What is Personality?

1. What is Personality?

2. Definition • The set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical, and social environments.

3. Psychological traits • Characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other. • Traits also define ways in which people are similar to each other. • Finally, they describe the average tendencies of a person.

4. Four research questions about traits • How many traits are there? • How are the traits organized? • What are the origins of traits? • What are the correlations and consequences of traits?

5. Why are psychological traits useful? • They help describe people. • They help explain behavior. • They help predict future behavior.

6. More about traits • They are organized and not simply a random collection of elements. Traits are linked to each other systematically. • They’re relatively enduring over time and are somewhat consistent across situations. • The idea of consistency across situations has a long history of debate, but most personality psychologists now believe people are relatively consistent. • Difference between states and traits—for instance, anger is a state but hot-tempered is a trait.

7. Four components of person-environment interactions • Perceptions—how we interpret an environment • Selection—how we choose our friends, careers, hobbies, etc. (How we use our free time is especially a reflection of our personalities.) • Evocations—reactions we produce in others, often unintentionally • Manipulations—the ways in which we intentionally try to influence others

8. Adaptations to the Environment • Our personalities help us adapt to the environment—accomplish goals, cope, and deal with the problems we face. • Psychologists’ knowledge of the adaptive function of personality is currently limited. • Adaption to the environment includes both physical andsocialenvironment. • Social environment includes things such as our need for belongingness, love, and esteem.

9. Three Levels of Analysis • Human nature • Need to belong • Capacity for love • Individual and Group Differences • Variation in need to belong (individual difference) • Men more physically aggressive than women (group difference) • Individual Uniqueness • Person X’s unique way of expressing love • Person Y’s unique way of expressing aggression

10. Nomothetic vs. Idiographic Research • A debate in the field: Should individuals be studied nomethetically or idiographically? • Nomothetic research involves groups of people—requires samples of subjects • Usually applied to individual and group difference research • Idiographic research involves single subjects to try to observe general principles that are manifest over a single life over time. • The term “idiographic” literally means “the description of one.” • Case studies/psychological biographies of one person

11. A Fissure in the Field • Grand theories vs. contemporary research • Stated another way, the gap between human nature level of analysis (“grand theories”) vs. group and individual differences (“contemporary research”) • Most textbooks in Personality focus on grand theories. • This gap has not yet been successfully bridged.

12. Six Domains of Knowledge • Dispositional • How people differ from each other (traits) • Biological • Genetics, psychophysiology, and evolution • Intrapsychic • The role of the unconscious; research on motives (many of which are unconscious) • Cognitive-experiential • Conscious thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and desires; past vs. future selves, self-esteem • Social and Cultural • How different cultures display different personalities; how our personalities affect our social lives • Adjustment • How personality helps us cope and adapt to our lives; how personality is related to health

13. What makes a good theory? • A good theory fulfills three purposes: • Serves as a guide for researchers • Organizes known findings • Predicts behavior and psychological phenomena that have not yet been studied. Theories differ from beliefs, such as astrology, because they can be tested by systematic observations that can be repeated by others and yield similar conclusions.