History of personality Flashcards
Personality definition
Allport “A dynamic organization, inside the person, of psychophysical systems, that create the person’s characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings”
Ancient history
Early techniques for measuring personality include physiognomy Johannes Lavater (1741-1801) wrote extensively about this.
Personality related to silhouette
Craniometry
The idea that the shape and size of the skull can indicate personality traits or intelligence
Abandoned due to research showing;
miscalculations are easily made
skull size has little to do with intelligence
Phrenology
Franz joseph hall = SHAPE of brain was an important factor
Abandoned because ;
skull shape does not relate to brain shape
findings showed no psychological attributes linked with bumps on scalp
The psychoanalytical approach to personality
Introduced by freud
- Suggested personality is determined by the subconscious mind. behavior is guided by unconscious forces, desires and motives.
Personality is comprised of 3 structures : the id, (pleasure principle) ego (reality principle) and superego.
Personality develops through psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. And that behavioural flaws such as fixations can derive from unmet needs, or any frustrations can result in anxiety in adulthood.
Very important as he first proposed the idea that our childhoods can effect behaviour in adulthood.
Learning theory (more cognitive approaches)
Differences in personality are due to differences in learning experiences.
Pavlov, Watson and Skinner
Trait approach
Two assumptions- personality traits should be;
stable across time and context.
Early work (1900s) that was consistent with trait theory was conducted by William Sheldon and Sir Francis Galton. Sheldons Soamotype- personality measured through psychical stature Endomorph: chubby - Relaxed, sociable, peaceful Ectomorph: skinny - quiet, fragile, sensitive, non asseritve Mesomorph : muscular - active, assertive
Carl jung
Introversion - extroversion
karen horney
Warm and consistent parenting helps avoid the development of neuroticism
3 kinds;
Compliant, aggressive, detached
bandura
social learning theory
Galton (lexical hypothesis)
first lexical hypothesis - if idicidual differences of personality are important there should be sufficient vocab to describe them.
Meaning that the more frequent a word is, the more synonyms, the more important it is.
Created a dictionary of the most prevalent and important personality characteristics.
(tekkers not inconsistent with factor analysis)
gordon allport
cardinal- central - peripheral personality traits
develops across time (criticism of trait theory before it began)
Cattell
First to use FACTOR ANALYSIS: statistical method where you reduce many variables to the fewest possible based on prevalence
16 components representing basis of personality
Eysnek
- Wanted to identify the main components of personality, figure out how to measure then use scientific procedures to test.
- saw traits as relatively stable
- personality is a person’s character, temperament, intelligence, physique, and nervous system; and the interactions between them.
-much of personality is decided by biology - hierarchal model of personality types
- 3 personality types which make up the structure of personality
1. Introversion / extroversion
2. neuroticism/ stability
3. self control/psychoticism
Developed EPQ to measure these types
IMPLICATIONS - research contributed to the big 5
- conducted research and created theories for a biological basis of personality
e.e neuroticism high in people with a low activation threshold of the sympathetic nervous system.
The big 5
(costa and mcCrae) built on eysnecks work: 1. Openness 2. conscientiousness 3. extraversion 4. agreeableness 5. Neuroticism Make up basic structure of personality lots of support : lexical approach - factor analysis of personality questionnaires.
(2007)- one general factor of personality was suggested
early 2000’s - suggested a 6th factor = honestly
