Introduction

Question 1

Definition of Personality

Answer 1

Includes all those relatively permanent traits that render some consistency to a person’s behavior

Question 2

Why is there so much disagreement regarding what the term “personality” means?

Answer 2

There is disagreement because each personality theorist viewed “personality” from an individual frame of reference and perceived the nature of humanity differently

• A theorist’s frame of reference consists of the historical, social, and psychological worlds that they experienced at the exact time that they created their theory

Question 3

How do the clinical, psychometric, and experimental approaches to personality differ?

C → system
P → collection
E → function

Answer 3

Clinical approaches: viewed personality as a system, an integrated functioning of psychological components

Psychometric approaches : viewed personality as a collection of dimensions that make individuals differ from one another

Experimental approaches: viewed personality as function, the processes involved in integrated functioning

Question 4

How does deductive reasoning differ from inductive reasoning?

DR → g to s
IR → s to g

Answer 4

Deductive reasoning : consists of going from the general to the specific
- An investigator will create hypotheses from a useful theory and will test those hypotheses
- The results of those tests- will feed back into the theory.

Inductive reasoning : consists of going from the specific to the general
- An investigator will alter their theory to reflect the results
- As the theory grows, other hypotheses can be drawn from it, and can reshape the theory