140 A Psychological Behaviorism Theory of Personality
with a personality. The PB theory of personality is the only
one that has been constructed on the foundation of a set of
learning-behavior principles (Staats, 1996). Advancing in
successive works, with different features than other personal-
ity theories, only in its later version has the theory of person-
ality begun to arouse interest in the general field of behavior
therapy. It appears that some behavior therapists are begin-
ning to realize that behaviorists “have traditionally regarded
personality, as a concept, of little use in describing and pre-
dicting behavior” (Hamburg, 2000, p. 62) and that this is a
liability. Making that realization general, along with under-
standing how this weakens the field, is basic in effecting
progress.
As it stands, behavior therapy’s rejection of the concept of
personality underlies the field’s inability to join forces with
the field of psychological measurement. This is anomalous
because behavior therapists use psychological tests even
while rejecting them conceptually. It is anomalous also be-
cause Kenneth Spence (1944), while not providing a concep-
tual framework for bringing behaviorism and psychological
testing together, did provide a behavioral rationale for the
utility of tests. He said that tests produce R-R (response-
response) laws—in which a test score (one response) is used
to predict some later performance (the later response). It
needs to be added that tests can yield knowledge of behavior
in addition to prediction as we will see.
This, then, is the state of affairs at present. Not one of the
other behavioral approaches—radical behaviorism, Hullian
theory, social learning theory, cognitive-behavioral theory—
has produced or projected a program for the study of per-
sonality and its measurement. That is a central reason why
traditional psychology is alienated from behaviorism and
behavioral approaches. And that separation has seriously dis-
advantaged both behaviorism and traditional psychology.
THE STATE OF THEORY IN THE FIELD
OF PERSONALITY
Thus far a critical look has been directed at the behaviorism
positions with respect to the personality and psychological
testing fields. This is not to say that those two fields are fulfill-
ing their potential or are open to unification with any behav-
ioral approach. Just as behaviorism has rejected personality
and psychological measurement, so have the latter rejected
behaviorism. Part of this occurs because traditional behavior-
ism does not develop some mutuality of interest, view, or
product. But the fields of psychological testing and personal-
ity have had a tradition that considers genetic heredity as the
real explanation of individual differences. Despite lip service
to the contrary, these fields have never dealt with learning. So
there is an ingrained mutual rejection. Furthermore, the lack
of a learning approach has greatly weakened personality
theory and measurement, substantively as well as method-
ologically, as I will suggest.
To continue, examination of the field of personology reveals
it to be, at least within the present philosophy-methodology,
a curiosity of science. For this is a field without guidelines,
with no agreement on what its subject matter—personality—is
and no concern about that lack of stipulation. It is accepted that
there will be many definitions in the operating field. The only
consensus, albeit implicit, is that personality is some process or
structure within the individual that is acauseof the individual’s
behavior. Concepts of personality range from the id, ego, and
superego of Sigmund Freud, through the personal constructs of
George Kelly and Carl Rogers’s life force that leads to the
maintenance and enhancement of self, to Raymond B. Cattell’s
source traits of sociability, intelligence, and ego strength, to
mention a very few.
Moreover, there is no attempt to calibrate one concept of
personality with respect to another. In textbooks each person-
ality theory is described separately without relating concepts
and principles toward creating some meaningful relation-
ships. There are no criteria for evaluating the worth of the
products of the field, for comparing them, for advancing the
field as a part of science. Each author of a theory of personal-
ity is free to pursue her or his own goals, which can range from
using factor analytic methods by which to establish relation-
ships between test items and questionnaires to running pi-
geons on different schedules of reinforcement. There will be
little criticism or evaluation of empirical methods or strate-
gies. All is pretty much accepted as is. There will be no critical
consideration of the kind of data that are employed and evalu-
ation of what the type of data mean about the nature of the
theory. Other than psychometric criteria of reliability and va-
lidity, there will be no standards of success concerning a test’s
provision of understanding of the trait involved, what causes
the trait, or how it can be changed. Also, the success of a per-
sonality theory will not be assessed by the extent to which it
provides a foundation for constructing tests of personality,
therapies, or procedures for parents to employ. It is also not
necessary that a personality theory be linked to other fields
of study.
Moreover, a theory in this field does not have the same
types of characteristics or functions as do theories in the
physical sciences. Those who consider themselves personal-
ity theorists are so named either because they have created
one of the many personality theories or because they have
studied and know about one or more of the various existent
theories. They are not theorists in the sense that they work on