Chapter 1 Summary: What Is Personality? PDF

**CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?** [DEFINING PERSONALITY] - Psychologists do not agree on a single answer to the question of what personality is - **Personality:** consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within the individual - Personality researchers...

**CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?** [DEFINING PERSONALITY] - Psychologists do not agree on a single answer to the question of what personality is - **Personality:** consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within the individual - Personality researchers often refer to consistent patterns of behavior as **individual differences**. The important point here is that personality is consistent; we can identify these consistent patterns of behavior across time/situations - People can change, but if personality exists and behavior is not just a reflection of whatever situation we find ourselves in, then we must expect some consistency in the way people act - In contrast to interpersonal processes, which take place between people, intrapersonal processes include all the emotional, motivational, and cognitive processes that go on inside of us that affect how we act/feel - According to the definition, these consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originate within the individual. This is not to say that external sources do not influence personality; certainly, the way parents raise their children affects the kind of adults the children become, and we of course experience emotions as a reaction to the events we encounter [SIX APPROACHES TO PERSONALITY] - **Psychoanalytic** approach - **Trait** approach - **Biological** approach - **Humanistic** approach - **Behavioral/social learning** approach - **Cognitive** approach - Each approach does seem to correctly identify and examine an important aspect of human personality: psychologists who subscribe to the psychoanalytic approach argue that people's unconscious minds are largely responsible for important differences in their behavioral styles, whereas psychologists who favor the trait approach identify where a person might lie along a continuum of various personality characteristics - Psychologists advocating the biological approach point to inherited predispositions and physiological processes to explain individual differences in personality - Those promoting the humanistic approach identify personal responsibility and feelings of self-acceptance as the key causes of differences in personality - Behavioral/social learning theorists explain consistent behavior patterns in terms of conditioning and expectations, and those promoting the cognitive approach look at differences in the way people process information - Although different approaches to a given question in personality often vary only in emphasis, with each providing a legitimate, compatible explanation, in many instances, the explanations from 2+ approaches may be entirely incompatible - People who work in the field often align themselves with one or another of the 6 approaches as they decide which of the competing explanations make the most sense to them - Although in some instances more than one of these explanations might be accurate, not every theory can be right. It is also possible that one theory may be correct in describing one part of human personality, whereas another theory may be correct in describing other aspects [TWO EXAMPLES: AGGRESSION AND DEPRESSION] - Aggression - The classic psychoanalytic explanation of aggression points to an unconscious death instinct (we are all said to possess an unconscious desire to self-destruct). However, because people with a healthy personality do not hurt themselves, these self-destructive impulses may be turned outward and expressed against others in the form of aggression - Other psychoanalysts argue that aggression results when we are blocked from reaching our goals. A person who experiences a great deal of frustration, perhaps someone who is constantly falling short of a desired goal, is a likely candidate for persistent aggressive behavior - However, in most cases, the person is unaware of the real reasons for the aggression - Personality theorists who follow the trait approach focus on individual differences and the stability of aggressive behavior - One team of researchers measured aggressiveness in 8-year-olds. The investigators interviewed the participants again when they were 30 and discovered that the children identified as aggressive in elementary school were the most likely to have become aggressive adults, engaging in spousal abuse or other violent criminal behavior - Personality theorists from the biological perspective point to a genetic predisposition to act aggressively. That is, some people may be born with aggressive dispositions that, depending on their upbringing, result in their becoming aggressive adults - Other psychologists explain aggression in terms of evolutionary theory (ex.: the fact that men tend to be more aggressive than women might be explained by the male's inherited need to exercise control over rivals so that he can survive and pass along his genes) - Some researchers from this approach look at the role hormones and neurotransmitters play in aggressive behavior - Psychologists who take a humanistic approach to personality deny that some individuals are born to be aggressive. In fact, many argue that people are basically good. They believe all people can become happy, nonviolent adults if allowed to grow and develop in enriching and encouraging environments - People develop aggressive tendencies when something interferes with this natural growth process. Aggressive children often come from homes in which basic needs are not met adequately. If the child develops a poor self-image, they may strike out at others in frustration - The behavioral/social learning approach contrasts in many ways with the humanistic view. According to these psychologists, people learn to be aggressive the same way they learn other behaviors; they learn that aggressive behavior is rewarded or become aggressive from watching models - Many people are concerned that the aggressive role models children routinely watch on television may be responsible for increasing the amount of violence in society - Cognitive psychologists focus on the way aggressive people process information. Certain cues in the environment (ex.: images of guns/fighting) often trigger a network of aggressive thoughts and emotions. When aggressive thoughts are highly accessible, people are more likely to interpret situations as threatening and respond to those perceived threats with violence - Which approach is correct? One possibility is that only one is correct and that future research will identify that theory. A second possibility is that each approach is partially correct; there may be 6+ causes of aggressive behavior. Still a third possibility is that the 6 explanations do not contradict one another but rather differ only in their focus - It's possible that aggressiveness is relatively stable and reflects an aggressive trait (trait approach); but it might also be the case that some people tend to interpret ambiguous events as threatening (cognitive explanation) because of past experiences in which they were assaulted (behavioral/social learning explanation) - These people may have been born with a tendency to respond to threats in an aggressive manner (biological approach); but perhaps if they had been raised in a nonfrustrating environment (psychoanalytic approach) or in a supportive home in which their basic needs were met (humanistic approach), they would have overcome their aggressive tendencies - Depression - According to Sigmund Freud (founder of the psychoanalytic approach), depression is anger turned inward. People suffering from depression hold unconscious feelings of anger/hostility; they may want to strike out at family members, but a healthy personality does not express such feelings overtly - Psychoanalysts argue that each of us has internalized the standards and values of society, which typically discourage the expression of hostility. Therefore, these angry feelings are turned inward and people take it out on themselves (all of this happens at the unconscious level) - Trait theorists are concerned with identifying depression-prone individuals. Researchers find that a person's general emotional level today is a good indicator of that persons' emotions in the future (ex.: people who experience an episode of depression during their teen years are likely to have recurring episodes in adulthood) - One study found that depression levels in 18-year-olds could be predicted from looking at participants' behavior from as early as 7 years old - Biological personality psychologists point to evidence that some people may inherit a genetic susceptibility to depression. A person born with this vulnerability faces a much greater likelihood than the average individual of reacting to stressful life events with depression; because of this inherited tendency, these people often experience repeated bouts of depression throughout their lives - Humanistic personality theorists explain depression in terms of self-esteem. People who frequently suffer from depression are those who have failed to develop a good sense of their self-worth; a person's level of self-esteem is established while growing up and, like other personality concepts, is fairly stable across time/situations - The ability to accept oneself, even one's faults/weaknesses, is an important goal for humanistic therapists when dealing with clients suffering from depression - Behavioral/social learning psychologists point to learning histories as a cause of depression. Behaviorists argue that depression results from a lack of positive reinforcers in a person's life (ex.: you may feel down/unmotivated because you see few activities in your life worth doing) - A more extensive behavioral model of depression proposes that depression develops from experiences with aversive situations over which people have little control. This theory maintains that exposure to uncontrollable events creates a perception of helplessness that is generalized to other situations and may develop into classic symptoms of depression - Cognitive personality psychologists argue that some people are prone to depression because of the way they process information. Depressed individuals have negative thoughts about themselves, are pessimistic about the future, and tend to interpret events in a negative manner - Cognitive psychologists maintain that some individuals use a depressive filter to interpret and process information. Depressed people can easily recall unhappy experiences and are prepared to see the world in the most depressing terms possible [PERSONALITY AND CULTURE] - Psychologists have increasingly recognized the important role culture plays in understanding personality. Many of the assumptions people in Western developed countries make when describing and studying personality may not apply when dealing with people from different countries - It is not just that different experiences in different cultures affect how personalities develop; rather, psychologists have come to see that people and their personalities exist within a cultural context - **Individualistic cultures:** include most Northern European countries and the US/Canada. Cultures that place great emphasis on individual needs and accomplishments. People in these cultures like to think of themselves as independent and unique - **Collectivist cultures:** include many Asian, African, Central/South American countries. Cultures that are more concerned about belonging to a larger group (ex.: family/tribe/nation/etc.). These people are more interested in cooperation than competition and obtain satisfaction when the group does well rather than from individual accomplishments - Concepts commonly studied by personality psychologists in individualistic countries often take on very different meanings when examined in collectivist cultures (ex.: the Western notion of self-esteem is based on assumptions about personal goals and feelings of uniqueness that may not apply to people in many other countries) - Western psychologists studying achievement motivation sometimes try to predict who will get ahead in academic/business situations. However, this definition of achievement/success is not shared universally; in some collectivist cultures, success means cooperation and group accomplishments. Personal recognition may even be frowned upon - We also need to consider the culture a person comes from when identifying and treating psychological disorders (ex.: behavior that suggests excessive dependency or an exaggerated sense of self in one culture might reflect good adjustment in another) - The US was found in one study to be the most individualistic of 41 nations examined - In some cases, investigators find nearly identical results across very different cultural groups. In other cases (ex.: self-esteem, achievement) they find important differences among cultures