PSYC 330 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Takers, Nomothetic, Psychophysiology
28 Jun 2018
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Features of personality make us different from each other.
Adjectives that can be used to describe characteristics of people are called trait-descriptive adjectives.
Personality - The set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and
relatively enduring and that influence our interaction with the environment and our adaptations to the
intrapsychic, physical, and social environment.
Psych traits: Extraverted vs not, they are the what of personality - features/characteristics - the
spectrums on which people fall - can be used to compare against other people, does not explain
why just the states the fact. They are useful because
oDescribe people and help understand differences between them
oExplain behavior
oHelp predict future behavior
Mechanisms: the "how", the processes of personality - how the traits are developed in us, how
they exist in the context of certain situations, "if-then" rule. Involves information processing
activity. It involves inputs (the environment that stimulates them), decision rules (what they
decide to do), and output (their behavior in the said environment)
Within the individual: what we bring to the table when we come to a situation, to understand
why people do what they do we need to look at them as a separate entity - not something that
happens to you - its something that should be impactful - thus, there is some sort of consistency in
our personalities across situations
Organized: traits are organized, there is coherence between mechanisms and traits. There are
decision rules that help us make choices about which needs should be activated - your traits have
sub-traits that they might affect, a sort of ripple effect
Enduring: to what extent do we consider our traits to be stable or are they flexible - the balance
between this. There is some sort of consistency in our personalities.
Influential: they matter because they impact your behavior and shape your life
Interactions: Behavior or the observable outcome is a function of the what the person brings to
the table and how the situation is (a product of the person and the situation)
oP = perception: your personality impacts the things you notice and see - can be visual
oS = Selection is the choices you make of the situations you put yourself in such as for
extraversion, you would immerse yourself in more social gatherings than someone who is
the opposite
oEvocation: to evoke, what you bring out in other people without knowing
oM = Manipulation: you are influencing others knowingly and intentionally - somebody
who is high in need of power or dominance might intentionally pull some things out of
people for their needs - not associated with the usual negative connotation here
Adaptations: How you adapt to changes or fit into the changes of the environment, can you
cope with adversity, can you make adjustments to your behavior and mindset when you run into
something in the environment
Environment: Environment around us can pose challenges and different personalities interact
and adapt differently to it.
oIntrapsychic: you can think about and people and situations even if they are not present
around you
oPhysical: changes in classroom vs at home, different environment pulls out different
personalities from us, cold or hot surroundings for maintaining homeostasis
oSocial: ways we cope with our social environment, challenges of struggling for love,
esteem, desiring a good job but having lots of people compete for it, desire closeness with
people but don't know how to attain it.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Features of personality make us different from each other. Adjectives that can be used to describe characteristics of people are called trait-descriptive adjectives. Personality - the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence our interaction with the environment and our adaptations to the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment. Psych traits: extraverted vs not, they are the what of personality - features/characteristics - the spectrums on which people fall - can be used to compare against other people, does not explain why just the states the fact. They are useful because: describe people and help understand differences between them o. Mechanisms: the how, the processes of personality - how the traits are developed in us, how they exist in the context of certain situations, if-then rule. It involves inputs (the environment that stimulates them), decision rules (what they decide to do), and output (their behavior in the said environment)
