LO10 - Personality Psychology

Question 1

Definition of personality

Answer 1

Consistent and stable behavioural patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within the individual.

Personality is analysed in 3 levels:

1. How people are like all others.
2. How people are like some others
3. How people are like no others

There are two key elements of the definition:
Consistency in behaviour across situations and time.
Intrapersonal processes including cognitive, motivational and emotional

Question 2

Early approaches - Humorism theory

Answer 2

Theorised that there are four vital humours (bodily fluids) that regulator human behaviour and excess or deficiency results in ill health.

Phlegm - calm/reserved
Blood - social/optimistic
Yellow bile - short tempered/ambitious
Black bile - fearful/introspective

Galen popularised humorism as a doctrine of four temperaments (phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine and melancholic).

This was a simplistic view of personality.

Question 3

Early approaches - psychodynamic approach

Answer 3

Freud make the first formal theory of personality (developmental and motivational theory). Personality develops early in life as a function of how needs, impulses and striving are navigated).

Question 4

Three components of personality - the Id

Answer 4

This is the manifestation of unconscious and instinctual drives and needs.

Governed by the pleasure principle it tries to satisfy impulses.

It is the inherited base of personality.

Question 5

Three components of personality - The ego

Answer 5

This is an outgrowth of the Id.

Represents the largely conscious awareness of reality and the ability the mediate the needs of the Id with the constraints of reality.

Governed by the reality principle and mediates conflict between the Id and Superego.

it is pragmatic, logical and rational.

Question 6

Three components of personality - the superego

Answer 6

Represents the internalised culture and social rules and ideals that guide our moral conscience.

Governed by the morality principle.

It has been internalised by society - judge of right/wrong.

Question 7

Psychoanalytic theory

Answer 7

Different parts of the personality function within different levels of consciousness.

Unconscious - this is the part of our mental life that influences our thoughts, feelings ad actions that we cannot directly observe and of which we are unaware.

Freud’s theory centralised the importance of the unconscious. If unwanted content started to surface, you feel anxiety.

Conscious mind - we are aware of this or can become aware of it easily.

Preconscious - thoughts and motives can be easily brought to mind.

Question 8

Coping with intrapsychic conflict - defence mechanisms

Answer 8

These are ways the go copes with conflict between unconscious desires of the id and moral constraints of society.

Question 9

Repression - defense mechanism

Answer 9

Repression - keeping unacceptable/unwanted feelings, thoughts and memories below the level of conscious awareness.

Evidence does not support this.

If repression fails, some content will come to the preconscious mind.

Question 10

Denial - defence mechanism

Answer 10

Denial - kicks in if repression doesn’t work. Ego prevents the perception of a painful or threatening reality as it is occurring. It is refusing to see things as they are.

Evidence supports this.

Question 11

Displacement - defence mechanisms

Answer 11

Ego redirects the unacceptable/threatening impulses from the id from their intended targets to more defenceless, non-threatening targets.

Current evidence support this.

E.g. angry at boss but takes it out on partner.

Question 12

Projection - defence mechanisms

Answer 12

Instead of acknowledging it themselves, people see others as possessing a disliked trait, feeling, motive or impulse.

Current evidence supports e.g. judging someone for something you do.

Question 13

Reaction formation - defence mechanisms

Answer 13

To stifle the expression of an unacceptable urge or impulse, one displays behaviours suggesting the opposite impulse.

We do the opposite of what we are thinking/feeling. This helps us deal with threatening content.

Question 14

Critiques of psychoanalytic theory

Answer 14

Freud’s work was based on case study, not scientific methodology.

It lacks empirical support - loss of general acceptance by contemporary psychologists.

It is difficult to falsify his results.

Question 15

Contributions of psychoanalytic theory

Answer 15

He has contributed important ideas to the study of personality e.g. the existence of unconscious thought, the importance of early development and the influence of the mind on the body.

He was also influential in introducing the talking cure as a way to resolve conflict that was introduced.

Question 16

Trait theories - Gordon Allport

Answer 16

He was a pioneer of personality as the study of traits. He looked at personality in a comprehensive way

These are dimensions of personality used to categorise people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic.

These traits can initiate and direct behaviour. He thought they were embedded in biology.

We all have a value for any given trait - they have normal distributions in populations.

Question 17

Allport’s hierarchical categories of traits

Answer 17

Cardinal traits - those that dominate a personality
Central traits - general dispositions that describe a person and shape how they interpret the world. People behave in similar ways across situations.
Secondary traits - relevant only in certain contexts; preferences. These can vary.

Question 18

Trait theory - measurement approaches

Answer 18

Assessing traits is developing and validating tools to accurately measure and quantify traits and other features of personality.

Self report - measures what people are willing to describe about themselves. It has limitations.

Informant reports - people are rated by their family/friends

Behavioural data - systematically recording information from direct observations. This is the gold-standard.

Life data - public records can be used.

Behavioural residues - looking at someone’s bedroom

Question 19

Projective tests

Answer 19

People interpret ambiguous stimuli in different ways - this can reveal underlying motivations or projections. It is not valid or reliable but it is used a lot in the past in clinical settings and research

They are subjective. What you see is supposedly you projecting your personality onto an ambiguous stimulus.

Thematic apperception test requires participants to tell a story from an ambiguous situation.

Question 20

Measurement approaches in trait theory - lexical hypothesis

Answer 20

Traits that are useful in differentiating among people’s personality characteristics are encoded in language.

We can categorise them to describe and understand basic human qualities.

An unwieldy number of traits by which people can be described is produced by this kind of analysis.

Allport narrowed it down to 4500 words.

Question 21

Measurement approaches in trait theory - factor analysis

Answer 21

A statistical technique that analyses the interrelations among different items to look for the common factors underlying the scores.

Cattell narrowed the 4500 trait term words to only 16.

Traits are relatively permanent broad reaction tendencies and serve as building blocks of personality.

Hans Eysenck identified 2/3 super traits: extraversion (sociable, lively), neuroticism (anxious, tense) and psychoticism (aggressive, cold)

Question 22

Five-factor model of personality

Answer 22

Goldberg created this - the dominant model in trait approach to personality. It posits 5 key dimensions along which all humans vary.

Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

These dimensions explain a lot of consistency in behaviour, thinking and feeling.

Traits are comprised of sub components called facets. These account for diversity within traits.

Traits can be adaptive - normally distributed.

Question 23

The big five - extraversion

Answer 23

Two sub dimensions - sociality and dominance which are correlated.

Extroversion is a trait that helps us to connect to people and form relationships. It can lead to more risky behaviour.

Higher E predicts assuming leadership positions, having more friends, more risky behaviour and being happier in relationships.

Question 24

The big five - neuroticism

Answer 24

This captures the tendency to experience negative emotions more strongly and be self-conscious.

Higher N predicts experiencing more grief/depression after the death of a loved one, engaging in more maladaptive coping like drinking and having less satisfying social relationships

Stronger negative reactions - more worry/anxiety.

Question 25

The big five - conscientiousness

Answer 25

This predicts job success, happier spouses and higher GPA. It is the tendency to be thorough, dependable, organised and focused.

Lower C predicts poor health behaviours.

Question 26

The big five - agreeableness

Answer 26

This is about how people interact with others.

Higher A predicts withdrawal from conflict and more positive social relationships. (Soft-hearted, cooperative and trustworthy people)

Lower A predicts more juvenile delinquency. (Critical and quarrelsome)

Question 27

The big five - openness to experience

Answer 27

This is about motivation to engage with abstract ideas or aesthetic pursuits.

Openness helps us with creative problem solving - at the high end we see if as delusional thinking. It is maladaptive behaviour at extremes.

Higher O predicts artistic pursuits, more liberal politics and having more vivid dreams.

Question 28

Measuring change in personality - change relative to others

Answer 28

Rank-order stability tests if people retain their standing on a trait relative to others in the same group over time.

Stability coefficient/test-retest reliability.

Relative ranking of the big five traits remains consistently high over time (correlations between 0.6 to 0.9). Implies stability of personality in the same direction as others.

Question 29

Measuring change in personality - change in terms of mean levels

Answer 29

This looks at gains/losses on some metric.

However, there are some average shifts in personality over the lifespan. This implies that people, on average, change in a given trait as they age.

This is evidence of personality change across all people.

Question 30

Big Five across the lifespan

Answer 30

We see that agreeableness/conscientiousness/emotional stability increases over the lifespan.

There are two measures of extraversion (social vitality and social dominance).

Social vitality tends to be consistent but social dominance increases.

Openness to experience decreases later ion adulthood.

Question 31

Factors that can change the mean-level of personality.

Answer 31

Developmental theories are good at explaining changes - different points in life can change personality.

Life experiences and lessons, formal counselling (reducing maladaptive behaviours), brain damage and brain pathologies.

Strokes can change stable patterns of behaviour.

E.g. Phineas Gage became unpleasant.

Question 32

Support for trait theories (non-biological)

Answer 32

Trait scores predict individual differences in broad behaviour (life outcome variables like work performance, occupational success, psychological wellbeing) as well as risky sexual behaviour.

Specific facets can predict more specific behaviours.

Personality traits are relatively stable over time - people maintain their relative rank over 30 yrs.

There is cross cultural evidence for 4 of the big 5 traits but it is unclear about Openness.

Question 33

Support for trait theories (biological)

Answer 33

Substantial heritability for trait scores. Heritability estimates of about 0.5.

Neurobiological correlates of traits is a recent development . E.g. extraversion and the left frontal lobe activity.

There is a biological basis of traits.

Question 34

Critique of the trait approach to personality: The person-situation debate

Answer 34

Introduction of social-cognitive approach to personality (Mischel) challenged trait theory:

1. Individual consistency across situations is low. Traits are a bad predictor or what people do in particular situations. We need to consider context.
2. Traits can be reframed as templates used to perceive and categorise others, rather than internal forces that shape our behaviour.
3. We should search for factors (mechanisms) that explain a trait’s influence on behaviour instead of simply describing.

Question 35

Resolution to the trait approach (person-situation debate)

Answer 35

One resolution is stable situation-behavioural signatures (Shoda and Mischel). We consider the situation, it is not enough to look at traits.

Both the person and situation shapes the behaviour (an if-then statement can be used). The interaction between the two helps us to understand and predict behaviour.

There are stable and meaningful interaction patterns.

Question 36

Cognition matters (personality beyond traits)

Answer 36

Researchers from a behaviourist perspective started to incorporate cognitive processes into personality theories.

Paved the way for the social cognitive approach of psychology.

There are stable ways that people think, selectively attend to, manipulate, store, transform and generate information about their social world.

Question 37

Social learning approaches - a sense of control

Answer 37

Rotter’s social learning theory goes beyond reinforcements shaping behaviour by stating we have expectation about the reinforcements.

A key cognition that shapes our behaviour is the extent to which we construe our behaviour and its consequences as being under our control.

Locus of control was proposed

Question 38

Locus of control

Answer 38

This is the tendency for people to think they can control their outcomes.

ILOC - internal (they believe that they control their outcomes.
ELOC - external (things happen to them randomly)

Higher internal LOC is associated with better health, job and academic success. You are more likely to take responsibility for your own actions if you think this has an effect on the outcome.

Question 39

Locus of control as a learned phenomenon

Answer 39

It is shaped by what is going on in the environment. People can perceive that they dont have control over adverse outcomes when they do.

Learned helplessness 0 a state of passive recognition to an aversive situation that one has come to believe is outside of one’s control.

Evidence:

• Animal experiments (dogs simply accepted their fate)
• Analogous human experiments
• Real life (people stuck in bad situations that they can’t control won’t leave once they gain control)

Question 40

A sense of control (social learning approach) - self-efficacy

Answer 40

Perception of control can be contextual and situationally specific.

Bandura elaborated on this with self-efficacy (the belief that one can successfully execute a behaviour required by a particular situation).

Higher self-efficacy influences goal selection, persistence and successful goal pursuit.

Question 41

A sense of control (social learning theory) - outcome efficacy

Answer 41

Outcome efficacy -the belief that if a person can perform a behaviour, a desired outcome will result.

There is an expectation about the behaviour-outcome relationship (contingency rule).

This rule is required for goal selection and obtaining a goal.

Question 42

Humanistic Perspective

Answer 42

Offers a phenomenological view of personality. Humans are inherently good and seek to grow and reach their potential.

People have free will and are responsible for themselves. The natural human state is to self-actualise.

Question 43

Humanistic perspective - self actualisation

Answer 43

Self-actualisation is the desire to realise one’s full potential and to be all that one can be.

This is a natural growth tendency for humans.

Takes an idiographic approach - each person is unique and has their own private, subjective experience.

Question 44

Mallow’s hierarchy of needs

Answer 44

His hierarchy put basic needs at the bottom, then psychological needs, then self-fulfilment needs

Theory focused on the characteristics of self-actualising people as not all people reach self-actualisation..

He used case studies of figures he considered to be self-actualisers.

Question 45

Characteristics of self-actualised people, according to Maslow.

Answer 45

They had common characteristics: acceptance of self, others and nature, problem-focused, independent from culture, democratic values and deep ties with relatively few people (invest in a few meaningful people).

SA people also report having more peak/flow experiences. This is when the present moment is experiences fully during an activity of intrinsic value.

Question 46

Carl Rogers theory of self

Answer 46

Developed a self-theory that the self is an integrated whole organism that interprets the world.

We are one central integrated energy source and all interpret the world in a new way. To understand someone, we have to understand how they construe their reality (idiographic).

Natural human state is to be a fully functioning person that is: open to new experiences, enjoys diversity, is centred in the present moment, trusts themselves and is responsible.

Question 47

Ways to foster and attain self-actualisation, according to Rogers.

Answer 47

Certain conditions foster/hinder optimal growth and self-actualisation.

Unconditional positive regard is the most important thing, this is being accepted and values for who you are without conditions.

Question 48

Social cognitive perspective - the self-concept

Answer 48

The broad dynamic network of mental representations that a person has of him or herself; is it the self-knowledge structure.

It may be the largest mental construct or schema we have and it consistent of a collection of self-knowledge, roles, goals, traits and attributes.

It includes representations of our possible selves which motivates our behaviour.

Question 49

How is the self-concept developed?

Answer 49

People tell us what we are like, reflected self-appraisals, social comparison, self-perception.

People form beliefs about themselves based on other peoples actions.

There are different personal aspects to the self-concept e.g. future self/past self/current self.

This self concept guides thoughts and behaviour.

Question 50

The self-concept as a dynamic and complex set of associations.

Answer 50

Situations dictate which aspects of the self-concept are activated and held in the mind to form the ‘working self-concept’.

Only a subset of knowledge can be more salient in a given situation. The most relevant information is brought to mind.

Self aspects guide what a person does in a situation

Question 51

Self-esteem (social cognitive perspective)

Answer 51

This is our general attitude towards ourselves; self worth (the value that you place on yourself)

We are motivated to see ourselves positively and people tend to do this. We think and behave in a way that maintains our positive self-view.

Question 52

Self-serving biases (social cognitive perspective)

Answer 52

These are characteristic ways of processing information to maintain a positive attitude towards the self.

1. Self-serving attributions (attribute good outcomes to things internal to us)
2. Above-average effect (we tend to think we are better than others)
3. Idiosyncratic trait definitions (we have a tendency to think about the positive aspects of our qualities)

Question 53

Motive for high self-esteem - sociometer theory

Answer 53

We need self-esteem as people use it to assess the degree to which they are accepted by others.

This is a functional/evolutionary explanation. We can’t survive alone so we need to assess our standing.

Question 54

Motive for high self-esteem - Terror management theory

Answer 54

Self-esteem allows people to cope with existential terror stemming from their awareness of their own mortality.

Humans are aware we are going to die and this is terrifying. Self-esteem reduces the terror and protects us from mortality salients.

It makes us believe we matter

Question 55

Does self-esteem matter?

Answer 55

High self-esteem does not correlate with performance. Rather, it is having opportunities to succeed that drives performance. This increases self-esteem.

Question 56

The study of the whole person

Answer 56

The study of how personality dimensions and psychological and biological processes influence people’s distinctive patterns of behaviour.