An Analysis of Personality Theories

The book treats personality theories as structural systems whose internal logic, assumptions, and limitations can be analyzed and revised. It rejects purely descriptive survey approaches that catalog theories without interrogating their coherence. Mehrabian reformulates Rogerian and psychoanalytic theory into 'modified versions,' classifies instinct-need-habit-trait-factor approaches as a generic class, and examines cognitive-developmental and computer simulation models as alternative structural strategies. The table of contents reveals this reconstructive ambition: each chapter ends with a proposed modification rather than a neutral summary. The method reflects Mehrabian's engineering background—theories are systems to be tested for internal consistency and empirical tractability.

An Analysis of Personality Theories precedes the PAD model by several years and shows Mehrabian working out the methodological commitments that would later produce it. The book's concluding chapter on 'Summary and Implications' points toward dimensional abstraction—reducing diverse theoretical vocabularies to a smaller set of structural variables. In Basic Dimensions for a General Psychological Theory (1980), Mehrabian would complete this trajectory by proposing PAD as the universal dimensional base. The 1968 book is the diagnostic phase: identifying what personality theories get wrong structurally. The 1980 book is the constructive phase: proposing the dimensional system that corrects those errors.

The inclusion of a chapter on computer simulation approaches to personality is significant for a 1968 text. It signals Mehrabian's interest in formal, procedural models—systems that can be run and tested rather than merely interpreted. This orientation aligns with his later PAD framework, which is fundamentally a measurement and prediction system: environmental stimuli are assigned dimensional values, emotional responses are measured on those dimensions, and approach-avoidance behavior is predicted. The computer simulation chapter shows Mehrabian gravitating toward theories that can be operationalized as algorithms rather than remaining at the level of verbal interpretation, a commitment that would structure all his subsequent work.

Mehrabian's approach assumes that influential theories contain valuable insights embedded in structural flaws. A 'modified version' extracts the defensible core and rebuilds it with greater precision. For Rogerian theory, this likely involved specifying the conditions for self-actualization in measurable terms. For psychoanalytic theory, it would mean translating dynamic concepts into structural relationships that can be tested. This reconstructive method serves two purposes: it demonstrates respect for the original theories while establishing the analyst's authority to improve them. It also reflects Mehrabian's broader conviction, evident across his career, that psychology advances by identifying basic dimensions and discarding theoretical vocabulary that resists measurement.

The book was published in 1968 as part of the Prentice-Hall Psychology Series, the same year Mehrabian co-authored Language Within Language on immediacy in verbal communication. The proximity of these publications—one on personality theory structure, one on communication channels—shows Mehrabian moving simultaneously across personality and communication domains before consolidating them in the PAD framework. The book appears to have received limited critical attention compared with his later work on nonverbal communication. Its primary value today is archaeological: it documents the methodological premises that would later generate Silent Messages and the PAD model.