffective pattern be replaced with more effective patterns, I reject the proposed underlying causations of past hurts (suppression, repression, etc.), so I don’t see the necessity to replace a childhood hurt with a corrective emotional experience. But I track childhood patterns of thought and action.

Although I reject the mechanistic explanations, I accept and use all of the techniques of classical and operant conditioning. In particular, I think phobias, fears and anxiety are caused by classical conditioning, and best deal with by gradually increasing the strength of the stimulus (not by talk therapy). And I accept the strong impact rewards and punishments have on people but I think our expectations and cognitions play a role in determining which rewards work for us.

I also accept all of the techniques of social learning theory (modeling, expectations, and frustration-aggression hypothesis). Counseling is, to me, a way for people to practice more effective behavioral patterns. I believe counselors model what they want their clients to do, say and feel. I use Dollard & Miller’s frustration-aggression hypothesis to suggest topics for counseling. If a client is aggressive or angry, I assume they are frustrated, and try to get them to figure out why they are acting that way.

I’m also a fan of Rogers goal (making people comfortable) and active listening techniques. But I reject the assumptions of Maslow and Rogers about how change occurs. I prefer the emphasis on finding meaning and living in the moment that the existentialists provide. And I accept nearly all of cognitive theory, though I tend to favor Beck over Ellis. Beck suggests differential treatment of clients. The problem with cognitive therapists is that they typically emphasize rationalism, and de-emphasize the animal side. They don’t seem to think that rewards play much of a role in behavior. And they tend to ignore emotion. Emotion for me is key indicator of performance. In my view, healthy people are not consistently negative, angry, depressed or anxious.

I’m not eclectic. I accept certain premises and reject others. Although I seek to make a safe, supportive Rogerian environment, I keep Skinner in mind during this process. In my view, humans are like dogs with computers in their heads. So I reward certain responses (shaping) and extinguish others. I’m essentially a learning theorist with an overlay of cognitive-existentialism.

Predictions

Given what you’ve read of my theory, how do you think I’d answer the questions at the beginning? Here they are again for your consideration:

Why do people stay in bad relationships?
Why do people keep picking the same kind of people to fall in love with?
How would you help someone who has a fear of flying?
Why to people try to be perfect?
How do you break a habit?
How do you help people with marriage problems?
Why would a woman leave her husband yet hope that he will pursue her?
Why would a man be afraid of his wife?
What is your opinion on repressed memories, projective tests and dream analysis?

Summary

I suspect that counselors pick their model based on the struggles they’ve had in life. If you have father figure problems, you probably will gravitate to a Freudian perspective. If you have abandonment issues, you’ll love object relations and attachment theory. If you dislike structure and tradition, you’ll turn to existentialism. And, of course, if you’re well-adjusted, you’ll pick my theory.

Joking aside, I believe the best theory for you will be your own. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my ideas but I’ll be even more pleased if you write your own theory of personality. As I’ve shown, you don’t have to be completely original. Read everybody and steal from the best.

Mind Map

Notes

Terms

Tangen

actions
animals+
assumptional jumps
beliefs
classical conditioning
drive theory
functional analysis
habits
heredity
logic
operant conditioning
pattern recognition
perception
person schemas
reactions
rule-based
schemas
screens
script
self schemas
social interaction
STAR
triggers
universals
values

Quiz

According to Tangen, people have a tremendous capacity to change but they:

a. can’t do it by themselves
b. don’t know how to do it
c. require deep analysis
d. rarely do

2. Tangen’s theory is called:

a. conditioned humanism
b. existential pragmatism
c. psychodynamic angst
d. animals plus

3. Which are cultural assumptions:

a. algorithms
b. prototypes
c. scripts
d. plots

4. For Tangen, emotions are:

a. phenomological memories
b. unconscious urges
c. hardware
d. software

5. For Tangen, therapy starts with:

a. systematic desensitization
b. functional analysis
c. psychoanalysis
d. hypnosis

Answers

1. According to Tangen, people have a tremendous capacity to change but they:

a. can’t do it by themselves
b. don’t know how to do it
c. require deep analysis
d. rarely do