Personality and Self: Multiple Frames of Reference for Career Service Professionals

Abstract

The person is central to all career service professionals regardless of their original academic orientations and current professional foci. Each career professional has to be oriented to the person whose career development is to be supported, and therefore each career professional must bring to mind what his or her beliefs are about the person. This chapter presents an overview of key dialogues with regard to (a) his chapter presents an overview of key dialogues with regard to (a) personality in indigenous Western psychology, (b) self in indigenous Western psychology, and (c) personality and self in indigenous Indian literature drawn from Advaita philosophy. The focus is on multiple frames of reference, both within indigenous Western psychology, and also vis-à-vis indigenous Eastern thought. Confronting these varying frames of reference may help career professionals in dislodging complacency (if any) about beliefs relating to the personality and the self; it may help career professionals to clarify and possibly widen their perspectives about the person.

The key contradictions, oppositions, and agreements with regard to the personality in indigenous Western Psychology are illustrated. Multiple personality paradigms (e.g., psychodynamic, interpersonal) are outlined. The notion of trait and the role of consistency are discussed largely using Allport’s and Mischel’s positions; also included is the work of Block, Caspi and Shiner, Mroczek, and Holland. In reviewing the self in indigenous Western Psychology, the legacy positions of William James and Charles Cooley, and offshoots such as Harter’s contemporary theory and Hermans’ dialogical self theory are included.

Indigenous Indian thought on personality and self is illustrated using Advaita philosophy, the nondualist position in the Vedānta. While the Vedānta is one of the six main orthodox schools of ancient philosophical thought in India, the interpretive lens used in this chapter is that of the 20th century Indian scholars/philosophers (e.g., Chinmayananda). There are many points of departure between Western psychology and Indian philosophy/spirituality with regard to notions of self and personality. The aim of the Advaita perspective is not to merely describe, nor to only classify. Neither is the aim to explain behavior as a representation of a stable internal structure nor to predict behavior based on indirect assessments of this supposed internal structure. The distinguishing features of Indian thought (drawn from selected Indian philosophical psychology) include, for example, a spiritual orientation, transcendence as a key theme, malleability, and complex notions of agency.

The overview of the varied indigenous Western perspectives on the personality and the self, as well as the conspicuously different indigenous Indian perspective, must persuade career service professionals that there is no one answer to the question, “Who is the person?” Today, more than ever, in our work in globalizing, international, and culturally diverse settings, we can benefit from holding plural frames of reference. Moreover, given that our lives, careers, and contexts are increasingly labile, it is also important to reflect on the extent to which we construe persons as adaptable and capable of optimizing their development.