personality medium chapter 1

Introduction to Personality

• Personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior.

• Defining personality is difficult because it's a complex structure.

• Personality is a set of psychological traits and mechanisms that are organized and relatively enduring and influence a person's interactions with, and adaptations to the environment.

• Personality traits describe both similarities and differences between people (e.g., shy, talkative, outgoing, extravert, anxious, thoughtful, dominant).

• Traits describe the average tendencies of a person. For example, a talkative person may have quiet days but, on average, speaks more than others.

• Research on personality traits asks about the number, organization, origins, correlations, and consequences of traits.

• Psychological traits are useful because they help describe people and understand the dimensions of differences between people. They help explain behavior and predict future behavior.

• Psychological mechanisms are like traits, but more focused on the process of personality. They have three essential components: input, decision rules, and outputs.

• Input is information from the environment.

• Decision rules specify how an individual should think about the information.

• Outputs influence how people behave.

• "Within the individual" means that personality is consistent across time and different situations.

• Personality traits and mechanisms are typically organized, and not random collections of elements.

• Traits are relatively enduring, especially in adulthood, and somewhat consistent across situations. For example, an anger-prone person tends to be angry in various situations.

• Personality traits and mechanisms influence people's lives by shaping how they act, view themselves, think about the world, interact with others, and feel.

• Personality plays a crucial role in shaping people's lives.

• Interactions include perception (how people interpret the environment), selection (how people choose situations), evocation (reactions others have to a person), and manipulation.

• People vary in how they perceive the environment.

• Individuals choose situations they enter.

• Some actions evoke reactions from others. The goal is often unintentional. For example, a hyperactive child may evoke attempts to restrain the child.

• Manipulation occurs when people intentionally influence others' behavior, thoughts, and feelings. For example, an orderly person pushes others to follow the rules.

• Adaptation concerns adaptive functioning, such as accomplishing goals, coping, adjusting to challenges/problems in life. For example, people who worry a lot often get support from others.

• The physical environment poses challenges.

• Social and intrapsychic environments are also vital.

• Examples of environmental threats include heights, snakes, spiders, and strangers.

• The ways people cope with the social environment—belongingness, love, and esteem—are critical in understanding personality.

• Intrapsychic means 'within the mind' that includes memories, dreams, desires, fantasies, and experiences.

• Self-esteem depends on how well we are achieving our goals.

Levels of Personality Analysis

• Personality can be analyzed at three levels: human nature, individual and group differences, and individual uniqueness.

• Human Nature: Traits and mechanisms of personality that are common to nearly everyone (e.g., need to belong, capacity for love, spoken language).

• Individual and Group Differences: Ways in which people vary from one another (e.g., extraverts, sensation seekers, variation in the need to belong). This also includes group differences, such as cultural, age, gender, and socioeconomic differences.

• Individual Uniqueness: Personal and unique qualities that aren't shared by others (e.g., individual personalities of Letisha, and Santino in expressing love and aggression).

• Individuals can be studied nomothetically (finding general laws of behavior applicable to everyone), or idiographically (in-depth study of individual cases like through case studies).

A Fissure in the Field

• Personality theory (human nature level of analysis) and contemporary research (individual and group differences).
• Grand theories attempt to explain universal human psychological processes. (Sigmund Freud's work is an example).
• Contemporary research focuses on how individuals and groups differ, not human universals. Researchers might be focused on one particular area of personality.

Domains of Knowledge

• A domain of knowledge is a specific topic or area of study.
• Six domains: Dispositional, Biological, Intrapsychic, Cognitive-Experiential, Social and Cultural, Adjustment.

Dispositional Domain

• Deals with ways individuals differ
  • Aims to identify/measure traits defining individual differences like habitual emotions

Biological Domain

• Assumes biological systems (nervous system, brain) shape behavior, thought, and emotion
  • Example research: twin/adoption studies, psychophysiology

Intrapsychic Domain

• Focuses on mental mechanisms, often outside of conscious awareness
  • Example: Freud's psychoanalysis

Cognitive-Experiential Domain

• Focuses on conscious thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs about self/others
  • Includes self-concept, goals, emotional experiences

Social and Cultural Domain

• Emphasizes the impact of cultural/social contexts on personality
  • Examines variations in social norms (aggression, gender roles)

Adjustment Domain

• Addresses how personality influences how people cope, adapt, and adjusts to daily events/challenges
  • Includes health outcomes, coping responses, problems in daily living

Evaluation of personality theories

• Five scientific standards:
  • Comprehensiveness (explains most facts)
  • Heuristic value (guides future discoveries)
  • Testability (makes precise testable predictions)
  • Parsimony (has few premises/assumptions)
  • Compatibility and integration (consistent with other knowledge domains)