desire to collect art, enjoy beautiful objects, have an elegant handwrit -
ing, take lessons to learn painting, and believe the government should
support the arts. Traits, then, can be said to have motivational as well asother components. Recall that disposition is another word for both trait
and motive .Given the similarities between the two, it seems somewhat
silly to decry the “static” nature of traits.
CONTRASTING TRAITS WITH EGO PROCESSES
Trait theories do share with dynamic theories a concern for motiva -
tion. But in other respects the two approaches differ, and it is impor -
tant to consider these differences in judging whether personality
changes with age. The most significant differences have to do with therole of ego processes in resolving conflicts and organizing behaviorover time.
Conflict and Its Resolution
Dynamic theories of personality tend to emphasize the interaction ofthe elements they postulate. Freud’s instinctive urges are forever bat-tling against irrational prohibitions and rational restraints for expres-sion. Each bit of behavior we observe and each passing thought in ourmind is held to be the end result of this perpetual conflict. At one mo-ment the forces of the ego are in control; the next, a slip of the tongue orpen reveals a momentary breach in the defensive armor. Rarely can anybehavior be understood as the expression of any single internal ten -
dency . Instead, drives may merge (as sex and aggression do in sadism),
or may be transformed by defense mechanisms into their opposite, ormay represent a compromise between the dictates of the superego andthe cravings of the id. It hardly comes as a surprise to Freudians whenpersonality traits do not predict behavior very well, since behavior is afunction of the constantly changing relative strengths of a host of ac -
tively competing forces.
As usual, Freudian theory presents this view in its extreme form,
holding that all behavior is defensive and that conflict is inevitable.Later theorists, like Rogers and Maslow , took a less grim view of the hu -
man condition, believing that conflict was not inherent in human na -
ture. But many personality theories recognize the need to explain the144 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD