Personality As An Affect-processing System: Toward An Integrative Theory

256 Pages·2002·14.48 MB·English

by  Jack Block

Personality as an
Affect-Processing System
Toward an Integrative Theory
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Personality as an
Affect-Processing System
Toward an Integrative Theory
Jack Block
University of California, Berkeley
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2002 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2002 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or
any other means, without prior written permission of the
publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, NJ 07430
[Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Block, Jack, 1924-
Personality as an affect-processing system : toward an
integrative theory /Jack Block,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-3912-7 (alk. paper)
1. Personality. I. Title
BF698.B545 2002
155.2—dc21 2001040377
CIP
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed
on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength
and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
My life and work has been aimed at one goal only:
to infer or guess how the mental apparatus is constructed
and what forces interplay and counteract in it
—Sigmund Freud
Se no e vero ma e ben trovato
[It may not be true but it is well contrived]
—Giordano Bruno
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Contents
Preface XI
1 Introduction and Orientation 1
Intention of This Book 1
Phenomena Stimulating the Theory 2
2 Some Logical, Psycho-Logical, and Definitional 14
Matters
Two Kinds of Psychological Variables 14
Regarding "Risk" and "Protective" Factors 19
What Shall We Mean by Resilience? 20
How Should the Term, "Self," Be Used? 26
The Coherency of Personality 28
3 Theoretical Orientation and Aspiration 32
Orienting Attitudes 32
The Emphasis on System Properties 33
The Emphasis on Contemporaneity 38
The Emphasis on "Metapsychological" Constructs 40
The Emphasis on Characterizing Environmental
Contexts 42
The Emphasis on Integrating Drives With Attentional
Influences 49
vii
viii CONTENTS
The Emphasis on Conceptualizing Personality Psychologically
Rather Than Biologically 53
Plan of Presentation of the Present Formulation 56
4 A First Characterization of the Personality System 57
A Capsule Statement of the Argument 57
Perceptualization as a "Natural" State of the Individual 58
Anxiety as the Sensed Indicator of System Instability 61
Anxiety-Reduction as a Preemptive Basis for Behavior 64
The Two Basic Causes of Anxiety 66
5 A Beginning Discussion of Drive, Percept, 68
and Anxiety
A First Discussion of Drive 68
A First Discussion of Percept 71
Insufficient Reduction of Drive as a Cause of Anxiety
Arousal 75
Insufficient Processing of Percepts as a Cause of Anxiety
Arousal 77
The Two Basic Modes of Anxiety-Reduction 79
Recapitulation of Where We Are Now 80
6 Drives, Tension, and Control 83
The Necessity of Structural Variables 83
The Composition of Drive 84
The Concept of Tension 85
The Concept of the Control Apparatus 87
7 Percept, Environment, and Perceptualizing 97
The Influences of Stimuli 98
The Concept of Autochthonous Assimilability 99
The Concept of Percept Assimilability 106
The Concept of the Perceptualizing Apparatus 107
8 Closing the Ring 116
The Correspondence Between Perceptualizing and Control
Apparatuses 117
The Cumulativeness of Tension and Drives, of AA,
and Percepts 118
CONTENTS ix
The Previously Postulated Relations Within Ego
Subsystems 119
The Dynamic Relations Between the Control and Perceptual
Apparatuses 119
Posited Relations Between AA, Drive Level, and the Perceptual
Apparatus 120
Posited Relations Between Tension, PA, and the Control
Apparatus 121
Dynamic Implications of Perceptual and Control Apparatus
Interactions 122
Evolution and Differentiation, Permeability, and
Resilience 123
A Condensed Statement of the Present Personality
System 124
Analog Models Versus Digital Models of Personality
Functioning 125
Symmetry in Theory Construction 127
9 Clinical Implications 128
General Considerations 128
Regarding the Revealing of Personality
Processes 128
Regarding the Role of Anxiety 129
Regarding the Broad Conceptual Property of
Resiliency 130
Regarding the Broad Conceptual Property of
Permeability 133
Regarding the Broad Conceptual Property of
Differentiation 134
Coming to Psychotherapy and Benefiting From
Psychotherapy 135
Regarding Describing the Individual's Efforts at Emotional
Regulation 141
Adaptive Orientations—Coping and Defensive—Available to
Individuals 142
Regarding the Diagnosis and Conceptualization of
ADHD 147
The Problem of Conduct and Antisocial Disorder or Delinquent
Behavior 150