Personality Psychology
Second edition
Domains of Knowledge about Human
Nature
Personality Psychology
Soraya Meulmeester
, Chapter 1
Introduction to Personality Psychology
Adjectives that can be used to describe characteristic of people are called trait-descriptive-
adjectives. There are nearly 20,000 such traits in the English language.
Personality Defined
Establishing a definition for something as complex as human personality is difficult. The author of the
first textbook on personality – Gordan Allport and Henry Murray – struggled with the definition. The
problem is how to establish a definition that is sufficiently comprehensive to include all of the
aspects mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, including inner features, social effects,
qualities of the mind, qualities of the body, relations to others and inner goals.
Nonetheless, the following definition captures the essential elements of personality:
‘’Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are
organized and relatively enduring and that influence his of her interactions with, and adaptions to,
the intrapsychic, physical and social environments.’’
Personality is the set of psychological traits
Psychological traits are characteristic that describe ways in which people are different from each
other. Saying that someone is shy is to mention one way in which he or she differs from others who
are more outgoing.
Traits describe the average tendencies of a person. On average, a high-talkative person starts more
conversations than a low-talkative person.
Research on personality traits asks four kinds of questions:
- How many traits are there?
- How are the traits organized?
- What are the origins of traits?
- What are the correlations and consequences of traits
One primary question is how many fundamental traits there are. The seconds research questions
pertains to the organization, or structure, of traits. For example, how is talkativeness related to other
traits, such as impulsivity and extraversion. A third research questions concerns the origins of traits –
where they come from and how they develop. Does heredity influence talkativeness? A fourth key
question pertains to the correlations and consequences of traits in terms of experience, behavior and
life outcomes. Do talkative persons have many friends?
The four research questions constitute the core of the research program of many personality
psychologist. Psychological traits are useful for at least three reasons.
First the help describe people and help understand the dimensions of difference between people.
Second, traits are useful because they help explain behavior. The reason people act may be partly a
function of their personality traits. Third, traits are useful because they can help predict future
behavior – for example, the sorts of careers individual will find satisfying etc. Thus, personality is
useful in describing explaining and predicting differences between individuals.
Soraya Meulmeester
,And mechanisms…
Psychological mechanisms are like traits, except that the term mechanism refers more to the
processes of personality. For example, most psychological mechanisms involve cognitive processes
that entail an information-processing activity. Someone who is extraverted, for example, may look
for and notice opportunities to interact with other people. That is, an extraverted person is prepared
to notice and act on certain kinds of social information.
Most psychological mechanisms have three essential ingredients: input, decision rules and outputs. A
psychological mechanism mat make people more sensitive to certain kinds of information from the
environment (input), may make them more likely to think about specific options (decision rules) and
may guide their behavior toward certain categories of action (outputs). For example; an extraverted
person may look for opportunities to be with other people, may consider in each situation the
possibilities for human contact and interaction, and may encourage others to interact with him or
her.
Decision rules
Input Output
IF, THEN
If courageous, then face
danger. Confront source of danger.
Danger
If cowardly, then run from Run from source of danger.
danger
This does not mean that all of our traits and psychological mechanisms are activated at all times.
Typically, we feel that we are today the same people we were last week, last month and last year.
That are organized and relatively enduring…
Organized means that the psychological traits and mechanisms, for a given person, are not simply a
random collection of elements. Rather, personality is organized because the mechanism and traits
are linked to one another in a coherent fashion. Imagine the simple case of two desires – a desire for
food and a desire for intimacy. If you have no eaten for a while and are experiencing hunger pangs,
then your desire for food might override your for intimacy. On the other hand, if you have already
eaten, the your desire for food may temporarily subside, allowing you to pursue intimacy.
Psychological traits are also relatively enduring over time, particularly in adulthood, and are
somewhat consistent over situations. For example, anger is more of a state than a trait. To say
someone is anger prone or generally hot tempered, however, is to describe a psychological trait.
Some situations may be overpowering and suppress the expression of psychological traits. Like
talkative people being quiet during a lecture or a movie.
And that influence…
In the definition of personality, an emphasis on the influential forces of personality means that
personality traits and mechanisms can have an effect on people’s lives. Persons are not passive
beings merely responding to external forces. Rather, personality plays a key role in affecting how
people shape their lives. It is In this sense that personality traits are thought of as forces that
influence how we think, act and feel.
Soraya Meulmeester
, His or her interactions with…
This feature of personality is perhaps the most difficult to describe, because the nature of person-
environment interactions is complex. In chapter 4 we will examine interactions in greater detail. For
now, however, it is sufficient to note that interactions with situations include perceptions, selections,
evocations and manipulations.
Perceptions refers to how we ‘’see’’, or interpret, an environment. Two people may be exposed to
the same objective event, yet what they pay attention to and how they interpret the event may
differ. And this difference is a function of their personalities. For example, two people ca look at an
inkblot, yet one person sees something disturbing and the other person sees something happy.
Selections describes the manner in which we choose situations to enter – how we choose our friends,
hobbies, university classes and careers. How we go about making these selections is, at least in part,
a reflections of our personalities.
Evocations are the reactions we produce in others, often quite unintentionally. To some extent, we
create the social environment that we inhabit. A person who is physically large may evoke feelings of
intimidation in others, even if intimidations is not the goals. Our evocative interactions are also
essentials features of our personalities.
Manipulations are the ways in which we intentionally attempt to influence others. Someone who is
anxious or frightened easily may try to influence the group he or she is a part of to avoid scary
movies or risky activities.
And adaptions to…
An emphasis on adaptions conveys the notion that a central feature of personality concerns adaptive
functions – accomplishing goals, coping, adjusting and dealing with the challenges and problems we
face as we go through life.
The environment
The physical environment often poses challenges for people. Some of these are direct threats to
survival. For example, food shortage create the problem of securing adequate nutrients for survival.
Extremes of temperature pose the problem of maintaining thermal homeostasis.
Our social environment also poses adaptive challenges. We may desire the prestige of a good job, but
there are many others competing for the same position.
The ways in which we cope with our social environment – the challenges we encounter in our
struggle for belongingness, love and esteem - are central to an understanding of personality.
The particular aspect of the environment that is important at any moment in time is frequently
determined by personality. A person who is talkative, for example, will notice more opportunities in
the social environment to strike up a convo that someone who is low on talkativeness.
In short, from among the potentiality infinite dimensions of the environment we inhabit, our
‘’effective environment’’ represents only the small subset of features that out psychological
mechanisms directs us to attend and respond to.
In addition to out physical and social environments, we have an intrapsychic environment.
Intrapsychic means within the mind. We all have memories, dreams desires, fantasies and a
collection of private experiences that we live in each day. Our intrapsychic environment, no less than
our physical and social environment, provides a critical context for understanding human
personalities.
Soraya Meulmeester
