PSY313H5 Chapter 10: Chapter 10 Study Guide
Document Summary
Personality: refers to a person"s distinctive patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. Sometimes the personality is used to refer to a persons" most unique characteristics. Researchers and theorists often differ substantially in their views about how personality develops. Freud suggested that unconscious motives outside the adult"s awareness influenced personality development. In contrast, skinner stressed the importance of learning and reinforced experiences in understanding how personality develops. Skinner suggested that the things a person does (overt behaviors, not unconscious wishes) compose personality. One way to measure personality is to ask a person about his or her personality. Another way is to observe behavior in everyday life. Other ways to assess personality involve administering tests, surveys, or questionnaires. Personality can be studies at the level of dispositions or traits, at the level of characteristic ways of adapting to situations, and at the level of live narratives. Dispositions and traits: traits refer to general dispositions that are relatively stable or consistent across situations.
