Recent Developments in Personality Studies

Abstract

THuis paper concerns itself largely with a review and assessment of the field of personality studies. It did not seem feasible to cover in our limited time the entire field of social psychology, and besides, other fields of social psychology are already in part represented in other section meetings. The present paper confines itself to the dominant intellectual dispositions that writers in this field exhibit. Although numerous troublesome issues continue to be debated, it may be said at once that the period since approximately I930 gives an impression of very decided advance. What this paper attempts primarily to do, then, is to inquire whether a firm basis exists for supposing that genuine gains have been made. The first section of this paper discusses the role of impulses or needs in current personality theory. The second section indicates the increasingly close relations between personality studies and other areas of scientific research. The final section discusses one major and much neglected problem of methodology.