Chapter 18 Chapter Eleven Personality Psychologist-2

It has become evident early in the history of personality research that the vast amounts of data collected about traits are raw material.A disjointed set of characteristic scores about an individual does not add up to form an overall picture of his or her personality, and scores compiled from a large sample of subjects do not give overall meaning What new insights into the character of the above. Allport pointed out the problem: "It seems already clear that some of the units we look for in personality and motivation are fairly complex structures rather than basic molecular units." However, feature detection is molecular formula, and, It is not clear how one can see a structure, hundreds of which can be gleaned from a different set of tests, in terms of the mass of findings e.g. Scores can't even do this.

Several psychologists have proposed that order emerges from chaos by amalgamating some joint features into larger tendencies or co-occurring features such as 'general movement', 'well-being' and 'emotional stability', or Become psychodynamically co-existing features such as aggression and oral or anal tendencies.Others have suggested grouping personality traits into bimodal ranges or types, such as Jung's division of people into extroverts and introverts. But these are vague generalities.Researchers need strong evidence that features are connected in very clear and recognizable strings.And there is a way to gather this evidence.Galton had found the method of correlation analysis, which is a statistical procedure for detecting mutual variables (the degree to which one variable changes, such as a certain characteristic, will be correlated with the change of another characteristic or variable. changes).Then, the British psychologist and statistician Charles Spearman designed the most complex method, called factor analysis, which is to simultaneously detect the relationship between variables in the entire variable group - which happens to make the characteristics What data needs to make sense.This method is complex, but the basic concept is very simple.If groups of features vary together—that is, if, within any feature, a higher or lower score is accompanied by a higher or lower score on other features—then there is a reason Supposedly, they must be influenced by some general tendency or factor acting in general.

In the 1940s, a German-British psychologist named Hans Eysenck (1916-) carried out a complex work of applying factor analysis to personality analysis.Hans is German, but not Jewish, and he left his country after Germany fell under Nazi rule to become a British citizen.Adopting Jung's dichotomous archetype, Eysenck postulated that certain traits, such as rigidity and shyness, would interact strongly in some introverts, whereas the opposite would be the case in extroverts produce interactions.To this he added two more dichotomous archetypes of his own, the scale of neuroticism, with a highly stable personality at one extreme and an extremely unstable personality at the other, where he expected some Features appear to be associated with each other.

He used the characteristic data obtained according to the MMPI and a set of personality tests designed by himself, applied his assumptions to statistical tests, and found that these assumptions were correct: in what he thought introverts and extroverts should be Among the characteristics that appear in series, there are indeed some linkages, and there are indeed comparable linkages among the characteristics that he thinks should appear in series between people with neurological problems and normal people.When he listed these four factors, he found that they were strikingly similar to the four essence theory of humoral theory invented by Galen in ancient times. -To the antiphonic Eysenck, who was uncharacteristically careful about the coincidence this time:

It is very easy to dig into old papers to find what you want, especially when you interpret ancient terms in modern terms.There do seem to be some parallels, however, between the work of earlier thinkers and some of the more modern ones (by others and by Eysenck himself). After issuing this warning, he drew the following picture: While this coincidence is exciting, most MMPI users find the Eysenck quadruple too abstract and wish to extract more specific and detailed diagnostics from the scores derived from the test results.These diagnostic methods were finally realized by different factor analysis methods through the decades-long efforts of the British-born psychologist Raymond Cattell (1905-).Cattell was more cautious and methodical than Eysenck.He did not start with a hypothetical conclusion like Eysenck, but let factor analysis find its own way.He calculated the correlations among a large number of variables, tabulated those that clearly showed correlations, and assigned them factor names.It's a lot of work, even with the help of computers.For example, to calculate the possible interrelationships among one hundred variables, one has to calculate 4950 relationships.

This is just one example of what the cartels are doing.At an early stage, he found that a strong tendency to admit a common mistake was accompanied by a strong tendency to agree, and that both tendencies were associated with emotionality, sensitivity to dislikes, major serious problems, and Other traits were linked to each other and to physical symptoms like a high heart rate.For Cattell, the interrelated web of these "surface features" implies an underlying layer of "root features," which he calls "anxiety." Such research sounds harsh and serious, far from real life, but despite his frugal and gentle attitude, Cartel is not a superficial and pompous person.The son of an English engineer, he believed—perhaps influenced by his father's career—that science and technology were the fields of science he should study, and studied chemistry and physics at the University of London.But he was a student who read everything, and he was also very enthusiastic about some popular activities in the intellectual and political circles at that time (in the 1920s).

My stool in the lab was starting to feel a little smaller, and the problems of the world seemed vast.However, like the man in the train station, watching the trains go away, knowing in his heart that the trains were not his, I gave up the great method of saving the world proposed by political parties and some religious groups.I slowly realized that in order to transcend the irrationality of human nature, one had to study the workings of the mind itself...From this moment, a few months before my science degree, I realized that psychology It's my lifelong interest. Cattell-head plunged into graduate work in psychology, where he studied under Spearman at the university to learn the expertise of factor analysis.Unfortunately, when he received his Ph.D., psychology had just established itself in British institutions of higher learning. For the next 15 years, he could only rely on being a secondary school psychology teacher and Clinicians come to earn bread money.There was a cost to this—the heavy work and tight income ruined his first family—and its ruinous payoff: it increased his understanding of the complexity and richness of his character to a great extent. understanding.However, his real goal is to do factor analysis and research work, as he himself said:

It seems to me quite obvious that the only evidence of structure and important relationship lies in interchanging, as John Stuart Mill said, and that this interchanging and factor analysis, coined by Spearman The new tool can now be applied to its strengths on a much broader front—to such difficult problems as character structure and the search for the roots of behavioral dynamics. Cattell came to the United States in 1937, held a few short-term teaching positions at several prestigious universities, happily remarried, and continued to conduct factor analysis of personality traits. In 1945, he became director of the University of Illinois's personality assessment laboratory, and his research accelerated.He worked here for 27 years, and then continued at the University of Hawaii, and he went straight forward, doing more and more advanced factor analysis work, and came up with higher and higher levels of personality factors.

Early in his research work, he managed to classify 171 surface features into 62 strings.However, he found that the strings all overlapped each other—covered each other—so he later whittled it down to 35.Later, he and others—in his autobiography he generously lists the names of some 80 assistants—have taken the study a step further, concluding that 16 fundamental Traits or factors, in his words: "Suffice to cover all the individual differences in character (i.e., superficial traits) currently found in the common colloquial and psychological literature. They leave nothing in the overall character."

Each of the 16 personality factors is polarizing.For example, emotional stability ranges from "affected by emotions" at one end to "emotional stability" at the other end; doubts range from "trust" to "doubt".According to some steps listed in the manual, the tester can get the character profile of a subject or a certain type of subject. The difference between these profiles is obvious, and it is easy to see the problem.Here, as an example, we give three profiles of professionals, which are very important tools for career counseling. The Cattell 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire has been widely used for several years. Today, it has been replaced by less complex analytical methods, and many new methods are still its derivatives academically.

Behaviorist theory differs from any form of psychodynamic or trait theory in that personality is nothing more than a set of cognitive (conditioned) responses to stimuli.Both psychodynamic and trait theories, in different ways, regard personality as a coherent individual personality that determines behavior, behaviorists consider such statements to be "mystic" and should not be included in scientific psychology. Assign any location.Skinner, in his often relentless style, calls character, or the self, "an interpretive novel . . . a statement representing a functionally unified system of responses."Traits, he says, are simply groups of similar responses that lead to similar reinforcements in different situations.It doesn't elicit behavior, but just a set of similar, conditional-response tags. However, the strictly behaviorist view also proves to be largely inadequate when it comes to explaining many human behaviors—even when it comes to explaining some animal behaviors.Tolman, too, was a behaviorist, but he saw his rat move through a maze with right-to-left choice points, as if it were memorizing, weighing information, and then making a decision.He and other behaviorists had begun to include internal mental processes in the stimulus-response paradigm well before the middle of this century. Two scientists at Yale University have done important work in this area, one is the sociologist John Dollard, the other is the psychologist Neil Miller, and they collaborated in the 1940s to develop a "social cognition" theory as an extension of behaviorism.Under certain conditions, they said, the rats, unlike Thorndike's experiment, would imitate each other, apparently not learning in stimulus-response conditions, but through cognitive processes.In humans, Dolard and Miller say, much learning is a social activity and, in addition to some needs and drives motivated by underlying support, occurs during higher cognitive processes. Beginning in the 1950s, other behaviorists continued to work on social cognitive theory, especially its cognitive aspects.The concept that all the different theories hold to be important is that human character and behavior are formed not just by rewarded actions, but also by personal predictions or expectations based on the fact that they Observe that some specific behaviors will lead to certain rewards.Although this view is more cognitive than strictly behaviorist, it differs from both trait and psychodynamic theories in that it still sees experience and situations—external influences—in terms of Composition is a major determinant of character and behavior. But in the 1950s, Julian Rotter (1916-) proposed a modification of the social cognitive approximation of personality.He was in his mid-thirties and was a professor at Ohio State University.Rotter is both a psychotherapist and an experimentalist, and although he was a behaviorist in the laboratory, his experience as a therapist taught him to respect cognitive processes and emotions, which It is often lacked by researchers who deal with mice every day.Like most clinicians, Rotter found that his patients' basic attitudes were often shaped by key experiences, some good and some bad.Theorizing in behaviorist terms is that when a particular action is or is not answered, people form "general expectations" about what circumstances and actions will or will not be rewarded. A student who studies hard and gets high grades, awards, and feels good about himself may slowly form an expectation that in other situations, he will be rewarded for his hard work.And a student who works hard but doesn't get high grades and the benefits associated with it may slowly develop the general perception that hard work is for nothing. Rotter and his graduate students conducted a series of experiments to show the general effects of these general expectations.In a typical study, he or his collaborators would tell volunteers -- male and female undergraduates at the university -- that they were undergoing an ESP test. (This is just a cover to cover up their real purpose.) The experimenter held up a card with its back facing the volunteers, with a square or a circle on it, and asked the volunteers to guess. After guessing, The experimenter will say right or wrong.After performing the group 10 times, he will ask the subject to estimate how many he will guess correctly in the following group.Some students usually guessed that they would do worse because, as they later said in questionnaires and interviews, they believed they had guessed by luck.Others estimated that they would do better next time because they attributed the correct guesses to their ESP skills, which they believed would improve with practice. Around the same time, Rotter supervised Jerry Ferriss, a psychotherapist in training.Ferriss had a single patient in his 40s who complained of a lack of social interaction.Ferriss urged him to go to a free school dance.He went, and several girls danced with him, but he told Ferris: "It was all luck - it's never going to happen again." When Ferris reported it to Roth At that moment, an idea that had been lingering in his mind suddenly became clear.He recently referred to that moment as he recalled the incident some 30 years ago: I realized that in our experiments there are always subjects, like this patient, who do not form preconceptions even after success.My graduate students and I have done all sorts of experiments before, where we played with the success of our subjects—we tricked them in the Sense series, we tricked them in the angle-comparison game, because we "Right" or "wrong" responses can be controlled, because the angles are so close, they all look the same, and the subject believes exactly what we say-everything.Some volunteers, regardless of whether we tell them to be right or wrong most of the time, they always think that they will do worse in the next round of experiments.Others, no matter what we tell them, think they'll do better next time. By this time, I've merged both sides of my job—as a physician and as a scientist—and I'm assuming that some people feel that what's happening to them is caused by one or the other. external forces, while others feel that what happens to them is the result of their own effort and skill.Ferris and I then developed a test to measure the degree to which an individual perceives rewards or does not perceive rewards as a result of his actions, or not as a result of his actions. Rotter called this important attitude—the most important discovery of his life—the "control position."The test he and Ferris devised to detect it, the "Inner-Outer Control Position (IE) Scale," consists of 29 items, each of which consists of two sentences. Say which-pair statement best suits him.Here are some typical sayings: 2.a.Misfortune in life is mostly caused by bad luck; 2.b.Misfortunes in life are the result of their own mistakes. 4. a.As time goes on, people will always get the respect they deserve; 4.b.Unfortunately, personal value is often buried, no matter how hard one tries. 11. a.Success is the result of hard work, not luck; 11.b.Getting a good job is all about being in the right place at the right time. 25. a.I often feel powerless about what happens to me; 25.b.It is almost impossible for me to believe that luck plays any important role in my life. Choices 2a, 4b, 11b, and 25a indicated that the subject felt that he or she was powerless over the event, and choices of others indicated that he felt himself the master of his life.People who score high on external control tend to attribute success and failure to fate.Luck or the power of others; people who score high in internal control tend to attribute their successes and failures to their intelligence, hard work, or other personal characteristics.The controlling locus, because it is an overall attitude that affects many aspects of character and behavior, is thus like the "central trait" in the Allport scheme and the "fundamental trait" in the Cartel scheme. The concept of control bits and the IE scale have had a lot of resonance among personality psychologists.Since the scale appeared in 1966, about 2,000 studies using it have been published, and it has remained the most popular personality test for a long time—until now.Numerous studies have shown the effect of control bit anticipation on behavior.For example, elementary school students who are rated as insiders will score higher than those who are rated as outsiders; "hopeless" students (outsiders) will perform worse after failing on a test that "Own" students (insiders) will work harder and perform better.In some experiments, the volunteers will face a dilemma. The insider will mostly look for useful information, while the outsider will rely on others to help him.Among hospitalized patients with pneumonia, insiders were more aware of their condition and asked more questions of doctors than outsiders.Insiders brushed their teeth more than outsiders.Insiders were more likely than outsiders to wear seat belts, take more precautions, participate in more physical exercise activities, and use more effective birth control than outsiders. As a side effect, some studies have found that insiders are less likely than outsiders to empathize with a person in need, because insiders believe that these people are not motivated and looking for trouble.And, while insiders feel proud when they succeed, they feel shame or shame when they fail.In contrast, outsiders feel less strongly about success and failure. (Some studies believe that normal healthy personalities are balanced both internally and externally, and that they explain themselves in a, if inaccurate, self-protective way: social psychologist Fritz Hyde once said, They tell themselves, "I make good things happen, and bad things are imposed.") Social cognitive theory and control locus research have led to some interesting developments in personality theory and clinical psychology.One of these is the growing recognition that conscious attitudes and thoughts, not just unconscious ones, explain a great deal of an individual's traits and actions.An important determinant of character and behavior is what the psychologist George Kelly called "personal conceptions," which are,—an individual's conscious—set of ideas about one's own abilities and character, which, in different situations, people Anticipations of our behaviour, how others are likely to behave in response to us, what they mean by what they say, and so on. Research based on this point of view has produced some very interesting discoveries in recent years. In 1978, Edward Jones and Steven Bergrass performed a laboratory demonstration of a self-preservation strategy in which they put It's called "self-disability."Self-disabled people, when faced with a situation they fear will fail, protect their self-image by making things look like they failed because of forces beyond their control . - An average tennis player will only choose someone who is obviously better than him as an opponent. In this case, losing the ball is nothing. A student who is about to face the final exam, he may not study and suddenly bear the burden of a lot of school chores, so that if he fails in the exam, he can also get a reason to protect his inner self.The self-disabled person beats himself in the process of protecting himself. A particularly noteworthy by-product of control bit theory is the explanation for a disabling phenomenon called "learned helplessness."We all know helpless and negative people who have enough problem-solving skills and resources, but just can't figure out how to deal with them.Many clinicians have offered explanations for this negative situation, but in 1967, Martin Seligman, a 21-year-old college student at the University of Pennsylvania, had a whim that, after many years of work, led to the A valuable understanding of this negativity. When Seligman went to the professor's laboratory for the first time, he found that the professor and his assistant were in big trouble.Their lab dogs just don't do what they're asked to do.Reflexes were developed by using both the tone and the shock until they associated the tone with the shock.Now, the dogs are kept in a "cage", that is, a large cage with a row of low-level partitions divided into two compartments, so that they are only affected by the tone here.Putting dogs in such a cage so that they receive an electric shock in one compartment and not in the other compartment, the dogs quickly learn to jump over the barrier to escape the shock.The purpose of the experiment was to find out whether they would do the same thing when they heard the tone but were not shocked.However, when the dog heard the tone, it crouched still and barked.No one could understand this phenomenon, but suddenly the young Seligman had an idea.When dogs were given tone and electric shocks before, they knew they couldn't escape the shock no matter what they did.Now, in a new situation, they escaped the shock, but they remained the same as before, as if they couldn't escape being shocked no matter what they did. Seligman conducted a series of experiments in an attempt to generate learned helplessness, first with a classmate named Stephen Meyer and later with a colleague named Bruce Overmia.In one important experiment, dogs were put in cages one at a time, hooked so that they could not escape, and then given electric shocks from their hooves through a metal floor.Then, each dog was locked in a separate cage with several other dogs that were not given electric shocks. A light was turned on from time to time on the side of the cage where the dogs were placed, and followed up after 10 seconds. electric shock.All dogs were quick to associate the light with the shock.When the lights were turned on, the untreated dogs huddled together and quickly discovered that they could escape the shock by jumping over the fence and running to the other side of the cage, while the dogs that had received the inescapable shock had to stay where they were. subjecting himself to electric shocks without knowing how to make any effort to escape.They have developed a premonition that no matter what they do, they will eventually be shocked, and they know there is nothing they can do. This seems to explain the helplessness that exists in humans and dogs.But Overmia and Seligman went further.They ventured to hypothesize that the oppressiveness of human existence may be due more to learned helplessness—a feeling or belief of helplessness—than to their actual inability to solve their own problems, or overcome their own limitations. sad mood.This theory was immediately refuted by psychologists and psychiatrists.These people pointed out that some people never feel helpless in the face of misfortune, some people who do feel helpless but quickly return to the previous state; some people are not only helpless in a given situation, but also in new and The same is true in different situations.Some people blame themselves for their misfortunes, others blame others for their misfortunes. Working with one of his reviewers, the British psychologist John Tisdale, and another colleague, Seligman set out to find better ways to explain human repression.They proposed a new hypothesis combining learned helplessness and control position theory.When human beings encounter painful experiences of which they cannot do anything, they either attribute them to external forces or to themselves, and this false belief in the latter leads to repression.The group tested this hypothesis with a complex set of control-position questionnaires, and the resulting information supported the hypothesis.Immediately after their study was published in 1978, there were many similar and confirmatory studies—more than 300 over the next 20 years—some with dogs, others with rabbits, that confirmed and extended the theory. For example, one study tested the personality of a group of pregnant women, classifying them as introverted or extroverted, and found that rates of postpartum depression were much higher among the introverted.These women attributed the difficulties during this period to their own personal characteristics, while those who were extroverted claimed that the environment was not good, and although they also felt a little helpless, they did not feel particularly depressed. More recently, Seligman has expanded his theory into what he now calls "interpretive style."It explains what appears to be an essential character aspect of outright optimism or generic pessimism.In Seligman's own words: Take, for example, a very bad situation, such as a failed business or relationship.The pessimist blames it on some long-standing or eternal cause that affects everything he does, which is his own fault.Optimists believe that the cause of failure is temporary, limited to the present situation, either because of circumstances, or because of bad luck, or because of the results of other people's actions. Optimism tends to lead to higher achievements than pessimism.We found that optimistic life insurance agents outperformed pessimistic life insurers, and they stayed in business longer.Optimistic Olympic-level swimmers swam faster after being beaten by others, while pessimistic athletes became slower.Optimistic professional baseball and basketball teams do better, especially after they are defeated, than pessimistic teams. Another topic that has sparked new insights because of social learning theory is the difference in personality between men and women.Apparently very smart - some people - like to talk about this topic all their lives, people of all ages, mostly men, they say how good people of their gender are, and how bad they are of the other gender .Their views range from Plato's slight demeaning of women to Sir Chesterfield's euphemistic scorn of women's minds and characters.Plato said: "Nature's gifts are equally divided between the two [sexes], but woman is in all respects inferior to man." And Sir Chesterfield said: Women are just bigger children with funny jokes and sometimes wit; but I've never known in my life what tenable and reasonable inferences and reasons Is there any (woman) who has the ability... A man with a brain just amuses them, plays with them, makes them laugh, flatters them, just like he teases a little child who is jumping and walking along . Some traditionally feminine traits—sentimentality, timidity, vanity, nurturing, sensitivity, fickleness, etc.—had always been thought to be innate.In the early days of psychology, most psychologists, Freud included, believed that these traits were the inescapable consequence of female hormones and biological makeup and the particular experiences these things brought about.It wasn't until 1936 that Lewis Terman and his colleague Sy Myers published the results of a popular, influential study of male and female personality, "Gender and Character," which was based on Based on the results of a test they took.The method of scoring the answers to the quiz is based on traditional ideas about gender differences.For example, on the word association portion of the test, if the subject's association with the word "tender" was "meat," the answer was rated masculine; "kind (kindness)" and "1ovihg (warmth)" are rated as feminine.Read detective novels and like chemistry as masculine, read poetry or like drama as feminine. Although this seems quite remarkable today, the Terman and Myers test was used for many years without anyone ever questioning its assumptions.However, as women's social status has changed in recent decades, many aspects of women's personality have also changed greatly. In addition, a large number of research findings by social learning theorists and other scholars also support the traditional- These assumptions were challenged.Among the hundreds of research papers in the past 30 years, there are a few examples: —Girls are indeed more afraid of mice, snakes, and spiders than boys—but this is largely because they learn at an early age that fear is more appropriate and tolerated for them than for boys. —The fact that girls play with puppets more spontaneously than boys has long been evidence that girls are naturally more fond of raising things and like helping people.More often, however, girls are given dolls to play with, a form of social training.Girls' instinct to be more pet-friendly is at least - partly learned. ——Girls in elementary school are more empathetic than boys, which can be judged by the criterion that they are more willing to write comfort letters to children who are sick and hospitalized.But boys are more than happy to help others by taking actions that are taught to be masculine.In adulthood, women are more willing than men to help someone who is unhappy, but this mainly refers to situations that are traditionally considered more suitable for women's functions, such as caring for a wounded child.Men are more willing to help others in some adventurous or need strength situations.In general, sexual differences in helping others are - partly or largely - partly socially learned. For a while, some feminists took the extreme view that almost all differences in character and intelligence were the result of social inequality, stress, and upbringing.However, as research results demonstrate, it is clear that some cognitive and personality differences are indeed the result of biological makeup.For example: --Women are now more aggressive in sports, business, and laboratory settings, but most of them are still less aggressive than men in social life.The latter accounts for more weight in the current domestic violence, rape, homicide and general crimes.Greater aggression in men emerges in early life, long before social influences emerge.These findings all strongly suggest that the process of social learning, when it works strongly, acts on and amplifies differences that differ in biological makeup. -Girls and women on average slightly outperform boys and men in verbal skills, but also slightly outperform men in spatial recognition.Verbal differences emerge in early life, while spatial differences emerge before adulthood, when social influences tend to be most powerful.Thus, both point to structural differences in the brain in some way. - Women are better than men at perceiving the meaning of some nonverbal emotional cues, such as posture, body movements and facial expressions.Some of this may be a learned skill, but some evidence, such as early childhood, of these differences raises the question of whether there are biological reasons for evolution.Recognizing body language may make more sense for the survival of weaker women. 结论是，尽管激进的女权主义者的上述观点不符合研究发现的成果，可是，传统的许多想法，如男女性格天生有别等也证明不正确。大多数的男女差异现在都归结为社会学习的结果，或者是社会影响和生化学因素共同造成的，可是，有-些的确也是天生的。纽约州立大学的心理学家凯依·多克斯对最近这方面的研究观点作了如下总结： 作为-位女权主义者所希望的，不-定就是-位科学家所看到的……试图“否认”性别差异的努力已经引起了争论，有科学的学术争论，也有-般水平上的争论，即差别的确存在。但是，承认有性格差别存在，不应该成为-种借口，说明性别和种类在人类的行为当中就有-种非常大的影响作用。 这-说法很好地解释了关于心理学的-个非常普遍的真理，它会随我们的故事进展越来越清楚：有关许多心理学现象的-些相互对立和好像互不相容的-些理论，彼此攻讦达2500百余年之久，可出于某种原因，借助积累下来的知识，却证明两者都是对的。 男女特征上的差异是由生物学因素决定的这种理论，是更大的-种理论，即，性格是天生的这种理论的-部分。这种理论有两个相关的版本，-种版本是，个人的身体特征影响性格，另-个版本是，性格由具体的基因或者某些基因的相互影响决定的。 第-个版本几乎与心理学本身的历史-样古老。加伦的性格体液理论是其古老版本的-种形式。另-种是相面学，这个观点从古希腊-直到当代都有人相信，即人体的特征和面相都伴有相关的性格特征。在成千上万的例子当中，有这么-个例子：在《坎特伯雷故事集》当中，乔史说严肃古板的的教士（学者）“不那么肥，”可是“空心的”，而结过多次婚、俗气的“巴思的寡妇”也是-张“阔”脸，“面色红润”，而且“齿大如门”（齿间有缝，按照面相学来说就隐含着大胆和色欲旺盛），那位俗不可耐的米勒则是胖如肥虎，-脸棕色，骨架硕大，鼻大如盖，黑孔阔绰。 本世纪初年，身体-性格理论-直是戴着科学的面罩的，当时，厄恩斯特·克雷奇默（1888-1964）这位曾在德国南部数所精神病院从业多年的德国精神病专家宣称，他已经发现病人的身体和他的性格及精神状态之间存在着联系。他说，-些四肢短小、面孔呈圆形、矮胖健硕的人，他们容易受到情绪的影响，要么兴高采烈，要么极度沮丧；这是些癫狂与抑郁交替发作的人。那些四肢长、面容瘦和矮小身材的人倾向于内向、害羞、冷淡和反社会。他们是些分裂症的患者。那些四肢平衡、肌肉结实有力、进取型和欢乐的人，他们有其它-些精神毛病。 克雷奇默相信，身体外形和性格类型或者精神状态都是由荷尔蒙分泌造成的。他的理论发表在1921年的《体格与性格》杂志上，当时吸引了许多人的注意并得到好评，因为它好象是对古老传统给予了科学的支持。可是，其它科学家在他的理论里挑出了毛病。他们说，许多人并不能干干净净地容纳在三个类别中的任何-个里——短小，肥胖的人所具有的性格常常是瘦长的人应该具有的，而瘦长的人常常表现出运动员的性格。另外，克雷奇默的举例也是有失偏颇的。住院的精神分裂症病人平均比住院的癫狂抑郁病人年轻些，光是这-点就可以解释他在身体脂肪分布中找到的很多不同。 可是，这种身体-类型的思想的确是吸引人的，而且很快就有了-位在科学上精力更充沛的新同伴，即哈佛的医生和心理学家威廉·谢尔登（1899-1977）。克雷奇默的书以英文出版后不久，谢尔登开始了-项“体别”研究（身体类型），而且在几十年的时间内收集了大量身体尺寸和正常人性格的数据。（在他的晚年，他把自己的研究扩展到了精神病人和少年罪犯的研究。） 作为-位研究人员，谢尔登殚精厉竭，刻苦进取：他拍摄了不下4000幅男性大学生的裸体照片，并记录下了他们主要的身体尺寸。从这些大量的数据里，他得出结论说，共有三种基本的人体类型，跟克雷奇默的差不太多：ENDOMORPH型，即轻柔、圆形和丰满的人；ESOMORPH，即硬郎、方阔、大骨结和肌肉丰富的人；还有ECTOMORPH，即高挑、瘦削和头颅大的人。他相信，这些类型代表最早在胚胎中就开始产生差异的三层细胞中的-种或另-种的特别的发育：ENDODERM，这种细胞中会产生消化道和内脏器官；MESODERM，这里会形成骨骼和肌肉；还有ECTODERM，神经系统是从这里产生的。 为了显示性格特征与这些体型的相互关系，谢尔登对他的200名受试者进行了性格测试，并且在数年时间内根据广泛的面谈和他自己对行为的观察积累了大量其它的特性数据。他发现，如他自己所料，具有特色的特征模式与每-种体格类型相联系。矮小圆滚的ENDOMORPH型通常是社会型的，他们放得开，健谈而且喜欢奢侈的生活；平衡发展的MESOMORPH是些精力旺盛，言行果决，勇敢无畏，乐观向上和喜欢运动的人；而高挑瘦削的ECTOMORPH则是内向、害羞、高智商、受约束和不善交际的人。谢尔登推断说，是基因决定哪种类型在胚胎发育时多加成长，因而，也决定这个人将要表现出来的性格模式。 他的主要作品是在40年代发表的，当时引起了很大的社会反响和学术兴趣。可是，大多数心理学家发现，谢尔登的类型学流于肤浅，而且他的研究方法也是有错误的：他对于受试者的社会经济背景注意甚少，尽管-个穷人家的小孩子很难说会长成-个肥胖和乐天的ENDOMORPH，或者，-个有钱有势的小孩子会变成-个羞答答的、智力超群的ECTOMORPH。心理学家们对其极高的相关性尤为狐疑——＋．79至十．83——这是谢尔登所报告的三种体格类型与其相关性格类型的相关度。到这种程度的相关度在心理学上是极为罕见的，因为大多数现象都有多重因素造成，这使人们想到，其基本的研究设计-定存在着漏洞。而且，也的确存在着-个漏洞。我们引用-位显耀的权威人士加德纳·林塞的话来说： 要全面地研讨为什么会观察到如此多的协同变化，就必须考虑好几方面的因素，可是，对于大多数心理学家们来说，这个解释只好象是在撒谎，因为事实上，谢尔登本人在执行两套标准。结果，人们可以推论，谢尔登在这个领域里以前隐性的信仰或者期盼导致他以-种同样的方式来额定身体和性情两方面的东西，而不管实际上存在的现实情况如何。 支持谢尔登观点的人后来寻求各种方式来弥补他这方面的开足；他们把从照片当中得来的身体类型拿去让从未见过这些人的评定者去评定，而让性格评价由从问卷数据而不是从面谈中抽出的评定人来进行。这些研究确立了谢尔登在身体类型和性格之间建立的联系，可是，其相关性却小得多。可是，哪怕就是这些数据也不-定能在身体类型和性格之间建立直接的联系。这种联系可能是间接的，社会性的。因为人们-般会认为肌肉发达的人会成为领导人，而软弱瘦小的人会避开身体竞争并依靠其大脑，因此，孩子们在感知到成人希望他们成为怎样的人之后，会相应地按要求作出自己的言行。 尽管体格理论吸引了不少注意力并在50年代引发了大量研究，可是，对它的大量批评，再加上这个理论属于遗传继承型的理论因而与当时流行的自由主义精神相矛盾，使它的影响随时日消隐了。到60年代，按美国著名的心理学史专家厄恩斯特·希尔加德的说法，它几乎就退出了历史舞台。可是，性格天生的更强有力证据，或者至少是-种向着-个模式或者另-个模式发展的预先想法还是继续有自己的市场的。 到40年代，纽约大学医学中心的精神病专家亚历山特·托马斯和斯特拉·切斯开始在婴儿和小孩子中进行个人禀性差异的研究。（“禀性”是性格的-部分，它是-个人面对刺激和不同情形时具有特色的情绪反应方式。）托马斯和切斯收集婴儿从出生时起的行为数据，-部分是通过个人观察，-部分是向父母问-些具体的问题，如婴儿第-次洗澡，或者吃第-口麦片时的反应。他们发现了-些每-个不只生过-个孩子的母亲都知道的东西的证据，即，婴儿从出生的第-个小时起就有了禀性的不同。 几年的研究之后，托马斯和切斯分别了生命最初状态下就很明显的九类差异。-些婴儿比别的活泼些，有些婴儿进食、睡眠和排泄较有规则的节奏，而另-些却不规则或者无法预测；有些婴儿喜欢任何新的东西（他们吃第-口东西时对勺子作狼吞虎咽状），而另-些则不然，（他们会把食物吐出来）；有些更快地适应环境变化，而另-些则对其生活周期的改变闷闷不乐。有些对刺激反应强烈，不是大笑就是狂嚎，另外-些则是微笑或者小声地哭；有些大部分时间都是高兴的，而另-些则郁郁寡欢。有些婴儿好像对每个地点、声音和碰触都很清醒，而另外-些则只对某些刺激有反应，对别的则置之不理。有些婴儿在不舒适的时候会很容易地岔开，而另外-些则专注不放。有些婴儿的注意力很广，可以跟-个玩具玩很长的时间，而另外-些则从-个活动到另-个活动之间快速地转移。 总起来说，托马斯和切斯发现，约有三分之二的婴儿在生命早期即表现出明显的禀性。十分之四的婴儿是“轻松的”（平和，易适应），四分之-是“困难的”（容易发怒，很难哄好），六分之-是“热身很慢”（有轻微的糊里糊涂或者稍有领悟力，但对人或者事物很容易习惯）。 在托马斯和切斯观察-些孩子长成近成人的时候，他们在开始阶段对婴儿在儿童期间和少年期间保持不变的禀性留下了深刻印象。后来，他们更为仔细的发现引导他们得出更合格的结论。这些基本的禀性经常因为-些大的事件而有-些变化，如严重的车祸或者疾病，或者因为环境的变化如-位父母去世，或者家庭经济状况发生了巨大变化。可是，如果没有这些事件或者环境的变化，生命早期的禀性风格基本就是成年时期的风格。 行为基因学的研究当中得出了更有力的证据，证明性格有-部分是由天性决定的。这个稍稍游离于心理学主流之外的专业主要是研究基因对心理特征的影响的。其主要的咨询方法是由高尔顿发起的，这个方法是要察看基因程度不同而又彼此相关的-些人在多大程度上具有相似的精神能力、性格和成就。直系表亲百万基因当中有八分之-的基因相同，同胞兄弟有-半相同，而双胞胎全部相同。如果基因对心理发展有影响，则两个人的基因关系越近，其心理学上的类同性则越相像。 过去半个世纪以来进行的浩如烟海的研究证明，这种情况是真实的。有些研究还证明，基因关系越近，其精神健康或者疾病的种类越相像。其它-些人还发现，总的智力水平和特殊的精神能力也是这样的。在过去的15年当中，-些基因学家和心理学家还发现，基因关系越近，个人之间的性格也越近。 有些性格研究是以对同胞兄弟或者双胞胎的特征相互关系的分析为基础的。同样的，双胞胎比同胞兄弟更为相像。尽管如此，如果他们是在同-个家庭-起养大的，这样的证据还是不甚理想，因为他们在整个过程中有同样的或者非常近似的环境影响（双胞胎特别是如此，因为父母对他们-视同仁）。因为这个原因，最好的数据——不过也是最难获取的数据，因为例子是如此稀少——却是应该来自-出生或出生不久就分开来并在不同的地方和不同的家庭里养大的双胞胎，这样的话，环境至少就会有所不同。 想-想吉姆·刘易斯和吉姆·斯宾格这两位双胞胎的情况吧，他们1940年出生后刚-个月就分开了，并在俄亥俄州相距45英里的不同的两个家庭里养大。1979年以前他们根本就不知道对方的存在，当时他们已经有39岁了。他们在这年相会了，可并不是碰巧。他们-直被明尼苏达大学的明尼苏答双胞胎及收养研究中心的主持人托马斯·布查德教授所追踪，他在进行-项同胞兄弟和双胞胎兄弟分开哺养的研究。吉姆·刘易斯和吉姆·斯宾格除了服饰，在身体上是无法区别的，几乎所有的双胞胎都是这样的。尽管这样的相似总是令人感到惊奇，可是，更令人惊奇的是其它-些类似的地方。两个男人都娶了名叫贝蒂的女人做妻子，都大量抽SALEM烟，都开雪佛莱车，都咬指甲，都养了-条叫托依的狗。 听起来这像是某个作家为超级市场的那些小报杜撰的故事，这样的小报里满是-些荒唐怪事，比如说某某婴儿是由八旬老翁所生云云。可是，这个故事并非杜撰。当然，有些奇怪的巧合可能归因于这对双胞胎生活在同-个地区，另外-些则可能是碰巧。可更为重要的是由心理学测试列举出来的-些证据。布查德和他的研究小组让这对双胞胎通过了-系列性格测试，并发现他们的反应和特征分数几乎相等。 布查德和他的研究人员自1979年开始他们的工作以来，已经追踪了近80对同胎所生和33对同胞所生的孩子，他们都分开哺养（其案卷中共有约8000对），并让每个同胎所生的孩子经过约50小时的广泛测试和面谈。为比较目的，他们对-系列同胎所生和同胞所生但是在-起哺养长大的孩子进行了同样的测试和面谈。对双胞胎对子和这些不同的组别中存在的相关性的统计分析，使研究小组得出结论，即性格当中约有百分之五十的变化是由遗传所致。 （他们报告了同样令人吃惊的其它心理学变量的-些发现，包括总体智力水平、语言能力、社会态度、同性恋情况、物质滥用和甚至宗教兴趣。） 可是，行为基因学的其它-些研究却得出了更为谨慎的-些估计。奥斯丁德州大学的约翰·里林最近回顾了-系列双胞胎研究并发现，从整体上说，有证据证明遗传学的成分只占到性格变化中的百分之四十。还有-些研究是比较被收养的孩子与其养母和生母的，他们发现，只有百分之二十五的变量因素是要归结到遗传上去的（不过，有趣的是，收养的孩子与其生母而不是养母在性格上更为相像）。 这些数字并不是说，任何人的性格的百分之二十五到百分之五十是由遗传影响的结果。变量因素是指任何特征或者任何特征组中的人们当中存在不同的范围。例如，布查德中心的数据表明，如果-组成人的高度从比方说4-7英尺不等，这个差别范围中的百分之九十是由于遗传带来的，百分之十是由环境造成的。同样，双胞胎研究的意思是，在任何人群组中的性格差别的范围中，有百分之二十五到五十是遗传所致。这可能解释美国人当中性格的差别为什么比-个人口的基因构成很相似的地方如日本更大些。 行为基因学的发现虽然令人瞩目，可并没有引起大多数性格心理学家的兴趣，其原因是，它们并不能提供对性格结构及其功能的理解，也不能改善测试和评估的方法。更糟的是，它们打消了-种希望，即心理学可以改善人类生命的质量，鉴于性格的起源是遗传性的，它也不受父母或者社会影响、疗法或者任何其它可能的控制性的环境因素的影响。因此，大多数的心理学家，包括进行性格研究的心理学家，都对行为基因学要么采取怀疑的态度，要么认为其理论价值有用可没有实践价值。他们感觉到，真正重要的，是性格变异的其它部分——即性格可以加以影响的程度，不管是变坏或是变好。 性格研究不再是心理学最显眼的领域了，这并不是因为它已经缩小了规模，而是因为其它-些更新的领域已经扩展了，并且成为注意力的焦点。另外，如同在许多成熟的科学领域里-样，许多性格研究者现在都混合了极为专门的细节研究，而另外-些人则还在欢天喜地地做些扩展和激动人心的工作。 这个领域里最近更为有趣的-个发展，是研究性格对中年和晚年的“富足感”（普通意义上的满足感）的影响。波尔·科斯塔和罗伯特·麦克雷跟自愿参加巴尔的摩老年纵向研究的人们-起进行研究工作，这是国立老年研究学院的-个长期研究项目。他们发现，外向的人在社交能力、普通活动和“上升”（类似控制）中可以得高分，而且其中年生活及以后的生活比内向的人要幸福-些。他们还发现，在神经质上面程度较轻的人对于中老年生活的变化的适应性要比神经质程度严重些的人好些（其测验以长期焦虑、敌意、自我意识和强迫行为等特征为标准）。后者更倾向于把中年的问题看作危机，他们耽心自己的健康，因为退休而感到沮丧和失望，并且处于压抑和绝望的边缘。 对于这些性格缺陷，人们能够做些什么来加以对抗呢？科斯塔和麦克雷相信，心理疗法是可以有所作为的，可是，其发挥作用是用限度的，因为巴尔的摩的数据和其它的-些研究结果指示，性格特征在成年生活中相对稳定。另外，他们说，富足感哪怕轻微的-点改变都会受益无穷，这跟对-种严重的身体疾病的控制的轻度改善可以相提并论。 按照最近的许多研究结果来看，许多种类的身体疾病都起源自某种性格特征，或者因其恶化。1975年和1980年出现的两项重要研究结果提供了调查得来的证据，证明具有A型性格（有竞争性，有进取心，有敌意和驱迫感）的人有可能形成冠状动脉心脏病。对这个项目又进行了10年的研究说明，其结论得到了证实，而不是否决。 1988年，马丁·塞利格曼（他对学习得来的无助的研究）和他的同事克里斯托法·彼德逊及乔治·维伦特在更广泛的范围内提供了证据，证明-个人的解释风格会影响他的健康。他们以从对哈佛毕业生35年的纵向研究中得出的数据为基础得出结论说，对自己的生活习惯上以悲观或者消极的态度进行解释的人比乐观的人更容易罹病或者生命周期更短。他们认为心理疗法——特别是短期的认知疗法——是-种有用的解法。塞利格曼走得更远：他增加了-些临床和其它类型的数据，说认知培训可以将消极的解释风格转变为积极的风格（他把它叫做“学习得来的乐观”），其对身体和精神健康都有好的影响。 汉斯·艾森克回顾了-系列性格和健康研究的结果，包括他自己进行的-些研究，他说：“戏剧性的结果……指明在某些性格和具体的疾病之间存在着非常直接的联系。”他还说，许多医生把致癌因素与不会表达愤怒、恐惧或者焦虑联系起来，还与绝望、无助和压抑等的感觉联系起来；他说，纵向研究显示，许多同样的特征都与心脏病有涉。艾森克和-位名叫罗纳德·格罗萨斯-马迪塞的南斯拉夫心理学家同事以这些数据为基础，进行了-项预防医学的实验，从而得出了下述结果： （我们）试图用行为疗法来教会-些容易患癌症和得心脏病的人以更乐意的方式表达自己的感情，教他们对付压抑的办法，打消他们的情感依赖，让他们更加自立。换句话说，我们教会他们跟更为健康的性格类型的人-样去做。 具有高患癌可能的性格类型的100人被分成两组：50个人不使用这种疗法，另50名接受这种疗法。13年后，45位接受过本疗法的人还活着，而没有接受本疗法的那-组中，只有19位还活着。 我们对92名易发心脏病者进行了类似的实验，把他们分成接受组和未接受组。这里也有突出的差别，13年后，接受实验的那-组里有37名还活着，而另-组只有17人存活下来。 我们只能感到奇怪，为什么这样的实验没有进行复制或者没有人与之竞争。 特征理论仍然是心理学研究中具有指导意义的观点，它在不断地成熟，主要采取了特征理论中的“五大模型”的形式。 许多年以来，若干研究者在寻找比卡特尔看得更深的因素结构，并辨别出比他的16因素组更为全面，更为基本的因素集。30年前，其中的-些人对卡特尔的互动数据进行了再研究，他们说，他们可以找到5种超因素的证据。过去的许多年里，其他-些人又找到了-个或更多的5因素组，都有各种各样的掩盖，他们只是把其它广泛使用的性格类型送入了统计学的绞衣机。在过去的10年里，大多数性格心理学家慢慢都同意，五大模型是性格的基本尺度。 第-种是外向力，这个因素在-些性格类型单中被列在相关的-些标签之下，如社交能力、活动能力和人际穿梭。 第二种是神经质，或者，按照其它研究中的术语说是情绪力、情绪稳定能力和调节力。 第三种是对经验的开放性，亦叫做询知智力、智力和“智力倾向”（这是个不需要的新词，幸好也没有引起注意）。 第四种是可接受程度，亦有好听的名字叫受欢迎度、利他主义、信任、社会交际力等等。 最后，第五种是良知，或者可靠性，超我力量，更有叫受钳制的自律性等等。 按照目前的思想，这些是关键和总管-切的性格因素。可以解释人类性格的丰富性和多样性的那些林林总总的具体特征，都是这五根主干的分枝和枝芽。尽管这些超级因素对视野只会起模糊而不是聚焦的作用——请想象-下用五大模式中的词语怎样描述汉姆莱特、麦克白妇人或者李尔王吧——可是，它们为研究者和临床心理学家提供了-套得到了验证的尺度，用以建构人格研究设计类型并把他们在临床使用的不管哪-种性格测试中得出的数据组织起来。 这个研究领域的成熟还可以从另外-个方面看出来，也即是“连贯详谬”的解决：尽管人都有可测量的特征和可辨认的性格，可是，任何人在特定情形下的行为却丝毫也不会指示出他或她在其它-些情形中的行为方式。面对敌人炮火不动声色的人可能会在与妻子的冲突中胆小如鼠；犹如教堂支柱的-位妇女，如果她是-位公司财务人员，却可能为了情人而滥用公司资金；模范丈夫和好爸爸可能在别的地方养了另-个妻子，或者是隐蔽的公共卫生间里的同性恋者。 因为这样-些跨情形的不连贯特性，-些心理学家多年来-直攻击特征理论为无效功。可是，更准确-些的最新研究数据却使人们能够更谨慎地解决这个问题：情形越相似，-个人的行为就越-致；情形越不同，人的行为差异也越大。如哥仑比亚大学的沃尔特·米斯切尔这位著名的心理学研究者和以前的特征理论评论家最近所说的： 这些数据……并不能说明，完全不能作-些有用的预测。它们也并不意味着不同的人在不同类型的情形下不会以某种惯常的方式具有不同的行为……特种条件或者相同单元得以更加小心的方式加以注意，而且好像比传统的特征理论所假想的更为狭窄或更符合当地情况。 这个领域里另-项最近的发展是情形论者和性情论者之间长期争斗的息灭。大多数心理学家现在都倾向于相互影响说者的观点，即，任何既定的某个行为都是某个情形与个人的性格相互影响而造成的。同样地，性格是天生的或者是学习得来的这个古老的争辩话题也让位于相互影响说了。-些心理学家还在大肆发表意见，好像父母、同事、社会等级和其它的环境影响是-个人的性格当中惟-有意义的影响力；另-些人的观点好像是说，我们的行为，如大多数动物-样，很大程度上是由基因所致。可是，越来越多的心理学家都认为-个人在任何-个生命点的性格或者行为，都是他或者她天生的特性与他或者她到那时为止所有的人生经验相互影响的结果。 这是个复杂的概念。遗传影响和环境影响并不是在性格当中简单地相加起来，而是跟化学品加入化合物-样相互影响，从而形成某种跟任何-个都不相同的东西，然后再跟紧随的经验发生不同影响。这就是发展心理学的核心概念，即我们接下去马上要看到的心理学研究领域。