Liz Williams
Term Paper
Bay Path University
April 27, 2016
The film American Beauty (Mendes, 1999) depicted the lives of many different types of people. On the surface, it seems like a film about dysfunctional families. The characters have exaggerated, archetypal personalities that create an interesting dynamic to watch. However, on a deeper level, the film is about so much more than the “crazy” lives of these interesting characters. Even the title has a deeper meaning than meets the eye. The title American Beauty plays on the concept of the “American Dream.” It seems good and desirable on the surface, but underneath, it is an empty pursuit. If a person seeks to achieve the “American Dream” and nothing else, they will lose sight of the real purpose of life.
In this film, each character struggled with juggling their internal world with the objective reality around them. Each character represents an overarching theme of personality, accompanied by a specific set of challenges and problems. The characters had deep psychological wounds that affected their sense of identity, and thus, the way they interacted with themselves, others, and the world. Each person had a faint idea of what the purpose of life was for them. However, it was not until the very end that any of them realized the true purpose of life might have been more than what they had been pursuing.
When people lose their sense of identity, they are no longer their authentic self. Authenticity refers to “being true to oneself” and feeling non-defensive and accepting of one’s unaltered identity. A lack of authenticity causes low self-esteem as well as a plethora of psychological problems (Kernis & Heppner, 2008; Mruk, 2008). People seek to restore their identity through means of which they are capable. When individuals construct a life that is not congruent with their true, authentic self, problems arise (Wallace, 2016). When a person is authentic, it flows into every area of their life, and they can experience events, relationships, and life as a whole with confidence and freedom.
The character Carolyn Burnham in the film American Beauty (Mendes, 1999) lost herself over the course of her life; her personality became controlling, perfectionistic, and on a deeper level, self-deprecating. Instead of growing towards finding her true identity, which lay deep within herself, she strove to find herself by acquiring more possessions and building a façade of what she wanted her life to be. Ironically, her efforts brought her further away from her goal, and she became increasingly unfamiliar with her authentic self.
For example, in the beginning of the film, the Burnham home appeared as a lovely, well-kept abode, furnished with high-end décor and happy family photographs. Carolyn first appears meticulously tending the flower beds, emphasizing her role in the external upkeep of their home. Her meticulousness is the first indicator of how fixated Carolyn was on appearances. During a scene where Carolyn was pruning the roses, Lester narrated, “See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her gardening clogs? That’s not an accident” (Mendes, 1999). She strove towards a more and more perfect arrangement of appearances in hopes to find who she truly was, as she wanted to be perfect.
Adler:
Although nobody can ever be perfect, some people strive for superiority and perfection. From the psychodynamic perspective, Alfred Adler would suggest Carolyn’s style of life revolved around superiority and perfection striving. Perfectionism and control became her method of pursuing goals and trying to achieve happiness, while her fictional final goal was absolute perfection in all her pursuits. She was terrified of being a failure, so striving for superiority and perfection became her main goal in life. So, her goal of perfection could really be seen as a goal to never, ever fail.
Since her self-concept, sense of self-worth, and identity were hinged on temporary successes, such as selling a house, or unattainable goals like perfection, she was left feeling empty and worthless much of the time. Relying on temporary achievements as the main source of self-worth leads people into a dangerous cycle of needing more and more success or obtainments to feel meaningful and worthwhile. In Carolyn’s case, external success and perfection became her overarching ambitions in life.
Like all people, Carolyn experienced feelings of inferiority which, as the core of personality, drove her behavior. Her feelings of inferiority created a drive in her to be superior to others. Carolyn’s superiority striving was exemplified in her initial resentment of her competition in real estate, the very successful Buddy Kane (Mendes, 1999).
Adlerian theory may suggest that Carolyn experienced extreme feelings of powerlessness in her life, especially as a child. As a result, Carolyn came to view herself as weak. As depicted in the first fifteen minutes of the film, she punished herself severely after failing to sell a house and crying. It was almost as if one side of her was the cruel parent and the other a helpless child.
The aggression drive also comes into play in the scene where Carolyn screams at and slaps herself in the face in response to her own sobbing. Adlerian theory indicates that the aggression drive is due to feelings of powerlessness and can lead to overcompensation that actively hurts oneself or others. Carolyn felt a low sense of control and self-efficacy when she did not sell the house, and she became extremely hostile with herself. She wanted to prove herself even more that she was successful and in control of her life.
Carolyn’s life as a whole represented the concept of masculine protest. Like the majority of people, she had certain desires to be in control and feel competent in life. However, since Carolyn had enormous insecurities and feelings of inferiority, she overcompensated in ways that outwardly reflected the opposite of what she hated or feared to be (Wallace, 2016). For example, her compensatory traits were “controlling” and “perfectionistic.” Therefore, her inferiorities and fears consisted of being powerless and a failure. Carolyn’s inferiority traits of helplessness and inadequacy were directly opposed with compensatory traits that strove to externally prove she was not what she feared she was.
Carolyn was very psychologically unhealthy. She was never authentic, not even with herself, as she believed her real self wasn’t good enough either. Being highly insecure, Carolyn focused mainly on preserving her own image and feelings and strove for personal superiority over social success. She had very little genuine interest in others. She lost herself in her insecurities and became more detached from people around her. Most of her interactions with others were extremely hostile or phony, clear indicators of poor psychological health from Adler’s perspective.
Carolyn’s fictional final goal of perfection reflected her overall style of life; her goals, self-concept, relationships, and general attitude towards the world were affected by her striving for superiority and perfection (Feist & Feist, 2013). Carolyn’s style of life was extremely rigid and inflexible, and at that point in her life, she was not able to react differently to her environment than she had been used to. She was not given the resources at an early age to build a healthy life for herself. She built a “gaudy façade” with her resources, rather than “exposing the essence of the structure” that was her life (Feist & Feist, 2013, p. 83). It is possible that Carolyn could have torn down her façade and rebuilt a better existence for herself, but she was not able to at the point in time she was seen in the film.
Freud:
Sigmund Freud would argue that Carolyn’s superego was mostly in control of her personality and behavior; it provided the structure she probably experienced as a child. The rigidity and perfectionism resulted in shame, guilt, and anxiety of being inadequate. For example, on multiple occasions, she punished herself for expressing her emotions – a natural drive from the childlike id. However, probably when she was quite young, Carolyn learned that crying initiates parental disapproval. As she aged, her superego did not separate from her parents’ values. Rather, she internalized them and imposed intense shame and guilt into her experiences of crying.
Carolyn’s id was suppressed a great deal; her tenseness and defensiveness indicated that she denied her basic human urges in order to decrease shame, guilt, and anxiety from her superego. However, her id took over when she gave into Buddy Kane’s advances. She could no longer resist the drives of her id. She was impulsively pushed by her natural instincts to seek pleasure, and when Buddy presented an opportunity to satisfy it, she took it because at that point in time, her ego strength was especially weak.
Carolyn’s ego was the mediator in all of this. She mostly censored herself in order to project an image of success and to hide her insecurities. Her ego was protecting her from all that she was afraid of in life – failure, imperfection, rejection, powerlessness, etc.
Carolyn utilized many ego defenses throughout the film. Ego defenses are repressive by nature; with all ego defenses, there is an effort to block or reduce anxiety in some way. The ego defenses Carolyn used the most included denial, projection, introjection, and rationalization.
Carolyn was motivated to deny her dysfunctional situation in life; she wanted to protect her illusion of a happy, successful life. When Lester asked her, “When did you become so joyless?” she replied, “Joyless? I am not joyless… There is plenty of joy in my life” (Mendes, 1999). She was motivated to contradict Lester’s suggestion that she may need to take a closer look at herself – he was suggesting that there may be something wrong to cause her joylessness, something she was not prepared to deal with at that point in time.
Carolyn used projection as well. She saw characteristics in others that reflected attributes in her that she feared she possessed. She witnessed her own threatening impulses in others, which caused her to criticize them. For example, she was especially critical of Lester for his lack of organization and motivation for success. Carolyn became very hostile when Lester quit his job, perhaps because she saw the same desire in herself to be free from her own demanding career. Witnessing Lester’s lack of success brought her closer to her insecurities and increased her anxiety. She (or her superego) did not approve of a lackadaisical carefree attitude, so by criticizing Lester’s lack of external success, she was actually keeping her own anxiety about lacking success in check.
Carolyn also used introjection a substantial amount. She integrated the values, beliefs, and mannerisms of people she viewed as successful in order to feel successful herself and to decrease her anxiety associated with feelings of inadequacy. Carolyn’s superego did not grow away from the rigidness of rules imposed on her by her parents. She adhered to values and rules congruent with what she was always taught. It may have seemed to Carolyn that she was fulfilling her purpose in life by pursuing success and perfection, but in reality, she did not even create that purpose herself.
Carolyn’s ego also implemented a considerable amount of rationalization toward the end of the film. Directly after she had the breakdown about losing both Lester and Buddy in the same sitting, she rationalized murdering Lester by convincing herself it was the only way she would overcome being a victim. She plummeted back to reality when she saw Lester had already been shot and killed; she realized that his absence was not what she wanted at all, and seemed to mentally break as she embraced his clothes in the closet. She was that out of touch with herself.
Carolyn was significantly distressed by her issues, as she was mostly or completely unaware of them. Her pain and anxiety ran rampant in her unconscious, and she did not know to look within herself to discover why she felt so much distress; therefore, her pain and anxiety constantly lurked in the background of her daily living. This lead to her defensive, irrational personality.
Carolyn denied anything was wrong with her life; she deluded herself into thinking her life was perfect because without that illusion, she would be overwhelmed with anxiety. When her issues did rise to the surface, her ego could not handle them. She displaced her anger onto “safer” objects or people, such as her husband and daughter, though she was really angry with herself (Wallace, 2016).
The event triggered a memory of past victimization and powerlessness in Carolyn, sparking her fear that she would become a powerless victim again. This fear brought her face-to-face with one of her biggest insecurities – that she is a weak, powerless, unlovable failure. Desperate to prove that notion wrong, she repeated to herself, “I am not a victim” (Mendes, 1999). In this instance, her ego could only deal with the problem in one way: to eliminate the overwhelming anxiety she felt as a result of her intense insecurity, she had to eliminate Lester.
Carolyn was completely unaware of her issues, leading to extremely poor psychological health. The hallmark of psychological health according to Freud is awareness of one’s issues. Having self-awareness of what one’s triggers are leads to a proper evaluation of one’s feelings, where they come from, and how to deal with them. A psychologically healthy person knows more about their unconscious and has healthier ways of dealing with their anxiety and issues.
This was not Carolyn’s reality – Carolyn’s ego incessantly fought against her issues and anxieties, which were always threatening to surface from her unconscious. She identified Lester as being the source of her problem, and she decided that the best course of action to reduce her anxiety was to murder him. Carolyn was ignorant to the fact that she was causing her own suffering. The source of all individuals’ problems lay within themselves. The further Carolyn immersed herself in the illusion she created, the less able she was to perceive the world, others, and herself accurately.
Fromm:
In addition, Carolyn was chiefly concerned about her desirability and wanted to be perceived as such in both a professional and a personal sense. “As you know, my business is selling an image, and part of my job is to live that image,” said Carolyn to Lester at her important business function (Mendes, 1999). She was clearly focused solely on her image and how others perceived her. Her character orientation, according to Erich Fromm’s theory, was predominantly the marketing orientation.
Carolyn’s choice of profession as a real-estate agent meshed quite well with the marketing orientation. The problem is, Carolyn did not stop at trying to market houses; she could not separate her identity from her profession, and she began to, quite literally, sell herself as well. She stopped viewing and respecting herself as a human being; she saw herself as pathetic, weak, and totally worthless when she did not succeed in selling the house in the beginning of the film (Mendes, 1999).
Carolyn believed that good things in life lay outside of herself; her life goals included being successful, wealthy, powerful, and beautiful, impressive, and desirable. She had a need to be seen by others as such, but she feared that she severely lacked success, wealth, power, and so on. Fromm claimed the marketing orientation is ultimately the most self-alienating one, as a person begins to lose themselves in their façade. Carolyn’s identity became her façade, and she lost her authentic self.
Carolyn’s main methods of escaping freedom were automaton conformity and authoritarianism. She refused to embrace her true identity by becoming what others expected her to be. Carolyn wanted to emulate everything and anything desired and accepted by others. She desperately tried to cling to a sense of belonging and sufficiency by surrendering her uniqueness and authenticity; that way, she would not be rejected (Wallace, 2016).
Because the majority of the population values external success, wealth, beauty, etc., people who engage in automaton conformity are driven towards just that, relinquishing the responsibility that comes with freedom. Carolyn gave up her freedom because, without her drive to achieve the “American Dream,” she did not know who she was, which was terrifying to her.
Automaton conformity results in a push towards greed, a never-ending chase for more and more success in order to escape the terrifying responsibility of freedom. Lester harshly accused Carolyn of being a “bloodless, money-grubbing freak” (Mendes, 1999). Though it was an unkind, probably damaging statement, there was truth to his words. Carolyn lost her true identity and sense of humanity in her pursuit of success and material wealth.
Carolyn also exemplified authoritarianism by engaging in an unhealthy, symbiotic relationship with Lester – she being the sadist, and he the masochist counterpart. The couple lost their authentic, separate identities by fusing their identities together. Carolyn did not know who she was without her role of domination over Lester’s life. When Lester refused to be a part of the symbiosis after his “epiphany,” Carolyn’s identity was fractured. She no longer knew what to do with herself because she had been in such a predictable role for so long.
Carolyn’s identification with material objects is the epitome of pathology according to Fromm. She holds material objects dear while she allows her relationships and her own identity to languish. In one of the most dramatic scenes of the film, Lester and she began to have a rare, romantic moment. Carolyn brought the moment to a screeching halt with a cold warning that Lester was about to spill beer on the couch, to which he responded, “It’s just a couch.” Carolyn bristled, as if he personally insulted her.
Carolyn argued, “This is a $4,000 sofa, upholstered in Italian silk. This is not just a couch.” Lester shouted explosively, “It's just a couch! This isn’t life. This is just stuff. And it’s become more important to you than living. Well, honey, that’s just nuts” (Mendes, 1999). Though he was a voice of reason, what Lester failed to realize is that to Carolyn, the couch was more than a couch – it was a representation of her wealth and success; it was a piece of her identity.
Carolyn had an unhealthy attachment to her material wealth and external appearances. She became her mask of success, wealth, and impressiveness instead of living her life authentically. She did not believe that she was sufficient as she was, nor did she accept any imperfections in herself or others. The consequence was that she was in complete isolation; she felt utterly alone when confronted with freedom.
Carolyn’s existence perfectly exemplified Fromm’s concept of insecurity – the anxiety of loving possessions. She would feel worthless without her material wealth. Unfortunately for Carolyn, happiness evaded her because she did not realize that no material object can provide authentic happiness. This lack of awareness proved to cause more and more discomfort and unease for Carolyn. The more she chased materialism, the further away she got from happiness.
Skinner:
From a behavioral perspective, it is not difficult to see how Carolyn arrived to this place in her life – she was completely shaped by her environment. B.F. Skinner would argue that Carolyn’s environment was a reflection of her – her home, her neighborhood, and everything she surrounded herself with was well-groomed, adhered to expectations, and seemed impressive. Her environment influenced her to be the person she was.
Due to her past history of reinforcement, she became hyper-focused on attaining wealth and perfection. Carolyn did not become this way out of her own free will; in her past, she was reinforced in ways that lead her to become the way she was. In the middle of the film, Carolyn had a violent confrontation with her daughter Jane, during which she angrily revealed that she and her family didn’t even have their own house when she was young (Mendes, 1999).
At some point in time, Carolyn had a moment of success and discovered that her pain and humiliation caused by being poor diminished. She was negatively reinforced, then, to continue pursuing success and wealth to escape her humiliation. She avoided feeling worthless by ensuring she always wore her mask of success, and she learned to decrease behaviors that were natural responses to various stimuli in her environment because she had been previously punished for responding to stimuli in those ways. She learned to believe she was insufficient as she was.
Carolyn was positively and negatively reinforced to keep seeing Buddy Kane because his affection and attention was a pleasant stimulus for her. She felt as though nobody, including her own husband, was interested in her, reinforcing her to see herself as worthless and undesired. When Buddy showed that he found her desirable, her mood elevated and her feelings of worthlessness diminished, which prompted her to continue seeing him despite the fact that it was an affair.
Carolyn was also positively and negatively reinforced to fire a gun – Buddy reinforced in her that it would be a good idea. Once she fired the gun at the range, she felt powerful and free, and at the same time, her feelings of weakness were reduced.
In terms of decreasing behavior, Carolyn was negatively punished by the lack of selling a home – this, in theory, would reduce the probability of her trying to sell houses in the future. In the same scene, she positively punished herself for not being able to sell the house, as well as crying, in the beginning of the film. She screamed at herself, calling herself “weak” and a “baby,” viciously slapping herself in the face (Mendes, 1999).
This reflects Carolyn’s history of past reinforcement as well – she was most likely punished by one or both of her parents for being “weak” when crying, and as a result, was less likely to ever allow herself to cry. She became conditioned to associate crying with weakness and vulnerability, and so crying itself became a punishing experience.
She also may have found that she felt more in control when she refrained from crying; she may have found that anger is an excellent, “strong” substitute for sadness. This discovery negatively reinforced her to enhance her anger as a means to protect herself from the sadness, vulnerability, and sense of powerlessness that caused such great discomfort for her.
Carolyn was a part of others’ environment, so she played a role in shaping others’ behavior and personalities as well. Carolyn shaped Lester’s behavior and personality a great deal. When she was demeaning and critical towards him, she was punishing him for speaking his mind, which reduced the probability that he would act out his natural reactions to stimuli. Lester’s compliance with Carolyn’s wishes reinforced Carolyn to punish Lester over and over again, perpetuating an unhealthy cycle of reinforcement for them both.
For example, at Carolyn’s business function near the beginning of the film, she said “Honey, don’t be weird.” To which he sarcastically replied, “Okay, I won’t be weird. I’ll be whatever you want me to be” (Mendes, 1999). His response implies that this is how Carolyn has shaped and changed his personality over time. She punished him for being “weird,” and he became less “weird,” or more compliant with Carolyn’s will. He became less of his authentic self because Carolyn punished him for being his authentic self.
She also reinforced Buddy to be more narcissistic and “full of himself” on multiple occasions. The first instance was at the business function, where Carolyn was admiring Buddy for his work. She said, “I am in complete awe of you…I don’t flatter myself that I’m even in the same league as you” (Mendes, 1999). Another example is when they were having sex in the motel room, she indulged his fantasy that he is “the King” by calling him “your majesty,” which reinforced his narcissism (Mendes, 1999). Carolyn reinforced Buddy to see himself as better than other people, which reinforced Carolyn to see herself as lesser, and this cycle of reinforcement would continue until a different stimulus and response occurred.
Carolyn valued appearances and performance above all else, and she transferred some of this to her daughter Jane. In the first few minutes of the film, Jane was seen searching the internet for information on breast augmentation and then looking at her own figure in the mirror, obviously not pleased. From the behavioristic perspective, one could say Jane was unhappy with her appearance because her mother reinforced her for looking good, and punished her for looking “bad.” The first interaction observed between Carolyn and Jane was a critical comment on her appearance, punishing her for looking “unattractive” (Mendes, 1999).
Although reinforcement or punishment increases or reduces the probability of a behavior happening again, it does not guarantee it. Carolyn’s attempts at reinforcing Jane to be attractive backfired and became more of a punishment. In reality, Carolyn was not accepting Jane for who she really was, which turned out to be punishment.
Carolyn reinforced Jane to strive for perfection as well. For example, Carolyn said to her daughter Jane after her dance performance, “Honey, I am so proud of you. You know, I watched you very closely; you didn’t screw up once!” (Mendes, 1999). Her praise would not have been offered if Jane’s performance was not perfect.
Carolyn dealt with problems by using self-defeating techniques from failed attempts at self-control, which resulted in poor psychological health. Although she tried to avoid thoughts of inadequacy by boasting or rationalizing, which was negatively reinforcing, this did not always work for Carolyn. When deluding herself did not work, she resorted to very self-punishing behavior (Feist & Feist, 2013).
Carolyn did not realize how her environment was shaping her, and she strove for self-control and control of others. She was excessively vigorous in her behaviors, which can be seen when she was meticulously cleaning the house she wanted to sell (Mendes, 1999). She strove to control everything in her environment, which is impossible and reinforces feelings of inadequacy.
Maslow:
Explained from Abraham Maslow’s perspective on personality, Carolyn’s self-concept suffered significantly because her experiences and the way she viewed herself were not cohesive. Carolyn’s sense of identity was always in a threatened state because she experienced perceived failure where she expected success. This was especially troublesome for Carolyn due to her quality of perfectionism. Nobody can achieve perfection, yet Carolyn thought she should be able to achieve it, but since she never achieved it, she incessantly experienced anxiety.
Her behavior, thoughts, feelings, and sensations were all influenced by her phenomenal field, her experiences. Her phenomenal self was heavily influenced by her experiences, which were centered on perceptions of inadequacy. Therefore, she experienced herself as being inadequate much of the time. Carolyn wanted to see herself as successful, but feared that she was not because anything short of perfection, to her, was perceived as a failure. Her self-concept suffered as a result, as she never saw her experiences as matching with the way she saw herself.
Carolyn was mostly trying to meet her belongingness needs. Her physiological and safety needs were very well met. However, she suffered from a lack of love, intimacy, affection, and a sense of rootedness. Without achieving these belongingness needs, there was no possible way for her to move on to meet her needs of esteem, or feeling sufficient, competent, and having respect for herself.
Carolyn believed if something was not perfect, it was worthless – including herself. She also was unable to see other people’s perspectives or empathize much with others’ feelings. She did not transcend her dichotomous thinking, a significant sign of psychological unhealthiness. Her mindset and personality remained extremely rigid rather than flexible, and she forced herself to adhere to her own strict expectations and standards of perfection.
She also had a pathological deprivation of beauty in her life because she could not see it. It is ironic because she strove so arduously for beauty, order, and perfection. She tended to see things as ugly and treat people as if they were ugly. This mindset resulted in Carolyn being extremely tense and cold, and she flung herself into a bland, monotonous life of trying to attain perfection. She lost the true essence her life as it could have been if she was able to remain her authentic self, free to appreciate the natural, imperfect yet perfect beauty that surrounded her.
Carolyn was never satisfied with what she already had. She could never attain enough wealth, beauty, or success, and she found her family disappointing. Her relationship with Lester could have been what fulfilled many of her needs of belongingness, but she did not feel love or affection for him, nor did she allow him to express these things to her. Carolyn’s pathological expectations of perfection disabled her to be satisfied in any area of her life above needs of physical wellness, resulting in psychological stagnation rather than growth.
Carolyn pushed others away because she was taught from a young age that she was not valuable as she was. She was taught that nothing was good enough as it was; everything needed improvement. Instead of questioning such strict ideals of perfection, Carolyn internalized and adhered to them. As a result, she developed crippling feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.
She ultimately felt that others were superior, and she resented them for it. She wanted to be better than others to enhance her self-worth, and she created a façade of success and beauty in order to reach that goal. Unfortunately, this mindset is extremely self-alienating and reduced her psychological health significantly.
Carolyn was punished for being her authentic self and reinforced for being a fake, hollow version of herself. Punishing a person for their uniqueness undermines their identity, and in Carolyn’s case, she completely reinvented herself in order to feel acceptable. She became her mask of success and strove to prove that she was actually good enough. Sadly, having a fictional goal such as perfection will prevent a person from ever feeling good enough.
Carolyn could have achieved a greater sense of well-being and happiness by having an epiphany of self-awareness. She would need to realize that everything she naturally feels is a part of her authentic self, which is not innately insufficient. She would begin to see that all the lies she was told as a child or young person were just lies.
After a while, Carolyn would start to feel a sense of self-efficacy and self-worth. She would then need to work over time to remove her masks, stop adhering to others’ expectations, and accept that everything, including herself, can be good without being perfect. The purpose of life is not to become superior to others, control one’s environment, obtain material wealth, or merely survive. The purpose of life is for an individual to thrive in life as they were meant to be – a connected, healthy, and authentic individual.
References
Feist, J. & Feist, G. J. (2013). Theories of personality (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Kernis, M. H., & Heppner, W. L. (2008). Individual differences in quiet ego functioning: Authenticity, mindfulness, and secure self-esteem. In H. A. Wayment, J. J. Bauer, H. A. Wayment, J. J. Bauer (Eds.) Transcending self-interest: Psychological explorations of the quiet ego (pp. 85-93). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/11771-008
Mendes, S., & Ball, A. (1999). American beauty. Los Angeles: Dreamworks Pictures.
Mruk, C. J. (2008). The psychology of self-esteem: A potential common ground for humanistic positive psychology and positivistic positive psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 36(2), 143-158. doi:10.1080/08873260802111176
Wallace, Dave. (2016). Lectures on theories of personality. Personal collection of D. Wallace, Bay Path University, Longmeadow, MA.