Personality

1
Personality

• What makes us unique individuals?

2
What is Personality?

• Trait theory
• Personalities can be characterized by presence
  and magnitude of traits that are common across
  all people

3
Are personalities stable?

• Tests have been devised to measure personality
  traits.
• The tests show high stability over time.
• Do the tests really measure anything?
• Psychics
• Barnum Effect

4
Genetic basis of traits

• Personality traits might simply be softer
  expressions of psychological disorders.
• Gloomy -- depression
• Eccentric -- Schizophrenic
• Happy -- manic

5
The confounding influence of situations

• Do people act the way they do because of their
  personality, or the situation?
• Low behavioral correlations across situations.
• We generally see people in the same situations
  (students teachers, athletes, etc.)

6
Is personality real?

• Do people really have personalities?
• Is personality just our attempt to understand
  people around us, to make them more predictable?
  Do we see consistency where none exists?