Personality Flashcards
What is the difference between nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality?
Nomothetic (general/ objective):
Finite set of variables that can be used to describe personality
Traits have the same psychological meaning in everyone
People differ only in amount of each trait
Idiographic (subjective/unique):
Focuses on the individual
Each person has a unique personality structure
What is the difference between dispositional and situational approaches to personality?
Dispositional:
Views personality as consistent and unchanging dispositions to act, feel, and think, regardless of context
Nomothetic
Utilises personality traits or types
Situational:
Views personality as unrelated states or behaviours determined by situational factors
What is personality?
Allport (1961): “A dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create the person’s characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings”
What is a trait?
“A trait is a dimension of personality used to categorise people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic” (Burger, 1977).
Fundamental units of personality
Assumptions underlying trait theory:
Personality characteristics are relatively stable over time
Traits show stability across situations
One goal is to identify a taxonomy of all important traits
What are the 3 traits of Eysenck Three Dimensions of Personality theory and year?
Eysenck (1947) developed a model of personality based on three universal traits:
Introversion/ Extroversion
Neuroticism/ Emotional Stability
Psychoticism
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R)
What is the biological basis for Eysenck’s Three Dimensions?
Eysenck believed that there was a large biological (genetic) determinant to personality
Ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) – introverts have higher base arousal levels, they are easily over aroused. Extraverts have lower base levels, they seek stimulation to bring their arousal up.
Sympathetic nervous system – neurotics have greater activation levels
Psychoticism and testosterone levels
What is the 5 factor model?
OCEAN - openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
Received most attention and support in past two decades
Also called the Big Five
Derived via lexical approach and factor analysis
Proven to be highly replicable in numerous studies by different researchers using different samples.
What is the HEXACO model?
Extended version of the big five.
HEXACO approach suggests a sixth factor (Ashton & Lee, 2007)
Honesty-humility: Fairness, sincerity
High in H: foster cooperation, run the risk of being exploited
Evaluations:
Cross-cultural evidence supporting the model
Uniqueness of honest—humility (vs. agreeableness
What is the big one in personality research?
Musek 2007. Similar to the g factor in intelligence, an underlying personality factor made up of stability and plasticity
What are the different types of stability in personality theory?
Intraindividual differences in consistency – how each individual changes with time
Ipsative differences – how the salience of attributes changes within individuals over time
Mean-level consistency (population level) – do people increase or decrease in trait dimensions over time (e.g. does conscientiousness go up in adulthood?)
Rank-order consistency (population level) – relative placement of individuals within a group. Do people retain the same rank ordering of trait dimensions over time?
How stable is personality?
Roberts, Walton & Viechtbauer (2006) – meta-analysis:
People become more socially dominant, conscientious and emotionally stable in young adulthood (20-40)
Gains in social vitality and openness to experience early in life, which decreases in old age
Changes could be considered ‘small’
Harris et al. (2016) Personality Stability From Age 14 to Age 77 Years. Biggest study on personality stability to date. Found no correlation between younger and older selves.
How does personality change over life span?
Personality traits can change over time and continue to change in adulthood and old age.
Trait changes are small in magnitude within specific age bands, but most traits change close to one standard deviation across the lifespan (Roberts et al., 2006).
These changes in traits are not consistent across individuals, suggesting unique patterns of change across the lifespan as a result of life events (Roberts & Mroczek, 2008).
What cause personality change?
Personality traits can be changed through:
Life experiences and the environment
Clinical trials where personality change is an “accompanying effect” of interventions that were primarily designed to target mental health problems
Specific interventions developed to help people change their personality traits e.g. Roberts et al. (2017) found neuroticism was the primary trait showing changes as a result of therapy, followed by extraversion.
Name all the theories of personality from the different approaches?
Psychoanalytic- Freud (1923)- psychic determinism, levels of consciousness, id, ego and superego, fixation, psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic (penis envy, castration anxiety, oedipus, electra), latency, genital), too much or little gratification at each stage can cause fixation
contemporary psychodynamic Westen (1998) defines contemporary psychoanalysis as being based on the following five ideas:
1. The unconscious plays a large role in life, though not with as important an influence as Freud believed
2. Behaviour often reflects compromises in conflicts between mental processes
3. Childhood plays an important part in personality development, e.g. in shaping adult relationships
4. Mental representations of the self and relationships guide our interactions with others
5. Personality development involves not just regulating sexual and aggressive feelings but also moving from an immature, socially dependent way of relating to others to a mature independent style
Behaviourism - Pavlov (1910 dog) and Watson (1920 - little albert) (Classical conditioning) and Skinner (box 1948)(Operational, positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, schedules of reinforcement), deterministic, observable
Ego Psychology - Erik Erikson (1950s) - Psychosocial stages - Aim is to establish a secure identity (sense of who we are). Identity crisis – a period of inner conflict, common during adolescence. The crisis represents the struggle to find balance between developing a unique, individual identity while still ‘fitting in’
Karen Horney’s (1942) feminist interpretation - emphasised childhood anxiety and social tension, defended women
Social learning - Albert Bandura (1977) Observational learning: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation
Imitation based on past observations (modelling) - Bobo doll
Humanistic - Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943) - Innate tendencies toward growth and development. Fulfillment of needs bring satisfaction. Many levels of needs motivate behaviours simultaneously. Physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization
Evidence to support Freud’s theory of personality?
small non representative sample of many white, upper class, neurotic women from Vienna, did not publish many case studies.
Some evidence of the existence of the unconscious from research on subliminal perception and Freudian slips
Fisher and Greenberg (1996) and Hunt (1979) found evidence to support the concepts of oral and anal personalities but that these were not related to Oedipal/Electra complexes or toilet-training
