Introduction to Personality Psychology: Course Foundations
Course Introduction & Foundations of Personality
Learning Objectives
By the end of this introductory module, students should be able to:
Reflect on the differences between a Layperson's and a Psychologist's view of personality.
Define personality comprehensively.
Define and understand the Three Levels of Personality Analysis.
Explore different theories of personality, both historical and contemporary.
Review the fundamental principles of the scientific process.
Discuss personality as a scientific discipline.
Using WooClap for Interactive Learning
Throughout this course, we will utilize WooClap for interactive participation. Students can access it via:
Website:
http://wooclap.comCode: GPGTEE (or use the provided QR code)
WooClap is accessible on phones, tablets, or computers. For open-ended responses, please ensure all contributions are class-appropriate.
Initial Thoughts on Personality
Before formally delving into the study of personality, it is common for individuals to have pre-existing notions. These often manifest in everyday descriptions and comparisons:
Describing a person to a friend: For example, saying, "Carlos is a nice, but a quiet guy," uses adjectives to sum up someone's observable traits.
Explaining a personal characteristic: Reflecting on oneself, one might say, "When I am nervous, I play with my rings," highlighting a consistent behavioral response to a specific emotional state.
Comparing people: Observations such as, "Lauren is super messy compared to her roommate, Leena," illustrate the use of personality descriptions to differentiate individuals.
Even popular culture examples, like describing the personalities of Harry, Ron, and Hermione from Harry Potter, involve similar adjectival descriptions and comparisons.
Non-Scientific Personality Tests
It is common to encounter online personality tests, such as those found on Buzzfeed. However, it's crucial to understand that many of these are non-scientific measures and often lump together various non-scientific concepts. They rarely provide reliable or valid assessments of personality. The scientific measurement of personality is a significantly more complex undertaking, as highlighted by articles from sources like FiveThirtyEight.
Layperson Versus Psychologist View of Personality
There are distinct differences in how a layperson and a psychologist conceptualize personality:
Layperson's View of Personality
Description: Personality is seen as a simple collection of adjectives that describe an individual.
Differentiation: These adjectives denote what makes one person different from another.
Consistency: Traits are perceived as consistent over time and across various situations.
Presence/Absence: Traits are often viewed as being either present or absent (a person "has" or "has not" a trait).
Explanation: Personality is used as an easy explanation for observed behavior.
Assessment: People assess personality informally through observation and interaction.
Common Language: There is an implicit assumption of a common language of personality.
Origin & Purpose: Questions regarding where personality comes from or why understanding it matters are less formally considered.
Psychologists' View of Personality
Description: Personality is understood as an organized collection of adjectives that describe a person. The emphasis is on the systematic nature of these descriptions.
Differentiation: It denotes the psychological dimensions on which people objectively differ.
Consistency: Personality is considered relatively consistent over time and situations, acknowledging potential for change or situational influence.
Distribution: Traits are viewed as being normally distributed along a continuum, rather than being simply present or absent. Individuals fall at different points along a spectrum.
Explanation: Personality provides a deeper, more scientific explanation for patterns of behavior, thoughts, and emotions.
Why Bother?: Psychologists aim to understand personality for several reasons:
To understand an individual in depth.
To understand groups of people, including group dynamics and average differences.
To contribute to the understanding of universal human nature.
Formal Assessment: They develop and use systematic methods to assess personality.
Formal Inquiry: They rigorously investigate what truly constitutes personality, its origins, and what it can predict in terms of future thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Units of Personality
Personality is not merely an isolated habit or a single behavior. For example, being an "early riser," a "traveler," or an "alcoholic" describes specific behaviors or patterns, but not the entirety of personality. Instead, personality refers to a set of behaviors that cohere to produce a detectable, recognizable pattern.
Psychological Traits reflect a predisposition to respond to a set of similar stimuli in a functionally equivalent way. For instance, traits like shyness might manifest as:
Avoiding eye contact when meeting new people.
Fidgeting when in large groups.
Blushing when others pay him/her/them attention.
These seemingly distinct behaviors are linked by an underlying trait (shyness) that predisposes the individual to react similarly in social-evaluative situations.
Defining Personality
Different scholars offer nuanced definitions, but they share core concepts:
Larsen & Buss: "Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence the individual’s interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical, and social environments." (p. 3)
David Funder: "An individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms—hidden or not—behind those patterns."
Breaking Down the Larsen & Buss Definition
"Personality is the set of psychological traits…"
Psychological Traits: These are characteristics that describe how people consistently differ from each other. Personality researchers investigate four key questions about these traits:
How many distinct traits exist?
How are these traits organized or structured?
What are the origins of these traits (e.g., genetics, environment)?
What are the correlations and consequences of having certain traits (i.e., what do they predict)?
"…and mechanisms…"
Mechanisms are similar to traits but refer specifically to personality processes. They describe how personality manifests and functions. A mechanism typically involves three components:
An input: A cue or situation from the environment.
A decision rule: An evaluation process by the individual.
An output: A specific behavior or response.
Personal Example: When a new semester begins (input), an individual might review the syllabus (decision rule), leading them to add readings, assignments, and exams to their calendar/planner (output).
"…within the individual…"
This component emphasizes that personality is an internal characteristic that a person carries with themselves. It is intrinsic and travels with an individual across different times and situations.
"…that are organized and relatively enduring…"
Organized: Traits and mechanisms are not random but possess some order and coherence within a person's psychological system. They interact in predictable ways.
Relatively Enduring: Personality traits are generally stable over extended periods. While some degree of change and fluctuation is possible, individuals tend to retain their fundamental traits over time.
"…that influence the individual’s interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical, and social environments."
This highlights the functional significance of personality. Personality actively shapes an individual's life and how they perceive themselves and the world.
Person-Environment Interactions: It influences how we interact with our environment (e.g., choosing certain situations, eliciting reactions from others).
Adaptations: Personality affects how we adapt to our environment, including coping strategies for challenges like stress. For example, how one responds to stress (e.g., problem-solving, avoidance) is influenced by their personality.
Three Levels of Personality Analysis
Personality psychology analyzes individuals at three distinct levels:
Human Nature: "How we are like all others"
This level examines the traits and mechanisms of personality that are universal or typical of our species. These are qualities possessed by nearly everyone, reflecting fundamental aspects of human psychology (e.g., the capacity for language, desire for social connection).
Individual & Group Differences: "How we are like some others"
Individual differences: Focuses on the ways each person is similar to, or different from, some other people. This includes categories like extraverts, sensation-seekers, or persons with high self-esteem.
Group differences: Examines the ways in which people belonging to one group are similar to, or differ from, people in another group. Examples include cultural differences in personality, or age-related changes in traits.
Differential Psychology: Personality resides within a broader field known as "differential psychology," which studies all individual differences. Other examples of individual differences include values, intelligence/cognitive ability, vocational interests, height, jumping ability, or arm length.
Individual Uniqueness: "How we are like no others"
This level acknowledges that every individual possesses unique personal qualities not shared by any other person in the world, even identical twins. It accounts for the idiosyncratic combinations of traits and experiences that make each individual distinct.
Individuals can be studied nomothetically (seeking general laws that apply to all, often through large samples) or ideographically (focusing on the unique individual in depth). These approaches will be discussed in more detail later.
Theories of Personality
Personality is a complex field without a single, unifying "meta-theory." The study of human nature, a precursor to personality psychology, has roots in philosophy dating back millennia.
Historically Influential Theories (Within Psychology)
Psychodynamic Theories: Pioneered by Sigmund Freud, with significant contributions from Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Karen Horney, focusing on unconscious drives and early experiences.
Trait Theories: Developed by researchers like Gordon Allport, Raymond Cattell, and Hans Eysenck, emphasizing stable characteristics.
Humanistic Theories: Advocated by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, focusing on self-actualization and personal growth.
Learning Theories: Led by John Watson and B. F. Skinner, concentrating on how environmental factors shape behavior through conditioning.
Contemporary Perspectives
Modern personality psychology encompasses several distinct perspectives, each with various theories that will be explored throughout the course:
Trait Perspective
Behavioral Genetics Perspective
Biological Perspective
Evolutionary Perspective
Psychodynamic Perspective (modern interpretations)
Cognitive/Experiential Perspective
Narrative Perspective
Larsen & Buss's Six Domains of Knowledge
Larsen & Buss organize their textbook around six domains that largely overlap with these perspectives:
Dispositional
Biological
Intrapsychic
Cognitive-Experiential
Social and Cultural
Adjustment
Why So Many Theories/Perspectives?
Personality psychology is inherently interdisciplinary. It draws from, and can be applied to, many other areas of psychology, including Clinical, Health, Cognitive, Developmental, Forensic, Social, Neuroscience, and Industrial-Organizational psychology. The unifying element across these diverse theoretical frameworks and applications is the central focus on the individual.
Personality as a Science
Regardless of the theoretical framework used, personality is studied as a science. As a subdiscipline within psychology, it utilizes methods and approaches shared by other psychologists. It focuses on behavior—broadly defined to include thoughts, feelings, and actions—and adheres to the scientific method.
Science: A Way of Knowing
Science is a particular way of knowing, distinct from other methods such as:
Faith: Belief without empirical evidence.
Personal Experience: Subjective observations that may not generalize.
Shared Beliefs: Cultural or societal consensuses that may not be factually verifiable.
Science, in contrast, is a method grounded in data. It comprises a set of techniques for collecting empirical evidence to test the validity of propositions in an unbiased and objective manner.
Science and Truth
Crucially, science does not claim to establish absolute "truth." Scientists never "prove" anything definitively. Instead, science is a process of arriving at consensus, continually refining understanding based on accumulated evidence.
As Karl Popper (1984) articulated, "Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake." This highlights the provisional and self-correcting nature of scientific knowledge.
The Scientific Process
The scientific process is a cyclical, iterative method for building and refining knowledge:
Theory: Begin with a theory that explains phenomena.
Generate Predictions: Derive specific, testable hypotheses from the theory.
Empirical Test: Design and conduct systematic studies.
Observe: Collect and analyze data from the studies.
(Revise) Theory: Based on observations, either support, refine, or reject the original theory, leading back to step one.
Theory
A theory is a supposition or system of ideas intended to explain something. It consists of general statements that explain relations among phenomena and observations. A good theory serves several vital functions:
It acts as a useful guide for researchers, directing them toward important questions.
It organizes known facts into a coherent framework.
It makes precise predictions about future observations, which can then be tested.
Evaluating Personality Theories: Five Standards
Personality theories are evaluated based on five key standards:
Comprehensiveness: The extent to which a theory explains most or all known facts within its domain.
Heuristic Value: Its ability to guide researchers to new, important discoveries and generate novel research questions.
Testability (or Falsifiability): The capacity to make precise predictions that can be empirically tested and potentially disproven. A theory that cannot be falsified by evidence is not scientific.
Parsimony: The principle that, all else being equal, a theory should contain few premises or assumptions. Simpler theories are generally preferred.
Compatibility and Integration: Its consistency with what is already known in other scientific domains and its ability to be coordinated with other branches of scientific knowledge.
Theory Example: Evolution by Natural Selection
Evolution by Natural Selection is a robust example of a scientific theory. It posits that distinctive features of human nature (both physical and psychological) developed incrementally over many generations due to the selective advantage they offered our ancestors. While often dismissed as "just a theory" by opponents, it is a broad theory supported by systematic evidence accumulated through rigorous application of the scientific process.
Generating Predictions
The next crucial step in the scientific process is generating specific, testable hypotheses (predictions) derived from the theory. These predictions should be:
Testable: Capable of being investigated through empirical means.
Derived from the theory: Logically follow from the theoretical framework (though sometimes observations can lead to theory development).
Often conditional statements: Frequently, they take an "if… then…" format, which aids in precision, though this isn't always strictly necessary.
Variables operationalized: Key variables must be clearly defined and measurable. This involves specifying how you will define and measure each variable in your study.
Example: Extraversion and Happiness During COVID-19
Observation: Initial research suggests people high in extraversion report greater happiness.
Research Question: Is this still true during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Possible Hypotheses:
General: "People higher in extraversion were happier during the pandemic."
More Specific: "If they kept in regular contact with friends and family, then people higher in extraversion were happier during the pandemic."
Operationalization: This would require clear definitions and measurements for:
Extraversion: Potentially via a standardized personality questionnaire.
Happiness: Measured by self-report scales or daily mood assessments.
"Regular contact with friends and family": Defined by frequency of communication (e.g., X number of calls per week), type of communication (e.g., video calls vs. texts), or self-reported social satisfaction.
Empirical Test
An empirical test involves designing and running a systematic study based on the specific hypotheses. Key considerations for robust research design and testing include:
Replicability: The study design should be clear enough for other researchers to replicate it with a new sample, ensuring findings are not due to chance unique to one study.
Systematic Process: A well-defined and controlled process must be used for selecting participants and conducting the study. This might involve controlled settings, experimental control groups, and clear sampling rules.
Observations
Observations involve collecting and analyzing the data gathered from the study to determine if the results support or contradict the hypothesis. While statistical analysis is the most common method for evaluating hypotheses, other analytical approaches may also be employed.
Observations in Personality
A critical challenge in personality psychology is that personality itself cannot be directly observed. Instead, we must make reasonable inferences from observable behavior. It's important to distinguish between:
Observations: Literal, objective, and verifiable data points (e.g., "The person fidgeted during the interview").
Inferences: The meaning or interpretation given to those observations (e.g., "The person seemed anxious").
People typically respond to inferences, not just raw observations. The validity of these inferences is central to personality assessment.
Wrapping Up & Next Steps
The question of how we know if the inferences we draw about personality are correct or valid is paramount. This will be the focus of the next few lectures, which will delve into the critical topic of personality assessment.
For the next class, please:
Ensure you can access all course materials on Brightspace.
Read the syllabus thoroughly.
Begin (or finish) Assignment 1.
Read Chapter 2 of the textbook.