We ask ourselves what we mean by referring to that which we have observed by such a term as multiple personality. Immediately we face the more fundamental question: What is the real referent of this familiar word personality? In ordinary use we all encounter dozens of unidentical referents, perhaps hundreds of overlapping concepts, all with vague and elusive areas extending indefinitely, vaguely fading out into limitless implications. Any day we may hear that John Doe has become a new man since he quit liquor three years ago. Perhaps we tell ourselves that Harvard actually made a different person of that boy across the street who used to aggravate all the neighbours with his mischievous depredations. Many religious people describe the experience of being converted or born again in terms that to the sceptical often seem chiefly fantastic. With considerable truth, perhaps, it may be stated that after her marriage Mary Blank changed, that she has become another woman. So, too, when a man' s old friends say that since the war he hasn't been the same fellow they used to know. The statement, however, inaccurate, may indicate something real. Every now and then it is said that a certain woman' s absorption in her home and children has resulted in her losing her entire personality. Though such sayings are never taken literally, there is often good reason to be taken seriously. Are they not exaggerations or distortions used to indicate very imperfectly what is by no means totally untrue but what cannot be put precisely, or fully, into words? The real meaning of such familiar statements, however significant, helps us only a little in explaining what we think we have encountered in the case reported. Though often distinguished from each of the other terms, "personality" is sometimes used more or less as a synonym or approximation for "mind", "disposition", "soul", "spirit" etc. Often this protean word narrows(or broadens)in use to indicate chiefly the attractiveness, or unattractiveness, of some woman or man. In psychiatry its most specific function today is perhaps that of implying a unified total, of indicating more than "intelligence" or "character". There is no distinct or commonly understood referent for our word "personality". It is useful for us despite its elasticity, often because of its elasticity. If they are to be helpful all such elastic terms must be used tentatively. Otherwise they may lead us at once into violent and confused disagreement about what are likely to be imaginary questions, more conflicts of arbitrary definition. Bearing this in mind we feel it proper to speak of Eve Black, Eve White and of Jane as three "personalities".

单选题 What is the topic of this passage?

单选题 The examples in Paragraphs 2 and 3 tend to show that_____.

单选题 All of the following are common synonyms for "personality" except_____.

单选题 If they are not used tentatively, the elastic terms_____.

单选题 The author' s conclusion about personality is that______.