Introduction To Psychology Chapter 14 (Personality)

Question 1

Define personality

Answer 1

A person’s unique pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviour

They should be constant across time and situations

Question 2

Where does the concept of personality come from

Answer 2

It comes from ancient theatre
The masks indicated the role in Greek and were called persona

The question then emerged: are you yourself or are you playing a role

Question 3

What accounts for the theory that we are just playing a role

Answer 3

The social situation influences your behaviour

• -> person bias
• -> activation of schemas by the enviroment influences your attributions which in turn influence your behaviour

You can also pretend to be different from who you are

Question 4

Explain the theory of personality traits

Answer 4

Personality traits are characteristics facore or dimensions in which people differ among each other
Many trait theorists think that genes are important for personality
A trait in a person is like metableness in butter, heat activates it

Question 5

Explain the factor analysis theory

Answer 5

It is used identify primary dimensions of personality
Step 1: describing behaviour or attributes by carrying out large scale surveys
Step 2: apply factor analysis and find correlations between traits (factor extraction)
Step 3: interpret and identify the factors found based on items that correlate (for example organized and scheduled = consciousness)

The number of factors in a model differ largely (right now 5)

Question 6

Explain the big five

Answer 6

1. Neurotism (anxious and compulsive) vs stability
2. Extraversion (warm and assertive) vs Introversion
3. Openess (seeking out new experiences and imaginative) nonopeness
4. Agreeableness (altruistic and trusting) vs antagonism
5. Conscientiousness (ordered and deliberative) vs undirectedness
   (6. Honesty vs Humidity)

Question 7

How do traits change with time and how reliable is the personality test

Answer 7

The older a person becomes, the less likely the personality changes. There is high correlation in tests between ages, which indicates high reliablity (0.5-0.7)
Long Term changes: agreeableness and conscientiousness increase and openness and neurotism decrease in most woman

Question 8

Explain intercultural differences in personality

Answer 8

They haven’t been studied much but they seem to exist

Each culture has its own specific view on personality (China is interpersonal relatedness)

Question 9

When do you have to describe personality as situational

Answer 9

People behave more different and in line to their personality when there is a new stressfull situation and when there are no cues to how to act

Question 10

How does personality change by being raised or educated

Answer 10

The personality doesn’t change because of the way a child is raised or enviroment
This can be seen in identical twins who as raised in different families
the correlation based on genetic similarity is H= 0.5
Which means that 50% of the variation is because of genetic. The other 50% are because of aspects in enviroment which are unknown

Question 11

Explaint he psychodynamic theory in personality

Answer 11

Founder is Freud
Motivation for behaviour is the result of unconscious conflicts between psychic forces (proof is post hypnotic suggestion where consciousness covers up irrational acts)
Iceberg model
There are 3 structures accoring to freud
1. The Id consists of all the drives and lusts
2. The superego consists of all the morals and norms
3. The ego is the conscious process of deciding how to act.
These structures exist as humans live in groups and unconscious processes may be unacceptable

Question 12

Explain defense mechanisms in Freud’s view and its 5 types

Answer 12

They make you feel less distressed in consciousness when unconsciousness emerges bad feelings and drives

1. Displacement (focusing your bad drives onto something acceptable) –> sublimation
2. Repression (supress negative thoughts into the unconscious)
3. Projection (projecting uncomfortable feelings onto others)
4. Reaction formation (doing the exact opposite)
5. Rationalisation (making up false but credible reasons)(cognitive dissonance reduction)

Question 13

Is Freud’s theory scientific

Answer 13

Freud’s theory can in hindsight explain almost every kind of behaviour (not falsifyable)
It pointed out the importance of defense mechanisms, the childhood is important for healthy development and unconscious processes cause behaviour

Question 14

Explain the humanistic theory in personality

Answer 14

Founders are Rogers and maslov

1. People want to develop themselves (internal drive) (seed in soil analogy) which is the Innate actualisation tendency (realizing who you are as a person)
2. People have a inner compass for what is good and what is bad for development, which can be seen by maslovs pyramid of need and people want to satisfy more basic needs before bigger ones.
   –> drive for self actualisation and ones inner compass control development
   People are able to make conscious choices
   The goal of development is to become a fully functioning person

Question 15

What is required to become a fully functioning person according to rogers

Answer 15

Unconditional positive regard (recieving approval love regardless of your behaviour)
The problem is that most get conditional positive reward (approval is dependent on behaving a certain way) but people can still get rid of the conditional regard by learning it)

Question 16

Explain the two additional traits which some say should be added to personality tests

Answer 16

1. Grid (persevance and passion for longterm goals and tasks that require lots of practice)
2. Dark trait (gaining benefit from unsocial behaviours like narcism, machiavellianism and psychopathy)

Question 17

How valid are personality tests

Answer 17

They are valid because the traits correlate to actual behaviour

Question 18

What is the evolutionary explanation for personality

Answer 18

It is smart to have diversity in offspring, as if something changes not everyone dies out.
Even animals have personalities
Different personalities have different strategies for surviving, if one strategy is better, it promotes this personality in the popultation

Question 19

Explain how sensitivity in children affects development

Answer 19

Children who are high sensitive (orchid) will have more negative effects from stressfull and negative enviroments, but also more positive ones from positive enviroments in contrast to not sensitive (dandelion) children
This was evolutionary very good.
People who are more sensitive perform better at difficult task without stress, but worse at easy tasks with stress.

Question 20

Explain sibling contrast and split parent identification

Answer 20

They both reduce sibling rivalery, by pointing out the differences between siblings, so that they focus on different abilities instead of competing in a few.
Siblings are actually more similar than people think

Question 21

Explain gender differences in personality

Answer 21

Woman score higher on agreeableness, neurotism and conscientiousness. This may be because these traits are helpful in raising a child and the opposite in men.
There is also cultural influence for this, as in developed countries woman have more chance to choose their own way and their personality changed over the last 100 years a lot.
People whos personality is contrary to the cultural stereotype may be unhappier, because of cultural pressure

Question 22

Explain the humanistic Phenomenology

Answer 22

Every human has his or her own perception on reality, which actually is ones own reality

Question 23

Explain the two unconscious drives according to freud

Answer 23

There are two unconscious drives 
1. Eros (sex and lust)
2. Death (aggression and destruction)
Freud's vision of humanity is deterministic and pessimistic, as we just behave because of biological drives 
--> people are lust seeking Monsters

Question 24

How did freud conduct his therapy

Answer 24

He tried to get insight into the unconscious, as the reason for mental problems lie there, by analysis of unlogical mistakes in speech and behaviour and dreams.

Question 25

How do most modern psychoanalysist think. Adler and Erikson

Answer 25

They agree on the importance of defense mechanisms , that childhood is important for healthy development and that unconscious processes cause behaviour.
Adler thought more that people are born as inferiour and try to developm themselves to become more supeior.
Erikson tought that development continues throughout life and that society is more important in development.

Most modern theories don’t emphasise on the unconscious sexual theorys

Question 26

Explain why freuds defense mechanisms are so important and what the pros and cons of being defensive are

Answer 26

It is important because many people use defense mechanisms like repressive coping (cognitive dissonance reduction). This is especially true in people who experienced a disturbing event in their life. It may be very beneficial as they feel less stress in stressful situations, even tho they show stress syntoms in a physical way. They are mentally more healthy but physically less

Question 27

Explain the difference between mature and imature defense stlyes

Answer 27

People who cope with more mature styles (accepting reality) like humor or suppression are more successful in overall life than people with immature styles (distorting reality).
As people grow older they tend to use more mature styles

Question 28

Explain social-cognitive theories

Answer 28

These are theories about the context of a personality, like belief and social influence

Question 29

Explain how the locus of control works

Answer 29

It is considered a personality trait. People with an internal locus of control think more often that a reward will come if they work hard. People with an external locus of control think that a reward is determined by fate and other uncontrollable factors.
This probably comes from past experiences and learning

Question 30

Explain self efficacy

Answer 30

People who think that they are able to do a specific task have high self efficiacy, people who dont have low self efficiacy.
It strongly causes good performance

Question 31

Explain malleable and fixed view on skills

Answer 31

People who have a more malleable trait think that they are able to change and improve, while people who are more fixed think that they cannot.
Malleableness can be learned by showing somebody how work pays of. Telling somebody that they are just intelligent will produce a fixed mindset.

Question 32

Explain what the advantages and disadvantages of optimism are, and why it is special in children

Answer 32

Optimism can help a lot as optimistic people are more successful and also happy. It can also be bad though, as some optimists say that they are invulnerable to bad things and dont work as they think it will work itself out. In that case an adaptive pessimism is better, where one works because he thinks that there is a possibility that he will fail (even though he thinks very narrowly and doesnt do it for fun)
It is interesting because children are very optimistic about their own abilites. They always rate themself in a very high position in a class or group. This helps them to perform better, even though most teachers try to teach children a accurate assesment of themselves.

Question 33

Explain the trait vs situation conflict

Answer 33

A problem with personalities is that some people act like one trait in one situation but not like it in another. Because of this rauthmann came up with the DIAMONDS scale to rate a situation.
People who have a certain trait are more likely to involve themselves into certain situations

Question 34

Explain the DIAMONDS scale of situations

Answer 34

A situation can involve
Duty 
Intellect
Adversity
Mating 
pOsitivity
Negativity
Deception
Sociality

Question 35

Explain how cultures and countries can differ in personality

Answer 35

Many cultures are exposed to different events and philosophies, resulting in different ways of thinking. 
Individualistic countries (europe, america..) think more as individual people and independence
Collectivist countries (russia, asia...) think more in what is good for the group and interdependence

Question 36

Explain how Eastern coutries view personality different than western countries

Answer 36

Eastern countries belive personalities are more malleable, which may be why they think education is more important
They also emphasize more on harmony (inner peace), face (dignitiy and reputation) and ren quing (mutual exchange of behaviour.
–> In eastern countries personality is viewed and tested differently