Personality

1
Personality
2
Individual Differences

• Emotional Intelligence
• Perception
• Use
• Understanding
• Management

3
Today

• How are we different from each other?
• What theories best explain these differences?
• What are the consequences of these differences?

4
Personality

• Typical uses
• He has a good personality
• Social skills and likeability
• She has a lot of personality
• Social impact
• He has a neurotic personality
• Strongest quality

5
Personality Definition

• Non-technical definition of personality
• A persons general style of thinking, feeling,
  and behaving
• Technical definition
• Personality is the system of enduring, inner
  characteristics of individuals that contributes
  to consistency in their thoughts, feelings, and
  behavior (Leary, 2005).

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Personality Definition

• Consistency
• Enduring
• Inner

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Fundamental Ideas

• Each of us is unique
• We are not unique in random ways
• That thread of consistency within each of us is
  our personality

8
Major Theories

• Psychodynamic
• Humanistic
• Cognitive/learning
• Trait
• Self

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Freuds Psychoanalytic Theory
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Freud and the Unconscious
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Psychoanalytic Defense Mechanisms

• Displacement
• Denial
• Intellectualization
• Suppression
• Repression

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A Few Examples

• Bobby Knight
• Tims experience with alcohol
• Senator Larry Craig

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Psychoanalytic Defense Mechanisms

• Defense mechanisms
• Unhealthy
• Require energy
• Avoid real problem

14
Freudian Slips

• Freudian Slips
• "A Freudian slip is like saying one thing, but
  meaning your mother."
• People of Detroit

15
Psychoanalysis

• Unearth hidden intrapsychic conflicts
• Free association dream analysis
• Long, time-consuming
• Little evidence for efficacy
• Case studies
• Untestable ideas

16
Humanistic Tradition

• Early-mid 20th century
• Carl Rogers
• Major Themes
• People are basically good
• Self-actualization
• Unconditional positive regard

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Humanistic Tradition Comments

• Strengths
• Optimistic, positive
• Influential in parenting/psychotherapy
• Weaknesses
• Neglects unconscious
• Role of biology/genetics unclear
• Individual differences unclear

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Cognitive Learning

• Cognitive learning theory
• Positive and negative reinforcement
• Emphasis on external environment

• Walter Mischel
• Albert Bandura

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Cognitive Learning

• Cognitive
• Self-efficacy
• Expectancies and beliefs
• Affects (emotions, moods)
• Goals and values
• Interactions with situations

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Cognitive Learning

• Strengths
• Can predict differences across situations
• Explains origins of personality
• Weaknesses
• Nonemotional
• May ignore unconscious
• Role of biology/genetics unclear

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The Trait Paradigm

• Focuses on how people differ from each other
• Lexical hypothesis
• All important traits must have been encoded in
  language (Gordon Allport)

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Stability

• Stable attributes of personality (trait vs. state)

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Traits
Easy-going
Intellectual
Loving
Talkative
Timid
Arrogant
Calm
Kind
Dominant
Conservative
Aloof
Shy
Friendly
Impulsive
Reserved
Cheerful
Grouchy
Nice
Fearless
Diligent
Curious
Confident
Agreeable
Reserved
Irritable
Affectionate
Calm
Jumpy
Anxious

• English - 2,800 trait terms

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Big Five Dimensions of Personality

• Openness to new experiences
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

OCEAN
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Openness - imaginative, with wide interests

• I often try new and foreign foods
• I often enjoy playing with theories or abstract
  ideas
• Predicts desire for challenges, frequency of
  changing jobs

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Conscientiousness - organized, thorough

• I strive for excellence in everything I do
• I am a productive person who always gets the job
  done
• Predicts job performance (Ones, 1993), grades,
  educational attainment, low use of alcohol
  (Paunonen, 2003)

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Extraversion - talkative, energetic, assertive

• I like to have a lot of people around me
• I laugh easily
• I like to be where the action is
• Predicts positive emotions (Watson et al., 2002),
  dating frequency, exercise, partying, alcohol
  intake (Paunonen, 2003)

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Agreeableness - sympathetic, kind

• I try to be courteous to everyone I meet
• I would rather cooperate with others than compete
  with them
• Predicts positive emotions (DeNeve Cooper,
  1998), low stress (Rantanen at e., 2005),
  perceived support (Branje et al., 2004)

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Neuroticism - tense, anxious, moody

• When Im under a great deal of stress, sometimes
  I feel like Im going to pieces
• I often feel tense and jittery
• Associated with anxiety, depression, physical
  illness (McCrae Costa, 1991)

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Limitations

• Is this all there is to personality?
• What about
• Motives, wishes, desires, fears, unconscious
  processes?
• Origins?

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Traits Heritability

• Twin studies
• Identical vs. fraternal twins

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Heritability of personality
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Do traits predict behavior?

• Crisis!

R .30
PERSONALITY
BEHAVIOR
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Situationist Argument

• Personality traits are limited in their ability
  to predict behavior
• Situations influence behavior more than
  personality traits
• Personality assessment has limited use

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Pro-Personality Argument

• Different people behave differently in the same
  situation
• Each person behaves somewhat similarly across
  situations.
• Traits predict trends rather than specific
  behaviors
• Situational influence on behavior is equally
  modest (hard to measure)
• Strong and weak situations