15: Personology & Psychobiography Flashcards
Broadly, what is personology? What is its approach?
The study of individual human lives in as much detail as possible.
Primarily ideographic, in contrast to nomothetic (i.e., large sample) research.
Personology values complexity, not parsimony. List two factors associated with this.
Personology is shaped by numerous and various forces (i.e., behaviour is multiply determined).
Personology is a complex, lifelong, never-ending enterprise; any attempt to reduce a person to a single moment misses dynamic nature of personality.
Personologists are generalists, not specialists. List two factors associated with this.
Focuses on the close examination of mental life, both conscious and unconscious, with special interest in creativity.
Requires a multidisciplinary approach, and special strategies; do not rely on any single data measurement strategy (e.g., self-report, quantitative, etc.).
What is a complex? What does it embrace?
Complex: a clustering of emotionally charged ideas, originally from Jung.
Embraces a study of people that lies at the intersection of literature and psychology.
Murray used the story of Icarus to unify the Icarus Complex in one of his test subjects, Grope. What are three themes as they relate to Grope?
Ascenscionism: wish to overcome gravity, seen in dreams of flying, and a desire for “money, power, glory, and fame.”
Cynosural narcissism: craving for unsolicited attention and admiration.
Falling: earliest memory of dinner crashing to the floor, the “fall” when transferring to Harvard, similar responses on TAT.
What does post-positivism accept and reject? What is the aim?
Accepts notion of objective reality outside of our senses that we can study.
Rejects incommensurability, assumes that there is one true way of seeing the world.
Aim is to simplify and unify. Parsimony guides research and theory.
Personology assumptions accept what? What is the aim?
Accepts notion of objective reality that can be studied.
Also accepts incommensurability, assumes there are multiple, equally valid ways to understand the world.
Generalists, therefore draw from many different domains to try and create a composite image of people. Embraces complexity over parsimony.
List six rules for preparing a psychological case study.
Must be accurate and report truthfully.
Aims and objectives of the case study must be stated explicitly (exemplifying, discovering, comparing).
Case study should include an evaluation of how well the objectives have been achieved.
If inquiry is of deep emotional significance for the subject, must be carried out by someone trained to handle a long and difficult personal relationship.
Subject must be understood in the context of their social, historical, and symbolic world.
Case study should be written in plain English that is direct, but also without losing its human interest as a story.
What are four criticisms of case studies?
Poor reliability.
Internal coherence (“narrative truth”) often used as criterion for evaluation; problematic, as multiple viewpoints can be correct.
Lacks external validity.
Useful for discovery, poor for testing theory (not good for hypothesis testing).
What is psychobiography?
Systematic use of psychological (especially personality) theory to transform a life into a coherent and illumining story. Biography, but viewed through particular theoretical lens.
Describe Eleanor Marx and script theory’s perspective on her life.
Argued that her life had a strong commitment script in many domains (e.g., political, love).
Was the combination of many of these falling apart (e.g., Aveling’s infidelity, setbacks of the Socialist movement) that may have led to suicide.
What are 9 guidelines for extracting psychobiography data?
Primacy: “That which comes first.” Special emphasis on early experiences.
Frequency: “That which appears often.” Events that happen often shape the person.
Uniqueness: “That which is singular or odd.” Some events are uncommon, but powerful.
Negation: “That which is denied, or turned into its opposite.” For psychodynamic thinkers, defense mechanisms.
Emphasis: “That which is underscored or stressed.” Do people place too much emphasis on seemingly trivial things?
Omission: “That which is missing.” Perhaps a defense mechanism.
Error/Distortion: “That which is a mistake.” May be a sort of “Freudian Slip.”
Isolation: “That which is alone, or doesn’t fit.” Is it just a mistake? Or is it revealing something hidden?
Incompletion: “That which is not finished.” Like omission, details that are conspicuously missing may be informative.
Regarding Sylvia Plath and the social disconnection model, what are four traits that may have led to depressive symptoms?
Love depended on her achievements.
Father passed away when she was 8 years old, developed fear of abandonment.
Always needed attention, later especially from men.
Easily became overwhelmed by trying to be the best at too many things at once.
List seven criticisms of psychobiography.
Critical-period fallacy: post-hoc, over-emphasis of early events.
Eventism: attempting to explain major trends in human lives based on single, often traumatic events.
Inadequate evidence: data incomplete and from varied sources.
Neglect of social and historical factors.
Originology: trying to trace all important features of a person back to childhood.
Overpathologizing: reducing a human life down to a particular syndrome or neurotic tendency.
Reconstruction: sometimes, psychodynamic writers will infer childhood events to which there is no evidence.
