Personality Psychology
Full Summary
,Inhoud
Chapter 1: Introduction to Personality Psychology................................................................................. 3
Chapter 3: Traits and Trait Taxonomies .................................................................................................. 6
Chapter 4: Theoretical and Measurement Issues in Trait Psychology .................................................. 10
Chapter 5: Personality Dispositions over Time: Stability and Change .................................................. 12
Chapter 8: Evolutionary Perspectives on Personality ........................................................................... 14
Chapter 9: Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality .......................................................................... 17
Chapter 10: Motives and Personality .................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 11: Cognitive Topics in Personality .......................................................................................... 24
Chapter 13: Emotion and Personality ................................................................................................... 26
Chapter 14: Approaches to the Self ...................................................................................................... 28
Chapter 15: Personality and Social Interaction ..................................................................................... 30
Chapter 16: Sex, Gender and Personality.............................................................................................. 32
Chapter 17: Culture and Personality ..................................................................................................... 33
Chapter 18: Stress, Coping, Adjustment and Health ............................................................................. 35
2
,Chapter 1: Introduction to Personality Psychology
Colours:
Red = important terms
Green = sub-terms (terms related to important terms)
Blue = terms related to sub-terms
Purple = seperate captions
Trait-descriptive adjectives are adjectives that can be used to describe characteristics of people.
Examples of this type of adjective are “lazy” and “optimistic”. Trait-descriptive adjectives cover
various aspects of people, like the inner qualities of mind (example: thoughtful), the effect a person
has on other people (example: charming), the person’s position or stance among others (example:
domineering), etcetera. All of these features describe aspects of personality.
Personality defined
The used definition for personality is as follows: the set of psychological traits and mechanisms
within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her
interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical and social environments.
As there are a lot of terms to break down here, we will do so below.
Psychological traits are characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from
each other. An example of this is the trait “shy”, a way to describe why someone differs from people
who are more outgoing. Traits also define ways in which people are similar, compared to people with
the same traits. Average tendencies cover the behaviour that generally goes with a certain trait;
talkative people, for one, start more conversations than low-talkative people (on average).
Psychological traits have at least three reasons for why they are useful:
- Describing people, and helping to understand the difference between people
- Explaining behaviour
- Can help at predicting human behaviour
Psychological mechanisms are more the processes of personality. Therefore, they are similar to
traits, but the mechanisms involve cognitive processes that an information-processing activity
entails. Most of these mechanisms have three important steps:
Input → Decision rules (IF THEN) → Output
Input refers to the occurrence that psychological mechanisms may make people more sensitive to
certain kinds of information from the environment. Decision rules means that psychological
mechanisms may make people more likely to think about specific options. Output means that
psychological mechanisms may guide one’s behaviour toward certain categories of action. So if we’re
talking about the traits courageous and cowardly, the mechanism could be as follows:
Danger → If courageous, face danger / If cowardly, run from danger → Confront source of danger /
Run from source of danger
Note that mechanisms can be activated, and don’t necessarily have to.
Within the individual simply means that personality is something a person carries with him or
herself over time, and from one situation to the next.
Organized refers to the fact that the psychological traits and mechanism a person possesses, are
not simply a random collection of elements – personality is organised because the mechanisms and
traits are linked to one another in a coherent fashion.
Enduring means that psychological traits are long-lasting, especially in adulthood, and somewhat
consistent over situations. Most personality psychologists maintain that there is enough consistency
in traits to warrant including this characteristic in the definition of personality, although people are
not perfectly consistent.
In the definition of personality, influence or influential forces means that personality traits and
mechanisms can have an effect on people’s lives. Personality plays a key role in affecting how people
3
, shape their lives, and therefore personality traits are seen as forces that influence how we think, act
and feel.
To define person-environment interaction is complex, and covers various aspects of
interactions one can have/has with the environment.
- Perceptions: how we see, or interpret, an environment
- Selection: the manner in which we choose situations to enter (for example: how we spend
our free time is a reflection of personality)
- Evocations: the reactions we produce in others, intentional as well as unintentional
- Manipulations: the ways in which we intentionally attempt to influence others
All these forms of interactions are central to understanding the connections between the
personalities of people and the environments they inhabit.
Adaptation in the context of the personality definition means that a central feature of
personality concerns adaptive functioning. Instances where personality can be adapted are when and
with accomplishing goals, coping, adjusting and dealing with the challenges we face as we go through
life. Although not much is known about it, adaption remains an important key to understanding the
nature of human personality.
Environment, in this context, is the place where we are in. The physical environment refers to
the one we physically live in, with challenges like hunger, cold, heat, etcetera. The social environment
is the connection we have to others around us, and brings struggles like wanting belonginess, love
and esteem. The intrapsychic environment covers our dreams, memories, desires, fantasies etc. that
we live with each day. Although not as objectively verifiable as the other two environments, the
intrapsychic (this means “in the mind”) environment is nevertheless real to each of us and makes up
an important part of our psychological reality.
Levels of Personality Analysis
There are three levels on which personality can be analysed following the Personality Analysis.
According to this division in this number of levels, every human being is, in certain respects:
1. Like all others (the human nature level)
2. Like some others (the level of individual and group differences)
3. Like no other (the individual uniqueness level)
The first level – human nature – describes the human race is general, so the traits and mechanisms of
personality that are typical of our species, and possessed by everyone or nearly everyone. An
example of this is that nearly every human has language skills, which allows him or her to learn and
use a language.
The second level covers individual and group differences. Individual differences are ways in
which each person is like some other people. Group differences refer to the fact that people in one
group may have certain personality features in common, and these common features make that
group of people different from other groups.
The third and last level, individual uniqueness, refers to the given that every individual has
personal qualities not shared by any other person in the world. A debate in the personal psychology
is whether individuals should be studied either nomothetically or idiographically.
- Nomothetic research: typically involves statistical comparisons of individuals or groups,
requiring samples of subjects on which to conduct research. Typically applied to identify
universal human characteristics and dimensions of individual or group differences.
- Idiographic research: typically focuses on a single subject, trying to observe general principals
that manifest in a single life over time. Idiographic research often results in case studies or
the psychological biography of a single person.
All of the levels mentioned above contributes valuable knowledge to the total understanding of the
nature of personality.
4
