Topic 1a - Approaches to Personality Flashcards
What is Personality?
Behavioural and psychological aspects of individuals
How someone chooses to present themselves
What does Funder (1997) state about personality?
Psychological mechanisms - characteristic pattern of a person’s thoughts, emotions and behaviour
What do Carver & Scheier (2000) state about personality?
Psychophysiological systems create characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings
What do Wilt & Revelle (2014) state about personality?
Affect, behaviour, cognition and desires
What is the Nomothetic Approach to personality?
Individual differences described and explained in terms of predefined attributes - same set of descriptive words can be used for everyone, E.G Extraversion
What is the Idiographic Approach to personality?
Individuals are so unique that two people cannot be described using the same concepts - E.G Freud’s psychodynamic theory = our personality is a balance of unconscious and conscious needs
What does dispositional mean? - Nomothetic Approach
Personality is consistent, internal dispositions to think / act / feel in certain ways - independent of situations, E.G an extraverted person will always be more outgoing.
DO NOT completely deny the role of context and situation
Extraverted people will be more outgoing at a concert and job interview but different levels due to context
What does situational mean? - Idiographic Approach
Personality is a series of unrelated states - determined by situational factors. No core essence - how we respond to individual situations. E.G someone may be extraverted because they have seen someone they know
Early model of personality - What is the history behind the Four Temperaments?
Ancient Greece philosophy
460-377 BC - balance of bodily fluids can lead to physical illnesses
Galen (130-200 AD) - used this to describe temperaments
Balance of bodily fluids determines the balance of temperaments
Excess of fluids = high levels of certain characteristics = mental illness
What are the Four Temperaments?
- Phlegmatic = calm
- Choleric = angry
- Sanguine = happy
- Melancholic = sad
What is Phlegmatic?
An excess of mucus = dull, lazy, controlled, careful
What is Choleric?
An excess of bile = aggressive, volatile, impulsive
What is Sanguine?
High blood levels = enthusiastic, positive, cheerful, satisfied
What is Melancholic?
An excess of black bile = sad, depressed, antisocial, pessimistic
What does the Four Temperament theory contribute to modern understandings of personality?
- Populated the idea of personality types
- Links between biology and personality
Who is Hans Eysenck?
Eminent psychological of the 20th century
What is Eysenck’s Personality Model?
The Gigantic Three - PEN Theory. Inspired by the Four Temperament Theory (Galen)
Initially 1947
What is PEN Theory? (Eysenck)
Psychoticism: added in 1970s
Low = altruistic, rational, organised
High = uncaring, aggressive, cold
Extraversion:
Low = Introversion (asocial and passive)
High = Extraversion (sociable and outgoing)
Neuroticism:
Low = emotionally stable
High = anxious and pessimistic
Are extraversion and neuroticism independent of each other?
Yes - ORTHOGONAL
How was Psychoticism formed?
Eysenck - 1970s
Researched emotionally stable (low neuroticism) people with low fear, anxiety and lack of remorse
What is the definition of psychosis?
Loss of contact with reality
Unrelated to psychopaths / psychoticism
What is the biology behind Extraversion?
Reticulo-cortical system
Ascending reticular activation system in brain stem modulates the amount of electrical activity in the cortex
Extraverts = low levels of cortical arousal, seek out external stimulation to raise these levels
Introverts = high levels of cortical arousal, avoid external stimulation
How does EEG measure cortical arousal?
- Low frequency, high amplitude = low cortisol arousal = extraversion
- High frequency, low amplitude = higher cortical arousal = introversion
What are the methological issues of using EEG’s to measure cortical activity?
Need to ensure the task the person is completing is controlled
Too high or low arousal will cause Extraversion / Introversion traits to adapt to preferred cortisol arousal
What did Tran et al. (2001) find? - EEG study on cortisol arousal and extraversion
EEG waves from frontal regions of the brain
Older PPTs - more stable personality
Moderate tasks (opening and closing eyes) not too active
Compared mean amp of EEG activity
Supported original findings about extraversion - was significant p < .05
High freq. low amp. = low cortisol = extraversion
What is the biology behind Neuroticism?
The limbic system - emotional processing
Neuroticism stability explained by differential activity levels in the reticulo-LIMBIC system
Greater arousal = high neuroticism (more sensitive to emotional stimuli)
What is psychoticism linked to?
Male hormones and dopamine levels
What is Jeffrey Gray’s Biological Theory of Personality?
Behavioural Activation System (BAS) and Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) - based on principles of conditioning and animals (amygdala, ventromedial hypothalamus, midbrain gray matter)
What is Behavioural Activation System (BAS)?
Seeking reward, activates behaviour towards goal, based on conditional responses
E.G if you enjoy talking with a large group of people, when encountering this, BAS will activate and motivate you to interact
What is Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS)?
Focuses attention on potential costs, stops behaviours associated with negative events, avoids harm and punishment
How do BAS and BIS relate to personality (Eysenck)?
- High anxiety driven by BIS = low extraversion and high neuroticism
- High impulsivity driven by BAS = High extraversion and high neuroticism
- Psychoticism seen as separate to BIS and BAS
What is the FFFS system? - Walker et al. (2017) How does it relate to BIS and BAS?
Development of FFFS (Fight/ Flight/ Freeze System)
BIS as an evaluative comparator of response conflicts
BIS (more conscious) response to situations
BAS (more outgoing) response to situations
