Narrative approaches to personality

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Narrative approaches to personality self -
culture postmodernism

• Angela Hough
• Room 45 psychology

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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)
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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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Multiple faces of madonna
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Postmodern architecture
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What is it?

• Multiple perspectives
• Flexible (materials, moral values)
• No grand narratives
• Mixes old and new
• Multiple possibilities
• No rules

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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)

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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

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Relational view of self
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• 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

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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.

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• 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

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• 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)

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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

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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.

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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

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• 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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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Narrative self

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

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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.

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• 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

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• 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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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• 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)

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Sociocultural factors Class, race, gender,
country of origin
Personality Individual factorstemperament,genetic
s
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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

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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

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• 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

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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

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postmodern
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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)

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• 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)

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Characteristics of postmodern individual

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

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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