Personality

Contents

 Definition, development of personality,

 Biological, social factors

 Measurement of personality

 Projective, non-projective techniques

Personality

refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The

study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in

particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding

how the various parts of a person come together as a whole.

“Personality is the whole individual considered as a whole. It may be defined as the most

characteristic integration of an individual structure, modes of interest, attitudes, behaviour and

capacities.” – Muirhead

Personality is the one word in Psychology which is used by most of us, rather carelessly and

loosely. It is more comprehensive in its connotation than “temperament” or ‘character’ but we

often confuse it with them. We often identify it with the ‘externals’ of an individual, his looks,

voice, dress, manners and gestures, when we remark, “Sunita has a wonderful personality or Anil

has a poor personality.” The externals or physique and appearance constitute only one factor in

one’s personality; they do not constitute the whole that is implied by the term personality.

Foundations of Personality:

On the basis of various definitions, it can be said that personality is founded on certain

structures. These are

(i), Physiological structure of the organism,

(ii) Psychic structure of the organism and

(iii) Social and cultural structure. These structures contribute to the formation of personality.

Individual is born with certain physical and psychological traits or structures. The physiological

and psychological traits react to the social and cultural atmosphere. Consequently, the

personality is made up.

Theoretical Approaches to Studying Personality

Research into these five philosophical questions has branched into several different

approaches to studying personality.

The major theories include the psychodynamic, neo-Freudian, learning (or behaviorist),

humanistic, biological, trait (or dispositional), and cultural perspectives.

1. Psychodynamic theory, originating with Sigmund Freud, posits that human behavior is

the result of the interaction among various components of the mind (the id, ego, and

superego) and that personality develops according to a series of psychosexual

developmental stages.
Sigmund Freud: Sigmund Freud advanced a psychodynamic view of human personality that

implicated the id, ego, and superego as the main determinants of individual differences in

personality.

2. Neo-Freudian theorists, such as Adler, Erikson, Jung, and Horney, expanded on Freud’s

theories but focused more on the social environment and on the effects of culture on personality.

3. Learning theories, such as behaviorism, regard an individuals’ actions as ultimately being

responses to external stimuli. Social learning theory believes that personality and behavior are

determined by an individual’s cognition about the world around them.

4. Humanistic theory argues that an individual’s subjective free will is the most important

determinant of behavior. Humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

believed that people strive to become self-actualized— the “best version” of themselves.

5. Biological approaches focus on the role of genetics and the brain in shaping personality.

Related to this, evolutionary theories explore how variation in individual personalities variance

may be rooted in natural selection.

6. Trait theorists believe personality can be conceptualized as a set of common traits, or

characteristic ways of behaving, that every individual exhibits to some degree. In this view, such

personality traits are different from person to person but within an individual are stable over time

and place.

With any of these theories, it is important to keep in mind that the culture in which we live is one

of the most important environmental factors that shapes our personalities. Western ideas about

personality are not necessarily applicable to other cultures, and there is evidence that the strength

of personality traits varies across cultures.

Personality measurement

a. Non projective tests/ paper pencil test

The many and various paper‐and‐pencil tests are used for a variety of purposes. To be useful,

such tests must be reliable (that is, they must yield very close scores each time they are

administered to a particular individual) and valid (that is, they must measure what they are

designed to measure).

• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) (multiphasic, many phased,

because the test simultaneously measures a number of personality dimensions) is widely used to

identify personality problems.

• The California Personality Inventory (CPI) is also used extensively, generally with people

who do not have personality problems.

• Some tests assess personality as defined by a particular theory.

• For example, Cattell's 16 PF (personality factor) questionnaire assesses the personality traits

defined in Cattell's trait theory.

b. Projective techniques assess personality by presenting ambiguous stimuli and requiring a

subject to respond, projecting his or her personality into the responses.

• The ambiguous inkblots in the well‐known Rorschach inkblot test, developed by Hermann

Rorschach, are perceived differently by different people, and those perceptions are believed to be

related to the subjects' problems.

• The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), developed by Henry Murray, consists of a series of

ambiguous pictures, which the subject is requested to describe and tell a story about. The test is

used to identify a person's emotions, motives, and problems. Scoring and interpreting projective
tests requires special training, but the tests can be very helpful in identifying personality

problems.

Thinking

Contents

 Thinking

 Nature and definition

 Tools of thinking, kinds of thinking

 Problem solving

 Decision making: reasoning

Definition

Thinking is organizing and manipulating information and knowledge. Usually it is aimed at

achieving some goal or satisfying some purpose. Thinking is the mental activity associated with

understanding, processing and communicating knowledge.

Nature

The word “think” has wide range of meanings but the closest meaning conveyed is “reason”.

Psychologists who study thinking are mainly interested in the mental activity which we use when

we try to solve a problem, judge the truth of an assertion or weigh the cost and benefits in an

important decision.

Thinking is an activity that occurs in your brain, as electrical and chemical signals travel all over

your cerebral cortex, that dense blanket of nerves that covers most of your brain and lies just

under your skull. Thinking allows you to put ideas together and create other ideas. You can see

pictures in your mind. You connect logical points together. You can imagine things that could

happen and remember things that have already happened. You can develop works of art and
science in your mind. You can dream and imagine. In this lesson, we'll be discussing three

fundamental parts of your thinking: symbols, concepts, and prototypes.

Fundamental Parts of thinking

Your mind thinks in visual pictures and other sensations, and often those pictures and sensations

represent something. For example, if you think of the word 'apple', what picture comes to mind?

What smell, sound, or taste? What does an apple feel like when you touch it?

a. Symbols are basic units of thought, often words, that conjure up in our minds an object, like

an apple. Symbols can also bring up a quality, such as the idea of being 'strong,' 'sweet,' or

'silent.'

b. A concept is a class of objects that all share some common characteristic. Music is an

example of a concept, with many symbols used to describe it.

c. The specific picture that a symbol brings to the mind is called a prototype.

Tools of thinking

Here are some basic tools of thinking:

Symbols

The most common symbols used by the typical human mind are words. Each word generally

represents something other than the word itself. For example, when you think about the 'apple'

symbol, you don't usually imagine the word or its spelling. You usually think about what an

apple is to you. In fact, if you start thinking about how the word 'apple' is spelled, you find

yourself working with different symbols, such as the letter 'a', the letter 'p', and so on.

Notice that if you say the word 'apple', the sound also represents that same symbol. Speaking the

word brings to mind the object behind the symbol, which allows you to verbally communicate

the idea of an 'apple' with someone else. Notice that a certain symbol can have many meanings.

For example, when you think of the word 'apple' today, you might be thinking of the fruit, the

corporation, Apple Computers, or perhaps one of the products they make, or even maybe a color

that you saw once, which was called 'apple red.' The meaning behind the symbol can have many

meanings, be different for different people, and even different for different times in your life. By

using symbols, we can imagine and communicate things that are different from what we

experience in day-to-day life. For example, imagine the following picture: ''A unicorn sat on a

stool and munched on an apple.'' Notice how the symbols in the sentence created elements of a

picture in your mind. You've probably never seen a unicorn sitting on a stool and eating an apple,

but you can certainly imagine one! The symbols brought the picture to life!

Images:
As mental pictures consist of personal experiences of objects, persons or situations, seen, heard

and felt. These mental pictures symbolize actual objects, experiences and activities. In thinking,

we usually manipulate the images rather than the actual objects, experiences or activities.

Researchers suggest that manipulations performed on images are very similar to those that would

be performed on the objects themselves.

Visual thought is useful in spatial or geographical relationships. A mental representation of

physical space is called a cognitive map. We often think in images as artists, composers, poets,

mathematicians and scientists etc think in images.

Concepts:

A concept is a general idea that stands for a general class and represents the common

characteristics of all objects or events of this general class. Concept, as a tool, economize the

efforts in thinking, for example, when we hear the word ‘elephant’ we are at once reminded not

only about the nature and qualities of elephant as a class but also our own experiences and

understanding of them come to the surface in our consciousness to stimulate our thinking at that

time.

Concepts are mental categories that are used to group objects, events and characteristics. We

know what is book, magazine, building, school, man, fish, fruit, vegetable etc. how do we know

things? It is our ability to group them based on their features. It is the concept by which we know

what is what.

Language:

Is the most efficient and developed vehicle used for carrying out the process of thinking. When a

person reads, writes or hears words or sentences or observes gesture in any language one is
stimulated to think. Thus, reading and writing of documents and literature also help in

stimulating and promoting the thinking process.

Language is a form of communication, wether written, spoken or signed, enables us to

communicate complex ideas from person to person and to transmit civilization’s accumulated

knowledge from generation to generation. We pass information from one generation to the next

and create a rich cultural heritage due to language. This heritage affects our thinking and

language as well.

Types of thinking

There are two main types of thinking:

1. Autistic thinking (unrealistic thinking) It is the mental activity which is exactly in

accordance with one’s wishes. Individual fulfills all his desires and wishes in fantasy.

a. Day dreaming
Individua fulfills all his real and un-real goals I fantasy. The folk story of sheikh chille is its best

example. Day dreaming gives pleasure to everyone for the time being.

b. Free association

It is basically a therapeutic technique used in psychoanalysis, in which subject is facilitated to

talk freely whatever comes in his mind, without any censor.

c. Word association Subject’s association of ideas is bound to some stimulus. Subject is asked

to listen carefully a list of words and report the very first word that comes in his mind after

listening the stimulus word.

2. Realistic Thinking

It has three types; reasoning, problem solving, creative thinking

a. Reasoning

Reasoning is the term that cognitive psychologists use to refer to the process of assigning

meaning to our thoughts. This has a tremendous impact on how we view various aspects of the

world around us and influences how we make decisions. In the world of psychology, there are

two main categories of reasoning:

I. Inductive reasoning (specific to general) is reasoning where the premises support the

conclusion. The conclusion is the hypothesis, or probable. This means that the conclusion is the

part of reasoning that inductive reasoning is trying to prove. Inductive reasoning is also referred

to as 'cause and effect reasoning' or 'bottom-up reasoning' because it seeks to prove a conclusion

first. This is usually derived from specific instances to develop a general conclusion. Ali and

Ahmed are arguing about math. Ali says that all big brothers are good at math. Ahmed is an only

child, but he's pretty sure that this argument cannot be valid. Ali makes a conclusion based on the

following premises: 'My older brother is good at math. My friend's older brother is good at math.
My neighbor's big brother is a math tutor. Therefore, all older brothers are good at math.' You've

probably heard people use this type of reasoning in life. We know this can't be true. Because

inductive reasoning is based on specific instances, it can often produce weak and invalid

arguments.

Now let's talk about deductive reasoning.

ii. Deductive reasoning (general to specific)

Deductive reasoning means we can draw a conclusion based on at least two true statements, or

premises. Because the statements are true, we know that the conclusion we make based on those

two statements is also true. For example, 'All cars have engines. I have a car. Therefore, my car

has an engine. Sherlock Holmes, the detective character from books and movies, is a great

example of someone who uses deductive reasoning all of the time. He draws conclusions by

observing the situation, and he uses these observations to find the criminal and solve the crime.

Let's look at a most basic explanation. The detective uses the following sequence:

• Premise one: A left-handed person is the killer (Killer is the major term-- predicate of the

conclusion)

• Premise two: Ms. Red is the only left-handed person (Left-handed is the middle term-found in

both premises)

• Conclusion: Ms. Red is the killer (Ms. Red is the minor term--subject of the conclusion)

Another example: violation of discipline will be fined. Musa violated the discipline. Musa will

be fined. This deductive reasoning makes sense and can be said to be valid.

b. Problem solving

Problem solving is the application of ideas, skills or factual information to achieve the solution to

a problem or to reach a desired outcome. Let's talk about different types of problems and
different types of solutions. Psychology has broken down problems in different ways. The first

way is to make a distinction between well-defined and poorly-defined problems. A well-defined

problem is one that has a clear goal or solution, and problem-solving strategies are easily

developed. In contrast, a poorly-defined problem is the opposite. It's one that is unclear,

abstract, or confusing, and that does not have a clear problem-solving strategy.

For example, imagine that you are in school. If your teacher gives you a quiz that asks you to

list the first ten U.S. Presidents in order and name one important historical fact about each, that

would be a well-defined problem. The instructions and expected outcome is clear, and you can

use a simple memory recall strategy to come up with the correct answer.

However, if your teacher gives you a quiz that instead asks you, 'think about some history, then

draw a picture and be sure to wash your hands,' you're not really sure what to do. What does the

teacher expect of you? This is a poorly-defined problem, because you don't know how to reach a

solution or answer.

Decision-Making

Chocolate or strawberry? Life or death? We make some choices quickly and automatically,

relying on mental shortcuts our brains have developed over the years to guide us in the best

course of action. Understanding strategies such as maximizing vs. satisficing, fast versus slow

thinking, and factors such as risk tolerance and choice overload, can lead to better outcomes.

The Art of Decision-Making

When making a decision, we form opinions and choose actions via mental processes which are

influenced by biases, reason, emotions, and memories. The simple act of deciding supports the

notion that we have free will. We weigh the benefits and costs of our choice, and then we cope
with the consequences. Factors that limit the ability to make good decisions include missing or

incomplete information, urgent deadlines, and limited physical or emotional resources.

Social thinking and social influence

Contents

• Social facilitation

• Crowd behaviour

• Helping behaviour

Social Thinking

Social Thinking is a language-based teaching approach that focuses on social problem solving,

cognitive flexibility and the emotions and points of view of others. Michelle Garcia Winner, a

speech and language pathologist who learned about social cognition in her early career, created

the term Social Thinking. Social Thinking helps children:

• Learn how to handle unexpected situations

• Generate different ways to problem solve in difficult situations

• Get unstuck and more flexible

• Become open minded when faced with new information.

Social facilitation refers to the finding that people sometimes work more effectively on
a task when they’re around others. The phenomenon has been studied for over a century, and

researchers have found that it occurs in some situations but not in others, depending on the type

of task and context.

To give an example of how social facilitation might work in real life, think about how the

presence of an audience might affect a musician’s performance. A talented musician who has

won numerous awards might feel energized by the presence of an audience, and have a live

performance that’s even better than practiced at home. However, someone who is just learning a

new instrument might be anxious or distracted by the pressure of performing under an audience,

and make mistakes they wouldn’t have made when they practiced alone. In other words, whether

or not social facilitation occurs depends on someone’s familiarity with the task: the presence of

others tends to improve performance on tasks people already know well, but tends to decrease

performance on unfamiliar tasks. Some examples include the following:

• A musician/actor/performer who becomes energized by having an audience and does a better

performance

• Finding that you do better work if you go to a library than if you stay at home to study

• A weightlifter who is able to lift heavier weights when doing it in front of others versus doing it

alone

Crowd psychology

Crowds are common occurrences and can be seen in sporting events, music concerts, shopping

sales, and amusement parks. Crowd behavior is the behavior that is conducted by individuals

who gather in a crowd, while a crowd is defined as a gathering of people who share a purpose. It

is the broad study of how individual behavior is impacted when large crowds group together.
This field of social science has progressed from the early examination of negative social

groupings to the study of crowds in more socially proactive or emergency-type of environments.

Earlier examinations failed to attribute the more positive social impacts that groups can have on

an individual’s behavior, and there is much more work to be done in this intriguing area of study.

Real-World Examples

Crowd psychology can be witnessed in many real-word situations. One of the most interesting

phenomena is the way in which crowds respond in emergency situations. According to

traditional sociological theories, panicked groups of people should be irrational, selfish and in a

primitive survival mode. Several studies have found the opposite is true. Shockingly, even those

people evacuating from the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 filed out in

an orderly way which saved countless lives.

The impact of ‘group-think’ has been extremely intriguing for psychologists, sociologists and

historians well-before the horrifying spread of the Nazi mentality during WWII. Since the social

science’s early study, the negative effects of crowd mentality have been well-examined. There is

still much to be learned about crowd psychology and the role it plays in initiating social progress,

aiding in emergencies and peacefully defending their individual rights.

Helping behaviour is providing aid or benefit to another person. It does not matter what the

motivation of the helper is, only that the recipient is assisted. This is distinguished from the more

general term prosocial behavior, which can include any cooperative or friendly behavior. It is

also distinguished from the more specific term altruistic behavior, which requires that the

motivation for assisting others be primarily for the well-being of the other person or even at a

cost to oneself.

The Bystander Effect

Research shows that people are less likely to offer help to someone in distress if other people are

also present. This is called the Bystander Effect. The probability that a person will receive help

decreases as the number of people present increases. Diffusion of responsibility contributes to

the bystander effect. A person does not feel as responsible for helping someone if several others

are also present, since responsibility is distributed among all those present.

Influences on Helping

Researchers have proposed that bystanders who witness an emergency will help only if three

conditions are met:

 They notice the incident.

 They interpret the incident as being an emergency situation.

 They assume responsibility for helping.

Researchers suggest that people are most likely to help others in certain circumstances:

 They have just seen others offering help.

 They are not in a hurry.

 They share some similarities with the person needing help.

 They are in a small town or a rural setting.

 They feel guilty.

 They are not preoccupied or focused on themselves.

 They are happy.

 The person needing help appears deserving of help