396 Part IV Dispositional Theories
Objective Biography The second peripheral component is objective biography,
defined as “everything the person does, thinks, or feels across the whole life span”
(McCrae & Costa, 2003, p. 187). Objective biography emphasizes what has
happened in people’s lives (objective) rather than their view or perceptions of their
experiences (subjective). Every behavior or response becomes part of the cumula-
tive record. Whereas theorists such as Alfred Adler (style of life) or Dan McAdams
(personal narrative) emphasize the subjective interpretations of one’s life-story,
McCrae and Costa focus on the objective experiences—the events and experiences
one has had over one’s lifetime.External Influences People constantly find themselves in a particular physical
or social situation that has some influence on the personality system. The question
of how we respond to the opportunities and demands of the context is what exter-
nal influences is all about. According to McCrae and Costa (1999, 2003), these
responses are a function of two things: (1) characteristic adaptations and (2) their
interaction with external influences (note the two arrows going into the objective
biography ellipse in Figure 13.3).
McCrae and Costa assume that behavior is a function of the interaction
between characteristic adaptations and external influences. As an example, they
cite the case of Joan, who is offered tickets to see the opera La Traviata (an exter-
nal influence). But Joan has a long personal history of detesting opera (a charac-
teristic adaptation) and therefore refuses the offer (an objective biography). To
elaborate, Joan may well have a basic tendency toward being closed (rather than
open) to new experiences, and she may never have been around opera as a child
or may have simply formed a negative opinion about it based on reputation. What-
ever the case, she is more at home with familiar events and with down-to-earth
experiences. This background predicts that Joan is likely to respond the way she
did to an offer to attend an opera. These decisions to stay away from such experi-
ences reinforce themselves as her distaste for opera grows. This is reflected in the
arrow circling back on itself in Figure 13.3.Basic Postulates
Each of the components of the personality system (except biological bases) has
core postulates. Because the components of basic tendencies and characteristic
adaptations are most central to the personality system, we will elaborate only on
the postulates for these two components.Postulates for Basic Tendencies
Basic tendencies have four postulates: individuality, origin, development, and struc-
ture. The individuality postulate stipulates that adults have a unique set of traits and
that each person exhibits a unique combination of trait patterns. The precise amount
of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness is
unique to all of us, and much of our uniqueness results from variability in our
genotype. This postulate is consistent with Allport’s idea that uniqueness is the
essence of personality.