Chapter 1 – Personality: What It Is and Why You Should Care

What is Personality?
 Very general term
o Everyday use focuses on specific aspects of personality – thoughtful, egocentric,
arrogant, etc.
o Everyday use tries to capture the essence or key characteristics when applied to a
person
 Personality is an area of psychology that is of central important empirically and clinically
 It is difficult to pinpoint and define
 Definition #1 – Henry Murray
o An individual’s personality is an abstraction formulated by the theorist and not
merely a description of the individual’s behavior. An individual’s personality
refers to a series of events that ideally span the person’s lifetime.
o Personality is not a one-time observation/display of behaviour
 E.g., if you meet someone once and they are rude, that does not mean
they have a rude personality, maybe they are just having a bad day
o A snapshot of a person’s behaviour is not enough to determine/display their
personality
 Definition #2 – Meyer, Moore, & Viljoen
o Personality is the constantly changing but nevertheless relatively stable
organization of all physical, psychological, and spiritual characteristics of the
individual that determine his or her behavior in interaction with the context in
which the individual finds him or herself.
o Idea that personality is both changing yet stable
 Plasticity in our personality across our lifespan yet there is still some
stability over our lifetime
 Comes about in many different theories
o Personality does not exist in a vacuum. It incorporates how we interact with and
respond to the things around us
 Environment plays a big role
 Definition #3 – Pervin
o Personality is the complex organization of cognitions, affects, and behaviors that
gives direction and pattern to the person’s life. Like the body, personality
consists of both structures and processes and reflects both nature and nurture.
In addition, personality includes the effects of the past, including memories of
the past, as well as constructions of the present and future.
 Definition #4 – Magnavita
o Personality is an individual’s habitual way of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and
reacting to the world.
o Patterns that repeat based on our personality
 Definition #5 – David Funder
 o Personality is an individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and
behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms – hidden or not – behind
those patterns.
o Individual aspect, individual differences, unique for each person
 Definition #6 – Raymond Catell
o Personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given
situation ... it is concerned with all the behavior of the individual, both overt and
under the skin.
o If you properly understand someone’s personality, you should be able to predict
their behaviour in a particular situation
 Definition #7 – Hans Eysenck
o Personality is the more or less stable and enduring organization of a person’s
character, temperament, intellect, and physique, which determines his unique
adjustment to his (or her) environment.
o Organization of a bunch of different elements that influence our personality. It
encompasses the entire person rather than just one part of the person.
 Definition #8 – Gordon Allport
o Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychosocial systems that determine his unique adjustments to his (or her)
environment.
o How our different psychosocial systems come together to create our unique
personality.
 Aspects in common across most definitions
o Each person has a unique personality
 Although two people can have similar personalities there will be
differences
 Uniqueness based on different genetics and nurture
o Knowledge of a person’s personality will allow prediction of their future
behaviour to be made in a given situation
o Personality is concerned with the whole person (behaviour, thought, and
feelings)
 Personality is not simply one aspect of the individual, it takes into account
every aspect of the individual
o The personality of an individual helps them to adjust to their environment
 Personality influences how you act and engage in different situations
 Some people can adjust to different environments more easily than
others
o Personality is dynamic
 Both stable yet changing
 Consistency across time as well as changes throughout time
 What personality is not
o Character
 Viewed as an aspect of personality
  More specific element personality
 Specifically addressing your values and consistency in values
o Temperament
 Nature aspect of personality
 Genetic building block of personality
 Genetic predispositions to behave and respond in certain ways
 With experience, temperament will create personality
o Self
 Some view the self as how you view yourself
 Some see the self as being the core of personality
 Centre aspect of personality
 Includes self-concept, self-esteem, how we regulate ourselves

Personality Theories
What is Personality Psychology
 Research into personality that tries to address all three parts of the psychological triad
o Affect – feelings, emotions, etc.
o Behaviours – actions you engage in
o Cognition – thoughts
 Tries to understand the inconsistencies between thoughts, feelings, and behaviours

Categories of Personality Theories

 Common-sense theories
o Implicit personality theories
o Every single one of us has a personality theory, an idea of how we think
personality works
o While we might not have taken the time to explain it to ourselves, we have a
general idea on how we think personality influences our thoughts, actions, and
behaviours
 Academic theories
o Models attempting to describe, explain, and compare people and their behavior,
thoughts, and feelings
o Actual theories that have been developed, modelled, studied, etc.
o Goes beyond our intuition

Goals for Personality Theorists

 Scientific observation
o We are interested in looking at how people behave, not just in casually watching
people, but in a scientific way
o Observing people’s behaviour and expression of personality in a controlled
environment where we can do proper testing and experiments
 Scientific theory
o Developing theories and trying to back them up with research and explanations
  Application
o Applying theories to real world situations

Personality Data
 Life record data (L-data)
o Looking at people’s life records
o Not research based
o Not records that we create as researchers
 Criminal records, report cards, etc.
 Observer data (O-data)
o Data we get from observation, generally in controlled settings
 Test data (T-data)
o Experimental, getting people to go to the lab and perform different tasks
 Self-report data (S-data)
o Responses from participants

Personality Theorists & Approaches to the Study of Personality

 Sigmund Freud - Psychodynamic approach
 Carl Jung - Neo-psychodynamic approach
 Alfred Adler - Neo-psychodynamic approach
 Karen Horney - Neo-psychodynamic approach
 Erik Erikson - Life-span approach (fundamentally also psychodynamic)
 Gordon Allport - Traits approach
 Raymond Catell - Traits approach
 Paul Costa & Robert McCrae - Biological approach
 Hans Eysenck - Biological approach
 Abraham Maslow - Humanistic approach
 Carl Rogers - Humanistic approach
 B.F. Skinner - Behaviourist approach
 Albert Bandura - Social learning approach
 George Kelly - Cognitive approach

Why are there so many personality theories?

 The complexity of humans and their behaviours
 Practical and ethical problems in research
 The large variety of assumptions concerning the person and scientific research
 Theorists are influenced by their own personal experiences

Evaluating Theories
 Is the theory useful?
 Is the theory comprehensive?
 Is the theory parsimonious?
 Is the theory coherent?
  Is the theory valid?
 Is the theory generative?
 Is the theory relevant?
 Does the theory have intuitive appeal?

Topics of Debate in Personality Research, Theories, and Literature

Nature vs Nurture
 Nature = genetics, biology, brain structures
 Nurture = environment, parenting, culture, social norms
 For the most part, we now understand that both play a role in shaping our personality
while it is still not agreed upon how much is nature vs how much is nurture

Nomothetic vs Idiographic & Universality vs Uniqueness

 Nomothetic
o Approach we take in understanding personality
o Approach that tries to establish universal laws regarding behaviour, personality,
etc.
 Idiographic
o Focuses on individual differences
o Tries to describe how we are unique and different
 Ultimately, there is a bit of both
 We need both nomothetic and idiographic approaches to understand psychology

Determinism vs Freewill & Pessimistic vs Optimistic

 Has not been concluded
 Determinism
o Our development, personality, etc., are determined by other factors beyond our
control
o How we have been shaped by genetics and our environment
o More pessimistic approach
 Freewill
o We choose our behaviours and are responsible for our choices, personality,
development, etc.
o More optimistic approach

Conscious vs Unconscious
 Trying to understand the extent to which conscious and unconscious mental processes
determine how we think, feel, and behave
 Conscious
o We are self-aware and have a self-understanding of how we think and behave
 Unconscious
o We have unconscious forces/drives that we are not aware of that influence our
decision making, behaviour, and conscious experiences
Person vs Situation
 Which is more influential in our behave? Which is the driving force?
 Personism
o Personality is the central influence
o Regardless of the situation, people show a set pattern of behaviour and personal
differences
 Situationalism
o Situation determines behaviour, personality is irrelevant
o Context overrides individual differences in the person
 Generally agreed upon now that both play a role
 Interactionalism
o Behaviour is the product of the person and the situation
o You will behave in X way based on your personality and the situation
 Transnationalism
o Behaviour is the product of the person, the situation, and the previous behaviour

Proactive vs Reactive
 Proactive
o Are we primarily instigators of our behaviour? Driving our behaviour? Acting on
our own initiative?
 Reactive
o Responding to what’s going on around us in our environment

Framework for Studying Personality Theories

1. View of Man Underlying the Theory
 Theorists view of what is common to all humans
o E.g., optimistic vs pessimistic, freewill vs. determinism
 Assumptions about the nature and existence of the person
 Assumptions about the general direction of human life
 Assumptions about whether life is primarily a good thing or a bad thing
2. The Structure of the Personality
 Structural concepts used to explain the dynamics of human functioning
 What kind of structures do they think help to explain our functioning etc.
 Not actual physical structures like places of the brain
 Hypothetical working parts that work together to determine our personality
3. Dynamics of the Personality
 Trying to answer how everything works together
 What are the mechanisms of the personality?
 What motivates behaviour?
 What enables the personality to function?
 What provides the energy or the drive?
4. Development of the Personality
  Determinants of development (i.e., genetics, environmental, parents, stages,
etc.)
 Age at which development of personality is complete
 How our personality changes overtime
5. Optimal Development
 Best possible development
 What is the best possible outcome according to the theorists?
 Relates closely to theorist’s basic view of humankind
6. Views on Psychopathology
 How psychopathology develops
 How can things go off course
 Difference between a mentally healthy person and a psychologically disturbed
person
7. Implications and Applications
 Psychology
 People who work with people
 Daily life