Psychology, self and society: Personality Flashcards
Understanding/ judging people dependant on:
- cultural tradition
- direct communications from others\observation from other’s behaviour
- self-observation
Our observation of our own and other’s behaviour is subjective and bias and thus inaccurate
Definition of personology:
branch if psychology that focuses on the study of the individuals characteristics and of differences between people. Covers the same as everyday knowledge of human nature, namely those abilities that enable us to to say that we know someone well.
Personologists aim at improving such everyday knowledge about people by basing their theories on scientific methods. Personology may therefore be described as the formal scientific counterpart of our informal knowledge of human nature.
Definition of personality theory
is the outcome of a purposeful, sustained effort to develop a logically consistent conceptual system for describing, explaining and/or predicting human behaviour.
Personality psychology:
branch of psychology that studies personality theories
The particular nature and purpose of this conceptual handling of human functioning differs from theory to theory, but it usually includes several of the following:
- an underlying view of the person
- certain proposals of the structure of personality and about how this structure functions
- ideas about what motivates human behaviour
- a description of human development and prepositions about ideal human development
- reflections on the nature and causes of behavioural problems or psychopathology
- an explanation of how human behaviour might be controlled and possibly changed
- ideas about how to study, measure and predict behaviour
Why are there so many personality theories (30+)
- a lot of interest
- far from proclaiming the “correct” description of human functioning
- human behaviour is a complex phenomenon that is dependant on a wide range of interdependent factors such as biological, environmental, social, expectations, social milieu, culture, psychological and spiritual (emotions, religious convictions, values and goals)
Practical and ethical problems in research:
have to use a random group because ethically you cant withhold food, water, sexual abstinence like a concentration camp due to ethical reasons. Cant prove if someone is motivated by sexual and aggressive drives (Freud) or if they want to find meaning in life (Frankl).
What is a person
Originally refereed to the masks that actors wore in Roman times
Personare - “sound through” refers to the voice of the actor emerging from behind the mask
Modern use refers to the individual human being (superficially similar to individual/human being)
Analysed more closely, person is more than just an individual human being as the idea also implies independence or behaviour. In common language we do not call a newborn a person but wont hesitate to call it a human being.
meaning is found particularly in legal terms where a legal person refers to an individual or a group of individuals, such as corporation or a society, which can function independently.
Definition: Person refers to an individual human being who can act independently.
What is personality differentiated from:
- character (values + moral/ spiritual dimension)
- temperament (temper)
- nature (biology)
- self (synonym of personality, people’s view of themselves, core of personality)
- Textbook definition: The constantly changing but relatively stable organisation of all the physical, psychological, and spiritual characteristics of an individual, which determine their behaviour in interaction within the context in which they find themselves.
What is personality
- Enduring pattern
- Cognition (thinking)
- Affectivity (feeling)
- Interpersonal functioning (relating)
- Impulse control (Acting)
- Inflexible and pervasive across situations
- Conscious and unconscious
- A complex pattern of deeply embedded psychological characteristics that are hard to eradicate and are expressed naturally and automatically
- Intrinsic and pervasive
- Enduing qualities an individual shows in his/her ways of behaving in a wide variety of situations
- Focus on overt behaviour, but underlying mental activity (motivation, defences, attitudes, emotions play part)
Character
- often confused with personality
- personology used to be known as characteronology
- now only refers to those aspects f the personality involving a person’s values, ability to behave consistently in congruence to his values
- spiritual and moral dimensions (more specific than personality)
- if behaviour doesn’t fit into character = doesn’t fit in their own ethical standards
Temperament and nature
- refers to emotions in which they express them and deal with them
- fiery nature, temperamental actress
- more specific than personality
Self
used to review peoples views of themselves or core of personality
peoples opinions about personality vary and these three are the 3 main opinions
Personism, situationalism and interactionalism
Personism
- behaviour is influenced by the individual personality
- protagonists of this approach maintain that individuals have certain fixed characteristics or behavioural tendencies that distinguish them from each other
- if theres a difference in a characteristic from another individual, they believe its apparent in all situations
- seems naive and probably no psychologists that adhere to such extreme view
- but some overemphasise and come close
- for example Freud who says everything (including slip of tongue) is cause by unconscious drives= psychic determinism
- psychometric testing is based on personism (based on test how you would react in all work situations)
Situationalism
- view that situation is the only or main determinant of behaviour (reaction to extreme personism by Freud..)
- extreme view= all people in same situation would react in the same way
- linked to idea that all people are equal (genetic differences denied)
- environment that shapes attributes= environmental determinism
- John Watson: father of behaviourism - claimed he could make anything of a child if he had complete control over environment
- Skinners extreme behaviourism also falls under
- extreme form is untenable: evident that individuals act differently in same situations
- extremists say due to different past experiences
Interactionalism
- behaviour is the outcome of the interaction between the individual’s characteristics and the situation in which the behaviour occurs
- acknowledges the influence of individual differences as well as that of the situation
- people react differently even in situations that look the same
- transactionalism: threefold: the person, the situation and the behaviour (doesn’t just react to the situation but also to his or her reaction)
Systematic overview of personality theories pg 14
Organise theories into their school of thought (grouping)
- depth psychological approaches
- behavioural and learning theoretical approaches
- person-orientated approaches
- socially-contextualised approaches
Depth psychological approaches
- depth psychologists contend their behaviour is determined by forces within the person of which he is mostly unaware
- these theorists hold different views of the nature of forces and degree of conscious control that individual can exercise over such forces
- earlier theorists emphasise the biological nature of psychological forces, other more modern ones highlight the social nature and orientation of psychological forces
Behavioural and learning theoretical approaches
- emphasise the study of observable behaviour and consider learning and environmental influences to be the most important factor of behaviour
- extreme behaviourists like Skinner: all behaviour and learning can be explained without any reference to needs or conscious experiences
- more modern group like Bandura: learning can take place through imitation of others and the cognition plays an important role in the learning process
Person-orientated approaches
- theorists try to include and explain all aspects of the person in their theories
- view depth psychology and behaviourism as inadequate cause they only study certain aspects of the person
- existentialists: people direct their own life through ideas they set for themselves
- Rogers however contends people naturally strive for the fullest development of their inherited potential
- Kelly emphasises the efforts humans make to predict events in their environment
Socially-contextualised approaches
- ways of thinking about human functioning where the embeddedness of the person within social context is emphasised
- ecosystemic approach: emphasised that individuals can only be understood as part of the complex totality of more encompassing systems in which they are embedded. Important role in psychotherapy
Pattern used textbook to compare different theories
Background of theorist/theory
View of the person
Structure of personality
Dynamics of personality
Development of personality
Optimal development
Views on psychopathology
Implications and applications
Interpretation and handling of aggression
Evaluation of theory
