Psychobiography: Personology

www.psychobiography.com

Personology is a term invented by Henry Murray as a kind of replacement for the unwieldy phrase "personality psychology." What it means, most simply, is this: a commitment to the study of single, complex, lived lives over time, from a variety of different angles. The contrast is with psychology as conventionally practiced: the experimental analysis of individual variables--mood, thinking, perception, etc--divorced from any context, and detached from the lives in which such variables operate. Experimental psychologists typically abjure the single life, the case study, the biographical subject, in the process favoring "parts" over "wholes"; personologists begin and end with the whole person. Years ago Rae Carlson, in her famous paper titled "Where is the Person in Personality Research?", called for a long overdue return to relevance, to real lives as lived, to--in effect--psychobiography. Personology responds to Carlson's critique, restoring the biographical subject to its legitimate place in psychology proper.

The Society for Personology was created roughly fifteen years ago in part to provide a forum for the discussion of personological research, and also to encourage the advancement of personology as a subdisciplinary endeavor. Its members are all practicing personologists of different stripes and allegiances, each committed to the legacy of Murray, and to Murray's vision. Also instrumental to the formation of this group was the script-theoretical work of Silvan Tomkins--plus all that Tomkins stood for.

A partial list of those belonging to the Society, which meets yearly in various locations around the U.S., includes:

Dan McAdams, author of the immensely influential life story model of identity;
Irving Alexander, Professor Emeritus at Duke University;
Psychobiographers Alan Elms, William "Mac" Runyan, and William Todd Schultz (your webmaster);
Jane Loevinger, famous for her theory of ego development;
Ravenna Helson, UC Berkeley;
Dan Ogilvie, inventor of the concept of the undesired self, now working on personological motives behind fantasies of flying;
Ed de St. Aubin, erstwhile student of Professor McAdams, known for his work on generativity;
Nicole Barenbaum, who specializes in case study research, and in the life and work of Gordon Allport;
Ruthellen Josselson, a major researcher in the area of narrative psychology;
Jefferson Singer, who studies memory and self, inventor of the concept of self-defining memory;
Rae Carlson, protege of Silvan Tomkins, and author of the article referred to above;
Brewster Smith, UC Santa Cruz;
Bert Cohler, University of Chicago;
Suzanne Ouellette, CUNY;
Gary Gregg, Kalamazoo College;
Bill Peterson, Smith College;
James Anderson, whose research focuses on Henry and William James;
Avril Thorne, UC Santa Cruz, who studies personal memory telling and personality development, and the intergenerational transmission of life stories.

The best sources for additional information about personology include Murray's "Endeavors in Psychology" (edited by Edwin Shneidman), where the concept is most fully defined and embodied; and Irving Alexander's book "Personology."

Meetings of the Society focus on themes relating to the study of persons as complex wholes (as Murray put it once). Papers to be discussed are read in advance by all Society members, and discussants are assigned to steer conversation in helpful directions. Starting today (9/02), I am going to provide brief synopses of each year's meeting through this link, along with--when possible--photos. So, for a short tour of Personology 2002, go to:

Personology Society Meeting, 2002, Portland, Oregon.

Is personology on the rise? I think, yes. In the field of personality research it is easy to discern a renewed focus on the single case, as exemplified by various articles and special issues in the Journal of Personality. And the APA Press has recently taken over publication of the book series The Narrative Study of Lives, edited by McAdams, Josselson, and Amia Lieblich. Two volumes are now--or soon will be--available, including the book "Turns in the Road: Narrative Studies of Lives in Transition" (2001), with chapters by several of those personologists listed above (Schultz, Singer, McAdams).