Can There Be a Grand Unified Theory of Psychology? Discuss.

Can there be a Grand Unified Theory of Personality?

Bradley Templeton Scobie

No single theory of personality can adequately explain the full function of human behaviour.

Psychodynamic approaches often come under a lot of criticism as they fail to be explicit about the underlying bases of the theory. Cognitive theories are not very comfortable with explaining emotions and behavioural theories have difficulty explaining the mechanisms of improvements.

It has become quite clear in the field of Psychology, and to some Psychologists like Windy Dryden (Individual Therapy) explicitly clear that there is a missing linkand that somewhere amongst the mass of theories on personality, the answer is staring them in the face.

These Psychologists often practice a form of Psychology called Eclectism, which takes a little out of each theory and unites it during therapy with a client.

You can’t use this sort of therapy as a theory however because all the Eclectic Psychologist is doing is ignoring the fundamental ideological underpinnings of the particular theories he is using and taking the parts relevant to their client in therapy

This essay will explore one of the possible combinations of theories on personality and explain how it can be applied in practical therapy.

Eysenkes theory of biological bases in behaviour is the base of this essays approach. It provides the rules within which the other two personality theories (Kellys Personal Construct Theory and Maslows Hierarchy of Human needs) can function.

Using Eysenkes theory on extravert and introvert behaviour it is possible to determine from birth, very general traits about which a person is willing to work within (aggression, anxiety tolerance and sociability etc) which is where this essay believes Kelly slightly misunderstands this concept and defines it as his Range Corrollary. Really the person is experiencing a fundamental shift from Extravert behaviour or thinking to Introvert or vice versa which causes slight unease and can account for things like shyness etc.

One of the major criticisms of Kellys Personal Construct Theory is that he finds it hard to explain why constructs are laid down in the first place and why one would rigourously defend the threat to a core construct. What kick starts the Construct system into defending itself when motivation is clearly and explicitly lacking in his theory?

Eyesenkes theory provides an amicable solution. If we could assume that this information was genetically coded in to the cells at birth then this no longer becomes an issue and we can explain how’s and why the constructs are laid down to a loose genetic template i.e introvertism and extravertism.

This fusion also removes the criticism of Eyesenke that his theory is a theory of temperament rather than personality. If Eyesenkes theory really is just a theory of Temperament then that is all good and well in this Unified theory as it is merely a foundation or code upon which the rest of the personality can develop. If you can see things on an evolutionary scale, then it is clear that the change has to come from somewhere and that that change has the weight of evidence in genetics.

In extravetism and Introvertism it is clear that there are distinct disadvantages and advantages so it is not so much of a leap of faith to consider that perhaps evolution is trying out to very distinct methods of social interaction and the confusion resulting from this manifests itself as in Psychologists trying to determine personality through one perspective alone when Psychologists don’t consider our personalities to be in any sort of evolutionary transition. The fact that Psychologists are unable to conclusively predict human behaviour or thought using a single approach only serves to strengthen this consideration.

Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory would simply say that the