UCPSY 2880: Personality Theories

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UCPSY 2880 Personality Theories

• Kristy Sorenson, PhD

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What is personality?
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Defining Personality

• From the Latin persona, meaning mask
• Personality
• An individuals distinct and relatively enduring
  pattern of thoughts, feelings, motives, and
  behaviors
• Everything that makes a person who they are

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Goals of Personality Theories

• Overall Goal
• Describe, explain and predict human nature
• Specific Goals
• Commonalities between all humans
• Similarities/differences in groups of humans -
  culture
• Uniqueness of each human individual differences
  (individual differences)

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What causes personality?
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Determinants of PersonalityWhat causes behavior?

• Genetics
• Nativism-Empiricism Controversy
• (nature vs. nurture)
• Learning
• Traits

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Determinants of PersonalityWhat causes behavior?

• Cultural Norms
• Existentialism (meaning, free will)
• Unconscious Mechanisms
• Cognitive Processes
• Personality caused by a composite of the above
  factors

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• Personality theories
• differ on a number of points

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Issues of Contentionways that the theories
differ from each other

• Nature vs. nurture
• Importance of past, present, and future
  experiences
• What motivates us?
• Existence of self?
• Conscious vs. unconscious mechanisms
• Free will vs. determinism

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Issues of Contentionways that the theories
differ from each other

• Introspection vs. observation
• Uniqueness vs. commonality
• Internal vs. external control
• Mind-body relationship
• Consistency of Behavior

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Scientific Models

• Science of Personality Theories
• Based on careful, systematic observations
• Principle of Verification
• All explanations of a phenomenon must be capable
  of being objectively, empirically tested by an
  uninterested third party

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Theory Progression

• Popper principle of falsifiability
• A scientific theory must make risky predictions
  that could be proven false and thus refute the
  theory
• Kuhn scientific paradigms
• A theoretical viewpoint, shared by a group of
  researchers, which suggests meaningful questions
  to address

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Kuhns Scientific Revolution
New Science
Observation Data Collection
Schools of Thought
Paradigm