Lecture 6: Personality I Flashcards
What is personality?
The unique pattern of enduring thoughts, feelings, and actions that characterize a person
What are the two issues when it comes to studying personality?
If personality is unique how can we define or understand it by developing theories of generalizable patterns?
If personality is enduring why do we have problems predicting people’s behaviour?
What are the four main theoretic approaches that each have their own assumptions about human nature?
1/ Psychoanalytical
2/ Behaviourist/Cognitive
3/ Humanistic
4/ Evolutionary
What are 3 formal methods for describing and measuring personality?
1/ Reduce set of personality traits to manageable number
2/ make sure the measurements are reliable and valid
3/ Empirical research to investigate relationships among traits, and between traits & behavior
What did Raymond Cattell argue about personality and traits?
That 16 clusters of traits make up the basic dimensions of personality
What did Hans Eysenck argue about personality?
2 factors – extroversion/introversion and neuroticism/emotionally stable
What is Hans Eysenck’s personality test based on?
Based on inherited differences in the nervous system
What are the two dimensions to Hans Eysenck’s personality test?
-Introversion-extraversion:
Need for arousal
-Emotional stability:
Sensitivity to stress
What are the five stages to Costa & McCrae’s Five Factor(Big-Five) Model of Personality? (OCEAN).
- Openness to experience (e.g. unadventurous → daring)
- Conscientiousness (e.g. careless → careful)
- Extroversion (e.g. retiring → sociable)
- Agreeableness (e.g. ruthless → soft hearted)
- Neuroticism (e.g. secure → insecure)
4 stenghts of Costa & McCrae’s Five Factor(Big-Five) Model of Personality?
1/ Discovery & validation of big five considered one of the major breakthroughs of contemporary personality psychology
2/ Replicated across many cultures
3/ Consistent across people of various ages
4/ Strongly influenced by genetics
How can be make assessments of personality?
Through personality inventories.
What are personality inventories?
Questionnaires that assess personality by self-report of reactions/feelings in certain situations (e.g. Myers Briggs, Revised NEO)
Exmaples of personality inventories?
1/ Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI):
Criterion-keyed method of test construction: items selected on basis of correlation with external criterion
First major inventory to incorporate validity scales within it
2/ The Q-sort:
Method for measuring personality where the rater sorts a set of cards (each with personality statement) into nine piles with least descriptive on left & most descriptive on right
What is trait approach?
It is not really a theory of personality as:
- Better at describing than understanding people
- Does not describe relationships among traits, thoughts, and feelings
- Fails to capture how traits combine to form a complex and dynamic individual and interactions with the environment
According to the psychoanalytical approach what is the id?
Operates on pleasure principle seeking immediate gratification of basic biological drives
According to the psychoanalytical approach what is the ego?
- Obeys reality principle – gratification must be delayed until appropriate situation
- Mediates demands of the id, realities of the world & demands of the superego
According to the psychoanalytical approach what is the superego?
Internalised representations of values & morals of society
According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what are the three personality dynamics?
1/ Conservation of energy
2/ Anxiety and defense
3/ Repression
According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what is conservation of energy as a personality dynamic?
- Constant amount of psychic energy (libido) for each individual
- If forbidden act/impulse suppressed, its energy will seek outlet somewhere else, e.g., through dreams
According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what is anxiety and defense as a personality dynamic?
Urges to do something forbidden causes anxiety, which can be reduced using defence mechanisms
According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what is repression as a personality dynamic?
Excludes from conscious awareness memories/impulses that are too frightening/painful
What are the six defense mechanisms?
Rationalization Projection Reaction Formation Intellectualization Displacement Denial
As a defense mechanism what is rationalization?
Assignment of logical/socially desirable motives to what we do so that we seem to have acted rationally
As a defense mechanism what is projection?
Protects us from recognizing own undesirable qualities by assigning them to others in exaggerated amounts – perhaps we are a little neurotic – to defend – see neuroticism in other people. Cristine.
