Intro to Personality

What are the three components of the psychological triad?

Thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

What is the main goal of personality psychology?

To explain the functioning of whole individuals by understanding thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

Why is it difficult to create One Big Theory of personality?

Because a theory that explains everything might explain nothing well; strengths in one area are often weaknesses in another.

What does Funder’s First Law state?

Great strengths are often great weaknesses, and surprisingly often the opposite is true as well.

What is another term for a “basic approach” in personality psychology?

Paradigm

What is a basic approach?

A theoretical view that focuses on specific aspects of personality and ignores others.

What are the five basic approaches in personality psychology?

Trait, biological, psychoanalytic, phenomenological, and learning/cognitive.

What does the trait approach focus on?

Individual differences and psychological traits that predict behaviour.

What does the biological approach focus on?

Genetics, neurobiology, and evolutionary influences on personality.

What does the psychoanalytic approach emphasise?

Unconscious processes and internal conflict (based on Freud’s work).

What does the phenomenological approach study?

Conscious experience, free will, human meaning, and culture.

What does the learning and cognitive approach focus on?

How behaviour is shaped by experience, rewards, punishments, and mental processes.

How are different approaches in personality psychology best understood?

As complementary, not competing — together they offer a fuller understanding of personality.

What is the psychological field often accused of, and what is its real aim?

Accused of pigeonholing, but its real aim is appreciating individual differences.

What does it mean when Funder says that personality is "coherent"?

All parts of a person's personality are interconnected and influence each other.

According to the text, how are individual differences treated in cognitive and social psychology?

As error terms — statistically controlled or treated as noise in experiments.

What is the focus of humanistic psychology?

Aspects of psychology that are distinctly human — free will, meaning, self-actualization.

Which approach?: “How does internal conflict influence behaviour?”

Psychoanalytic approach.

Which approach?: “What traits predict longer life?”

Trait approach

Which approach?: “How do rewards and punishments shape our decisions?”

Learning and cognitive approach.

Which approach?: “How does culture affect workplace conflict resolution?”

Phenomenological approach.

Which approach?: “How heritable is extraversion?”

Biological approach