Overview of Personality Psychology
Goals for Today
1. Broadly understand what personality psychology is about
2. Define “Personality”
3. Consider the relevance of personality for the study of
behavior more broadly
4. Overview of Approaches/Paradigms of Personality
5. Provide a general framework for understanding personality
in context.
6. Overview of personality science “in action”
Definition(s) of Personality
(from textbook)
“An individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and
behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms—hidden or
not—behind those patterns” (p. 5)
An individual’s unique and relatively consistent patterns of
thinking, feeling, and behaving
Often focused on differences between people, or “individual
differences”
Is personality even relevant to the study of
“why people do what they do”?
• Does personality even really matter?
• Eg, Obedience to authority
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTX42lVDwA4
Is personality even relevant to the study of
“why people do what they do”?
“The disposition a person brings to the experiment is probably less important a
cause of his behavior than most readers assume….. Often, it is not so much the
kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that
determines how he will act.” (Milgram, 1974, p. 205)
“The obedience effect is due to situational variables and not personality
variables. ….. These findings enable us to rule out the role of personality in
obedient behavior.” (Zimbardo & Weber, 1994, p. 456-457)
Basic Domains/
Paradigms
in Personality
Psychology
Where does your
personality come
from?
Interesting but
primarily historical.
Not directly relevant
to most
contemporary
personality theory
and research
Approach/Paradigm
Summary of focus
Big Names
Trait
Broad individual differences, personality assessment,
predicting differences in behavior
Allport, Cattell
Biological
Tendencies and limits imposed by biological forces such as
anatomy, chemistry, and genetics
Eysenck, Buss
Learning
How external, observable stimuli affect behavior.
Downplays the particular importance of internal
characteristics and early experiences
Skinner, Pavlov
Psychoanalytic
Unconscious influences on behavior, sex and aggression as Freud
motivations. Emphasize early experiences.
Neo-analytic
Self as it negotiates internal and external influences.
Needs and motivations
Jung, Adler, Horney, Erikson
Humanist/Existential
Potential, meaning, growth, fulfillment, free will,
happiness, dignity. Needs and motivations
Rogers, Kelly, Maslow,
Fromm,
Cognitive
Behavior as a function of thinking and situational forces.
Predicting differences in behavior
Rotter, Bandura, Mischel
Somewhat oversimplified categorization of two major contemporary paradigms for Personality Psychology
Trait and Cognitive
Overview of Personality Psychology
Goals for Today
1. Broadly understand what personality psychology is about
2. Define “Personality”
3. Consider the relevance of personality for the study of
behavior more broadly
4. Overview of Approaches/Paradigms of Personality
5. Provide a general framework for understanding personality
in context.
6. Overview of personality science “in action”
A General Framework for
Personality Psychology
Life Events and
Broad Social Contexts
Latent/Enduring Dispositions
Biology
“In the Moment”
Occurrent
Cognitions
Objective Environmental
Properties
Social
and
Behavioral
Events
Perceived
Environmental
Properties
Occurrent
Emotions
Personality Science in action
• Journals
• Conferences
• Application