Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Layers of the personality - a primer

NOTE - THIS IS A THEORETICAL PRIMER. IT DOES NOT CONTAIN IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH OR BRANDING. IT IS AN INTERESTING READ FOR THOSE THAT WISH TO UNDERSTAND BASIC PERSONALITY AND EMOTIONAL THEORY.

Most psychotherapies agree that people hide and defend against showing their true emotions and feelings. The reasoning is quite simple - as children at some point we learned that it was not safe to reveal how we truly think or feel. The experience that exposed us to this danger need not have been something horribly traumatic - it could be as simple as not being able to stay out an extra 30 minutes for Halloween, or it could have been the time that we were told to stop crying (maybe because our parents had a really bad headache and just needed some quiet to make it go away).

While we may not even remember the particular experience, what sticks with us throughout our life is the method we used to cover-up and subvert our own drives. From that point on, we learn to manipulate our environment to get what we want without having to express our ture thoughts and feelings. It is this manipulation and avoidance that Gestalt Psychologists refer to as the layers of the personality. This personality structure has profound implications both for qualitative research and for branding in general. It is the framework that I use when conducting, analyzing and presenting research results.

This blog will contain three articles on Layers of the Personality. This article, the first, gives an overview of what the layers of the personality are on general theoretical level. It does not have any significant information on branding or qualitative research - so don't read this expecting it. The next two articles will focus on how I use them when I conduct qualitative research and how I can diagnose brands and communications based on the layers of the personality.

To start, let's focus on the general context of the layers of the personality. We display our personality when we interact with others. When we do so, we either make conscious or unconscious decisions about how to react and how much of our true selves we reveal. When we make these decisions, we decide what layer of the personality we will be in. The decision to remain in a layer or to change a layer is largely based on how we judge the other person. The more we trust them, the more likely we are to reveal ourselves (NB - while this is not always the case in actual psychotherapy, for our purposes it will suffice). In a research context, the more we trust the moderator and the group, the more we will reveal ourselves. The more we relate to a brand, the more we want it.

There are five layers of the personality - the first four are what Gestalt Psychotherapists call Neurotic Layers, and the fifth layer, which I call the Valuable Emotional Core, contains our true thoughts, feelings and drives. It is important to note though, that each layer serves a purpose, and we can function quite well as a person and as a society operating at just the four Neurotic Layers (in fact, I could argue that we do just that!). If we went around constantly showing our true feelings or emotions, we would literally be a bunch of babies crying, throwing temper tantrums and laughing uncontrollably. So keep this in mind - our goal in research and in branding is not to always communicate in the Valuable Emotional Core, but to communicate from the Valuable Emotional Core and to use/understand how to use the other layers effectively to communicate and find-out information from qualitative research participants.

The remainder of this article will discuss the layers of the personality in general terms. The next two articles will show how I apply these in conducting qualitative research so that I thoroughly understand what participants think and feel. The second article provides applications for branding. As you read each layer, keep in mind that these layers are in reference to conversations/interactions we have with other people, and each layer is a defense to feeling true emotion.

The Cliche Layer Of The Personality:

At the Cliche layer, you and the person with whom you are talking exchange pleasentries. This is the extent of the Cliche layer. It is watercooler and cocktail party conversation. There is basic talk about family, sports, current issues, mutual interests, basic likes and dislikes and careers. It is called the cliche layer, because much of the conversation is peppered with common phrases and with opinions that really may not be our own. For example, there is a lot of discussion about "They say that our children will not be as successful as us..." or "It's so true that technology is advancing at a rate faster than the government can legislate it's control or use." or "It's getting harder and harder to make a buck these days."

The Cliche layer, like all layers of the personality, has both a positive and negative side. On the positive side, it fundamentaly whets our appitite and interest in the other person with whom we are having a conversation. Similarly, the other person becomes more interested in us. There is an undeniable bond that happens at the cliche layer between people that get along. And let's face it, how can you possibly have a relationship with someone that does not share your basic interests, or can talk to you about "things in general"

On the negative side, once the novelty of meeting someone new wears off, the cliche layer quickly becomes boring and stiffling. As human beings we long for deeper connections and expressions. As such, sticking around in the cliche layer is really quite boring. How often have you heard yourself say "I wish this guy would just stop talking about his trip to the Turks and Cacos"? The best example I can think of this is Rob Schneider's "Coffee Guy" Character on Saturday Night Live - the guy who goes around the office saying "Drinkin' the Java with the Coffee-meister." or "Ol' Jimbo - havin' difficulty with the photo-copier mahcine.... toooooo baaaadddd." People got bored of him (and Rob Schneider as an actor) very quickly. Staying in the cliche layer prevents us from having any deeper contact with other individuals, and for those who chronically stay in the cliche layer, it serves as a protection against showing any kind of real emotion.

The Role Layer:

Once you get past the cliche layer of the personality, we enter the role layer. Quite simply, this is the layer of the personality that contains all of our "shoulds" and often governs how we act. For example, people take on various roles for themselves - "I'm a good mother", "I'm a business executive", "I'm a helpful individual", "I'm an attractive person", "I'm good at breaking tension with a joke" or "I can sell anything to anybody."

As you can see, these attitudes and beliefs underlie most of our outward behaviour. A person who considers himself helpful will do just that. A person who believes that favours should be returned will help people who have helped him. This layer is one layer deeper than the Cliche layer because it governs our actions and relationships to the environment - it is how we reach-out. In the Role Layer, we are aimelessly reaching out and responding at random. At the Role Layer, deliberate actions are taken based on a set of principles.

To show how this layer is actually deeper, instead of your friend being a shoulder to lean on because your mother is very, very ill, your friend actually helps you with chores, and makes life easier for you, so that you can deal with the illness in a better way. Your friend does this because somewhere in her role layer she believes "I want to help those in need."

The positive side of the role layer is that it literally gives us a "Raison D' Etre" in this world and it brings us closer to our envrionment. The negative side of this layer is that it can just as easily distance us from our envrionmeont and can make us crazy. For example, how does a person who believes his role is "I can sell anything to anybody" begin to feel when he fails as a salesperson? How does the person who says "I am a good mother" deal with a child who has turned anti-social? We can also have opposing "Roles" in our mind - there are probably lots of people out there who are conflicted because on the one hand they believe "As a good human being, I should love, respect and get along with everyone", but on the other hand equally belives "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there." How does a person with both these roles act when a co-worker is out to steal the credit, or even his job? While our roles define us, being constantly stuck in them, and not noticing the envrionment around us makes this world a crazy place.

The Phobic Layer

So from the Role Layer, you and a friend or partner have gained a deeper bond - and are doing things for eachother based on your beliefs. However, have you ever thought that a relationship is moving too quickly, that you seem to be doing all the work in the relationship or that the "Honeymoon period" is just plain over? As we begin to doubt and question ourselves and relationships, we enter The Phobic Layer. It is the layer where we begin to see a different picture or truth to the situation. What makes it phobic is how we react to our new perceptions. Rather than acting on our new-found truth and information, we do anything but. We are scared of what we see, and a scared person is someone who tends to ignore the danger rather than dealing with it head-on. For example we:

- Give our friend the benefit of the doubt and don't say anything
- Give subtle hints, and make casual remarks, but actually don't say directly what we thing or feel. Perhaps we invite them over for dinner less because they have never invited us over for dinner to their house.
- Deny our own observations and truth. For example "How can someone so nice have a selfish streak?"
- Reproach ourselves for thinking such thoughts. For example "I'm terrible for having these thoughts about my good friend."
- Look for things in our friend or partner that are not even there, and begin to make mountains out of molehills.
- We may even begin to question whether we are worthy of such a friend or person in our lives.

I'm sure the examples above point-out the negatives of the Phobic Layer. It begins to put distance between the people around us. The more nefarious part of the Phobic Layer is that we often don't go beyond this in any of our relationships. There are many people out there who spend their whole lives in the Phobic Layer. They can drag-out relationships for entire lifetimes based on Phobic responses. I'm sure that you have people like this in your life right now - people to whom you are not close, but still see relate to on a regular basis.

The positive side is that it serves as a stop-gap for us. It is our filter and keeps us from danger in our lives. Psychotherapists begin to focus their attention at this level, with the belifef that a patient does not observe properly or knows how to make sense of the feelings they receive in the phobic layer. The sense is the patient lacks sufficient internal self-suppport to make proper decisions based on Phobic layer observations and feelings.

The Impasse Layer

This is a singular and contemplative layer, where you are not interacting with the outside world. Instead, there is a war going-on within yourself. If you interpret the signals from the phobic layer correctly, you have discovered that the person or situation with whom you are relating is not what you originally thought. You have a choice to make, you can continue in a phobic layer relationship which does not serve you well, or you can make a change and proceed to the next layer of the personality, which is the Valuable Emotional Core. Until you make a decision, you are stuck in the impasse layer. It can be characterized by depression, withdrawl, avoidance or mood swings.

The benefit of this layer is that it gets us ready to take significant action or experience strong emotion. When we are here, we are testing the water in terms of what it would be like to progress to the next layer, which is the Valuable Emotional Core. When we were very young, we learned to protect ourselves from showing emotion or doing things that we really wanted because (from a baby's, toddler's or young child's perspective) we felt that our lives were threatened for taking such actions. Adults who cared for us as young children could have scolded us or reacted very angrily at what we were doing, so we learned to be very careful about showing emotion. This guarded approach sticks with us as adults.

The disadvantage is quite obvious. We will become depressed or be subject to mood swings. We are cut-off from from our desires and wishes and our actions in the general envrionment are impared.

The Valuable Emotional Core

After going through all the other four levels of the personality, we finally reach the valuable emotional core. It is, as you can guess where our emotions lie, and this level of the personality really does govern how we act and feel. Consider it this way - our emotions radiate out from the core through the other four levels of our personality, and by the time they reach our consciousness (or Ego, for you Freudians out there), they have gone through so many filters that they reach us very muddled. Also, since we access the core so infrequently, we tend not to know how to handle our emotions. If we are angry, we tend to "Rage-Out", or if we feel profound sadness, we "break-down" and cry.

The core is so powerful that it forms the basis of all the action we take. In many cases, we act NOT to feel certain emotions. For example, we may take on a role of being a good mother, because being anything less will cause us great sadness that we cannot deal with. Someone may be an overachiever because they want to rage-out at certain people in their lives, but do not want to face the anger it would cause them. Our emotions could be tangled-up. We may want to have as many joyus experiences as we can, but in order to do so requires taking some risks - so we live in the Impasse layer, experiencing some joy, but not too much for fear of the sadness that may come in obtaining the risk.

Marketers reach this layer when their Brand or product makes consumers feel or experience something that resides in the core. While I cover this in much more detail in other articles, a few examples will suffice. A few examples in my life:

  • When I wear a Swatch, I AM young and hip. In my role layer, I may have the wish to be young and hip, but Swatch actually makes me realize that dream.
  • When I wear Roots, I AM rugged, grounded, casual and chic. That is how I feel when I put on Roots clothes. The brand has touched my Valuable Emotional Core. Again, this is different than filling my Role Layer desire to be this way - when I wear Roots clothing I am actually this way.
  • When I was in Disneyworld recently, I flew a mission to Mars. It touched my Valuable Emotional Core because it brought me real, unadulterated joy that I felt throughout my entire body. For a few minutes, I suspended all reality, and actually felt myself in a Space Shuttle, and all the joy that came with it.
A brand reaches the Valuable Emotional Core when it touches an actual emotion, and not just a cliche, role or phobia. For research purposes, all we need to do is get people to project how they actually feel when the are experiencing different brands. I would argue though that so many brands fail to touch people on an emotional level that we would not really know what an emotional response to a brand actually looked like. In most focus groups I have done or viewed, most time is spent figuring out how people perceive the brand from a cliche, role or phobic level. Emotional responses need to be accessed through non-traditional techniques like projectives or ZMET Metaphor Elicitation.

It is worthwhile to note that it is much more common that a brand does not reach the Valuable Emotional Core. In that case it is worthwhile to poke-around at what emotions, deep thoughts and images they bring-up. A few examples from my life:

  • I use Microsoft products, and the brand could mean any number of things to me - innovative, big company, high-tech, competitive, quick to respond, etc... However, the feeling that it leaves me with is disappointment. It has nothing to do with the fact that their products don't work - it's just that I find they have failed in their promise to make computing easy for me. When I am my Valuable Emotional Core with regards to Microsoft products, there is always a sense of frustration involved, even if the product is working perfectly.
  • I think we could all complain about cell phone or cable company service, and it seems any time I call them I always have to speak to a supervisor to get things accomplished. When I call them, I do not just feel disappointment, I feel like a failure. What I think should take 5-10 minutes, takes upwards of one week to resolve. So, when I deal with Rogers, I AM a failure.
The remaining two articles will discuss Layers of the Personality in terms of generating Qualitative Research Results, and the next will provide applications to marketing and branding.