CHAPTER XXI
PERSONALITY
THE INDIVIDUAL AS A WHOLE, INTEGRATED OR PARTIALLY DISSOCIATED
People differ not only in intelligence and efficiency, but in an intangible something referred to as "personality". If your acquaintance is applying for a certain position, and has named you as one of his references, you will be asked by the appointing officer to tell what you know of the candidate's experience, his knowledge and skill in the field where he desires a position, his character and habits, and his personality; and in replying you state, if you conscientiously can, that the candidate has a pleasing and forceful personality, that he gets on well with superiors, equals and inferiors, is coöperative, energetic, ambitious without being selfish, clean, modest, brave, self-reliant, cheerful, optimistic, equal-tempered; and you perhaps include here traits that might also be classed under the head of "character", as honesty, truthfulness, industry, reliability, and traits that might be classed under physique, as good appearance and carriage, commanding presence, a "strong face", and even neatness and good taste in dress. Here we have an array of traits that are of great importance to the individual's success in his work, in his social relationships and in his family life; and it is a proof of how much remains to be accomplished in psychology that we cannot as yet present anything like a real scientific analysis of personality, nor show on what elementary factors it depends.
Factors in Personality
If we do attempt some sort of analysis, we have first to notice that personality depends in part on physique. In ordinary life, mental and physical traits are not sharply distinguished, and probably they cannot be distinguished except in the abstract. The mere size of a person affects his attitude towards other people and their attitude towards him--and it is in such social relations that personality most clearly stands out. His size affects the individual's behavior in subtle ways, since the big fellow dominates others easily just by virtue of his size, and so tends to be good-humored, while the little fellow is apt to be strenuous and self-assertive. Muscular development and "looks" also have their effect on personality.
Another factor might, by a sort of play on words, be called chemique. This corresponds to what is often called temperament, a very obscure matter psychologically. We speak of one as having an excitable temperament, a jovial or a sour temperament. "Disposition" is another word used in connection with such traits. The ancients attempted to relate the "four temperaments" to the four great "humors" or fluids of the body. Thus the "sanguine" individual was one with a surplus of blood, the "choleric" had a surplus of bile, the "phlegmatic" a surplus of phlegm, and the "melancholic" a surplus of black bile or spleen; and any individual's temperament resulted from the balance of these four. Sometimes a fifth temperament, the nervous, was admitted, dependent on the "nerve fluid".
This particular chemical derivation of temperament is, of course, out of date, being based on very imperfect knowledge of physiology; but it still remains possible that chemical substances carried around in the body fluids have much to do with the sort of trait that we think of under [{554}] the head of temperament. Only that to-day, with some knowledge regarding the internal secretions of the "endocrine glands", we should be inclined to connect temperament with them, rather than with blood, bile, etc. Take, for example, the secretion of the adrenal glands, that we found to be poured out during fear and anger and to have so much to do with the bodily condition of readiness for violent action and probably also with the "stirred-up" emotional state. What is more likely than that individuals differ in the strength of their adrenal secretion or in the readiness with which the glands are aroused to pour it out into the circulation? The excitable individual might be one with over-active adrenals. And in the same way the strenuous individual might be one with an unusually active thyroid gland, since there certainly seems to be some connection between this gland and the tendency to great activity. There are several other glands that possibly affect behavior in somewhat similar ways, so that it is not improbable, though still rather hypothetical, that chemical substances, produced in these glands, and carried by the blood to the brain and muscles, have much to do with the elusive traits that we class under temperament and personality.
Once more, consider the instincts in relation to personality. Undoubtedly these instinctive tendencies differ in strength in different individuals. One is more gregarious than another, and this is an important element in his personality. One is more assertive and masterful than another, one is more "motherly" than another, more responsive by tender and protective behavior to the presence of children or others who need help. One is more prone to laugh than another, and the "sense of humor" is admitted to be an important element in personality. And so on through the list; so that personality can be partially analyzed in terms of instinct.