W1 - intro and origins

Question 1

What are the four domains of differences?

Answer 1

1. Cognitions
2. Behaviours
3. Motivations
4. Affect - feelings/emotions

Question 2

What is differential Psychology?

Answer 2

The study of how and why people differ

Question 3

What did Hippocrates believe? (460-370BC)

Answer 3

• Founder of modern medicine
• Believed in physical cause of illness over spiritual causes
• noticed some coped better than others
• Illness caused by an imbalance in 4 bodily substances

Question 4

What are the four bodily substances suggested by Hippocrates?

Answer 4

• blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile
• correct proportions = healthy
• imbalanced = unhealthy

Question 5

What did Gallen believe? (130-210 AD)

Answer 5

• based on Hippocrates created the 4 humours

- Matched bodily fluids to 4 specific temperaments

Question 6

What were the 4 temperaments?

Answer 6

Choleric = yellow bile 
Phlegmatic = phlegm 
Sanguine = Blood
Melancholic = Black bile

Question 7

What personality traits are assorted to the 4 temperaments?

Answer 7

Melancholic = anxious, reserved, pessimistic, unsocial, introverts and emotionally unstable 
Choleric = aggressive, excitable, changeable, impulsive, emotionally unstable and extraverted 
Sanguine = sociable, outgoing, talkative etc, extraverted and emotionally stable 
Phlegmatic = Passive, careful, thoughtful etc, introverted and emotionally stable

Question 8

What did Plato believe? (427-347 BC)

Answer 8

“no two persons are born exactly the alike; but each differs from the other…”

• recognised everyone id different

Question 9

What is Platos allegory of the cave?

Answer 9

• Prisoners in a cave, can only see a wall and the silhouettes of guards through the flames on the wall
• this is all they know
• some will just watch the shadows others will notice patterns etc

Question 10

What does Platos Cave mean for individual differences?

Answer 10

• Links to latent variables
• observe shadows but origin is unknown
• infer reality from observations of the shadows but interpretation may differ

Question 11

What is Platos Tripartite soul?

Answer 11

• gave personality aspects a part of the body - bio basis

Head = rational/logical, seeks truth and is swayed by facts and arguments 
Heart = spirited/emotional, how feelings fuel your actions 
Liver = appetitive/physical desires, drives you to eat, have sex and protect yourself

Question 12

How does Platos Tripartite soul link to Freud?

Answer 12

Link to Freud’s structure of personality that involves three parts; ID, EGO and SUPERGEGO

Question 13

What did Theophrastus believe? (327-287 BCE)

Answer 13

Confused about how so many people had similar environments but very different personality

• observed different kinds of characters
• most were negative

Question 14

What did Theophrastus find?

Answer 14

• Many different character types
• mostly negative
• each type had a paragraph with it
• used a very lexical approach
• meaning use of words that are present in our language should be expected to have a meaning

Question 15

What did Rene Descartes believe? (1596-1650)

Answer 15

• Advocate for mind-body dualism
• beloved that mind and body are separate
• body = physical so can study
• Mind = spiritual so cannot observe

Question 16

What did Thomas Hobbes believe? 1588-169

Answer 16

• Against dualism
• MONISM
• Mind and brain are the same things
• mind is located in the brain

Question 17

What did John Locke believe? (1632-1704)

Answer 17

• Mind is a blank slate at birth = tabula rasa
• born without innate ideas
• knowledge only gained through experience
• experience gives us our differences

Question 18

What did Charles Darwin believe? (1822-1911)

Answer 18

• produced ideas on evolution and belief in genetics

- survival of fittest leads to change of characteristics

Question 19

Francis Galton ideas?

Answer 19

• Influenced by cousin Darwin
• Interested in Eugenics and genetics
• beloved that under social control racial qualities could be improved for further generations
• produced ideas on selective breeding or certain classes, higher status and rich people

Question 20

What are implicit personality theories?

Answer 20

• intuitively based theories about human behaviour that allow us to understand and both ours and others
• these can be used to explain behaviour
• this process occurs without us realising
• make observations and then we infer cause and effect = making causal inferences

Question 21

What are problems with implicit theories?

Answer 21

• don’t check theory fully and so evaluation may be flawed
• based on causal and non random observation
• only use small amounts of info
• not scientific

Question 22

Psychological definitions of personality

Answer 22

• Allport 1961 = ‘a dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create the persons characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings”

Question 23

What is the idiographic approach to studying personality?

Answer 23

• Focus on uniqueness of individuals
• in depth focus on individuals
• Qualitative methods
• produce case studies
• use interviews, diaries, narratives
• difficult to make generalisations

Question 24

What us the nomothetic approach to studying personality?

Answer 24

• looks at similarities between groups of individuals
• quantitive methods
• self report questionnaires used mostly
• look to find general principles - have a predictive function

Question 25

What are population norms?

Answer 25

represent the mean scores that particular groups of individuals score on a specific test

Question 26

What are 5 subdivisions of personality?

Answer 26

Openness to new experience 
conscientiousness 
extraversion 
agreeableness
neuroticism

Question 27

What criteria should a theory of personality satisfy?

Answer 27

• explanation
• empirical validity
• testable concepts
• comprehensiveness
• parsimony
• heuristic value
• applied value