Individual Lives and Individual Differences: The Multidisciplinary Study of Personality (1900–1930) 179largely due to the prevailing belief that “personality quite
suddenly became a field in the middle of the 1930s” (Sanford,
1985, p. 492). In fact, psychologists developed an interest in
personality much earlier, and their methodological choices,
shaped by developments within the broader field of psychol-
ogy and in the larger culture, influenced the field in impor-
tant ways (Danziger, 1990, 1997; Parker, 1991; Shermer,
1985). In our own historical review of the field (Winter &
Barenbaum, 1999), we argue that early research in personal-
ity reveals a tension between two central tasks of personality
psychology—“the study of individual differences” and “the
study of individual persons as unique, integrated wholes”
(p. 6; emphasis in original)—and that the individual differ-
ences approach was already well-established in psychological
studies of personality by the time the subfield of personality
psychology was institutionalized in the 1930s. Here, we
examine in more detail aspects of this formative period that
contributed to the predominance of the psychometric ap-
proach and to personality psychologists’ ambivalence regard-
ing intensive studies of individual lives. We suggest that
personality psychologists’ attitudes toward case studies and
life histories were influenced by work not only in psychology
but also in neighboring disciplines that adopted alternative
investigative practices. In particular, we compare the recep-
tion of case studies and life histories in psychiatry, sociology,
and psychology during the early decades of the twentieth
century.
To illustrate the lasting effects of these methodological
choices, we trace the efforts of Allport and Murray to pro-
mote the study of individual lives in personality psychology,
and we examine psychologists’ responses to their work.
Finally, we reconsider the question of the historical course
of personality psychologists’ ambivalence regarding the
study of individual lives and suggest an interpretation of the
revival of interest in case studies, life histories, and psy-
chobiography in recent years. Rather than simply document-
ing the history of case studies and life histories in personality
psychology, we focus in this chapter on contextual factors
shaping American personality psychologists’ attitudes toward
these methods. Our account builds upon a number of earlier
sources: historical reviews of case studies (e.g., Bromley,
1986; Forrester, 1996; McAdams & West, 1997), life histories
and psychobiography (e.g., Bertaux, 1981; McAdams, 1988;
Plummer, 1983; Runyan, 1982, 1988b, 1997); handbook
chapters on the history of personality theories and research
(e.g., McAdams, 1997; Pervin, 1990; Winter & Barenbaum,
1999); and historical studies of the early development of per-
sonality psychology (Burnham, 1968a; Danziger, 1990, 1997;
Nicholson, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000; Parker, 1991; Shermer,
1985).
INDIVIDUAL LIVES AND INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES: THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY
STUDY OF PERSONALITY (1900–1930)Gordon Allport’s (1921) review of “personality” research,
generally considered the first of its kind in an American psy-
chological journal, was “an early indication that this word was
beginning to have a technical meaning” (Parker, 1991, p. 113).
Other indicators of institutional recognition (such as publica-
tion trends in journals and textbooks, contents of professional
meetings, and changes in academic curricula) began to emerge
during the mid-1920s, and personality research “became a rel-
atively secure specialty area in American psychology by the
mid-1930s” (Parker, 1991, p. 164; see also Burnham, 1968a).
In the following section we discuss the broader cultural con-
text that influenced the emergence of the new subfield.The “Culture of Personality”Personality... is by far the greatest word in the history of the
human mind.... [It ] is the key that unlocks the deeper myster-
ies of Science and Philosophy, of History and Literature, of
Art and Religion, of all man’s Ethical and Social relationships.
(Randall, 1912, pp. xiii–xiv)Cultural historians suggest that during the early decades of
the twentieth century, societal changes associated with indus-
trialization, urbanization, and mass education evoked among
Americans “a strong sense of the urgency of finding one’s self ”
(Burnham, 1968b, p. 367; see also Thornton, 1996). During the
“turn-of-the-century decade,” according to Susman (1979),
“interest grew in personality, individual idiosyncrasies, per-
sonal needs and interests.... There was fascination with
the very peculiarities of the self, especially the sick self ”
(pp. 216–217). The popular press featured dramatic de-
scriptions of cases of psychopathology, such as the Ladies’
Home Journalarticle entitled “How One Girl Lived Four
Lives: The Astounding Case of Miss Beauchamp” (Corbin,
1908), a popularized version of Morton Prince’s (1906) fa-
mous case of “dissociated personality.” Seeking to relieve
fears of depersonalization, Americans consulted self-improve-
ment manuals that emphasized the cultivation of a unique, fas-
cinating “personality”—a term that “became an important part
of the American vocabulary” (Susman, 1979, p. 217). This
new emphasis on “personality” is evident in the previous
quote from John Randall. Randall represented the New
Thought, or Mind Cure, movement, which was important in
the transition from a “culture of character,” a nineteenth-
century ideal emphasizing duty and moral qualities, to a “cul-
ture of personality” (Susman, 1979, p. 216), emphasizing
self-development and self-presentation.