Personality Flashcards
(5 cards)
define personality
Personality is defined as “the distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that characterise a person’s responses to life situations.”
Key elements of personality include:
Individuality: Everyone is like all other people, some other people, and no other person.
Consistency: Personality traits exhibit a degree of stability across time and situations.
Behavioural identity: Thoughts, feelings, and actions that distinguish one person from another.
Internal cause and structure: Personality is seen as internally driven and organized to guide behaviour
Describe the basic assumptions of the psychodynamic theories of personality
Psychodynamic theories, pioneered by Freud, are based on the following assumptions:
Unconscious Motivations: Much of human behaviour is driven by unconscious forces.
Inner Conflict: Behaviour results from conflicts among id (instinctual desires), ego (rational mediator), and superego (moral conscience).
Defence Mechanisms: The ego uses unconscious mechanisms like repression, denial, and projection to handle anxiety.
Early Childhood Experiences: Early life experiences, particularly psychosexual stages, shape adult personality.
Mental Structure: The mind is divided into conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels.
Dynamic Interplay: Personality is the outcome of ongoing struggles among internal forces and external demands
Discuss the basic principles of the cognitive social theories of personality
Cognitive-social (or social-cognitive) theories emphasize:
Personal Constructs: People interpret and predict the world using individualized mental categories (Kelly).
Self-System & Self-Efficacy: Beliefs about one’s ability (Bandura’s self-efficacy) influence behaviour.
Behavioural Signatures: Consistent patterns of behaviour across similar situations.
Interactionism: Behaviour results from an interaction between personal traits and situational factors.
Observational Learning: People learn behaviours by observing others.
Subjective Experience: People actively interpret the world, not passively respond to it
Compare and contrast the major theories of personalities
Trait Theories Overview:
Gordon Allport: Identified over 17,000 traits but focused on central and cardinal traits.
Raymond Cattell: Identified 16 basic traits using factor analysis (16PF).
Five Factor Model (Big Five): Condensed traits into five dimensions:
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism (OCEAN)
Comparison:
Allport provided a broad lexical approach but lacked empirical structure.
Cattell’s 16PF is more data-driven and detailed but seen as too complex.
The Five Factor Model (FFM) offers a parsimonious and widely validated framework and is supported cross-culturally.
Contrast:
FFM is more universally accepted and predictive of real-life behaviours.
Cattell and Allport’s models are more descriptive and foundational but less practical for modern research use
Describe the basic principles of the humanistic theories of personality
Humanistic theories, like those of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, include the following principles:
Innate Goodness: Humans are inherently good and motivated toward growth.
Self-Actualisation: A drive toward realizing one’s fullest potential.
Self-Concept: An organized, stable sense of self shapes how we perceive the world and behave.
Congruence: Psychological health depends on consistency between self-concept and experiences.
Unconditional Positive Regard: Acceptance from others without conditions fosters healthy self-esteem.
Free Will & Subjective Experience: Emphasis on conscious experience, personal choice, and present-focused growth
