personality structures

7/28/2019 Personality Structures

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Addressing Personality StructureOne of the most critical decisions in

studying personality psychology, is how best

to divide the system. A complex system suchas personality can be validly divided in morethan one way. The Systems Framework for

Personality Psychology (SFPP) suggestsseveral innovations in regard tounderstanding personality structure.


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First, complex systems can be divided inmore than one valid way. Second, not all

divisions are equally valid. Third, criteria canbe divised (and met) for good divisions(Mayer, 2001).


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Personality can be divided in more

than one valid way There are a number of ways that have been employed

to divide personality.

Moses Mendelsohn had divided personality intomotives, emotion, and cognition (Hilgard, 1981).

Freud divided personality into the conscious,preconscious, and unconscious, and later, into theid, ego, and superego (Freud, 1923/1960).

More recently, a number of trait psychologists havesuggested that personality can be divided into 5 BigTraits (Goldberg, 1993; Costa & McCrae, 1985).


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The Systems Framework for PersonalityPsychology allows the field to reconcile thesedifferent divisions of personality byunderstanding that the different divsions

serve different purposes.For example, Freud's division of the mind

help distinguish between areas of personality

that differ in their level-of-processing.Whereas the id represents evolutionarilyearly-developing processes, the ego

represents later-evolved processes.


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At the same time as the Systems Frameworkallows for seeing the relation and purposes

of these divisions, it also indicates that thedivisions are not all equivalent. Rather,there are better and worse division of mind.

Any fundamental division of mind such asthe above must meet specific criteria forwhat will form a good division ofpersonality.


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Personality Structures: 1. Partial Structures

Somewhere between the consideration of

individual personality parts (e.g., n achievement,extroversion, intelligence), covered in thepreceding survey page(s), and global personalitystructure (e.g., broad areas of personality function

such as conation, affect, motivation), it makessense to talk about the structure of groups ofpersonality parts as a transitional topic. This topicconcerns how groups of individual parts --especially traits, for example -- build into largerstructures.


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Example 1: Supertraits

An example of a partial personality structureis a supertrait. Super traits are structuresmade up of distinct but intercorrelated

traits. An example of such a super trait isExtraversion. Extraversion is a so-calledsuper trait because it has a structure to itthat includes several additional traits. That

is, it is composed of a number of distinct,smaller traits.


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For example, from some perspectives,

extraversion is composed of lively affect(also called surgency), sociability, andimpulsiveness.

Example 2: Personality Types (orPersonality Forms)

A second example of a partial personality

structure is a "personality type."


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For example, the brilliant 20th-century

diagnostician Paul Meehl pointed out thatcertain distinct MMPI patterns occur muchmore frequently than others. Thosepatterns (he would argue, if I understandhim correctly) occur together, again,because they function together to create ameaningful mental (or behavioral) pattern.


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Many people are more familiar with the

typology of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.Certain MBTI profiles are likely to occurmore often than others, and others aremuch rarer. For example, the INTJ type (anIntroverted-Intuitive-Thinking-Judgingtype) is a fairly common type amongpersonality psychologists, so I'm told, and

would also potentially represent a functionalform suited for such work, perhaps. (Forexample, introversion would promote

studiousness).

personality structures

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