PSY 343 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cognitive Dissonance, Nomothetic, Factor Analysis
Personality Psychology unit 1
MAPPING OUT THE PERSONALITY LANDSCAPE
One of the earliest and most famous explicit DEFINITIONS of personality is Gordon Allport’s:
Personality is a dynamic organization, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create the
person's characteristic patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings
it entails dynamic processes – it is not static over time or fixed across situation; rather, it enables us to
flexibly adapt to changing contexts and life challenges (whether ones imposed upon us or chosen by
us), but......
it is also patterned – an individual has his or her own typical style of adapting to those challenges;
there are characteristic regularities to our thoughts, feelings, and actions
it is rooted in both our physiological and psychological make-up
it is a causal force – personality is “sorta like” an independent variable
its influence may be seen across all domains of our lives (e.g., in work, in relationships, in hobbies, in
personal style)
Most any good definition we choose as our starting point (his; one of yours) will quickly suggest a few other
key issues we should consider right from the start:
1. What should be the focus of personality research–should we study personality variables (personality
psychology) or individual persons (personology)? the “building blocks” or the “unique configuration”?
general tendencies in the human family or the idiosyncratic uniqueness of each person?
2. What do[or can] we hope to gain from our studies–description, prediction, or explanation?
3. What is it about people’s behavior that even raises the question in the first place? What do we see in
our own behavior and the behavior of others that made us assume there’s this thing we call
personality “in there”?
– the Three C’s personality: continuity, consistency, and coherence basic complex
continuity: People act pretty much the same from time to time
consistency: similarity over time and situation
coherence: how things fit together, how the aspects of your personality fit together
McAdam’s three levels of “knowing a person”
olevel 1: dispositional traits- general, internal, comparative dispositions. Level 1 is psychology of
the stranger. Traits reflect our initials and basic assessment of a person. However, as we know
from experience, first impressions can change for better or worse. This level is trait talk perhaps
overestimates the two c’s of consistency and continuity. Most of personality psychology
research is done at level 1.
general or on average: traits are decontextualized- the context doesn’t really matter. Ex-
Miranda is assertive- meaning she is generally assertive.
Internal as opposed to situational: given that not everyone in the same situation would
act as assertively as Miranda, we assume its not the situation that’s solely responsible
for all of her assertive behavior- its at least in part her
How does one compare to others: we say Miranda is assertive because she’s more
assertive than most other girls of similar background
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oLevel 2: characteristic adaptations: are contextualized facets of human individually that speak
to motivational, cognitive, and development concerns in personality. How the personality varies
in different contexts. We go beyond genera qasl first impressions and move to the nuances and
complexities of the individual’s behavior. How the internal tendencies are refined in specific
situations.
How those generalized tendencies are adapted to fit in the situation of the moment,
which vary due to shift goals, roles, stages of life and so forth. But we still don’t shift
totally at random; these are characteristic adaptations
oLevel 3: integrative life narratives: while level 2 thinking allows us a more nuanced way of
thinking about how the person behaves in a specific moment or situation we don’t experience
our lives as a loose collection of isolated moments. Rather, we feel that the moments are all
part of one connected story.
Personal identity emerges as a life story and is a psychological act of creation- you are
both the author of and the protagonist of your life
Our life narrative is never a 100% objectively accurate chronicle. It is an edited version
of our life. We pick and choose things to focus on and include, motivated by the
meaning we want to construct from our experience.
Personality description: although level 1 is knowing someone on a basic level, this is also the level we
operate for the majority of our interpersonal interactions. We make important social decisions based
one level 1.
oMeans- ends
oTraits-motives
Traits
oDispositional traits: general, internal, and comparative dispositions; they refer to individual
differences between people in characteristic thoughts, feeling, and behaviors
oHistory of the trait approach to personality psychology might be seen as organized around the
search to answer the following question: what in general are the most essential traits to know
about people
oThe list of essential traits varied from theorist to theorist. Over time these all lead to a widely
agreed upon list: the five-factor model. The big five.
Four major ways to think about personality traits:
oneuropsychological substrates [e.g., Allport; Eysenck] – traits are rooted in specifiable bodily
systems. While subsequent experience matters, one’s biological endowment is seen as
foundational and primary. Thus, traits are seen as real systems, those systems can and should
be identified, and they are significant contributing causes of our surface behavior.
obehavioral predispositions [e.g., Cattell; Costa & McCrae] – traits emerge as a more balanced
combination of biological bases and developmental experience. Therefore, though we’ll see
continuity over time, the expression of one’s traits vary in the face of situational and cultural
inputs. (They are “less hard-wired.”) The exact neurological basis for a trait can but need not be
specified; we may infer its existence by measuring and identifying significant regularities in
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behavior over time and across situations. Either way, traits are significant contributing causes of
behavior.
oact frequencies [e.g., Buss & Craik] – traits primarily describe observed patterns of surface
behavior, though knowing a person’s traits might help some in predictions of behavior. These
theorists believe that we need to measure and identity the objective patterns in our surface
behavior, and that such patterns do exist. But we should not infer from such patterns that some
underlying “entity” called a trait exists. Rather, we must look elsewhere for the actual causes of
such behavioral consistency. (Maybe that consistency is caused by external factors like
reinforcements; maybe it’s caused by internal factors like cognition. But it’s meaningless to say
that it’s CAUSED by traits.)
olinguistic categories [e.g., Mischel; Shweder] – traits are words that describe subjectively
perceived patterns of behavior [what we think we see]. Thus, traits are not “in” the target
person, but “in the eye of the beholder.” What we think we see in our own behavior or that of
others may not really be true. We are socially and culturally conditioned to have certain
expectations (e.g., blonds are flighty) and processes like confirmatory bias then take over. We
“see” behavior that supports that notion and fail to see behaviors that would be inconsistent
with it. we see what we expect to see. We confirm our preconceived biases.
Gordon Allport
oAllport provides us with our best example of the idiographic approach to addressing that
question. Each person has his or her own unique list of the “essential traits,” and if you want to
know what they are, your best strategy is to ask the person directly. The typical adult pretty
readily comes up with about 8 terms that she feels are essential aspects of her personality.
oBut we cannot just assume we know what she means by a given term (e.g., patriotic). Any given
trait term CAN be treated nomothetically – that is, what do people in general mean by
“patriotic” – and when we use the term that way Allport referred to it as a common trait.
oBut our understanding of the person will be much richer if explore what that trait term uniquely
means to her. When we use understand the term in the particular way it means and plays out
for our given individual, Allport labeled it a personal trait or disposition. So, once again, which
traits are essential and what exactly such a trait terms means varies from individual to
individual.
Raymond Cattell
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Document Summary
One of the earliest and most famous explicit definitions of personality is gordon allport"s: Mcadam"s three levels of knowing a person : level 1: dispositional traits- general, internal, comparative dispositions. Traits reflect our initials and basic assessment of a person. However, as we know from experience, first impressions can change for better or worse. This level is trait talk perhaps overestimates the two c"s of consistency and continuity. Most of personality psychology research is done at level 1. general or on average: traits are decontextualized- the context doesn"t really matter. Miranda is assertive- meaning she is generally assertive. We go beyond genera qasl first impressions and move to the nuances and complexities of the individual"s behavior. How the internal tendencies are refined in specific situations. How those generalized tendencies are adapted to fit in the situation of the moment, which vary due to shift goals, roles, stages of life and so forth.
