Chapter 7 pt 1 Flashcards
What is the general idea of the trait approach?
Identifies personality characteristics that can be represented along a continuum
What is a trait?
Categorizes people according to degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic
What is the Assumption of the trait approach?
Personality characteristics are relatively stable over time and across situations
Who is Gordon Allport to the trait approach?
*Acknowledged the limitations of the trait concept
*Behaviour is influenced by a variety of environmental factors.
*Brought personality into the mainstream
*Shed light on the significance of traits through a theory of personality development
What are Gordon Allport’s Research Strategies?
Nomothetic approach
Idiographic approach
Nomothetic approach:
People can be described along a single dimension according to their level of, assertiveness or anxiety
Common traits - Applies to everyone
Idiographic approach:
Identifies the combination of traits that best accounts for the personality of a individual
Central traits - Describe an individual’s personality
Cardinal trait - Single dominating trait in personality
Advantage - Person determines what traits to examine
What is Allport’s Definition of Personality? And what did it oppose?
*Dynamic organization within individual of those psychosphysical systems determines characteristic behavior and thought
*Opposed to viewpoints of psychoanalysis and behaviorism
*Influenced by gestalt psychology
*Wholeness
*Interelatedness
*Conscious experience
What is Dynamic Organization (in Allport’s definition of personality)?
*Personality is constantly changing
*Never something that is
*Rather it is always becoming
*Experience changes people
What is the principle behind Psychophysical systems?
*Nothing is exclusively mental nor biological
*Body and mind are fused
What constitutes an adequate theory of personality (5 things)?
- There are internal mechanisms (not just external like behaviorism
- Ppl have many variables that determine actions
- Looks for present behavior motives (not ones in the past)
- Uses measurements that can measure ppl (ppl are humans - not test scores)
- Must account for self awareness
What does heredity provide to personality (AllPort)?
- Provides raw materials
- Shaped, expanded, or limited by environmental conditions
- Emphasis on uniqueness through genetic combinations
What does environment provide to personality (Allport)
- No continuum of personality between childhood and adulthood
- Discrete or discontinuous nature of personality
- Adult personality is not constrained by early experiences
Does Allport think heredity or environment gives us personality?
Thinks its a mix of both
What are Personality Traits?
*Distinguishing characteristics that guide behavior
*Measured on a continuum
*Subject to social, environmental, and cultural influences
What is the Definition of trait?
*“A neuropsychic structure having the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent and to initiate and guide equivalent forms of adaptive and expressive behavior”
*i.e. responding to similar situations in similar way
How do traits develop?
*Child develops the trait of “gregariousness”
*Child is eager for social intercourse (sociability trait)
*When isolated she misses people and becomes restless
(Therefore she will seek social interaction, and keep the trait up)
How do traits organize what we experience?
*People confront the world in terms of their traits
*Therefore traits organize experience
*People can only respond to the world in terms of their traits
*Traits account for the consistence of human behavior
How do traits depend on a situation?
*Traits= Ranges of possible behavior
*Activated at varying points within a range according to the demands of a situation
What is Allport’s “The Proprium”?
Proprium: All aspects of personality are integrated by an organizing agent
*Soul, self, mind, ego etc…
What is “must conscience” (Allport)
Fear of punishment and obedience
“I have to do this, or I break a rule”
Closely tied to proprium
What is “ought conscience” (Allport)
*Certain goals ought to be attained
*Certain things ought to be obtained others avoided
“I should be doing this”
Closely tied to proprium
What is the goal of the Proprium with conscience?
Everything should sync up
Match want and ought
