Who Are You, Really? - A Reflection on ‘The Puzzle of Personality by Brian Little’

Published on December 6th, 2023

Psychologists define personality as how a person adapts to their environment through endurance, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. While these factors hold steadfast in most theories surrounding personality, there is much debate surrounding the logistics of these factors and how they influence personality. The dispute surrounding this matter has led to various theories and approaches to understand it. To develop an updated and accurate understanding of personality, contemporary psychologists may benefit from psychology lectures and textbooks, such as those provided for our class. These resources provide a foundational overview of core information on personality, providing the basis to comprehend how individuals and society interact further, administrating the development of a better environment for both to achieve their goals. 

When discussing the matter of personality, the textbook and lecture used in class always approach it in a simplified overview, relating to the earlier understandings of it, the core values of those theories as well as the criticisms of them. This way of presenting the topic allows students to gain a base understanding of the science behind personality while providing contrasting opinions and viewpoints, allowing for creating new understandings of it and further developing their comprehensive skills. By providing all the critical understandings of personality and its characteristics, i.e., Nature vs. Nurture, we can then, in turn, expand on those ideas resulting in new theories, as can be seen in Dr. Brain Little's TED Talk. 

In his TED Talk, Dr. Brain Little explains his theory on personality, using the concept of Nature vs. Nurture as its framework and adding a third element to the equation, creating a more nuanced take. His theory breaks personality into three main parts, or natures; biogenic, sociogenic, and idiosyncratic. Biogenic is part of the personality that originates from a person's genetic and biochemical processes or the Nature aspect of personality. These are our base or free traits, and they cannot be changed. However, these traits can be manipulated, switched on and off when our environment calls for it, the factors that influence the nurture portion of personality, our sociogenic nature. Our sociogenic nature is our second self, influenced by our culture and environment. It is a script one follows to advance their core projects, the third aspect of personality. Core projects make people unique; our core concerns or aspects of our lives that matter most to us are our idiosyncratic nature. These factors are forever changing or developing, adding a uniquely personalized layer to personality, for example, someone taking on being a professor or the role taken on when a family member is sick in the hospital. (Little, 2016) 

The concept of extroverts and introverts helps further explain how these natures influence personality. Because of our Biogenic nature, we are either extroverted or introverted, the difference between being stimulated by stimulation or drained by it. Through environments where we are pushed to meet our core project's demands, we can switch to our sociogenic nature, taking on characteristics that would not align with our base traits, as demonstrated by Dr.Little himself. (Little, 2016) Self-described as an introvert, he is prone to being quiet and reserved in packed places, retreating to be alone from overstimulation. However, when placed in a position of teaching, one of his core projects, he can turn off his introvert traits in replacement for extrovert ones, gaining the ability to speak publicly with an energized attitude.  

Both sources, our class materials, and the TED Talk hit on the primary factors and ideas on the concept of personality; the only difference is how the information is used and approached. Our class materials are more of a foundation for understanding psychology, providing the necessary information to start building an understanding of personality and expanding on it, speaking in general terms and simplified language, making it easily digestible (King, 2022). Dr. Littles's TED Talk is an example of a more modern and nuanced take on a personality that can only be developed from the foundation knowledge provided by the class resources, elaborating in expansive language with abstract ideas (Little, 2016). For example, biogenic nature, or the nature aspect of our personality, is based on the concepts of Psychodynamic and Biological perspective, taking the practical aspects of each theory, and merging them into a new understanding, an upgraded hybrid of the previous ideas on nature. To further explain, sociogenic nature does this with the theories of Nurture, the Humanistic, Sociocultural, and Traits perspective, taking valuable information from them and providing another updated understanding of Nurture. The only newer concept to Little's theory is the idea of idiosyncrasy nature, which, as stated before, adds a modern take to the understanding of personality. Further, making it a better understanding of personality than others because it allows for more nuance while still keeping the basic, proven idea of personality and making it more informed.  

A perfect example is the concept of introverts and extroverts. This information can help with the well-being of society, especially when engaging with others, allowing the opportunity to create a more understanding environment. Extroversion and introversion explain how somebody responds to stimuli. This concept removes the human decision factor, allowing for a broader understanding of people's actions. This understanding rejects the view of an introvert retreating to be alone as anti-social or arrogant because of their lack of interaction with others or the notion that extroverts' lack of boundaries and loud nature results from an elitist or brazen character. It allows people's walls and biases to come down and for them to interact with others creating new experiences that could lead to new understanding. This is especially true in cases concerning structures like school and work, breaking down societal stereotypes, like someone not wanting to participate in work parties or networking, viewing them as lazy or unpassionate.  

Personality is hard to define with its abstract nature and the opinions that derive from trying to understand it, making it an even harder thing to try and explain. Knowledge is ever-changing, and that stands true for personality psychology. Class resources, such as our own, provide a framework for understanding personality, allowing for a deeper understanding, in turn helping better society and humans, perfectly demonstrated by Dr. Brain Little's theory of personality.  

Reference Pages 

King, L. A. (2021). Experience psychology: Edition 5. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 

Little, B.R. (2016). Who are you, really? The puzzle of personality. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/brian_little_who_are_you_really_the_puzzle_of_personality?language=en&subtitle=en