Developmental

Psychology B
Session 5:
Personality Development
SACAP Online Flexi campus
(Term 1, 2024)
Educator: Tamarin Epstein
 What are the characteristics of
Personality?
• Personality refers to the dynamic psychological organization that co-ordinates
experience and action.
• Self concept: a collection of beliefs about oneself (a cognitive-affective view
that a person maintains of themselves, that is accessible to consciousness).
Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to "Who am I?".
• Self-schemas are ideas we have about ourselves, which regulate our behaviour
and guide our decisions.
• Selective perception: information is selectively represented in the self-
concept, in ways that are consistent with the individual’s personality traits, and
give the person a sense of coherence.
 What are the characteristics of
Personality?
• Self construal: a person’s perception about the self.
• Possible selves: what we would like to become (hoped for selves or ideal
selves), as well as what we do not want to become or may be afraid of
becoming (feared selves).
• Self esteem: a person’s overall subjective evaluation of one’s own worth as a
person. It involves feelings of self acceptance, self confidence and self respect.
• Identity: refers to the sense of life: “who am I, and what am I doing with my
life?”
• Emotions: complex reaction patterns that involve experiences, behaviour
patterns, and physiological elements, by which the individual attempts to deal
with a personally significant event.
 What is a personality “trait”?
•A relatively stable (consistent), internal characteristic
(dimension of personality) that may cause a person
to have tendencies to behave in certain ways.
•The way a person tends to approach the world.
•Meaningful differences between people: what
makes a person unique.
•Exists along a continuum
•Abnormal behaviour (“disorders”/eccentricities) are
extreme variations
 Jung: Extroversion-Introversion

• Carl Jung referred to 2 dominant personality traits, known as

introversion and extroversion:
o Extroversion: an orientation towards things outside of the
self
o Introversion: a tendency to turn inward and explore one’s
feelings and experiences.
 Jung: Extroversion-Introversion

• According to Jung, one could have a tendency towards both

introversion and extroversion, but one will always be consciously
dominant (the other trait is experienced unconsciously)
 Other early personality theorists

Gordon Allport:
• Common traits: there are 5 to 10
basic traits that people in a
population share… these became the
basis of Cattell’s work.

Raymond Cattell (1940’s): 16

Personality Factors
The 16PF: a
Personality Factor Questionnaire to
measure these traits.
 Other early personality theorists

Hans Eysenck: (1940’s) the PEN

model: 3 dimensions
Psychoticism (aggression, hostility) Genes
Extraversion
Neuroticism (emotionality)

• Emphasize a link between genes Personality

and personality:
o Our 3 core personality traits
are associated with
Cortical
physiological arousal arousal
system
 McCrae & Costa’s FFM
(Five Factor Model)
• In the 1980’s, Robert McCrae and Paul Costa developed the Five-Factor Model (FFM),
which describes personality in terms of five broad factors (dominant personality
traits).
• The Big Five: 5 main traits with specific features… people lie on the range between the
two bipolar extremes (polar opposites) for each trait:
•Openness to experience
•Conscientiousness
•Extraversion
•Agreeableness
•Neuroticism
• HEXACO model: In the early 2000’s, Ashton & Lee added the H-factor (honesty–
humility) to the ‘Big Five’ traits.
The ‘Big Five’ traits of personality

Extraversion

Agreeableness Openness to
experience

Neuroticism
Conscientiousness (emotionality)
 The ‘Big Five’ traits of personality
(OCEAN)
1. Openness to experience (intellect/imagination): imaginative, witty, creative (high),
shallow (vs insightful), plain, simple/traditional/conventional (low), broad range of
interests.
2. Conscientiousness: thoughtful, cautious, organised, responsible (high), impulsive (vs
good impulse control), careful/careless, disorderly (low), attention to detail, thoroughness,
diligence, planfulness, goal-directed behaviour.
3. Extraversion (surgency/positive emotionality): enthusiasm, dominance (vs submissive),
sociability (high, vs low/shy), quiet (low), talkative, excitability, energetic, highly
emotionally expressive.
4. Agreeableness: friendliness, sympathy, trust, altruism, co-operation, affection, optimism,
warmth (high), cold/critical, quarrelsome/aggressive, unkind (low)… prosocial behaviours.
5. Neuroticism (vs emotional stability/negative emotionality): nervousness, tension,
anxiety (high), calm, stable (vs unstable, moody), irritability, sadness.
 Consistency of Traits over Time

• According to the FFT:

o Personality naturally unfolds and adapts to the environment over the
lifespan (especially during the first 1/3rd of the life span)
o Traits are relatively stable/mature by adulthood (at least by age 30)
o Experience does not shape our personality traits, but affects how
they manifest (are displayed), e.g. behaviour
o Personality traits, although fairly stable, do change with age
o e.g. as people grow older, they seem to experience an increase in
traits related to social interest and tend to decrease in traits
related to activity and liveliness.
 Consistency of Traits across
contexts

• Although there is evidence for trait consistency over time, there is a

lot of debate over consistency across contexts (situations/settings).
• Behaviour is often relatively consistent across situations:
o e.g. if you are conscientious at work, you tend to be so at home, or
in other contexts

• Apperception: individuals attend to and construe the environment in

ways that are consistent with their personality traits.
• Reciprocity: individuals selectively influence the environment to
which they respond.
 Consistency of Traits across
contexts

• Behaviour can also be situation-specific:

o According to Mischel (1968), behaviour is a function of the
interaction between personality traits and situational forces, e.g.
➢ a person may be shy around new people, but not around
people s/he knows well
➢ we feel sad at a funeral, but happy at a party
➢ conscientious behaviour lessens when we experience time
pressure
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI)
• Developed by Myers, McCaulley, Quenck, and Hammer
(1998)
• Grounded in Jung’s theory of psychological types:
4 dichotomous scales:
1. Extraversion–Introversion (E–I)
2. Sensing–INtuition (S–N)
3. Thinking–Feeling (T–F)
4. Judging–Perceiving (J–P)
• A person is identified as 1 of 16 personality types, e.g.
INFP
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI)
 How does personality develop?
Some theories…
• Biological theories propose that personality is largely
determined by biological factors (e.g. genetics, brain
functioning, physiological arousal; injury, illness,
substance use).
• Psychoanalytic theory proposes that we develop
through a series of psychosexual stages.
• Erikson’s psychosocial development theory:
personality development occurs through the life span
and in 8 sequential stages. Each stage is characterized
by a crises or a challenge, to develop a specific ego
strength.
 How does personality develop?

• Interactionist theories propose that the social and

physical environment interacts with personality
dispositions, to shape characteristic adaptations
o The social and physical environment and our characteristic
adaptations to these, regulate the flow of our behaviour.
• Group-socialisation theory proposes that our peer
group has a great effect on our personality
o According to this theory, niche fitting takes place (children’s
personalities are affected by the available niches in their group, e.g.
if the role of a leader is taken, a member can take an alternative
role/find another niche, or compete for the role of the leader).
 How does personality develop?
an African perspective
• The African Worldview and Spirituality: a
common African personality derives from a
common African worldview.
• This worldview is holistic and humanistic,
and focuses on:
o interdependence
o collective survival
o harmony between people and nature
o an important role for the aged
o the oral tradition
o rhythm and continuity of life
 How does personality develop?
an African perspective
• Nsamenang describes the human life span and
life cycle as 3 phases of selfhood:
1. Spiritual selfhood: - begins with
conception, as a reincarnation of an
ancestral spirit.
2. Social selfhood: - develops through 7
stages
3. Ancestral selfhood: -following the
biological death of a person,
incorporation into the spiritual selfhood
follows with ritual initiations.
• These 3 aspects are integrated with one
another, and are central to the traditional
African way of life.
Personality tests used in South Africa
• Basic Traits Inventory (BTI)Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator – used across the diversity of
cultures
• Neo-Personality Inventory Revised (NEO-PI-R) –
cross culturally applicable
• The South African Personality Inventory (SAPI)
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI)
• 16 Personality Factor (16PF)
• Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
 References

• Louw, D. & Louw, A. (2019). Adult development and ageing (2nd ed. Ch.
4). South Africa: Haga Haga: Psychology Publications.
• Santrock, J. W. (2017). A topical approach to lifespan development (9th
ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.