Not long ago, in the reunion group for students of the New Knowledge Course, I was discussing Todd Rose’s book The End of Average with some friends. In the book, Professor Rose puts forward a deeply counterintuitive idea: there is no such thing as a person’s “overall personality.” What kind of personality someone displays depends entirely on the situation they’re in. A teacher may be witty and effortlessly chatty in the classroom, yet awkward and timid on a blind date. So, would you call this person introverted or extroverted?
The book cites research showing that people’s scores on various personality tests are almost entirely unable to predict how they will behave in specific situations. So, in broad terms, there is only the personality people display in particular situations; there is no such thing as “what kind of personality this person has.”
This idea fits with some of our own experience. I myself can be witty and effortlessly chatty in class, yet extremely introverted in many other situations. But at the same time, the idea is deeply counterintuitive—I am almost completely certain that I have a somewhat introverted temperament, and I act introverted in the vast majority of situations. So if someone is introverted in 90% of situations and extroverted in only 10%, can we still say that “this person is a bit introverted” is an illusion?
Perhaps there are two levels of personality (for convenience, I use “personality” as an umbrella term covering concepts such as character and temperament).
The first level is how people behave in specific situations—in other words, the character Todd Rose describes in The End of Average.
The second level is people’s general, overall tendencies. This is the level that personality tests measure.
In Chinese introductory psychology textbooks, these two levels are often distinguished using the terms “character” and “temperament.” Temperament is an inner tendency, while character is its specific expression—the two may not be mutually exclusive, but rather two levels of personality. Temperament, meanwhile, could be called the average of character (which happens to push back against the title The End of Average): if someone is introverted in 90% of situations and extroverted in 10%, then we can say that, on average, this person’s temperament is somewhat introverted, while they may display an extroverted character in certain situations.
******
A more scientific theory of levels of personality comes from Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern University. McAdams proposed that personality has 3 levels.
1. Dispositional Traits
The lowest level is called “dispositional traits”: “the multidimensional personality that appears across different situations and persists from childhood through old age. Examples include threat sensitivity, curiosity, extraversion, and conscientiousness. These traits are not psychological modules that some people possess and others lack; they are more like adjustments to brain systems that everyone has.”
—This is fairly similar to what introductory psychology calls “temperament.”
2. Characteristic Adaptations
The second level is “characteristic adaptations.” “These traits emerge as we grow. They are called adaptations because they are people’s responses to particular environments and challenges.”
—This is fairly similar to what introductory psychology calls “character,” which is also the character described in The End of Average.
3. Life Narratives
The third level is “life narratives”—“the narrative stories people weave in order to make sense of life’s meaning.” “These narratives are not necessarily true: they are simplified and selective reconstructions of the past, always connected to an ideal future. But even though, to some extent, a life narrative is a fabrication made after the fact, it still has an important influence on people’s behavior, social relationships, and mental health.”
In other words, “life narratives” are a person’s self-identity, identity, and values. To a great extent, they guide people’s long-term goals and future actions.
******
I think “characteristic adaptations” depend more on specific situations. At this level, it makes no sense to ask what someone’s overall personality is. But at the levels of “dispositional traits” and “life narratives,” we can still describe what kind of person someone is “overall, on average.”
p.s.：
McAdams’s theory of personality was informed by Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind.
Note
- This series of articles from the “New Psychology Knowledge Short Course” was written as popular psychology and casual commentary to accompany the related content in Zhichao Wei: New Psychology Knowledge Course. They were published on the now-closed platform Fantuan, and the original link no longer exists.
Leave a Reply