Personality psychology Flashcards
define personality
it is the characteristic ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that make a person an individual
define trait
a relativley permanant characterstic
Allport believed?
that personality was an individual difference. Introduced trait as a neuropyschic system that could make environmental simuli similar and that could initaiate and guide consistancy
central traits
are the building blocks of personality
cardinal traits
are the core traits that are regarded s the basic building blocks for personality development
secondary traits
perferances and attituides that can change according to a particular situation
what does eysenck believe
personality is developed through the amount of cortical arousal. Eysenck created the dimensions of personality:
what are the dimensions of personality
- extraversion (sociable, outgoing, active, optimistic)
- introversion (unsociable, passive, careful, reserved)
- psychoticism (recklessness, disregard)
- neuroticism (touchy, moody, restless, anxious, rigid)
McCrae and Costa the big 5
Openess to experience: outgoing liberal, and interested in new things to reserved, conservative and traditional
Conscientiousness: organised, careful, determined to careless and weak willed
Extroversion: outgoing, social activites to solitude, small groups
Agreeableness: extremes of stubborn to wasy going
Neuroticism: instability of emotions to reserved, calm and unemotional
Strengths of trait theory
- objectivity
- easy of use and understanding
Criticisms to trait theory
- poor predictor of future behaviour
- does not address development
- no means of change
how can personality traits be measured
- projective tests (ink blot test, thematic apperanece test)
- self report (questionnaires)
Humanistic theory researchers
- maslow
- rodgers
Humanstis hold the following beliefs
- the present is the most important aspect of the person and therefore humanists focus on the here and now rather than looking at the past of trying to predict the future
- is reality based and healthy people must take responsability for themselves
- the individual posses an inherent worth
- the goal of life should always be to achieve personal growth and understanding
maslows heirachy of needs
1- physiological needs: need for food, water, shelter
2- safety needs: need for saftey and secruity
3- belonging and love needs: need for love, acceptance and belonging
4- esteem needs: need for achievement, education, competance, and respect
5- need for self actualisation: need to realize our fullest potential
maslow believed
that people are born good and try and achieve their potential in life later in life. People grew up psychologically from withing and are motivated to do so. The drive towards groth, self expression, creativity and the achievement of ones highest unique potential
carl roger and the client centered approach
1- unconditonal postive regard
2- non judgemental attitude
3- disclosure
4- reflection
how to measure humanistic theory
q-sort: aims to determine where a person lies on qualties at the beginning of treatement and then to re asses at various intervals and a the end to determine progress
Strengths of humanstic theory
- focuses on the positive nature of humankind and the free will associated with change
- ease of use and understanding
weakenesses of humanistic theory
- lack of concrete treatement approaches aimed at specific issues
- falls short in the ability to help those with a sever personality or mental health pathology
What does Bandura believe (self cognitive approach)
human behaviour as an interaction between cognitive factors, environmental factors, and the behaviours themselves.
Model of recipriocal determinism - banduara
cognitive factors, enviornmental factors, behavioural factors all affect each other
self efficency
the degree to which an indivudual believes in their own abilities and capabilities to manage and perform in a situation.
Mischel believed (self cogntive approach)
that peoples behaviour from situation to situation was variable and depended on the situational ciumstances
people on the side of personailty argue that
- peronsality is a strong predictor of behaviour across all situation, but is not a strong predictor at a specfifc time in a specific situation
- people choose their situations and these choices reflect personality
- there are no psychological variables that predict behaviour more strongly than personality
