Personality

Notes
1-Introduction to Personality
What is Personality?
The scientific study of the whats, whys, & hows of human motivation,
thought, attitude, & behaviour (question-understand-control)
The scientific study of personality has its focus on individual differences
and attempts to understand the person as deeply, completely, and
precisely as possible (Shoba & Mischel, 1996)
Personality psychology [is] the broadest of all psychological disciplines,
one that attempts to understand both human nature and the ways in
which individuals differ (Buss, 2007)
Defining Personality
The person as a character
o e.g. the coward, the flatterer, the fool, etc.
Personality as temperament (characteristic reaction patterns)
o Melancholic, choleric, sanguine, & phlegmatic
o Stock characters & the commedia dell arte
o e.g. the hansom hero, the pretty young maiden, the jealous husband,
etc.
o Personality as social attractiveness
o Persona: The mask
o Per (il) suono: To sound (through)
o Popularity, attractiveness, ability to impress & get along with other
people
Scientific Definition of Personality
A psychological construct
Personality represents those characteristics of the person that account for
consistent patterns of behavior (Pervin, 2009)

 The dynamic & organised set of characteristics possessed by a person that

uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, & behaviours in
various situations (Ryckman, 2007)
Nomothetic vs. idiographic approaches to personality inquiry
Nomothetic- Of or relating to the study or discovery of general scientific laws; a
tendency to generalize, and is typical for the natural sciences. It describes the
effort to derive laws that explain objective phenomena in general.
Idiographic- relating to or involving the study of individuals; a tendency to
specify, and is typical for the humanities. It describes the effort to understand
the meaning of contingent, unique, and often subjective phenomena.

Personality Theory
Personality is a science (well )
o Not implicit personality theories
o Not just common sense
o Astrology (ha! Yeah!)

o Personality structures
o The most stable and enduring aspects of personality
Personality processes
o Dynamic motivational concepts (conscious or unconscious)
e.g. efforts to reduce tension or efforts to achieve growth and
self-fulfilment
Personality expressions (the way you view the world)
o Aggression-hostility, criminality
o Optimism/pessimism, anxiety
o Physical appearance
o Mental health/disorder
Personality determinants
o Environmental determinants: family, education, culture, etc.
o Biological determinants: brain functions, nervous system, hormones,
age, etc.
o Genetic determinants: heritability, genes, evolution, etc.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/perscontents.html

2-Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Approaches to Personality

Psychoanalysis and Freud
Without hesitation, I place Freud among the heroes. He dispossessed the
Jewish people of the greatest and most influential of all heroes Moses
(Salvador Dali)
Freud [] descended to the Underworld and met there stark terrors. He
carried with him his theory as a Medusas head which turned these terrors
to stone (R.D. Laing)
Christians of discernment should avoid [psychoanalytic therapies]
completely. [] Such therapies stand upon dogma [] and the dogma is
the odious one of Freud and his followers (M. & D. Bobgan in Prophets of
Psychoheresy I)
As far as the unconscious was concerned, Freud went down deeper,
stayed longer, and came up dirtier than anybody else (G. Allport)

 I am reminded of something my father said when he spoke of how we

bring up our children. He said we supply them with a map of the Italian
lakes and send them to the North Pole (Anna Freud)
No one who [] conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons
that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect
to come through the struggle unscathed. [] Incidentally, why was it that
none of all the pious ever discovered psycho-analysis? Why did it have to
wait for a completely godless Jew? (Sigmund Freud)
Assumptions in Psychoanalysis
Psychic determinism: Everything that happens in a persons mind has a specific
cause
The cause lies in the structure and dynamics of personality
The purpose of psychoanalysis is to find those causes, by digging deep into
the hidden part of the mind
!Mind: The psychological result of what the brain & the rest of the body
do
Levels of awareness
o Conscious: the content of ones awareness at any given point in time
o Preconscious: material just beneath awareness that are easily
retrievable
o Unconscious: greatly influential material, such as memories and
desires, that a person is not consciously aware of
o Collective unconscious: latent memory traces (archetypes) inherited
from peoples ancestral past
Internal structure: The mind consists of specific functionally independent, and at
times conflicting, parts
Id (aka It): The irrational and emotional part of the mind
o Pleasure principle: The need of an immediate gratification of Ids
urges (raw biological desires)
Ego (aka I): The rational and decision-making part of the mind

o Reality principle: The force that delays the gratification of the Ids
needs until the appropriate conditions are present
Superego (aka Over-I): The moral part of the mind
Psychic conflict: The friction between the different parts of the mind
The egos main job is to find a middle course (a psychic compromise)
between the competing demands of motivation, morality, and practicality
The most important of these conflicts centre on sexual or aggressive
impulses
o Without reasonable internal compromises the individual is faced with
an internal conflict between their needs and impulses that can have
disastrous results (mental illness, criminal behaviour)
Prolonged and unresolved conflict between the parts of the mind (can)
lead to considerable levels of anxiety and/or guilt
o The ego is anxious about
! the Id getting out of control and doing something terrible
! the Superego getting out of control and making you feel

guilty (about things you did or thought or desired)
Repression

Projection

Displacement

Reaction Formation

Keeping distressing
A traumatized soldier has
thoughts and feelings
no recollection of the
buried in the unconscious details of a close brush
with death
Attributing ones own
A woman who dislikes
thoughts, feelings, or
her boss thinks she likes
motives to another
her boss but feels that
the boss doesnt like her
Diverting emotional
After parental scolding, a
feelings (usually anger)
young girl takes her
from their original source anger out on her little
to a substitute target
brother
Behaving in a way that is A parent who
exactly opposite of ones unconsciously resents a

true feelings
Regression

Rationalization

Identification

child spoils the child with

outlandish gifts
A reversion to immature An adult has a temper
patterns of behavior
tantrum when he doesnt
get his way
Creating false but
A student watches TV
plausible excuses to
instead of studying,
justify unacceptable
saying that additional
behavior
study wouldnt do good
anyway
Bolstering self-esteem by An insecure young man
forming an imaginary
joins a fraternity to boost
alliance with some
his self-esteem
person or group

Mental energy- The energy that the mind requires to function (equivalent to
personality processes)
Consists of two fundamental drives (motives):
o Libido or life drive or sexual drive: a motive towards creation,
protection, enjoyment of life, productivity and growth
o Thanatos (death): a motive towards destruction, disorder, and
ultimately death
Personality Development
Psychosexual stages- developmental periods with a characteristic sexual focus
(urge for physical pleasure) that shape ones personality
Stage
Oral

Approximate
Age
0-1

Anal

2-3

Phallic

405

Erotic Focus
Mouth (sucking,
biting)
Anus (expelling or
retaining feces)
Genitals

Key Tasks and

Experiences
Weaning (from breasts or
bottle)
Toilet training
Identifying with adult role

(masturbating)
Latency

6-12

Genital

Puberty
onwards

None (sexually
repressed)
Genitals (being
sexually intimate)

models; coping with

Oedipal crisis
Expanding social contacts
Establishing intimate
relationships;
contributing to society
through working

Fixation- the failure to move forward from one stage to another due to excessive
gratification or frustration of needs at a particular stage
Stage of Fixation
Oral

Personality Qualities
Incorporative: Dependent, gullible, jealous

Anal

Sadistic: Sarcastic and verbally aggressive

Expulsive: Messy, cruel, destructive

Phallic

Retentive: Obstinate, neat and orderly, stingy

Among males: Macho, aggressive sexuality, excessive
striving for career power, sexual and occupational
impotence
Among females: Flirtatious, seductive behavior that doesnt
lead to sexual interaction

Contribution of Psychoanalysis
First proper personality theory
First theories to propose the existence and the influence of unconscious
processes and forces
Major contributions to the treatment of (primarily) anxiety and mood
disorders
o E.g. Dream therapy
o Clinical hypnosis
o Free association

Criticism

Poor testability
Inadequate empirical evidence
Sexism
Function more like philosophies or faith systems

3- Cognitive and Behavioral Approaches to Personality

Cognitive behavioral (CB) objections to the approaches to personality (2nd
approach)
The clinical approach (psychoanalysis theorists)- observing people with mental
health problems
Flawed- how can we really know what is going on in ones mind, if we
cannot directly observe and measure it?
Doesnt allow for generalization (cohort/ sample/selection biases)
Lack of standardization
Cant generalize across cultures
Theoretical Approach (aka armchair speculation)- Observations in a variety of
situations
Limited to certain cases
Conclusions may be biased/subjective (issues with deductive premises)
Lack of standardization or scientific bases
Assumptions in CB
Behaviorism- claims that the only valid way to know a person is through directly
observing their behavior (B-data). We can only know what we can sense, and we
sense everything we need to know.
Personality is the sum of behaviors (including neurophysiological functions)
The causes of personality can be found in the individuals environment (i.e.
they can be directly observed)

 The goal of behaviorist is functional analysis that maps out how exactly
behavior is a function of ones environmental situation
Learning- the change in behavior as a function of experience
Personality (change) is a result of learning
o Give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own specified
world to bring them up in and Ill guarantee to take any one at
random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select-
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chief, and yes, even beggarman and
thief, regardless of this talents, penchants, tendencies, vocations, and
race of this ancestors (Watson, 193) -Stress on being a healthy baby
and controlling environment
According to radical behaviorism
o Personality doesnt really a priori exist
o Environmental contingencies can shape the person into anything and
anyone
o Personality is the end product of our habit systems
o It is more or less fixed by the age of 30
Main types of learning
Habituation (becoming used to a stimulus)- the process through which the
intensity of behavioral responses to repeated stimuli declines through time
o The stimulus needs to be: repetitive, within a given range of time-
intervals, within a given set of parameters
Conditioning
o Classical-learning by association
! Learned helplessness -response to unpredictable stimuli that
leads to chronic anxiety and possibly depression
! Fear vs. anxiety- fear is a response to a condition or stimulation
that you expect through knowledge or conjecture that the
outcome is bad, anxiety is an approach mechanism of alertness-
psychological response to certain arousal
! Pavlov


o Operant -learning through reinforcement or punishment
! Behavioral hedonism -we are primarily motivated to learn in
order to seek pleasure-reward -and avoid pain punishment
o Social-learning through observing and imitating others (Bandura?)
! Authority/role modeling and live relevance
! Same behavior-some/similar response to the same stimuli
! Matched-dependent (simple) behavior -blindly following a
model
! Copying (complex) behavior
! Social learning is mediated by ones self efficacy (ones
perception and cognition of their capabilities)
Contribution
First objective personality theories
The first truly scientific theories of personality
The first theories to point out the major effects the environment has on
personality
Major contributions to treatment of primarily phobias, substance abuse,
personality, and mood disorders
o CBT
o Systematic desensitization
o Aversion therapy
o Rational emotive therapy
Criticism
Deterministic (plus originally dehumanizing)
o Denies the existence or effects of choice

o Contrast with reciprocal determinism the idea that the relationship

between a persons behaviors and personality is bidirectional
Overdependence on animal research
Do not really propose a personality structure
(Originally) simplistic
o All we are is learned
o Our personality is a direct response to environmental stimuli
(+situationalism- the approach that we dont have underlying traits,
we just react to situations)
o Only or mainly observed behavior is personality
o Largely tend to neglect unobservable thoughts, aspirations, emotions,
unconscious processes, attitudes, biology
Famous theorists

John Watson (1878-1958)

Burrhus Skinner (1904-1990)
George Kelly (1905-1967)
John Dollard (1900-1980)
Neal Miller (1909-2002)
Albert Bandura (1925- )
Walter Mischel (1930- )
Zimbardo, Bandura, Pavlov

4- Humanistic and Existential Approaches to Personality

Psychoanalysis (1st force in psychology)
o Negative (pessimistic) view of personality
o Downplays the role of consciousness
o Focus on the unconscious
Behaviourism (2nd force in psychology)
o Simplistic (reductionist)
o Mechanistic
o Ignores subjective experiences
o Ignores the existence/role of consciousness

 "Both approaches are deterministic

Assumptions of the Humanistic and Existential Approaches to Personality
Focus on the creative potentials inherent in humans
Seeks to help individuals realise their highest and most important goals
(growth & psychological health)
Emphasis on the dignity and worth of humans and the conscious capacity
to develop competence and self-respect
Focus on:
o The good side of human nature (Humanism)
o Existence (dasein = being-in-the-world)
o The now and here and on such things as: love, affiliation, creativity,
spontaneity, joy, courage, humour, independence, morality, and
personal growth
Each human being is a unique individual (idiographic approach)
Humans are good and (should) always strive to be happy (optimistic view)
Freedom to choose ones own behaviour and control (responsibility) over
ones life:
o How you act (freedom of doing)
o What you become (freedom of being)
o If you are to be self-actualized or accept conditions of worth
Personality a unified whole and inseparable from the physical, psychological,
and social environment- The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Existence of innate (personality) growth mechanisms
The growth process is the drive towards:
o Self-actualisation
o Self-realisation
o Selfhood
Total personality development is achieved when we realise and utilise in
full our abilities and potentialities

Society (the bad guy) restricts personal growth through its rules and laws
Obedience to (social) rules leads to dull, conventional, mediocre, and
submissive individuals
Realisation of the individuals potentialities if environmental conditions are
right
Rejects the medical model of mental illness. Illness is a result of
Incongruence (aka incongruity)
o Disharmony within cognitive elements of experience
o Discrepancy between ones experiences and their self-concept
! Leads to anxiety
! Can cause low self-esteem
! (Rational) distortion of experience
D-Needs (deficiency needs)
o Physiological, safety, love, esteem
! Failure to satisfy them can lead to (mental) health problems
Terror management (awareness of and response to death)
o Nothingness vs. being
o Existential guilt and angst
Contribution
The first holistic personality theories
The first theories of personality to capitalise on subjective (free) will,
personal responsibility, and conscious choice
The first non-deterministic theories of personality
They gave rise to positive psychology, transpersonal psychology (the 4th
force), and holistic approaches to medicine
Major contributions to social care systems, humanitarian interventions,
and the treatment of (primarily) substance abuse and relational problems
o E.g. Person-Centred Therapy
o Gestalt Therapy
o Logotherapy

o Conjoint Family Therapy

Criticism

Society is bad, individuals are good

What is conventional is mediocre
Too much reliance on the individuals self-reported conscious experience
Methodology is often too vague, unscientific, and untestable
Theories lack falsifiability
o Qualitative research methods more suitable

Famous Theorists

Gordon Allport (1897-1967)

Abraham Maslow (1909-1970)
Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
Rollo May (1909-1994)

5- Psychobiological and Lexical Approaches to Personality

Assumptions of the Traits Approach
Personality is the dynamic & organised set of characteristics possessed by a
person that uniquely influences her or his cognitions, motivations, attitudes,
behaviour, and psychobiology as a whole
Personality exists! (heuristic realism)
Personality is a probabilistic and dynamic system
Personality has both quantity and quality properties
Systematically describes differences and similarities between (and within)
individuals, across time and space
Emphasises the need of a useful scientific taxonomy

Personality develops through the interplay between:

Cognition -memory, perception, thought, language, intelligence

 Temperament -characteristic, biologically-based reaction patterns, present

from an early age
Constitution or physiology -neurology, endocrinology, genetics, etc.
Environment -both human and physical

The building blocks of personality are called traits
Traits are general dispositions that people possess that uniquely influence
their psychobiology
o E.g. outgoing, impulsive, anxious, sociable, hostile, optimistic,
altruistic
Every human possesses all traits, but not at the same intensity or centrality
Their (major) development is assumed to end in early adulthood
They are relatively stable over time and situation
o Traits vs. States
Personality is dimensionally and hierarchically arranged

The Hierarchical Arrangement of Personality


How does the traits approach discover personality?
(Common) assumptions:

The personality space is made up of dimensions

These dimensions tend to be independent from each other
These dimensions are finite
We can discover these dimensions by decomposing the personality matrix!

Statistics
Factor analysis
Two Main Trait Typologies
The Lexical taxonomy (the Big-5)- seeks to identify personality trait-descriptors
in natural language

 Neuroticism: Emotional stability

Extraversion: Having a degree of social impact
Agreeableness: Maintaining positive relations with others (quality of
interpersonality)
Conscientiousness: Responsibility, morality, and will to achieve
Openness: Artistic tendencies, intellect, being open to new ideas or change
The Psychobiological taxonomy (the Big-3)- seeks to identify the
biological/genetic markers of personality traits
Neuroticism (related temperament: emotionality)
! A predisposition to mood and anxiety disorders
Extraversion (sociability and impulsivity)
! A predisposition to accidents and injuries
! It mediates the psychopathological effects of the other two
dimensions
Psychoticism (tough- vs. tender-mindedness)
! A predisposition to psychotic disorders
Contributions
Scientific theories that are evidence-based
Clear-cut predictions
Testable
Cross-cultural validity
Occupational/educational psychology
Psychopathology (the foundation of Clinical Psychology)
Evolutionary (personality) psychology, behavioural genetics, & Animal
psychology
Forensic psychology, criminal profiling & adaptive interrogation
techniques

Criticism

How many traits or dimensions?

Heavily dependent on statistics

Heavily dependent on self-reports
When assessment is based on medical methods it is impractical
Actually, do traits exist at all?

Main Trait Theorists

Gordon Allport (1897 - 1967)

Raymond Cattell (1905 - 1998)
Hans Eysenck (1916 - 1997)
Jeffrey Alan Gray (1934 - 2004)
Marvin Zuckerman (1928 - )
Kim Bartholomew (?)
Claude Robert Cloninger (1944 - )
Theodore Millon (1928 - )
Cindy Hazan (?)
David Buss (1953 - )
Samuel Gosling (?)

6- Personality Assessment
Opens with example on female psychopaths- theyre easier to spot and
survive less as its not evolutionarily adaptive
General Types of Personality Assessment put this in a table
Tests of performance Internal states are hidden and cannot be revealed,
but expressions of internal states can be used.
o Attempt to reveal the intent or (expressions of) internal mental states
of a person
! Mental abilities tests, IQ tests, Psychomotor tests, response
latency
o There are problems with ecological validity
! The expression of traits arent the same as they are in real life

! These tests control for many variables (noise) to provide a clear

measure of personality, but in real life there are too many
variables and often things occur as a result of chance
Behaviour observations- look at how you act in real life, very different from
tests of performance
o Assessment of typical manifestations of an attribute within a specific
context
! (Semi- unstructured) Interviews, Participant-observations
(ethnography)
! Ethnography- overlaps with cross-cultural studies, participating
and observing an event (usually covert)
o The problem of replicability
Self (peer)-reports- most common approach
o Self-reported assessment of ones own (or their peers) feelings,
attitudes, beliefs, values, etc.
! Personality tests, Standardised (clinical) interviews, surveys
o The problem of dishonesty
! Impression formation- you want to make a good impression on
whoever is evaluating you
People know how to manipulate test
Psychophysiological assessment
o Measuring biological functions that relate to personality
! E.g. fMRI scans, EEG data, GSR data, PET scans, blood tests,
gene sequencing
o The problems of reductionism and practicality
! It is reductionist but not in personality
Steps for Scoring (Quantifying) Your Personality
Collect data- established rules for scoring & obtaining quantitative
information from behaviour samples
o You then do an analysis of these results (expert assessment etc.)
Objective scoring
o E.g. Standardised (Clinical) Questionnaires
Subjective scoring

o (psychologists judgement)
o E.g. Vignette, Projective, and role-playing tests
Concerns Regarding the Interpretation of Test Results Important for exam
Are the observed attributes real?
o (Cultural) test biases
o Procedural /administrative biases
o Faking
o Framing and observer biases- Anxiety is universal but the labelling of
anxiety is different
o Anxiety- does an indication of anxiety represent someones real levels
of anxiety
o Variations of personality
Are the observed attributes important?
o The difference between statistical and practical (psychological)
importance
Do tests help or hurt?
o The person as a number
o The issue of labelling- connotations with labels
Psychometric Properties of Personality Tests
Validty-the degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure-
if something measures depression, how does it measure depression
o The appropriateness or meaningfulness of test scores or
interpretations
! E.g. IQ scores- how can you use it to have real life
implications
o The degree to which measurements or observations are a true
representation of reality
! How good of a snapshot of the persons self does the test
give
Reliability- the degree of consistency or stability of measurement scores
across time or context

o The absence of measurement fluctuations that are unaccounted

by the measurements scope
o An individual should consistently produce similar responses to any
test that measures the same personality elements
! Personality factors change. With depression you need to
track changes, but in most cases tests are static
Reliability vs. Validity
A valid measure always hits the target; a reliable measure always hits
the same place on the target
o Something can be valid and reliable, valid uunreliable, and invalid
but reliable (it hits in the same space but far off the topic-
something is present but you cant be sure what), and invalid and
unreliable
Reliability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for validity
At the conceptual level, a valid measure is always reliable
Exam
16 questions, 4 choices, only 1 correct
Read Chapter 12 of the textbook (lectures may contradict book, follow the
lecturer)
All Qs and their answers can be found in the lectures notes and delivery
Example questions
o According to Jun, the Collective Unconscious is
o In Mays theory, Terror Management refers to
o Eysenck claims that Personality Traits are

Personality Theorists and their Main Theories

Anna Freud
S. Freud

Psychoanalysis, see above.

A. Freud
(1895-
1982)

More interested in dynamics of psyche than structure (esp. ego)

Ego Psychology
Looked at defense mechanisms.
Worked with children and adolescents
Problems with analyzing children (still have parents, need to avoid
being another authoritative figure, children may have difficulty
relating emotional difficulties)
Children could be monitored in relation to their peers
Standardized records for children with diagnostic profiles,
encouraged long time observation, led way for use of natural
experiments (groups of children with similar disabilities)

Erik
Erikson
(1902-
1994)

Concerned with identity

Was a Freudian ego-Psychologist (accepted Freuds ideas as
basically correct) but more society and culturally orientated
Epigenetic principle- we develop through a predetermined
unfolding of our personalities in eight stages. Progress through each
stage is determined by success or lack of success in all previous
stages
Each stage involves tasks/crises. They have a certain optimal time. If
each stage is carried well we carry a certain virtue. If not we have
maladaptation and malignancies.
Mutuality- interactions between generations (children influence
children and vice versa)

Carl Jung
(1875-
1961)

Ego- conscious
Personal unconscious- anything which is not presently
conscious but can be
Collective unconscious- experiences of species, known as
archetypes which form as organizing principles (not biological)
Mana spiritual power
Shadow- sex and life instincts
Personal- public image
Anima- female aspect present in the collective of men

 Animus is male aspect present in collective of women

" together known as syzgy
Principles
Principle of opposites- cant help having a good thought
without having a bad thought. Opposition creates power (or
libido) in psych
Principle of equivalence- energy created from opposition is
given to both sides
Complexes are formed when you dont realize you have
negative as well as positive thoughts
Principle of entropy- tendency of oppositions to come together
and for energy to decrease over a persons lifetime (energy
becomes equally distributed and you dont focus on
male/female parts etc.). We reach transcendence
Goal is to realize the self and become transcendent
Synchronicity- when two events are not linked causally or
teleolgically but are meaningful (dreaming before someone dies).
Thinks we are generally connected.