Approaches to personality Flashcards
Funder’s (1997) definition of personality
Pattern of thought, emotion, and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanisms - hidden or not - behind those patterns
Wilt & Revelle’s (2014) definition of personality
Abstractions that explain patterns of Affect, Behaviour, Cognition (and sometimes, Desires)
What are the overarching approaches to personality?
Nomothetic + Idiographic
What is the nomothetic approach
Individual differences can be described explained in terms of predefined attributes
(e.g. everyone is somewhere on extroverted continuum)
What explains the nomothetic approach?
Dispositional: personality seen as consistent, independent of situation, an extroverted person will always act so
What is the idiographic approach?
Individuals are so unique that two different people can’t be described using the same concepts
What explains the idiographic approach?
Situational: personality is a series of largely unrelated states, determined by the situation (someone may act extroverted because they are with their friend)
What do dispositional theorists say about the role of context in behaviour
- Don’t deny the role
- sig correlation between traits and behaviour
- Traits influence types of situations encountered
The 4 Temperaments (Galen, AD 130-200)
- Early model of personality
- Balance of bodily fluids determines balance of temperaments
- Melancholic (depressed
- Choleric (angry)
- Sanguine (happy)
- Phlegmatic (calm)
Eysenck’s initial PEN theory (1947)
- Two dimensions of personality (super traits) where everyone can be placed
- Extraversion - Introversion
- High neuroticism - low neuroticism
- Biological approach
- Complete description of someone’s personality
- Scores on these traits are normally distributed
3rd Dimension PEN theory (1970s)
- Observed emotionally unstable individuals with lower levels of fear and anxiety, lack of remorse or conscience and lack of appreciation of consequences
- This added a psychoticism dimension
What does the psychoticism dimension involve
- Highly unempathetic, aggressive, cold and creative
- Low levels of altruism, conformism, rationalism, patience and unorganised
- Not normally distributed
- Not independent of neuroticism
Biological explanation of extraversion-introversion
- Differential activity levels in reticulo-cortical system
- The ARAS in brain stem modulates amount of electrical activity in the cortex
Extraverts: lower levels of cortical arousal
Introverts: higher levels of cortical arousal
What would an EEG see for extraversion + introversion
- Lower cortical arousal (extraversion): lower frequency, higher amplitude EEG traces
- Higher cortical arousal (introversion): higher frequency, lower amplitude EEG traces
What did Galen (1983) find when reviewing the biological explanation for extraversion-introversion
- Mixed evidence, majority support it though
- Methodological issues: unsystematic use of personality measures, v high/low arousal level of task will cause ppl to adapt to preferred level of cortical arousal
How is neuroticism explained biologically?
By differential activity levels in the reticulo-limbic system
- The limbic system is involved in emotional processing
Evaluation of 3rd dimension PEN theory
- Good cross-cultural evidence
- But psychoticism factor less accepted and not featured in other models
What is Behavioural Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (Jeffery Gray)
- Alternative to Eysenck PEN theory
- Based on animal studies
- Involves BAS and BIS (they dictate our responses in any given situation)
- Strong biological component
What is BAS (Behavioural Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory)
- Behavioural Activation System
- Activates approach behaviour towards goals (go signal)
- Motivated to seek reward
- Based on conditioned responses associated with positive events
What is BIS (Behavioural Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory)
- Behavioural Inhibition System
- Focuses attention on potential costs
- Inhibits behaviours associated with negative events
- Motivated to avoid harm and punishment
What did Gray propose were the 2 dimensions to personality?
Anxiety + Impulsivity
What is the Lexical Hypothesis?
- All aspects of personality can be described from single words used in language
- Frequency of words corresponds with importance
What did Allport & Odbert (1936) do?
- Collected personality items from Webster’s dictionary referring to behavioural differences
- Removed terms relating to cognitive, physical or transient states
What did Allport & Odbert (1936) find? (dictionary)
- Overlap in meaning of terms
- 4500 terms likely represent smaller number of distinct traits
