Personality and Individual Differences

Question 1

Popular Definitions of Personality

Answer 1

1) The dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his [sic] characteristic behaviour and thought (Allport, 1961)

2) The sum total of an individual’s characteristics which make him [sic] unique (Hollander, 1971)

3) The product of failed intrapsychic and
interpersonal communication (Habermans, 1972)

4) The underlying, relatively stable, psychological structure and processes that organise human experience and shape a person’s activities and reactions to the environment (Lazarus & Monat, 1979)

5) An individual’s characteristic pattern of thought, emotion and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanisms – hidden or not – behind those patterns (Funder, 1997)

Question 2

The Trait Approach

Answer 2

• Personality is comprised of a collection
  of characteristics (traits)
• Traits can determine behaviour
• Traits can be quantified and measured
• Traits evolve over time

Question 3

Cattell’s Trait Theory (1945)

Answer 3

• Used term ‘personality sphere’ in reference to
  total domain of personality traits
• Lexical hypothesis; every important aspect of
  human personality will be represented by one
  or more words
• 35 personality-related terms
• Examined traits in series of factor analytic
  studies and concluded that there are 16 basic
  or source traits underlying four surface traits

Question 4

Eysenck’s Trait Theory (1944)

Answer 4

• Individuals high in neuroticism tend to be tense, anxious and depressed
• Extraverts are more sociable and impulsive than introverts
• Physiological basis: Introverts have higher level of cortical arousal than extraverts
• Hypothesised that those high in neuroticism had greater activity in the visceral brain
• In 1978 added a third personality factor termed psychoticism
• Psychoticism assesses the predisposition to suffer psychotic breakdown – aggressive, egocentric, antisocial tendencies

Question 5

Measurement of Personality Traits

Answer 5

THE 16 PERSONALITY FACTORS TEST (16PF:
Cattell, 1969):
- 105 questions
- 16 first-order factors
- 4 second-order factors

EYSENCK PERSONALITY INVENTORY (EPI:
Eysenck, 1957):
- 57 questions
- 2 dimensions (Introversion–Extraversion; Stable–Unstable) plus Lie Scale
- 4 personality types

Question 6

Five-Factor Model

Answer 6

Starting point was Norman (1963) who
obtained evidence for five personality factors:
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Question 7

Trait vs. State Measures in Sport Psychology

Answer 7

ENDURING:
- Personality
- A-Trait
- Self-confidence
- Attentional Style
- NA/FF

TRANSIENT:
- Mood/Emotion
- A-State
- Self-Efficacy
- Attentional Focus
- Intensity of Behaviour

Question 8

Trait Pros

Answer 8

• Significant progress in identifying major
  factors of personality
• Strong evidence that heredity plays a role in
  producing individual differences in personality
• Trait approach adheres to scientific methodology and yields testable hypotheses
• When trait-based tests are combined with other detail about the athlete, they can be helpful (Weinberg & Gould, 2019)

Question 9

Trait Cons

Answer 9

• Descriptive not explanatory
• Changes in personality occur over a time; however, most trait theorists have not considered the processes responsible for dynamic changes in personality
• Mischel (1968) argued that the central weakness stems from the assumption of cross-situational consistency (that any given person should behave in a reasonably similar fashion in different situations
• Mischel (1968) concluded that the correlation between personality and behaviour rarely exceeds 0.30
• Trait-type tests are sometimes misused (e.g., Tutko et al.’s 1969 Athletic Motivation Inventory; AMI)

Question 10

Personality Research in Sport Psychology

Answer 10

• Laborde et al. (2020; IJSEP)
• Mapping review of trait personality in sport and exercise psych (10 int’l journals; 5,152 abstracts)
• 64 discrete traits identified and categories into 15 higher-order themes
• Most popular traits assessed were: anxiety, self-efficacy, perfectionism, social physique anxiety, and depression
• Most popular higher-order themes were traits related to: negative affect, self-confidence, perfectionism, competitiveness and self-consciousness

Question 11

Personality Research in Sport Psychology

Answer 11

• Piepiora (2021; Brain Behav)
• Sought to determine which traits characterise
  champions in individual sports
• Sampled 600 Polish athletes (20–29 years) then singled out a subsample of champions (n = 56)
• Used the Big Five model to assess personality
• Champions characterised by lower neuroticism and higher extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness

Question 12

Personality Research in Sport Psychology

Answer 12

• Hutchinson & Karageorghis (2013; JSEP)
• Examined comb. influence of asynchronous music and dominant attentional style (DAS) on RPE (N = 34)

DAS determined using Attentional Focusing
Questionnaire (AFQ: Brewer et al., 1996):
- Associators (n = 13)
- Dissociators (n = 10)
- Switchers (n = 11)

• Participants were administered three music
  conditions and three intensities of running within each: 45% HRR, 65% HRR and 85% HRR

Question 13

Limitations in Trait Research

Answer 13

• Early work marred by atheoretical designs
• Tests show low test–retest reliability coefficients
• State measures more predictive of behaviour
• Few tests are sport specific (getting better though!)
• Some tests served purposes of the authors (e.g., AMI; Tutko et al., 1969)
• Tests are transparent
• Small samples used in validation studies
• Only extreme personalities are typed
• What is the ideal level of each attribute