Psychology 2E: Chapter 11 PERSONALITY
Psychology 2E: Chapter 11 PERSONALITY
Psychology 2E: Chapter 11 PERSONALITY
Chapter 11 PERSONALITY
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PERSONALITY
Personality – the long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to consistently
think, feel, and behave in specific ways.
- Comes from the Latin word persona (a mask worn by an actor).
- In ancient times, theatrical masks were used to represent/project a specific personality
trait.
Happy, sad, impatient, shy, fearful, curious, helpful. What characteristics describe your
personality?
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Hippocrates (370 BCE)
Theorized that personality traits and human behaviors are based on four separate
temperaments associated with four fluids (“humors”) of the body.
1. Choleric – yellow bile from the liver.
2. Melancholic – black bile from the kidneys.
3. Sanguine – red blood from the heart.
4. Phlegmatic – white phlegm from the lungs.
Galen
Believed both diseases and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in
the humors and that each person exhibits one of the four temperaments.
Prevalent view for over 1000 years and through the Middle Ages.
• Choleric – passionate, ambitious, and bold.
• Melancholic – reserved, anxious, and unhappy.
• Sanguine – joyful, eager, and optimistic.
• Phlegmatic – calm, reliable, and thoughtful.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
PHRENOLOGY
Franz Gall (1780)
Proposed that the distances between bumps on the skull reveal a person’s personality
traits, character, and mental abilities.
Discredited for lack of empirical support.
(a) Gall developed a chart that depicted which areas of the skull corresponded to particular
personality traits or characteristics (Hothersall, 1995).
(b) An 1825 lithograph depicts Gall examining the skull of a young woman.
Effects on Personality
Balanced id and superego → healthy personality.
Imbalanced id and superego → neurosis (tendency to experience negative emotions),
anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors.
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
• Unconscious protective
behaviors that work to
reduce anxiety.
• Used by the ego to
restore balance between
the id and superego.
• Freud believed them to
be used by everyone but
that overuse could be
problematic.
STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
Introverts Extroverts
Energized by being alone Energized by being with
others
Avoids attention Seeks attention
Bandura proposed the idea of reciprocal determinism: Our behavior, cognitive processes,
and situational context all influence each other.
JULIAN ROTTER
LOCUS OF CONTROL
Locus of control – beliefs about the power we have over our lives.
• Proposed as a cognitive factor that affects learning and personality development.
Internal locus of control – tend to believe that most of our outcomes are the direct
result of our efforts.
• Perform better academically, achieve more in careers, more independent, healthier,
less depressed.
External locus of control – tend to believe that our outcomes are outside of our control.
• Believe lives are controlled by other people, luck, or chance.
Temperament
• Temperament appears very early in life (suggesting a biological basis).
• Babies can be categorized into one of three temperaments – easy, difficult, or slow to
warm up.
Environmental factors and maturation can affect expression of personality.
Two dimensions of temperament important to adult personality:
1. Reactivity – how we respond to new or challenging environmental stimuli.
2. Self-regulation – ability to control responses.
SOMATOTYPES
William H. Sheldon believed body type could be linked to personality.
He proposed three somatotypes:
1. Endomorphs – relaxed, comfortable, good-humored, even-tempered, sociable, and
tolerant.
2. Mesomorphs – adventurous, assertive, competitive, and fearless.
3. Ectomorphs – Anxious, self-conscious, artistic, thoughtful, quiet, and private.
TRAIT THEORISTS
Believe that people have certain traits (characteristics or ways of behaving).
• For example, optimistic or pessimistic, sociable or shy.
Gordon Allport
Found 4,500 words in the English language to describe people and organized them into
three categories.
1. Cardinal traits – dominates entire personality (rare).
2. Central traits – make up our personality.
3. Secondary traits – less obvious or consistent, present under certain circumstances
(e.g., preferences, attitudes).
Raymond Cattell
Narrowed Allport’s list to about 171 traits.
Identified 16 dimensions of personality – instead of a present being present or absent,
people are scored on a continuum.
HANS & SYBIL EYSENCK
Hans and Sybil Eysenck focused on
temperament and believed that our personality
traits are influenced by our genetic inheritance.
2 specific personality dimensions:
1. Extroversion/Introversion.
• High in extroversion – sociable, outgoing.
• High in introversion – high need to be
alone, engage in solitary behaviors.
2. Neuroticism/Stability.
• High in neuroticism – anxious, overactive
sympathetic nervous system.
• High in stability – more emotionally stable.
The Eysencks described two factors to account for variations in our personalities:
extroversion/introversion and emotional stability/instability.
FIVE FACTOR MODEL
Culture is one of the most important environmental factors that influences personality.
Culture – beliefs, customs, art, and traditions of a particular society.
Are personality traits the same across cultures or are there variations?
• There are both universal and culture-specific aspects that account for variation in
personalities.
Examples:
• Asian cultures – more collectivist, tend to be less extroverted.
• Central and South American cultures – tend to score higher on openness to
experience.
• Europeans – tend to score higher on neuroticism.
REGIONAL DIFFERENCES
Researchers found three distinct regional personality clusters in the United States. People
tend to be friendly and conventional in the Upper Midwest and Deep South; relaxed,
emotionally stable, and creative in the West; and stressed, irritable, and depressed in the
Northeast.
One explanation for this is selective migration - people choose to move to places that are
compatible with their personalities and needs.
INDIVIDUALIST VS COLLECTIVIST CULTURES
Individualist cultures
• Value independence, competition, and personal achievement.
• Mainly Western nations such as the U.S. England, and Australia.
• People display more personally oriented personality traits.
Collectivist Cultures
• Value social harmony, respectfulness, and group needs over individual needs.
Self-Report Inventories
• Objective test to assess personality.
• Often use multiple-choice items or numbered scales (Likert scales).
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI):
• One of the most widely used personality inventories.
• Originally developed to assist in diagnosing psychological disorders.
• Newest version (MMPI-2-RF) has 338 questions.
• Scored on 10 scales – hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviance,
masculinity vs femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia (obsessive/compulsive qualities),
schizophrenia, hypomania, and social introversion.
LIKERT SCALES
If you’ve ever taken a survey, you are probably familiar with Likert-type scale questions.
Most personality inventories employ these types of response scales.
MMPI
These true/false questions resemble the kinds of questions you would find on the
MMPI.
PROJECTIVE TESTS
Projective testing relies on projection (defense mechanism) to assess unconscious
processes.
• Ambiguous cards are shown to individual who is asked to tell a story, interpret an
image, or complete a sentence.
• Individual will project feelings, impulses, and desires onto the cards.
Rorschach Inkblot Test – individual interprets a series of symmetrical inkblot cards,
revealing unconscious feelings and struggles.
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