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Narrative approaches to personality

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Title: Narrative approaches to personality


1
Narrative approaches to personality self -
culture postmodernism
  • Angela Hough
  • Room 45 psychology

2
Overview1. Traditional approaches to
personality/ Modern knowable self versus
distributed self2. Narrative conceptions of self
(Anderson p41) 3. Postmodern conceptions of
self/ pluralistic self /decentralised self/
dispersed self (Rappaport, Baumgardner Boone-
p.189 Watkins, p.220)4. Influence of culture
Mascolo, p140 ) 5. Overview integration
(Watkins, p.220)
3
Questions
  • Who are you?
  • Describe your personality when you are with
    varsity friends/home/in a social world?
  • What constituted selfhood?
  • Where do you get messages about who to become?
  • What influences who you are? (e.g.childhood
    experience, our bodies, parents, internalised
    familial voices, culture, media, gender, race,
    context, education, individuality, friends)
  • What are your multiple roles/characters you play?
  • Can behaviour in working class community in
    Khayelitsha be understood by theoretical
    constructs developed from middle class America

4
Study of personality
  • No THE personality theory
  • Personality gains meaning by perspectives brought
    to bear on it - truth of perspective in order to
    select best fit perspective
  • These lectures look at narrative and social
    constructionist perspectives

5
Aspects of being a person (the self)
  • To be a person involves
  • embodiment - vehicle for exercising skills,
    communicating, relating to others, being-
    in-the-world, its functioning, look and
    capabilities
  • Centrality of subjective experience -
    consciousness, sense of self identity, agency
    (initiate thought actions responsibility for
    actions) and cognition, awareness of inner
    thoughts world around us (multiplicity).
  • To be intrinsically related to others,constrain
    and provide opportunities, medium for our
    existence- social practices, meanings customs,
    ways of thinking from social settings, ways
    people respond to us, moral order of our time.
    Unconscious feelings- not conscious of all our
    choices feelings etc.
  • Interrelationship and interactions over time
    between these strands.

6
The Knowing self and personality in Traditional
(Euro-American) psychology
  • Objective absolute reality which is knowable
  • Knowledge transferred by experts
  • Knower stripped of age, gender, values, culture,
    position
  • Cartesian dualism mind - body, self - context
    separate.
  • Interior of individual is object of enquiry

7
Modern Knowable self
  • Sets of characteristics inherent in individuals
    make different from others.
  • Centrality of individual, intrapsychic processes
    interpersonal familial structures on
    influencing personality
  • Person self contained, consistent across times
    and situations, observable and knowable/discoverab
    le by self others
  • Bounded, unique, autonomous, internal integrated
    motivational and cognitive system, the centre of
    emotion, judgment awareness
  • Self contained individualism (Hermans)
    independent view of self (Markus Kitayama),
    encapsulated self (Anderson)

8
An alternative perspective?
  • Little consideration of cultural psychosocial
    context and societal factors in influencing
    personality
  • Mainstream psychological theory developed in
    particular socio-historical contexts and class
    groupings
  • Tendency not to challenge the societal status quo
  • Interdependence of biological, psychological
    social factors on aetiology of mental dis-ease
    (WHO, 2001), e.g. role of women
  • Self in non-western societies self defined in
    terms of relationships- collectivist and
    interdependent
  • Self merged - self and other, self and context
  • Consciousness emerges in fields of meaning which
    are socially and culturally organised

9
The decentralisation of self - Hermens and Kempen
  • Decarte - Cogito I think therefore I am -
    dentralised ego in full control of own thoughts
    challenged as culturally biased
  • Decentralisation of self self as multiplicity
    of voices rather than unitary thought process
  • Bakhtin - self a multiplicity of characters
    related in dialogical way.
  • Mulifaceted possibilities of self
  • Subpersonalities and imagoes as characters in
    self narrative

10
Multiple faces of madonna
11
Postmodern architecture
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14
What is it?
  • Multiple perspectives
  • Flexible (materials, moral values)
  • No grand narratives
  • Mixes old and new
  • Multiple possibilities
  • No rules

15
Multi-faceted and possibilities of self (Hermens
and Kempen)
  • Self seen as multifaceted phenomenon set of
    images, schemas, conceptions, theories and goals.
  • Multiplicity of identity - personal feeling a s
    well as roles and status
  • Dynamic process of possible selves (e.g. The self
    one would like to be and afraid of becoming are
    motivational forces
  • Influences by recent conceptions of textuality
    text as act of dialogue between 2 actors (author
    and reader) - each time tell life story differs
    according to context (constantly reinterpreted)

16
Distributed self
  • Social constructionists argue for merged view of
    self and context (Bruner, Gergen, Shotter).
  • Our skin encapsulated body give us sense of
    enclosed private self contained world in heads
  • But strings of dialogue and self conceptions, and
    influences of the social world (social history,
    current social practices , social structures and
    patterning) influence construction of self
  • Therefore relationships and dialogue become
    objects of study distributed self the sum and
    swarm of participations in social life (Bruner,
    1990, p107).
  • Therefore identify multifaceted (not unitary)
  • a number of contextual selves in different
    relational settings including contradictions in
    personality and responses in different settings
  • Self a fluid changing history of relationships

17
Relational view of self
18
  • Sharp demarcation of self and other and
    independent autonomous self more difficult to
    maintain
  • Self jointly constructed- still affected by power
    relations
  • Emergent self - constantly being formed and
    multiple new social identities co-exist with old
    social identities- different social contexts
    different identity possibilities e.g. Daughter,
    academic, teacher, friend but limited - must be
    plausible in light of what gone before, not too
    fragmented, some self awareness of how perceived
  • Change happens as people negotiate tensions among
    multiple possibilities

19
Culture and self
  • Constant social incorporation which is reinforced
    and trains our behaviours and routines - acquire
    patterns of thought and monologues, self
    dialogues and self positioning of self in
    relation to others
  • One cannot become socialised by oneself process
    is relational
  • Joint action simultaneously positions all
    participants
  • Identities emerge in the interaction in the
    in-between spaces
  • Determined by ecology, physical space
    environment, divisions of labour, institutions
    (e.g. Ed systems, religions) social divisions.

20
  • Biological theories argue emotions are
    genetically based
  • Social constructionists say emotions are
    intertwined with social conventions and practice
  • Emotions may be biological but rules which
    inhibit or elicit their expression are culturally
    determined. Our choices are grounded in social
    material available

21
  • American pragmatists
  • John Dewey Charles Pierce William James
    George Herbert Mead
  • Decentering of subject
  • Intersubjective transactions practices.
    Transactional interrelationship between subject
    object/context
  • Discourse/ Language set of practices by which
    embodied agents established shared frameworks of
    activity (praxis)
  • Discourse refers to public exchange thought-
  • Thought lives, moves, and has its being in and
    through symbols, and therefore, depends for
    meaning upon context as do symbols.
  • Self as agent constrained and in relation to
    world- embedded agents
  • Intrinsic relatedness of organism to situation
  • Context enveloping situation and selective
    interest of situated agents
  • The subject is agent-suffererembodied located
    in the problematic situation and is susceptible
    to resistance from the situation capable of
    opposition, exertion innovation
  • object is active
  • French structuralists
  • Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida,
    Francois Lyotard
  • Decentering of subject
  • Impersonal structures and processes
  • Language all a play of signifiers
  • Self as passive construct of social forces
  • Move from focus on consciousness to language
  • Fixity of I is illusory
  • Series of positions evoked as a response to
    discourse of others who I am is determined by
    how I am addressed by others.referent determined
    on linguistic context - signified is not fixed
    and refers to changing contexts (eg. Tree of
    signifier of fertility)

22
Narrative Approaches to personalityANDERSON, H
(1997)
  • Narratives are the discursive way we organise,
    account for, give meaning to and understand the
    events experiences of our lives and understand
    the world in a coherent meaningful form.
  • Self identities constantly changing narratives,
    revise plat as new events added, collaboration
    with others dialogues.
  • Narratives construct us and we construct
    narratives we use narrative to understand our
    experience but narrative also constructs our
    experiences.
  • People embedded in conversations - our life
    consists of talking conversations, dialogues,
    arguing, monologues, exchanges of points of view
  • our identities are discursive products- language
    and discourse raw materials for construction of
    self.
  • Identity is contextual- located in, defined by
    interconnecting social activities

23
Narratives
  • Narratives are created, experienced, shared
    dynamic, 2 way discursive.
  • Social action
  • Narratives form, inform and reform
  • Narratives are always embedded in cultural,
    social, political and historical narratives,
    intertwined with other narratives.
  • Narratives /language frame our experiences
  • Narratives need to be sequential/ temporally
    ordered, manages departure from canonical, valued
    end point, event recounted relevant to end point,
    characters coherent identity across time, events
    causally linked.

24
Social origins of higher mental functions-
Vygotsky
  • the material that makes social environment also
    composes mind. Genetic law of cultural
    development
  • Social origins of higher mental functions
    interpsychological to intrapsychological - other
    to self regulation
  • social practices through which psychological
    practices are mediated
  • Self talk - inner dialogue
  • Learn/make sense through active engagement in

25
  • Development from social to individual through
    language
  • Language acquisition and social interaction
    essential for development
  • Thought consists of internalised social dialogues
  • Individual thought reflect outer social world
  • Child through play try out perspectives of others
    role e.g. play doctor doctor of being scolded
    organise a number of roles
  • Mead dialogue I and me

26
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The narrative self
  • We are voices in a chorus that transforms lived
    life into narrated life
  • The self is formed, informed and reformed through
    story telling.
  • Therefore the self is a dynamic mosaic, a cloth
    woven of stories told - reader writer of own
    lives.
  • An on-going self other multi-faceted biography
    which is constructed, reconstructed through
    interaction relationship (a being becoming
    through language).
  • Made up of multiple components narratives,
    experiences relationships

29
Living our life through stories
  • As humans we are interpretive beings.
  • We seek to make sense of daily experiences.
  • The stories we have about our lives are created
    by linking together certain events in a
    particular sequence across a certain time period
    and explain or make sense of them (plot).
  • Many stories occur simultaneously (selves,
    struggles, abilities, relationships).eg good
    driver story
  • Talk is action - I telling self and others who
    we are, where we come from and where we going.
  • I - speakign subject (assumes audience,
    perspective and multiple I positions ? same I
    moving back forth)

30
Discourse as social action (Potter Wetherall,
Edwards Potter)
  • Language a practical activity- a form of social
    action- say things in certain way according to
    our purpose. (rather than just a communicative
    transport medium that is value free)
  • See Extract
  • Utterances state and do things - each present
    their case in a particular wayto undermine the
    other
  • Discourse has an action orientation and
    constitutive - creating a narrative of
    understanding and meaning alters with context of
    use (e.g. Comment on weather)- indexicality
  • Cultural influences are mediated through language

31
Extract (Wetherall Maybin, 1996,p. 241)
  • Sluzuki what kinds of problems were there?
  • Jenny Uhm (-) again back to you know what I said
    originally I think you know just like this
    inability to communicate feelings like we were
    (-) living in in you know separate (-) houses and
    that we werent really (-) working as a couple, I
    mean we didnt really have 9-) a relationship so
    to speak I mean uhm I felt that if things
    happened to Larry he couldnt talk to me about
    them
  • Sluzuki he didnt talk to you abut it?
  • Jenny No hes hes very introverted and very
    private, very private person..
  • Larry were different in that way, she has a
    problem she likes to talk (-) about it or
    reiterate it (-) a number of times a large umber
    of times in my viewand on that issue 9-) shes
    probably, if there is an objective way to look at
    it, I think she probably over does the talking
    about problems and I(-) tend to under (-) talk
    those

32
  • Story re self as good driver - select certain
    events as demonstration of this plot- as more
    events collected, gathers richness becomes a
    dominant plot.
  • This plot becomes elevated in significance -
    other experiences that dont fit are seen as
    insignificant.
  • Influenced by reflections from others
  • Dominant stories have implications for future
    actions (not neutral), ie. Competant /cowardly
  • Live many stories at once (multistoried - many
    stories occur _at_ same time, many stories about
    same events

33
  • No story free of some ambiguity
  • Alternative stories (event like accident)
  • Engaged in mediation between dominant
    alternative stories of self- dynamic
  • Ways we understand self influenced by broader
    context - influenced by stories of dominant
    culture, family stories - and influences future
    actions powerfully shape our lives (e.g..
    Depression, internalized racism)
  • Meanings do not happen in a vacuum- context in
    which formed - age gender, sexual orientation,
    culture
  • Families, communities also have stories

34
  • Self in a created concept, a created narrative,
    self is dialogical-narrative
  • Self as story teller
  • Self - manifestation of action of talking about
    oneself - always telling stories about who we
    are, and always revising plot with new events-
    make our existence into a whole by understanding
    it as expression of single unfolding developing
    story
  • Influences self - agency- personal perception of
    competency for certain actions
  • Polyphonic- multiple voiced- many I positions-
    multi-authored self
  • Linguistic relational view of self.

35
Narrative self
  • Linguistically and socially created selves
  • I is speaking self addressing audience (you),
    personal account in language

36
Culture personality
  • Common sense definitions of personality sets of
    characteristics particular to individuals
  • Euro-American psychology emphasizes individual,
    intrapsychic processes sometimes interpersonal
    family structure as influences in personality
    (theory developed in particular socio-historical
    class contexts.
  • Neglect impact of community societal norms
  • Can behaviour in working class community in
    Khayaletsha be explained using Theory developed
    in middle class Switzerland?
  • Theories therefore reinforce political status quo.

37
  • E.g. womens roles primarily caring nurturing
    others with limited access to resources
    leisure, devaluation of these roles
    psychological distress
  • WHO - interdependence of biological,
    psychological social factors in aetiology of
    mental health problems (depression)
  • Treatment/intervention is individual
    (psychotherapy drug therapy) VS empowerment
    changing social conditions
  • Problems of living seen as private, blames
    victim, dont question oppressive social
    relations
  • Concepts of personality presented as value-free

38
  • Concrete operations tasks
  • I.e. Conservation of volume liquid or solid
    (i.e. Clay ball or liquid in different sized
    glasses).
  • Change from preoperational to concrete operations
    happens for children in Geneva between 5- 7
    years, but for Aboriginal children from 11 13
    years.
  • However on spatial reasoning tasks (2
    landscapes)- Aboriginal children preformed
    better.
  • According to their sociocultural setting this
    makes sense - importance of direction dreamtime
    or walkabout- spatial reasoning develops more
    rapidly. However Aboriginal culture does not
    quantify or own things, even their language only
    has denominations up to five, after that it is
    many. - not surprising that they do not develop
    quantifying skills quickly.
  • Relative rate of cognitive development in
    different domains reflects what is highly valued
    in a culture, what is needed and what is
    adaptive.

39
Mainstream approaches to personality
  • Psychoanalytic peoples UNCS contains aggregate
    of past experiences, conflicts drives indiv.
    differences (Freud, Jung)
  • Biological differences due to neurophysiological
    processes in brain, genetic predisposition
    inheritance, evolutionary processes (Eysenck
    Buss)
  • Behaviourists behaviour patterns established
    through external conditioning and consequences to
    behaviour (Skinner)
  • Trait theorists Allport
  • Humanistic approaches (Rogers Maslow) -
    personal responsibility acceptance

40
3 conceptions of culture
  • Culture a veneer, as skin - beneath layers of
    onion is essence of person, culture outside/in
    environment (ethnicity) set of shared
    constraints that limit behaviour available to
    members of a group
  • Culture as antecedent- independent, external
    mediating variables of influence
  • Culture as process- cultural psychological
    processes inseparable - humans perpetuate
    change cultural are in turn shaped by it- a
    dynamic distribution of meanings practices
    artifacts throughout linguistic community -
    occurs within and between people and not fixed,
    multiplicity of meanings dynamic

41
Conceptions of self 3 categories of
self-relevant experience
  • Conscious self directed action on object self
    regulation, intentional, constructive, goal
    directed action- consciousness of action
    outcomes but not conscious that I am acting
  • Reflexive self consciousness Thinking about
    action (pride, embarrassment) aware of I and
    me who am I in relation to others? Construct
    identities in relation to social partners
  • Higher order self representations awareness and
    meaningful sense of selfhood over time, recollect
    organise representations of self in temporal
    narrative form, construct theories of self-
    systems of belief about ones position in
    socio-moral order

42
Culture personality
  • Culture consists of peoples attitudes, beliefs,
    religion, language, ideals, values , rituals,
    practices (Hunter, 2004) set of rules that
    regulate behaviour (Shweder), dynamic
  • Culture central to individuals identity, social
    experience - cultural values norms are
    internalised to become part of psychological
    make-up
  • Individuals culture do not operate as separate
    entities - psychological acts occur within the
    medium of culture (Cole), e.g.Wertsch
  • People cultures function as parts of each
    others processes - make each other up
  • Acquire identity over course of life who am I
    and where do I belong self understanding,
    social interaction and morality are intertwined
    in developing psychological system that grows and
    changes throughout lifespan

43
  • Individualist-collectivist continuum of culture
    (Matsumoto, Hofstede) e.g. American culture
    highly individualistic (personal goals, separate
    from others self contained, indiv. ability and
    intelligence valued)
  • In collectivist cultures umuntu unmuntu
    Ngabuntu - a person is a person amongst others -
    exist function in complex interconnected way
    with others, empathy and interdependence valued,
    belonging and supportive groups NB, attend to
    needs of in-group rather than others. Apartheid
    negative impact of Black self definition -
    assertiveness discouraged - Black consciousness
    movement to counteract shame fragmented
    collectivity
  • Locus of control - internal (motivation) or
    external (other people, access)

44
Sociocultural factors Class, race, gender,
country of origin
Personality Individual factorstemperament,genetic
s
45
Culture structure of personality
  • Personality as integration of an individuals
    construction of meaning using cultural values,
    products and behaviour integrated with biological
    and psychological factors such as evolution and
    temperament
  • Every individual is intersection of relational
    nuclei - mother-child dyad embedded in
    multiplicity of relational networks
  • Culture inseparable - but also means differences
    within cultures - influence by family,
    relationships, experiences

46
Self at nexus of intersystemic activity
  • Self-organised around phenomenal core - sense of
    agency, sensorimotor action, affect being
    located in space and intersubjective space with
    others
  • But cannot be reduced to this core - self
    develops with capacity to direct consciousness of
    self using cultural symbols culturally framed
    joint action - selves undergo transformation in
    direction of culturally values endpoints.
  • Culture completes development of self
  • Individuals culture are inseparable

47
  • Co-regulation- individuals adjust thoughts,
    feelings, actions to the ongoing anticipated
    actions of their social partners (e.g. In play
    mother child) - actions of other are part of
    selfs actions experiences
  • Social partners seize meanings from broader
    culture to mediate joint action, then acting
    together create new experiences meaning
    (incapable of sustaining alone)
  • Sign mediates interaction functions to direct
    ones new actions, thoughts and feelings
  • Meanings that have been transformed within local
    social relations can become redistributed among
    broader cultural systems

48
Postmodern self
  • Postmodern self identity continuity or self
    hood is about maintaining coherence in the
    stories we tell ourselves. To make senses of
    chaos of life.
  • Not a single entity I arrived at by peeling
    away layers
  • Created in interaction

49
postmodern
50
Questions to self
  • Compare pictures re knowledge
  • How would you define your generation in
    comparison to 80 years agoRole of women/men,
    technology/ workplace/ religion/learning

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Defining self
  • Self is a delicate social interaction defined in
    context
  • Self interdependent - relationships, context,
    language,
  • multiple positions Inner vs outer/ experienced
    vs presented self, Self-as-subject vs
    self-as-object
  • self grows out of social connectedness- human
    enmeshment in social context and self in relation
    to other (Markus Kitayama)
  • The technologies , language forms, values other
    representational systems delimiting range of
    meanings through which a person come to
    understand themselves and others are rooted in
    culture (Geertz)

56
  • internal, personal attributes are best
    understood as they are delicately controlled and
    regulated in an overarching motivation to fit in
    with and be in harmony with members of the social
    network.
  • Self schema of physical place in time,space
    social network
  • Conception of self dependent on conception of
    other
  • Phylogenetic (between organisms) and ontogenetic
    (across time)
  • Development occurs across lifespan - continuous
    unfolding,elaboration adjustment, growing self
    awareness, diffent stages alteration is self
    (job, marriage)

57
Characteristics of postmodern individual
  • Globally oriented worldview- complexity
    uncertainty
  • Cognitive behavioural flexibility
  • Moral relativism
  • Absurdist humour
  • Distrust of govt., large corporations, medicine,
    religion

58
Therapy? Watkins
  • Dialogue between intrapsychic interpersonal
    cultural, imaginal, ecological and spiritual even
    dreams are metabolisation of culture,economics
    etc,
  • Create dialogue between these multiples
  • Therapist as storyteller/editor/
  • Move to difference with tolerance, rather than
    oppression and silencing
  • Reducing conflict by facilitating mutual
    understanding - dialogical space
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