Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Chapter 13
Personality
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Personality
 Personality is an elusive concept.
 Some psychologists have developed “grand theories” of
personality.
 Others have tried to identify personality types and
describe why an individual classified as a certain
“personality type” behaves in certain ways.
 In this chapter, we will examine the ways of
understanding personality and also discuss the ways of
and problems in measuring this concept.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Module 13.1

Personality Theories
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality


Personality derives from the Latin word persona, which
translates into English as “mask.”
In psychology, personality is defined as the consistent ways
in which one person’s behavior differs from that of others,
especially in social contexts.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
FIGURE 13.1 Philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau held
opposing views of human nature. Psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers also
held conflicting views. Freud, like Hobbes, stressed the more negative aspects of
human nature; Rogers, like Rousseau, the more positive aspects.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician, developed the
first psychodynamic theory of personality.
 Psychodynamic theory relates personality to the
interplay of conflicting forces within the individual.
 The individual may not be aware of some of the
internal forces that are at work influencing thought
and behavior.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 Although Freud’s theory had an enormous impact on
society during the 20th century, his influence within
psychology is waning.
 His theory is very difficult to test empirically.
 Although many psychologists find nothing useful in the
Freudian paradigm, its tenets are still utilized by some
mental health practitioners.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 Freud’s search for the unconscious
 Medicine was not Freud’s first choice of career; he
wished to be a professor of anthropology, but could
not obtain a position due to discrimination against
Jews in 19th-century Austria.
 He was influenced by the psychiatrist Josef Breuer,
who encouraged patients to recall and discuss the
details of traumatic early life experiences in order to
relieve the physical complaints that were apparently a
manifestation of the unreleased emotions associated
with these events.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
FIGURE 13.2 Freud believed that psychoanalysis could bring parts of the
unconscious into the conscious mind, where the client could deal with them.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 Freud’s search for the unconscious
 Breuer and Freud referred to this process as
catharsis, the therapeutic release of pent-up
emotional tension.
 Freud later expanded this “talking cure” into a method
of explaining the workings of personality, based on
the interplay of conscious and unconscious internal
forces, and called it psychoanalysis.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 The unconscious mind contains memories, emotions
and thoughts, some of which are illogical or socially
unacceptable.
 These thoughts and feelings influence our behavior
although we cannot talk about them and may not even
be aware of them.
 Psychoanalysis brings these thoughts to consciousness
to achieve catharsis and help the patient overcome
irrational and dysfunctional impulses.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 Freud noticed that some patients were less seriously
affected by their early childhood traumas than others
were.
 He developed a series of interesting hypotheses for the
“excessive anxiety” that some patients seem to manifest.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 He proposed that excessive anxiety might be due to:
 Lack of sexual gratification
 Masturbation
 Traumatic sexual experiences from early childhood
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 He stood by the “seduction hypothesis” for a number of
years, putting together the evidence for sexual abuse in
childhood from patients’ dream reports, slips of the
tongue, and other indirect evidence.
 Some patients had no recollections of such events, but
Freud nonetheless stood by his interpretations.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 Freud later abandoned the seduction hypothesis,
claiming that his patients had “misled” him (rather than
his interpretations and insistence might have been
wrong).
 He now took the position that his patience had sexual
fantasies as young children and never came to terms
with their anxiety and guilt over those fantasies.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic approach
 Freud developed the concept of the Oedipus complex.
 He concluded that children wish to have sex with their
opposite sex parent but realize that it is forbidden.
 He chose the name based on an ancient Greek play
by Sophocles in which the protagonist murders his
father and marries his mother.
 Like many other constructs proposed by Freud, there
is little reliable empirical evidence to support the
notion of an “Oedipus complex.” Freud rarely
distinguished between his results and his evidence.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 Freud also developed a framework to explain the
development of personality over the course of childhood
and adolescence.
 This framework is known as the Stages of
Psychosexual Development.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 Freud based his theory on what he perceived to be the
changing nature of the individual’s psychosexual interest
and pleasure. Psychosexual pleasure refers to all the
strong and pleasurable sensations of excitement that
arise from body stimulation.
 He believed that how we manage this aspect of our
development influences nearly all aspects of our
personality.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 Freud proposed that people have a libido, a
psychosexual energy (from the Latin word for “desire”).
 Over the course of the lifespan, the preferred channel for
gratifying this desire changes.
 There are five stages, each with its own way for seeking
gratification of libidinous desires.
 If normal development is blocked, a person may become
fixated and continue to be preoccupied with gratification
of the libido in a manner typical of an earlier time of life.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 The Oral Stage (The first year of life)
 The infant derives intense psychosexual pleasure
from stimulation of the mouth, particularly from
breastfeeding but from oral contact with other objects
as well.
 Oral fixation might involve problems with eating,
drinking, substance use, and issues of dependence
on/independence from others.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 The Anal Stage (About 1 to 3 years old)
 The child derives intense psychosexual pleasure from
stimulation of the anal sphincter, the muscle that
controls bowel movements. This is partly related to
toilet training, which usually occurs at this stage.
 Anal fixation might involve problems with extreme
stinginess or need to maintain strict order. Sometimes
the opposite is true, and the person is very wasteful
and messy.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 The Phallic Stage (About 3 to 6 years of age)
 The child derives intense psychosexual pleasure from
stimulation of the genitals, and becomes attracted to
the opposite-sex parent.
 Phallic fixation might involve fear of being castrated
(in boys) or “penis envy” in girls.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 The Latent Period (About 6 years to adolescence)
 The child in this period suppresses his or her
psychosexual interest. Children in this age group tend
to play mostly with same sex peers.
 There is some evidence that the “latent period” is a
cultural artifact. Children in some non-industrialized
societies do not experience a period of “latency.”
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 The Genital Stage (Adolescence and beyond)
 The individual in this period has a strong sexual
interest in other people. If he or she has completed
the other stages successfully, primary psychosexual
satisfaction will be gained from sexual intercourse.
 The individual who is fixated in an early period of
development has little libido left for this stage.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Table 13.1 Freud’s stages of psychosexual development.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
 Evaluation of Freud’s stages
 As with the rest of Freudian theory, these stages are
difficult to test empirically.
 Research that has been done on the psychosexual
stages has been inconclusive.
 Although the personality attributes for people who are
“fixated” at certain stages do seem to correlate, there
is no evidence that they result from the difficulties that
Freud hypothesized occur at those ages (i.e. “penis
envy” in the Phallic Stage).
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s structure of personality
 According to Freud, there are three components to
personality.
 Id, the part that is comprised of all of our biological
drives that demand immediate gratification.
 Ego, the rational, negotiating, and decision-making
component of the personality.
 Superego, the internalized values and rules we
receive from our parents and society.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s structure of personality
 Freud believed that these components were like “warring
factions” struggling for control of the personality and
behavior of the individual.
 Sometimes these struggles cause psychological
distress.
 Psychologists treat this model as a metaphor; most do
not believe that it represents the actual structure of mind.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
Your friend Patricia tells you that she believes that men have
all the advantages in the “sexual arena.” Freud would say that
she….
Is fixated in the phallic stage or suffers from “penis envy”
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
Your friend Oscar can’t seem to go more than 30 minutes
without lighting up a cigarette. Freud would say that he…
Is fixated in the oral stage.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
Your friend Annie can’t seem to hang on to a cent. She
spends her money wildly. Her roommates are always
threatening to call the health department because she
never cleans up after herself and her room always looks
like a “pigsty.” Freud would say that she…
Is fixated in the anal stage.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s structure of personality
 The model of personality that Freud created involves
conflicts and anxiety over unpleasant impulses and
thoughts.
 Freud proposed the existence of defense
mechanisms that function to relegate these
unpleasant thoughts and feelings to the unconscious.
 Most of the time, these mechanisms function as
healthy ways to suppress anxiety.
 They are only viewed as problematic if they prevent
the person from effectively dealing with reality.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
FIGURE 13.3 The ego, or “rational I,” has numerous ways of defending itself against
anxiety, that apprehensive state named for the Latin word meaning “to strangle.” We
use defense mechanisms to avoid unpleasant realities. They are part of an internal
battle that you fight against yourself.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s structure of personality
 Common defense mechanisms…
 Rationalization occurs when people “make excuses” and
reframe unpleasant events as actually beneficial, or their actions
as justifiable or rational (when the actions are arguably not so).
 Repression is “motivated forgetting” of painful or unacceptable
thoughts, feelings or memories.
 Regression is an apparent return to a more juvenile way of
thinking or acting.
“You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever!”
-- (Anonymous)
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s structure of personality
 Common defense mechanisms…
 Denial is refusal to acknowledge a problem or believe
any information that causes anxiety.
 Displacement is the diversion of an unacceptable
thought or impulse from its actual target to a less
threatening object or person.
 Reaction formation involves presentation of one’s
thoughts or feelings as the extreme opposite of what
they actually are.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
-- (W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III Scene ii)
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s structure of personality
 Common defense mechanisms…
 Sublimation refers to the transformation of sexual or
aggressive energies into acceptable and pro-social
behaviors.
 Projection is attributing one’s own undesirable
characteristics or motives to other people.
“It’s no secret that a liar won’t believe anyone else.”
-- (U2, “The Fly” Achtung Baby 1991)
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
Name that defense mechanism!
Your psychology professor, who smokes a pack of cigarettes
every day, “forgets” to list nicotine on a handout you receive in
class that lists addictive substances and drugs of abuse.
Repression
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
Name that defense mechanism!
Your ex-spouse, who cheated on you, writes a best-selling
nonfiction book arguing that human beings are not naturally
monogamous and have an instinctive need for variety.
Rationalization
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
Name that defense mechanism!
You are in love with your best friend’s new flame. The
friendship is an old one and very valuable to you. You tell
everybody that your friend’s new love interest is a terrible
human being and you don’t understand the attraction at all.
Reaction formation
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
Name that defense mechanism!
Your boss yells at you. You come home and yell at your
spouse. Your spouse yells at your child. Your child goes out
to the yard and yells at the dog.
Displacement
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s legacy
 It may seem as if all that has been emphasized about
Freud is how weak his evidence was, and how wrong
some of his conclusions likely are.
 But he did make some enduring and useful contributions
to psychology (although scholars do argue about the
extent to which Freud alone was responsible for
formulating the following notions).
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Freud’s legacy
 Humans apparently have a mental life that is at least
partly unconscious.
 People often have conflicting motives.
 Childhood experiences contribute to the development of
adult personality and social behavior.
 Relationships with people in our family-of-origin have
some impact on relationships we have with others
throughout life.
 Sexual development has an impact on psychological
development.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Neo-Freudians
 The Neo-Freudians were psychologists and others who
adopted some parts of Freud’s theory and modified other
parts.
 Karen Horney believed that Freud exaggerated the
role of sexuality in human behavior and motivation,
and misunderstood the motivations of women and the
dynamics of family relationships.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Neo-Freudians
 Carl Jung created a version of psychoanalytic theory
that put a greater emphasis on the continuity of human
experience and the human need for spiritual meaning in
life.
 He proposed the existence of a “collective
unconscious.”
 Present at birth, the collective unconscious reflects the
cumulative experiences of all of our ancestors.
 The collective unconscious also contains archetypes.
These are figures and themes that emerge repeatedly in
human history and across world cultures.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Neo-Freudians
 Alfred Adler founded the school of “individual
psychology.”
 The word “individual” refers to understanding the whole
person, in contrast with the partitioned model of
personality that was incorporated into the Freudian
framework.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Neo-Freudians
 Adler proposed that humans have a natural desire to
seek personal excellence and fulfillment, a striving for
superiority. We create a master plan for achieving this,
called a style of life.
 People who do not succeed may suffer from an
inferiority complex, an exaggerated feeling of
inadequacy, throughout their lives.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Neo-Freudians
 Adler believed that a healthy striving for superiority
involved concern for the needs and welfare of others.
 He believed therefore that a psychologically healthy
person also had a social interest, a sense of belonging
and identification with other people.
 Psychopathology, in Adler’s framework, involves the
setting of inadequate goals, the adoption of a faulty style
of life, and a lack of social interest.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The learning approach
 Some psychologists believe that the whole concept of
personality is questionable.
 People frequently adopt a variety of behavioral styles
that depend on the social context.
 We exhibit one set of behaviors when we interact with
our parents, another with our coworkers, and yet
another with our friends.
 The learning approach relates specific behaviors to
specific experiences. Often the experiences from
which we learn are those of other people in our
environment.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The learning approach
 For example, a gender role is a psychological aspect of
being male or female (as opposed to your biological
sex.)
 A large amount of cross-cultural research suggests that
components of the male and female gender roles are in
fact learned.
 Boys can be observed to imitate men, and girls to imitate
women.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Humanistic psychology deals with values, beliefs, and
consciousness, including spirituality and guiding
principles by which people live their lives.
 Personality depends on what people believe and how
they perceive and understand the world.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Humanistic psychologists see people as essentially good
and interested in achieving perfection.
 This is in contrast with the morally neutral basis of
behaviorism and the downright negative view of human
nature offered by psychoanalytic theory.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Humanistic psychologists are critical of the deterministic
nature of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
 They avoid looking for simple cause and effect
processes in behavior.
 Humanistic psychologists reject reductionism, which is
also characteristic of behaviorist and psychoanalytic
theory.
 They consider each person as a whole entity.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Humanistic psychologists study peak experiences of
individuals, those moments in a person’s life when he or
she feels truly fulfilled or content.
 Research in humanistic psychology is often qualitative in
nature, recording narratives and anecdotal evidence
about how people behave and think.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Carl Rogers is considered to be one of the founders of
the humanistic school.
 He believed that human nature is essentially good,
and that people strive toward a state of selfactualization.
 Self-actualization refers to a state of achieving one’s
full potential.
 The drive for self-actualization is the fundamental
driving force in Roger’s humanistic model.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Rogers believed that children develop a self-concept,
an image of the person that they really are.
 They also develop an ideal self, an image that
represents the person they would like to be.
 In the Rogerian model, psychological distress is
generated primarily from the incongruity a person
perceives between the self-concept and the ideal self.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Rogers believed that human welfare was best served
when people related to each other in an atmosphere of
unconditional positive regard.
 Unconditional positive regard involves the acceptance
of the person as he or she is.
 Most people receive what Rogers referred to as
conditional positive regard in their important
relationships.
 This means that the person is only held in esteem
when they fulfill certain requirements set for them by
the other person or society.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Abraham Maslow proposed that people have a hierarchy
of motivating needs and that the highest need of these is
the need to become self-actualized.
 Maslow developed a list of characteristics of the selfactualized person based on people who, in his opinion,
had achieved the state.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Humanistic psychology
 Some of the characteristics of the self-actualized
individual are:
 An ability to perceive reality accurately
 Independence, spontaneity, and creativity
 Treating others with unconditional positive regard
 An outlook that emphasizes problem-solving
 Enjoyment of life
 A good sense of humor
 Critics correctly point out that this is not a scientific list,
and merely represents characteristics that Maslow
admired in people.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality


Personality theory in many ways seeks to describe human
nature. It raises some fascinating questions that do not
seem easily answerable.
Many researchers in the area of personality are working on
these questions in small steps in hopes of eventually
synthesizing an accurate larger picture of who we as
humans really are.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Module 13.2

Personality Traits
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Two approaches to personality
 Psychologists have two ways to study and describe
personality.
 The nomothetic approach tries to identify general
laws that describe how aspects of personality
influence behavior.
 The idiographic approach uses intensive studies of
individuals. It does not seek conclusions that can be
applied to people in general.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Personality traits and states
 A trait is a consistent, long-lasting tendency in behavior,
such as sociability, shyness or assertiveness.
 A state is a temporary activation of particular behavior.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Concept Check:
You become very, very nervous whenever you have a
psychology test scheduled. Are you experiencing “trait
anxiety” or “state anxiety?”
State anxiety
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 The idea that people have consistent personality
characteristics that can be measured and studies is
called the trait approach to personality.
 Psychologists have studied many familiar personality
traits.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 Locus of control
 One set of traits that psychologists study has to do
with an individual’s perception of the amount of
control that he or she has over the course of life
events.
 This concept is referred to as locus of control.
 People who believe that their lives are controlled by
external forces are said to have an external locus of
control.
 People who believe that they are in charge of their
lives have an internal locus of control.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Table 13.2 Sample items from the Internal–External scale.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 The Big Five personality traits
 Using a statistical technique to determine which traits
correlate most strongly with each other (factor
analysis), psychologists have found five major groups
of related traits.
 These are: neuroticism, extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness
to new experience.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 The Big Five personality traits: Neuroticism
 Neuroticism is the tendency to experience unpleasant
emotions very easily.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 The Big Five personality traits: Extraversion
 Extraversion is a tendency to seek stimulation and
enjoy the company of other people.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 The Big Five personality traits: Agreeableness
 Agreeableness is a tendency to be compassionate
rather than antagonistic towards others.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 The Big Five personality traits: Conscientiousness
 Conscientiousness is the tendency to show selfdiscipline, to be reliable, and to strive for competence
and achievement.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 The Big Five personality traits: Openness to
Experience
 Openness to Experience refers to a tendency to enjoy
new experiences and new ideas.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The search for broad personality traits
 Criticisms of the Big Five description:
 It was based on a study of the English language, not
on observations of human behavior.
 There are too few traits included.
 There are too many traits included.
 It has limited applicability cross-culturally.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The origins of personality
 What makes people differ in behavior and disposition,
anyway?
 Heredity – monozygotic (identical) twins tend to
resemble each other more strongly than other
relatives on measures of personality traits.
 Heredity – biological relatives tend to resemble each
other more than adoptive relatives or unrelated
persons.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
FIGURE 13.16 Five studies—conducted in Great Britain, the United States, Sweden,
Australia, and Finland—found larger correlations between the extraversion levels of
monozygotic (MZ) twins than those of dizygotic (DZ) twins. (Based on data
summarized by Loehlin, 1992)
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
FIGURE 13.17 Three studies—from Britain, Minnesota, and Texas—measured
extraversion in members of hundreds of families. Each found moderate positive
correlations between parents and their biological children and between pairs of
biologically related brothers and sisters. However, all found low or even
negative correlations between parents and adopted children and among adopted
children living in the same family. (Based on data summarized by Loehlin, 1992)
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The origins of personality
 Environment – one would expect that the resemblance
in personality between family members would be
stronger than it is given the combined effects of genetic
factors and shared environment.
 Environment – some researchers have proposed that
there is an influence from the unshared environment;
that there are aspects of the environment that differ from
one person too another (i.e., with each new birth in a
family, the environment changes).
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

The origins of personality
 Age – in general, the older a person is, the more
consistent his or her personality is over time.
 Age – the increased consistency as people age can be
observed cross-culturally.
 Historical era – researchers have found that anxiety
levels appear to be increasing over the past few
generations.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality

Psychologists are still grappling with the enigma of human
personality. People are not just different from each other;
the same people are different depending on the situation.

We are complex creatures and this area of research is very
challenging.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Module 13.3

Personality Assessment
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment




Personality testing is a tricky business.
Creating assessments that seem accurate is easy.
That a particular assessment tool is producing accurate
results is much, much harder to be certain about.
Profiles produced by popular and well-regarded personality
assessment tools often appear to suffer from some degree
of the Barnum effect.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 A standardized test is administered according to
specified rules.
 The scores of a standardized test are interpreted using a
prescribed rubric.
 Before a standardized test is released for use by
psychologists, it is administered to a very large number
of people who form representative sample of individuals
for whom the test will be utilized.
 This process facilitates accurate interpretation of the
results.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Objective personality tests
 The most widely used personality tests are
administered simply using paper and pencil.
 The most widely used of these tests is the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Table 13.1 The ten MMPI-2 clinical scales.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Objective personality tests: The MMPI
 The most current version of the MMPI (the MMPI-2) is
comprised of a series of 567 true-false questions.
 These questions are designed to measure
dimensions of personality such as sociability and
conscientiousness.
 They are also designed to detect clinical conditions
such as depression and psychotic disorders.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Objective personality tests: The MMPI
 The original standardization procedure of the MMPI
was flawed but nonetheless yielded a test that was
useful in practice.
 The revision that produced the MMPI-2 was done in
part to address some of the flaws.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Objective personality tests: The MMPI
 Poorly designed items were rewritten or dropped.
 Scales to detect new areas of concern to clinicians
were added (drug abuse, for example).
 The original standardization group was broadened to
be more representative of the American population.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 The generalizability of the MMPI
 Is the MMPI an accurate measure of personality for
people from diverse backgrounds?
 It is unclear at this time whether differences in scores
between members of different ethnic groups reflect
real personality differences or problems with the test.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Faking it – detecting deception on the MMPI
 People who take tests like the MMPI may be
motivated to make themselves appear more or less
mentally healthy than they actually are (“faking good”
or malingering).
 The designers of all versions of the MMPI have
included a set of items that are designed to detect
possible lying.
 For example, a person who answers true to the item
“I like every person I have ever met” and false to the
statement “Occasionally I get angry at someone” will
produce an elevation on the “fake good” scale, which
will be noted in the score report.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Uses of the MMPI
 The MMPI is a helpful instrument for research
psychologists who study personality.
 It is a useful instrument for clinical psychologists in
familiarizing themselves with clients and planning
treatment.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques
 People frequently feel threatened by personality
assessments that ask them for information directly.
 Projective techniques are designed to avoid this
problem.
 The assumption behind projective tests is that
personality characteristics can be detected through
the process of asking people to interpret ambiguous
stimuli.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques: The Rorschach Inkblots
 The Rorschach is composed of a series of 10
ambiguous inkblots.
 The person taking the test is asked to interpret each
of the blots.
 The psychologists hands a card with a black and
white or color blot and asks the questions “What
might this be?”
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques: The Rorschach Inkblots
 There is probably some truth in the underlying
assumption that personality influences behavior in
ambiguous situations.
 The degree of accuracy of any individual
psychologist’s interpretation of responses is hard to
know.
 One way to manage this flaw is to use a system for
interpreting and scoring the test.
 One of the most widely used methods was developed
by James Exner.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques: The Rorschach Inkblots
 Exner’s system is useful but does not prevent all
problems that may arise in interpreting the test.
 People with no clinical diagnosis are frequently
identified as having disorders.
 People can give an unlimited number of responses.
Since total numbers of types of responses are used,
a person who makes many responses is likely to be
identified as “disturbed.”
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques: The Rorschach Inkblots
 There are problems with using the test crossculturally.
 The correlation between the interpretations of the
same protocols of responses made by different
clinicians is not strong enough.
 The individual scales in the Exner system don’t have
enough validity.
 The information provided by the Rorschach can be
found in other, more trustworthy ways.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques: The Rorschach Inkblots
 Some critics believe that this assessment procedure
should no longer be used for any reason.
 Other clinicians feel it is useful at least as a way to
start a dialogue with clients.
 The limitations of the Rorschach should be
considered substantive, at any rate.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques: The Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT)
 The TAT is based upon the presentation of a series of
pictures to the test subject.
 The subject is request to make up a story for each
picture. The story for each picture is recorded by the
examining clinician.
 The assumption behind the test is that the story told
by the subject is actually a story about him or her.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Standardized personality tests
 Projective techniques: The Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT)
 There is no systematic widely used method for
interpreting the stories that are produced in response
to the cards.
 It is difficult to do research on the reliability and
validity of the test.
 Research results suggest that reliability and validity of
this procedure are weak.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Less commonly used projective techniques
 Implicit personality tests
 The assumption behind an implicit personality test
is that it is possible to measure aspects of personality
that may be beyond a person’s awareness.
 It is unclear as of yet whether this assumption will
receive enough support that widespread use of such
procedures will be deemed appropriate.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Less commonly used projective techniques
 Implicit personality tests: The Emotional Stroop Test
 The emotional version of the Stroop test requires a
person to look at a list of words and say the color of
the ink in which the word is printed.
 Some of the words represent possible sources of
concern or anxiety.
 The assumption is that the task will be more difficult
and the pauses of the subject will be longer when
trying to say the color of the words that relate to areas
of concern.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Less commonly used projective techniques
 Implicit Personality Tests: The Implicit Association Test
 The assumption behind the Implicit Association
Test relates to the idea of “priming.”
 This test measures whether the subject responds
faster to the categories that combine a particular topic
with pleasant or unpleasant words.
 One advantage of this technique is that it is hard for
people to “fake good” or malinger while doing this
procedure.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

Uses and misuses of personality tests
 Personality tests need to be used with great caution.
 They may be useful as part of interviewing and
rapport building.
 They can be an aid in the total process of personality
assessment (a process that requires much more than
just a test).
 They should only be used in the employment process
if there is clear evidence that they will make the
selection process more accurate.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
FIGURE 13.11 Even the best personality tests are imperfect. A test for detecting an unusual
condition will often identify normal people as having the condition. Here we assume that a certain
profile occurs in 95% of people with schizophrenia and 5% of other people. If we relied entirely on
this test, we would correctly identify 95 schizophrenic people, but we would also misidentify 495
normal people as schizophrenic.
Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition, James W. Kalat
Chapter 13: Personality
Personality Assessment

It would probably be a long, complex process to measure
everything worth knowing about an individual’s personality.

The tests that are used as part of personality assessment
should only be used in a limited fashion. It is all too easy to
draw strong conclusions based on weak data