Robert+Downey+Jr.

 Robert Downie, Jr. by Dale Twigg

  The lesson is that you can still make mistakes and be forgiven. -Robert Downey, Jr. **Biography** Robert Downey, Jr. is a professional actor, known as much for his versatility in acting roles as his reckless lifestyle and troubled upbringing. He spent his childhood in Greenwich Village and was born in New York City on April 4, 1965. His father was a well-known filmmaker and his mother was also an actress. Robert Downey Sr. handed him small parts in his films, casting Robert when he was only five years old. His father also introduced Downey Jr. to drugs early in his childhood; he allegedly shared his first marijuana cigarette with Downey Jr. when he was only eight years old. His father’s influence set Robert on a lifelong struggle with substance abuse but undoubtedly helped him to eventually achieve and secure A-list status in Hollywood (Robert Downey, Jr.). When Robert turned thirteen, his parents divorced and Robert moved to Los Angeles to live with his father. Three years later, Robert dropped out of high school and moved back to New York to live with his mother. Downey began to take on slightly larger roles in films such as //Baby, It’s You// in 1983, //Firstborn// in 1984, and //Back to School// in 1986. He also made frequent appearances on Saturday Night Live. Later, Downey starred in the film //Less Than Zero// in 1987 and played the part of a strung-out cocaine addict. Interestingly, Downey claims that this role heightened his drug addiction and he admitted to regularly arriving high on the set of the film. Soon, he was court-ordered to attend drug rehabilitation programs. However, his career continued to skyrocket. He earned a Best Actor nomination for his impersonation of the silent actor Charlie Chaplain in the film //Chaplain//, which came out in 1992. This year was particularly important to Downey’s personal life as well; he married Deborah Falconer and in two years, he fathered a son, who they named Indio (A&E Television Networks). Unfortunately, two years later, Downey was arrested for public nudity/indecent exposure and possession of heroin, cocaine and an illegally obtained magnum revolver after being pulled over for speeding in his Porsche completely naked. Within a few weeks after this incident, Downey binged on heroin, entered a neighbor’s home and was found asleep in a child’s bed by police officers. He was sent to jail for one year and was transferred to numerous drug rehabilitation programs. In 2000, Downey was charged with possession of cocaine and was found with a wonder woman costume in a California hotel room. In 2004, his wife filed for divorce. Despite the chaos that characterized his personal life, Downey continued to demonstrate his resilience and prowess as an actor. He starred in //Wonder Boys// in 2000, served as a cast member of //Ally McBeal//, won a golden globe in addiction to a Screen Actor’s Guild Award in 2001. He was arrested in April 2001 for cocaine-related charges, plead no contest and luckily, avoided going back to prison and faced three years of probation and drug rehabilitation instead (A&E Television Networks). Currently, Downey Jr. is married to Susan Levin, an actress, and divides his time between homes in Malibu and Venice, and hasn’t had any legal issues or addiction problems in over a decade. He has starred in films such as //Zodiac// in 2007, //Iron Man// in 2008, the //Soloist// and //Sherlock Holmes// in 2009. In a 2005 interview, Downey claimed, "I think part of my destiny has to be realizing that I'm not the poster boy for drug abuse...I'm just this guy who has a really strong sense of wanting home and wanting foundation and having not had it, I now choose to create it" (Bookrags Media Network). **Trait Perspective of Personality** The Big Five trait approach is inductive and grounded in research and it proposes five major and broad personality traits which all people fall under. According to this perspective, Robert Downey Jr.’s personality can be by translated by his degree of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness (Huntington, A). The Big Five approach defines a person high in extroversion as talkative, sociable, and dominant. Clearly, Downey Jr. is no stranger to the spotlight. He’s willingly and regularly appeared on talk shows, posed for magazines, participated in interviews, and he’s widely considered to be one of the world’s greatest A-list actors. Interestingly, he has a history of playing roles that echo this element of his personality. In 1987, Downey assumed his first lead role as an extremely outgoing and Washington, D.C. schoolteacher and womanizer in //The Pick-up Artist (Robert Downey, Jr.).// The agreeableness category measures how friendly and cooperative a person is. The Big Five would probably determine that Robert’s notorious problems with the law and authority, failure to finish high school, and his failed first marriage demonstrate low agreeableness. He was also fired from the set of //Ally McBeal// for repeated absences and disagreements with producers and co-workers (A&E Television Networks). The Big Five approach considers a person with low conscientiousness to be impulsive, unreliable, and disorganized. Robert’s history of drug abuse and addiction, lifelong relationship problems, noteworthy stretches of unemployment and the variety of aforementioned criminal instances serve as indicators of very low conscientiousness. High neuroticism is characterized by anxiety, tension, and emotionally unstable personalities. Downey Jr. has certainly experienced a wide range of unfortunate circumstances, many that are largely due to his own behavior, but he appears to be very nonchalant. Some theorists may speculate that his drug use and gun possession might suggest that Robert has relied on them due to high levels of unresolved anxiety, but his interviews suggest otherwise. He has made statements such as, “I’m not used to feeling like I belong where I am”, and “I’ve always just shown up (to the set) and tried to figure out what’s for lunch and am I going to get to play some racquetball that night” (Biography for Robert Downey, Jr.). Downey appears to be very content with where he stands in life and there are no reports of Downey seeking therapy for anxiety or any neuroticism-related reasons. Openness is viewed as a personality dimension that reveals how creative and imaginative a person is. Acting is an art, and typically, artists and writers score highest on this scale. Downey would probably score very high in openness because he is widely regarded by critics as one of Hollywood’s top A-list actors of all time. His longstanding reputation for versatility and his ability to take on roles of characters with completely different behavior and mannerisms shows his gifted ability to experiment and succeed with a variety of creative approaches in acting. He once said, “I know very little about acting. I’m just an incredibly gifted faker” (Bookrags Media Network). He also recorded an album entitlted, “The Futurist” with the Sony Classics Label in 2004. He wrote eight songs and sang as well (Robert Downey, Jr.). **Behavioral Perspective** From a behavioral perspective, Downey Jr.’s drug addiction as a major part of his personality and his ensuing radical behavior can be explained as resulting from a hierarchy of behavior that has been learned and reinforced. From this perspective, addiction and abused are considered to be learned behavior rather than simply seeking to satisfy strictly biological drives. A psychoanalytic or neo-analytic approach to a drug abuser like Downey would center on an argument about the incorporation of his variety of harsh childhood experiences, such as his parent’s divorce or moving away from home, as products of Downey’s current adult personality. Behaviorist treatment and principles would instead target the stimulus itself, claiming, “Certain stimuli have become associated with taking illegal drugs, and the rewards for abstaining have not been strong enough to maintain legal behavior” (Friedman, H.S., & Schustack, M.W., 208). Interestingly, this applies to Downey very well because he has repeatedly violated drug laws as he fed his addiction over the course of his life and career despite judicial intervention. A behaviorist would probably say that Downey learned and was introduced to this addiction and behavior by his father’s example and it was reinforced by the people he associated with throughout his life (Friedman, H.S., & Schustack, M.W., chp. 6). **Discussion** The break-down of Robert Downey Jr.’s personality through the big-five personality trait approach worked very well except in terms of defining neuroticism because his personal statements indicate that he is laid back and not ridden with anxiety. His erratic history of behavior says otherwise. The behaviorist perspective applies considerably well because Downey’s personal history reveals the learned substance abuse at only age eight and the apparently overwhelming environmental reinforcement throughout his life as exemplified by his repeated drug-related arrests. Robert Downey, Jr. is a particularly intriguing personality because he has completely reversed his lifestyle and behavior in recent years. He admitted to craving a “home life” because he never had that as a child and he struggled to fully dedicate himself to his own family during much of his adulthood. **Bibliography** //Biography for Robert Downey, Jr//. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000375/bio. //Robert Downey, Jr//. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.starpulse.com/Actors/Downey_Jr.,_Robert/. A&E Television Networks. //Robert Downey Jr. Biography//. (2011). Retrieved from [].

Huntington, A. (2011). Chapter 8: Trait and Skill [1, 2, 4, 7,]. Retrieved from []. Friedman, H.S., & Shustack, M. W. (2009). Personality: Classic Theories and Modern Research, 5th edition. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Bookrags Media Network. //Robert Downey, Jr. Quotes//. (2011) Retrieved from []. //Robert Downey Jr. Inside the Actor’s Studio.// (2008). Retrieved from [].