Personality

The Trait Perspective

Personality: an individuals characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Trait: aspects of personality that are relatively consistent Four personality traits: The ancient Greeks classified

personalities as Sanguine (cheerful), melancholic (depressed), Choleric (irritable), and Phlegmatic (unemotional).

They are basically the four humors.

Identifying Traits

Gordon Allport: was an American psychology and trait theorist who researched the idea that individual personalities are unique.

Allport was born in Montezuma, Indiana in 1897. He was fairly isolated as a child, and observed people.

Porprium- meaning the self, it had. The self has seven functions, which tend to arise at certain times of one’s life:  1.  Sense of body (first two years of life, feel closeness and warmth)  2.  Self-identity (first two years of life, recognize ourselves )  3.  Self-esteem (between two and four years old, recognize that we have value to other and ourselves)  4.  Self-extension (between four and six years old, people are essential for my existence)  5.  Self-image (four and six years, “the me as others see me”) 6.  Rational coping ( ages six to twelve, when you can deal with life's problems) 7.  Propriate striving (after twelve, when you set goals, find your calling & have a sense of direction.)

Identifying traits

Raymond Cattell believed that there are 16 core human traits that have a high or low end.

Each of these factors can be Measured using a questionnaire, And then being plotted on a continuum.

Identifying traits

Hans Eysenck researched the genetically influenced dimensions of personality including extraversion and introversion.

Extraverts are more outgoing and sociable, while introverts keep top themselves and are quite.

He said that emotionally stable people are generally relaxed and calm , where as unstable people are anxious and worry.

The Big Five Traits

The big five traits are Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness and Extraversion.

Testing for the Traits Personal Inventories: Which are questionnaires on which people

respond to items designed to gauge a range of feelings and behaviors; used to asses selected personality traits. These are objective tests which mean they have multiple choice, true/false, ext.

Validity: is the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is suppose to test (how well)

Reliability: Is the extent to which a test yields consistent results, regardless of who gave the test or where it was taken.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: is the most widely researched and clinically used personality test; used to identify emotional disorders , and now used for many other screening purposes.

Big five pic

The Big Five Traits

The MMPI-2 assesses the test takers on 10 clinical scales used to diagnose psychological disorders, like anger disorders or if someone is trying to fake a mental illness.

They do have a weakness, they do NOT explain why we behave the way we do; for instance: Laura is calm and secure, so we would label her emotionally stable. But the trait theories don’t explain why she is calm and secure.

Social-Cognitive Perspective

Albert Bandura: Believes that the way to understand personality is to consider the thoughts before, during and after the event

Reciprocal Determinism: The mutual influences between personality and environmental factors.

Three Influences: 1. your thoughts or cognitions 2. your environment 3. Your behaviors You have to consider these three questions when looking at

personality : How does behavior change in different situations? How do you perceive

the situation? And How do the elements of the situation affect the behavior?

Personal Control

Locus of Control: people with an internal locus control- have the

perception that you control your own fate- are healthier, have less stress and not as likely to be depressed.

Where as people with an external locus control- attribute there fate to outside forces.

People with internal locus are also more likely to succeed at school.

Martin Seligman

He researched helplessness, and then turned his efforts into optimism. Learned Helplessness: Is a helpless feeling when an

animal or human cant avoid repeated events. This develops when people face traumatic events that

they have no control over. People are happier when theyhave control over things, like belongings in a nursing home.

Martin Seligman

Positive psychology: the movement is psychology that focuses on the study of optimal human functioning and the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive.

Biblography

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/allport.html Thinking about psychology 2nd addition.