Personality Flashcards
Personality
Individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling
Self reports
Provides subject info about thoughts, feelings, behaviours via questionnaire/interview
MMPI
Clinical questionnaire assessing personality and psychological problems
What are some problems associated with measuring personality via personality inventories?
Many people reply in socially desirable ways, and are generally inaccurate in what they report about.
Measuring personality via projection techniques
Designed to reveal inner aspects of person’s personality by analyzing responses to a series of ambiguous stimuli; assumes projection of unconscious wishes/desires
Rorschach inkblot
Respondent’s inner thoughts/feelings are revealed by analysis of responses to unstructured inkblots - not designed to look like anything specifically
Thematic aperception test
Underlying motives, concerns and worldviews are revealed through analysis of stories about ambiguous pictures of people
Problems with projection techniques?
Open to biases of examiner, and have not been found to be reliable or valid
4 approaches
Trait approach, psychodynamic approach, humanistic-existential approach and social-cognitive approach
Alport’s view of traits
Traits are pre-existing dispositions that reliably triggers a behaviour but doesn’t explain it. Use of personality inventories.
Murray’s view of traits
Traits reflect motives; use of projective tests
Classification of traits using language
- Core traits found in all the adjectives used to describe personality (using factor analysis)
- Traits may be related to hierarchy
- General or abstract traits at higher levels than specific or concrete traits
Cattell
16 factor theory of personality
Eysenck
2 (and later 3) model of personality
3 factor model of personality
Each one is a continuum
Extroversion (levels of sociability and activity)
Neuroticism (levels of emotional stability)
Psychosis (levels of impulsivity and hostility)
Five-factor personality model (OCEAN)
Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
Genetic influences on personality
Genetic components causes 40% variability among individuals; 60% from other factors
Gender differences?
Women and men are quite similar but differ in self-reported traits, attitudes, behaviours (NA context); men are physically aggressive, assertive and risk taking; women are verbally expressive, sensitive to nonverbal cues, nurturing
Animal personalities
Hard to measure
Extraversion and neuroticism can be measured through observational studies
Issues of anthropomorphizing (assigning human traits to nonhumans)
Traits in the brain for extraversion vs. introversion
Arise from individual differences in cortical arousal; reticular formation of extraverts is not easily stimulated; easily stimulated for introversion
Behavioural activation system
Go system activating approach behaviours for reward; highly reactive in extroverts
Behavioural inhibition system
Stop system inhibiting behaviour to avoid punishment; highly reactive in introverts
Traits in brain for neuroticism
Volume of brain regions involved with sensitivity to threat
Traits in brain for agreeableness
Processing areas for assessing mental states of others
Traits in brain for conscientiousness
Self regulation areas