Personality is defined as an individual's relatively stable patterns of thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Psychologists describe and explain personality differences according to different theoretical
orientations.
I. TRAIT THEORIES - Trait theorists believe personality consists of relatively stable and consistent
characteristics.
A. Early Trait Theorists - The focus of early theorists was identifying the actual traits people
possess and the degree to which they pervade the overall personality. Allport focuses on
arranging the most important traits at the top of a hierarchy and the least important at the
bottom. Cattell reduced the number of traits with a statistical technique called factor analysis.
Eysenck believes personality can be described along three dimensions: introversion
extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.
B. The Five-Factor Model - Proponents of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) explain personality in
terms of a “Big Five” model - openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and
neuroticism.
C. Evaluating Trait Theories –Critics point out three weaknesses: lack of explanation, the
stability of these traits, and the effects of the situation on personality.
Psychology at Work: Personality and Your Career – John Holland’s Self-Directed Search questionnaire is discussed as a tool in helping finding a good match between our personality and career choice.
Research Highlight: Do Nonhuman Animals Have Personality? – Comparative psychologists like Roger Fouts make a case for the proposition that chimpanzees
hare many characteristics in common with humans including personality. Three dimensions that have cross-species generality include extraversion, neuroticism,
and agreeableness.
II. PSYCHOANALYTIC/PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES
A. Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory - The psychoanalytic approach to personality was founded
by Freud. Freud emphasized the power of the unconscious and believed that the mind (or psyche) functioned on three levels, the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. In Freud's theory, personality has three distinct parts, the id, ego, and superego. The ego struggles to meet the demands of the id and superego, and when these demands are in conflict the ego may resort to defense mechanisms to relieve the resultant anxiety. According to Freud, all human beings pass through five psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. How the conflicts at each of these stages are resolved is important to personality development. Anxieties arising from these early experiences are often avoided or distorted through defense mechanisms.
B. Neo-Freudian/Psychodynamic Theories - Followers of Freud, who later revised his theory,
are known as neo-Freudians. Three of the most influential were Adler, Jung, and Horney. While they generally agreed with many of Freud's theories, they broke away because they emphasized different issues, such as, the formation of personality in the first five years and the role of social and cultural forces. Adler emphasized the "inferiority complex" and the compensating "will-to-power." Jung introduced the "collective unconscious" and "archetypes." Horney stressed the importance of "basic anxiety" refuting Freud's "penis envy," replacing it with "power envy."
C. Evaluating Psychoanalytic Theories - Critics of the psychoanalytic approach, especially
Freud's theories, argue that it is difficult to test, overemphasizes biology and unconscious forces, has inadequate empirical support, is sexist, and lacks cross-cultural support. Despite these criticisms, Freud remains a notable pioneer in psychology.
III. HUMANISTIC THEORIES - Humanistic theories emphasize internal experiences, thoughts, and feelings that create the individual's self-concept.
A. Rogers’ Theory - Carl Rogers emphasized the importance of the self-concept, congruence, self-esteem, and unconditional positive regard. People with low self-esteem generally have poor congruence between their self concept and life experiences.
B. Maslow’s - Maslow emphasized the basic goodness of human nature and a natural
tendency toward self-actualization which is innate and motivates all of human behavior.
C. Evaluating Humanistic Theories - Critics of the humanistic approach argue that these theories
are based on naive assumptions, and have poor scientific testability and inadequate empirical
evidence. In addition, their focus on description, rather than explanation, makes them narrow.
IV. SOCIAL-COGNITIVE THEORIES
A. Bandura’s and Rotter’s Approaches - Bandura’s social-cognitive approach focuses on self-
efficacy and reciprocal determinism, while Rotter’s locus of control theory emphasizes a person’s internal or external focus as a major determinant of personality.
B. Evaluating Social-Cognitive Theory - The social/cognitive theories emphasizes the
interaction between the environment and the individual, and meets the standards for scientific
research by offering testable and objective hypotheses as well as operationally defined terms.
critics argue that social/cognitive theories are too narrow, ignore unconscious and emotional
components of personality, and overlook developmental aspects.
V. BIOLOGICAL THEORIES
A. Three Major Contributors – Biological theories emphasize the role of the brain, neurochemistry, and genetics on personality. Recent research suggests that certain brain areas may account for certain traits such as sociability (extroversion) and shyness (introversion). Along these same lines, certain neurotransmitters that affect the level of arousal may be the source of some personality traits. Studies show a strong influence of hereditary factors on personality, but further research is needed before we have a cohesive biological theory of personality.
B. Biopsychosocial Model – Research on specific traits, such as extroversion and sensation seeking, support the biological approach. The biopsychosocial/interactionist approach suggests that the major theories overlap and each contributes to our understanding of personality.
VI. PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT
A. How We Measure Personality - Psychologists use several methods to measure or assess
personality, including interviews, observations, self-report inventories, and projective techniques.
The strengths and weaknesses of each are discussed. Reliability and validity are the two major
criteria for assessing personality assessment techniques.
1. Interviews - Interviews may be either structured (specific questions and a set
procedure) or unstructured (informal and random questions).
2. Observations - During observations, psychologists look for specific behaviors and follow a set of evaluation guidelines.
3. Objective Tests - Personality is most commonly measured through objective tests (such as the MMPI-2), which ask test-takers to respond to paper-and-pencil questionnaires or inventories. These tests provide objective standardized information about a large number of personality traits.
4. Projective Tests - Projective tests are the second major category of personality assessment. They ask test-takers to respond to ambiguous stimuli (such as the Rorschach "inkblot" or the TAT pictures). These tests are said to provide insight into unconscious elements of personality.
B. Are Personality Measurements Accurate? – Interviews and observations may be time-
consuming, expensive, produce rater disagreement, and involve unnatural settings. Objective tests
(such as the MMPI) have been criticized for the possibility of deliberate deception and social
desirability bias, diagnostic difficulties, and possible cultural bias. Critics of projective tests
object to the expense and time required to administer and interpret them, and the relatively low
reliability and validity.
Critical Thinking/Active Learning: Why Are Pseudo Personality Tests
So Popular? – Problems with “pseudo” personality tests are discussed including
the: Barnum effect, fallacy of positive instances, and self-serving bias.