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http://jhp.sagepub.comJournal of Humanistic Psychology

DOI: 10.1177/002216786500500108 1965; 5; 82 Journal of Humanistic Psychology

Abraham S. Luchins and Edith H. Luchins Some Approaches to Studying the Individual

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82

SOME APPROACHES TO STUDYINGTHE INDIVIDUAL

ABRAHAM S. LUCHINSState University of New York at Albany

EDITH H. LUCHINS

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

THE individual occupies a prominent place in contemporary discus-sions in philosophy and psychology. But it is onc matter to appeal to aphilosophical doctrine or to a psychological theory that speaks of theindividuality or uniqueness of the person and another matter actuallyto study a particular individual qua individual. The question may beraised as to what extent psychological studies of personality are gettingat the uniqueness of an individual.

It is easy to criticize traditional studies of personality for neglectingthe individual. For example, the differential psychologists approach topersonality may be criticized as leading to a psychograph (composedof test scores) that does not reflect the uniqueness or the organizationof the person who takes the tests. The individuality of the person issomehow lost in the array of test scores. The tests may be described assituation-centered rather than individual-centered, and as oriented todiscovering the probability of occurrence of certain kinds of behaviorrather than the dynamics of a particular individuals behavior. At best,they reveal the probability that the person has the response repertoireneeded to meet the role requirements of certain positions. Thus, intelli-gence tests do not reveal the unique organization of the individualsintellect. Rather, thc individuals performance on the test taken in con-junction with generalizations based on &dquo;norms&dquo; for the test is used topredict the probability that he will learn specified kinds of subjectmatter in certain learning situations. Similarly, traditional tests of per-sonality do not reveal the individuality of the person, but, when in-terpreted in terms of statistical generalizations and other generalities,suggest the probability that the person will show specified kinds ofbehavior or traits in certain social situations. In short, the tests, on thcbasis of statistical generalizations and abstractions, portray the indi-vidual as a receptacle of probabilities of functioning.

In the past two decades, other approaches have been developed forthe study of personality, e.g., projective techniques in clinical psycho-logy. These methods are regarded as offering a better chance for theindividuality of the person to reveal itself through portrayal of thestructure and dynamics of his personality. But a critic of projectivetechniques might say that they neglect the individual as much as trade-tional methods. Personality theories (the critic might continue) have


83

been substituted for statistics; and abstractions involving hypotheticalor logical constructs of personality have replaced empirically derivedgeneralizations concerning the probability of the occurrence of ccrtainbehavior. Instead of the test scores being indicants of predictions asto the occurrence of specified kinds of behavior in certain situations,the tests arc interpreted as providing clues to the existence of certaindynamic or structural features of personality. But these features maynot be the actual features of the person who is being studied as muchas they are features of a theory concerning the structure and dynamicsof a hypothetical personality. Just as the individuality of the person issomehow lost in the array of test scores that constitute a psychograph,the individuality may also be lost in the abstractions and generalitiesthat stem from a theory based on hypothetical conceptualizations ofpersonality.

Another illustration is furnished by studies of so-called social per-ception. &dquo;Where is the perceiver in perception?&dquo; is the shibboleth ofthose who consider that traditional studies of perception have not takenthe particular perceiver into account. But some of those who raise thisbattle cry have themselves treated perception in a manner which doesnot seem to be concerned with the particular persons perceptual beha-vior. For example, their concern often is not with the problem of howlthe actual needs and values of a particular individual influence hisperception; rather, the concern may be with abstractions and general-izations concerning the roles played by concepts or constructs fromccrtain theories of personality or motivation in explaining perceptualphenomena. (See Luchins, 1951a; Luchins, A. S. & Luchins, E. H.,1959, for a dctailcd discussion of this point.) Studies of dynamics ofpersonality may not be concerned with the dynamics of a particularindividual in a concrete situation - with the actual transactions be-tween the specific individual and the specific situation - but may beconcerned with abstractions and generalities (perhaps suggested by atheory of dynamics or of motives) regarding hypothetical dynamics inhypothetical situations.. In short, despite the popularity of the verbal appeal to the individualand the study of the individual case, both the older and the newerapproaches to personality may be regarded as not focusing on or beingconcerned with the individual qua individual. Both may be consideredto subordinate the individual to abstractions, generalizations, or gener-alities of some kind, whether they be from statistics or from theories ofpersonality, motivation, perception, etc.

Perhaps this is the way it must be. Perhaps science cannot dealwith the individual case. Must we renounce the scientific study of theindividuality of particular people? Must we leave the study of the par-ticularity or uniqueness of the individual to the artist, the poet, andthe novelist? Or can psychologists develop methods to study and tounderstand the individual qua individual? These are more thanrhetorical questions. To the extent that psychology is distinct fromsociology and the other social or behavioral sciences, it is committed


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to thc study of man qua man. This does not mcan; liawcvcr, that therecannot be a change in emphasis so that psychology becomes .&dquo;uncom-mitted&dquo; to the study of the individual. It has not always been so com-mitted. For example, it seems that Aristotle coneeived. of psychology,not as dealing with the concrete, . specific individuals behavior, but asreprescnting the most abstract science of life, dealing with the mostgeneral principles of life. This is suggested by his discussion of psycho-logy in De Anima. In contrast, the subject matter, sometimes referredto as &dquo;doctrines of man,&dquo; that Aristotle discussed in his Ethics, Politics,and Rhetoric, is more concrete and less general in nature, and dealswith what many people today call psychology.Approaches from the viewpoint of both De Animd and &dquo;the doc-

trines of man&dquo; seemingly exist side by side in contemporary psychology.As psychologists function as scientists, they develop abstractions anddeal with generalities. Thus, psychology becomes an abstract science ofbehavior, mind, or personality. Its focus is to reduce the diversity ofpeoples behavior to mere differences of appearance, and to subsumeand treat individuals as variants of the same set or principle. This maybe justified by an appeal to the thesis that it is the reduction of themutability of nature that makes science possible. But as psychologistsbecome clinicians or other kinds of behavior technologists, they arefaced with concrete situations and particular individuals. They are suc-cessful as technologists insofar as they can deal with the individual andcan help solve his concrete problems. To this extent, the behaviortechnology aspect of psychology is related more to &dquo;doctrines of man&dquo;than to De Anima.The above is not intended to suggest that psychology has to make a

choice and to decide to be one or the other. But it docs seem importantto realize to what extent at any one time we are dealing with the personas an individual or in terms of abstractions and generalities. There isessentially nothing wrong in dealing with the behavior of an individual(a) in terms of abstractions or (b) in terms of the individual qua indi-vidual. There is something wrong, however, when one says he is doing(b) and yet actually is doing (a) or vice versa. Such a state of affairsobscures more than it clarifies. Let us be clear, in psychology as awhole or in any given aspect of it, about our purposes or goals, so thatwe can correctly evaluate whether we are achieving the particular aimof the science or of the particular study.

Perhaps this is the way it must be. Perhaps psychology as a sciencecannot deal with the individual. It might be argued that, as a science,psychology need not even be concerned with the individual case butmust be concerned with abstractions and generalities. In fact, the dis-tinction that is sometimes made between science or mathematics, on

the one hand, and the arts, on the other hand, is that the former isconcerned with generalities and with the process and resultants ofabstractions whereas the arts are concerned with particularities, withindividuals, and with what might be called a process of paiiiculariza-tion or individualization. -


85

For example, having raised the problem of how mathematics is tobe differentiated from the arts, the mathematician R. L. Wilder (1958,274) writes: &dquo;While mathematics abstracts form, art individualizes it.The mathematician uses the abstract number 4, but the artist onlypaints four birds, four flowers, etc. Even abstract art, so-called, is aprocess of individualization.&dquo; It might be said that to the extent thatpsychology is a science, it abstracts, whereas to the extent that it isan art, it is concerned with individuals and individualization. But ispsychology primarily a science or an art and where is the boundarybetween the two? There is not agreement on the answer to this ques-tion. Analogously, there is not agreement on whether mathematics is ascience or an art or on how to draw a definitive boundary between thetwo. In this connection we again refer to Wilder who writes: &dquo;Manymathematicians, incidentally, consider mathematics an art.... Fromour point of view, when one abstracts the forms which one finds inpainting, pottery, music, etc., one does mathematics. However, no defi-nition would be sufficient to rule our border-line cases.... It is impos-sible to say with definiteness or assurance just where mathematics stops,and art, or physics, ar ... begins.&dquo;The history of science provides many examples where the arts and

technology have enriched science and vice versa. Similarly the prob-lems of individuality and individualization, even though they may seemto fit in more with the arts than science, may be clarified by a scientificapproach and may, in turn, add to scientific knowledge and to scien-tific methods in psychology. Indeed, the richness of psychology as ascience may depend on its concern with individual cases and on itswillingness to be guided by the requirements of the individual caserather than to subordinate it to abstractions and generalities, whetherof concepts or methods. In this connection, consider what Courantand Robbins (1943, 342) have said about mathematics. &dquo;As a rule inscientific thinking it is better to consider the individual features of aproblem rather than to rely exclusively on general methods, althoughindividual efforts should always be guided by a principle that clarifiesthe meaning of the special procedures used.... The modem searchfor generality represents only one side of the case, for the vitality ofthe mathematics depends most decidedly on the individual color ofproblems and methods.&dquo;That there is a dearth of scientific studies of the particularity of

individuals may be due in part both to the difficulty of developingadequate methods for such study and to the inherent difficulty ofadequately conceptualizing individuality. It has been conceptualizeddifferently in social thought, in folk lore, and in scientific and philo-sophical discussions of personality. Perhaps the problem of what isindividuality is a problem with a non-unique solution. Instead of dis-missing the question of individuality from the scientific study of psycho-logy, we think that it is important to develop methods to deal with it.In line with this conviction, we have been trying out various ways ofstudying individuality.


86

An approach we have used rests on the assumption that individualityis related to the invariants in. the individuals functioning, those pro-perties that remain unchanged or constant under various conditions.This idea - which may be considered as stemming from an analogywith invariants under mathematical transformations --~ is not entirelyforeign to conceptualizations of personality among certain psycholo-gists. It is close to Wertheimers notion of a core or radix in personality(Luchins, 1961) and is in some respects similar to Adlers idea of thestyle of life (Ansbacher, H. & Ansbacher, R., 1956). Admittedly, indi-viduality can be conceptualized and studied in other ways than thosepresented here. The methods are presented here not as a solution tothe problem of individuality, but to stimulate the development ofmethods and concepts for studying individuality. It is also hoped thatthe described methods will indirectly stimulate interest in the study ofindividualization or particularization as a psychological process. Thisis a needed counterpart to the concerted effort that has been made tostudy the processes of abstraction and generalization.

Some Proposals for Study of Individuality

As already noted, the methods to be described arc based on theassumption that the individuality or uniqueness of the person is inti-mately related to those of his characteristics that tend to remain in-variant under changes in the contexts in which his behavior takes placeor under changes in the frame of reference from which he is viewed.We have been attempting to discover what remains invariant in

impressions of a person when those who give their impressions standin various relations to this person. In one project (Luchins, A. S. &Golemba, M., 1965) different people were individually asked to givetheir impressions of the same individual and to describe the role heplays &dquo;if life is considered to be a stage.&dquo; In this manner we obtainedimpressions of the individual from his teachers, from his fellow students,from members of the student council, from his parents, his siblings, hisgirl friend, etc. We were interested in what was different and what wasinvariant in all the impressions and in all of the impressions from acertain group of people (e.g., all of his teachers or all of the membersof the student council). We were also interested in what was invariantin the roles assigned to the person.We have been trying to find out what remains invariant in the im-

pression of the personality of an individual with changes in informationconcerning him. One research project involved the administration ofthe same questionnaire (Hovland, 1957) each time additional informa-.tion was given about the individual. The questionnaire asked the sub-jects to write a paragraph giving their general impression of the personabout whom they were receiving information. The questionnaire alsoasked for trait names, for description of his physical appearance, man-ner of dress, expressive movements, his attitudes toward his parents,teachers, peers, etc., as well as for predictions of his behavior in various


87

situations. The first time this questionnaire was administered, subjectshad been told only the name of the individual. Half the subjects weretold that thc person was named Jim, the others wcre told that theperson was named Joan. Four subsequent times during the semestcr.they were given a sentence or two describing the behavior of Jim (orJoan). Each time the rzew information was followed by a readministra-tion of the questionnaire. In one study, the information given to thesubjects described behavior that may be said to be expressing intro-vertive or extrovertive tendencies. In the other study the informationdescribed behavior that might be considered to reflect attitudes towardintcgration or segregation. Response to the questionnaire are nowbeing analyzed. Ye are interested in determining, among other things,what aspects of the impression did not change with new informationand what aspects always changed after . additional information wasgiven. We arc also interested in what aspects of the impression tendedto be the .same (a) when extrovertive behavior was described as com-pared to introvertive behavior, (b) when pro-scgregationist behaviorwas described as compared to anti-segregationist behavior, and (c)when behavior of item (a) . was described compared to behavior ofitem (b). We arc especially interested in the extent to which first im:&dquo;pressions or initial impression tend to stay unchanged. More generally,we hope to find out what stays invariant and what changes in theinitial impression of a person as additional information is receivedabout him.

There is another way in which we have been studying invarianceand change in impressions of people with changes in informationabout them. This has been in the course of teaching diagnostic testingto clinical psychology students. One of the methods used was to havestudents answer a questionnaire dealing with their impression of astudent or patient on the basis of their observation during the pre-testinterview. The same questionnaire was answered by the same studentsafter they read the persons answers to each sub-test of the Wechsler-Bellevue test and/or his answers on each of the phases of administra-tion of the Rorschach test (free-association, inquiry, testing of limits).In other words, the student gave his impression of the patient afterreading his performance on a sub-test or a phase of administration ofthe test and again gave his impression of the patient after learning ofhis results on the next sub-test or next phase of administration, etc.*

Still another teaching method was to have students write their im-pressions of an individual when the only information was a sample ofhis handwriting. They again wrote their impressions of the individualafter hearing a recording of his voice and again after seeing still pic-tures and then moving pictures of him. Finally, they wrote their im-pressions of the individual after actually meeting him and having achance to talk with him.

*See Luchins, A. S., 1955, for a detailed description of these procedures in teach-ing diagnostic testing.


88

One aim of these projects (Luchins, 1965) was to sensitize thestudent to aspects of the impression that tend to be specific or uniqueto particular techniques of obtaining information or specific .to theparticular methods of forming the impression. Another aim was to sen-sitize him to those aspects which seem to persist and to be unchangedin several or all of his impressions. For example, what is unchanged,and what changes, in his impression of an individual after each of thevarious phases of the administration of the Rorschach or after each ofthe sub-tests of the Wechsler-Bellevue? What remains uchanged andwhat changes in ones impression of the individual as one gets informa-tion about him from his handwriting, voice, etc.,? Do certain items ofinformation reveal aspects of the person that others do not? Do thevarious items of information, the various direct or indirect contactswith the individual, the tests, sub-tests, reveal aspects of the personthat are common to all sources of information? What is the influenceof the initial impression in determining what tends to stay unchangedthroughout all or most of the successive impressions?The reader is referred to a phenomenon-centered approach to the

study of the individual case for further ways of investigating invariancein personality impression (Luchins, 1951, 1959; Luchins, A. S. &Luchins, E. H., zThe issues with which we have been concerned pertain to the prob-

lem of the relationship between the particular and the general. Thisproblem is not only a philosophical one but is in a sense a personalproblem which is faced, to some degree, by every human being. Eachperson has to live in terms of both the particular and the general. Hemay have to develop a modus vivendi between two modes of being :(a) the mode of being that constitutes the generalized person of histime and place, the product of the history of his society and its culture;and (b) the mode of being that represents the particular biological andpsychological entity that constitutes his &dquo;self.&dquo; In a specific situation theperson may use his &dquo;self&dquo; as the frame of reference and, for example,see himself in terms of a certain biological need or a personality needand act in terms of it. Or he may see himself in terms of the &dquo;general-ized&dquo; being and act in terms of the requirements of a course of eventsthat went on before him and will go on after him. In the former, he isin a sense oriented to the concreteness and particularity of his exist-ence. In the latter, he is oriented to the symbolic manifestations of hisculture and to himself as a carrier of the culture. He may see himselfas a specific unit in terms of his organismic existence or as a part of anhistorical process in nature and society. Just as the person, so the disci-pline of psychology may have to develop a modus vivendi between theparticular and the general, between psychology as an art and psycho-logy as a science.


89

SummaryWe discussed the problem of whether either traditional methods or

more modern projective methods of studying personality actually studythe individual qua individual or whether they tend to subordinate theindividual to abstractions and generalizations. This led to considera-tions of whether science is perforce concerned with abstractions andmust leave the study of the individual to the arts. Scientific study ofthe individuality and uniqueness of a person was advocated. Somemethods that might be used for such studies were described. They werebased on the assumption that the individuality of the person is relatedto the phenomenal invariants in his personality and behavior undertransformations of conditions. Finally, we touched on the relationshipbetween the particular and the general not only as a philosophicalproblem but as a personal problem for each human being and as aproblem facing the discipline of psychology;


90

REFERENCES

ANSBACHER, H. & ANSBACHER, R. The individual psychology of AlfredAdler. New York : Basic Books, 1956.

COURANT, R. & ROBBINS, H. what is mathematics? New York :Oxford Univ. Press, 1943.

HOVLAND, et al. The order of presentation in persuasion. New Haven,Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, Appendix C, 1957.

LUCHINS, A. S. An evaluation of some current criticisms of Gestaltpsychological work on perception. Psych. Rev., 1951a, 58, 69-95.

LUCHINs, A. S. Toward an experimental clinical psychology. J. Person.,1951b, 20, 440-456..

LucHms, A. S. Integration of clinical and experimental psychologythrough core courses. Psychol. Reports Monogr., 1955, 4, 221-246.

LUCHINS, A. S. A functional approach to training in clinical psycho-logy. Springfield, Ill.: C. Thomas, 1959.

LUCHINS, A. S. On some aspects of Wertheimers approach to per-sonality, J. Ind. Psychol., 1961, 17, 20-26.

LUCHINS, A. S. & LUCHINS, E. H. Rigidity of behavior. Eugene, Ore. :Univ. of Oregon Press, 1959.

LUCHINS, A. S. & GOLEMBA, M. Forming impressions of personality ina preliminary report. Unpublished. State Univ. of New York, 1956.

WILDER, R. L. Introduction to foundations of mathematics. NewYork: Wiley, 1958.


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