Personality psychology chapter 1 what is personality psychology

Chapter One

What Is Personality
Psychology?


“Personality”
• Everyday meaning:
– Typically characterizes specific personalities
– Typically characterizes specific people

• Formal meaning:
– Abstract construct
– Broadly applicable


Why Use the Construct?
• 1. Conveys a sense of consistency or
continuity
– Across time
– Across situations


Why Use the Construct?
• 2. Suggests internal origins of thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors
Two Sources of Influence
Situation

Person
Behavior

Personality psychology emphasizes the role of person
variables on behavior


Why Use the Construct?
• 3. Helps in predicting and understanding
behavior
• 4. Captures a sense of personal
distinctiveness


A Working Definition
• “Personality is a dynamic organization,
inside the person, of psychophysical
systems that create the person’s
characteristic patterns of behavior,
thoughts, and feelings.”
—Gordon Allport (1961)


Key Features of the Definition
• Personality…
– has an organized structure
– involves active processes
– has psychological and physical components
– helps determine how people relate to the world
– demonstrates patterns and consistencies
– manifests itself across a range of thoughts,
feelings, behaviors

Fundamental Issues in Personality
Psychology
• Individual Differences
– Represent differences in people
– Examples: aggressiveness, sociability,
optimism

• Intrapersonal Functioning
– Represents stable processes that underlie
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
– Examples: goal or motivational processes


Theory in Personality
Purpose of a theory:
• Explain what is known
– Social learning theory: Helps explain
differences in aggressiveness

• Predict new information or events
– Biological theories of personality: Might
predict similarities in behaviors of parents and
children


Interplay Between Theory and
Research
THEORY

Research tests theory
-verifies
-suggests changes

RESEARCH

Theory guides research


What Characterizes a Good
Theory?
• Explains what is known
• Predicts what will happen (testable)
• Is based on multiple sources of information
• Is frugal in assumptions (parsimony)
• Has personal and intuitive appeal
• Is interesting
• Is provocative


Perspectives on Personality
• Individual theories of personality
– Attempt to describe human nature
– Have different orienting assumptions
– May be grouped by metatheoretical
perspective
– May have overlapping connections
– May be limited in scope (intentionally)

Specific Perspectives
Perspective

Focus

Trait

Stable qualities in people

Motive

Motives that underlie behavior

Inheritance and evolution

Personality is genetically based

Biological process

Personality reflects the body and brain

Psychoanalytic

Competition and conflict among internal forces

Psychosocial

Social relationships are paramount

Social learning

Change as a results of experience

Self-actualization

Natural tendencies toward self-perfection

Cognitive

Mind imposes organization on experience

Self-regulation

People are complex psychological systems that
move toward goals


Additional Considerations in the
Study of Personality
• Assessment:
– Accurate characterization of individuals
– Important in order to conduct research
– Connection to real world applications (e.g.,
hiring, clinical assessment)

• Behavior change
– Specific predictions personality psychology
makes about the way dysfunction may occur
– Ways in which therapy and intervention may

be helpful