Introduction to Personality and Individual Differences

1
Introduction to Personality and Individual
Differences
2
Think about personality

• Describe your best friend to the person sitting
  next to you
• Think about yourself and whether you are always
  the same person
• With each of your friends?
• With your family?
• In different situations
• At a party
• At a job interview

3
Personality is not a new concept

• Indian Ayurvedic body types
• Pisa
• Vata
• kapha
• Ancient Greece
• 4 humors
• Choleric
• Melancholic
• Sanguine
• phelgmatic
• Gideons army

4
Recent History

• 1796 Galls phrenology reading bumps on the
  skull was supposed to indicate ones personality
• Gall 1758-1828
• Impact on modern psychology
• Terry Pratchet Reverse Phrenology.
• The first modern measure for personality was the
  Woodworth personal data sheet 1917
• The army alpha test of intelligence widely used
  in USA in 1920s

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What is personality psychology?

• It is not that there are good and bad ones!
• Personality psychology aims to
• Understand aspects of human nature
• Understand uniqueness - individual differences
• Predict behaviours
• Consistency across time
• Consistency across different situations
• How well will a particular individual perform at
  a task?
• E.g., Time of day issues, and interactions with
  personality
• Understand when and how things go wrong
• Clinical psychology
• Therapeutic context application

6
Cognitive abilities and personality

• To what extent is intelligence part of
  personality?
• To what extent is creativity part of
  personality?

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Research approaches 1

• Three reasons for studying personality
• To gain scientific understanding
• To assess people
• To change people

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Research approaches 2

• Observation is the start of all personality
  theory formation
• Self and others behavioural patterns
• Inductive versus deductive approaches
• Idiographic versus nomothetic approaches
• Clinical/case study approach
• Experimental approach
• Biological/genetic approach

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Determinants of personality

• Genetic and constitutional determinants
• e.g., William Sheldon
• Cultural determinants
• Social class determinants
• Familial determinants
• Other determinants

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Sheldons Somatypes
Endomorphy
Mesomorphy
Ectomorphy
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Controversies/issues in personality psychology

• To what extent is there a core personality that
  is consistent across situations and time?
• Are we chameleons driven by situations (external)
• Or do our internal drives and biases create
  dispositions that are consistent?
• What is the self?
• E.g., One self or many different selves?
• To what extent am I created by the environment
  versus biology/genetics/evolution
• The nature-nurture debate
• The role of culture in the determination of
  personality/behavioural traits
• Is personality conscious or unconscious?
• What is the unconscious?

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Considerations about each theory of personality

• Purpose of the theory
• Explanation of personality
• Nature versus nurture
• Positivity versus Negativity
• Structure of Personality
• Homeostasis versus heterostasis
• Holism versus elementalism
• Evidence?

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There is no such thing as a Personality
Psychologist.

• Very few (if any) Psychologists would list their
  area as being Personality.
• Instead what you have is
• Cognitive Psychologists
• Psychoanalysts
• Trait Psychologists
• Humanistic Psychologists
• Behaviourists
• whos theories are applicable in explaining
  personality among other things.

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What is a paradigm?

• Thomas Kuhns observations about science
• Paradigms are accepted examples of actual
  scientific practice examples which include law,
  theory, application and instrumentation together
  provide models from which spring particular
  coherent traditions of scientific research
• Agreed definitions, methodology aims
• New paradigms develop
• Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis
• Dominant paradigm
• A paradigm shift

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Module Information
This is the link/web-address for the Psychology
Department Website http//hopelive.hope.ac.uk/psy
chology/index.html
This is the link/web-address for the Human
Development, Personality and Individual
Differences section of the Psychology Department
Website http//hopelive.hope.ac.uk/psychology/Cou
rses/undergrad/Level3Modules/HDPID/index.html
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Lecturers teaching on this course

• Cathal OSiouchru
• (module leader please direct any general
  questions about the course to Cathal
  osiochc_at_hope.ac.uk / GLB 110)
• Prof. Minna Lyons
• Keith Morgan
• Dr. Simon Davies

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Important to read around the course

• Journals
• Textbooks
• As a last resort - The Web
• Finding that information
• What do we have in stock?
• http//hopelive.hope.ac.uk/psychology/Courses/unde
  rgrad/Level3Modules/HDPID/index.html
• What to do if a book you want is already out?
• http//www.hope.ac.uk/library/Obtaining_Informatio
  n/Reservations/index.htm
• http//prism.hope.ac.uk/TalisPrism/index.dojsessi
  onid3DE4A398718E5E14D0AB426099EE5AC6.worker1?

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The coursework for P ID

• Assignment Weighting Word
• Assignment 1 The Essay (1st Semester Done!)
• Assignment 2 The Case Study (2nd Semester)
• All the information about the coursework is
  available here
• Insert link here
• Assignment 3 The Exam
• The written examination will take place during
  the May examination period. The exam will last
  for two hours and you will be required to answer
  two Questions. The exam paper will comprise of
  two sections and will be required to answer one
  question from each section. You must not answer a
  question on an area that you have previously
  covered in either assignment 1 or 2.