Personality

Personality

1. What is personality

   • Personality is a relatively stable set of behaviours, thoughts, and feelings that a person shows to others
   • Temperament is your natural disposition in terms of personality trait - i.e. the personality you are born with
   • Thomas Chess and Birch looked at around 136 children in a longitudinal study. Researchers collected data about the children and their behaviour from their parents, school observations and teachers. Three different groups emerged; easy - happy and found it easy to adapt ), difficult - demanding and less flexible, and dlow to warm up - did'nt react to new environments. These traits remained the same over time which let the researchers conclude everyone is born with a temperament. As the study was longitudinal, they could follow up the children after a long time. The children were all from middle class families which cant generalise to other social classes
   • Buss and Plomin looked at the personality of 228 identical twin pairs and 172 non-identical twin pairs. Correlations were much higher for identical twins which lead Buss and Plomin to conclude that temperament is largely genetic. However, identical twins are likely to share a smiliar environment so it could be due to upriging as well as genes
   • Kagen and Snidman investigated if temperament is due to biological differences by studying the reactions of 4 month old babies in new situations. The babies reactions were observed - in the first minute they were put in a seat with a carer nearby, in the next 3 minutes the carer moved out of the babies view as it was shown new toys. 20% of the babies showed distress, they were high reactive. 40 % showed little or no reaction, they were low reactive. 11 years later the high reactives were shy and low reactives were calm. These teo temperaments are due to inherited differences in the brain

2. How is it measured

   • Eysenck's personality theory; he created two questionnaires, the eysenck personality inventory ( EPI ) - which measures introversion, extroversion, neuroticism and stability. The second questionnaire is eysencks personality questinnaire (EPQ) - to measures introversion, extroversion, neuroticism, stability, and psychostosim. Both questionnaires used yes/ no questions. Eysenck believed personality was genetic. He came up with 3 personality scales
     • Extraversion ( E score ) - people scoring high on this scale tend to be more sociable and impulsive compared to low scorers, intorverts, who are more cautious and less sociable
     • Neuroticism (N score) - people scoring high on this scale tend to be more anxious, depressed and tense compared to low scorers (stable), who tend to be more relaxed.
     • Psychoticism ( P score) - People who score high on this scale tend to be more aggressive, egocentric, and cold compared to low scorers, who tend to be warm, more aware of others and not aggressive
     • eynseck believed that introverts have higher levels of brain activity than extraverts - therefore extraverts are stimulous hungry - as their brains need to be stimulated more than introvert

3. APD

   • Antisocial personality disorder involves a disregard for the rights of others that has been going on since the person was 15 years of age or older. Only people over the age of 15 and over can be diagnosed with this disorder
   • Symptoms of APD; taking notice of rules and breaking the law, telling lies and being deceitful, acting on impulsive rather than planning ahead, being aggressive, being irresponsible, not being sorry if you hurt people, disregard for safety
   • Biological causes
     • Brain dysfunction - APD may be caused by a malfunction of a part of the brain, particularly 2 areas. -The amygdala, which is responsible for learning through negative consequences of our actions. -The prefrontal cortex, which enables people to learn social and moral behaviour.
     • Raine (2002) attempted to find out if people with APD have abnormalities in their prefrontal cortex. He looked at MRI scans of 21 men diagnosed with APD who had a history of very violent crimes and compared them to 34 men with no violent history. The APD group had 11-14% reduction in the nerve cells. Raine concluded that APD may be caused by deficits in the prefrontal cortex - this area of the brain is responisble for a childs ability to feel remorse and develop a conscience
   • Situational causes
     • This focuses on the childhood experiences a person had- several factors have been implicated, such as; low income,poor housing,poor parenting, low school achievement and/ or leaving school early.
     • Farrington(1995) carried out a longitudinal study of the development of antisocial behaviour in 411 males in london. The study started when they were aged 8 and continued until they were 50. Parents and teachers were interviewed and criminal records were looked at. 41% of the men were convicted of at least 1 crime - the most important factors for offending were;criminal activity in the family, ow school achievement, poverty and poor parenting. Farrington concluded that situational factors lead to the development of antisocial behaviour