Week 1

Question 1

Define personality (Allport, 1937)

Answer 1

‘the outstanding characteristic of man is his individuality. There was never a person just like him, and there will never be again’ Allport

Question 2

What does personality consist of:

Answer 2

“the more or less stable, internal factors that make
one person’s behaviour consistent from one
time to another, and different from the
behaviour other people would manifest in
comparable situations” Child 1968

Question 3

Define personality (Funder 1997)

Answer 3

“an individual’s characteristic patterns of thought,
emotion and behavior, together with the psychical
mechanisms – hidden or not- behind those
patterns.”

Question 4

Define personality (APA, 2016)

Answer 4

Personality refers to
* “individual differences in characteristic
patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving”
(APA, 2016)

Question 5

The aims of human sciences are: (3)

Answer 5

1)To explain human behaviour
* Using experimentation and observation
2)To predict human behaviour
* By formulating theories developed from research
data
3) To develop interventions/solve problems
* Real world value

Question 6

The scientific approach

Answer 6

Testing knowledge (theory) through observation and
experimentation
1)Empirical method
2) Self-correcting method
3)Critical thinking

Question 7

Empirical method

Answer 7

Valid knowledge is based on observation or experience

Question 8

Self-correcting method

Answer 8

If what you observe, does not fit the theory, change the theory

Question 9

Critical thinking

Answer 9

A blend of open-mindedness and skepticism
* Separate sense from non-sense
* Look for the trail of evidence to support a conclusion

Question 10

Defining Personality (4)

Answer 10

1)What makes us unique as people
* Focus on the individual as a functioning whole
2)The study of personality can focus on individual
differences or on how traits form individual
people
3)Personality is stable over time and therefore trait-
like
* Traits can be both positive and negative
4) Personality influences perceptions, values,
attitudes

Question 11

Key terms (4)

Answer 11

1)Stable
2) Internal
3)Consistent
4)Difference

Question 12

define ‘Stable’

Answer 12

Personality remains relatively constant over time

Question 13

define ‘internal’

Answer 13

Personality lies within us, but how we behave is
determined in part by our personality

Question 14

define ‘consistent’

Answer 14

We expect people to behave fairly consistently

Question 15

define ‘difference’

Answer 15

Individual differences in personality lead people to
behave differently from one another in similar situations.

Question 16

Who is Freud (4)

Answer 16

1)Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
2)Famous for: psychoanalysis
3)Viewed personality as: A dynamic flow of mental energy
4)“The interpretation of Dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind”.

Question 17

Who is Jung (4)

Answer 17

1)Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
2) Famous for: analytical psychology
3) Viewed personality as: The psyche as a non-
physical space that has its own reality
4)“Children also contain a future personality
within themselves, the being that they will be
in the following years”

Question 18

Who is Allport (4)

Answer 18

1)Gordon Allport (1897-1967)
2)Famous for: taught the first Uni
course on personality
3) Viewed personality as: A collection of traits
4) “The outlines of the needed psychology of becoming
can be discovered by looking within ourselves; for it is knowledge of our own uniqueness that supplies the
first, and probably the best, hints for acquiring orderly knowledge of others.”

Question 19

WEIRD science

Answer 19

W estern
E ducated
I ndustrialised
R ich
D emocratic

Age (also)