Not long ago, “Desperate in Dallas ”wrote to a newspaper advice columnist
about her husband ’s 16-year-old cousin, who was living with them. The boy
didn’tw a n tt ow o r k ,d i d n ’t want to go to school, and generally was a very messy
houseguest. What was she to do? The columnist explained to “Desperate ”that
the boy ’s real problem was the rejection he had received from his parents earlier
in his life. These early childhood experiences were responsible for the boy ’sl a c k
of motivation. Within the next few weeks, the adviser also explained to
“Wondering in Boston ”that a 5-year-old boy became aggressive from watching
too many violent programs on television. She told “Anonymous in Houston ”
that her 5-year-old daughter was going to be a leader, and “Intrigued in
Norfolk ”that, although some people are routinely incapacitated with minor
aches and pains, others are capable of ignoring them.
In each of these examples, the columnist was explaining why a certain
person engages in consistent behavior patterns —that is, the causes of that
person ’s personality. Millions of people seem to think this columnist has
something to say about human behavior. But how does she know? Experi-
ence? Intelligence? A keen insight into human nature? Perhaps. In a way, ad-vice columnists represent one avenue for understanding personality —through
expert opinion. In some ways, the columnist is similar to the great personality
theorists who study the works of others, make their own observations, and
then describe what they believe are the causes of human behavior. As you
will see in Chapter 3, Sigmund Freud proposed many groundbreaking ideas
about personality. Freud read widely about what his contemporaries were
saying about behavior. He worked and consulted with some of the great thin-
kers of the day who also were concerned about psychological phenomena.
And Freud carefully observed his patients, who came to him with a variety
of psychological problems. From the information gathered from all of these
sources, Freud developed a theory of personality that he spent the rest of his
career promoting.
Although more scholarly than a columnist ’s one-paragraph diagnosis,
Freud ’s writings often evoke a similar response: How does he know? Freud ’s
ideas are intriguing, and his arguments at times persuasive, but most person-ality psychologists want more than an expert ’s viewpoint before they accept
a personality theory. They want empirical research. They want studies exam-ining key predictions from the theory. They want some hard numbers to sup-port those predictions. This is not because an expert ’s views are of no
value. Quite the contrary, the views and observations of personality theoristsform the backbone of this book. But theories alone provide only part of thepicture. Understanding the nature of human personality also requires an
examination of what psychologists have learned from rigorous empirical
investigations.
This chapter presents a brief introduction to personality research, beginning
with a description of some basic concepts associated with the hypothesis-testingapproach to research, with an emphasis on issues particularly relevant for person-ality researchers. Next we look at a research procedure that has played a signifi-
cant role in the history of personality psychology —the case study method. We
then briefly touch on what you will need to know about statistical analysis ofPersonality Research Methods 19