Personality Types in Cyberspace

  The basic psychological features of online environments shape how people and groups behave in those realms. But that's only half the story. Online behavior will always be determined by how those features interact with the characteristics of the people in those environments. A variety of systems might be useful in classifying those characteristics. We might focus on specific features of the user, such as the person's computer skills, goals for using the internet, demographic characteristics (age, social-economic status, occupation, etc). There also are several comprehensive theoretical systems in psychology that could help us examine how various  personality types behave in cyberspace - for example, the Myers-Briggs system or Guilford's personality model.

  In this book I've described cyberspace as a psychological extension of the individual's intrapsychic world. It is a psychological space that can stimulate the processes of projection, acting out, and transference - that can alter sensory experience and can even create a dream-like state of mind. A theory that specializes in understanding the intrapsychic world and thevarious dimensions of consciousness would be especially useful in understanding this "person" side of the person/environment interaction.

   Psychoanalytic theory fits that bill very well. It contains a very rich, comprehensive model of personality types resulting from 100 years of research and clinical practice. Nancy McWilliams' book Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (Guilford Press, 1994) is an excellent resource that summarizesand integrates the various psychoanalytic concepts about major personality types. For each of these types, McWilliams explores the characteristic affects, temperment, developmental organization, defenses, adaptive processes, object relations, and transference/countertransference phenomena. The personality styles discussed are:

a. psychopathic (antisocial)

b. narcissistic   

c. schizoid

d. paranoid

e. depressive and manic (impulsive)

f. masochistic (self-defeating)

g. obsessive and compulsive

h. hysterical (histrionic)

i. dissociative

  One highly productive area of research would be to explore how these personality types behave online, how they subjectively experience and react to the various psychological features of cyberspace, how they shape the online experience for others, and the pathological as well as potentially salutary aspects of their online activities. Some interesting questions to explore might include the following:

a.       Does online anonmity and freedom of access encourage antisocial personalities? Are they the hackers of cyberspace?

b.      Do narcissistic people use the access to a numerous relationships as a means to gain an admiring audience.

c.       Do people with dissociative personalities tend to isolate their cyberspace life from their f2f lives. Do they tend to experiment more with creating imaginative online identities?

d.      Are schizoid people attracted to the reduced intimacy resulting from online anonymity. Are they lurkers?

e.       Do manic people take advantage of asynchronous communication as a means to send measured responses to others?

Are compulsives generally drawn to computers & cyberspace for thecontrol it gives them over their relationships and environment?