Personality Flashcards
a persons collection characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors
personality
behaviors and feelings that are consistent and long lasting
personality trait
what are personality psychologist most interested in understanding
whole persons
one of the founders of the field and gave a class ice definition of personality: The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine the individuals characteristics behavior and thought
Allport
where does personality come from
a coherent whole or ORGANIZED WHOLE rather that understanding how situations influence people in general
dynamic in that is goal seeking, sensitive to particular context and adaptive to the persons environment
Organized Whole
mental nature of personality (psycho)
personality arises from basic biological processes (physical)
Allports two psychophysical ideas
how personality is developed
levels of consciousness
ruled by unconscious mind
Freud Iceberg Theory
Conscious Level
- executive mediating between ID impulses and superego inhibitions; testing reality; rational
operates mainly at conscious level but also pre conscious level
EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING; or moral compas
Balances the other two
how we should feel
EGO
Preconscious Level
ideas and morals; striving for perfection; incorporated from parents; becoming a persons conscious
operates mostly at preconscious level
RATIONALE GRATIFICATION
before our conscious reality principle
SUPEREGO
Unconscious Level
basic impulses (sex and aggression); seeking immediate gratification; irrational and impulsive
operates at unconscious level
PLEASURE PRINCIPLE; seeking immediate present gratification
ID
most theorist do not align with frued or use his classifications, believe much of our mental life and personality development is a result of the unconscious (schemas, priming, implicit memories, stereotypes and prejudice and we struggle with conflict)
post freud thoughts
approaches to studying personality that emphasize how people seek to fulfill their potential through greater self-understanding
* Sunshine and rainbows!
Humanistic Approaches
under humanistic theory
people seek to fulfill their potential for personal growth through greater self-understanding
* Top of the hierarchy of needs, developing a self concept
Self Actualization
Humanistic approach contrasted with whose theories
Freuds: they were very strict and direct
◦ Emphasized the importance of people’s subjective understandings of their lives
‣ Encouraged parents to raise their children with unconditional positive regard so that they might become fully functioning people
Rogers Person Centered Approach
‣ Acceptance
‣ Genuineness
‣ Empathy
◦ Personality is influenced on how we understand ourselves and how others judge us
◦ Being positive despite the negative
Roger believed in growth-promoting social climates (AGE)
an approach to studying personality that focuses how individuals differ in personality dispositions
‣ There are nearly 18,000 words in the dictionary that could be used as personality traits
Trait Approach
goes from low to high, personality is developed by these 5 factors
Big 5 Factors
Imaginative vs down to earth
likes variety vs likes routine
independent vs conforming
openness to experience
worried vs calm
insecure vs secure
self pity vs self satisfied
neuroticism
organized vs disorganized
careful vs careless
self disciplined vs weak willed
conscientiousness
social vs retiring
fun loving vs sober
affectionate vs reserved
extroversion
soft hearted vs ruthless
trusting vs suspicious
helpful vs uncooperative
agreeableness
- Identified 16 basic dimensions of personality
◦ These dimensions included: intelligence, sensitivity, dominance and self-reliance
* He got them from Cattel (kind of )
Cattells Factor Analysis
- Personality comes from 4 dimensions, and from our biological processes
◦ Neurotic, Introversion, Extraversion, Emotionally Stable
‣ People who are extroverted have lower levels of arousal
* To function optimally, they seek out exciting
‣ People who are introverted have higher levels of arousal
* To function they seek out calm activities
Biological Trait Theory
◦ Albert Bandura
‣ Behaviors and personality are impacted by our traits and our social context
‣ reciprocal determinism
Interpersonal factors, behavior, environmental factors
Social Cognitive Theories
◦ Rotter’s expectancy-value approach:
Internal/external locus of control
* Locus of Control
◦ A personable belief about how much control we have over our lives
◦ Internal: our own control
◦ External: we cannot control, something else is controlling our life
Personality Reflects Learning and Cognition
life history data; behavioral data; self-reports; and descriptions from peoples friends, relatives or both
‣ The way researchers choose to measure personality depends to a great extent on their own theoretical orientations (trait researchers vs. humanistic psychologists)
Assessment procedures include measures of unconscious processes
person-centered approaches to studying personality; focus is on individual lives and how various characteristics are integrated into unique persons
* Researchers who use this often examine case studies of individuals through interviews or biographical information
* Considers a human life as a narrative or life story
Idiographic
approaches to assessing personality that focus on how common characteristics vary from person to person
* Individuals are unique combinations of common traits
* The 5 factor theory looks at how all people vary on 5 basic personalities
Nomothetic
personality test that examine tendencies to respond in a particular way by having people interpret ambiguous stimuli
* Procedures such as this are too imprecise for diagnostic purposes but when combined with other measures can help researchers and clinical psychologists get a fuller sense of a persons (rorscharch inkblot test)
Projective
measuring only what the person reports, they make no pretense of uncovering hidden conflicts or secret information
* NEO personality inventory: designed to assess big 5 personality factors
* MMPI has 10 scales that measure psychological problems
* California Q-Sort: each participant is given 100 cars with statements printed on them, each person sorts them and according to how accurately the statements are it describes him or her
Self-Report Measures
researchers have also developed a number of objective measures that assess how personality emerges in daily life
◦ Electronically activated record (EAR)
‣ Used to show that self reports on the big 5 predict real world behavior
* Extroverts talk more and spend time alone
* Agreeable people swear less often
* Conscientious people attend class more
* Neurotic people spend more time arguing
* People open to experience spend more time in restaurants, bars, and coffee shops
Behavioral Data
