Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) (68 page)

Guiding principles that can be summarized so succinctly are not unusual. Dan McAdams, who has devoted his career to studying people’s life stories,
²⁰
finds that such principles become increasingly coherent as we settle into middle adulthood. Although some flexibility remains, to allow for adaptation to changing circumstances, inconsistencies tend to be reconciled as our stories mature. The essence of our personal myths can then be enunciated in a few simple phrases that we tell ourselves—and others—about who we are.

Seven. Putting It All Together

I opened this book with a famous phrase:

Every man is, in certain respects

(a) like all other men,

(b) like some other men,

(c) like no other man.

The phrase is by Clyde Kluckhohn, an anthropologist, and Henry Murray, a pioneering personality researcher,
¹
who wrote it in 1953, a time when
man
was a widely used synonym for
person.
Their words continue to remind me that understanding someone comes by focusing not only on his or her differences from others, but also on what we share.

Although this may seem obvious, our shared humanity is the first thing we need to acknowledge when trying to make sense of a person. Each of us has a human genome and a human brain. Each of us was once a small child. Each of us was raised in a complex culture and faces similar life challenges. Before considering someone’s distinguishing characteristics, it is important to pause for a moment to explicitly remember how we got to be the way we are, and how much we have in common.

Having consciously recognized this sameness, we are ready to consider the person’s notable differences from the many other people we know. In this book, I’ve described several ways of thinking about these differences. Here I will show you how to put them together by going back to the examples I used at the start: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

I chose these two familiar people because you have probably seen them in action on many different occasions. Even if you haven’t given them much conscious thought, you have probably formed intuitive pictures of what they are like. It is this intuition that is the raw material for a more methodical appraisal of their personalities.
²

A Methodical Appraisal

A good way to begin this appraisal is with the Big Five and its facets. Although we form an initial impression of each of these traits when we meet someone new, we refine that impression as we see how the person behaves in various situations. So the Big Five scores we give people as we get to know them are really rough averages of many observations. In mentally computing a person’s average score for each trait, it is therefore important to also take note of characteristic behavioral nuances that stand out.
³

In applying the Big Five, I start with Extraversion because it is usually easy to assess.
⁴
I then continue to Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. I find it helpful to stick to this fixed order when making my initial survey, but I jump around freely when I make mental revisions. As I’ve gained experience in sizing up people, I still
find that this simple tool helps me notice aspects of a personality that I might have overlooked.

Having considered the Big Five and its facets, the next step is to focus on those traits that are particularly prominent. For example, Bill Clinton’s exceptionally high Extraversion would top his list. His other notable features, which I considered in
Chapter 1
, are relatively low Conscientiousness and an Agreeableness score that is lower than it may initially seem. In contrast, Barack Obama’s Conscientiousness is much higher than Clinton’s, and his Extraversion is conspicuously lower. Obama’s Neuroticism score is also notably low—so low that his advisers must sometimes prod him to express negative emotions.

After I have identified a person’s most prominent traits, I look for patterns. To get started, I look for evidence of four potentially troublesome ways of thinking about oneself: “I’m special,” “I’m right,” “I’m vulnerable,” and “I’m detached.” If I find a fit, I compare the characteristics of the person’s pattern with those of the Top Ten. For “I’m special,” I consider antisocial, histrionic, or narcissistic; for “I’m right,” I consider paranoid or compulsive; for “I’m vulnerable,” I consider avoidant, borderline, or dependent; and for “I’m detached,” I consider schizoid or schizotypal.

Although these ten patterns were initially identified because extreme forms are maladaptive, mild forms are common and are worth looking for in everyone. Even though none of them can describe someone perfectly, these patterns are points of comparison that can help you clarify what you actually observe. If you don’t see signs of any of them, that, too, is informative.

Again, Clinton and Obama are good examples. In Clinton’s case, he clearly thinks of himself as special. And even though he has good reason to be proud of his exceptional talents, his intense desire to be admired brings to mind the narcissistic pattern. This need to be surrounded by enthusiastic fans is common in people who become leaders and fuels their ambition and accomplishments. Convinced of their superiority, they project confidence and, like Clinton, often bounce back from major setbacks.

Clinton also exemplifies some of the troublesome aspects of this pattern. One is a feeling of being entitled to take advantage of others. A second is a sense of invulnerability that may impair judgment. It is this combination of entitlement and invulnerability that allowed Clinton to engage in a prolonged and poorly disguised sexual relationship with a White House intern while being investigated for earlier sexual improprieties. If you wondered how he could have put himself at great risk for so little reward, and how he was so careless in covering his tracks, it may help to remember that such behavior is not rare among invulnerable narcissists. So Clinton’s version of the narcissistic pattern, which has served him well in many ways, has an obvious downside.

Obama’s personality is very different than Clinton’s, and it doesn’t bring to mind any of the Top Ten. Although Obama is every bit as exceptional as Clinton, he doesn’t think of himself as special. Although he isn’t very gregarious and enjoys his privacy, he is hardly detached. Although he has clear goals and strong opinions, he isn’t blindly certain that he’s right. And his imperturbability and low Neuroticism
make him the opposite of vulnerable. In Obama’s case, then, I see no signs of patterns that can be considered maladaptive.

Noticing patterns doesn’t only shift attention from the description of traits to an assessment of their adaptive value. It also sets the stage for another type of judgment using criteria that are explicitly moral. Unlike adaptive criteria, which are based on observations about what works for the person, moral criteria are influenced by our instincts about good and bad. What makes moral judgments so compelling is that they are powered by positive emotions such as compassion and by negative emotions such as contempt. In deciding what you think about someone, your observations come into sharp focus when viewed through the lens of morality.

But it’s important to remember that this moral lens is also shaped by the culture and subculture we belong to, and such cultural differences play a big part in the divergent moral judgments of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Members of some political subcultures consider one or both to be morally inspiring, while members of others look down at Obama for being morally aloof and for having no backbone, and sneer at Clinton for his flagrant misconduct and for being “slick Willie.”

Such moral opinions are generally experienced as gut reactions to specific characteristics that turn us on or off. But to make sense of someone, we need to think over our gut reactions by systematically evaluating the person’s character strengths and weaknesses. A good way to start is to consider how the person measures up on the three domains of
character: self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. We can then flesh out the picture by examining the way the person expresses each of the six core virtues: temperance, courage, humanity, justice, wisdom, and transcendence.

In making a conscious moral assessment, I believe that it is also necessary to take note of the degree to which we are relying on universal as opposed to culture-based standards. I find this helpful in judging Clinton’s and Obama’s character strengths and weaknesses because it prompts me to recognize my cultural biases. It also inclines me to be more open-minded when I turn my attention to their life stories.

Thinking about a life story opens the floodgates to details that were ignored in the relatively abstract survey of traits, patterns, and virtues. It is in the context of someone’s story that we can include the many features that contribute to their uniqueness. These range from physical characteristics such as gender and appearance; to socioeconomic, ethnic, religious, and cultural factors; to family structure and educational opportunities; to strokes of good or bad luck —a vast amount of information that might overwhelm us if we hadn’t already built a tentative picture of someone’s personality. Having first formulated a working idea in the ways I’ve already described, we can try to understand how all these other factors contributed to the person’s sense of identity.

Here again, Obama and Clinton are good examples because they have told us many stories in their autobiographies. In them, they have explained their ways of thinking while dealing with a series of challenges, opportunities, and
lucky breaks. So reading their books will give you plenty of clues to their personal myths. But the reading will be more meaningful if you begin with the tentative picture you’ve already developed by building a profile of traits, patterns, and moral characteristics.

Obama’s and Clinton’s stories have a lot in common. Both were the first children of adventurous and ambitious mothers. Both had little or no contact with their biological fathers: Clinton’s father died in an auto accident before he was born, and Obama’s left when he was two and later also died in an auto accident. Both spent part of their childhoods living with their grandparents. Both had stepfathers. Both were elected president in their mid-forties.

But the identities they developed and the paths they took were very different. Clinton had already opted for a life in politics by the middle of high school. In his autobiography, he says, “Sometime in my sixteenth year I decided I wanted to be in public life as an elected official ... I knew I could be great in public service.”
⁵
At 17, he visited the White House as an Arkansas delegate to a convention that introduced high school students to the federal government, and he dashed to the head of the line to get his picture taken with President Kennedy. While in college at Georgetown, he interned with Arkansas Senator Fulbright to get a foothold in politics. A year after graduating from Yale Law School, at the age of 28, he ran for Congress. By age 32, he was Governor of Arkansas.

Obama took longer to figure out who he was. The biggest issue was that he was biracial, the son of a Kenyan father whom he described as “black as pitch” and a Kansan mother
“white as milk.”
⁶
Raised by white grandparents, Obama said that his obvious African origins made him feel different than his classmates at the elite Punahou School in Hawaii, and he spent much of his young adulthood “trying to raise myself to be a black man in America.”
⁷
After graduating from Columbia and experimenting with life in New York City, he moved to the South Side of Chicago to immerse himself in African-American culture, work for social justice as a community organizer, and build his identity.

Having clarified his goals in Chicago, Obama was ready to reach for them by attending Harvard Law School. He was also ready to reach still higher, and he successfully campaigned for the editorship of the
Harvard Law Review.
This earned him national attention and a book contract for
Dreams from My Father,
which became a foundation for his political career. The rest is history. Blessed with intellect, education, the ability to inspire both black and white voters, and what Liza Mundy thoughtfully summed up as “a series of fortunate events,”
⁸
Obama jumped to the top. At age 47, he became President of the United States.

The differences in Obama’s and Clinton’s stories are reflected in their goals and the identities they developed. Clinton’s major goal, which was already apparent in his teens, was to use his persuasiveness to become a political leader. More interested in being admired than in specific policies, he easily switched positions on important issues, which brought him both success and condemnation. Having survived a major scandal, he later stepped back into the limelight to enjoy the popularity that he so avidly seeks.

Obama, in contrast, is more interested in changing the world than in the enthusiastic approval of the crowd. His guiding theme, which has obvious personal relevance, is to bring all people together. As he tells us in
The Audacity of Hope,
“we are becoming more, not less, alike .... Identities are scrambling, and then cohering in new ways. Beliefs keep slipping through the noose of predictability. Facile expectations and simple explanations are being constantly upended.”
⁹
Truly committed to this view, Obama took his election in 2008 as further evidence of the growing trend toward social harmony and universal brotherhood. But how well he can implement this vision remains to be seen.

Few stories are as eventful as Clinton’s and Obama’s. But the basic ingredients of everyone’s stories are the same. Traits, talents, values, circumstances, and luck contribute to all our stories, and we can identify their roles in an overall picture of each personality. To put together this big picture, I find it useful to follow the steps discussed in this chapter: