PS101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Theophrastus, Behaviorism, Agreeableness
Document Summary
Personality: personality: distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling and acting that characterize a person"s response to situations. Comes from word persona (actors mask: throughout time people have been intuitively aware of individual differences, that they like some people and not others. Historical knowledge of individual differences: theophrastus wrote about different characters to try to describe individual differences, attempting to characterize people. How do we measure personality: ask them, ask others, results of a test, observe them. Note other behaviours appearance, speech patterns etc: drawbacks. Dependences on co-operation, honesty of interviewee: behavioural assessment. Aim is not solely to describe" behaviour. Specific behaviour, frequency, specific situations, under what conditions. High level of agreement among observers: personality scales. Use standard questions and agree upon scoring key: advantage. Collect large amount of data: disadvantage. Validity scales: personality scales items, trait theories. Concern have to identify what are the underlying traits that describe people.
