SAS 1 - Personality and the Big Five

Personality (Kluckhohn and Murray, 1953, p. 53)

“Every person is like all other persons, like some other persons, and like no other persons.”

Personality (Allport, 1961)

”The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his/her characteristic behavior and thought.”

• most generic definition

ABCs of Personality

• Affect

• Behavior

• Cognition

The Field of Personality Psychology

• Personality officially began as a subfield of psychology in the 1930s with the publication G.W. Allport’s book Personality: A Psychological Interpretation

• Personality is originally conceptualized as the study of the individual person.

Emphases of Personality Theory and Research

• Individual Differences

• Motivation

• Holism

[Individual Differences] Questions

• How are persons different from each other?

• What is the structure of human individually?

[Individual Differences] Traditional Concepts

• temperaments

• traits

• dispositions

[Individual Differences] Method Preferred

• Correlational Studies

[Motivation] Questions

• Why do persons do what they do?

• What do persons want?

• What energizes and directs the person’s behavior?

• What are the dynamics of human action?

[Motivation] Traditional Concepts

• instincts

• needs

• values

• goals

• conflicts

• defenses

• self-actualizing tendencies

[Motivation] Method Preferred

• Laboratory Experiments

[Holism] Questions

• How do we understand the whole person?

• What does a person’s life mean?

• What integrates a life?

[Holism] Traditional Concepts

• ego

• self

• proprium

• style of life

• unity theme

• identity

• life structure

[Holism] Method Preferred

• Case Studies

[Individual Differences] Construct Level

Traits

[Motivation] Construct Level

Characteristic Adaptations

[Holism] Construct Level

Life Stories

Characteristic Adaptations

the ways individuals learn to respond to and adapt to their environment, influenced by factors like genetics, life experiences, and cultural context

Life Stories

the internalized and evolving narratives individuals create to make sense of their lives, providing coherence and purpose

Trait (Gordon Willard Allport)

"…is know not by its cause, but by what is causes; not by its roots but by its fruits.”

[G.W. Allport’s Doctrine of Traits] Traits

• the explanation for motivation and individual differences

• neuropsychic structures having the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and initiate and guide meaningfully consistent patterns of expressive and adaptive behavior

[G.W. Allport’s Doctrine of Traits] Traits are Causal Entities

reason for individual differences between and among individuals, consistency of behavior across time, and stability of behavior across situations

[G.W. Allport’s Doctrine of Traits] biophysical

Traits are not hypothetical structures, but _____ structures located in the brain.

[G.W. Allport’s Doctrine of Traits] motivational

Traits are _____ —the reasons for an individual’s behavior is based in the traits that he or she posseses.

[G.W. Allport’s Doctrine of Traits] malleable

Traits are _____ and environmentally-sensitive.

[Basic Assumptions of the Five Factor Theory (FFT) of Personality] thoughts, feelings, and actions

Individuals can be characterized in terms of relatively enduring patterns of _____.

[Basic Assumptions of the Five Factor Theory (FFT) of Personality] quantitatively

Traits can be _____ assessed.

[Basic Assumptions of the Five Factor Theory (FFT) of Personality] cross-situational

Traits show some degree of _____ consistency.

[Five Factor Theory at a Glance] Allport and Odbert (1930)

Lexical Approach

• 17, 953 trait terms

[Five Factor Theory at a Glance] Cattell (1943)

Used 4,500 Stable Traits

• no factor analysis yet so he ended up with 35 clusters of personality traits

[Five Factor Theory at a Glance] Fiske (1949)

Took a Subset of 22 of Catell’s 35

• credited as the first to discover a version of FFM but was not able to identify its precise structure

[Five Factor Theory at a Glance] Tupes and Christal (1961)

surgency, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and culture

Assumptions About Human Nature

• Knowability

• Rationality

• Variability

• Proactivity

[Assumptions About Human Nature] Knowability

personality is a proper object of scientific study

[Assumptions About Human Nature] Rationality

people are generally capable of understanding themselves and others

[Assumptions About Human Nature] Variability

people differ from each other in psychologically different ways

[Assumptions About Human Nature] Proactivity

the locus of causation of human action is to be sought in the person

Neuroticism

• taps in the way people cope with everyday stresses

• High N scorers have tendencies to experience:

  • variable moods over time

  • fatigue over the course of the day

  • dissociation (i.e., inability to recall important life events and feeling disconnected from life and other people)

  • physical symptoms

Extraversion

• can be characterized by social attention

• High E scorers usually have tendencies to:

  • engage in frequent social interaction

  • take the lead in livening up dull gatherings

  • enjoy talking a lot

  • be bold in dating and courtship

Openness (to experiences)

• can be characterized by the need for novelty

• High O scorers are usually:

  • imaginative

  • curious

  • creative

  • thrill-seekers

• High O scorers also tend to be:

  • more spiritual

  • more open to receiving information coming at them from a variety of sources

  • open to try out different sexual positions or to having alternative sexual partners

Agreeableness

• lovers or harmonious social interaction and cooperative family life

• High A scorers usually:

  • get along with others

  • are well-liked

  • avoid conflict

  • strive for harmonious family life

  • may selectively choose professions in which their likeability is an asset

• High A scorers also tend to:

  • favor negotiation than assert their power to resolve conflicts

Conscientiousness

• describes orderliness, being organized, achievement-focused, as well as self-disciplined

• High C scorers tend:

  • not to procrastinate

  • be exceptionally industrious

  • putting in the long hours of diligent hard work needed to get ahead

  • to perform well in school and work

  • to avoid breaking the rules

  • to have a more stable and mature romantic relationship

The Big Five

• Neuroticism

• Extraversion

• Openness

• Agreeableness

• Conscientiousness