ways” (p. 1083). We would probably describe them as conscientious
extraverts. A minority of women in this sample aspired to a career inaddition to marriage. Those who succeeded by age 42 had been asser -
tive, forceful, self-confident, and ambitious in college; they appeared
to be more open and extraverted than the women whose career plansfailed.
Although society may dictate the major directions of life, individ
uals in modern societies have considerable latitude for personal choices,some of which reshape the life course. These critical choices, and thereasons behind them, form the substance of biographies (Herold,1963): Napoleon Bonaparte decides to restore order to the FrenchRevolution, in part because of his conservative social views; he hashimself crowned Emperor to satisfy his quest for personal aggrandize -
ment; he divorces Josephine and marries Archduchess Maria Louise
(daughter of the Austrian emperor) to ensure the rights of his prog-eny; he invades Russia because he believes he can bully Czar Alexan-der I into submission; he returns from Elba because he has becomeconvinced that, despite all odds, it is his destiny to rule. Biographersgenerally feel that the best way to understand the individual’s person-ality is to record the subject’s life, to analyze the circumstances thathelped shape the life course (in part to separate external influencesfrom the inner characteristics), and then to interpret the action interms of the inner drives, talents, or weaknesses of the person (Run-yan, 1981). Erikson (e.g., 1962) devoted much of his career to suchpsychobiographies, and most clinicians rely heavily on the life historyas a means of understanding their clients.
In Chapter 9 we argued that life histories should not be used as the
basis of a psychology of personality development; rather, we think thatknowledge about personality and its continuity in adulthood can form abasis for understanding life histories (see Nasby & Read, 1997, for acase study interpreted in terms of the FFM). The psychodynamic ap -
proaches of Freud and Erikson have had a tremendous influence on the
thinking of historians and literary critics as well as psychologists, be -
cause psychoanalytic formulations can be used to make sense of histori -
cal and literary figures. The same benefit can be offered by trait psychol -
ogy; in fact, the stronger empirical basis of trait psychology makes it, in
our view , a much better candidate for this role. Historians, of course,generally cannot administer standardized personality questionnaires totheir cases, but they can use the behavior patterns of a lifetime to esti -
mate standing on dimensions of personality and then use these as a222 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD