Chapter 1: Introduction to Personality Theory - Vocabulary Flashcards
Personality: The Study of Individuals
Definition: The underlying causes within the person of individual behavior and experience.
Emphasis: Focus on what inside a person drives unique behavior and experience, rather than only outward actions.
Three Ways to Describe Personality: Types, Traits, and Factors (Table 1.1)
Types (Qualitative, all-or-nothing):
A person belongs to one and only one category.
Theoretically, a small number of types describe everyone.
A person fits into only one type.
Traits (Quantitative):
Trait scores are continuous; numeric score indicates how much of a trait a person possesses.
Theoretically, there are a great many traits to describe everyone.
A person can be described on every trait.
Factors (Quantitative):
Factor scores are continuous; numeric score indicates how much of a factor a person possesses.
Theoretically, a small number of factors describe everyone.
A person can be described on every factor.
Overall takeaway: Types are discrete categories, while Traits and Factors use continuous scales to describe individuals.
Representative Descriptors and the Table 1.1 Example (Page 5)
The table lists broad descriptor clusters related to temperament and social behavior:
Emotionally Unstable (Neurotic): Moody, Anxious, Rigid, Sober, Pessimistic, Reserved, Touchy, Restless, Aggressive, Excitable, Changeable, Impulsive, Unsociable, Quiet.
Emotionally Stable: Optimistic, Active, Calm, Even-tempered, Reliable, Sober, Peaceful, Controlled.
Introverted vs Extraverted: Sociable, Outgoing, Talkative, Responsive, Easygoing, Lively, Carefree, Leadership (note: leadership appears as a behavioral tendency marker).
Temperament Labels (Historical): Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic, Sanguine.
Source: Eysenck, H.J. and Eysenck, M.W., Personality and Individual Differences, Plenum Publishing, 1958.
Significance: Illustrates how descriptors map onto major dimensions of personality used in theories of the time.
Practical note: Descriptors can overlap across categories; individuals may exhibit multiple traits across time and contexts.
Nomothetic vs Idiographic (Page 9)
Nomothetic (Comparative):
Compare many individuals against each other.
Study many people and compare them on a few numerical scores.
Pros: Enables generalization across populations.
Cons: Can be difficult to understand a single, whole person.
Idiographic (Individual-focused):
Studies an individual one at a time.
Pure idiographic approaches are difficult because any description of a person implies some level of comparison with others.
Key idea: Balancing broad generalizations with in-depth understanding of the individual is a central tension in personality research.
Practical implication: Researchers often favor eclectic approaches to accommodate both perspectives.
Personality Dynamics
Definition: The mechanisms by which personality is expressed, often focusing on the motivations that direct behavior.
Core components:
Adaptation & Adjustment: How we cope with the world; how we adjust to demands and opportunities in the environment.
Cognitive Processes: Role of thinking; how experience is labeled and how beliefs about oneself affect behavior and coping; contrasts between Freudian emphasis on unconscious processes and more contemporary views that conscious experience predicts behavior.
Culture: Differences between Eastern (interdependent) and Western (individualistic, assertive) value orientations; also generational differences (e.g., Millennials, Gen X/Y, Baby Boomers).
Personality Development (Pages 14–15)
Key questions:
To what extent is personality influenced by biological factors/heredity?
To what extent can personality change as a result of learning?
Additional questions:
How critical are childhood years for development?
How much change can occur in adulthood?
How can personality be guided toward healthier paths (e.g., turning high-risk children toward healthier development) or fostering creativity and leadership in adults?
The Scientific Approach to Personality
The Scientific Method (Page 17):
Systematic observation and modification.
Determinism: Phenomena have causes; empirical research can discover these causes.
Theory (Page 18):
Conceptual tool for understanding specified phenomena; includes theoretical constructs and propositions about how they relate.
Operational Definition:
A procedure for measuring a theoretical construct.
Hypothesis:
A proposition stated in observable terms and tested empirically.
Activity: Building a Hypothesis (Page 19)
Write a hypothesis.
Identify your constructs.
Write operational definitions for the constructs.
Criteria of a Good Theory (Page 20)
Verifiable: Tested by empirical procedures resulting in confirmation or disconfirmation.
Comprehensive: Explains a broad variety of observations.
Applied value: Provides practical strategies for improving human life.
Parsimony: Avoids an excessive number of narrowly defined constructs if a smaller set could explain the phenomena.
Heuristic value (fertility): Ability to generate new ideas for further theory and research.
Theory and Research: Iterative Relationship (Page 21)
Key idea: THEORY LEADS TO RESEARCH AND RESEARCH LEADS TO THEORY.
This circular/reciprocal relationship drives scientific progress in personality.
Methods in Personality Research (Page 22)
Overview: A range of approaches to study personality scientifically.
Core themes: measurement, design, and interpretation of findings.
Personality Measurement: Reliability (Page 23)
Reliability: Consistency of a measure across time or items.
Methods:
Test-retest reliability: Stability over time.
Alternate forms reliability: Consistency across different versions of a test.
Split-half reliability: Consistency between two halves of a test.
Factors lowering reliability:
Shorter tests.
Items that are unrelated.
Ambiguously worded items.
Validity (Page 24)
Validity: The extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure.
Types:
Predictive validity: The extent to which a score predicts future behavior or outcomes.
Construct validity: The extent to which the test measures the theoretical construct.
Factors reducing validity:
Respondent distortion (social desirability, faking good/bad).
Misunderstanding of test items.
Lack of knowledge or insight about the material being asked.
Measurement Techniques (Page 25)
Direct self-report measures: Typical inventories; respondents answer specific items.
Indirect methods: Reduce distortion by using open-ended questions, journals, diaries, letters.
Projective tests: Infer personality from ambiguous stimuli.
Behavioral measures: Observe behavior in real-world contexts.
Objective measures: Tests designed to be free of subjective interpretation.
Correlational Studies (Page 26)
Purpose: Measures two or more variables to study how they are related.
Key idea: Correlation does not imply causation (causation cannot be inferred from simple correlation alone).
Experimentation (Page 27)
True experimental research:
Hypothesized cause-effect relationships tested directly.
Key terms:
Independent Variable (IV) vs. Dependent Variable (DV).
Experimental group vs. Control group.
Random assignment.
Purpose: Establish causal relationships between variables.
Studying Individuals: Case Studies and Psychobiography (Page 28)
Case study: Intensive investigation of a single individual.
Psychobiography: Application of a personality theory to a person’s life; differs from a standard case study because of its explicit theoretical emphasis.
The Future of Personality Theory (Page 29)
One theory or many?
Most personality psychologists favor an eclectic approach.
No single paradigm serves as a universally accepted model in the field (Kuhn, 1970).
Why the Fragmentation? Two Cultures (Page 30)
Scientific Culture:
Research settings: Laboratory.
Generality of laws: Nomothetic.
Level of analysis: Elementism.
Scholarly values: Scientific.
Source of knowledge: Observation.
Humanistic Culture:
Research settings: Field studies and case studies.
Generality of laws: Idiographic.
Level of analysis: Holism.
Scholarly values: Humanistic, intuition.
Implication: Theories may have different areas of usefulness across scientific vs humanistic perspectives, contributing to fragmentation in the field.
Ethical, Practical, and Real-World Considerations
Measurement validity may be compromised by respondents’ distortion or misunderstanding of items; ethics demand confidentiality and honest reporting.
Eclectic approaches acknowledge the complexity of humans and avoid forcing a single framework onto all individuals.
Practical use of personality theories includes guiding interventions, education, leadership development, and understanding cross-cultural differences.
Personality: The Study of Individuals
Definition: Personality refers to the underlying, stable psychological causes within an individual that influence their characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior across different situations. It seeks to understand why individuals act and experience the world in unique ways.
Emphasis: The focus is on internal factors that consistently drive unique behavior and subjective experience, distinguishing personality from temporary states or behaviors solely dictated by external circumstances. It aims to explain individual differences in psychological functioning, rather than just outward actions.
Three Ways to Describe Personality: Types, Traits, and Factors (Table 1.1)
Types (Qualitative, all-or-nothing):
A person belongs to one and only one distinct, discrete category. There are no shades of grey or degrees of belonging; one is either in a type or not.
Theoretically, a small, finite number of types are sufficient to categorize and describe every individual in the population.
A person is exclusively classified into one type, which is presumed to encompass their dominant characteristics. Historically, temperamental types (like Hippocrates' four humors) are examples.
Traits (Quantitative):
Trait scores are continuous; a numeric score indicates the precise degree or amount of a particular trait a person possesses, allowing for a spectrum of individual differences.
Theoretically, there are a great many specific traits (e.g., friendliness, conscientiousness, anxiety) that can be used to describe the multifaceted nature of human personality.
A person can be described on every relevant trait, receiving a score for each, providing a detailed profile rather than a single classification.
Factors (Quantitative):
Factor scores are also continuous; a numeric score indicates how much of a broader, underlying factor a person possesses. Factors are often derived from statistical analyses of many correlated traits.
Theoretically, a relatively small number of overarching factors (e.g.,