Communication, Personality Flashcards
Personality
Refers to an individuals unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits
Characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and acting, making the person an individual.
Stability in ones behaviour over time and situations
Used to explain why not everyone acts the same way
Traits
Are stable forms of behaviours that people display in any and every situation
Trait Theory: Five Factor Model
Robert McCrae and Paul Costa (1987, 1997, 1999, 2003)
Extraversion: outgoing, sociable, positive
Neuroticism: Anxious, hostile, negative
Openness to Experience: Curiosity, artistic, imaginative
Agreeable: Trusting, sympathetic
Conscientiousness: Diligent, disciplined, honest
Research shows that Big Five traits are predictive of specific aspects of behaviour
Extraversion correlates positively with popularity
Conscientiousness correlates with greater honesty, high marks at uni and higher job performance
Psychodynamic Theory:
- Theories founded on the work of Sigmund Freud, which focus on unconscious mental forces
- Explains personality, motivation and psych disorders
Focuses on early childhood experiences, unconscious motives to explain personality - Individuals are not masters of their own minds / destinies
Personality is divided into three unconscious components:
ID: instinctive component, raw biological urges
EGO: decision making component, considers social norms and etiquettes
SUPEREGO: moral component, incorporates social standards about what represents right or wrong
Psychoanalytic Theory:
Proposed three levels of awareness:
Conscious
Current awareness
e.g. beginning to get hungry
Pre-conscious
material just below the surface of awareness
e.g. argument you had yesterday w/ friend
Unconscious
Thoughts, memories, desires below surfaces
e.g. forgotten traumas from childhood
FREUD AGAIN
Psychosexual Theory:
Freud’s psychosexual theory of development
Characteristic sexual focus that leave their mark on adult personality
How children develop into adulthood and how they deal with their powerful sexual urges
Humanistic theories:
People are born good and try to reach potential throughout their lives
According to humanistic theories -> personality results from people striving to achieve their potential
BY ROGERS AND MASLOW
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) Human motives are organised into a “Hierarchy of needs” Basic needs must be met before less basic needs are aroused Top= need for self actualisation, needed to fulfil one’s potential
developed ideas through studying healthy, creative people
e.g. many figures in American history
Considered that they shared characteristics
Open and self aware, secure in who they were, able to enjoy deep relationships = ‘self actualised’ person
Person Centered Theory
Carl Rogers (1902-1967)
Believed that people are born good and with the potential for enormous growth
Important people in our lives help us to grow by providing genuineness, acceptance and empathy
We needed to experience these conditions from significant people in our lives in order to feel free to make any changes we want to make in ourselves
TO GROW AND SELF ACTUALISE
If we are to have a well adjusted personality, there needs to be a good match b/w our:
ideal self: person we would like to be
self image: the person we think we are
true self: the person we actually are
Greater the gap between our ideal self, self image and behaviour, the more likely we are to feel anxious and stressed
Recent research= students whose ideal and self images weren’t matched were anxious and depressed compared w/ students whose idea; and self images were better matched
Humanistic theories has big impact on counselling and education areas
CRITICISM:
Vagueness of some concepts (self actualisation)
Description of characteristics for self actualised person are simply a list of Maslow’s values
Theory is overly optimistic and fails to take into account human capacity for evil
Learning Theories
Behaviourists believe personality is no more nor less than learned behaviour patterns
Skinner (1904-1991)
Behaviour that people think reflects personality is simply behaviour that has been learnt from our past experiences
Behaviour can be unlearned through punishment
Therefore no long lasting personality characteristics
Our behaviour can be changed by other people or rewarding desired behaviour & punishing unwanted behaviour
CRITICISM:
too simplistic, treating people as robots
Most psychologists today would consider that our through processes, believe and motivation affect what we learn
Contemporary Issues:
Personality + Health
Holland
Approaches personality by grouping characteristics that individuals have in common
Meyer Freidman
Proposed two personality types
Type A: Ambitious, competitive, highly motivated, busy
Type B: Easy going, low levels of time urgency, competitiveness and hostility
People can be a mix
Personality and Sport
All people have distinctive personalities
Tests the different sports and personality factors in sport performance
Hans Eyesenck
1917-1919
Combined clinical psych and experimental psych to determine personality types
Developed dimensions:
neuroticism - emotional instability
Extraversion/introversion- active/quiet, outgoing/reserved
psychoticism - recklessness . disregard for common sense
dimensions = regularities in the traits observed in people
high scores = evidence of different personality types
Cattell (1946)
Developed model to describe surface source and global traits
Basic personality dimensions proposed = tender mindedness, neuroticism
Personality in Sport
High performers = calm, confident, fearless, top physical shape, technical ability
Most research is cross sectional
Emotional stability, conscientiousness = high level performance
Anxiety = negative effect, affects performance, choking
Aidman & Schofield
2004
Discuss influence of personality on sport performance
Personality plays part in successful competitive sport
Emotional stability= control stress and impulses
levels of arousal necessary for high performance
Low levels of arousal = no motivation = poor performance
Sport Psychologists
Study behavioural, cognitive and effective components of sports performance
Study effects of crowd + choking
Develop programs to encourage motor performance and plans of skilled activities
Use mental imagery to aid learning whereby successful performance is imagined
Achieving peak performance = complex process - motivation, self confidence, attention regulation and stress management
