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Introduction to Personality
Psychology
PSY251- Psychology of Personality
Feyza Çorapçı, PhD
Source: Larsen & Buss, Ch.1
Personality and its essential
elements
Personality is a set of psychological traits and mechanisms
within the individual that are organized and relatively
enduring and that influence his/her interactions with and
adaptations to the intrapsychic, physical, and social
environments
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Personality
Personality is a set of psychological traits and
mechanisms….
• Traits  internal characteristics
• Psychological traits are the ways people are different
from each other on average
– e.g., A talkative person generally talks a lot but have quite
moments as well,
– a shy person is generally anxious with others but is not in some
situations
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• Over 20.000 trait-descriptive adj. in English  these terms are
important– WHY??
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Personality
Personality is a set of psychological traits and
mechanisms….
• Traits help to
– describe people
– explain behavior
– predict future behavior
Traits are not activated all the time
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Personality
Personality is …
within the individual…
• Personality is something the person carries with
him/her
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Personality
Personality traits are organized and relatively
enduring…
• We have different personality traits and they are linked
to each other in a coherent fashion
– She is shy and anxious in meeting with new people, she is more
sociable with familiar people
– other example??
• Enduring across situations and time (esp. in adulthood)
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Personality
….that influence his/her interactions with and
adaptations to the intrapsychic, physical, and social
environments.
• Our personality influences our lives, life choices, actions,
how we select our environments, how we interact with
others…
• Same life events can happen to 2 people with different
personalities
– perceive/interpret the situation differently
– react the situation differently
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Levels of personality analysis
“Every person is, in some respects, like all other
people, like some other people, and like no other
people.” (Kluckhohn & Murray, 1948)
From one of your classmates:
«Personality, in my opinion, is the collection of everything that makes us just
like everybody else and that makes us so unique that we resemble nobody
else.»
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Levels of personality analysis
“Every person is, in some respects, like all other
people, like some other people, and like no other
people.” (Kluckhohn & Murray, 1948)
1. Human Nature
2. Individual and Group Differences
3. Individual Uniqueness
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Levels of personality analysis
1. Human Nature
• How we are “like all others”
• Traits and mechanisms of personality that are typical of
our species and possessed by nearly everyone
– e.g., desire to live with others and belong to social groups
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Levels of personality analysis
2. Individual and Group Differences
• How we are “like some others”
• Individual differences refer to ways in which each
person is like some other people
– e.g., people with high self-esteem, extraverts, sensationsseekers
• Group differences refer to ways in which the people of
one group differ from people in another group
– e.g.,
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Levels of analysis
3. Individual Uniqueness
• How we are “like no others”
• Individual uniqueness refers to the fact that every
individual has personal and unique qualities not shared
by any other individual in the world
«Bireyden gelen parmak izi kadar kişiye özel,
farklı düzeyde potansiyel kutularla doğup o
kutuları çevresel faktörle doldurunca ortaya
çıkan sonuç.»
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Theories of personality
Grand theories of personality
-Human nature level of analysis
-Statements about the universal, core nature of
humans
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Theories of personality
Contemporary research in personality
-Address the ways in which individuals and groups
differ
e.g., introversion vs extraversion
masculinity vs femininity
individualism vs collectivism
inhibited vs. bold temperament
morality
optimism..
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Domains of Knowledge
• Personality psychologists specialize in a particular
domain, such as biological aspects of personality or how
culture impacts personality
Domain of knowledge is a specialty area of science and
scholarship, where psychologists have focused on learning
about specific and limited aspects of human nature
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Six Domains of Knowledge
1) Dispositional domain
2) Biological domain
3) Intrapsychic domain
4) Cognitive-experiential domain
5) Social and cultural domain
6) Adjustment domain
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Dispositional Domain
• What are the most important ways in which individuals
differ from one another?
– Traits and organization of traits
• What are the origins of individual differences and how do
these differences develop?
Taxonomies of personality:
e.g., the Big five
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Biological Domain
• Humans are collections of biological systems, and these
systems provide building blocks for behavior, thought, and
emotion
• Behavioral genetics of personality
– What are the roles of genes on personality?
– e.g., Are identical twins more similar than fraternal twins in
different personality characteristics?
• Psychophysiology of personality
– The role of nervous system functioning on personality
– What is the role of neurotransmitters, circadian rhythms (morningevening person)
• Evolutionary personality psychology
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Intrapsychic Domain
• Mental mechanisms of personality, which may operate
outside conscious awareness
• Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis
– Sexual and aggressive forces drive and energize much of
human activity
– Defense mechanisms
strategies for coping with
anxiety and threats to self
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Cognitive-Experiential Domain
• Focuses on cognition and subjective experience, such as
conscious thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires about
oneself and others
• Self and self-concept
– How we view ourselves
• Goals we set and strive to meet
• Emotional experiences, in general and over time
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Social and Cultural Domain
• Cultural differences between groups is studied (individual
differences and group differences level of analysis)
– e.g., social acceptability of aggression
– E.g., shyness
– Individualistic cultures  shyness is not valued
– Collectivistic cultures  shyness is valued
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Social and Cultural Domain
• At human nature level of analysis, all humans have
common set of concerns they struggle with in the social
sphere
– everyone from different cultures can recognize basic emotions
(happiness, anger, surprise, disgust, sadness, fear)
– The structure of personality traits (OCEAN) is similar across
cultures
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Adjustment Domain
• Personality has a key role in how we cope, adapt,
and adjust to the flow of our daily lives
• Personality is linked with important health
outcomes and problems in coping and adjustment
– e.g., hearth problems, smoking, drinking, risk-taking
• Some deviations and extremities of some
personality characteristics reveal themselves as
personality disorders
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Domains of Knowledge
• We must integrate diverse domains to get the “big
picture” of personality
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