Perception and Personality

Abstract

The impetus for research into the interaction of perception and personality was probably derived more from a Zeitgeist than from any theory or set of theories in the scientific sense. The presence of individual differences in perceptual behavior was recognized early in psychology. For many reasons the major research emphasis in the field of perception and personality has centered around the effects of needs or motivational variables upon perception. The concepts of vigilance and defense were again invoked to describe or explain the results, with vigilance assumed for low thresholds for the high value areas and perceptual defense for the higher thresholds for low value areas. Defensive mechanisms are learned techniques and it is to be expected that in the learning process the subject also learns the types of situations or stimuli against which they are apt to be effective or rewarding.