PSYC2011 : PSYC1001 Personality-Lecture-5
Document Summary
Lecture 5 - psychobiological & lexical approaches to personality: Personality is a probabilistic and dynamic system (expect personality to change itself now. Personality has both quantity and quality properties. Aim: systematically describes differences and similarities between (and within) individuals, across time and space. Emphasises the need of a useful scientific taxonomy. Personality is the dynamic & organised set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences her or his cognitions, motivations, attitudes, behaviour, and psychobiology as a whole. Assumptions of the traits approach ii: personality develops through the interplay between: Temperament (characteristic, biologically-based reaction patterns, present from an early age) original expressions of the self since birth until developed into personality traits by the environment. Constitution or physiology (neurology, endocrinology, genetics, etc. ) Assumptions of the traits approach iii: the building blocks of personality are called traits, traits are general dispositions that people possess that uniquely influence their psychology, e. g. outgoing, impulsive, anxious, sociable, empathic, optimistic, creative, altruistic.
