LECTURE 5- PERSONALITY

Question 1

Galen and personality

Answer 1

said based on the 4 fluids in the body he created 4 personality types; melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine. This determines personality type as well as inclinations toward certain illnesses

Galen- when humours were out of balance, then physical illness and mental disturbance occurred. `If in balance, an equitable temperament was the result.
* An excess of black bile= melancholic (related with depressed mood and anxiety)
* Strong activity in body fluids= choleric temperament (angry easily)
* Phlegmatic temperament (calm, due to low humorous activity)
* Sanguine temperament (confident and optimistic)

Question 2

Freud and personality

Answer 2

• Freud model of personality (1923)- ID (innate desires, pleasure seeking, sexual impulses), superego (moral, ethical, values), EGO (mature adaptive behaviour)

Question 3

Gordon Alport

Answer 3

• He emphasised traits- neuropsychic systems with dynamic or motivational properties-as the fundamental unit of study for personality.
• Allport’s concept of trait;
• Traits are not theoretical structures or constructs but are real and found within the individual.
• Traits guide and direct behaviour and enable the individual to behave in a particular manner
• Traits are verified empirically
• Different traits are not independent from each other but have overlapping features
• Stable traits can also change over time.
• The proprium- Proprium is the highest personality structure which consists of all aspects of personality and brings about inward unity and consistency in the person. Proprium develops through stages, from development of sense of body to self-identity, self esteem etc.. In the final stage, the individual is able to look back on his varied experience in life, and then strive for internal satisfaction and a sense of fulfilment.

Question 4

Henry Murray

Answer 4

• He viewed personality as constituted by conflicting voices
• The primary motivation contrast is needed which interacts with ‘press’ (situation)
• ‘unity thema’ a dominant pattern of need-press interaction, was viewed as the central, organising motif of a persons biography

Question 5

Murray: needs

Answer 5

• Murray’ psychogenic needs; (there are 20)
• Primary needs- arising from internal bodily states and include needs required for survival as well as sex and sentience needs
• Secondary needs- concerned with emotional satisfaction and include most of the needs on Murrays original list
• These needs differ in prepotency- unsatisfied needs are more urgent and dominate behaviour

Question 6

Murray’s view on personality development

Answer 6

• He recognised that childhood events can affect the development of specific needs
• Later in life, needs can be activated by specific situations know as press
• Through early childhood experiences thema is formed, which combines personal factors with the environmental factors that pressure or compel our behaviour (presses)
• A dominant thema, called a unity thema, organises or gives meaning to a large portion of the individuals life, and becomes a powerful force in determining personality

Question 7

Raymond Cattell

Answer 7

• Cattell adopted traits as the fundamental conceptual unit of personality
• In 1946- he believed the essence of a trait was co-variation and ‘’behind the scenes’’ factors
• He says trait is a ‘mental structure’. An inference made from observed behaviour to account for regularity or consistency in behaviour.
• Cattell’s traits;
• Surface traits (cluster of manifest variables)
• Source traits (underlying factors that determines surface manifestations
• IN 1970, Cattell, Eber, Tastuoka = 16PF

Question 8

the lexical approach

Answer 8

• IN the 1930s, psychologists were showing a lively interest in factor-analytic studied of personality based on the lexical approach- analysing personality descriptors laypeople use. It is the ID between people that are important that become encoded as single terms
• This lexical approach assumes that;
• 1.people encode in their everyday languages all those individual differences that they perceive as most salient and socially relevant
• 2. Frequency of use of personality descriptors correspond with importance
• 3. The number of words in a language that refer to each trait will be related to how important that trait is in describing personality.