Personality Trait Theory Flashcards
PERSONALITY
- person’s unique/relatively stable beh patterns
- consistency of who you are/have been/will be
CHARACTER
- personal characteristics that have been judged/evaluated
TEMPERAMENT
- hereditary personality aspects ie. sensitivity/moods/irritability/adaptability
PERSONALITY TRAIT
- stable qualities person shows in most situations
PERSONALITY TYPE
- people w/several common traits
PERSONALITY TYPES
- categorial
- type approach assumes:
1. each of us fits into 1 personality category
2. all people in category = alike
3. each personality type = dif from all others
PERSONALITY TRAITS
- continuous
- trait approach categorises people according to degree to which they manifest particular characteristics
- people’s unique personalities explained by having ^/lesser trait amounts consistently found across people
THE TRAIT APPROACH
- examines relationship between personality characteristics/thought/beh
- basic views include:
1. traits = organised
2. traits = fundamental personality building blocks
MCCRAE & COSTA (1990) - traits = dimensions of individual difs in tendencies to show consistent patterns/thoughts/feelings/actions
ALLPORT (1937) - generalised/focalised neuropsychic system (peculiar to individual) w/capacity to render stimuli functionally equivalent; to initiate/guide consistent/equivalent forms of adaptive/expressive beh
TRAIT APPROACH ASSUMPTION I
- There are personality difs between people (relative/absolute).
- we share same traits (ordinal measurement; no true 0) but composition/pattern of traits varies person to person
- trait approach tries to measure degree to which person = ^/less sociable/introverted compared with others/norms rather than trying to measure traits in absolute/sense
TRAIT APPROACH ASSUMPTION II
- Personality traits = relatively stable across time/situations.
- trait researchers = not interested in predicting 1 person’s beh in given situation
- instead want to predict how people who score within certain trait continuum part will typically beh
- compare beh of people who are relatively high on trait w/those relatively low on trait
- personality consists of trait patterns which form unique combo in each relatively stable person over time/across situations
- many argue that too much emphasis is placed on stability
THE TRAIT CONTINUUM
- traits = normally distributed
- scores will have normal distribution (fewer people score in extreme on any trait)
- any personality characteristic can be illustrated w/trait continuum
- wide range of behs can be represented on trait continuum (ie. achievement motivation = highly driven/persistent on one end; indifference/no drive at other extremes)
- traits = bipolar; for any trait these is opposite lying on same continuum (ie. high/low optimism)
- each person can be placed somewhere on continuum (ie. ^/less aggressive/friendly)
TRAIT CONTINUUM EXAMPLE
EG: CONFIDENCE
- all personality traits can be described on a continuum showing either end of trait
- ie. how confident are you?
apprehensive - cautious - self-assured
- ie. how emotionally stable are you?
emotionally stable - neutral - emotionally labile
TRAIT CONTINUUM: CONTINUITY
- traits = continuous; people have ^/less of a trait via demonstrating beh:
1. more/less frequently
2. more/less intensely
3. often/rarely across a wide situation range - traits can be distinguished from states:
1. enduring/stable over long periods/situations
2. brief/situation-specific
TRAIT CONTINUUM: INDEPENDENCE
- dif traits generally seen as independent
- person’s position on 1 trait has little/0 to do w/position on another trait
- contrast w/type approach where similar trait clusters used to classify people into particular types
- BUT controversy surrounds idea that dif traits = independent
- highlighted by essential trait approach
- dif approaches to factor analysis
TRAIT APPROACHES
TYPOLOGICAL APPROACH
- attempts to classify people into distinct categories using particular trait clusters
SINGLE-TRAIT APPROACH
- focuses on one particular personality trait to explain range of important behs
MANY-TRAIT APPROACH
- focuses on many dimensions of personality; correlates w/beh
ESSENTIAL-TRAIT APPROACH
- attempts to reduce ‘many-traits’ to a few essential traits to understanding personality
GORDON ALLPORT (1897-1967)
- 1921; published first work on traits “Personality Traits: Their Classification/Measurement”
- psychologists would do well to give full recognition to manifest motives before probing unconscious
- personality = real entity w/physiological components in nervous system
ALLPORT: HIGHLIGHTS
- Hierarchical organisation of traits; a few traits can explain most beh.
- Healthy personality = as important to study as neurosis.
- Conscious values/motives shape personality not just unconscious drives.
- Personality = dynamic; adult motivation (growth/coherence/creativity) = dif from children’s motivations (tension reduction).
- Functional autonomy.
FUNCTIONAL AUTONOMY
- out motives become independent of their childhood origins (ie. a child might clean room to please parent BUT values tidiness as adult)
- a likely reaction to Freud; Allport didn’t agree that childhood experiences continue to influence us strongly as adults
IDIOGRAPHIC VS NOMOTHETIC APPROACHES
IDIOGRAPHIC APPROACH
- emphasises uniqueness of individuals; aims to identify unique combination of traits that best account for single individual’s personality
NOMOTHETIC APPROACH
- emphasises comparability among individuals; compares many people along same personality dimensions/traits
MORPHOGENIC APPROACH
- attempt to blend nomothetic/idiographic perspectives
IDIOGRAPHIC METHODS
- take into account each person’s uniqueness
- behavioural observations
- flexible self-reports
- interviews
- Q-sorts
- takes into account each person’s personal dispositions; people have dif traits
NOMOTHETIC METHODS
- argues that people have dif amounts of a trait BUT they all have same finite set of traits (ie. Big Five)
ALLPORT: THE LEXICAL APPROACH
- all important traits = captured by language
- identified 17,953 in English language each describing a personality trait
- traits occur in dif combos; make each of us unique; influence our beh
- each person has various types of traits organised hierarchically according to how they influence beh
ALLPORT: STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
- traits = building blocks
- occur in combos; each person’s combo makes them unique
- organised hierarchically based on how much they influence beh
- common traits
ALLPORT: HIERARCHICAL ORGANISATION
- most people can identify 5-10 traits describing themselves best
- these traits make us dif from others
CENTRAL TRAITS
CARDINAL TRAITS
SECONDARY TRAITS
CENTRAL TRAITS
- personality building blocks
- central traits best describe individual’s personality
- traits in combo organise most of person’s beh
CARDINAL TRAITS
- occasional person can be best described by single/overriding dominant trait that influences beh/defines life (ie. Mother Teresa = kindness)
SECONDARY TRAITS
- many consistent traits which aren’t often exhibited/are of limited value in understanding individuals but may influence some beh
COMMON TRAITS
- within any particular culture there are common traits that are a part of it
- everyone in that culture recognises/identifies them
- traits that we share via common bio/cultural heritages
- roughly comparable among people
- make us the same
PROPRIUM & THE SELF
- proprium = organising structure of personality/the self/the core
- responsible for self-esteem
- self-identity
- self-image
- begins developing in infancy; continues throughout adolescence
THE CALIFORNIA Q-SET
BLOCK (1978)
- California Q-set; 100 phrases each describing a personality trait:
- shy/reserved
- verbally fluent
- facially/gesturally expressive
- genuinely dependable/responsible person
- traits measured via Q-set at young ages can predict complex behs later (ie. drug abuse/political orientation/depression)
BLOCK ET AL (1991)
- depression in women aged 18 predicted by specific Q-sort items at age 7:
- shy/reserved/over-socialised/self-punishing/overcontrolled
ESSENTIAL TRAIT APPROACH: EXTENDED
- tried to synthesise/formalise many traits but important qs remain
- debate continues; further complicated by traits labelled as subjective; similar traits given dif labels by dif theorists (ie. neuroticisim/emotional stability usually refer to same trait)
- look for meaning that underlies trait > name
ESSENTIAL TRAIT APPROACH: RESEARCHERS
- psychologists developed statistical approaches to simplify/objectify personality structure; applied tools of scientific enquiry/scientific theory to human personality (aka. Psychometrics Theory)
EYSENCK (1947) - short listed 3 essential traits: extraversion/neuroticism/psychoticism
CATTELL (1961) - 16 essential traits: IQ/stability/friendliness
THE BIG 5
MCCRAE & COSTA (1987)
- aka. OCEAN:
- Openness
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism/Negative Emotionality
