This paper addresses the neglect of work on feminine psychology as a symptom of the far broader impoverishment of contemporary work in personality. Bakan's concepts of agency and communion are invoked toward understanding the constraints imposed by current research paradigms. Agentic (masculine) modes of inquiry involving manipulation, quantification, and control need to be complemented by the communal (feminine) research styles (naturalistic, qualitative, open) developed in other disciplines. Three issues are proposed for research in personality: duality in human nature, typology and qualitative patterning and biological bases of personality. These issues are consonant with the nature of feminity, engage the talents of female investigators, and could foster development of the new research paradigms required for serious inquiry in personality. Suggestions for conceptual elaboration and empirical research are proposed.
Theoretical formulations of D. Gutmann in 1965 and of D. Bakan in 1966 were tested in three studies of sex differences in personality. In Study I, males were significantly more individualistic, objective, and distant in representations of self, others, space, and future. Study II found males predominantly "agentic" and females "communal" in reports of significant emotional experiences. In Study III, seven general predictions from the agency-communion formulation were tested against 200 abstracts of published research on sex differences, The formulation was judged "relevant" to over 80% of the studies; significant differences were "confirming" of the formulation in 97% of "relevant" studies. Results indicate the importance of qualitative aspects of sex differences in personality and support the agency-communion formulation as a framework for future inquiry.Contemporary personality research confronts an embarrassment of riches in the extensive evidence of sex differences in personality. How is this knowledge to be assimilated? How is psychosexuality to be understood? The voluminous literature documenting psychological sex differences (Garai & Scheinfeld, 1968;Maccoby, 1966) is far beyond the scope of any single review. However, much of the current status of the field may be summarized by a few assertions which seem to have implications for how sex differences are studied in psychology:1. Overlapping distributions of males and females are typically found for all dimensions studied (including masculinity-femininity); mean differences occur rather regularly, along with more important sex differences in patterns of relationships. The implications seem to be that strictly dimensional approaches fail to reflect adequately the nature of psychosexuality, and that qualitative, typological approaches are required for the understanding of the nature of sex differences.2. More interrelationships among variables are typically found for males across the widest
Tomkins' recent formulation of script theory was proposed as a major development in the field of personality psychology. The theory offers a radically new conceptualization of personality structure, dynamics, and development that seems capable of unifying and extending basic knowledge of personality. A case study examined one aspect of Tomkins' theory by using script-theoretic principles to trace the growth of an early childhood experience into a "nuclear script" governing much of the thought, feeling, and action of a normal adult over 30 years later. More general implications of the theory for personality research are sketched briefly. 1 The theory deals with issues posed in recent contextualist, dialectical, interactional, and transactional alternatives to linear, causal models. Such metatheoretical issues, however, are not treated in the present article.
Why should psychologists undertake psychobiographical inquiry'' This article argues that our pomary responsibility in this multidisciphnary field is that of developing basic personality theory An "invisible collaboration" IS proposed, such that excellent biographical studies in neighboring disciplmes provide basic data for our theoretical efforts The proposal is illustrated by analyzing two highly acclaimed works in terms of Tfomkins's (1979) scnpt tlreory Erhch's (1984) study of Nathaniel Hawthome serves for the explo-ratUMi of a nuclear scnpt, and Kapp's (1972Kapp's ( , 1976 two-volume biography of Eleanor Marx serves for the study of a commtttnent scnpt Tomkins's theory offers new perspectives on these life histones and a sophisticated alternative to the psychoanalytic frameworks that dominate psychobiographical inquiry With more cntical attention to theoretical issues, the development of psychobiograjAlcal woric might rescue contemporary personality psychology from its methodbound stasis Ibnikins's theory is advanced as a conceptual framework w
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