Introduction to Personality Psychology
Research Methods
Issues in Personality Assessment
Theories of Personality
Dr. Stephen Weiss
January 24, 2003
Class #1
Personality

Chapter 1:
 What is personality psychology?
What do we mean???

So, when we say “she has a great
personality” or “he’s a jerk”…what do we
really mean?
A generic definition

"Personality may be defined as the
underlying causes within the person of
individual behavior and experience"
Assumptions and Implications
of this Definition…


Personality is a construct that can be used
to explain and predict human behavior
Requires no specific inherent assumptions
about the nature or origins of personality
Assumptions and Implications
of this Definition…


There is little in such a definition that
would be challenged by proponents of
opposing theories of personality
The definition is not sufficiently specific to
make predictions that are empirically
testable in the sense that they can be
compared with available research data
about human behavior
Gordon Allport
(1897-1967)

“The father of personality psychology”

Allport (1961)
 Personality is defined as "the dynamic
organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine his
characteristic behavior and thought"
Assumptions and Implications
of this Definition:



Personality is dynamic
Personality is biologically based
Personality is persistent across
situations
Much controversy…



Each of these elements suggest a relatively specific
theoretical view of about the nature and origins of
personality which are not universally accepted
Each of the elements has, at one time or another, been
challenged by other theorists
Each of the elements is at least potentially testable in
the sense that they make certain predictions that can be
compared with known empirical data about human
behavior
WHICH IS BETTER:
SPECIFIC OR GENERIC?

It depends …



What's the purpose of the definition or theory: how
are you going to use the definition?
What is the "level of analysis": what questions are
you asking and at what level of detail? What are you
trying to predict or explain and at what level of detail?
Is the primary intent to explain and predict human
behavior (experimental or theoretical psychology)? Or
to change or modify human behavior (applied or
clinical psychology)?
We’ll be looking at several different
perspectives of personality…

Dispositional Perspective


Biological Perspective


Personality is inherited
Psychoanalytic Perspective


Stable qualities even in different settings
Our friend Dr. Freud
Neoanalytic Perspective

Ego development, etc.
We’ll be looking at several different
perspectives of personality…

Learning Perspective


Phenomenological Perspective


Behavior changes because of experience
Inner uniqueness plus choice
Cognitive Self-Regulation
Perspective

We are like machines
Perspectives of Personality


These perspectives each give us differing
angles concerning how to view personality
Most pertain to a certain aspect of
personality – while others are grand
theories that claim to give us the total
model of personality (Freud intended his
theory to be such)
Real-world applications…


We’ll be spending the entire semester delving
into personality psychology…we’ll look at it
mainly as the experimental psychologists that
we are
We’ll try to make sense of all this and then we’ll
“give” our information to the organizational
psychologists and clinical psychologists who can
use it in the real world
Personality Psychology:
Fundamental issues


Individual Differences
Intrapersonal Functioning
Fundamental Issues

Individual differences – no two people
are the same


“Why are some children more afraid of
strangers than others”
“Why do some people attribute success to
their abilities and failure to bad luck, and
others attribute successes to luck and failures
to their lack of abilities?”
Fundamental Issues

Intrapersonal functioning

What Allport called “dynamic organization” –
same processes are being engaged but
different inner motives are constantly at work
depending on the situation – the reason why
sometimes we go out and party and
sometimes we stay in to read
Scientific Method


Continuous cycle between theory and
research – constant modifications
Parsimony – keep theories simple – excess
baggage is confusing (never-mind boring)
Methods in the Study of
Personality
Theories of Personality
Chapter 2
Henry Murray
(1893-1988)


At this time most of his American experimental
psychologist contemporaries were studying rat
behavior
Murray studied individuals at a variety of levels
Murray’s Personology



Refers to his unique interdisciplinary
approach to the study of the individual
Employs a wide range of clinical,
psychoanalytic, and experimental methods
Attempted to understand the whole
person
Idiographic approach to personology…

Centers on the individual, using
techniques appropriate to understanding
the uniqueness of each person


Diaries, autobiographies, letters, etc.– case
studies
Murray focused mainly on this idiographic
approach
Nomethic approach to personology…


Study of large groups of individuals in
order to infer general variables or
universal principles
Others focused on this approach
Murray’s approach

Contributed to the multidisciplinary
approach to understanding personality but
does his case study approach have any
flaws?
Case Studies

Features:


Strengths:


Intensive examination of the behavior and mental
processes associated with a specific person or
situation
Provide detailed descriptive analysis of new, complex,
or rare phenomenon
Pitfalls:

May not provide representative picture of phenomena
Research Participants



90% of researchers work at college
universities
Most participants (subjects) come in
research studies are college students
mostly from Intro to psych courses
Often a requirement in most universities
Sears (1986)




Looked at the major journals in social
psych from 1980-1985 and found this:
74% are college undergrads
51% from psych classes
8% are other students (probably grad
students)…so that means more than 8 out
of every 10 subjects are students
Problems with this???


So, we have the majority being 17-19
year-olds and overloaded with white,
middle-class as well
Are they representative of the general
population?
Sears (1986) says no!


The participants in the many research studies
are all college students, and college students
do differ from other people in some respects
Therefore, an important question is whether
these findings generalize to other groups of
people
Orne (1962)



Orne (1962) looked at this issue and
raised some serious questions about
psychological studies in general…
(1) Do people behave differently just
because it’s a psychological study?
(2) Must be careful of “experimenter bias”
which can occur when the experimenter
knows the conditions participants are in
Variables:
Dependent and Independent

DV = Variable (behavior) you are measuring


Anger
IV = variable or variables being manipulated




Age
Gender
Educational level
Socioeconomic level
Experiments

Features:


Strengths:


Manipulation of an independent variable and
measurement of its effects on a dependent variable
Can establish a cause-effect relationship between
independent and dependent variables
Pitfalls:

Confounding variables may prevent valid conclusions
Correlations

Features


Strengths


Statistically speaking, it refers to how strongly one
variable is related to another
Allows researcher to better formulate their hypothesis
– gives ideas that we can explore further
Weaknesses

Data can sometimes fool us (we’ll get to this in a
second)
Correlations

Positive Correlations

Two variables either increase or decrease
together
Hypothetical Example:

During 1988, the number of pregnancies
increased at the same rate as did the number
of rainy days
Correlations

Negative Correlations

The variables move in opposite directions
Hypothetical Example:


During 1988, the number of pregnancies increased at
the same rate as the number of rainy days decreased
Correlations do not mean cause and effect
Correlation not Causation
Research issues…

Research generates more questions than
answers…




Frustrating…yes at times
Challenging…almost always
Fun…if you’re crazy like me
Humility vs. Arrogance



Use humility please
We don’t “prove” anything
We can infer that an effect is real
Research issues…

Statistical Significance
 If it can be shown that an effect is highly
unlikely to have occurred by chance or
random factors – the researcher infers that
the effect is real
 Use words like:
 appears
 evidence supports
 or if you have gathered extremely
convincing evidence you might use:
 strongly indicates
Issues in Personality Assessment
Theories of Personality
Chapter 3
A tough job? Why?

Assessment

The measuring of personality
Methods for obtaining data…


Observations
 Observer ratings (overt-behavioral
assessments)
 Used mostly with children
 Self-reports
 The individual records their behaviors
Inventory

Tests such as the MMPI which access several
dimensions of personality – easy-going, highly
motivated, type A or B, etc.
Making sure things are consistent…

Reliability

Degree of consistency or repeatability
 Internal Reliability
 Inter-rater Reliability
 Test-Retest Reliability
Making sure things are meaningful…

Validity

Are we measuring what we intend to
measure?
Construct Validity
 Criterion Validity
 Convergent Validity
 Discriminate Validity
 Face Validity

Making sure things are meaningful…

Operational Definitions



A definition that explains how you will
measure a construct
Clearly stated descriptions of physical events
Takes all guess-work out of the equation
Problems that get in the way of assuring validity


When we get a response set of
acquiescence
 This is the tendency to say yes to
everything
 Remedy?
Response set aimed at achieving social
desirability -- people want to see
themselves as good, important, etc.
 Remedy?
How do they decide what to measure?

Empirical approach


Relies more on data to decide on the items making up
the assessment device
Inductive approach

Data decides which qualities are worth measuring
 Criterion keying – find out which items are being
answered differently by different groups
 For example: do normals answer the items
differently than patients, etc.