0.4 Personality psychology and social interaction

The task of personality theory and research is perhaps the most daunting in psychology, since it is in this area that we face most directly the need to predict the behavior of individuals, with all the complexity that this implies. The earliest attempts to give a personological explanation of behavior were based on typologies. Typologies of individual go back to antiquity, and Hippocrates; four basic types of temperament (choleric, melancholic, sanguine and phlegmatic) have shown an extraordinary staying power, if not in psychology, then at least is popular usage. No less popular are Kretchmer's (1926) attempts to relate psychological disorders to body build (e.g. "pyknic" and "asthenic" types), and the later extension of this typology to normals. His theory was developed by Sheldon (1949), who proposed three body-build based types (endormorphic, mesomorphic, ectomorphic). These biologically based typologies of personality, although manifestly speculative in their origins, have profoundly affected popular thinking. Perhaps only one typology was more successful in this respect, Jung's (1923) introverted and extroverted categories. These attempts to acount for the rich variety of individual behavior in terms of typologies proves largely unsuccessful. It in arguable, however, that the failure of the typological approach was attributable to the naivete of the methods used for defining types, rather than to the inherent falsity of the underlying principle of the existence of "human types". The continuing use of typological terms in everyday, commonsense situations suggests that typological approaches to personality may have some role to play, if only to explain everyday "naive" psychology.

It makes sense to me that there are going to be a few basic types of personality (typologies). You can put almost everyone into a few group types, and this is true in pretty much every situation. For instance there are only a few social groups, political groups, etc. When you break down how unique each individual is, however, you realize you could have a much more advanced way of labeling and categorizing the traits of personality.

Dynamic, motivational models of personality constitute the second main theoretical stream. These theories assume that deep-seated, and often unconscious motivations and impulses are the most important determinants of personality. Such impulses are not directly ascertainable, and can only be discovered through the study and interpretation of observable surface behaviors, which are the "symptoms" revealing the hidden mainsprings of personality. Dynamic theories have also included models of the structure, development and topography of personality (Frued, 1959). Until the recent advent of behaviorism in clinical psychology, dynamic theories were important as integrative models in an otherwise increasingly eclectic discipline. Their influence on academic psychology has been much more limited, however due to the serious difficulties associated with the quantification of the variables included in dynamic models of personality.