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INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY :PENCIL2: SPA2 LECTURE 1 - Coggle Diagram
INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY
:PENCIL2:
SPA2 LECTURE 1
What is personality?
“A dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create the person’s characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings.” - (Allport, 1961, p.11)
An adaptive, organised internal system
Interaction of body and mind
Relatively stable part of a person
Personality influences a range of human experiences
Measuring Personality
Some methods involve measurements of personality from data provided by the individual
Projective tests
Implicit measures
Self-report questionnaires
Projective tests
Ambiguous stimuli presented to the person who then provides a response to the stimuli.
Can provide information about underlying emotions/thoughts, inner conflicts
Rorschach Inkblot
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Provides insight into personality.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Inkblots can be employed to elicit responses determined by the peculiarities of perception which are supposedly dependent upon the underlying structure of the personality.
Thematic Apperception Test
Developed by Henry Murray, (Harvard Psychological Clinic)
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): 30 grayscale pictures - each contain a dramatic event or critical situation.
Asked what is happening in this picture:
Relationships between people
Feelings of people in picture
Stories are constructed which reflect individual personalities and experiences.
Criticisms
Lack of reliability
No consensus among “experts”
Lack of validity
Weak predictive power (e.g. can’t predict aggressive behaviour)
Lack of convergence with psychometrically sound tests
Lack of determining differences between people with mental illness and those without.
However, they can be useful as an ‘ice-breaker’ in therapy.
Implicit measures
Implicit Association Test
The Implicit Association Test aims to tap into our automatic associations.
This test measures whether the subject responds faster to when certain categories are combined versus other combinations of categories.
One advantage of this technique is that it is hard for people to “fake good” or malinger while doing this procedure.
Emotional Stroop Test
Classic Stroop - colour word written in different colour text - asked to say the colour that the word is written in.
The emotional version of the Stroop Test requires a person to look at a list of words and say the colour of the ink in which the word is printed.
Some of the words represent possible sources of concern or anxiety.
The assumption is that the task will be more difficult and the pauses of the subject will be longer when trying to say the colour of the words that relate to areas of concern/stress/frustration.
These words can be negative (e.g. Hurt), neutral (e.g. dog) or positive (e.g. Happy).
The negative words are usually chosen to represent areas of concern or anxiety for that particular person.
The words that take the person longer to report the colour are seen to represent areas of concern or anxiety and thus gives us insight into their personality.
So, for example if someone tends to be high in social anxiety, they will likely take longer to say the colour of words such as ‘audience’ or‚ ‘presentation‘.
Self-report Questionnaires
MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, now MMPI-2-RF) 576 items, 51 scales.
16PF, 185 items, 16 factors
EPQ-R (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire), 100 items, 4 factors.
NEO-PI-R240 items, 5 factors, 30 scales.
HEXACO-60
Honesty-Humility
Having a lot of money is not especially important to me.
Emotionality
I sometimes can’t help worrying about little things
Extraversion
In social situations, I’m usually the one who makes the first move.
Agreeableness
I tend to be lenient in judging other people.
Conscientiousness
People often call me a perfectionist.
Openness
I like people who have unconventional views.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Report Instruments
You rely on the information that people are:
Willing to give (beware of impression management)
Able to give (beware of self-deception)
Cost and time-effective
Now use online tools (E.g. Qualtrics)
Other methods use reports of others
Known others
Behavioural observations
Perception of faces by unknown others
Using faces to identify traits
Face perception and traits
Oosterhof and Todorov (2008)
got participants to freely describe 66 faces, then looked at which trait descriptions were most frequent (lexical hypothesis).
Top 10: Attractive, Unhappy, Sociable, Emotionally stable, Mean, Boring, Aggressive, Weird, Intelligent, Confident.
Two-factor model of traits from faces
Oosterhof & Todorov (2008):
Factor 1 - Trustworthiness
Do they want to help or hurt me?
Factor 2 - Dominance
Can they help or hurt me?
Three-factor model of traits from faces
Sutherland et al. (2013)
Factor 1 - Trustworthiness / Approachability
Factor 2 - Dominance
Factor 3 - Youthful-attractiveness
Mate assessment?
Age stereotype?
Personality Judgements
Judging stranger’s personality may not be accurate
But are we always accurate about ourselves?
Judging others’ personality doesn't always match their own self-rated perceptions.
Face perception models may be more useful in everyday life to explain our own behaviours.
The origins of personality
Learning Theory Approach
Personality is a result of learning experiences.
Social learning theory (SLT)
Bandura’s model of reciprocation:
Bandura's Self Efficacy
Self-efficacy: confidence in your own ability.
Several measures (including child-specific)
High self-efficacy increases likelihood of achieving success.
Self-efficacy can be modified:
Encouraged and supported to do task
Vicarious experience
Participant modelling (shadowing)
Self-efficacy in University Students
Paciello et al. (2016)
Emotional self-efficacy
Controlling anxiety when facing a problem.
Social self-efficacy
Being able to ask lecturers for help when I need it.
Self-regulated learning self-efficacy
Being able to work when there are other interesting things to do.
Cluster 1: High self-efficacious, n = 340
Cluster 2: Low self-efficacious, n = 422
Cluster 3: Learning and socially self-efficacious, n = 442
Cluster 4: Emotionally self-efficacious, n = 446
How are these clusters related to wellbeing?
Cluster 1, highest, cluster 2, lowest.
Julian Rotter's Locus of Control
People have either external or internal LoC.
IE scale measures LoC
30 items in pairs
Example pair:
“Many of the unhappy things in people’s lives are partly due to bad luck.”
“People’s misfortunes result from the mistakes they make.”
Multi-dimensional Health LoC
Wallston et al. (1978)
Three sets of items:
Internal
Powerful others (external)
Chance (external)
Locus of Control has been linked with anxiety, depression and physical health.
Example items:
Even when I take care of myself, it’s easy to get sick.
Regarding my health, I can only do what my doctor tells me to do.
If I take care of myself, I can avoid illness.
When I feel ill, I know it is because I have not been taking care of myself properly.
Predictors of LoC in adolescence
Furnham & Cheung (2016)
Childhood adolescence
Extraversion
Neuroticism
Self-esteem
Behavioural problems
Parental social status at birth
Learning Theory Approach
Bandura's model of reciprocation
Self-efficacy
Rotter's Locus of Control
There are many others.
Issues
Assumes all humans are passive - what about free will?
What about other factors? E.g. biological influences (see chapters 8 & 9)
Humanistic Approach
Key characteristics:
Emphasis on personal responsibility
Aims to understand individual experiences
Humans are motivated by a need for positive growth
Maslow (1954)
- instinctoid tendencies.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
What motivated the choices we make?
Physiological
Safety
Love and belonging
Self-esteem
Self-actualisation
Carl Rogers and the self-concept
Two versions of ‘the self’
Self-concept: socially constructed.
Real organismic self: who we ‘really’ are.
Two aspects influence the development of each:
Unconditional positive regard
Conditions of worth