Intro to trait approaches to personality Flashcards
what are the different levels of personality analysis, Kluckhohn & Murray, 1948
- Human nature (i.e., universality)
- Individual and group differences
- Individual uniqueness
what are the domains of knowledge for defining personality?
- biological domain
- intrapsychic domain
- cognitive-social learning domain
- Personality trait domain
what is the intrapsychic domain?
A focus on fundamental internal human instincts or needs that shape individuals’ thoughts, emotions and behaviours, sometimes outside of conscious awareness
what is the psychoanalytic approach?
- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) - father of psychoanalytic approach
- human behaviour motivated by innate instincts -drive for life (pleasure) and drive for destruction
- these instincts often lead to drives/urges that would be unacceptable within society
- development of personality is based on how a person resolves the conflicts between these instincts and living in a regulated civilized society
what is the structure of the human mind?
- The mind is structured in three parts that create and regulate the two instincts for pleasure and destruction
id- pleasure principle
ego - reality principle
superego - morality or conscience
what is psychoanalytic personality development?
- freud argued personality development was linked to set stages of development
- personality formed from childhood experiences of conflict resolution of the stages of development
- freud viewed the stages and conflicts as universal, but the outcomes from resolving these conflicts shapes personality
Murray (1938) unique hierarchy of needs
Murray argued argued each person has a unique hierarchy of needs and this influences their perception of situations and behaviours.
what is Social-Cognitive Learning?
a focus on the cognitive and social processes that shape the different outcomes individuals respond to in their environments (or the goals they strive to attain)
what is the cognitive-learning domain?
- the focus on learning the association between (direct) behaviour and outcomes (e.g. skinner’s operant conditioning)
- behaviours will be repeated and maintained if reinforced with desirable outcomes
- human personality is due to differences between personal histories of reinforcement
what is Bandura’s theory of learning?
social learning theory
- learning through watching others succeed or fail at tasks
- and in reflecting on consequences of possible actions
Bandura’s (2001) self-efficacy
- individuals’ behaviour is determined by self-efficacy – the extent to which people believe they can exercise control over events in their lives
- Individuals differ in their levels of self-efficacy and this affects performance outcomes
how is self-efficacy enhanced?
- Mastery experiences - successful part experiences
- Vicarious experiences - observation of a peer of equal competence succeed
- Social persuasion - encouragement from a credible person and behaviour is within one’s skill set
what is the definition of personality trait? Larsen et al., 2017
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organised, relatively enduring and influence their interactions with, and adaptions to, the intrapsychic, physical and social environment
what is the trait approach to personality?
- focus on how individuals centrally differ from each other
- identify the fundamental and most important personality traits to examine how people differ from one another
- focus in the origin, development and maintenance of personality traits
what are the properties of a personality trait?
- Temporal stability – relatively stable over time.
- Cross-situational consistency – relatively consistent across different situations.
- Internal (biological) basis attributed to within the person.
- Predictive validity – traits should affect behaviour.
- Minimal overlap of characteristics within traits.
- Inter-individual differences.
what are the 5 ways to evaluate biological underpinning of traits
- Physiological substrate
- Hereditary or genetic contribution
- Similar traits in non-humans
- Cross cultural evidence (universal traits but expression may differ across cultures)
- Temporal stability
what is the descriptive summaries idea on causality of personality traits?
the trait describes an expressed behaviour, but no attributions of the cause are made (i.e., internal or external).
what is the internal and causal idea on causality of personality traits?
behaviour is an expression of an internal (biological) trait.
what are the key questions in trait approach?
- How many personality traits are there?
- How are personality traits structured and organised?
- What are the origins of personality traits?
- What are the correlations and consequences of personality traits on human behaviour?
personality trait structure
domains: neuroticism
facets: anxiety, anger, depression, impulsivity, vulnerability, self-consciousness
behaviours: anxiety, anger
Personality vs situationism Mischel (1968)
- Mischel reviewed the evidence and concluded that behavioural consistencies were not robustly observed
- Mischel claimed personality psychologists should focus on situationism: explaining behaviour in terms of situational differences.
- Distinction between social and personality psychology
what is interactionism? (Shoda, Mischel & Wright, 1994)
- Most psychologists now study behaviour as an interaction between personality traits and situations
- Personality traits are designed to predicted aggregated behaviours.
- Interactionism can be expressed in terms of ‘if, then’ statements B = f(P x S)
what is the most common measure of personality traits?
self-report questionnaires
- the purpose of questionnaires is to measure how much people possess a specific trait
what is the lexical approach of questionnaire development?
traits expressed in natural language
what is the statistical approach of questionnaire development?
factor analysis to identify clusters
what is the theoretcial approach of questionnaire development?
a priori theory on most important traits
what are some issues with self-report questionnaires?
- Carelessness when answering questions
- Faking or concerns social desirability
- Barnum statements – apply to everyone
