Psychology 2550A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Personality Psychology, Psych, Behavioural Genetics

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2550A/B
• Professor: David Vollick

Document Summary

Advantages: guides data collection & interpretation, common language within the same model, guide future research, explain & predict. Disadvantages: too rigid, a scientist should have an open mind (you should not know everything), uncommon language between models. Stable, formed in first few years of life. One"s personality should: show continuity, consistency, and stability, be expressed in many ways, be organized (disorganization is a sign of a disturbance), influence how the individual relates to the social world, link with physical and biological characteristics. Behaviour that changes frequently may not be indicative of one"s personality. Identifying consistent, stable individual differences is an important goal: it makes it possible both to describe people and try to predict their future behaviour. Theory and levels of analysis in personality psychology. Early theories (cid:523)(ippocrates" (cid:523)basic human temperaments(cid:524), aristotle"s (cid:523)the brain is the seat of the rational mind(cid:524), and freud"s(cid:524) not scientifically testable. Personality psychology: several alternative theoretical approaches. stimulated many different types of research.