AG Navarro
The Trait Perspective
*define personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior
patterns
-broad personality “types” that signal one’s most
noteworthy trait and associated characteristics
*can be traced back to interview when Gordon Alloport
interviewed Freud in 1919
-talked about a boy w/ dirt phobia incident
Traits: people’s characteristic behaviors and conscious
motives
Ancient Greek personalities:
-melancholic(depressed)
-sanguine(cheerful)
-phlegmatic(unemotional)
-choleric(irritable)
Classification by Isabel Briggs Myers & Karen Briggs—The
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
-sort people according to Carl Jung’s personality
types based on 126 questions
-used in business & career counseling and partner
matching
A. Exploring Traits
Traits have many dimensions
a) Factor Analysis
-statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test
items that tap basic components of personality—traits
-Hans & Sybil Eysenck believe many of normal
individual variations to 2 or 3 dimensions including
extraversion-introversion and emotional stabilityinstability
-Eysenck Personality Questionnaire—
extraversion and emotionality factors are
basic personality dimensions
-believed the factors are genetically
influenced
b) Biology and Personality
*brain activity scans (PET scans) show frontal lobe
area involved in behavior inhibition is less active in
extraverts than in introverts
-extraverts seek stimulation because their
normal brain arousal is relatively low
*genes affect temperament
-Jerome Kagan attributes differences in
children’s shyness and inhibition to
autonomic nervous system reactivity
~reactive autonomic nervous
system= respond to stress with
greater anxiety and inhibition
B. Assessing Traits
Personality inventories: long questionnaires covering a
wide range of feelings and behaviors—designed to asses
several traits at once.
-Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI) (Starke Hathaway): most widely researched
and clinically used personality test—originally used
to screen emotional disorders
~empirically derived: a test developed by
testing a pool of items and then selecting
those that discriminate between groups
~new version: MMPI-2 has newer scales
assessing work attitudes, family problems,
and anger
~objective and can be scored by computer
*weakness: objectivity does not
guarantee validity—for
employment purposes, giving
socially desirable answers to create
good impressions=high score on
“lie scale”
*translated into more than 100
languages
C. The Big Five Personality Factors
Trait Dimension
Endpoints of the Dimension
Organize
 Disorganized
Careful
 Careless
Disciplined
 Impulsive
Agreeableness
Soft-Hearted
 Ruthless
Trusting
 Suspicious
Helpful
 Uncooperative
Neuroticism
Calm
 Anxious
(emotional stability
Secure
 Insecure
vs. instability)
Self-Satisfied
 Self-pitying
Openness
Imaginative
 Practical
Variety
 Routine
Independent
 Conforming
Extraversion
Sociable
 Retiring
Fun-loving
 Sober
Affectionate
 Reserved
Big Five Research explores:
*How stable are the traits?
-emotional instability, extraversion and
openness decrease decades after college
-agreeableness (30-60) and
conscientiousness (20+) increase
*How heritable are the traits?
-50%
*How well do the traits apply to various cultures?
-describe various cultures reasonably well
according to Rober McCrae and 79 coresearchers in 50-culture study
*Do the Big Five traits predict other personal
attributes?
-conscientious people are more likely to be
morning types (larks)
-extraverted= evening types (owls)
D. Evaluating the Trait Perspective
a. The Person-Situation Controversy
*behavior is influenced by the interaction of
inner disposition with environment
*most psychologists believe in stability of
personality traits
*inconsistency of behaviors makes personality
test scores weak predictors of behavior
*Traits exist. We differ. Differences matter.
-music preference
~classical, jazz, blues, folk= open
to experience & verbally intelligent
Conscientiousness
AG Navarro
~country, pop, religious= cheerful,
outgoing & conscientious
-dorm rooms & offices
~scattered laundry or neat desktop=
quick inspection of
conscientiousness, openness &
emotional stability
-personal Web sites
~shows clues to owner’s
extraversion
b. Consistency of Expressive Style
*in unfamiliar, formal situations—our traits
remain hidden because of social cues
*in familiar, informal situations—our traits
emerge
*we often form lasting impressions within a few
moment of meeting someone or hearing someone
talk
-Harvard grad students teaching undergrad
courses & ratings
-surgeons’ intonations
AG Navarro
The Social-Cognitive Perspective
--(Albert Bandura) views behaviors as influenced by the
interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their
social context
-we learn many of our behaviors through
conditioning or by observing others and modeling our
behaviors after theirs
A. Reciprocal Influences
*reciprocal determinism: process of interacting with our
environment
*3 specific ways individuals and environments interact:
1. Different people choose different environments
You choose an environment and it then
shapes you
2. Our personalities shape how we interpret and react
to events
Anxious=attuned to potentially threatening
events perceive world as threatening and
react accordingly
3. Our personalities help create situations to which
we react
Expect someone to be angry=give the cold
shoulder
Easygoing & positive= enjoy close,
supportive relationships
*Behavior emerges from the interplay of external and
internal influences
B. Personal Control
*sense of controlling our environment rather than
feeling helpless
*2 ways to study:
1. Correlate people’s feelings of control
with behaviors and achievements
2. Experiment by raising or lowering
people’s sense of control and noting the
effects
a. Internal vs. External Locus of Control
*External locus of control: perception that
chance or outside forces beyond one’s personal
control determine one’s fate
*Internal locus of control: perception that one
controls one’s own fate
*Self-control—the ability to control impulses
and delay gratification
-requires attention and energy
b. Learned Helplessness vs. Personal Control
*people who feel helpless and oppressed often
feel control as external= feelings of resignation
-Martin Seligman & shocked dogs
~unavoidable shock then when
escape is possible cower in fear
Learned helplessness: helplessness and
passive resignation an animal or human
learns when unable to avoid repeated
aversive events
*under conditions of personal freedom and
empowerment, people thrive
-citizens of stable democracies have higher
levels of happiness
* “excess of freedom” = decreasing life
satisfaction, increased depression, paralysis
c. Optimism vs. Pessimism
Optimism
(+) success; longer life
(-) overconfidence; blind to risks;
incompetence
Pessimism
(+) anxiousness= work to avoid future
failure
(-)quitting & failure; shorter life
C. Assessing Behavior in Situations
*Social-cognitive psychologists explore how people
interact with situations
-to predict behavior, observe people in realistic
situations
~ex: US Army’s WWII spy selection
strategy; educational organizations & many
Fortune 500 companies
D. Evaluating the Social-Cognitive Perspective
*Social-cognitive researchers focus on how situations
affect, and are affected by, individuals
-based off psychological research on learning and
cognition
*Criticisms:
-fails to appreciate person’s inner traits