WEEK 2 - HISTORY OF PERSONALITY

Question 1

what is personality defined as

Answer 1

‘dynamic organisation of psychophysical systems’, creating patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings - Allport

Question 2

What is physiognomy

Answer 2

Lavater - our appearance including our organs reflect our personality. e.g upper body reflected our morals our head and face reflected our intellect

Question 3

what is a craniometry, what did they tell us about our personality?

Answer 3

measuring the skull, particularly popular with racists trying to justify slavery. It was later abandoned as the correlation between brain size and personality was rejected.

Question 4

what is phrenology, how did it tell us about personality?

Answer 4

the shape of the brain was assessed to tell us about personality, by physically examining bumps on your head, this had no credibility because skull shape is not related to brain shape.

Question 5

explain the psychoanalytical approach in regards to personality

Answer 5

The psychoanalytical approach was developed through Freud, it focuses on unconscious motives. The personality is developed of the id, ego and super ego. conflict between these release anxiety which is then dealt with through defence mechanisms.

Question 6

what does the learning theory say about personality

Answer 6

differences in personality are due to differences in learning experiences

Question 7

what do the cognitive and humanistic approaches say about personality

Answer 7

Maslow and Rogers - unconditional positive regard and ideal & real self
Kelly and Ellis - personal construct system built from feedback and experiences and rational and emotive

Question 8

what is the trait approach to personality

Answer 8

the trait theory has 2 underlying assumptions that personality traits should be stable across time and context.
early work was conducted by Galton (the more words appear in terms of personality the more important they are) and Sheldon (body types relating to character)

Question 9

Cattell’s approach to personality

Answer 9

• first to use factor analysis
• produced 16 factors to represent personality

Question 10

Eysenck’s approach to personality

Answer 10

• 3 types of spectrums. (introversion-extraversion, stability-neuroticism, psychoticism-self-control)

Question 11

Costa & McCrae approach to personality

Answer 11

the big 5. openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. Created NEO-PI-R. There were further contributions to add honesty to the big 5.

Question 12

limitations of the big 5

Answer 12

label appropriateness. (ambiguity within labels), too fixed with no theory behind it, poor when predicting behaviour

Question 13

how to measure personality

Answer 13

Galton - psychometrics, usually questionnaires, surveys and produced bell curve. personality tests and aptitude tests (measuring peoples knowledge and reasoning).

Question 14

limitations with measuring personality

Answer 14

social desirability bias and vagueness