PERSONALITY
Chapter 14
PERSONALITY
• Pattern of feeling, motives, and behavior that set people apart
from one another
• Psychologists describe personality characteristics and explain
how personality develops
• Also try to predict how people will respond to life’s demands
TRAIT APPROACH
• Trait: aspect of personality that is relatively stable
• Where do traits come from?
TRAIT APPROACH
• Hippocrates
• Humors: yellow bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile
• Traits are a combination of different humors
• Gordon Allport
• Traits are building blocks of personality
• Behavior is result of specific combination of traits
• Traits are the predisposition to react in a specific way
to a broad range of situation
• Helped identify over 18,000 words to describe
personality
TRAIT APPROACH
• Hans Eysenck
• Introversion vs. extroversion and emotional stability vs.
instability and impulse control vs. psychotic
• The first two factors create 4 combinations, related to the
four basic temperaments recognized by ancient Greeks:
• Melancholic (introverted + unstable): sad, gloomy
• Choleric (extroverted + unstable): hot-tempered, irritable
• Phlegmatic (introverted + stable): sluggish, calm
• Sanguine (extroverted + stable): cheerful, hopeful
UNSTABLE
Moody
Anxious
Rigid
Sober
Pessimistic
Reserved
Unsociable
Touchy
Restless
Aggressive
Excitable
Changeable
melancholic
Quiet
choleric
INTROVERTED
Passive
Careful
Thoughtful
EXTRAVERTED
phlegmatic
Peaceful
Controlled
Reliable
Even-tempered
Calm
Impulsive
Optimistic
Active
sanguine
Sociable
Outgoing
Talkative
Responsive
Easygoing
Lively
Carefree
Leadership
STABLE
FIVE-FACTOR MODEL
• Five basic personality
factors
• OCEAN
• Suggests that people are
born with their
personality which
matures
• But personality is still
influenced by culture
RAYMOND CATTELL
• Two categories of traits
• Surface traits: make up the visible areas of personality
• Source traits: are the underlying characteristics of
personality
• 16 Personality Factors
• Test identifying 16 personality factors (source traits)
• Used factor analysis to discover the 16 personality factors
CATTELL’S PERSONALITY FACTORS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Warmth
Reasoning
Emotional Stability
Dominance
Liveliness
Rule-consciousness
Social Boldness
Sensitivity
Vigilance
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Abstractedness
Privateness
Apprehension
Openness to change
Self-reliance
Perfectionism
Tension
16 PERSONALITY FACTORS
DISCUSSION
• Are personality traits set in stone or do they depend on the
situation?
• Can we change our traits?
• Can we do it easily?
• Are our traits formed at birth? Or are they influenced by the
environment?
PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
• All people undergo inner
struggles
• Humans have biological drives
that conflict with laws and social
conventions
• Psychological problems are
rooted in the unconscious
SIGMUND FREUD
• Father of Psychoanalysis
• Used psychoanalysis to explore unconscious
• People talk about any ideas or memories that pop into their mind
• Also used hypnosis and dream analysis
ID, EGO, AND SUPEREGO
• Id-basic drives
• Wants immediate gratification
• Ego-reason
• Tries to satisfy the demands of id and
the warnings of superego
• Mediator, balance id and superego
• Superego-moral sense/conscience
• Wants to act in socially appropriate
manner
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
• Personality develops in stages
• Children have conflicts at each stage
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Stage
Focus
Oral
(0-18 months)
Anal
(18-36 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth-sucking, biting, chewing
Toilet training; coping with demands for
control
Phallic
(3-6 years)
Latency
(6 to puberty)
Genital
(puberty on)
Sexual identity; physical differences;
coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Dormant sexual feelings
Maturation of sexual interests
PSYCHOANALYSIS
• Batman/Bruce Wayne
• What happened in his childhood?
• Why is this trauma important?
• How did this impact him?
• How did he handle it well?
• How did he handle it poorly?
• Is he more Batman or Bruce
Wayne?
• Why is his bat phobia important?
• What is the impact of his
relationship to his parents?
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
• Repression
• Rationalization
• Displacement
• Regression
• Projection
• Reaction Formation
• Denial
• Sublimation
PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
• Carl Jung
• Collective unconscious-store of shared human concepts
• Archetypes-basic concepts in collective unconscious
• Hero, wise old man, trickster, etc.
• Alfred Adler
• Inferiority complex-feelings of inadequacy and insecurity
• Erik Erikson
• Eight stages of development
• Named after traits developed during each stage
MYERS-BRIGGS TEST
• Started as test during WWII to help women decide what job type
would fit their personality
• Based on Jung’s four principal psychological functions:
• Sensation, Intuition, Feeling, Thinking
• Test has four pairs
• Extraversion-Introversion
• Sensing-Intuition
• Thinking-Feeling
• Judging-Perception
Extraverted Characteristics Introverted Characteristics
•Act first, think/reflect later
•Think/reflect first, then Act
•Feel deprived when cutoff
•Regularly require an amount
from interaction with the
of "private time" to recharge
outside world
batteries
•Usually open to and motivated •Motivated internally, mind is
by outside world of people and
sometimes so active it is
things
"closed" to outside world
•Enjoy wide variety and
•Prefer one-to-one
change in people relationships
communication and
relationships
Choose which best fits: Extraversion (E)
Introversion (I)
Sensing Characteristics
Intuitive Characteristics
•Mentally live in the Now,
attending to present
opportunities
•Using common sense and
creating practical solutions is
automatic-instinctual
•Memory recall is rich in detail
of facts and past events
•Best improvise from past
experience
•Like clear and concrete
information; dislike guessing
when facts are "fuzzy"
•Mentally live in the Future,
attending to future possibilities
•Using imagination and
creating/inventing new
possibilities is automaticinstinctual
•Memory recall emphasizes
patterns, contexts, and
connections
•Best improvise from theoretical
understanding
•Comfortable with ambiguous,
fuzzy data and with guessing its
meaning.
Choose which best fits: Sensing (S)
iNtuition (N)
Thinking Characteristics
Feeling Characteristics
•Instinctively search for facts
and logic in a decision
situation.
•Naturally notices tasks and
work to be accomplished.
•Easily able to provide an
objective and critical analysis.
•Accept conflict as a natural,
normal part of relationships
with people.
•Instinctively employ personal
feelings and impact on people
in decision situations
•Naturally sensitive to people
needs and reactions.
•Naturally seek consensus and
popular opinions.
•Unsettled by conflict; have
almost a toxic reaction to
disharmony.
Choose which best fits: Thinking (T)
Feeling (F)
Judging Characteristics
Perceiving
Characteristics
•Plan many of the details in
advance before moving into
•Comfortable moving into
action.
action without a plan; plan
•Focus on task-related
on-the-go.
action; complete meaningful
•Like to multitask, have
segments before moving on. variety, mix work and play.
•Work best and avoid stress
•Naturally tolerant of time
when able to keep ahead of pressure; work best close to
deadlines.
the deadlines.
•Naturally use targets, dates
•Instinctively avoid
and standard routines to
commitments which
manage life.
interfere with flexibility,
freedom and variety
Choose which best fits: Judging (J)
Perceiving (P)
LEARNING APPROACH
• Behaviorism
• John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner
• Outside forces (not traits or inner
conflict) shape preferences and
behavior
• Look at behavior instead of mind
• Environment shapes peoples wants
• Socialization-people learn what is
acceptable and desired in their culture
and adopt that as part of their
personality
STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
• Conducted by Philip Zimbardo;
1971
• 24 college students
• Planned 2 week experiment,
ended after 6 days
• Psychological effects of being a
prison guard or prisoner
• Goal was to prove that inherent
personality traits are the source of
abusive behavior in prisons
• Conclusion-the situation rather
than personality caused the
behaviors
LEARNING APPROACH
• Social-Learning Theory
• People act to influence the environment
• Learning through observation
• Internal Factors:
Person
• Skills
• Values
• Goals
• Expectations
• Self-efficacy expectations
Environment
Behavior
HUMANISTIC APPROACH
• Abraham Maslow
• Search for self-actualization
• Takes risks to reach self-actualization
HUMANISTIC APPROACH
• Carl Rogers
• Self-Theory
• People shape their personality
through free choice and action
• Self-Concept
• Viewing yourself as an individual
• Congruence-consistency between
self-concept and experiences
• Cannot live fully according to the wishes
of others and remain true to ourselves
SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH
• Individualism vs. Collectivism
• Individualists-identify self based on personal identity
• Collectivists-identify self based on group they belong to
• Helps account for personality differences between individualistic Western
nations and collectivist nations elsewhere
SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH
• Acculturation
• Process of adapting to a new culture
• Culture influences personality
HISTORY OF PERSONALITY TESTS
PERSONALITY TESTS
• Standardization-test administered and scored the same way
every time
• Reliability-measure of consistency
• Validity-extent that a test measures what it is supposed to
• Objective test-has standardized set of items in form of
questionnaire
• Projective tests-open-ended questions with no specified
answers
RORSCHACH INK BLOTS (PROJECTIVE TEST)
Common responses: bat, butterfly, moth
This is card 1 of 10
Reveals clues as to how people respond to new and
stressful tasks
RORSCHACH INK BLOTS (PROJECTIVE TEST)
Common responses: human heads/faces
This is card 7 of 10
Card is associated with femininity;
Difficulty responding may relate to conflict with female
figures in life
ACCURACY
QUESTIONS TO ASK
• Is the test based on research?
• Who wrote the test?
• Why was the test created?
• Job hiring, psychological problems, therapy, entertainment?
• Do the questions relate to what is being measured?
• Do the results describe personality?
• Would people answer the questions falsely?
GOOD PERSONALITY TESTS
• Myers-Briggs: MBTI
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: MMPI
• 16 Personality Factors: 16 PF Questionnaire
• Big Five: Revised NEO Personality Inventory
BAD PERSONALITY TESTS