Lecture 1 Notes Personality

Slide 1

• What is personality….
• Most stuff on net is rubbish!!!
• Definitions
• The word personality comes from the Latin "persona", meaning "mask “.
• “Personality refers to an individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour together with the psychological mechanisms – hidden or not - behind those patterns.” (Funder, 2004).
• “Personality can be defined as consistent behaviour patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within the individual.” (Burger, 2004)
• Basically, ‘personality’ refers to our attempts to capture or summarize an individual’s ‘essence’; or that which is consistent across situations and over time.
• Individual differences…
• In research, we always search for the broad generalisation, laws of behaviour, p > 0.005 etc.
• BUT with Personalities we want the outlier, the difference between people
• The study of individual differences examines the ways in which people are psychologically similar and psychologically different.
• Today there are multiple and sometimes conflicting theories about individual differences in psychology.
• History…
• Individual differences traced back to Greek philosophers
• No two people are the same, one suited for one occupation, and the other for another.
• Caveat…think about people what they can achieve where they are going.
• n.b This can also be dependent on opportunities presented, environment, nurturing
• Phrenology Franz Gall (1758-1828) …bumps on head, was believed our lumps and bumps could reveal character.
• So popular at the time, there were 29 UK Phrenology Societies, with the proposal of MP’s being selected on it!
• We still need to retain an open mind, there is no one correct approach, today’s acceptance could be tomorrows phrenology…
• Modern Personality Psychology…
• There are two main camps:
• Scientific psychology (e.g. Trait approaches, Behaviourists and Social Learning Theorists)
• Clinical psychology (e.g. Psychoanalysts, Humanists and Existentialists)
• Each of these traditions have spawned different theories, methods and measurement.
• They both strive to understand ways in which people are psychologically similar and different
• There are six different paradigms/approaches to personality
• 1) The psychoanalytic approach
• Unconscious mind & unconscious motivations
• Resolving internal conflict
• 2) The trait approach
• How people differ
• Conceptualizing and measuring differences
• Continuum of traits and behaviours
• 3) The biological and evolutionary approaches
• Anatomy, physiology, inheritance and evolution
• Inherited predispositions
• 4) The phenomenological/humanistic approach
• Conscious experience of the world
• Personal responsibility and self-acceptance
• 5) The learning approach (behaviourism and social learning theories)
• Comprises Behaviourism, Social Learning Theory and Cognitive Personality Theory
• Learning helps to adapt their behaviour via rewards and punishments
• 6) The cognitive approach
• Role of perception and memory
• Different ways in which people process information
• Why is there not just not one theory????
• Different perspectives, different approaches.
• Depends on the viewpoint and background of person asking the question.
• All of these theories are mostly incompatible, different theories address different questions.
• Each approach is interesting and useful, but each is incomplete
• Not possible to come up with one big theory due to this trade off.
• Philosophical assumptions
• Different philosophical assumptions profoundly influence the way in which we perceive the world and theorise it.
• Freedom versus determinism
• Hereditary versus environmental
• Uniqueness (idiographic) versus universality (nomothetic)
• Proactive versus reactive
• Optimistic versus pessimistic
• Conscious versus unconscious
• Evaluating philosophical assumptions …
• Coherence- are they clear, logical and consistent?
• Relevant?
• Comprehensive?
• Compelling- does the theory convince you?
• What makes a useful theory?
• 1. Generates hypotheses/research
• 2. Falsifiable
• 3. Organises and integrates existing data and empirical knowledge
• 4. Suggests practical answers to day-to-day problems
• 5. Internal consistency
• 6. Simplicity/parsimony
• Basic issues
• Personality culturally determined?
• Which is more important in determining what people do, the person or the situation?
• Gender difference, what are they, where do they come from?
• Personality and culture
• Personality exists within cultural context:
• Individualist cultures: includes most northern European countries and the USA (tis all about “I” individual needs/accomplishments.
• Collectivist cultures: includes many Asian, African, Central and South American countries. (emphasis on cooperation rather than competition, group rather than individual accomplishments. (we orientation, great value placed on duty, tradition, age hierarchy, group security)
• Identifying the cultural limitations/universality of personality measures provides deeper insight into the nature of the concepts we study
• Person- situation debate…
• This has been a strongly contested topic since the late 1960’s
• Situational variables are best suited to predicting behaviour in specific situations, personality traits are more able to predict patterns of behaviour that persist across situations and time.
• Walter Mischell, (1968) book- Personality and Assessment book flagged up in the lecture.
• Here is the wiki link to info about him and the controversial book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mischel
• The Forer/Barnum effect
• The Barnum effect is also called the Forer effect after B. R. Forer (1948).
• The Barnum effect - people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves.
• People tend to accept questionable, even false statements about themselves, if they are deemed positive or flattering enough.
• Forer (1948): asked students to evaluate the personality description from 0 to 5, with "5" meaning "excellent" and "4" meaning "good."
• Accuracy of the personality description amazed the participants
• The class average evaluation was 4.26.
• The test has been repeated hundreds of time with psychology students, the average is still around 4.2.
• Avril read the statement out and asked us to rate how applicable it was to us… we were mostly in the 4 bracket… so the trend continues!
• This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices (Pseudoscience), such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, aura reading and some types of personality tests.
• Personality theories/assessments need to be specific, reliable, valid and testable.
• The Psychometric approach
• Psychometrics- Theory and methods of psychological measurement.
• Includes intelligence testing, measurement of personality traits and vocational testing.
• Impacts of this testing on an individual and in wider society is substantial, thus highlighting the importance of high professional standards for the development, administration and interpretation of tests.