Prologue - Reading Flashcards
3 main parts of the books framework
Social actor
Motivated agent
Author
Art and science of personality
Everyone has a unique personality - art
However there are types of people and this is the science, determining the similarities and grouping them
Author (1)
Late teenage to young adulthood
Erikson challenge of identity
In some ways is an extension of actor and agent
People in this stage of life take on new roles in which they refine and express their personality traits
Conscientiousness and agreeableness usually increase as they take on work or become parents
Can involve exploration of ideological and occupational options and the commitment to long term values and goals
Hence this brings an important change in personality
Author (2)
What do we use to author 2?
ALSO
In order to find an identity, we selectively reconstruct the past and imagine the future to create a narrative identity
Allows for a sense of temporal continuity - who we were, are and will be
Story shows why and how the person developed through time
We use biographical date and also culture (images, narratives, ideologies) to make this story
Motivated agents
Middle childhood on
Arrangement of goals, motivations and values: what someone hopes to accomplish
Is layered over traits
Present and future facing
Personality is
What does it happen over and through
a developing configuration of psychological individuality that expresses a person’s recognizable uniqueness, wherein life stories are layered over goals and values which are layered over dispositional traits
This happens over time and through culture
Social actors
We must act well with peers to replicate
We are all born with an acting style
The can be temperament to dev psychs
Morphs with time into traits
What are the two disciplines of the book
Personality psychology - innate and stable traits
Developmental psychology - temperament as stable but also interested in how people change
3 things to become a human
1 - You play out your signature traits on life’s stages
2 - You pursue cherished goals and values
3 - You narrate and live a story about your life that gives a sense of purpose
Perspective - Social Actor
What are the content, emergence focus and relevant questions?
Content - dispositional traits
Emergence - infancy
Focus - present
Questions:
How do I act?
How do I feel?
Perspective - Motivated Agent
What are the content, emergence focus and relevant questions?
Content - Goals, Plans, Projects, Values
Emergence - Middle childhood
Focus- Present and future
Questions:
What do I want?
What do I value?
Perspective - Autobiographical Author
What are the content, emergence focus and relevant questions?
Content - Narrative Identity
Emergence - Young Adulthood
Focus - Past, Present & Future
Questions:
What does my life mean?
Who am I?
Who have I been?
Who am I becoming?
Gordon Alport
Father of personality psychology
You need top have an interplay of nomoethic and ideographic to understand personality
Nomoethic
General, applies to all
Idiographic
Individual
