Dimensions of Personality

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDIToRs: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017 VoL. XXXIII OCTOBER, 1969 No.4 DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY THE PRESENT time there are dozens or scores of theories of personality competing for general acceptance and obtaining enough support to afford intellectual respectability, and there are more if we include, more broadly speaking, views of human nature. Some are associated with prominent names and schools of psychology, e. g., Freud, Jung, Adler, Fromm, H. S. Sullivan, Murray, Lewin, Allport, Rogers, Murphy, Maslow, Horney, Goldstein, Cattell, Angyal and Eysenck, and others represent more general currents of thought: Christianity, Marxism, Existentialism, Humanism, Behaviorism, etc. Most of these views of human personality purport to be complete at least in the essentials. It is not remarkable therefore that many overlap in a number of their substantive conclusions, nor even that many contradict each other. What is more remarkable is the number which seem mutually irrelevant, as if they were explaining wholly disparate subjects. It is as if man is so complex a creature that he 611 61!!2 MICHAEL STOCK can be studied " exhaustively " by one investigator and by another, and neither sees what totally preoccupies his colleague. With this situation in view, it seems to be of some value to try simply to sketch or outline the dimensions of human personality as a basis for judging the completeness of present theories and a preamble to formulating new ones. By dimensions we mean more or less clearly distinguishable spheres or aspects of vital operations which are prominent enough to figure as components in the tatum which is called personality. In the following pages an attempt will be made to do this, to present those facets or features which can claim consideration in an overall theory of personality. The principal aim is comprehensiveness : to include all that must be eventually taken into account. It is impossible, however, unless one were content to present a mere table of contents, to avoid statements about the dynamic inter-relations of these components, and therefore this essay goes beyond the simple presentation of components and into the beginnings of actual theorizing. Or, one could argue that dynamic considerations are as much components of personality as structural definitions and belong equally as much in the preamble. To formulate this comprehensive view of personality we have abstracted eight spheres of factors which have been selected as fundamental conceptions or basic points of view in terms of which personality can be systematically outlined. Each sphere is described in terms of its more important elements and the principal variables affecting them. Note is also made of the limitations of this approach (and perhaps of any approach) in terms of the aspects of personality which seem impenetrable. The eight spheres are 1) the basic givens, 2) the operating field 3) the general operating principle, 4) the specific operating poles, 5) the operating limits, 6) the operating tools, 7) the operating base, and 8) the resolution of competing operations . DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY I. SYSTEMATIC OuTLINE oF PERSONALITY 1. THE BASIC GIVENS Universal Human Nature 618 Man is a rational animal. Like the other higher animals, man lives and breathes, seeks food and drink and nourishes himself, finds or makes shelters to protect himself from the weather, mates and produces offspring and cares for them, fights or flees from enemies, associates with his own kind in groups, responds to their cries for help and cries for help himself , labors as he must and plays when he can, and continuously searches curiously in his enviroment, exploring and investigating . Unlike all other animals, he thinks, he reasons about the way he does things, and whether he can do them better, and wonders why he does them at all. By dint of thinking he produces art, science, politics, religion, literature, philosophy, mathematics, technology, and all the other facets of culture which mark him off in sharp contrast to the rest of the animal world. The Six Levels of Basic Capacities Fundamentally, man is a creature compounded of six intricately related systems of organic and anorganic capacities, through which he is stimulated...