Multiplicity: The New Science of Personality, Identity, and the Self [Hardcover]

Rita Carter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2008

MULTIPLICITY presents an entirely new view of our selves. Instead of seeing each person as a single personality, Carter argues that we all consist of multiple characters, each one with its own viewpoint, emotions and ambitions. The mother who feeds breakfast to her children, for example, has quite different concerns and opinions from the woman taking part in a boardroom discussion two hours later, and from the woman she will be with her husband that night. Yet all three may share the same body, and none is any more "authentic" than another.


Personality changes in a person are conventionally frowned upon, but Carter shows that in today's world our ability to switch from one personality to another according to what is demanded of us is a huge strength, providing one's personalities work together as a team rather than against each other. In addition to its groundbreaking scientific thesis, MULTIPLICITY contains extensive exercises designed to help readers achieve this harmony.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this interpretation of the many selves within the human mind, science and medical writer Carter (Mapping the Mind) offers a unique definition of multiple personalities in a functioning person, without the usual discussion of phobias or other psychological disorder. Carter sees personality as a cluster of related traits; for instance, ambition and related traits like drive and impatience could be one personality that would coexist with other personalities in one individual. She describes, for instance, a passive mother of two transforming into a powerful attorney in a high-powered firm; this mental shape-shifting leads the mother to display contradictory character traits at home, at work and at play. Contrasting what the author calls minor and major personality traits in thought and behavior, Carter explains: Our inner landscape is constantly changing. Various personalities form, change, fade away, reform, merge, shrink and grow. She adds intriguing diagrams of memory and recall patterns illustrating how people behave differently in different situations. Exercises provided in the second part of the book encourage the reader's family and work personalities to interact and communicate positively with each other. Carter is pushing the envelope on personality, and her book should spark debate on the flexibility of the human mind. (Mar.)
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About the Author

Rita Carter is an award-winning science and medical writer. She contributes to New Scientist and a wide range of other British magazines and newspapers. Before specializing in science Rita worked for six years as a TV news presenter and radio host and producer. She continues to appear and be heard regularly on TV and radio as a medical and science commentator, and gives frequent talks and lectures throughout Europe and the US.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (March 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031611538X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316115384
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,242,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An exceptionally clear roadmap of human personality. A smart read, a timely update of how our personalities operate. March 15, 2008

By D. Stuart

Format:Hardcover

Rita Carter is a fine writer with a sterling track record in charting the human mind, both in her well praised Mapping the Mind, and Consciousness (Mapping Science) and here she explores the issue of personality.

The twist here is that recent advances in neuro-science are enabling us to understand much better how the brain operates, and Carter vividly explains a model that I'd describe as a networked email system with messages shared, responded-to, forwarded just as they are in an organisation. And just as an organisation has different departments and cultures, so too our mind has different facets - and out of these arise different responses to the world around us. Rather than having a singular personality, we actually have a cluster of personalities - a work persona perhaps, a cycnical persona, one persona while dating, and another persona while driving - and of course not all these personalities get on. Again, like the internal workings of a large organisation. There are complex interrelationships, conflicts, dissenting voices and unresolved differences.

This is the heart of multiplicity: the concept that we have a competing though potentially harmonious set of personalities.

What I love about the book is how Carter very tidily dissembles the dominant "one personality" idea promulgated by such war-horse tests as Myers Briggs: which as she shows, have only a low likelihood of awarding you the same personality prognosis from one sitting to the enxt.

Carter then shows how hypnosis and brain imaging both reveal our potential to have several sometimes quite dissociated personalities. This is just normal. I was reminded of the Keb Mo blues song in which Keb's character, having been caught cheating by his wife says: "But honey, that wasn't me. That was the man I used to be."

In part two of the book Rita Carter delivers the rare treat of a practical guide, using a questionnaire and a very clear set of diagnostics to help us identify our own personalities. She keeps this section very much grounded in reality - and where books on Consciousness, for example by Dennett Consciousness Explained (Penguin Science) can be pretty heavy reading without direct applicabilty Carter's gift is in the way she makes big ideas so accessible. For example a quick sign that you have two major personality types (a double major!) is if you have two quite distinct sets of friends, or two very distinct sets of clothes. Who are you going to be today?

Identification is one thing the book does well, but Carter also shows how we can get more harmony between our multiplicitous selves.

This volume is well worth reading. I don't know too many books on the human mind that also take the care to show us what we can do with this information. Rita carter delivers a big idea, then explains how we can use it. Well done - from all of me!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting research April 25, 2008

By Armchair Interviews

Format:Hardcover

Most of us tend to think of ourselves as one individual, a consistent self. In Multiplicity, Carter argues that we consist of a group of unique personalities - each with its own characteristics. She contends that we slide from one personality to another as the situation demands. These many personalities are held together by shared memories.

Part I of the book provides an overview of dissociation and multiple personality that supports the notion of multiple personalities. While some of Carter's examples would be of "normal" people, some seem to better fit for those suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. Human beings are very adaptable, and hence these different personalities came about to help us cope with the situations we face. Hence, the "troublesome" personality was created to help us, and brings some benefit to our psyche.

One would imagine that coercing a personality to "behave" (as Carter recommends) would not have the desired outcome as it may retaliate, if it can, often surreptitiously (as do individuals). If we subconsciously switch on or off personalities (as Carter contends), then one may question how much control do we truly have to summon a particular personality. Carter says that there is no "true self"; we are a collection of our personalities. Some readers may feel that this goes too far and that perhaps in the "shared memories" there is a "self." I feel that more research is needed in this area to construct a more coherent theory of multiple personalities.

Part II is dedicated to finding each of these personalities within us through a series of exercises. Carter does add that it may require the help of a friend or changes in circumstances to discover all these personalities. There are so many questions that only the most motivated readers would muster the stamina to do them all. Second, Carter does not provide much (empirical) evidence if this process really works well.

The theory of multiple personalities is interesting and does explain some observations that a single personality theory does not. From this book, it seems that we need additional research to make this theory more coherent.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How Many Personalities Are Inside You? March 26, 2008

By Kare Anderson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

That irritating co-worker you were stuck sitting beside (again!) sees a decidedly different side of you than your best friend does. That's because you have may people inside of you. That's what veteran science writer, Rita Carter discovered as she began reading about bi-polar personalities for Mapping the Brain. Emerging research shows that several, "personalities are made and kept separate in the human brain" ... of everyone. Want a glimpse of how many you have? Depending on the situation and who you're are around, different people pop out and speak for you. If it is of some comfort, you do play one main character, much of the time, in the unfolding movie that is your life.

Discover Yourselves At Last
Yet even the argumentative or otherwise darker personalities are in your life for a reason. In Carter's newest book, Multiplicity, you can get to know your "people", the one who plays the most likeable role and the one who keeps getting you in trouble. In a conversational style, Carter describes the research on our multiple personality brains. In the second part of the book, find exercises to understand more about the multiple you. As a quiet child I'm still surprised at the many personalities that have appeared out of me in my multiple and overlapping careers, as a high tech exec, journalist and, perhaps most peculiar, a public speaker.

Imagine doing these exercises with a spouse, best friend of co-workers at a retreat. It would be a vulnerable time - and an opportunity to explore ways you can bring out the best side in each other more often. Combine this self-discovery and how you relate to others with the fascinating work by Steven Pinker, Helen Palmer, Dan Pink, Marty Seligman and Marcus Buckingham and you may find that you become happier, get along better with others and get more done with less stress. (I'm stumbling along in my own practice here.)

Possible Side Benefits

* You can design a more satisfying work and life.

* You won't let somebody else determine our behavior. With heightened self-awareness of your many roles, you'll be more aware of your hot buttons and the type of people and situations who set them off. You can protect yourself from being "primed" to react. Instead you'll have a better chance to choose how you want to act.