Personality Theories and Traits

Personality

• Personality is a characteristic way of thinking, feeling and behaving.
• Personality traits are characteristics that are consistent over time and in different situations.

Origins of Personality

• Genetics play a significant role in personality.
• Twin studies show that around 40-60% of personality variation is attributable to genetics.
• Adoption studies demonstrate that children's personalities are more similar to their biological parents than their adoptive parents.
• Environmental factors, such as sibling interactions, also shape personality.

Temperaments

• Temperaments are broad behavioral tendencies present from early childhood.
• Three key temperaments include activity level, emotionality, and sociability.
• Early temperaments can influence later personality development, with early inhibition linked to social anxiety.

Theories of Personality

• Psychodynamic Theory: Focuses on unconscious forces, desires, and hidden memories that influence behavior.
• Learning and Cognition: Emphasizes how personality is shaped through learning and cognitive processes, including behaviorism and social learning.
• Humanistic Theory: Emphasizes the inherent goodness of people and their drive for self-actualization.
• Trait Theory: Describes personality in terms of stable traits, such as the Big Five model (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism).
• Biological Theory: Examines the genetic and biological foundations of personality traits.

Assessing Personality

• Projective Tests: Present ambiguous stimuli to elicit unconscious thoughts and feelings (e.g., Rorschach inkblot test, Thematic Apperception Test).
• Objective Tests: Use clear and specific questions with direct answers or ratings (e.g., NEO-PI, Myers-Briggs, MMPI).

Self-Perception

• Self-Schema: Integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about the self.
• Working Self-Concept: The current perception of the self which varies depending on the situation.
• Self-Esteem: Evaluative aspect of the self-concept, influenced by how we think others perceive us.

Self-Esteem Myths

• Myth: Having low self-esteem is a major source of psychological problems.
• Fact: Low self-esteem is not strongly linked to poor mental health.
• Myth: Positive self-affirmations (e.g. "I like myself") are a good way of boosting self-esteem.
• Fact: There's no scientific evidence to support that affirmations consistently improve self-esteem.

Self-Esteem and Its Effects

• Self-esteem is associated with greater initiative, persistence, and emotional resilience.
• Higher self-esteem is linked to better academic performance, but it doesn't necessarily cause it.

Self-Perception Biases

• Better-Than-Average Effect: Most people perceive themselves as better than average in many ways.
• Social Comparisons: People compare themselves to others, often making downward comparisons when self-esteem is low and upward comparisons when it's high.
• Self-Serving Biases: People with high self-esteem tend to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.

Cultural Influence

• Individualistic cultures value self-enhancement and personal goals, compared to collectivist cultures, which prioritize group goals and harmony.

Personality

• Personality is a collection of characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors.
• Personality traits are patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that are generally consistent over time and across situations.

Where Does Personality Come From?

• Genetics contribute to personality traits but expression is influenced by circumstances.
• Twin Studies suggest that approximately 40-60% of the variance in personality traits is due to genetic influence.
• Adoption Studies show that adopted siblings have no more personality similarities than any two strangers. This indicates that parenting style has a limited impact on personality.
• Temperaments are general tendencies to feel or act in certain ways, broader than personality traits. Three key temperaments are activity level, emotionality, and sociability.
• Early Temperaments influence behavior and personality throughout life. Example: early inhibition is linked to later social anxiety and greater amygdala activation.

Theories of Personality

• Psychodynamic theory emphasizes unconscious forces (wishes, desires, hidden memories) in shaping behavior. This theory is controversial with limited research supporting it.
• Freudian slips are mistakes in speech that are believed to reveal unconscious motivations.
• Defense mechanisms are unconscious mental strategies used to protect against distress caused by conflict between the id and superego.
• Psychosexual development is a Freudian theory proposing five stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Each stage focuses on erogenous zones and their impact on personality development.
• Oedipus Complex is a Freudian concept describing a child's attraction to the opposite-sex parent and rivalry with the same-sex parent.

Learning and Cognition

• Learning and cognition theories emphasize the role of learning, observation, and social interactions in shaping personality.
• Social learning theory suggests that personality is learned through observation and reinforcement.
• Cognitive theories focus on mental processes like perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs in influencing personality.

Humanistic

• Humanistic theories emphasize self-actualization - a drive to fulfill one's full potential, and positive personal growth.

Trait Theories

• Trait theories aim to identify and classify personality traits.
• Big Five is a widely accepted model with five core traits:
  • Openness to Experience: appreciation for new experiences, ideas, and values.
  • Conscientiousness: organized, diligent, disciplined, and responsible.
  • Extraversion: outgoing, sociable, assertive, and lively.
  • Agreeableness: accommodating, empathetic, generous, and seeking social harmony.
  • Neuroticism: emotional instability, moodiness, nervousness, and self-consciousness.

Biological Trait Theory

• Biological trait theory suggests that personality is rooted in biological processes, especially genetic factors.
• Behavioral Activation and Inhibition Systems (BAS and BIS) are brain structures associated with personality.
  • BAS: linked to extroversion, promotes approach behavior motivated by rewards.
  • BIS: linked to anxiety, inhibits behavior that might lead to pain or danger.

How Stable is Personality?

• Personality traits are generally stable across the lifespan with some fluctuations.
• Rank-order consistency refers to individuals maintaining their relative position within a group over time.
• Personality change does occur but is often more gradual and subtle, influenced by major life events.

Assessing Personality

• Personality Inventories are self-reported assessments with a variety of formats.
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a widely used inventory with 566 true-false questions, containing 10 clinical scales and 3 validity scales.
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a popular inventory based on Jungian personality theory, utilizing a combination of word pairs and short statements.
• Behavioral Data use electronic devices like electronically activated recorders (EAR) to track moment-to-moment interactions.

Self-Esteem

• Self-Esteem is a positive evaluation of oneself, often influenced by factors such as social comparison and cultural values.
• Better than average effect is a tendency for most people to describe themselves as above average in various ways.

Cultural Influence

• Individualist cultures emphasize self-enhancement.
• Collectivist cultures emphasize group harmony and conformity.

Personality: Overview

• Personality is the unique pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that an individual consistently displays over time and across different situations.
• Personality is influenced by genetic factors, environmental factors, and temperaments.

Genetic Factors

• Genetic makeup can predispose individuals to certain personality traits, but whether these traits are expressed depends on the environment.
• Nearly all personality traits have a genetic component.
• Twin studies show that genetic influence accounts for about 40-60% of the variation in personality traits between individuals.
• This also applies to attitudes influenced by traits, such as enjoyment of roller coasters.
• Adoption studies demonstrate that adopted siblings are no more similar in personality than any two unrelated individuals, suggesting parenting style has a relatively minor impact.
• The correlation between biological siblings and parents is rooted in genetics.

Environmental Factors

• Siblings' environments change as they establish friendships outside of the home.
• Environmental variation occurs due to age differences between siblings, differences in parental treatment, and the choices parents make regarding their children's environments.

Temperament

• Temperament refers to general tendencies to feel or act in certain ways, encompassing broader patterns than personality traits.
• Three key dimensions of temperament are:
  • Activity level: Overall amount of energy and behavior.
  • Emotionality: Intensity of emotional reactions.
  • Sociability: General tendency to affiliate with others.

Long-Term Temperaments

• Early temperament characteristics can influence behavior and personality development throughout life.
• Early inhibition is associated with increased social anxiety later in life, possibly due to increased amygdala activation.

Theories of Personality

• Major theories of personality include:
  • Psychodynamic
  • Learning and Cognition
  • Humanistic
  • Trait
  • Biological

Psychodynamic Theory

• Psychodynamic theory emphasizes the role of unconscious forces (wishes, desires, hidden memories) in shaping behavior.
• The theory remains controversial and lacks strong empirical support.

Freudian Slips

• Freudian slips occur when unconscious motivations are revealed through slips of the tongue or misspeaking.

Defense Mechanisms

• Defense mechanisms are unconscious mental strategies used to protect individuals from distress stemming from conflict between the id and superego.
• Examples of defense mechanisms include repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, reaction formation, and sublimation.
• Examples of defense mechanisms:
  • Repression: Pushing disturbing thoughts and memories into the unconscious mind.
  • Denial: Refusing to acknowledge the existence of a threatening or unpleasant reality.
  • Projection: Attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts or impulses to someone else.
  • Displacement: Shifting negative emotions from their original target to a safer, less threatening one.
  • Rationalization: Justifying unacceptable behavior with logical-sounding reasons.
  • Reaction formation: Behaving in a way that is the opposite of one's true feelings.
  • Sublimation: Channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable behaviors.

Psychosexual Development

• Sigmund Freud proposed five stages of psychosexual development:
  • Oral stage: Birth to approximately 18 months.
  • Anal stage: 2-3 years old.
  • Phallic stage: 3-5 years old.
  • Latency stage: 6 years to puberty.
  • Genital stage: Adolescence and adulthood.

Oedipus Complex

• The Oedipus complex, a concept within psychosexual development, describes a child's unconscious desire for their opposite-sex parent and rivalry with their same-sex parent.

Learning and Cognition

• Learning and cognition theories of personality focus on how experiences and environmental contingencies shape behavior.
• Observational learning, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning are key principles.

Humanistic

• Humanistic theories emphasize the role of self-actualization, personal growth, and the individual's subjective experience in shaping personality.

Trait

• Trait theories categorize and describe personality through enduring patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors known as personality traits.

Biological Theories

• Biological theories explore the genetic and neurobiological basis of personality, focusing on temperament, brain structure, and neurochemical processes.

Big Five Personality Traits

• The Big Five model identifies five broad dimensions of personality:
  • Openness to Experience: Curiosity, imagination, and adventurousness.
  • Conscientiousness: Organization, responsibility, and goal-directedness.
  • Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness, and emotional expressiveness.
  • Agreeableness: Cooperation, empathy, and trustworthiness.
  • Neuroticism: Anxiety proneness, negative emotionality, and emotional instability.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Personality

• Research suggests that specific personality traits, such as agreeableness, have cultural variations.
• People from collectivist cultures tend to score higher on agreeableness compared to people from individualistic cultures.

Sex Differences in Personality

• While men and women are more similar than different, women tend to report higher levels of empathy, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
• Men tend to report higher levels of assertiveness.
• The largest sex differences in personality are found in societies with higher levels of gender equality.

Myth: Astrology and Personality

• Astrology is not a valid predictor of personality traits and has no scientific basis.

Personality Assessment: Methods

• Personality assessment methods include:
  • Projective Measures: Explore the unconscious mind through interpretation of ambiguous stimuli.
  • Objective Tests: Use clear, specific stimuli with quantifiable responses.

Projective Measures

• Projective measures rely on the idea that individuals project aspects of their unconscious onto ambiguous stimuli.
• Examples include:
  • Rorschach Inkblot Test: Interpretation of 10 inkblots to assess unconscious thoughts and feelings.
  • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): Storytelling about images to reveal underlying motivations and conflicts.

Objective Tests

• Objective tests present clear, specific stimuli and require direct answers, choices, or ratings.
• Examples include:
  • NEO-PI: Measures the Big Five personality traits.
  • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Uses Jungian theory to classify individuals into 16 types.
  • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): Assesses personality and psychopathology, and detects faking.
  • Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR): Objectively measures behaviors in real-world settings.

NEO-PI

• The NEO-PI assesses five personality dimensions:
  • Neuroticism
  • Extraversion
  • Openness
  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness

MMPI

• The MMPI is a widely used objective test that measures personality and psychopathology through statements requiring true/false responses.
• 10 clinical scales:
  • Hypochondriasis
  • Depression
  • Hysteria
  • Psychopathic Deviate
  • Masculinity/Femininity
  • Paranoia
  • Psychasthenia
  • Schizophrenia
  • Mania
  • Social Introversion
• Validity scales:
  • F scale (faking bad)
  • L scale (faking good)
  • K scale (defensiveness)

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) uses Jungian personality theory to classify individuals into 16 types based on four dimensions:
  • Extraversion/Introversion (E/I)
  • Sensing/Intuition (S/N)
  • Thinking/Feeling (T/F)
  • Judging/Perceiving (J/P)

Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)

• The EAR is a device that objectively captures people's real-world interactions, providing insights into personality traits.
• EAR data correlates with self-reported personality traits, particularly the Big Five.