Study Notes on Personality

Chapter 12 Notes

12.1 Contemporary Approaches to Personality

Definition of Personality
  • Personality: Characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that are unique to an individual and remain relatively consistent over time and across situations.
Personality Traits
  • Personality Trait: A specific psychological characteristic that constitutes part of a person's overall personality.
Approaches to Personality
  • Idiographic Approaches: Focus on detailed descriptions of an individual's unique personality traits.
  • Nomothetic Approaches: Examine large groups to make generalizations about personality structures.
    • Example: Personality tests aimed at generalizing traits across a population.
Contributions of Gordon Allport (1930s)
  • Tallied nearly 18,000 words that characterize individual physical and psychological attributes, predominantly adjectives.
  • Developed a theory of personality structure to identify and measure key personality traits.
The Barnum Effect
  • Describes a psychological phenomenon where individuals are persuaded that a generic personality profile applies specifically to them.
  • Example: The Bertram Forer study, where all participants found a vague personality description accurate for themselves.
Factor Analysis
  • A statistical method where similar words and meanings are grouped into broader categories referred to as factors.

The Five Factor Model (Big Five)

Introduction
  • Developed by: Raymond Cattell.
  • Dimensions: Five key personality traits summarized as OCEAN:
    • O - Openness: Imaginative, curious, unconventional.
    • Associated with superior cognitive functioning, achievements, and lower negative affect to stress due to increased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation.
    • C - Conscientiousness: Hard-working, punctual, organized.
    • Linked to better health, problem-focused coping, reduced risky behaviors, decreased cognitive decline. However, may lead to perfectionism.
    • E - Extroversion: Social, active, talkative.
    • Typically more satisfied in relationships, demonstrate a positive sense of well-being, increased divergent thinking, but more inclined to substance use and loneliness.
    • A - Agreeableness: Trusting, soft-hearted, lenient.
    • Associated with self-transcendence, contentment, teamwork, and social norm integration.
    • N - Neuroticism: Worry-prone, temperamental, emotional.
    • Often linked to loneliness, stress, poor sleep, and lower overall sense of well-being.
Other Personality Models
  • Authoritarian Personality: Defined as rigid and dogmatic, characterized by an 'us vs them' mentality.
  • HEXACO Model: An extension of the Five Factor Model, including:
    • H: Honesty-Humility - sincere, modest, honest, generous.
    • E: Emotionality - overlaps with neuroticism.
    • X: Extroversion - similar to the Big Five model.

The Dark Triad

  • Refers to a trio of social destructive traits:
    • Machiavellianism: Manipulative tendencies, deceitful behavior, lack of respect for others, focus on personal gain.
    • Psychopathy: Characterized by shallow emotional responses, a thrill-seeking behavior, enjoyment of conflict or sadism, and minimal remorse.
    • Narcissism: An excessive preoccupation with oneself, often charming but characterized by inflated self-importance; epitomized by the Greek legend of Narcissus.
Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)
  • A problematic personality clustering involving three main tendencies:
    1. Obeying established authority and societal orders.
    2. Supporting aggression toward dissenters or those differing from the established order.
    3. A strong belief in maintaining status quo societal structures.
  • The Global Change Game: Used to differentiate between low/high RWA groups, simulating how their world might look in 40 years, though with various factors affecting validity.

Personality Traits over the Lifespan

Definitions
  • Temperaments: Innate biological foundations that contribute to individual characteristics in emotion and behavior, classified into three categories:
    • Well-adjusted: Self-controlled, confident, not easily upset.
    • Under-controlled: Impulsive, restless, emotionally volatile.
    • Inhibited: Socially uncomfortable, fearful, easily upset.
  • Stability Over Time: Personality traits may fluctuate but overall rank order tends to remain stable:
    • For instance, a highly extroverted 25-year-old is likely to still be more extroverted than peers at age 60, despite possibly exhibiting less extroversion than at 25.
Concepts of Traits and States
  • Traits: General tendencies exhibited by individuals.
  • States: Specific sets of circumstances that influence behavior temporarily.
Influencing Factors on Behavior
  • Four general aspects that are likely to affect behavior:
    1. Locations: Environment such as school, work, or home.
    2. Associations: The company one keeps, e.g., being alone, with friends, or family.
    3. Activities: Conditions affecting behavior, e.g., studying, being rushed, awake.
    4. Subjective States: Internal emotional states (e.g., feeling mad, sick, drunk, or happy).

Behaviourist Perspective

Skinner’s Belief
  • Defined personality as a summation of response tendencies manifested in various situations.
  • Behavior is dictated by past reinforcement experiences (conditioning).
Behaviourist Account of Personality
  • Focuses on how past experiences inform and predict future behaviors.
Reciprocal Determinism and the Social-Cognitive Approach
  • Explains that personality arises from dynamic interactions among behavior, reinforcement, beliefs, expectancies, and personal dispositions, as stated by Albert Bandura.
The Social-Cognitive Perspective
  • Emphasizes the crucial role of cognition and subjective interpretation of circumstances in influencing behavior, highlighting how individual interactions with the environment shape beliefs and expectations about outcomes.
Core Idea of Self-Efficacy
  • Self-efficacy: A key concept where an individual's belief in their capabilities affects their behavior and emotions.
  • Reciprocal Determinism: Bandura’s central idea illustrating that personality is the result of interactions between behavior, internal factors, and external influences, which mutually adjust.

12.2 Cultural And Biological Approaches

Cultural Influences on Personality
  • The Five Factor Model exhibits universal elements across diverse cultures, spanning six continents, though interpretations may vary significantly, especially outside WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) societies.
  • Response Styles: Characteristic answering patterns that may differ by culture, affecting responses based on societal norms surrounding boastfulness or humility.
  • Geographical Psychology: Indicates that despite the same environmental influencers, there exists regional variability in attitudes and beliefs.
Biological Studies
  • Twin Studies: Show high personality correlation in identical twins compared to fraternal twins, with a genetic basis for this similarity. The Minnesota study of twins raised apart supports this conclusion.
Candidate Gene Approach
  • Involves identifying and studying specific genes concerning a particular trait; notable example includes the serotonin transporter gene 5-HTT, which has both short and long variations.
Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS)
  • Investigates the entire genome of numerous individuals to determine associations between genetic variants and specific traits, successfully identifying over 1000 genes linked with the Big Five traits, thus replacing the Candidate Gene Approach.
Evolutionary Perspectives on Personality
  • Animal studies, e.g., with the species Parus major, show behavioral variations (fast vs. slow explorers) consistent with personality traits.
  • Evidence of basic personality dimensions established in other animals like chimpanzees and octopuses suggests that personality traits are evolutionarily beneficial for survival.

The Brain and Personality

Various Theories
  • Humourism: An ancient theory positing that imbalances in bodily fluids (the four humours) lead to personality differences and physical ailments.
  • Phrenology: Suggests personality traits could be determined through the measurement of skull shape.
  • Arousal Theory of Extraversion: Proposes that individual thresholds for arousal determine levels of extraversion, emphasizing the role of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in this regulation.
Jeffrey Gray's Approach/Inhibition Model of Motivation
  • Behavioural Activation System (BAS): The 'GO' system that prompts action toward goals, associated with reward responsiveness and minimal reaction to negative consequences.
    • Extroverts show increased positive emotional responses and high approach motivation, while having lower amygdala activation than introverts.
  • Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS): Contrastingly, the 'DANGER' system motivating avoidance of negative outcomes; associated with heightened negative emotional responses.
Analysis Levels
  1. Behavioural Level
  2. Neurochemical Level
  3. Emotional Level
Neuroticism and Brain Regions
  • Individuals high in neuroticism may struggle with:
    • Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex: Associated with emotion regulation.
    • Hippocampus: Related to negative obsessive thinking.
    • Mid-Cingulate Gyrus: Involved in error detection and pain perception.