Introduction to Personality Theory

1
Introduction to Personality Theory

• Dr. Kelley Kline
• FSU-Panama City

2
I. What is meant by personality??

• What do you think???

3
Personality

• The underlying causes within the person of
  individual behavior experience.
• A consistent pattern of behavior across the
  life-span.

4
Three questions in personality

• 1. How can personality be described?
• 2. How can we understand personality dynamics?
  (contextual cultural)
• 3. How does personality develop?

5
II. Describing personality

• A. Differences between people
• Approaches to describing individual differences
• --Type approach
• --Trait approach
• --Factors approach

6
1. Type approach

• -personality appears in a limited of distinct
  categories.
• According to this view, a person will belong to
  only one category.
• A small number of categories are used to describe
  everyone.
• Are qualitative!!!

7
Types examples

• Political liberals conservatives
• Jung introverts extroverts
• May be useful on a simple level of analysis.

8
2. Trait approach

• Traits are characteristics used to distinguish
  one individual from another (consistent over
  time).
• We can measure how much (from low to high) a
  person possesses a given trait (shyness,
  extraversion). Are quantitative!!
• There are many traits to describe a single
  person.

9
3. Factor approach-

• Similar to trait approach, except that factors
  are broader categories for describe personality
  than traits.
• A small of factors can be used to describe
  everyone.

10
B. Nomothetic vs. Idiographic

• The nomothetic approach we compare one person
  with another.
• Groups of individuals are studied relative to
  others on the same concepts (traits).
• Approach measures individual differences among
  others.

11
The idiographic approach-studies one individual
at a time, without making comparisons to others.

• This method focuses on an individual case.

12
Consistency of personality

• One theory is that an individuals behavior may
  be consistent across changing situations.
• However, Mischel argued that research failed to
  support this assumption.
• The situation may or may not play a greater role
  in determining behavior than personality.

13
III. Personality Dynamics

• What are mechanisms by which personality is
  expressed?
• Focuses on the motivations underlying why
  behavior occurs.
• Includes individuals adaptation or adjustment to
  the demands of life.

14
A. Adaptation Adjustment

• How we adapt adjust to situations events is
  based on our personality.

15
B. Cognitive Processes

• Our thought processes (cognitions, beliefs) play
  a large role in the formation expression of our
  personality.
• Unconscious thoughts or beliefs have an influence
  on our behaviors (Zajoncs Mere- Exposure
  Effect).

16
C. Culture

• When examining the concept of personality
  development, formation, expression, cultural
  influences need to be examined.

17
IV. Personality Development

• Examines the extent to which biological
  environmental factors contribute to the formation
  of our personalities.

18
A. Biological Influences

• To some extent our personalities are determined
  by genetic factors.
• Our temperament as children significantly
  predicts our behavior in adulthood.
• E.g., Some forms of psychopathology are
  heritable.

19
B. Environmental Influences

• Environmental factors (family, culture) influence
  our personality development.
• E.g., Freud Skinner both emphasized childhood
  experiences.

20
V. Theory

• A comprehensive explanation of natural phenomena
  that leads to accurate predictions.

21
Advantages of theories

• 1. Theories allow us to summarize the results of
  many research studies integrate numerous
  principles of learning.
• 2. Theories provide starting points for
  conducting new research.
• 3. Theories offer us a way for describing why
  things happen.

22
Disadvantages of Theories

• 1. No theory explains all that is known about a
  given phenomenon.
• 2. Theories affect what new information is
  published, biasing the knowledge we have about
  personality.

23
Judging Scientific Theories

• 1. Testability
• 2. Simplicity
• 3. Generality
• 4. Fruitfullness
• 5. Agreement with the data

24
Scientific concepts

• 1. Operational Definitions
• We describe a concept by defining the operations
  used to measure something.
• (e.g., memory may be defined by the of items
  recalled on a memory test).

25
2. Theoretical Constructs

• --The concepts of a theory
• Traits (intelligence, athleticism) are considered
  theoretical constructs.
• These need to be operationally defined to be
  examined in research.