Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) (72 page)

6
. Kelly (
2010
) is my main source for the details of Oprah’s life.

7
. Kelly (
2010
), p. 34.

8
. Cited by Kelly (
2010
), p. 40.

9
. Cited by Kelly (
2010
), p. 3.

10
. McAdams (
1993
).

11
. Bandura (
1982
).

12
. Erikson (
1958
), p. 111.

13
. Kelly (
2010
), p. 24.

14
. Kelly (
2010
), p. 34.

15
. Isaacson (
2003
), p. 2.

16
. Writers of memoirs also recognize the importance of inventiveness. In
Inventing the Truth
, Zinsser (
1998
, p. 6) tells us that “memoir writers must manufacture
a text, imposing narrative order on a jumble of half-remembered events. With that feat of manipulation they arrive at a truth that is theirs alone.”

17
. Erikson (
1980
).

18
. To get the full flavor, you can watch the video of Jobs’s commencement address on You Tube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
.

19
. Elkind (
2008
). All the quotes that follow are by Elkind or are cited by him.

20
. McAdams (
1993
).

Chapter 7

1
. Kluckhohn and Murray (
1953
).

2
. Gordon Allport was well aware of our reliance on this natural intuitive ability as the starting point for a conscious assessment. To him, learning to analyze a personality was like learning to analyze a piece of music. As he explained it, “No one learns to hear the tonal pattern of a symphony, but we can be taught to listen to it and to look for significant features. Most instruction in life is devoted to analysis, to giving knowledge about, and to building up a store of available inferences. We cannot teach another to perceive the unity of an object (it is simply there), but we can teach so that his associational equipment is enriched. And so it is with personality: We cannot teach understanding of pattern, but we can call attention to detail, as well as to laws, principles, generalizations which can sharpen
comprehension through comparison and inference.” (Allport [
1961
], p. 547)

3
. A good example of a nuanced description of a Big Five trait comes from Lev Grossman’s (
2010
) Person of the Year article about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in which he considers Zuckerberg’s ranking on Extraversion. Using the Big Five framework helps me appreciate, integrate, and remember Grossman’s insightful assessment:

“Zuckerberg has often—possibly always—been described as remote and socially awkward, but that’s not quite right. True: holding a conversation with him can be challenging. He approaches conversation as a way of exchanging data as rapidly and efficiently as possible, rather than as a recreational activity undertaken for its own sake. He is formidably quick and talks rapidly and precisely, and if he has no data to transmit, he abruptly falls silent. (‘I usually don’t like things that are too much about me’ was how he began our first interview.) He cannot be relied on to throw the ball back or give you encouraging facial cues. His default expression is a direct and slightly wide-eyed stare that makes you wonder if you’ve got a spider on your forehead ....

“In spite of all that—and this is what generally gets left out—Zuckerberg is a warm presence, not a cold one. He has a quick smile and doesn’t shy away from eye contact. He thinks fast and talks fast, but he wants you to keep up. He exudes not anger or social anxiety, but a weird calm. When you talk to his coworkers, they’re so adamant in their avowals of affection for him and in
their insistence that you not misconstrue his oddness that you get the impression it’s not just because they want to keep their jobs. People really like him ....

“The reality is that Zuckerberg isn’t alienated, and he isn’t a loner. He’s the opposite. He’s spent his whole life in tight, supportive, intensely connected social environments: first in the bosom of the Zuckerberg family, then in the dorms at Harvard, and now at Facebook, where his best friends are his staff, there are no offices, and work is awesome. Zuckerberg loves being around people. He didn’t build Facebook so he could have a social life like the rest of us. He built it because he wanted the rest of us to have his.”

4
. Funder and Sneed (
1993
).

5
. Clinton (
2004
).

6
. Obama (
1995
).

7
.
Ibid.

8
. Mundy (
2007
).

9
. Obama (
2006
).

10
. Roberts and DelVecchio (
2000
), McCrae and Costa (
2003
).

11
. Roberts and Caspi (
2003
).

12
. Avdi and Gorgaca (
2007
); Adler, et al. (
2008
); Salvatore, et al. (
2004
); Wilson (
2002
).

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