Personality Psych

Personality Stability

Consistency of personality traits over time (rank/order consistency)

Evidence of Stability

Correlations of traits from 10+ years prior (r=.60-.90)

Childhood traits predict adult behavior

Causes of Stability

Temperament (early biological/emotional tendencies)

Rothbart's 3 Components of Temperament

1. Positive Emotionality (Extraversion, Agreeableness)

2. Negative Emotionality (Neuroticism)

3. Effortful Control (Conscientiousness)

Heterotypic Continuity

The same underlying trait is behaviorally expressed differently with age

Physical and Environmental Factors of Personality Stability

Birth Order (unsupported)

Early Experiences (Adverse vs. Positive)

Personality-Environment Transactions

Continuous, reciprocal interactions (feedback loops) between an individual and their environment

3 types of Personality-Environment Transactions

1. Active: Seeking a compatible environment (s)

2. Reactive: Different people respond differently to the same environment

3. Evocative: A personality unintentionally provokes specific reactions from those around them, reinforcing their traits.

Active

Seeking a compatible environment (s)

Reactive

Different people respond differently to the same environment

Evocative

A personality unintentionally provokes specific reactions from those around them, reinforcing their traits.

Cumulative Continuity Principle

Personality becomes more stable with age

End of History Illusion

People believe they have changed lots in the past and won't change much in the future

Personality Development

The lifelong process by which a person's unique patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving emerge, evolve, and stabilize over time

Mean Level Change (Personality Development)

The avg level of a personality trait shifts for a group of people over time (rank/order consistency can remain)

Cross-Sectional Findings

Evaluating groups of ppl at different ages/demographics at a single point in time to examine lifetime patterns

Cross-Sectional Findings in Adolescence

Lower Openness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness

*Neuroticism increases in adolescent girls

Cohort Effects

Historical context influences personality (eg. Great Depression)

Longitudinal Findings

Studies that take place over an extended period of time

-People become more OCEAN

-Risk-taking decreases

La Dolce Vita Effect

A distinct shift in personality traits and life outlook during older age (typically after age 65), where individuals become more relaxed, self-content, and less driven by external productivity

Causes of Development

1. Biological Changes

2. Changes in social roles

3. Transitions

Social Clock

Societal expectations of milestones

Narrative Identity (Dr. Dan McAdams)

An internalized, evolving life story that people construct to give their lives unity, purpose, and meaning

Layers of Self (Narrative Identity)

1. The Actor (Childhood to Adolescence): Focuses on learning social skills, temperament, and behavioral roles in society.

2. The Agent (Young Adulthood to Midlife): Focuses on personal agency, setting long-term goals, and making intentional choices.

3. The Author (Late Adulthood and Beyond): Steps back to synthesize the entire journey into a reflective, retrospective life story.

Narrative Themes

Agency vs. Communion and Redemption vs. Contamination

Personality Change

Results from a desire for change + intentional effort

Personality Development vs. Personality Change

Development = natural progression and evolution of traits across a lifetime

Change = specific changes caused by intentional effort + attention

Role Continuity

Adapting roles stabilizes traits

Social Investment

New roles change traits

Model of Personality Change

1. Person must want to change

2. Person must believe it is possible

3. Must enact new behavior repeatedly

4. Behavior becomes a habit

5. Traits shift

Corresponsive Principle

Traits shape environments, which in turn reinforce traits

Moral Reconation Therapy

Treatment designed to change specific personality traits

Reductive Physicalism

The world exists only physically, including mental states which are simply physical structures-eg. neurons, neurotransmitters (no soul)

Substance Dualism

The belief that the mind and the body both exist as two distinct and separate realities-physical and mental existence

Interactionism

The idea that situations and personality interact to determine behavior

Epiphenomenalism

Physical states effect mental states ONLY

Mysterianism

The question of consciousness is unsolvable by human minds

Neural Context

Function or activity in 1 part of the brain may be dependent on activity elsewhere

Transaction Model

1. Active

2. Reactive

3. Evocative

Thalamus

GATEWAY

Receives sensory input and relays it to the brain

Hypothalamus

SURVIVAL

Below the thalamus, it controls survival behaviors and regulates hormone production

Amygdala

FEAR

Emotional processing, especially fear and aggression-threat detection

Hippocampus

MEMORY

Memory formation and processing

Limbic System

Neural system located below the cerebral hemispheres, associated with emotions and drives

Amygdala, Thalamus, Hypothalamus, Hippocampus

Nucleus Accumbens

REWARD

Reward processing/pleasure/modivation

Associated w Dopamine

Cortex

THINKING

Executive function, perception, and awareness

Neocortex

HUMAN

Outermost layer of the brain-language, reasoning, complex thought

Frontal Cortex

PLANNING

Self-control, decision-making, regulation

Neurotransmitters

Chemicals that transmit information from one neuron to another in the SYNAPSE

Horomones

chemical substances that carry messages through the body in BLOOD

EEG

Electroencephalogram

Measures electrical activity on the surface of the brain

MEG

Magnetoencephalography

measures changes in magnetic fields on the surface of the scalp

CT Scan

X-Ray

a series of x-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice through the body

PET scan

RADIOACTIVE TRACERS

Uses radioactive tracers to see blow flow in brain

fMRI

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Measures blood flow in brain to observe brain activation

Dopamine

Neurotransmitter

Rewards, motivates, movement, learning

Associated with extraversion, openness, low conscientiousness

Serotonin

Neurotransmitter

Impulse control, emotional regulation, anxiety

Behavioral Activation System (BAS)

1. Reward Appears

2. Dopamine is released

3. Approach behavior

4. Reward seeking

Epinephrine (Adrenaline)

Horomone