ALHT106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Genital Stage, Personality Disorder, Glib
ALHT online lecture week 9 Personality
What is Personality?
- These lectures focus a lot on how the human mind works in general terms: cognitive
processes and biases, how formative experiences lay the groundwork for later
abilities, and how our functional biology and physiology has been shaped by our
evolutionary history (that is to say, our shared Human Nature)
- Personality (and all of Differential Psychology), is concerned with the opposite of
this: how individuals (systematically) differ from each other
- In everyday language, when asked to describe someone’s personality, we are likely
to list their preferences (likes and dislikes), habits, and certain beliefs, attitudes and
dispositions
- These are thought to make someone ‘who they are on the inside’
- We are also often compelled to describe the content of someone’s personality with
relative terms, intended to describe a meaningful dimension of difference from
others
- For example: introverted, fastidious, irritable, neurotic, warm, outgoing… describes
someone compared to an average person relative terms of difference
- From the perspective of scientific psychology, personality is approached as one of
two primary facets of individual differences (the other facet being differences in
abilities), and is largely regarded as the catch-all term for all the dimension of
individual difference not fully encapsulated by ability
- Someone’s personality is their suite of unique patterns in cognitive, behavioural and
emotional responding (on top of human nature)
- As such, Personality Psychology is also intimately related to the areas of Social
Psychology that concern intrapersonal processes, specifically the concepts of The
Self (ie. Image, esteem, etc.)
- Although human nature is, by design, highly standardised in many domains,
differences in inherited abilities, life experiences, and the ongoing feedback of
perceiving and evaluating ourselves relative others, endow each individual with a
unique personality
Studying Personality
- More so than in many other fields, approaches to Personality Psychology tend to
strongly differentiate between the scientific tasks of description and explanation:
oThe largest and most popular areas are those dedicated to describing
personality variation, often as “types” and “traits”
oLess attention is paid to explaining personality and theories tend to split
between genetic and developmental approaches
- These differences of approach also reflect the most contentious issue in all of
personality research: do personalities change?
- Due to an emphasis on reliable measurement, descriptive approaches tend to make
the a priori assumption that personality is an unchanging hidden variable, that resists
change over time
- Developmental approaches, however, tend to regard personality change across
one’s life as not only possible, but necessary
Trait Approaches
Trait Theories
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- The history of trait theories grows directly out of folk psychological tendency to use
trait-like words in natural language to describe how people vary (eg. Introverted,
fastidious, neurotic)
- These are the words we naturally rely on to describe the content of someone’s
personality to someone who has never met them
- They’re designed to be predictive of future behaviour (eg. If someone is highly
extroverted, expect them to talk a lot at parties)
- To be amenable to scientific analysis, a prospective trait (conceived of as a
Behavioural Tendency) needs to be:
oPresent, to at least some degree, in all individuals
oExpressed in a way that varies in degrees between 2 extremes
oCentred around the population mean (Normally Distributed – fewer people
the more above the extreme you get)
oRelatively stable over time, ie. Based on some factor internal to the person,
not something that varies with circumstance
Number of Traits
- Gordon Allport, a founder of personality psychology, tried to list all of the ‘traits’
described in natural language
- He persisted for a lengthy analysis, but ultimately abandoned the approach after
noting 17,953 traits (primarily in English)
- Since then, personality researchers relying on trait approached have sought to find a
smaller number of traits that captures the majority of meaningful variation within
human populations
- While many personality traits can be measured on their own and may be very useful
in particular contexts (eg. How ‘trusting’ an individual statistically predicts their
success in many kinds of therapy), today single-trait tests are relatively rare
- The dominant approach to trait theory in recent years have been ‘whole personality’
models, which attempt to statistically derive the smallest list of traits capable of
describing variation in personality
Whole Personality Examples
- Guilford’s combinatorial model eventually had 180 traits
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Cattell used factor analysis to derive a model with 16 traits
- Murray had 28 ‘needs’ across 6 broad trait domains
- Eysenck developed a psychological model with 3 traits smallest number of traits so
far
Number of Traits
- Today there is near-universal consensus on the appropriate number of distinct traits,
as derived from linguistic analysis
- With sufficient factor-reduction, statistical rotation, and testing across multiple
populations, the majority of testing converges on a model with FIVE, mostly
statistically independent, traits
- Even Eysenck’s psychophysiological theory, which relies on only 3 traits, can be
reanalysed into a coherent 5 trait form
Five Factor Model (FFM)
- Of the several 5-trait structures that researchers have converged on, the most
empirically verified and statistically robust is the Five Factor Model (or ‘Big Five’
Personality traits)
- Discovered and verified independently (once superior factor analysis techniques
were introduced) by 4 sets of personality researchers from 4 different institutions
- Used to identify subclinical thresholds for personality disorders
- The FFM has been tested and verified in dozens of countries and languages, showing
systematic relationships to cultural variance factors (such as individualism and
collectivism) that are reflected in individuals that grow up in those cultures
- Analyses with the FFM depend primarily on long, self-report questionnaires, but
have also been demonstrated to work in peer, parent and teacher ratings, as well as
in literary analysis
- The easiest way to remember the FFM traits is with the acronym ‘OCEAN’, standing
for:
oOpenness (to new experiences)
oConscientiousness
oExtraversion
oAgreeableness
oNeuroticism
Five Factor
Model
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Personality (and all of differential psychology), is concerned with the opposite of this: how individuals (systematically) differ from each other. In everyday language, when asked to describe someone"s personality, we are likely to list their preferences (likes and dislikes), habits, and certain beliefs, attitudes and dispositions. These are thought to make someone who they are on the inside". We are also often compelled to describe the content of someone"s personality with relative terms, intended to describe a meaningful dimension of difference from others. For example: introverted, fastidious, irritable, neurotic, warm, outgoing describes someone compared to an average person relative terms of difference. Someone"s personality is their suite of unique patterns in cognitive, behavioural and emotional responding (on top of human nature) As such, personality psychology is also intimately related to the areas of social. Psychology that concern intrapersonal processes, specifically the concepts of the.
