The Psychology of the Person Chapter 1 Introduction

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The Psychology of the PersonChapter 1
Introduction

• Naomi Wagner, Ph.D
• Lecture Outlines
• Based on Burger, 8th edition

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Personality vs. Human Behavior

• The term personality refers to an invisible,
  hypothetical entity
• We cannot see what is going on inside the
  person
• We assess what is going on inside on the basis
  of behavioral observations
• Behaviors that are consistent along time and
  across situations seem to reflect ones
  personality

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Why Study Personality?

• We often want to explain the behavior of other
  people
• Especially when this behavior is unexpected
• We need to explain in order to be able to predict
  (and possibly to protect ourselves)
• The ability to predict provides us with a sense
  of safety

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Examples of Attempting to Predict Behavior

• Dating services Studies have shown that
  similarity in personal tendencies, interests, etc
  is a good predictor of the success of t he
  relationship
• In the job-market some jobs may require, in
  addition to the technical skills, some
  personality dispositions, e.g. the ability to
  work under stress

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The Person vs. the Situation

• One of the enduring questions in psychology
• Is our behavior shaped by the situation we are in
  (external), or by the type of person we are
  (internal)?
• Both the person and the situation contribute to
  our behavior. On the one hand, we know that we do
  not act the same way in all situations, but on
  the other hand we also know that in similar
  situations, under the same conditions, different
  people act differently.

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Personality variables vs. Situational Variables
in Affecting our behavior

• The term Personality originates from the Greek
  word Persona, meaning a mask
• In the ancient Greek theater, the actors carried
  a mask attached to a stick, it represented the
  character they played

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Are we putting on a mask?

• The term personality means a mask in Greek, and
  further linguistic analysis points to per
  sonare to sound through the mask, meaning, to
  pretend you are someone else
• Under what conditions might this be true?
• One example is job interview, where we want to
  present ourselves in a favorable light
• Another example is in a court of law, when we
  have committed a crime and want to present
  ourselves as incompetent to stand trial
  (insane)

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How do the fields of personality and social
psychology differ? The Study of Individual
Differences

• Social psychologists are interested in how people
  typically behave in respond to situational
  demands.
• Personality psychologists accept that there might
  be typical responses in certain situations, but
  their main interest is what makes one person
  different from the other.
• The study of individual differences, that is-
  consistent individual differences across
  situations- for example, why are some people
  outgoing and others are shy?

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Definition of Personality

• There is no single definition to the term
• Burger (our author), suggests that personality
  can be defined as consistent behavioral patterns
  and intrapersonal processes originating within
  the individual.
• Note elements of this definition personality is
  consistent, along time and across situations.
  Personality is our intrapersonal processes (not
  interpersonal) our emotional, motivational, and
  cognitive processes that affect how we feel and
  how we act.

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Six approaches to studying personality

• What are the sources of consistent behavioral
  patterns, and intrapersonal processes?
• There are six approaches, or perspectives, that
  attempt to answer the question. Each approach
  aims to identify and explore an important aspect
  of human personality.

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Five blind men meet an elephant

• They each perceives it differently

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The main point of each perspectivePsychoanalysis
(Freud)

• The psychoanalytic approach focuses on the role
  of the unconscious mind in affecting behavior.
• Freud used the analogy of the iceberg
• The unconscious stores desires, impulses, drives,
  painful memories- of which we are not aware

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Psychoanalysis (cont-d)

• We are not aware of the motivations for our
  behavior- we do not have free will
• A deterministic perspective

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The Trait Approach

• The term trait refers to a hypothetical
  construct, some inner factor that is not a
  physical entity, that is abstract
• However, we assume that we have inner traits that
  are reflected in our behavior
• We say that someone is shy, anxious, friendly,
  etc on the basis of behaviors

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The Trait Approach (cont-d)

• A trait is perceived as a dimension or a
  continuum, ranging from less amount of the
  trait to a lot of the trait
• Less__________________________More
• By assessing traits (e.g. a test to assess
  shyness) each person can be identified in terms
  how much of the trait he/she posses
• This enables comparison across people (e.g. when
  you want to determine who among the applicants
  for a job has more of the trait needed)

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The Biological Approach

• The biological approach points to inherited
  dispositions, and physiological processes as
  affecting human behavior
• The Human Genome Project identified all the genes
  on the human chromosome
• Brain imaging techniques enable us to watch
  physiological activity in the brain as the brain
  processes information.

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The Biological Approach (cont-d)

• The neuron

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The biological Approach (cont-d)

• Every cell in the human body has 46 chromosomes,
  arranged in 23 pairs (one from you mother and one
  from your father) , they are made of DNA

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• The humanistic approach identifies personal
  responsibility, the drive for self-actualization
  and self-acceptance as key factors in personality.

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The Biological Approach (cont-d)

• We do not come I to the world a blank slate
  (tabula rasa0
• Biology means our familial heritability
• Biology means our shared evolutionary history
• Biology means the physiology underlying our
  mental processes

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The Humanistic Approach

• Main concepts of this approach is free will,
  self-actualization, self-acceptance
• Maslows hierarchy of needs is an important theme
  of this approach
• It sees us human beings as motivated to grow and
  to become the best we can

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The Humanistic Approach
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The Behavioral-Learning Approach

• The behavioral/social-learning approach explains
  personality differences among people as results
  of conditioning, learning and expectations, and
  other environmental influences
• This approach is deterministic- we are not always
  aware of the causes for our behavior, because we
  are manipulated by environmental forces

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The Cognitive Approach

• The Cognitive approach looks at the way different
  people process information to explain differences
  in behavior.

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What might be the relationships between the six
approaches?

• Although sometimes the six approaches differ
  only in focus, in many instances the explanations
  of two or more approaches are entirely
  incompatible.
• For example The Behavioral approach is
  deterministic (we may not be aware of the way we
  have been conditioned), whereas the Humanistic
  approaches believes in Free Will.

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How are the Psychoanalytical and the Behavioral
Approaches Similar?

• Both present a deterministic perspective
• We are not in charge of our behavior, but rather
  operate along the influence of forces that we
  are not aware of
• In the psychoanalytic view it is the unconscious
  mind
• In the behavioral view our behavior is shaped by
  learning principles that we might not be aware of
  (e.g. commercials create an association between a
  product and a desired result, so we buy the
  product).

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Why Study Personality?

• We hope to identify personality traits, so we can
  predict how the person will behave
• In hiring decisions, the job may require some
  personality characteristics
• Dating services operate on the basis of the
  research finding that similarity in traits and
  tendencies predict the success of the
  relationship
• In the legal system, the lawyers want to assess
  the tendencies of prospective jurors.

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How the 6 approaches view aggression? (Please
review in textbook the 6 explanations of
depression as well)

• The psychoanalytic points to an unconscious
  death instinct. According to this point of view,
  we all posses an unconscious drive to
  self-destruct. However, since people with healthy
  personality do not hurt themselves, this death
  wish is turned outward, and expressed as
  aggression against others. Another psychoanalytic
  suggestion is that aggression results from
  frustrationwhen our goal-directed movement is
  blocked.
• The trait approach focuses on individual
  differences among people in aggression, and the
  stability of this behavior along time and across
  situations.

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(cont-d)

• The biological perspective is also interested in
  stable patterns of aggressive behavior in people,
  and point to the genetic predisposition to act
  aggressively as one reason for this stability.
  Evidence supports the genetic basis of
  aggression- it seems to be running in families.
• Another facet of the biological perspective is
  the evolutionary explanation In terms to our
  prehistory, the more aggressive members of the
  species had a higher chance to survive, to live
  long enough in order to mate and to pass on the
  aggressive genes to their offspring. Testosterone
  levels were also implicated in aggression.

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(cont-d)

• The humanistic approach views aggression as the
  result of unfulfilled needs to grow in a healthy
  manner.
• The behavioral/social learning perspective
  aggression is learned on the basis of rewards and
  reinforcement, and also on the basis of observing
  aggressive models being rewarded.
• Cognitive psychologists view aggression from the
  perspective of information-processing. We respond
  to situations of the basis of our interpretation
  of the situation.

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Personality and Culture

• Individualistic cultures place great emphasis on
  individual needs and accomplishments
• Collectivist cultures are concerned about group
  belongingness and group needs.
• Concepts that are studied by Western personality
  psychologists can take on very different meanings
  when people from collectivist cultures are
  studied. For example, the Western notion of
  self-esteem is based on assumptions of personal
  goals and feeling of uniqueness that may not be
  appropriate to people in collectivist,
  group-oriented cultures.
• Similarly, the Western definition of
  achievement and success is not universal. In
  collectivist cultures success means cooperation
  and groups accomplishments.

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The study of personality Theory, Application,
Assessment, and Research

• Theory each approach to understanding
  personality begins with a theory. The theory is
  an attempt to explain the mechanisms that
  underlie human personality and how these
  mechanisms are responsible for creating behaviors
  unique to a given individual. Also each theory
  attempts to emphasize a different aspect of
  personality, each theory must wrestle with
  several issues relating to the nature of human
  personality.

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Issues along which the theories differ

• Genetic vs. environmental influences Is our
  personality the result of inherited
  (genetically-based) dispositions, or is it shaped
  by the environment, as we grow up?
• Conscious vs. unconscious determinants of
  behavior To what extent are people aware of the
  causes of their behavior? There is some agreement
  today that much information processing takes
  place at a level below awareness.
• Free will vs. determinism To what extent do we
  decide our own fate, and to what extent are our
  behaviors determined by forces outside our
  control? This is an issue that has spilled from
  philosophy. Radical behaviorism, as represented
  by Skinner, argued that our behavior is not
  freely chosen, but rather the result of
  environmental stimuli to which we are exposed.
  Psychoanalysis also stresses innate needs and
  unconscious mechanism that leave much of human
  behavior outside of our control. At the other end
  of the spectrum are humanistic theorists, who
  identify personal responsibility as the
  cornerstone of mental health.

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Application

• Application The most obvious application of
  personality theories is in psychotherapy. Many of
  the major pioneers in the study of personality
  were clinicians, who developed their ideas about
  human nature of the basis of their work with
  clients. Psychotherapy comes in many styles,
  reflecting the assumptions the therapist makes
  about the nature of personality.

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Assessment

• Since the concept of personality implies some
  internal structures that are invisible and
  non-physical, how do we measure it?
• The psychoanalytic approach attempts to get to
  the unconscious mind by presenting a person with
  ambiguous stimuli
• In the absence of clear meaning, the person is
  expected to project onto the stimulus
  unconscious sentiments.

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Assessment (Cont-d)

• Many personality researchers, especially of the
  trait approach, use self-report inventories
• Behavioral psychologists use direct observations
  of behavior to assess the existence of a given
  trait inside the person.

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Research

• Research Each of the theories we will examine
  generates a great deal of research. Sometimes
  this research tests principles and assumptions
  central to the theory. Other times researchers
  are interested in further exploring concepts
  introduced by the theory.