[BES 3148] Prelims Reviewer

Personality Psychology

Personality Psychology

• A branch of psychology that studies personality and its variation among individuals

• It is a scientific study which aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces

Nativism

• Also known as Nature

• Genes and hereditary factors, physical appearance, personality characteristics

Empiricism

• Also known as Nurture

• Environmental variables, childhood experiences, how we are raised

Tribular Levels of Attitudes

1. Thoughts (Cognitive)

2. Behaviors (Conative)

3. Reactions (Affective)

Personality

• Refers to the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person's unique adjustment to life.

• Refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving

Character

• Personal characteristics that have been judged or valued (external factor, how people see you)

• Emergent form of human nature

Temperament

• Hereditary aspects of personality, including sensitivity, moods irritability, and adaptability

• Inborn form of human nature

Deductive Approach

• Works from top-down

• Generate basic laws about people

• Make deductions about what individual people will be like based on those laws

• Traditional way of theorizing

Inductive Approach

• Reasoning from bottom-up

• Collect data about people first

• Develop the theory based on the data

• Often used in research

Robert McCrae and Paul Costa

• Pioneered the 5 Factor Trait Model of Personality (Big 5)

• OCEAN Framework

OCEAN Framework

1. Openness to Experience

2. Conscientiousness

3. Extraversion

4. Agreeableness

5. Neuroticism

Theory

• Ideas that is intended to explain facts or events

• Can be proven or rejected on grounds of empirical evidence

To look at

• The meaning of the Greek word theorein.

Theory Building

• Explains current observations

• Predicts future events

  • Is Useful (practical applications)

  • Is Simpler than other explanations (Parsimonious)

  • Is Testable (theory can be falsified)

Parsimony

• Communicating things in the simplest way possible.

Emic

• Norm that we should always keep in mind with people that are not within our circle.

• Communicating using laymanized language.

Etic

• Specialized language

• Used in the professional and academic setting because it is about using the respective jargons of specific disciplines

Perspectives in the Study of Personality

1. Psychoanalytic

2. Behaviorist

3. Humanistic

4. Trait

5. Biological

6. Social-Cognitive

7. Existential

Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Perspective that believes that personality is a summation of the innate instincts and parental influences

• Instincts that drive behavior such as sex, hunger, and thirst

• The first five years of our life are important.

Dream Analysis

• Popular technique in the Psychoanalytic Perspective.

Manifest Content

• Type of content that entails describing everything that you are witnessing.

Latent Content

• Type of content that entails interpreting what everything means.

Behaviorist Perspective

• Perspective that believes the way most people think of personality is meaningless.

• Personality changes according to the environment (reinforcers and punishments).

• Believes in the alloplastic way of development.

Positive Reinforcement

• Add pleasant stimulus to increase the behavior.

Negative Reinforcement

• Remove unpleasant stimulus to increase the behavior.

Positive Punishment

• Add unpleasant stimulus to decrease the behavior.

Negative Punishment

• Remove pleasant stimulus to decrease the behavior.

Autoplastic Approach

• Type of development wherein you are changing some aspects of yourself in order to adapt to the environment.

Alloplastic Approach

• Type of development wherein change comes from the environment.

Humanistic Perspective

• Perspective that does not believe in Determinism

• We are innately good and as long as our self-esteem and self-concept are positive we will be happy.

Determinism

• A philosophical view wherein your actions are dictated by your past

Hierarchy of Needs

• Theory by Abraham Maslow that discusses what the human needs in order to have successful life.

Self-Actualization

• Implies that an individual has achieved everything in life, and hence, deemed satisfied already.

Self-Transcendence

• Implies the readiness of an individual to depart from this world.

Trait Perspective

• Centered on the idea that personality is made up of a number of different broad traits or dispositions

• Understand individuals by breaking down behavior patterns into observable traits

Trait

• A term that talks about the characteristic pattern of behavior

• A disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

Trait Theorists

• They believe that we can describe people’s personalities by specifying their main characteristics

Idiographic Approach

• Focus on the individual and recognition of uniqueness

• Investigations gain written information unique to the individual being studied

• Private, subjective, conscious experiences

Neuroticism

Trait Dimension

• Calm versus anxious

• Secure versus insecure

• Self-satisfied vs self-pitying

Extraversion

Trait Dimension

• Sociable versus retiring

• Preference for variety versus preference for routine

• Independent vs conforming

Openness

Trait Dimension

• Imaginative vs practical

• Secure versus insecure

• Self-satisfied vs self-pitying

Agreeableness

Trait Dimension

• Soft-hearted vs ruthless

• Trusting versus suspicious

• Helpful vs uncooperative

Conscientiousness

Trait Dimension

• Organized vs disorganized

• Careful versus careless

• Disciplined versus impulsive

Nomothetic Approach

• Attempts to establish laws and generalizations about people

• Objective knowledge through scientific methods

• Investigations gain numerical data or data that can be categorized

Trait-Situation Interactions

Trait Theory Criticism

• When external circumstances influence the expression of personality traits

Behavioral Genetics

Trait Theory Criticism

• Study of inherited behavioral traits

• A field in which variation among individuals is separated into genetic versus environmental components.

Biological Perspective

• What % of personality is inherited – heritability?

• We are not sure BUT temperaments do seem to be stable from infants to old age.

Body Built or Body Types

• Proposed by Dr. William Sheldon

• Also called as the somatotypes

Ectomorph

• Lean and long; with difficulty building muscle

• Tends to be more shy and secretive

Endomorph

• Big, high body fat, often pear-shaped; with high tendency to store fat

• Tends to be friendly and outgoing

Mesomorph

• Muscular and well-built; with high metabolism and responsive muscle cells

• Tends to be more aggressive

Somatotype Theory

• A biological Theory by William Sheldon.

Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Focus on how we interact with our culture and environment

• Personality is shaped by imitation, modeling and observation

Reciprocal Determinism

• A term that talks about traits, environment and behavior all interact and influence each other

Grand Truism

• Kurt Lewin

• B = f(P, E)

  • B = Behavior

  • F = Internal Factors

  • E = External Factors

Existential Perspective

• Emphasizes the subjective meaning of human experience, uniqueness of individuals, and personal responsibility reflected in choice

• Explores issues related to human existence

Integrative Approach

• Describes personality as a composite of an individual’s psychological processes

Personality Inventory

• A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors

Reliability

• Results are consistent

Validity

• Results satisfy objectives

Asians

• Race that tends to score:

  • High in collectivism

  • Low in individual competitiveness and assertiveness

  • Low in self-enhancement and optimism

  • Low in the tendency to seek mental health treatment

African-Americans

• Race that tends to score:

  • Low on trust of other people

  • Low on hopelessness and depression

  • High on depression

  • Low on self-esteem if they perceive discrimination against them

Hispanics

• Race that tends to score:

  • Low in tendency to seek mental health treatment

  • High in collectivism

  • High in PTSD symptoms following injuries

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

• The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests

• Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use)

MMPI

• Used specifically as a psychological test for clinical purposes.

MMPI 2

• Used in other psychological contexts such as legal and industrial

Projective Tests

• Attempt to probe that invisible portion of our personality through ambiguous, nonverbal stimuli

Thematic Apperception Test

• Give the subject a picture that is ambiguous (can have several meanings) and ask them what is occurring.

• Answers reveal the manifest content then discover the latent content.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

• The most widely used projective test

• A set of ten inkblots designed to identify people’s feelings when they are asked to interpret what they see in the inkblots.

Barnum Effect

• Yielding general, vague descriptions

• People have the tendency to see themselves in vague, stock descriptions of personality.

Impression Management

• Process by which individuals try to control the impression others have of them

Determinants of Personality

1. Biological

2. Environmental

3. Learning

4. Parental

5. Developmental

6. Psychological

7. Socio-Cultural

Biological Factor

• The body; the physiological make-up

• How the different systems in the body define an individual’s activity or personality.

Genetic Make-Up

• People generally do not inherit the traits themselves

• Some traits, actions, disorders, etc. are transferred directly from parents through dominant genes

• There is increasingly strong evidence that many personality traits or dimensions are inherited

Predisposition

• The proneness toward the acquisition of certain behavioral tendencies

Skip Generation

• Instances where our grandparents may have something that our parents do not have but we have.

Yamagata et al.

• Conducted research involving twins from Canada, Germany, and Japan that provided support for the genetic basis of the five-factor model.

• Suggested that this may “represent the common heritage of the human species.”

Larsson, Andershed, & Lichtenstein (2006)

• Conducted a study of adolescent twins (both fraternal and identical) in Sweden and found a strong genetic component in the psychopathic personality prone to violent antisocial behavior.

Huntington’s Disease

• Progressive brain disorder that causes uncontrolled movements, emotional problems, and deteriorated cognition

• What is inherited is the disease itself; directly transferred from parents.

Chorea

• Symptom of Huntingdon’s Disease that entails uncontrollable movement of the arms, legs, head, face, and upper body

Dementia

• Symptom of Huntington’s Disease that entails general intellectual deterioration and cognitive impairment

• Commonly seen in the aged but can be manifested in early stages due to Huntington’s Disease

Body Constitution

• Refers to the biological make-up of the person (e.g., height, weight, complexion, etc.)

Receptor Condition

• Describes how weak or strong are the sense organs in responding to the external stimuli

• Can be inborn or something we lost along the way.

Injuries and Accidents

• Results to brain damage that affects loss of certain affected mental facilities and functions.

Retrograde Amnesia

• When you cannot recall memories from your past.

Anterograde Amnesia

• When you cannot form new memories but can still remember things from before you developed this amnesia (daily life experiences).

Global Amnesia

• When you experience both retrograde and anterograde amnesia simultaneously.

Biological Deprivation

• Unmet or unsatisfied physiological needs may lead to certain interpretations about behaviors

Sleep Deprivation

• The condition of not having enough sleep which may also impact the way people make interpretations about others’ actions, thoughts, and feelings

Noxious Agents

• Refer to harmful, undesirable, toxic chemicals that may impede normal, healthy mental functioning

Alcohol

• Primarily interferes with the transfer of information from short-term to long-term storage.

Environmental Factor

• Acknowledges the importance of the social and physical environment in shaping one’s personality

Alfred Adler

• Spoke of the impact of birth order, arguing that personality is influenced by our position in the family relative to our siblings.

Karen Horney

• Mother of Feminist Psychology

• Pointed out the vastly different social environments to which boys and girls are exposed as children.

Female Inferiority

• Karen Horney spoke up of this term which developed from the way girls are treated in a male-dominated culture

Gordon Allport

• Noted that although genetics supplies the basic raw material of personality, it is the social environment that shapes the material into the finished product.

• Supporter of the nurture principle.

Culture

• An important aspect of the environment that can shape personality.

Learning Factor

• Inherited facets of personality can be modified, disrupted, prevented, or allowed to flourish by the process of learning

Notion of Control

• A learned dimension of personality for which parental behavior is paramount.

High Degree of Control

• Has been related to better coping mechanisms, fewer stress effects, greater mental and physical health, perseverance, higher aspirations and self-esteem, lower anxiety, higher grades, and greater social skills and popularity.