guns and fighting, often trigger a network of aggressive thoughts and emo-
tions. When aggressive thoughts are highly accessible, people are more likelyto interpret situations as threatening and respond to those perceived threats
with violence. Although most of us ignore unintended insults and accidental
bumps in the hallway, individuals with highly accessible aggressive thoughts
are likely to respond with threats of violence and angry shoves.
Now, let ’s return to the original question: Why do some people show a
consistent pattern of aggressive behavior? Each of the six approaches to per-sonality offers a different explanation. Which is correct? One possibility is
that only one is correct and that future research will identify that theory.
A second possibility is that each approach is partially correct. There maybe six (or more) different causes of aggressive behavior. Still a third possibil-
ity is that the six explanations do not contradict one another but rather
differ only in their focus. That is, it ’s possible that aggressiveness is relatively
stable and reflects an aggressive trait (the trait approach). But it might also
be the case that some people tend to interpret ambiguous events as threaten-
ing (the cognitive explanation) because of past experiences in which theywere assaulted (the behavioral/social learning explanation). These people
may have been born with a tendency to respond to threats in an aggressive
manner (the biological approach). But perhaps if they had been raised in a
nonfrustrating environment (the psychoanalytic approach) or in a supportive
home in which their basic needs were met (the humanistic approach),
they would have overcome their aggressive tendencies. The point is that
each approach appears to contribute something to our understanding of
aggression.
Example 2: Depression
Most of us know what it is like to be depressed. We have all had days when
we feel a little blue or melancholy. Like many college students, you may alsohave suffered through longer periods of intense sadness and a general lack of
motivation to do anything. Although most of us fluctuate through changing
moods and levels of interest and energy, some people seem more prone to de-
pression than others. Once again, each of the six approaches to personality
has a different explanation for individual differences in depression.
According to Sigmund Freud, the founder of the psychoanalytic approach,
depression is anger turned inward. That is, people suffering from depressionhold unconscious feelings of anger and hostility. They may want to strike
out at family members, but a healthy personality does not express such feel-ings overtly. Psychoanalysts also argue that each of us has internalized the
standards and values of society, which typically discourage the expression of
hostility. Therefore, these angry feelings are turned inward, and people takeit out on themselves. As with most psychoanalytic explanations, this process
takes place at an unconscious level.
Trait theorists are concerned with identifying depression-prone indivi-
duals. Researchers find that a person’ s general emotional level today is a
good indicator of that person’ s emotions in the future. One team of investiga-
tors measured depression in a group of middle-aged men and again 30 years8 CHAPTER 1 What Is Personality?