PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Phineas Gage, Distressing, Main Source

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: all

Document Summary

Personality: typical way we think, feel, and behave. It does not offer an explanation as to why we developed the traits, or why we differ in traits. It only offers a description of the traits. It focuses on traits as being the main causes of behaviour. By doing this, we disregard other factors (the person- Knowing someone"s traits do not allow us to predict their behaviour. Traits are a poor predictor of behaviour in specific situations. However, traits are a good predictor of behaviour when used on average, across all cultures and time. Aside from genes, the only other thing that can influence personality is environment. Personality is shaped by the environment (we do things because there is a payoff: behaviour producing desirable consequences is likely to repeat, behaviour producing undesirable consequences is unlikely to repeat. Personality is a set of learned responses to them. Personality is the result of a complex interaction between a number of different factors.