Chapter 12 Flashcards
Personality
Individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving.
Approaches to studying personality
Ideographic and nomothetic
Idiographic approach
Creating detailed descriptions of a specific person’s unique personality characteristics.
Constructing a theory of the way someone is, why they behave that way.
Intuitive rather than scientific.
Nomothetic approach
Examining personality in large groups of people, making generalizations.
Personality traits
Specific psychological characteristics that make up a person’s personality.
How a person behaves most of the time.
State
Temporary physical or psychological engagement that influences behavior.
Barnum Statements
Used to refer to certain personality factors that’s designed to trick you in some way.
Overgeneralized statements about your personality.
Five factor model
Openness
Conscientious
Extraversion
Neuroticism
Agreeableness
HEXACO model of personality
Generally replicates FFM but with an extra factor:
Honesty-Humility
Openness traits
Low: prefer to follow rules, down to earth.
High: lots of curiosity and creativity, artistic, imaginative, potentially unconventional, non-conforming
Conscientiousness traits
Low: less organized, less detail oriented, spontaneous
High: organized, efficient, self-disciplined, punctual, dependable, may experience higher levels of work-related stress
Extraversion traits
Low: ‘introverted’ or ‘reserved’
High: enjoy socializing, seek attention, assertive, prefer high levels of stimulation and excitement
Agreeableness traits
Low: not afraid to disagree, competitive, not the same as disagreeableness
High: try to please others, minimize conflict, conflict resolution may come at a cost to well-being, success, trusting
Neuroticism traits
Low: secure, confident, usually good at managing emotions
High: anxious, insecure, react strongly to negative events, may focus on perceived flaws
Dark triad
Psychopathy: Demonstrating shallow emotional responses, feel little empathy for others.
Narcissism: Egotistical preoccupation with self-image and self-importance.
Machiavellianism: Tendency to use people, to manipulate and deceive.
Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)
A set of personality characteristics that may predispose people to certain violent or anti-social tendencies.
3 categories of temperament
Well-adjusted, under controlled, inhibited
4 primary indigenous Chinese personality traits
Dependability (similar to neuroticism)
Social potency (similar to extraversion)
Individualism (similar to agreeableness)
Interpersonal relatedness
How are personality and genetic related?
Identical twins show stronger correlations for personality than fraternal twins.
Also true for identical twins raised apart.
Past approaches (brain and personality)
Humourism → Imbalances in particular bodily fluids explained illness and personality.
Phrenology → Personality characteristics could be predicted by shape of one’s skull.
Current approaches
Association between personality characteristics and systems within the brain.
The way some neurons communicate with each other can contribute how different behaviors are expressed.
Extraversion in the brain
Increase in impulsive behaviors with a reward available.
Stronger dopamine response to rewarding stimuli.
More positive emotions in a range of situations.
Less activation in the amygdala.
Arousal theory of extraversion
Extraversion is determined by a person’s threshold of arousal.
Ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)
System in the brain that plays a central role in controlling arousal response.
Less reactive in extroverts.
The approach/inhibition model of motivation (Jeffrey Grey)
Behavioral Activation System (BAS)
“Go” system, arousing the person to act in the pursuit of a particular goal.
Responsive to rewards.
Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS)
“Danger” system, motivating the person to act in order to avoid punishments or other negative outcomes.
Activation associated with Neuroticism.
Neuroticism in the brain
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex: regulating emotions
Hippocampus: control of obsessive negative thinking.
Mid-cingulate gyrus: detecting errors and perceiving pain.
Openness to experience in the brain
Greater activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex → creativity and intelligence.
Greater activation in the brain systems involved in integration of self and environment.
Reciprocal determinism
Personality is an interaction between behaviors, internal (personal/cognitive) factors, and external (situational) factors.
