Personality Development Flashcards
What is the paradox of personality development?
You are not the same as 5 years ago but you still feel like the same person. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
What is rank-order consistency?
People tend to maintain the ways in which they are different from other people, even if they themselves change.
What is the term for personality in young children?
Temperament
What is heterotypic continuity?
The change of expression of traits brought by age.
What keep personality so stable over such long periods of time?
1- Many aspects that affect personality remain constant for years, physical body, genes, environment…
2- Early adverse experiences can have long-lasting consequences
3- Person-environment transactions
4- Cumulative continuity principle
What are the three components of childhood temperament?
Positive emotionality, the tendency to experience positive emotions
Negative emotionality, the tendency to experience negative emotions
“Effortful control”, the ability to suppress impulses and wait for rewards.
What traits do the temperament map out into?
Positive emotionality - extraversion/agreeableness
Negative emotionality - neuroticism
Effortful control - conscientiousness
Define the person-environment transactions?
Processes by which people respond to, seek out and even create environments that are compatible with, and may magnify, their personality traits.
What are the person-environment transactions? Describe them
Active, reactive and evocative.
Active is the process by which people seek out compatible environments and avoids incompatible ones
Reactive is the process by which different people respond differently to the same situation
Evocative is the process by which an aspect of an individual’s personality leads to behavior that changes the situation the individual experiences.
What is the cumulative continuity principle?
Principle that dictates that personality traits are stable throughout life and they become more stable as a person matures.
Why does personality gets more stable with age?
Because the environment also gets more stable with age.
What is psychological maturity?
Maturity refers to behavioural consistency and also to specific traits that help a person to fulfill important adult roles. It’s not necessarily a matter of age.
What is meant by personality development?
The change in the mean level of a trait over time
What is a cross-sectional study? What is a danger of it?
A study that surveys people at different ages simultaneously. Cohort effects, the results found might only be applicable to that one group as it might be a result of different age groups, but from different generations, different social and physical environments.
What are longitudinal studies?
Studies that survey the same people repeatedly over the years. Minimize cohort effects but they are expensive and time consuming.
What is the maturity principle of development?
Traits needed to perform adult roles increase with age. There might be a limit though.
What are the causes of personality development?
Physical and cognitive development, change in social roles and responsibilities.
What is the social clock?
It’s the pattern of systematic changes in the demands made over an individual over the years. Get studying, get married, have a kid.
What are the aspects of identity developed by McAdams?
Actor - Traits and roles, see oneself as an actor, child wants to fit in.
Agent - Become someone guided by goals and values, start planning for the future.
Author - Start becoming an author of your own narrative.
What are some ways to change personality?
Psychotherapy, general and targeted interventions and behaviors and life experiences.
What is the difference between general and targeted interventions?
General interventions are aimed at changing important outcomes, such as education or criminal behavior, while targeted interventions are tailored to address personality traits, such as openness.
What is the sociogenomic trait intervention model?
A model that proposes that the first step in personality change is identify the specific thoughts, feelings and behaviors that the person wants to change. Then, the person needs to be challenged to do things outside the comfort zone until the new behaviors become habitual.
What are the obstacles to change?
1- most people like and accept their personalities the way they are
2- fundamental attribution error, people tend to blame bad outcomes and failures on external forces.
3- people like their lives to be consistent and predictable, it’s comfortable.
4- the foundation of personality comes from the person’s primal world beliefs, long-standing views of what the world is like that come from life experiences.
What are the conditions needed to change personality?
The person must think it to be possible and desirable to change, and the forced behavioral change must become habitual for it be considered a personality change.
What are the 7 principles of personality development?
Cumulative continuity principle
Maturity principle
Plasticity principle
Role continuity principle
Identity development principle
Social investment principle
Corresponsive principle
What is the cumulative continuity principle?
Personality increase in consistency as people get older
What is the maturity principle?
People become better equipped to deal with the demands of lice as they acquire experience and skills.
What is the plasticity principle?
Personality can change at any time.
What is the role continuity principle?
Taking on roles can lead personality to be consistent over time.
What is the identity development principle?
People seek to develop and mantain a stable sense of self
What is the social investment principle?
Changing social roles at different stages of life can lead to personality change.
What is the corresponsive principle?
Person-environment transaction can cause personality traits to remain consistent or even magnify over time.
