PERSONALITY - PowerPoint

							PERSONALITY
                            PERSONALITY

The total of a person’s characteristic ways of dealing with the world, described in
   terms of over behaviors or in inferred dispositions such as traits.

                                        (Atkinson et al. in THM Course book)



PERSONALITY can be defined as the distinctive and characteristic patterns of
   thought, emotion and behaviour that define an individual’s personal style of
   interacting with the physical and social environments.

                                        (Atkinson)
           FIVE APPROACHES TO PERSONALITY

1.       THE BIOLOGICAL APPROACH/THEORIES
              a.   Body types (somatotypes)
              b.   Brain areas (physiognomy, phrenology)
              c.   Genetics
2.       THE TRAIT APPROACH/THEORIES
              a.   Gordon Allport
              b.   Raymond Cattell’s trait theory introducing factor analysis
              c.   Hans Eysenck’s trait theory
3.       THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
              a.   Freud
              b.   Neo-Freudians (Jung, Adler, Erikson, Horney)
4.       THE BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH
              a.   Dollard and Miller
              b.   Bandura
5.       THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH
              a.   Maslow
              b.   Rogers

     Since the task of personality theories is essentially the task of psychology as a whole, the
         major contemporary personality theories are related to the general perspective of
         psychology. Only trait theories are not also a general perspective.
One of the first personality theorists was Hippocrates, the Greek known also as
‘The father of medicine’ who lived around 400 BC. He claimed that differences
in ‘temperament’ were caused by different body ‘humours’. His theory suggested
the relationships in the following table. The terms mentioned in the table are of
course still in use in the English language with roughly the same meanings.
Hippocrates’ theory, however, is unsound for two reasons. First, what we now
know about the relationships between body chemistry and behaviour fails to
confirm the theory. Second, our own personal experience should tell us,
intuitively, that there are more than four types of people, or personality, in the
world.
                                          (Buchanan & Hvarynski)

  Body humour          Temperament                        Behaviour

blood               sanguine               hopeful, confident, optimistic

black bile          melancholic            depressed, prone to ill-founded fears

bile                choleric               active, aggressive, irritable

phlegm              phlegmatic             sluggish, apathetic
                         PERSONALITY

           2 MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE APPROACHES



1.   ‘NOMOTHETIC’ APPROACH
     (assumes there exists general laws which govern human personality)

2.   ‘IDIOGRAPHIC’ APPROACH
     (assumes each individual is a unique product of their environment, social &
     cultural experiences)
The NOMOTHETIC approaches (e.g. Cattell, Eysenck) tend to view
   environmental and social influences as minimal and view personality as
   consistent, largely inherited and resistant to change.
Nomothetic approaches claim that it is possible to measure and predict the ways in
   which personality types would behave in given circumstances.

The IDIOGRAPHIC approaches (e.g. Erikson, Rogers) are concerned with
   understanding the uniqueness of individuals and the development of the self
   concept. They regard personality development as a process which is open to
   change. They regard individuals as responding to the environment and people
   around them, and see the dynamics of the interactions as playing a critical part
   in shaping personality.
The measurement of traits is seen as inappropriate as one person’s responses may
   not be comparable to another’s. The richness and depth of a person’s
   personality cannot be revealed in superficial questionnaires.
                                                  (Mullins)

The two approaches can be seen as complementary.
         „TRAIT‟ THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
           CATELLS 16 FACTOR ANALYSIS
FACTOR               HIGH SCORE                                LOW SCORE

A                    OUTGOING                                  RESERVED
B                    MORE INTELLIGENT                          LESS INTELLIGENT
C                    EMOTIONALLY STABLE                        AFFECTED BY FEELINGS
E                    ASSERTIVE                                 HUMBLE
F                    HAPPY GO LUCKY                            SOBER
G                    CONSCIENTIOUS                             EXPEDIENT
H                    VENTURESOME                               SHY
I                    TENDER MINDED                             TOUGH MINDED
L                    SUSPICIOUS                                TRUSTING
M                    IMAGINATIVE                               PRACTICAL
N                    SHREWD                                    FORTHRIGHT
O                    APPREHENSIVE                              PLACID
Q1                   EXPERIMENTING                             CONSERVATIVE
Q2                   SELF SUFFICIENT                           GROUP DEPENDANT
Q3                   CONTROLLED                                CASUAL
Q4                   TENSE                                     RELAXED




A trait is a reasonably persistent attribute or characteristic of a person, usually
   expressed as an adjective.

Factor analysis offers a way of analysing a few common factors, or tendencies,
   from within a larger number of variables.
     EYSENCK‟S PERSONALITY FACTORS

The figure shows the two major factors that emerge from factor-analytic studies of
 the intercorrelations between traits by Eysenck and others. The Stable-Unstable
 axis defines the neuroticism factor: the Introverted-Extraverted axis defines the
 extraversion factor. The other terms around the circle indicate where other traits
 are placed with respect to these two factors. (After Eysenck & Rachman, 1965)
                          THE “BIG FIVE”
Five Trait Factors The table presents five trait factors that reliably emerge when a
wide variety of assessment instruments are factor analyzed. The adjective pairs are
  examples of trait scales that characterize each of the factors. (After McCrae &
                                    Costa, 1987)
     TRAIT FACTOR                         REPRESENTATIVE TRAIT SCALES
Openness               Conventional-Original
                       Unadventurous-Daring
                       Conservative-Liberal

Conscientiousness      Careless-Careful
                       Undependable-Reliable
                       Negligent-Conscientious

Extraversion           Retiring-Sociable
                       Quiet-Talkative
                       Inhibited-Spontaneous

Agreeableness          Irritable-Good-natured
                       Ruthless-Soft-hearted
                       Selfish-Selfless

Neuroticism            Calm-Worrying
                       Hardy-Vulnerable
                       Secure-Insecure
                          TRAIT THEORY
                          MAIN CRITICISM

•   People do not always show the same trait in different situations or even the
    same trait in the same situation.

•   Different people may show consistency with some traits and considerable
    variability with others.

•   Classical trait theory (Eysenck, Cattell) assumes that behaviour (traits) is
    independent of both the situation and the persons with whom interaction takes
    place . . . . This is questionable – trait behaviour manifests itself in response to
    specific situations.

•   Traits. . are a product of language (i.e. devices for speaking about people) and
    are not objective features of action.
        SUMMARY OF FREUD‟S PROPOSED
          PERSONALITY STRUCTURES

                               Level of          Principle
 Structure       Basis                                            Process Used
                             Consciousness       Followed
             Instincts for                                        Primary
ID           sex and         Unconscious     Pleasure principle   process
             aggression                                           thinking
             Learned
                                                                  Secondary
             behaviors in    Mostly
EGO                                          Reality principle    process
             response to     conscious
                                                                  thinking
             reality

             Learned social Partly
SUPEREGO                                     -                    -
             inhibitions    conscious
STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL
     DEVELOPMENT