Introduction to I.D

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Individual Differences - something that can make a difference int he way you perform a task

Can you have no personality? - to have no personality means someone cannot gather the information needed from them to make an informed judgement about their personality. So they have one, but it is hidden.

Implicit theories

These are theories that everyone can understand to help us understand others.

Problems

Source of evidence - random encounters and observations - no structure or control and also all take place in the same area - everyone is at that place for specific or same reason

Confirmatory bias - Bias to find evidence to support our idea.

Lay Definitions - definitions from an individual based in a specific context.

Folklore definitions - stereotypes about physical characteristics eg fat people are jolly

Maltby Personality ‘…describes a psychological construct, that is, a mental concept that influences behaviour via the mind-body interaction’ -

Naive Psychologists - ordinary people who make observations eg through people watching and use their intuition to figure out people's personalities and lives.

Another Definition - Dynamic Interaction

a dynamic organisation, inside

the person, of psychophysical systems that create the person’s characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings.’ Allport,

Why Study personality?

-Explain the motivational basis of behaviour

-Ascertain basic nature of

human beings

-Provide descriptions and categories for behaviour

-Measure personality

-understand personality development

-heritability vs environment

- understanding mental illness and abnormal behaviour –

facilitate behaviour change.

Approaches

Idiographic - focus

on individual, personality variables within the specific individual and each

individual has a unique personality structure. Therefore there are an infinite

number of variables which raises the question of how to work with this?

Idiographic abandons the idea of generalization

Nomothetic – Focus on a finite number of personality

variables which will occur consistently across groups. Individuals are then

located within this set of variables.

There is some overlap between nomothetic and idiographic as

idiographic looks at the uniqueness of an individual whilst nomothetic looks at

the unique combination of traits.

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