Individual Differences- Personality Theories And Measurements Flashcards
What is personality?
Has a long tradition in human culture and has featured in psychological research for over a century
What is personality?
Persona- Latin for mask
In psychology it is a construct- unobservable but with an impact on behaviour
No single definition
Principles
- internal to the person
- consistent with behaviours
- it is within reason stable over time
Definitions from more informed people
Alport(1956)
‘ the dynamic or organisation within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment’
Eysenck (1953)
‘The more or less stable and enduring organisation of a persons character temperament intellect and physique which determines his unique adjustment to his environment’
Cattell (1950)
‘That which permits prediction of what a person will do in a given situation. It is concerned with all the behaviour of the individual both overt and under the skin
Questions you might ask about personality
Dynamic or stable?
Biologically determined?- genes and hereditary
Adapted by experience? - environment and social context
What about motivation? What about cognition?
Unique or uncommon?
Personality infers uniqueness?
Personality is on continuum?
Personality as a type?
Measuring personality
Society has had new ways of characterising people for centuries (Hippocrates and Galen ect)
Often seen as types in the past and linked to natural phenomena such as seasons, the moon ect
Anthropometrics
Today- measure personality
More sophisticated
Assume that personality can be inferred through consistencies within their behavioural response over situations- examine in many ways through idiographic and nomothetic
Idiographic- Rorschach ink blots
Herman Rorschach (1921)
Presented with paper with ink blots asked to tell what you first see- measures personality
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Murray (1935)
-Task to probe the subconscious simmi;are to the Rorschach test
- several versions using ambiguous pictures
- tell a dramatic story about each picture, a typical session involves 8-12 of these cards
- therapist interprets the recurrent themes in the stories and detect emotional disturbance
Measurement issues
- subjectivity and lack of generalisability in idiographic measures
- self reports in questionnaires
- reliability and validity
Personality types
- distinct from traits
- attempt to classify individuals as types of people
- commonly used in the workplace- Myers Briggs personality types Is the most common. Often used to help people understand their co-workers
- used less in research- not particularly informative about what actually is responsible for our personality
Types
Extrovert- introvert
Sensors- intuitive
Thinkers- feelers
Judgers- perceivers
Psychoanalytic theory
Freud (1856-1939)
- Instinctual drives
- unconscious processes
- early childhood experiences
Topographic model
- conscious
-Preconscious
-Unconscious
-Freudian slips
-Dreams
Psychoanalytic model
ID- instant gratification, primitive
Superego- moral compass, learned values
EGO- rational and pragmatic, tries to balance ID and superego
How does the psychoanalytic model effect our personality
Internal (unconscious) conflicts shape behaviour and personality and can lead to anxiety/ guilt
Defence mechanisms help us deal with internal conflicts
The defence mechanisms
- Repression- Girl?what girl?
-Regression- Leave me alone. I hate you
-Denial- nope
-Displacement- no how dare you, now the cat dies
-Reaction formation - absolutely not! - secretly likes her
-Conversion reaction- no way, excuse me IBS?? - rationalisation - she’s too young and smart and rich
-Isolation - I feel nothing when I look at her
-Phobic avoidance - its her run away
-Projection - I think thats more about you than me
-Sublimation -
-Undoing- never- perform ritual to purge her from my mind
Psychosexual stages
Oral stages - birth to 2 years- pleasure from oral stimulation- dependency or aggression, problems with drinking, smoking eating and nail biting
Anal stage- 18 month to 3 years- primary focus on controlling bladder and bowels- anal repulsive(messy wasteful distractive) Vs anal retentive (orderly rigid obsessive)
Phallic stage- 3 to 6- primary focus on genitals, differences between genders. Child becomes rival for the affection from the opposite sex parent (Oedipus complex) child begins to identify with same sex parent- fixation can result in sexual deviances or confused sexual identity, Freud believed that girls continued to process feelings of envy or inferiority (penis envy)
Latency stage- 5-12- sexual desires pushed to background focus on intellectual and social pursuits- important stage for development of communication skills and self confidence
Genital stage- 12 to 18+ - sexual desires renewed- seek relationship with others- problems that emerge in this state are carried over from earlier stages
Neo freudian theories- Erikson’s model of psychosocial development
Infant- 0-1- trust/mistrust
Toddler- 1-3 - shame/ autonomy
Pre-schooler- 3-5- initiative/guilt
School age- 5-12- inferiority/industry
Adolescent- 12-18 - role confusion/ego,identity
Young adult- 18-40- isolation/intimacy
Middle age- 40-65- stagnation/generativity
Older adult - 65+ despair/ego, inegrity
Psychoanalysis in practice
- psychoanalysis/psychotherapy
-Locate where fixations occur - help individual understand and resolve internal conflicts
- free association, introspection and in depth case study
- stimulated a lot of work in the early 20th century
- later developments include Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development
- others took a different path (jung, 1875-1961 and Adler 1870- 1937)
Trait theories
’ a trait is a dimension of personality used to categorise people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic… Burger 1997
What are the key characteristics of a trait?
Traits are continuous, bi-polar dimensions
Traits are relatively stable over time and show stability across different situations
The lexical approach
If personality traits are important
- there will be words to describe them
- the more important they are =the more words there will be
- there are thousands of words in the English language that describe aspects of personality- around 4500
-Dictionary and thesaurus used elicit words
Timothy Leary’s interpersonal behaviour circle personal inventory
-List of words, people asked to read them and put a check mark against those words they feel applies to them
-Circle of eight divisions each with two subdivisions forming a circle divided into 16 categories characterising patterns of behaviour
- leary noted they were similar to the temperaments described by the ancient Galenic doctrine for the 4 humours
P- dominant-hate: competitive, sadistic, aggressive and rebellious
A- submissive hate: distrustful, self-effacing, masochistic, docile
E- dominant-love: narcissistic,managerial, autocratic
I- submissive love: responsible, hyper normal, cooperative, over conventional, dependant
Alport and odbert 1936
Three- level hierarchy
1- cardinal traits: Synonymous with the person, rare eg- honest Abe Lincoln, mother Theresa
2- central traits: general characteristics found varying degrees in every person- basic blocks of behaviour
3- secondary traits- not as obvious or consistent eg- outgoings person becomes anxious when presenting
Cattell (1950-1998)
- larger number of personality traits was needed to get complete picture
- factor analysis = 16 common traits
- surface trait (easily observable) Vs source trait (underlying aspects)
- range of participants
- certain traits may be better for different professions
