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CHAPTER 10: ADULT MATURATION & THE P-C-H MODEL OF PERSONALITY

DEVELOPMENTAL FEATURES OF PERSONALITY ILLUSTRATE VARYING DEGREES OF REASONING AND MOTIVE

HONORABLE RACISM

This stage in maturity is an end point. Claims of character are now based upon an objective working knowledge of personality. Individuals may intellectually understand the value of maturing beyond the limits of racial thinking. However, many adults open their hearts when they age after observing the pain in life that is driven by personality and not by race. False claims of character are no longer driven by the race card.

Parents from all backgrounds differ in terms of how racial issues are managed within their homes. There are extensive elements of racism in terrorism. Parents with limited or biased information regarding personality may be limited when discussing complex relational challenges in adulthood with their children.

The adaptive and maladaptive features of personality shape the lives of every child and they significantly influence whether or not cultures can address their social decay. These dynamics of personality say a great deal about human nature in terms of the struggles between evolution and social decay.

Americans today are not worried about having indoor plumbing or bringing electricity to their homes. Therefore, knowing more about personality and how it limits or supports adaptive change may be one of our most modern psycho-social challenges. Curious adults increase their adaptive potential by becoming more aware of their own personalities as well as those of important people in their lives. The same principle occurs within cultures.

Maybe this is one reason Congress is in such low favor since some of our leaders do not seem to seriously understand the threats to our cultural stability in terms of terrorism. These leaders sound like spouses who fail to understand the threats that challenge marital stability. If you think most leaders in Washington have a thorough working knowledge of personality, you will be mistaken.

Leaders who manufacture questionable political rhetoric sound like elite or desperate spouses who aggressively oppose or misinterpret the adaptive demands of marriage, divorce, parenting, failing businesses, etc. I have often wondered why members of Congress are immune from having to attend continuing education classes where subjects such as abnormal psychology and personality may decrease their psychological naiveté regarding domestic and foreign threats to our national well-being.

Members in Congress are highly educated; yet their resumes have very little to do with understanding and addressing the dark sides of human nature. Just as some parents hope that other institutions will supplement their parenting, maybe Congressional members hope the agencies they supervise will adequately perform.

Parents who avoid increasing their knowledge of personality may fear that it will threaten their own sense of adult competency or the stability of their marriage. Some leaders will do the same when adaptation threatens their cravings for status, image, control, power and financial security. Spouses who manufacture needless aggression or disregard the adaptive demands of divorce abhor having their cravings examined or challenged.

This may be one reason why some politicians complain, assassinate character, over exaggerate and avoid difficult subjects. This defensive posturing helps them hide their legislative agendas which usually have serious ties to their personalities. Seductive politicians who cleverly hide their legislative motives may increase their odds of not being divorced or voted out of office. A similar dynamic occurs among potential spouses who also disguise their marital motives. Having the private right to hide marital motives is a serious reason why adults oppose pre and postnuptial contracts.

When trying to increase one’s psychological sophistication, some individuals may defensively retreat with deprecation, anger, anxiety or apathy. Adults may always disparage personality since the dark sides of history have always been shaped by individuals who were entitled to define reality and do things their own way. Mocking or vilifying personality will always be associated with other defamatory themes in history.

Antisocial motives found in dark history range from primitive authoritarianism to blinding conformity. Blinding conformity refers to humans who attach to ideas, leaders and partners, regardless of their integrity. These attachments throughout history have always helped humans manage their fears and anxieties associated with survival.

CONFORMING RACISM

Here you have individuals who have been influenced by the norms of society. They do not participate in the overt oppression of others. They grew up during times when racism was normalized in their cultures. Many were limited in their ability to examine the hidden motives that supported the surface expression of racism. There may be benign features associated with conforming racism when, for example, a Vietnamese-American parent wants their son or daughter to marry someone with a similar ancestry. With life experiences, conforming racists have the capacity to mature.

PRIMITIVE RACISM

This form of subjectivity is very stable and rigid across time and all cultures. Primitive subjectivity has the power to shape the minds of conformists who outnumber primitives. There are two types of primitive subjectivity. The first is the subjective kind that drives domestic oppression, lost opportunities and criminal behaviors. This subjectivity drives the antisocial oppression found in primitive divorces among all races.

The second refers to how the race card is played to erroneously project blame upon other individuals, institutions or nations. These adults are adept at “turning the tables” and assassinating character. It is common in low level political rhetoric. Recently, a French leader claimed “racism” when a small percentage of Americans boycotted France during the Iraqi war.

And most Americans are familiar with the shouts of “racism” after Hurricane Katrina that distracted many from the failure of local, state and federal leadership. The motives associated with using the race card today parallel the character assassination of Black-Americans before the 1970’s.

When politicians or voters misuse the race card, they should consider the fact they are repeating history in terms of misjudging character and its associated motives. These Americans have disregarded or skipped over Dr. King’s maturational request that encourages individuals to examine social matters by character and not by race alone.

Of course, there are incidents where race seems to be a significant factor. And our future will involve cases of interpersonal abuse where race will still seem to play a role. Our history of racism was always driven by primitive personality and conformists who were ambivalent about this primitive social decay.

When a biracial couple divorces and one partner oppresses the will of another, will anyone claim that this behavior is racist? Was 9/11 a racial incident? Dr. King asked our nation to stop being preoccupied with skin color. We should never forget that our political correctness and collective naiveté prior to 9/11 was an over preoccupation with skin color that severely limited our ability to examine primitive motives.

Primitive subjectivity promotes dangerous political passions and blind loyalties. Passionate primitives find it easier to psychologically seduce immature minds and normalize illegitimate hatred. The drive to control and manipulate information is a stable generational motive that is shaped by personality, not by race.

With primitive subjectivity, there is an absence of accurate information regarding one’s self and others. These individuals are quite content with misinterpreting the value of life. Late term abortions where a child could survive outside of the womb have been normalized in our culture. This dehumanization is even more difficult to accept when you take into account the numerous opportunities for adoption today. There is a valid argument when late term abortions are equated with the oppressive and homicidal history of personality that stabilized racism throughout our history.

We still have lingering myths about minorities, just as we still have many myths regarding men and women and how they should interact. The “gender card” is commonly played during divorces that are influenced by primitive personality.

By becoming a good listener in life, you will start noticing individuals who are impressed with their subjective views of reality. Sometimes their stories are just too neat and organized. It sounds like these individuals shape their stories just as they may compulsively organize their homes or daily routines. Adults may over organize their thoughts and analytical processes just as they over organize their day-to-day routines.

The point to remember is that ritualistic behaviors are somewhat like ritualistic thinking. Their stories make sense in their own minds but not in the minds of listeners. Some adults experience significant levels of pseudo-competence when they discuss life events and they are rigidly certain that A leads to B, B leads to C, and C leads to D, etc.

This simplistic causal linkage is often found in primitive forms of political rhetoric and parenting. As mentioned earlier, our culture allows for individuals to freely express their views of life and it can be quite interesting to observe how their arguments are primarily based in the subjective limits of their own personality rather than reality.

This is another reason Freud did not want to control or contaminate what his patients said. When his patients were “free” to disclose their actual concerns or perceptions, Freud could examine the nature of their conflicts that limited their adaptive potential. Remember, many adults go through life over controlling what they say. These adults do not want others to know who they are and they want to hide the nature of their adaptive struggles.

Even today, recovery in psychological treatment is expedited when clients embrace the safety of disclosing information while not worrying about what the clinician will think. Disclosure alone has adaptive value since many adults have been running or hiding from their stories for years.

Once the anxiety of disclosure has declined, clients are more likely to benefit from the therapeutic alliance in terms of examining one’s maladaptive conflicts and misperceptions regarding their relationships. If you remember, too much anxiety limited your performance during exams. The same dynamic can limit the benefits of psychological treatment.

We often underestimate the discomforts and risks associated with maturing, accountability and accurate perceptions regarding interpersonal realities. While maturing, adults lose their ability to tolerate their own misperceptions of reality as well as those of a partner. The adaptive nature associated with refining one’s capacity to make more accurate judgments regarding reality has always helped humans evolve beyond threatening or hard to understand environments.

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