know them. The result, we hope, will be a contribution to the study of
emerging lives as well as of enduring dispositions.
Form and Content in Psychological Interviews
As it happens, most of the major theories of adult development arebased on interviews rather than on psychological test results. The for -
mulations of Erik Erikson and Roger Gould originated in their clinical
practices; the theories of Daniel Levinson and his colleagues are basedon biographies constructed by subject and interviewer. If these re -
searchers have indeed discovered developmental courses standard mea -
sures cannot detect, the interview approach may be credited.
In our discussion of the interview method, we have so far been
concerned only with the quality of the characterizations it produces. IsJones an introvert? Do we believe it when he says he is? Or do we ob-serve him during the interview and reach our own decision?
A review of theories of adult development shows, however, that
theorists who rely on interviews do not have much to say aboutExtraversion. They are concerned with concepts such as the self and thesense of identity; they talk about relationships, roles, and life structure.This difference in substance between interviews and questionnaires isnot coincidental. It seems to be a clear instance of form dictating con-tent.
The typical questionnaire does not let you talk back. The questions
must be phrased so that they can be meaningfully answered by all re-spondents with a choice from yesorno,trueorfalse, or other fixed cate -
gories. If we are interested in job satisfaction, our questionnaire can ask,
“Are you generally satisfied with your job?”; regardless of the kind ofjob one has, everyone who is employed can answer that question with asimple yesorno. It cannot ask, “What specifically do you like about
your job, and what do you dislike?” since the answers to these ques -
tions would differ from one job to the next, and standard, precategor -
ized answers would not suffice.
Again, if a researcher who uses questionnaires wants to know how
an individual gets along with others, that researcher is likely to writequestions such as “Do you have many friends?” or “Are you usuallydominant in relations to others?” or “Do you believe others are out toget you?” By contrast, an interviewer is likely to say something like168 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD