The Individual Module 4 Chapter 10 Introduction to Personality Psychology

trait-descriptive adjectives

Adjectives that can be used to describe characteristics of people (e.g., optimistic, lazy, anxiety-ridden).

personality

The set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organised and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptions to, the intrapsychic, physical and social environments.

psychological traits

Characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other, but also in which people are similar.

Example: Saying that someone is shy is to mention one way in which he or she differs from others who are more outgoing.

average tendencies

Refers to a person’s typical patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving over time. It’s how they usually act—not in every moment, but on average across situations.

four questions of research on personality

• How many traits are there?

• How are the traits organised? (e.g., How is talkativeness related to other traits, such as impulsivity and extraversion?)

• What are the origins of the traits? (Where theycome from and how they develop) (e.g., Does heredity influence talkativeness?)

• What are the correlations and consequences of traits? (e.g., Do talkative persons have many friends?)

three reasons why psychological traits are useful

• They help describe people and help understand the dimensions of difference between people.

• They help explain behaviour. The reasons people act may be partly a function of their personality traits.

• They can help predict future behaviour (e.g., The sorts of careers individuals will find satisfying, who will tolerate stress better and who is likely to get along well with others.).

psychological mechanisms

Like traits, except that the term ‘‘mechanisms’’ refers more to the processes of personality.

Example: Someone who is extraverted may look for and notice oppurtunities to interact with other people.

three ingredients of psychological mechanisms

• Inputs - May make people more sensitive to certain kinds of information from the environment.

• descision rules - May make people more likely to think about specific options.

• outputs - May guide people’s behaviour toward certain categories of action.

within the individual

Personality is something a person carries with him or herself over time and from one situation to the next.

organised

The psychological traits and mechanisms, for a given person, are not simply a random collection of elements. Rather, personality is organised because the mechanisms and traits are linked to one another in a coherent fasion.

Our personalities are organised in the sense that they contain decision rules that govern which needs are activated, depending on the circumstances.

influential forces

Personality traits and mechanisms can have an effect on people’s lives

Personality influences how we act, how we view ourselves, how we think about the world, how we interact with others, how we feel, how we select our environments (particularly our social environments), etc.

person-environment interaction

Interactions with situations include perceptions, selections, evocations, and manipulations.

Two people can react and interpret a situation very differently. This difference is a function of their personalities.

Example: inkblot interpretation

three levels of personality analysis

• like all others (the human nature level)

• like some others (the level of individual and group differeces)

• like no others (the individual uniqueness level)

human nature

The traits and mechanisms of personality that are typical of our species and are possessed by everyone or nearly everyone.

Example: All cultures on earth speak a language, so spoken language is part of the universal human nature.

individual differences

Ways in which each person is like some other people (e.g., extraverts, sensation seekers).

group differences

People in one group may have certain personality features in common, and these common features make that group of people different from other groups.

nomothetic research

Involves statistical comparisons of individuals or groups, requiring samples of subjects on which to conduct research.

Typically applied to identify universal human characteristics and dimensions of individual or group differences.

idiographic research

Focuses on a single subject, trying to observe general principles that manifest in a single life over time.

Often results in case studies or the psychological biography of a single person.

(translated literally as ‘the description of one’)

example of the three blind men who were presented with an elephant, what do they mean in the book

Holding personality together as a coherent field rather than seperate topics.

Psychologists often approach the topic of personality from one perspective. Each of the perspectives on personality captures elements of the truth, yet each speciality area alone is inadequate to describe the entire realm of human personality - the whole elephant, so to speak.