1 / 13

Theories of Personality

Psychology . Theories of Personality . Objective . Explain the history, main features, and limitations of the trait theory of personality . Trait Approach. Trait? Aspect of personality that is considered to be reasonably stable.

atalo
Download Presentation

Theories of Personality

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Psychology Theories of Personality

  2. Objective • Explain the history, main features, and limitations of the trait theory of personality

  3. Trait Approach • Trait? • Aspect of personality that is considered to be reasonably stable. • A person has certain traits based on how the person behaves. • A “shy” person? How do they behave? • An “outgoing” person? How do they behave? • Trait theorists, believe traits generally are somehow fixed or unchanging. • Try to answer the ? Where do traits come from?

  4. Hippocrates • Greeks: Body contains fluids called Humors. • Traits are a result of different combinations of these bodily fluids. • Believed 4 basic fluids • Yellow Bile • Quick-tempered disposition • Blood • Warm and cheerful temperament • Phlegm • Sluggish and cool disposition • Black Bile • Melancholic, thoughtful temperament

  5. Gordon Allport • 1930s • Catalogued 18,000 different traits • Traits can be inherited and they are fixed in the nervous system. People’s behavior is a product of their particular combinations of traits. • “short” and “brunette” – Physical • “Shy” and “emotional”– behavioral • “Honest” – Moral

  6. Raymond Cattell • Determine the number of basic traits human personality can be boiled down to. • Studied groups rather than individuals • Identified obvious personality traits (surface traits) • Integrity • Friendliness • Tidiness

  7. Raymond Cattell • Clusters of surface traits seemed to occur together. • If a person showed 1 trait in cluster, they usually showed the others in the cluster. • A single underlying trait (source traits) gives rise to all the traits in each cluster. • 16 source traits • Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

  8. Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionaire

  9. Hans Eysenck • Focused on the relationships between two personality dimension • Introversion-Extroversion • Emotional stability-instability • Introverts: imaginative and look inward rather than to other people for their ideas and energy • Extroverts: tend to be active and self-expressive and gain energy from interaction with other people • Stable: usually reliable, composed, and rational • Unstable: agitated and unpredictable Eysenck

  10. Eysenk’s personality dimensions

  11. The Big Five • 5 basic personality dimensions • Introversion-Extroversion • Emotional Stability-Instability • Conscientiousness-carelessness • Agreeableness-disagreeableness • Openness to new experience– closed-mindedness • Established at a young age and remains stable.

  12. Evaluation of the Trait Approach • Where do traits come from? • Most trait-theorists describe traits • Matching people to educational programs and jobs on the basis of personality traits.

  13. Take Personality Quizzes • Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire http://personality-testing.info/tests/16PF.php • The Big 5 Test http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/ • Meyer Brigg Test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

More Related