Week 2 - Personality Flashcards
Define personality
Blend of characteristics that make a person unique.
Martens
1975
Divided personality into 3 levels:
- Psychological core
- Typical Responses
- Role-related behaviour
PERSONALITY - MARTENS
Psychological core
Deepest component.
Incl. attitudes, values, interests, beliefs about yourself + your self-worth.
“real you”
PERSONALITY - MARTENS
Typical Responses
Ways we each learn to adjust to the env.
Or how we usually respond to the world around us.
PERSONALITY - MARTENS
Role-related behaviour
How you act based on what you perceive your social situation to be.
Most changeable aspect of your personality as your behaviour changes as your perceptions of the env. change.
What do the 3 levels of personality, Martens, show when in the pyramid layout?
3 levels encompass a continuum from internally driven to externally driven behaviours.
Studying personality from 5 viewpoints.
What are the 5 approaches?
Psychodynamic
Trait
Situational
interactional
Phenomenological
Who popularised the psychodynamic approach?
Sigmund Freud
According to Coz, 1998, what 2 themes is the psychodynamic approach characterised by?
- Places emphasis on unconscious determinants of behaviour - the instinctive drives + how these conflict w/ the more conscious aspects of personality i.e superego or the ego.
- Focuses on understanding the person as a WHOLE rather than identifying isolated traits.
What is superego
One’s moral conscience
What is ego
Conscious personality
Summarise the psychodynamic approach
Complex.
Views personality as a DYNAMIC set of processes that are constantly changing + often in conflict w/ one another (Vealey, 2002).
Special emphasis is placed on how ADULT personality is shaped by the resolution of conflicts between unconscious forces + the values + conscience of the superego in childhood.
How did Gaskin, Andersen + Morris use the psychodynamic approach + for what?
2020
Used this approach to study the sport experiences of a young man w. cerebral palsy.
Found that sport helped address ind. sense of inferiority resulting from social isolation in childhood.
However, his success in sport didn’t compensate for his feelings of inferiority.
Therefore, his present functioning could be explained by conflicts + unresolved childhood issues.
Weaknesses to the psychodynamic approach
Major weakness - Difficulty in testing this approach.
Also, focuses mostly on internal determinants of behaviour + gives little attention to the social env.
Specialised training is needed to use this approach in a therapeutic manner.
What was the key contribution to the psychodynamic approach?
Not all behaviours of an athlete are under conscious control SO, at times it may be appropriate to focus on unconscious determinants on behaviour.
Summarise the Trait Approach
Assumes that personality traits are rel. STABLE, ENDURING + CONSISTENT across a variety of situations.
What are the reasons for the Trait approach
Psychologists believe the role of situational or env. factors is minimal.
Traits are considered to predispose a person to act a certain way regardless of the situation.
Most noted of the trait proponents in the 1960s + 70s
Gordon Allport
Raymond Cattell - 1965
Hans Eysenck - 1968
Raymond Cattell - 1965
Developed a personality inventory w. 16 ind. personality factors that he believed best describe a person.
Eysenck + Eysenck - 1968
Viewed traits as relative.
2 most significant traits ranging on continuums from introversion to extroversion + from stability to emotionality.
What is the most widely accepted trait proponent today?
BIG 5 MODEL OF PERSONALITY
Allen, Greenless, Jones - 2013
Gill, Williams + Reiftseck - 2017.
BIG 5 MODEL PERSONALITY
Model contends that there’s 5 major dimensions of personality:
- Neuroticism vs. Emotional stability
- Extraversion vs Introversion
- Openness to Experience
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
== Been found to be the most important general personality characteristics that exist across ind.
Been used to show why diff. Exercise interventions are appropriate for people w. diff. personalities.
Neuroticism
nervousness, anxiety
Openness to Experience
Originality
Need for variety