Draft Exam Answer: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages that narrowband theories of personality have over traditional trait theories.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages that narrowband theories of personality have over traditional trait theories.

Trait theory, otherwise known as dispositional theory is one approach used to study the human personality. Trait theorists are primarily concerned with the measurement of individual traits relying often on personality questionnaires often of great length taking a substantial amount of time to complete. One of the most popular methods of personality measurement is the “Big Five” personality scale, which is a five factor model measuring the five supertraits, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Personality questionnaires tend to focus on the measurement of the personality in its entirety which is not as useful when wanting to examine one factor in depth or the diversity between facets. This essay will look at the alternative “narrowband” theories of personality and discuss the advantages and disadvantages these have when compared to the more traditional trait theories described above.

Narrowband theories of personality attempt to examine one aspect of personality in detail, such as optimism and pessimism, shyness and self-monitoring. These types of theories aim to establish the reasons behind and individual’s behaviour, to determine whether certain aspects of personality can act as a reliable predictor of behaviour and/or whether certain factors influence behaviour.  For example, when examining shyness, shy individuals have been found to be less vocally expressive, more self-conscious, and less likely to disclose personal information when compared to their more confident peers. Shyness has been found to impact on success, as shy individuals are less likely to chase promotions or challenge their rate of pay. This is important to understand as shy individuals are perceived more negatively, especially in terms of their intelligence (Paulhus & Morgan, 1997) which is not accurate (Coplan et al, 2011). One of the major criticisms of trait theories of personality is that these theories assume that personality is stable over time and therefore they do not explain why behaviour may change in certain situations. Narrow band theories of personality attempt to understand behaviour.

Adorno (1950) hypothesised that prejudice is a result of an individual’s personality type, arguing that some people are highly sensitive to totalitarian ideas due to deep-seated personality traits. Research found that individuals that held extreme right-wing beliefs seemed to have two distinct characteristics, rigidity and intolerance of ambiguity. Adorno (1950) suggested that these two characteristics reflected a specific personality which he coined the authoritarian personality. His theory was based on the findings of psychometric tests (the f-scale), clinical interviews as well as reviewing case studies. Based on the Freudian model of the conscious and unconscious mind, it was found that individuals with an authoritarian personality typically came from an upbringing with very strict parents. This forced rigidity and compliance became overwhelming and lead to repressed hostility towards their parents. The authoritarian personality is said to be a defence mechanism to keep the resentment and hostility repressed, being open to new ideas and ways of thinking may cause vulnerability, leading an individual to have to address their inner conflict. As can be seen, when compared to traditional trait theories, narrow band theories of personality focus on one aspect of personality, use many measures to investigate and theories are grounded in theoretical research to support their ideas. One disadvantage of this however is that personality is made up of many traits, to focus on one aspect of personality in detail may lead to reductionist thinking and it is argued that it cannot account for all individual’s behaviour. For example, not all individuals raised by authoritative parents, mature to have an authoritarian personality themselves.

Another well-known narrow-band theory of personality is known as the Type A and Type B personality theory which examines the way in which individual’s respond to stress (Friedman & Rosenman, 1959). Type A individuals tend to be competitive, experience a chronic sense of urgency and experience a high level of irritability and hostility which they may  or may not express overtly. Type B individuals tend to be more relaxed, open and attend to one event at a time. It was found that twice as many Type A individuals, when compared to Type B individual’s, developed coronary heart disease. It was hypothesised that Type A individuals respond to stress differently to Type B individuals, making them more prone to stress related illnesses such as anxiety and hypertension. Again, this theory is not without its criticisms and is deemed to reductionist. Reserach found that women did not display the same high risk for heart disease when compared to men, suggestive that the theory may relate to different coping strategies and not personality types alone. It has also been argued that many individuals do not fit easily into a Type A or B classification. As with Adorno’s (1950) theory of authoritarian personality however it is not suggested to be a complete theory of personality in itself but does allow specific traits to be investigated in more depth. When used together with other theoretical work, such as Freud’s topographical model of personality it allows greater insight to be given about individuals and their behaviour.

In conclusion, narrow-band theories of personality do not seek to give a general model of human nature, unlike some of the broader personality models. Instead they focus on a specific area of personality in detail drawing on other theoretical work to explain and explore in more detail. It is argued that broader theories of personality are too general and fail to give an adequate explanation of behaviour. Though narrow-band approaches may be deemed too simplistic, many valuable theories have stemmed from this approach giving a better insight of human behaviour, accounting for situational changes and address the question of how such behaviour or personality may be formed.