Influential Personality Research Articles

Review of Paradigms of personality assessment.

JERRY S. WIGGINS Paradigms of Personality Assessment New York: Guilford Press, 2003, 385 pages (ISBN 1-57230-913-X, US$45.00 Hardcover) I must begin with some full disclosure: If this book was an equity stock then I would own shares in the company. As a Jerry Wiggins student in the 1980s at UBC, I collaborated with this distinguished author and scholar on projects involving his interpersonal model of personality assessment. We became close friends almost from the beginning, and remained so until, tragically, a stroke recently stole this all away. Yet, as often inexplicably happens, our lives had slowly drifted apart, geographically and professionally, for the past almost 20 years, a period in which I only saw him once, briefly. So although the reviewer/author relationship in this review may not be quite as arms-length as it should be, I am convinced an editor would be hard pressed to find anyone in the diverse field of Personality Psychology who would not consider Jerry Wiggins to be at least a friendly ally. is because his own interpersonal networks have warmly and graciously touched not only all of the in the field, but amazingly most of the persons as well. Wiggins' latest, and sadly last, work is very much a must-read book for personality assessment specialists and their students, as is his more technical 1973 Principles of Personality Assessment classic (still in print). I believe the new book is destined to become another classic and a want-to-read book for many psychologists, ranging from those with a stake in the unity of scientific psychology to others who just like a good human-interest story. Afterall, when was the last time you read a book that brought together representatives from less-than-complementary scientific perspectives to cordially discuss the past, present, and future of one (particularly colourful) person? The book is unique, and important, for two reasons. First, it attempts to deliver on Personality Psychology's longstanding quest to integrate the many disparate perspectives in the field. Second, this is a multidisciplinary case study (a multitrait/multi-method analysis) of one person that combines theory and practice in a way not done before. is a collaborative project involving eight additional contributors representing five major traditions in personality assessment. The book begins with a discussion of the field of personality, measurement, and clinical assessment and the idea of how influential personality assessment communities can serve as the precursors (preparadigms) of Kuhn's notion of scientific paradigms. Although not the same as Kuhnian paradigms, Wiggins' assessment paradigms often operate in an analogous fashion, where, for example, likeminded scientists band together and develop a common modus operandi to help understand and explore their chosen world (focus of convenience). The insular nature of these assessment paradigms is often (perhaps unavoidably) at odds with the necessary integration of facts. Cross-pollenization between paradigms is not a priority, and is not very easy. This intense level of specialization, in turn, creates a community of scientists whose journal articles are largely unintelligible to those who are not members of their professional group (p. 6). The task of bringing the paradigms together is not an easy one, for it requires someone who is equally fluent in all of them. Wiggins manages to pull this off beautifully, as perhaps only he, and maybe a few other elder statespersons, could. The five paradigms considered in this book are referred to as psychodynamic, interpersonal, personological, multivariate, and empirical. They are each related, but not equivalent, to certain theories of personality and associated with certain personality tests. Each paradigm has carved out its own niche, sometimes under the influence of a single theorist (e.g., Freud's instincts and Sullivan's interpersonal relations), and reflects a different and potentially useful way of viewing the entire psychodiagnostic enterprise (p. …

The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies by Ric Knowles

REVIEWS ghostly, nostalgic past: “In gazing at the doorframe, the subject encounters as revenant an earlier version of the subject” (253). In spite of my occasional reservations, the length of this review is testimony to the overall value of what is encoun­ tered in M artin and Savoy’s im portant collection. The revenant glimpsed through the doorframe of American Gothic may be the now aging subject, but it is the subject informed by, melded with, an interesting, alarmingly transformed, and rejuvenated version of Fiedler’s Love and Death. It is a pity, however, that the carpentering of that frame should be marred by defects at­ tributable to a nodding proofreader. Thus Ginsberg misdates, “paraphelia” (221) appears instead of “paraphilia,” an “it” is missing before “arrives” (350), and a “Gross” is referred to by Noble in note 6 on page 179 but is not to be found in the Works Cited that follows. Fortunately, Louis S. Gross’s Redefining the American Gothic (1989) does figure in the Works Cited ap­ pended to the “Introduction” and to Savoy’s and Chapm an’s essays. But a reader will search in vain elsewhere in the volume for the “Fliegelman” (200) that Chapman cites in her note 4. A trip to the library leads me to believe that she must be refer­ ring to Jay Fliegelman’s Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution against Patriarchal Authority, 1750-1800 (1982). D AVID K ETTER ER / C o n co rd ia U n iversity Ric Knowles. The Theatre of Form and the Production of Mean­ ing: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies. Toronto: ECW Press, 1999. 288. $19.95 paper. This is an important book: first, because its author is, at present, arguably the single most influential personality on the direction of theatre studies in Canada. Ric Knowles plays a central role in all four of the main Canadian English-language journals de­ voted to theatre studies; he is the former Chair of Drama at the University of Guelph (1989-1997) and on the faculty of the University of Toronto Drama Centre; and he has authored dozens of significant academic articles over the last two decades. But even supposing that Knowles did not wield such substantial clout, The Theatre of Form would be important, partly because 145 ESC 28, 2002 of the impressive range of Canadian plays it embraces, but es­ pecially because of the bold and far-reaching claims it makes. Its central thesis holds that, for better or worse, dramaturgical form produces meaning by shaping social thinking. Knowles de­ clares that he wants to “politicize form, to examine form itself as a m aterial agent of cultural affirmation (or reproduction), on the one hand, or cultural intervention, on the other” (15-16); moreover, he wants to show that the meaning produced by dra­ maturgical form is so powerful that it has “frequently served to undermine or contain the social concerns and criticisms that constituted the conscious thematic ‘content’” of dram a (25). To be sure, this basic premise is not a wholly new one; it will be most widely familiar, I suppose, from the work of the Brazilian writer-director, Augusto Boal, whose manifesto, Theatre of the Oppressed (1979), inveighs against Aristotelian dram atic form as an inherently reactionary instrument and urges instead the practice of an approach to collective creation he has developed. Like Boal, Knowles places himself unequivocally and consis­ tently on the side of “cultural intervention” as opposed to “cul­ tural affirmation (or reproduction)” — although one feels that Knowles tries a little harder than did Boal to represent fairly those works he finds distastefully reactionary. Perhaps this is because, whereas Boal, as a political radical in a country only just beginning to emerge in the late 1970s from a long history of tyranny, was justifying a very personal departure from what he decried as an insidious 2,500 year tradition of reactionary dramaturgical thinking, Knowles is attem pting to make similar delineations within a much narrower and therefore finer scale: Canadian dram a over the last thirty or so years. In this regard, Knowles’s task is the more difficult one, for in dealing with writ­ ers who are near contemporaries, he...

Beyond the image: The giftedness of Jimi Hendrix

This article explores aspects of the life and character of electric guitarist Jimi Hendrix based on the review of literature on gifted achievers and Dabrowski's theory on developmental potential in the gifted. The influential environmental and personality factors in the development of Hendrix's musical gift, including the role played by imagination and autodidactism with reference to Vygotky's theory on play, are a primary focus. Issues raised include the value of different musical education forms as they relate to the varieties of musical expression, and the usefulness of motivational and creative attributes as indicators of gifted potential.

La infanta Doña María, monja de Sijena, y su política castellana durante la minoría de Alfonso XI (1312-1325)

The Infanta Dona Maria, the eldest daughter of James II of Aragon, was a decisive and influential personality in Castilian politics during Alfonso XI's minority years (1312-1325). Married to the Infante Don Pedro, uncle and tutor of the king of Castile, she would perform her duties consistently following the political guidelines of her husband until his death in 1319. Thenceforward, her relationships with the circles of royal power were not in good terms. Questions such as the government and administration of her feudal patrimonies, inherited from Don Pedro, and the birth of her daughter Blanca, as well as her education and residence in either Aragon or Castille, were all tackled by the Infanta from Aragon, from the Monastery of Sijena opposing the longing tor power of both the Infante Don Felipe and Garcia Lasso de la Vega, and even of king Alfonso XI himself. This essay aims at the analysis of these relationships from a Castilian perspective, making use of the excellent documentation kept in the ACA and edited from old.

The Big Three or the Big Five—the EPQ-R vs the NEO-PI: a research note, replication and elaboration

A study sought to address the issue of personality dimensionality by comparing two influential personality questionnaires which differ in their theoretical underpinnings; the EPQ-R (three-factor model) and the NEO-PI (five-factor model). Both instruments were found to have a good deal of variance in common, the majority of which was identified along the dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism. On factoring, there was little evidence of a five-factor model emerging; clearly there was variance unaccounted for by the three-factor measure, but this failed to form appropriately-sized additional factors. There is evidence for the interpretation of the NEO-PI ‘conscientiousness’ measure as a facet of Eysenck's ‘psychoticism’ (P) factor.

Dr. Michael Grabham

IN the death on January 28 of Dr. Michael Grab-ham at the great age of ninety-five years, the island of Madeira has lost its most influential personality and the world an enthusiastic naturalist. Dr. Grabham, who was educated at King's College, London, and the University of London, qualified in 1861 at St. Thomas's Hospital and served there as house surgeon. He married Mary Blandy, one of the well-known family of merchant shippers, in 1865, and took up permanent residence as a practitioner on the island of Madeira. In that favoured island he produced a book dealing with its every aspect—natural and sociological—a treatise that is still of outstanding value despite the changing times.