Studies of Personality
One of my principal interests in psychology to which I have returned several times has been the study of personality. Soon after completing the doctorate, I turned my attention seriously to the study of abnormal psychology, and I read Freud and a good deal of the psychoanalytical literature. My conflict here was that, on the one hand, the center of psychology probably was the study of personality, but, on the other hand, I was unable to invent any experimental leverage in this field. That was the reason why I turned to other problems that seemed to lend themselves to more rigorous analysis.
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During my first year at the University of Chicago, Beardsley Ruml asked me to spend a quarter in Philadelphia to work with Elton Mayo. My assignment was to work with him daily and to try to decipher his psychological system. I found it an extremely profitable experience to spend the mornings with him at the Philadelphia General Hospital and the afternoons at Ardmore when he went there to work with patients. I became convinced that no one should ever receive a doctorate in psychology without such an experience, no matter what his major field might be. As to the assignment, I had to report that to systematize Elton Mayo was an impossible job. By that I did not mean to depreciate Elton Mayo for whom I had the very highest regard, but I did not see the possibility of any textbook exposition of his ideas.www.psychspace.com心理学空间网
