PSYA02H3 Chapter 14-18: Chapter 14-18 Chapter Notes

• School: UTSC
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYA02H3
• Professor: Fornier

Document Summary

Personality a particular pattern of behaviour and thinking that prevails across time and situations and differentiates one person from another. Psychologists do not draw inferences about personality from casual observations of people"s behaviour but from results of special tests designed to identify particular personality characteristics. The ultimate goal of psychologists is to discover the causes of individual differences in behaviour. Research on human personality requires two kinds of effort: identifying personality characteristics and determining the variables that produce and control them. Trait theorist use the term in the sense that it is a set of personal characteristics that determines the different ways we act and react in a variety of situations. Humoural theory: proposed by hippocrates in 4th b. c. e. is the earliest known explanation for individual differences in personality; based on medical beliefs. The body was thought to contain four humours (fluids): yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood. Choleric people (excess yellow bile) were bad tempered and irritable.