Polarities, Activate! In the previous posts, I discussed the basic polarities that underlie personality in the bioevolutionary model. In this post, I will explore what activates these polarities. I will address some important questions such as: What influences a person’s perception of pleasure and pain? What determines their tendency towards selfish or altruistic behavior? How do they perceive an active or passive approach to life? … Continue reading WAPLT? 8: Connecting the Polarities to Life

The third set of opposing forces in the evolutionary theory of personality is self-propagation versus other-nurturance. This dichotomy arises from the advantages of random and recombination processes that promote reproduction. While asexual organisms were the first form of life, sexual organisms eventually emerged. Why did sex become the norm? After all, it requires a lot of energy to find a mate, which is not an … Continue reading WAPLT? 5: Self and Other

Theodore Millon’s Disorders of Personality: Introducing a DSM/ICD Spectrum from Normal to Abnormal presents a comprehensive personological taxonomy, building on his earlier theory in Toward a New Personology. This newer work expands upon the taxonomy previously offered and sheds light on clinical personality disorders, extending the understanding toward normalcy. Additionally, it introduces new personality types and disorders not currently covered by the DSM or ICD. … Continue reading WAPLT? 7: Preface to Disorders of Personality

Millon’s personality theory is not the first to have been developed. In his book Disorders of Personality, Millon provides an overview of the various historical strands that led to the development of his model. While this overview is not comprehensive, I will be using it as a guide for this post. Hippocrates’ humoural theory of personality is one of the oldest known, and it exhibits … Continue reading WAPLT? 6: Historical Antecedents

In this paragraph, we will discuss the passive and active polarities, which determine how organisms handle their existence in their environment. Maintaining an organism’s structure, differentiation from the ecosystem, and discreteness require effective functioning and good luck. The passive and active polarity is similar to the polarity of pain and pleasure and is divided into two parts. The first part is the ecological accommodation mode, … Continue reading WAPLT? 4: Passive and Active

In this post, I discuss Millon’s model of the pleasure-pain polarity and its two strategies of attraction to pleasure and repulsion from pain, which indicate enhancement and destruction. The author explains that to achieve the aim of preserving and enhancing life, two intertwined strategies are required. The first strategy is to enhance life, while the second strategy is to preserve life. Both strategies require a … Continue reading WAPLT? 3: Pain and Pleasure

Unfortunately, one of the best books I’ve found on Personology has not yet been made digital. Thankfully,it’s available for a reasonable price secondhand online. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Toward-New-Personology-Evolutionary-Model/dp/0471515736. Although you don’t need it to enjoy this series of posts, I like to keep my sources clear. Toward a New Personology: An Evolutionary Model is an extremely thought-provoking and insightful philosophical work. While I … Continue reading Why Are People Like This? Pt 2

People perplex me. They’re all unique, but they also share some common patterns of behavior. Over the past few years, I’ve been studying people and their personalities in an effort to understand them better. Actually, I’ve been doing this most of my life, often seeing school primarily as a place to interact with people and only secondarily as a place to learn. I’m interested in … Continue reading Why Are People Like This? (Introduction)

Writing this is stirring up many memories for me. While there were some extreme lows that I have glossed over, I had a lot of fun as a kid. It’s a nice feeling. This is me in December 2010. I was 15 at the time. I had a bit of an eating disorder. Someone said something mean to me on social media, so I starved … Continue reading Pictures of My Life Pt 4

Part of the reason there’s more photographs at this point is the emergence of social media. Another part is cameras on phones getting progressively better. I also didn’t have a cell phone until the middle of ninth grade, so the earlier photos required having a camera that isn’t also a phone. But a big part is my social turning point in ninth grade. I was … Continue reading Pictures of My Life Pt 3