Notes for a Critical Personality Psychology: Making Room under the Critical Psychology Umbrella

Abstract

Inspired by the liberation psychologist Martin-Baró who provocatively defined personality as that of which individuals can be robbed in conditions of social injustice and research psychologists in training whose appreciation of the possibilities of personality psychology has been limited by the dominance of trait approaches, this paper claims that we need and can practice a critical personality psychology. Conceptual and methodological tools for such an enterprise are identified in two arenas of current research: the study of narratives and new forms of history in personality psychology. Within critical personality psychology, personality is understood to be an expression of (i) a multifaceted organization that includes individual, interpersonal, social, cultural, and political contexts; (ii) individual and social change; and (iii) the moral dimensions of human psychology. Notes on future directions draw on areas of inquiry within and outside personality psychology to insure a place under the critical psychology umbrella.2 Notes for a Critical Personality Psychology

A Search for Meaning: Recognizing the Potential of Narrative Research in Social Policy-Making Efforts

“…If key scholars in the social sciences are resistant to the value of qualitative and narrative paradigms as legitimate forms of social scientific inquiry, it will be all the more difficult to establish the relevance of narrative evidence in policy areas. As Ouellette (2008) has previously highlighted, psychology has a rich history of narrative research, which is central to key discoveries in personality and emotion research and cognitive sciences, to name just a few areas. Current efforts within the field aimed toward aligning psychology with the "hard" sciences have resulted in some loss of this important history and marginalization of narrative research within the discipline.…”

“…Current efforts within the field aimed toward aligning psychology with the "hard" sciences have resulted in some loss of this important history and marginalization of narrative research within the discipline. Ouellette (2008) notes that psychologists must revisit these important historical connections between narrative research and more mainstream psychological research in order to create more space for research on narratives-in-context within psychology. Here, we wish to reiterate this call to "recast" the history of psychology as inclusive of key early narrative contributions, which we contend will result in an expanded audience for narrative research within policy arenas as well.…”

“…As Ouellette (2008) notes in her overview of narrative as a tool for critical personality psychologists, narrative allows for an understanding of personality and human individuality alongside social structures that may be oppressive. Inspired by liberation psychology (Martín-Baró 1994) and the study of lives tradition in personality psychology, narrative research has the potential to allow for an analysis of people's values, motives, and strivings within the social contexts that either allow for the actualization and/or oppression of these dimensions of personality (Ouellette 2008).…”

“…In personality psychology, personology, gerontology, and related approaches to understanding lived experiences, stories and narratives, usually in the form of life stories, have been posited as the most useful and appropriate ways of understanding whole persons and their struggles/successes within cultural and political contexts (McAdams and Pals 2006;Murray 1938;Ouellette 2008;Ouellette and Frost 2006). McAdams and Pals (2006) note that "the complex interplay between culture and human individuality may be most evident at the level of narrative identity" or life stories.…”

“…Inspired by liberation psychology (Martín-Baró 1994) and the study of lives tradition in personality psychology, narrative research has the potential to allow for an analysis of people's values, motives, and strivings within the social contexts that either allow for the actualization and/or oppression of these dimensions of personality (Ouellette 2008). Subjective meanings of values, goals, and identity-related strivings, which are the focus of narrative life studies, become relevant from a social justice perspective.…”