 Personality
– describes you as a person –
how you are different from other people
and what patterns of behavior are typical
of you.
 Traits – the terms we use to describe
yourself and others.
Interaction of three factors
Cognitive-personal factors
 • cognitive factors
 • Include our beliefs, expectations, values, intentions, and
social roles
 • personal factors
 • include our emotional makeup an our biological and
genetic influences
Behaviors
 • include a variety of personal actions, such as the things we do
and say
Environmental factors
 • include our social, political, and cultural influences, as
 well as our particular learning experiences
1.
2.
3.
4.
Language ability
Observational learning
Purposeful behavior
Self-analysis
 20.2 Trait
and Learning theories on TV
 TV
assignment – due Wed
• Typed
• 1 page
• What’s required
 Self
efficacy

refers to our beliefs about how much control we have
over situations or rewards
Internal locus of control
 • believe that we have control over situations and
rewards
 Higher achievers, cope better with chronic illness,
report less stress, and are less depressed
External locus of control
 • believe that we do not have control over situations
and
 rewards and that events outside ourselves (fate)
determine what happens
refers to the confidence in your ability to organize and
execute a given course of action to solve a problem or
accomplish a task

You judge your self-efficacy by combining 4 sources of info:
 • use previous experiences
 • compare
 • listen
 • use feedback
Your motivation to do well in a tasks is largely influenced by how
strongly you believe in your own capabilities. Some people have a
strong sense of self-efficacy that applies to many situations
(academics, sports and social interactions), while others have a
strong sense that applies to only a few situations, while others
have a weak sense of self-efficacy which predicts having less
success in many of life’s tasks.









Stopping smoking
Losing weight
Overcoming a phobia
Recovering from a heart attack
Performing well in school
Adjusting to new situations
Coping with job stress
Playing video games
Tolerating pain
Having a high or low self-efficacy can increase or
decrease your performance and success in a
variety of tasks.
Questions
 Describe
a friend’s personality
 Policewomen
have better interpersonal
skills than men
Definition
 an approach for analyzing the structure of
personality by measuring, identifying, and
classifying similarities and differences in
personality characteristics or traits.
 5-factor model
• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism (emotional stability)
 Good at explaining behaviors, not
good at
explaining why people develop these traits
• See pages 316 activity – you and your
boyfriend/girlfriend
 traits
are often poor predictors of
behavior.
• While an individual may score high on
assessments of a specific trait, he or she may not
always behave that way in every situation.
 Another
problem is that trait theories do
not address how or why individual
differences in personality develop or
emerge
1.
TV assignment should be in
the S drive
 Rush
Limbaugh TV show (12/8/92)
“When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia
destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's
being honored, like some godlike figure.
Our priorities are out of whack, folks.”
 What
does this statement show you about
his personality? What traits would you
expect him to have? How would you expect
him to behave towards drugs in his own life?
RUSH LIMBAUGH CAUGHT IN DRUG RING! (OCT 16, 2003)
Top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh has been secretly battling addiction to narcotics -- and he's embroiled in a high-priority
drug-ring investigation, The ENQUIRER reveals in a blockbuster exclusive.
His former housekeeper Wilma Cline has told prosecutors that she illegally supplied Rush with thousands of painkillers including highly dangerous OxyContin -- over four years.
The issue that goes on sale today features a world-exclusive interview with Wilma, shows e-mails Rush sent her seeking more
and more OxyContin, discloses that Rush has gone through drug detox twice ... and much, much more.
Person-situation interaction – students behave with consistency in
the same situation, but behaved differently across different
situations. A person’s behavior results from an interaction
between his or her traits AND the effects of being in a
situation.
•Extravert – you would behave differently at a wedding than at a
funeral because each of these situations creates different cues
to which you respond.
THIS THEORY Describes how Rush L. could be righteous in
criticizing Jerry Garcia’s drug use while being a drug addict
himself.
To understand a person’s behavior across situations, we must
consider both the person’s traits and the powerful cues that
come from being in each different situation.
Traits may not predict behaviors across different situations.
Page 465
 Age 3, reassessed at age 21 – traits were similar
• Development of more stable personality traits begins around age 3
• However, during adolescence, individuals may become less responsible, less
cautious, and more moody or impulsive.

Ages 22-80 years old
• Ages 22-30 – less emotional, less thrill seeking, more cooperative and self•
•
•
•
disciplined = becoming more mature
Most changes occur before 30 – adopt new values and attitudes or revise old
ones.
Few and small changes after 30 – grow in their ideas, beliefs and attitudes
Personality is stable and somewhat predictable
People say there are increases in their desirable changes, but objective tests
show that traits had little to no change. These findings indicate that as people
grow older they tend to report more socially desirable responses rather than
what actually has occurred.
 40%
genetic
 27% nonshared environmental - how
genetics interacts with environment
 26% error - cannot be identified – errors
in testing and measurement procedures
 7% shared environmental - parental
patterns and shared family experiences
 Person-situation
interaction have as much
influence on behavior as traits do
 Traits could better predict behaviors if
traits were measured under different
conditions and situations.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Find a personal ad online – copy and paste it into
Word. (/2 marks)
Match the person’s traits into OCEAN (/5 marks)
Predict how this person would behave on a first
date. (/5 marks)
Then, take a different situation into account, and
describe how this person would behave (be
creative!) (/5 marks)
Create information that will also affect the person’s
personality – genetic factors, nonshared
environmental factors, shared factors (how would
they be similar to their siblings). (/5 marks)