Walt Disney Personality Analysis: Cognitive and Behavioral Theories

Introduction

Known the world over, Walt Disney remains a powerful force in the Disney empire today, based on a personality that influenced "his" park in profound and lasting ways. Walt certainly had a clear vision of what he wanted to achieve during his lifetime, but he also had a more enduring vision of how he wanted his park and company operated and managed after he was gone. While a number of theories have been developed over the years to help explain and interpret individual personalities, two in particular — cognitive and behavioral — provide a useful framework for examining Walt Disney's personality and offer insights into his motivations and behaviors that help explain how and why the Disney Company is where it is today.

Michael Jordan and Walt Disney share the distinction of being known all over the world by people who may not know any other Americans — or even any other Westerners. Walt Disney's enduring legacy can be found in his numerous theme parks in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan, as well as the countless motion picture productions and branded merchandise spawned over the years. More importantly, Disney's legacy also involves significant influences on American society itself — influences that Walt may not have intended, but which have nevertheless become the focus of an increasing amount of critical attention in recent years. To gain some understanding of how this situation developed, this paper reviews relevant peer-reviewed, scholarly, and popular literature concerning Disney's early life and the important influences on him, analyzes his emergent personality from the perspectives of behavioral and cognitive theories, and summarizes the research findings in the conclusion.

Brief Biography and Overview of Walt Disney

Walt Disney was the "middle child" of five siblings. According to Bryman (1994), "Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago on 5 December 1901 to Elias and Flora Disney. Elias Disney, both before and after Walt's birth, was a serially unsuccessful businessman who was continually seeking to improve his and his family's lot by moving on, both geographically and from business to business" (p. 4). Walt was the fourth of five children, followed by the only daughter, Ruth, born in 1903; his closest sibling was Roy, the third child, born in 1893 (Bryman). Bryman further reports that "Elias and Flora were unhappy about bringing Walt and the other children up in the disorder of a modern city, and they moved in 1906 to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, which many writers have viewed as the inspiration for the Main Street, USA attraction in Disneyland" (p. 4).

In reality, Walt appears to have enjoyed a fairly idyllic childhood in Marceline. As one biographer reports:

"For young Walt, Marceline was a wonderful new world waiting to be explored. The farm had 5 acres of orchards, which provided the family with fresh apples, plums and peaches, and the rest of the land was farmed for corn, sorghum and wheat. They also raised hogs, chickens, dairy cows and horses. Walt, Roy and Ruth would go around town selling their apples and Flora's homemade butter, and in the summer heat they'd swim in nearby Yellow Creek." (Burk, 2008)

It was in Marceline that Walt spent the formative period of his life. Burk reports that the family barn was one of Walt and Ruth's favorite places to play, and it was there that Walt had his first taste of show business, promoting a "barn circus" featuring a goat, a dog, a cat, and a pig dressed in his sister's doll clothes. "Walt charged 10 cents admission to his barn circus, but when Flora heard about it, she made him return the money" (Burk, p. 5). Walt's later experiences with money would similarly leave their mark on his personality, just as these early childhood experiences contributed to his direction in later life.

These were clearly important influences on Walt's personality development and his visions for theme parks, animated cartoons, and motion pictures, as well as his perceptions of what audiences would find compelling and how they would want to experience it. Bryman suggests that it was this locale that is frequently cited as the source of Disney's interest in animals, which was later manifested in his animated productions. Most biographers depict Walt as not a strong school pupil, tending to concentrate on his personal interests rather than his studies. The family left Marceline in 1910 after Elias was forced to sell the farm following financial problems and illness. "Elias is depicted by many of Walt's biographers as a hard, humourless taskmaster who regularly beat his sons, and at around this time the two eldest sons deserted him" (Bryman, p. 4).

Thereafter, the Disney family relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, where Walt and Roy secured employment as newspaper delivery boys for their father, who had contracted for a distributorship (Bryman). Roy left the family household in 1912 to assist his uncle in farming operations, and during this period Walt's academic performance remained average — a lack of achievement attributed to his tendency to let his attention wander. This tendency may be traced to Walt's fond experiences with his "Dreaming Tree" in Marceline, where he spent long hours imagining what could be, inspired by the pastoral setting around him.

During these years, Walt's interest in drawing developed but was frowned upon by his father, who viewed it as a frivolous activity. Walt remained close to Roy, who periodically returned to visit. In his mid-teens, Walt developed an interest in the gags used by burlesque comedians and kept a file of them; he also took a correspondence course in art, which his father was willing to fund because Walt contributed to the family finances by working in a jelly factory (Bryman). At the end of World War I, Walt enlisted with the Red Cross Ambulance Corps and was assigned to France for a year.

Following his return in 1919, Walt became interested in animation and began searching for employment as a cartoonist in Kansas City, where a critical juncture in his life would occur. Bryman reports that Walt eventually secured a position with a commercial art studio, where he met and befriended another recently hired cartoonist, Ubbe Iwwerks (who later shortened his name to Ub Iwerks). "Walt's job was short-lived and he teamed up with Iwerks to go into business. But Walt soon got a job as a cartoonist with the Kansas City Film Ad Company. Iwerks followed him shortly afterwards when their company went bankrupt in 1920. Although Iwerks is recognized as a brilliant draughtsman, he was a shy, diffident person, and it is generally reckoned that his personal traits contributed to a lack of ability at selling or generating interest in their products" (Bryman, p. 5).

During his tenure at Film Ad, Walt began working on short advertising films in the form of moving cartoons; however, the techniques of the time were still primitive, and Walt believed they could do better. Consequently, his interest in animation deepened and he began formally studying it, experimenting with methods at night (Bryman). According to Bryman, Walt "found an outlet for his experiments in the Newman Laugh-O-Grams, which were brief cartoons based on simple gags made for the Newman Theater. In order to develop his experimental work further, Walt left his job and incorporated Laugh-O-Gram Films. Iwerks joined him, as did a number of other animators, and together they began work on fairy-tales" (p. 5).

This venture encountered problems early on when the animators, including Iwerks, resigned for other opportunities. This turn of events proved to be a catalyst in Walt's career and had a significant influence on his views about money and financial security — a Gone-With-the-Wind-I'll-Never-Be-Poor-Again type of mindset. Bryman recounts a telling episode:

"At one point, Walt was telephoned by a local dentist who was interested in commissioning a film for the promotion of dental hygiene. When the dentist asked Walt to come over to finalize the deal, Walt had to admit that he did not have the $1.50 to recover his shoes from the local cobbler. The dentist not only came to Walt to hand over $500 for the deal, but also gave him the cobbler's fee. Walt then began work on Alice's Wonderland, in which a child was placed against a cartoon background, but this stream of activity also went bankrupt. In 1923, Walt decided he was getting nowhere and left for Hollywood to work in the movies with just $40 in his pocket." (Bryman, p. 5)

After failing to secure any other meaningful employment, Walt was encouraged by his brother Roy — then living in Los Angeles — to return to animated productions. Following Roy's successful negotiations with a distributor, Margaret Winkler expressed interest in Alice's Wonderland and provided financial backing (Bryman). The company then began production on a series of Alice adventures. Walt moved into offices whose front window was inscribed "Disney Bros. Studio"; in February 1924 he hired his first animator, and by May 1924 the series was complete (Bryman, p. 5).

Cognitive Theory of Personality and Walt Disney

Despite the successful completion of the series, the company did not realize as much return on its investment as initially expected, largely due to the rising costs of technical improvements. As a result, "Walt decided to cease work on drawing and to concentrate on story-lines, and he persuaded Iwerks to join him. The Alice series then re-started. During this period Walt's romance began with one of the women working at the Studio — Lillian Bounds — whom he married in July 1925" (Bryman, p. 5). Roy remained in charge of the business operations. After losing their contacts with Margaret Winkler following her retirement and marriage to Charles Mintz, the Disney brothers relocated to a new studio on Hyperion Avenue near downtown Los Angeles, which became known as the Walt Disney Studio. As Bryman explains, "The name-change occurred because Walt felt that the association of the studio with a single name would both appeal more to audiences and give it a stronger identity" (p. 6).

Today, the Walt Disney Company has grown into a global empire operating the ABC Television Network and ten owned television stations, the ESPN Radio and Radio Disney networks, and 46 owned radio stations. Its various business segments own and operate ABC-, ESPN-, ABC Family-, SOAPnet-, and Disney-branded Internet web site businesses, as well as Club Penguin, an online virtual world for children. The company's Parks and Resorts segment owns and operates the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida — including theme parks, hotels, vacation ownership units, a retail, dining, and entertainment complex, a sports complex, conference centers, campgrounds, golf courses, and water parks (Walt Disney Company, 2008). Its motion picture interests produce and acquire live-action and animated motion pictures, direct-to-video programming, musical recordings, and live stage plays, while its Consumer Products segment licenses Disney characters and properties to manufacturers, retailers, show promoters, and publishers (Walt Disney Company). The road to this level of success has not been seamless, but it is clear that the driving force behind the company's direction in the 21st century remains the blueprint established by Walt.

According to Strack (2006), "The cognitive theory of personality is anchored in human evolution that emphasizes the adaptive function of genetically determined 'strategies' that facilitate survival and reproduction. Generally speaking, humans take in information from the environment, synthesize it, and develop a plan of action in order to survive in the physical and social environments" (p. 114). From this perspective, Disney's early efforts to salvage his first theme park by producing a series of Mickey Mouse Club episodes to secure the necessary funding are entirely understandable. Disney was taking in information from the environment, synthesizing it, and developing a plan of action in order to survive.

Television programs targeting young audiences were few and far between in the mid-20th century. Baker and Dessart (1998) report that Disney's ambitious plans for his flagship theme park, Disneyland, required more funding than he could secure, but rather than give up, Walt persevered by conceiving what was truly an innovation in both television and financing:

"While neither NBC's nor CBS's actions represented, in and of themselves, a major shift in how children's television was perceived, ABC's actions clearly did. In October 1954, ABC premiered Disney's first foray into television, Disneyland — the first time a major Hollywood studio had deigned to produce a series for television. The series became the ABC network's first hit. Both of the other networks had tried but failed to snare Walt Disney: among other things, they balked at his terms, which reportedly included $90,000 per episode and a $500,000 investment in a revolutionary idea — a theme park. As the world soon learned, Disneyland was successful as both a program and a theme park, and ABC made money on both." (Baker & Dessart, p. 163)

From the perspective of cognitive personality theory, Walt's early childhood experiences — rich in affection in some ways yet characterized by a persistent lack of resources — instilled in him a powerful drive for financial independence that became the motivating force behind the Mickey Mouse Club and his subsequent endeavors. Such effective leadership indicates that Walt possessed a charismatic personality, though charisma requires loyal and dedicated followers to take root. Without the right people around him, Disney's visions would likely have failed. House, Spangler, and Woycke (1991) observe that "certain leader personality characteristics contribute to the formation of a charismatic relationship with subordinates. Because charisma is a relationship and not a personality characteristic of leaders, charisma exists only if followers say it does or behave in specific ways" (p. 364). These authors offer a telling illustration: "If a man runs naked down the street proclaiming that he alone can save others from impending doom, and if he immediately wins a following, then he is a charismatic leader: a social relationship has come into being. If he does not win a following, he is simply a lunatic" (House et al., p. 364). Fortunately for Walt, enough of his subordinates and financiers believed in his vision to pull it off.

Conclusion

It is probably unlikely that even Walt himself could have foreseen the vast and far-flung empire that Disney has become, but he would undoubtedly be delighted at knowing that his early efforts had brought so much joy into the world for millions of children and adults alike. Some authorities, however, suggest that this joy has come at a high price in terms of its impact on the American consciousness and its approach to theme park management, both rooted in Walt's own powerful personality and legacy.