Interactionist Aspects of Personality

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Interactionist Aspects of Personality

• PSY 230 Theories of Personality

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Interactionist Theorists

• They look at how personality interacts in social
  situations
• Harry Stack Sullivan
• Henry Murray
• Walter Mischel
• Mark Snyder
• Jack and Jeanne Block
• Avshalom Caspi
• Konrad Lorenz
• They try to explicitly understand the social
  situation

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Harry Stack Sullivan 1892-1949

• Born in Norwich, NY to Irish immigrants
• Only child-Catholic-in Protestant prejudice area
• Raised on farm-area of high rate or suicide among
  isolated farm wives
• Stacks-greatly exaggerated accomplishments-Mother
  s influence to achieve
• Sullivans-fresh off the boat- working class
• Identity confusion Sullivan in College-Stack
  after-never married
• Lonely, isolated, used alcohol-reduce anxiety
• Sexual identity issues in adolescence-bouts of
  schizophrenia in college
• like cures like residential treatment founded
  on interpersonal trust-St. Elizabeths in D.C.

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Sullivans 6 Developmental Epochs
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Chumship

• Close same-sex relations with peers
• Pre-adolescent puts distance between self and
  parents seek acceptance by peers
• To reduce the anxiety coming from threats to
  psychosocial well being of loneliness, isolation
  rejection-inherently social factors

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Sullivans Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry

• Personality is tied to social situations
• Relatively enduring pattern of recurrent
  interpersonal situations
• Focused on the recurring social situations people
  face

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Social SelfGeorge Mead (1968)

• Who we are and how we think of ourselves arises
  from our interactions with those around us
• A social-psychological concept coming from the
  Chicago School of sociology philosophy

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Illusion of Individuality-Sullivan

• Idea that a person has a single fixed personality
• According to Sullivan we may have as many
  personalities as we have interpersonal situations
• Conclusion positive interpersonal relationships
  can help others overcome their own problems

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Henry A. Murray 1893-1988

• Born New York City of wealthy family mother
  daughter of owner of bank father worked in the
  bank, no close relationship to either parent
• Middle child of three, stutter, cross-eyed
• Ongoing 40 year open affair with research
  associate Christina Morgan, co-author of TAT
• Close to his wife Jo and Christinas husband Will
• Groton, Harvard, MD, Ph.D. Biochemistry
  Cambridge-pioneer in Biochemistry
• Saw Jung to resolve his relationship with
  Morgan-solution same as Jung-open affair
• In WW II-lead psychological testing for selection
  for spies and dangerous mission teams

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Development of Interactionist Approach by Murray

• Combine unconscious motivation of Freud, Jung
  Adler, environmental pressures of Lewin, trait
  concept of Allport
• Defined Personality branch of psychology which
  concerns itself with study of human lives and
  factors which influence their life course and
  which investigates individual differences

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Personological System

• Focus on the process of personality rather than
  rely on the static concepts such as
• Enduring structures of the mind
• System-dynamic influences with feedback
• Emphasis integrated, dynamic nature of individual
  as complex organism responding to specific
  environment
• Importance of needs and motivations

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Environmental Press

• push of the situation-from other people or events
  in the environment-get out of rain, get enough to
  eat, deal with rejection or competition
• Where concept of Peer Pressure arises
• Accept of unconscious fantasies instinctual
  drives
• Emphasis of social roles and situational
  determinants e.g. need to excel leads to
  cheating
• Combination of internal motivations external
  demands

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NeedsMurray 1962

• Needs are internal (but can be provoked by
  environmental press)
• Necessitate taking action in social environment
• Readiness to respond in a certain way under given
  circumstances Need to achieve, for affection,
  dominance exhibition

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Need for Achievement n Ach

• If identity closely identified with success
• Persistent and driven to succeed
• Quantity of success more important than quality
• Shrewdness persistence needed to win
• Less skillful in diplomacy cooperation

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Need for Affiliation n Aff

• Gregarious instinct-wanting to come together in
  groups
• Sentiment-instinct-socialized to be attached to
  an individual
• Motivation to have lots of friends
• Need to draw near to win affection of others

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Need for Dominance or Power n Power

• Need for dominance
• Seek positions and offices which are controlling
  over others

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Need for Exhibition

• Need for emotional communication
• Need to show self before others and amuse,
  entertain, excite or even shock others
• Colorful, spellbinding, noticeable, dramatic
  showy
• Expressive style is the clue to this need

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Murrays Needs

• Affiliation
• Autonomy
• Dominance
• Exhibition
• Harm-avoidance
• Nurturance

• Order
• Play
• Sex
• Succorance
• Understanding

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Thema-Murray

• Combinations of Needs and Environmental Presses
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• Client gives narrative or imaginary
  interpretation of what picture represents
• Late in life Murray admitted that Christina
  Morgan was the true author of the TAT

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Narrative Approach-McAdams 1991

• Studying motivations of individuals through
  biographies-life stories
• Story of ones life becomes ones identity
• At each stage of life, internal inclinations lead
  us to seek out and respond to certain situations
  which in turn help to further shape our
  inclinations and identity, e.g. generative
  livesloving, caring community identities

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Contemporaneous Causation-Lewins influence on
Murray

• Behavior is the function of the person and the
  environment
• Behavior is caused at that moment as a function
  of a variety of influences-which may be residues
  of past behavior and previous events

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Walter Mischel 1930-present

• Born in Vienna came to USA when young
• Graduate Ph.D. Clinical Psychology Ohio State
  University
• Worked at Stanford-influence by Bandura

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Walter Mischel-Critique of current Personality
Theories

• A Persons behavior varies so much from situation
  to situation that it simply did not make sense to
  think in terms of broad personality traits
• Consider SIZE of relation between persons
  behavior across situations and their variability
• No correlation between personality trait
  behavior what is more important is situation

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Delay of Gratification-Mischel

• An individual chooses to forgo an immediate
  reinforcer to wait for a later, better reinforcer
  based on
• Modeling (see another person delay)
• Visibility of desired object (out of sight-out of
  mind)
• Cognitive strategies to think about other things
  (distraction)

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Personal Strategies-Styles Mischel

• Individual differences in the meanings people
  give to stimuli and reinforcements
• Learned during experiences with situations and
  their rewards

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Personality Variables of Mischel

• Competencies persons abilities knowledge
• Encoding Strategies schemas and mechanisms one
  uses to process and encode information
• Expectancies of ones own behavior
  self-efficacy
• Plans combining competencies, strategies,
  expectancies into a plan

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Behavioral Signatures of Personality

• Consistency of personality due to similarity of
  the perceived features of situations - people
  identify situation-behavior relationships that
  become behavioral signatures
• Interaction-intersection of person
  characteristics and environment

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Personality as Transaction

• Personality seen as a transaction that occurs
  when a persons unique personal strategies and
  styles interact with the particular style of
  others (Thorne, 1987)

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Attribution Theories

• Traits are in the mind of the observer
• Attribution theories examine ways we draw
  inferences about other peoples behavior
• Influenced by biases which may result in errors
  when judging others
• Falling back on stereotypes to explain how we see
  the world
• Closer people are to you more valid are their
  attributions about you

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Personality of Situations

• Way to systematically classify situations-place
  people into carefully controlled situations and
  see who behaves as expected
• Capture recognizable patterns and regularities
  and take into account changes that occur over
  time US families 1950 vs today

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Self-Monitoring-Mark Snyder (1974, 1987)

• High self-monitors People are especially
  motivated and able to read the demands of others,
  monitor their self-presentations to make a good
  impression to respond to the expectations of
  others
• Low self-monitors less in tune with and less
  concerned with the expectations of
  others-personalities less variable as function of
  the situation

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Social Identity vs Personal Identity-Jonathan
Cheek (1990)

• Low in social identity-High in personal Identity
  act independently and try to get ahead may
  prefer to be unique and uninhibited-personal
  personality
• Low in personal identity-High in social identity
  sociable and involved with others - reads social
  cues, motivated to conform to social demands
  social personality

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Longitudinal Study-Jack Block (1993) Jeanne
Block

• The close, comprehensive, systematic, objective,
  sustained study of individuals over significant
  portions of the life span.
• Following people over time
• Began study in 1968 of children
• Ego-resilient early age for boys same when older
  but not for girls 20 years later

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Life Course Approach-Avshalom Caspi (1990)

• Study of personality across the life span or life
  path
• Patterns of behavior change as a function of age,
  culture, social groups, life events, as well as
  internal drives, motives, abilities, and traits
• Individuals create their own person-situation
  interactions by varying how they interpret
  situations by eliciting reactions from others and
  seeking out certain situations

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Readiness-Konrad Lorenz 1937

• We are more affected by certain environments at
  certain times in our lives
• More prone to learn languages prior to 10 years
  of age
• More prone to react to sexy object when we are in
  our prime

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Impact of Emotions on Interactions

• Interactions of people in small groups have two
  types of interactions
• Affiliation-warmth, harmony vs rejection
  hostility
• Assertiveness-dominance task orientation versus
  submission deference

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Circumplex Model- Focuses on interpersonal
emotional aspects of personality

• Task-Oriented, dominant
• Competitive, arrogant
• Cold, hostile, rejecting
• Aloof, inhibited

• Deferent Submissive
• Sociable, nurturant
• Warm, friendly, harmonious
• Modest, trusting

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Ego Development-Jane Loevinger (1966)

• Undeveloped egosimpulsive, self-protective,
  conformists, focused on self, manipulative or
  blindly loyal
• Highly developed egosindividualistic, broad
  minded, autonomous, self-fulfilled respectful
  of others, integrated
• IntegratedMaslows self-actualization