lecture #1

layperson’s view of personality

• adjectives that describe a person

• denote what is different about a person

• consistent over time and situations

psychologists view of personality

• organized collection of adjectives that describe a person

• dimensions on which people differ

• relatively consistent over time

• normally distruted along a continuum

units of personality

• not just a habit or single behaviour

• recognizable pattern

  • different context → similar behavior

larsen & buss def. of personality

• set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual

• organized and relatively enduring

• influence the individual’s interactions, with, and adaptions tto, the intrapsychic, physical, and social environments

psychological traits

• characteristics that describe how people are different from each other

4 questions personality researchers are interested in:

• how many traits there are

• how are traits organized

• the origins of traits

• correlations and consequences of the traits

mechanisms

• like traits but refer to personality processes

parts of a mechanism

• input

• decision rule

• output

input

• cue or situation

decision rule

• evaluation process

output

• behaviour or response

within the individual

• personality is something a person carries with themselves over time

• from one situation to the next

  • consistent

organized

• traits and mechanisms have some order & coherence

  • not random

relatively enduring

• traits are relatively stable

  • change and fluctuations are possible

person-environment interactions

• how we adapt to our environment

human nature

• how we are “like all others”

  • traits and mechanisms that are typical of our species and possessed by nearly everyone

individual & group differences

• how we are “like some others”

individual differences

• ways each person is like (or different) from other people

  • intelliegence

  • values

  • interests

group differences

• ways in which each people of one group are like or differ from people in another group

individual uniqueness

• how we are like no others

• every ind. has personal and unique qualiies

• not shared by any person in the world

6 domains of knowledge

• dispositional

• biological

• intrapsychic

• cognitive-experiential

• social and cultural

• adjustment

other ways of knowing

• faith

• personal experience

• shared beliefs

science and truth

• scientists never prove anything

• way of arriving at a “consensus”

• cannot aim at certainty

• can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake

theory

• supposition or system of ideas intended to explain something

• general statements that explain relations among phenomena observations

5 standards for evaluating personality theories

• comprehensiveness

• heuristic value

• testability

• parsimony

• compatibility and intergration

comprehensiveness

• explains most or all known facts

• how broad it is

heuristic value

• guides researchers to important discoveries

• how important it is

testability

• can it be tested

parsimony

• fewest amt of options

• few presmises or assumptions

compatability and intergration

• how much does it intergrate previous work