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Modes of explanation
Biological approach to personality are important but can be reductive
Ideally, we could also develop nonreductive psychological explanations as well
Some psychological approaches, such as psychoanalysis*, make some questionable assumptions
Instinctual drives, the Unconscious, psychosexual stages etc.
Can we explain personality psychologically, without falling into these problems?
Cognitive explanations
Explain personality with reference to cognitive processes & structures
Thoughts, plans, memories, beliefs, strategies
Focus on ways of thinking & the construction of meaning
Having versus doing
People as active sense-makers
Emphasis on ‘experience-near’ phenomena
Motivation to understand & predict
Person-as-scientist model
Cognitive theory
There is no single cognitive theory of personality
We will examine four approaches
Perceiving (personal constructs)
Explaining (attributional style)
Thinking (emotional intelligence)
Representing (the self
Personal constructs
George Kelly proposed that humans are primarily driven to understand, predict & control their environment
We develop ‘theories’ to do so
He called these theories ‘personal constructs’
‘Personal’ because idiosyncratic to individuals
We construct a sense of the world from these theories
We use them to construe that world
To Kelly, human cognition is contrastive
E.g., warm versus cold, honest versus untrustworthy
Each person has a system of constructs in terms of which they perceive the world
This system of constructs is the personality This is a radical approach
It focuses on perception versus behaviour
‘Idiographic’ focus on the person’s unique
The Repertory Grid (shortened example)
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Construct systems
Constructs can be analysed in many ways to generate a ‘map’ of the individual’s construct system
Simplicity versus complexity
Rigidity
Internal conflict
Construct systems: Case study of a young man with psychosis
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personality range
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Attributions
Constructs are about how we perceive the world
‘Attributions’ are about how we explain it
People aim to determine the causes of events and experiences
Attributions differ on several dimensions
Internal versus external (i.e., dispositional vs situational)
Stable versus unstable (i.e., lasting vs transient)
Global versus specific (i.e., broad vs narrow)
Causes can vary along these dimensions
Attributional style
Are there individual differences in the sorts of attributions people make?
Concept of attributional (or ‘explanatory’) style
Focus on explanations for negative events
e.g., “You do badly on a psychology exam. Why?”
Attributional style is focused on negative events
‘Pessimism’ is the disposition to explain such events with Internal, Stable & Global causes
this sense of pessimism differs from standard sense (i.e., negative expectations for the future)
Pessimists may also explain positive events as External, Unstable & Specific (e.g., due to chance)
Both pessimism & optimism may be irrational
Attributional style predicts many phenomena
Vulnerability to depression
Poorer academic performance
Worse physical health (present + future)
Shorter life-span
Worse sales performance
Poorer performance (especially after bad result) among sportspeople
Losing US presidential elections
Pessimistic song lyrics precede weak economic performance
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Constructs & attributions refer to perceptual and explanatory processes
Abilities & skills are another kind of cognitive concept
Most cognitive abilities are school-related
Verbal, mathematical & spatial abilities
Recent extension of the intelligence concept to include emotional & social abilities
Components of EI
Perceiving emotion
Using emotion
Understanding emotion
Managing emotion
Perceiving emotion
Accurate recognition of own emotions & nonverbal perception of other people’s
Using emotion
Use of own emotions to guide & plan behaviour
Understanding emotion
Predicting others’ emotional states & reasoning about them
Managing emotion
Ability to control & regulate emotions
More on EI
EI is distinct from general intelligence
It is ideally measured not by self-ratings but by performance on tests with correct & incorrect answers
Correlates with Openness & Agreeableness
Has many correlates
Academic performance
Job performance
Social sensitivity
Less antisocial behaviour
The self
The self can be understood as a mental representation of one’s personal attributes
Two individual difference variables relevant to it
1. Self-complexity
Degree to which the self’s structure is complex
2. Self-esteem
Degree to which the self is positively valued
Self-complexity
Defined as number of ‘self-aspects’ and degree of distinctness of them
Self-complexity
Early research suggested that greater self-complexity buffers people against negative life events
However, it also seemed to be associated with greater depression
If ‘complexity’ implies a fragmented, incoherent or confused self, it may have negative consequences
‘Self-concept clarity’ may be more important than self-complexity
Self-concept clarity test items
My beliefs about myself often conflict with one another
I spend a lot of time wondering what sort of person I am
Sometimes I feel that I am not really the person that I appear to be
My beliefs about myself seem to change very frequently
Self-esteem
Having a positive global self-evaluation is frequently claimed to have many benefits, but …
Little evidence it promotes (rather than results from) academic achievement
Little evidence that it promotes work performance ◦ Little evidence it promotes health
Not associated with less antisocial behaviour ◦ Not associated with greater social sensitivity
May promote aggression in response to insults and when self-esteem is threatened
Need for positive self-view may not be cross-culturally universal
Self esteem in Australia
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Complexities of self-esteem
The stability or consistency of self-esteem may matter more than its level
‘Fragile’ self-esteem fluctuates in response to life events
‘Defensive’ self-esteem
High explicit + low implicit self-esteem
Narcissism
Sense of superiority & arrogance
Entitlement to special treatment
Need for admiration
Sensitivity to criticism
Narcissism & social media
Social networking sites may be ideal playgrounds for narcissists, with opportunities to …
create self-promoting content
display personal appearance
pursue many shallow relationships
Study by Davenport et al. (2014) examined how Facebook & Twitter use correlates with narcissism
“my body is nothing special” versus “I like to look at my body”
“I am more capable than other people” versus “There is a lot that I can learn from other people”
More narcissistic people …
Were more active on Facebook & had more FB friends
Tweeted more & had more Twitter followers
Wanted their profiles to attract friends/followers more
Believed it was more important that friends/followers admired them
Research on Instagram shows similar findings: narcissism goes with more selfies, more time & more frequent profile picture updates (Moon et al., 2016)
Associations with narcissism may be larger for social media with a strong visual component