PERSONALITY Flashcards
PERSONALITY
- study of why people act the way they do and why different people act differently
- overlap between clinical theorist and personality
Old school: type theory
- based on physical appearance
Phrenology (type theory)
- practice of examinging head and skull shape used to determine personality
Sheldon (type theory)
- system based on somatotypes (body)
- 3 types
Endomorph
- short, plump body = pleasure seeking, social behaviour
Mesomorph
- muscular, atheltic body = energetic, aggressive behaviour
Ectomorph
- skinny, fragile body = inhibited, intellectural behaviour
Alder (personality typology)
- most recent than sheldon to use personality typology
- choleric, phelgmatic, melancholic, sanguine
New school: trait theory
- allport emphasize ideograhpic approach to personality
Ideographic approach
- captures unique, defining characteristics
Nomothetic approach
- uses large numbers of ppl to study commonalites of personality
Allport’s concern in ideographic approch
- proprium or propriate function (his version of the ego)
- bevlievd that proprium acted on a consistent basis via traits that had develoed through experiene
Traits
- stable characteristics of beavhiour that person exhibits
Lexical approach
- picking all tratis out of dictioning
People act differnt in different situations because of:
- trait hierarchy
- cardinal trait, central trait, secondary traits
- situations may cause conflicting secondary traits but will always have consistent cardinal traits
States
- temporary feelings or characteristiccs
Taxonomies
- statistical techniques to create organized categorization systems for personality
Cattell’s personality facors
- used factor analysis in reduce allport 5000 traits
- identified 16 bipolar source traits e.g. relaxed-tense
Big 5
- using computer models
- could not replicate cattells’ 16 personality factors but found 5 superfactors
O dimension
- openness to experience, intellectural curiosity
C dimension
- conscienctiousness
E dimension
- extraversion, enthusiam
A dimension
- agreeableness
N dimension
- neuroticism, nervousnesss
Dispositionits
- orgianlly dominated personality theory
- emphasized internal determinants of behaviour
Situationsits
- such as behaviourist aruge that only circusmtances determine baheviour
Interactionists
- combination of stalbe, internal factors and situations influence behaviour
Epstien and Mischel
- trait and type theories are problematic
- assume person’s beahviour is stable across situations and fail to account for circumstnaces
Consistency paradox
- that people may behave inconsistently
- problematic for labeling people as having 1 internal disposition
Cantor
- cogntiive prototpe approach
- cognitive behaviour is examined in social situtions
- consistency of behaviour is result of cognitive process vs. personality traits
Heritability of personality
- 40-50% based on twin studies
Nature nuture debate
- most alive in gender difference
- after accounting for social reinforcement, few gender difference exists
Deux and women’s success
- sterotypical male task are attributed to luck and men’s success is attributed to skill
- gender is social construct
- women have lower self-esteem because also contriute success to luck
Bem - androgyny
- possesing both M and F qualities
- Bem Sex Role Inventory
- have higher self-esteem, lower anxiety, more adapatiblity than counterparts
Horner
- females shunned masculine type success not because of fear of failure or interest but because they feared success and it’s negative reprucssion e.g resentment and rejection
Maccoby and Jacklin
- critcized sex differnce
- few existed and could not be explained by social learning
- consistent differences are females have greater verbal skills and males have greater visual/spatial ability
- attributed to biological and hormal differnces
Depression - woman vs. men
- woman 2x
Friedman and rosenman
- studied type A personality
- drive, competition, aggressiveness, tension and hostility
- found in upper class men
Dahstrom
- linked type A personality to heart disease
Authoritarianmis
- dispositon to view world as full of power relationships
- highly domineering or highly submissivee depdneing on if they are in power or around someone more powerful
F- scale
- measures authoritarianism
- conventional, aggression, sterotyping and anti-introspective individuals
Eysenck
- used factor analysis to find underlying tratis of 2 personality type dimensions
- introversion-extraversion and stable-unstable (neurotic)
2 dimesnions of Eysenck formed 4 quandrants
- phlegmatic
- melancholic
- choleric
- sanguine
2 dimensions of Eysenck using factor analysis of the 2 personality-type dimensions
- introversion-extraversion
- stable-unstable (neuroticism)
Maslow (personality)
- hierarchy of needs
Kelley (personality)
- personal constructs (conscious ideas about the self, others, and situations) determine personality and behaviours
Epstien (personality)
- critical personality trait theory
External locus of control
- personality characteristics that cause one to view events as the results of luck or fate
- too much of this breeds helplessness
Internal locus of control
- cause a person to view events as the outcome of her own actions
- too much of this can breed self-blame
(developed by Julian Rotter)
Julian Rotter
- external and internal locus of control
Implicit theories
- people often make assumptions about the disposition of an individual based on the actions of that person
Dispositional attribution
- tendency for other to think that actions are caused by person’s personality than by the situation
Fundamental attribution error
- tendency for others to think that ctions are caused more by a person’s personality than by situation
Barnum effect
- tendency to agree with and accept personality inerpretations that are provided
Pheomenological view of personaity types
- focuses on individuals’ unique self and experiences
Self awareness (state)
- temporary condition of being aware of how you are thinking, feeling or doing
Mirrors (personality)
- make people more self-aware
- small mirrors = not make people self-aware because we see small mirrors all the time
- large = see ourselves as others do
Self-monitoring
- characterized by scutiny of one’s own behaviour, motivation to act appropriately rather than honeslty, and ability to mask true feelings
Self-consciousness
- a trait
- refers to how one generally becomes self-aware
- if you pay alot of attention to yourself = self-aware
Self-esteem
- knowing that you are worthwhile and being in touch with your actual streghts
- 50% people percieve themselves accurately
- 35% percieve themselves narcissitically
Self-efficacy
- person’s beliefs that they can effectively perform a task
Narcissim
- believe you are better than everyone
- unrealistic
Self-handicapping
- self-defeating beahviour that allows one to dismiss failure
Learned helplessness
- Seligman
- how expeirne can change peope’s personalities
- when feel out of control, negative explanatory style
- person gives up
- countered with learned optimism
Learned optimism
- countes learned helplessness
Costa and McCrae
- personality changes very little after age 30
Stimulus-seeking
- individuals have great need for arousal
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and Californi Personality Inventory (CPI)
- 2 most famous personality tests
Henry Murray
- develop Thematic Apperception test (TAT)
- ambiguous story card
- people would project their own needs onto these cards e.g. need for achievement
