Introduction Flashcards
Why study personality?
Branch of psychology that most considers people
in their entirety as individuals & as complex
beings.
Seeks to find order & meaningful relationships
out of the maze of complexity
What do we mean by “personality”?
> . Everyday meaning
Typically characterises:
• specific personality styles (outgoing, shy)
• specific people (friend, flatmate)
> . Formal meaning
• abstract construct – everyone’s personality
• broadly applicable to all people
Why use the construct?
- Conveys a sense of consistency or continuity across time,
place & person - Suggests internal origins of thoughts, feelings, behaviours
- Helps predict & understand behaviour
- Captures sense of personal distinctiveness – prominent
characteristics
- Two sources of influence
> . person - Personality psychology emphasises the role of person variables on behavior
. situation
Definition
Personality is a dynamic and organised set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his/her cognitions, motivations and behaviours in various situations.
Key Features
Personality:
has an organised structure
involves active processes
has psychological and physical components
helps determine how people relate to the world
demonstrates patterns and consistencies
manifests itself across a range of thoughts, feelings,
behaviours
Two fundamental themes
- Individual differences
represents differences in people.
e.g. aggressiveness, sociability, optimism - Intrapersonal functioning
stable processes that underlie thoughts, feelings,
behaviours. e.g. goals or motives
creates continuity/consistency within the person,
even if they act differently in different circumstances
* process versus uniqueness *
Two fundamental themes
- Individual differences
represents differences in people.
e.g. aggressiveness, sociability, optimism - Intrapersonal functioning
stable processes that underlie thoughts, feelings,
behaviours. e.g. goals or motives
creates continuity/consistency within the person,
even if they act differently in different circumstances
* process versus uniqueness *
What is the purpose of a theory in understanding personality?
> . Provides a general principle or set of principles about a class of events
. Systematic effort to discover & explain regularities in thought, feeling & behaviour
to explain what we know
e.g. why children often act or react similarly to their parents (social learning theory)
to predict possibilities that have not been examined
e.g. biological theories might predict similarities between parents
and children.
What makes a theory good: Part 1
- Explains what is known - organises existing data
- Predicts what will happen - testable and points to
discovery of what is currently not known - Comprehensive - encompasses & accounts for a
wide variety of data.
how many different kinds of phenomena can be
accounted for?
are these central & important to understanding human
behaviour?
What makes a good theory: Part 2
- Parsimonious - a theory should account for & anticipate events in a simple, internally consistent way. Fuzzy or unclear abstract ideas are not okay.
- Research relevance - a theory is not true or false but useful or not. A good theory leads to many new hypotheses which can then be explored.
- Has personal and intuitive appeal
- Interesting
- Provocative
Subjective – needs to be appealing otherwise no one bothers
to study their implications!
Central areas a theory of personality may cover
- Structure - basic units or building blocks of personality e.g. trait, response
- Process - the dynamic aspects of personality including motives
- Growth & development - how we develop into unique individuals
- Psychopathology - the nature & causes of non-adaptive or disordered personality functioning
- Change - how people change & why they sometimes resist or are unable to change
- Structure
❖ Stable & enduring aspects of personality:
• Trait refers to the consistency of an individual’s response across different situations e.g. warm, trusting
• Type refers to clustering of many traits. e.g. introvert / extrovert
❖Personality theories differ according to type of structural concepts or units they use:
• Complex system with many components linked in a variety of ways
• Simple structural system with a few components
Hierarchy/Structure
Extent to which they are organised in a hierarchy where some are higher
order & controlling the function of other units
- Process
> . Theories can be compared with respect to the dynamic, motivational
concepts used to account for behaviour.
. Pervin (1996) maintains there are three major categories of motivational concepts used by personality psychologists:
1. pleasure or hedonic
2. growth or self-actualisation
3. cognitive motives
