Intro to personality

Question 1

How does personality differ from other fields?

Answer 1

More global and general
Long history of interest
Many large-scale theories
Theories don’t guide research
Theories generated/tested differently

Question 2

Are theorists clinicians or scientists?

Answer 2

clinicians (therapists)

Question 3

Way are personality theories difficult to test?

Answer 3

> Postdictive, not predictive

>vague, abstract concepts

Question 4

Define postdictive

Answer 4

once someone has behaved a certain way a theory can explain why

Question 5

What is personality?

Answer 5

Personality is a hypothetical construct that we use in an attempt to understand two noticeable things about human behaviour:

1. within an individual, there is a consistency in behaviour from time to time and across situations.
2. the pattern of consistency differs from person to person.

Question 6

What is a hypothetical construct

Answer 6

A made up idea to help explain observations. When we discuss the theoretical relations b/w constructs we have a theory

ex. Physics - energy

Question 7

What is the type approach

Answer 7

> limited number of personality types, which are largely genetically determine (biological basis)
ie. the 4 humours

Question 8

What is the oldest approach to personality?

Answer 8

Type approach

Question 9

What are the four humours and the types of personalities associated with each?

Answer 9

Blood - sanguine personality (easy going optomistic)
YellowBile - Collaric (easily aroused, assertive)
Phlegm - phlegmatic (slow, easy going)
Black Bile - Melancolar (easily depressed )

Question 10

Which approach did Hippocrates and Galen work on?

Answer 10

The humoral approach

Question 11

According to the humoral appraoch how does one get sick?

Answer 11

having an excess of one of the humors

Question 12

what does it mean to bleed someone?

Answer 12

barbers cut people who were believed to have an excess of blood

Question 13

What is the Trait perspective?

Answer 13

sees personality as consisting of a set of internal characteristics, or traits, which are substantially determined by genes (biological factors). Since personality is genetically determined, there is little to say about the development of personality.
- theorists disagree about which traits are central

Question 14

What is the dominant approach ?

Answer 14

The trait approach beacuse traits are easily measured

Question 15

What is the Psychodynamic Approach (how do they view personality and behaviour?)

Answer 15

> Personality = action & interaction of psychic structures operating primarily outside consciousness
Behaviour = interaction between biology and experience
Says MUCH about development

Question 16

What is the Behaviourist Approach?

Answer 16

sees no need for theories of personality (or even for the concept), because personality is nothing more that consistent patterns of behaviour that arise through the normal processes of classical and instrumental conditioning.
> emphasize experience and learning

Question 17

Who influenced the behaviourist approach?

Answer 17

Watson and Skinner

Question 18

What is the humanist approach?

Answer 18

> Personality = manifestation of the Self, inner unity
Stress positive motivation and reaching of full potential
Search for personal meaning
Idiographic approach

Question 19

What is an idiographic approach (part of humanism

Answer 19

Understanding the individual, only employed by the humanist approach

Question 20

What is the Cognitive approach?

Answer 20

who we are is how we interpret the world around us!
sees personality as consistent ways of selecting and interpreting information about ourselves and the world around us. Like the behaviorists, cognitive theorists tend to see these consistent patterns of information processing as resulting from experience and learning.
>Often allied with behaviorist approach

Question 21

What is the most recent approach?

Answer 21

evolutionary psychology Approach

Question 22

What is the Evolutionary Psychology Approach?

Answer 22

> Emphasizes biological bases of personality
Focus on adaptive function of personality through evolution
Growing in influence in the field but there is yet to be a personality theory based on this approach

Question 23

What are the 7 approaches we will be looking at?

Answer 23

Type, Trait, psychodynamic, behaviourist, humanist, cognitive and evolutionary psychology appraoch

Question 24

what is the nomothetic appraoch?

Answer 24

stress the importance of discovering general laws than govern the development of personality in all people.