Personality theories
Aside from measuring personality, personality psychologists also attempt to describe and explain personality
A number of theories have emerged to help us with this task. These include:
= Trait-biological approach (Big Five)
= Social-cognitive approach
= Psychodynamic approach
= Humanist approach
Trait-biological approach
The trait approach to personality attempts to describe personalities as a series of traits
= A relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way
What are some of these traits?
The list is practically infinite
Researchers use factor analysis to reduce this list to the lowest possible set of traits
1. Individuals rate themselves on hundreds of traits
2. Traits that are highly correlated are combined into factors
3. Traits with no correlation to one another are considered parts of separate factors
For example, all of the following adjectives are highly correlated (positively or negatively) in the population:
Softhearted
= Trusting
= Helpful
= Ruthless
= Suspicious
= Uncooperative
Researchers have combined all of these adjectives into one factor, agreeableness
Personality traits are relatively stable and this stability increases across the lifespan
What does it mean to say that stability increases across the lifespan?
Rank-order stability
= Our rank-order in personality traits stays mostly the same
= Especially as we get older
But some change does occur
Mean-level changes
= Although our rank-order remains fairly consistent (see previous slide)…
= …the mean levels of traits in our cohort change
Finally, there can be intraindividual change
= Significant changes in a person’s personality from one time to the next
This is more rare
= Occurs after life-changing experiences, including trauma
The Big Five (trait-biological approach)
Today, most researchers agree upon a five-factor model of personality
These Big Five personality traits are not correlated with each other
Where do traits come from? Biological explanation
Genetics is the largest single factor
The Big Five traits have a heritability factor of between 0.35 and 0.49
= A heritability factor of 0.00 means that genetics plays no role in a physical/psychological trait (there are virtually none of these in psychology)
= A heritability factor of 1.00 means that genetics is completely responsible for a trait (e.g., eye colour)
So values between 0.35 and 0.49 are very high!
= But ~50% of variability in personality is still due to various life experiences
Where do traits come from
If traits are so informed by genetics, it should not be surprising that we show evidence of our personalities in infancy!
Temperament is an infant’s characteristic activity level, mood, attention span, and distractibility
Infants’ temperaments are predictive of their adult personalities
Freud and psychoanalysis
Review:
= Sigmund Freud was an Austrian physician
Practiced neurology, the study of disorders of the nervous system
Treated patients for “hysteria”
= “Exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement”
= Not a modern psychological disorder
Developed psychoanalysis based on his patients’ free associations, fantasies, and dreams
Psychodynamic theory
Psychodynamic theory is the personality theory extending from Freud’s psychoanalytic approach
= Personality is formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness
Psychodynamic researchers call the mental processes that are outside our awareness the dynamic unconscious
Freud divided this dynamic unconscious into three parts
Id—unconscious, animal desires
Hedonic principle
Intrinsic motivation
= Superego—internalization of right/wrong, rules
= Ego—moderates and controls behaviour
Balances id and superego
Extrinsic motivation
According to Freud, the dynamic unconscious is developed in childhood in a series of psychosexual stages
Freud believed that our personality is determined by interactions between parts of our unconscious
And he argued that conflicts between the three parts cause anxiety
To resolve this anxiety, we may rely on defence mechanisms
= Denial: Refusing to accept reality or fact
= Repression: Blocking disturbing thoughts from consciousness
= Projection: Putting own thoughts or feelings on others
= Displacement: Redirecting impulses onto powerless substitute
= Regression: Reverting to an earlier stage of development
= Sublimation: Channelling impulses into socially accepted behaviors
= Rationalization: Making excuses for unacceptable behavior
= Reaction: Behaving in opposite ways to how you feel
= Introjection: Taking on behaviors of someone else to avoid distress
= Identification: Adopting behavior of hostile person to avoid abuse
Projective techniques
Within the psychodynamic approach, another way to measure personality is with projective techniques
= Tests designed to reveal inner aspects of individuals’ personalities by analysis of their responses to a standard series of ambiguous stimuli
Pictures of people, objects, events or abstract stimuli are shown to subjects, who report what they see
These techniques are quite controversial
Two most famous:
= Rorschach (“roar-shack”) inkblot test
= Thematic apperception test (TAT)
Rorschach inkblots
A projective technique in which respondents’ inner thoughts and feelings are believed to be revealed by analysis of their responses to a set of unstructured inkblots
Thematic apperception tests
Thematic apperception tests (TAT) use a similar technique
Patients are shown a card with an ambiguous scene
They are asked to make up a story about this scene
= Many of the scenes elicit common themes from many respondents
= Any details that the respondent makes up are thought to be aspects of that respondent’s personality
Clinician scores the results
What problems are there with projective techniques?
Results can be difficult to interpret
List of common results are just obtained from other individuals with specific psychopathologies
That is, if an individual produces these results, they may also have that specific psychopathology
= Interpretations can be subjective
They require interpretation by the clinician
The clinician may project his/her own personality traits onto the patient’s responses
