Chapter 14 Personality: Theory, Research, and Assessment

What is Personality? Personality refers to an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits. A personality trait is a durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations…adjectives like honest, moody, impulsive, and excitable describe dispositions that represent personality traits. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Raymond Cattell used the procedure of factor analysis – correlating many variables to identify closely related clusters of variables – to reduce Gordon Allport’s (1937) list of thousands of personality traits to just 16 basic dimensions. He also developed a test called the 16 PF to measure where a person falls along these 16 personality dimensions. More recently, McCrae and Costa have used factor analysis to arrive at an even simpler, five-factor model of personality…the big five.

The Five Factor Model – The Big 5 Personality Traits - A personality trait is a durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations…adjectives like honest, moody, impulsive, and excitable describe dispositions that represent personality traits. The Five-Factor Model Extraversion Neuroticism Openness to experience Agreeableness Conscientiousness

The Five Factor Model – The Big 5 High Extraversion signifies that a person is outgoing, sociable, upbeat, friendly, assertive, and gregarious. Some trait models refer to this as positive emotionality. High Neuroticism scores signify that a person is anxious, hostile, self-conscious, insecure, and vulnerable. Some models call this negative emotionality. Openness to experience is associated with curiosity, flexibility, vivid fantasy, imaginativeness, artistic sensitivity, and unconventional attitudes. Agreeableness is associated with people who are sympathetic, trusting, cooperative, modest, and straightforward and may have its roots in temperament. Conscientious people are diligent, disciplined, well organized, punctual, and dependable. Some models refer to this trait as constraint, and it is related to high productivity in a variety of occupational areas.

Figure 12.1 The five-factor model of personality

Psychodynamic Theorists Karen Horney: believed neurosis to be a continuous process—with neuroses commonly occurring sporadically in one's lifetime. Came up with “Ten Neurotic Needs” such as the need for affection and the need for power. She also critiqued the phallic stage and stated a theory of womb envy to replace penis envy. Carl Jung: Analytical Psychology; developed the concept of the Personal unconscious mind (complexes) and Collective unconscious mind (archetypes) Alfred Adler: Visionary Developer of Individual Psychology Pioneered ideas linked to the beginning of Humanistic psychology and the resurgence of Cognitive psychology; the striving for superiority such as goal setting and wanting to succeed linked to Maslow’s theory of self-actualization and the role of negative and self defeating thinking in psychopathology (fictional finalisms) also link him to cognitive psychology and cognitive therapy. Freud had many followers in the early 1900s. Many of these followers had theories of their own, but Freud was not willing to accept radical departures from psychoanalytic theory. Two members who broke from his group, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, founded their own brands of psychodynamic psychology, making important contributions in their own right. Carl Jung called his new theory analytical psychology, proposing that the unconscious mind is composed of two layers: the personal unconscious, which houses material that is not within one’s conscious awareness because it has been repressed or forgotten; and the collective unconscious, which houses latent memory traces inherited from people’s ancestral past. Jung called these ancestral memories archetypes – emotionally charged images and thought forms that have universal meaning…the mandala. Jung was also the first to describe the introverted (inner-directed) and extraverted (outer-directed) personality types. Alfred Adler argued that Freud had gone overboard with his focus on sexual conflict. According to Adler and his individual psychology, the foremost source of human motivation is striving for superiority – a universal drive to adapt, improve oneself, and master life’s challenges. Adler asserted that everyone feels some inferiority and works to overcome it, a process he called compensation. When the feelings are excessive, an inferiority complex can result. People can also conceal, even from themselves, their feelings of inferiority, resulting in overcompensation…seeking status and power, and flaunting their success to cover up underlying inferiority. Adler was also the first to stress the possible importance of birth order as a factor governing personality.

Figure 12.4 Jung’s vision of the collective unconscious

Behavioral Perspectives Bandura’s views - Albert Bandura’s concept of reciprocal determinism is the idea that internal mental events, external environmental events, and overt behavior all influence one another. His theory of observational learning holds that behavior is shaped by exposure to models, people whose behavior is observed and imitated. Bandura has also emphasized self-efficacy in his research, referring to the belief about one’s ability to perform behaviors that should lead to expected outcomes. He believes that self-efficacy influences which challenges people tackle and how well they perform. Mischel’s views – Walter Mischel also advocated social learning theory, with a focus on the extent to which situational factors govern behavior, instead of person variables. He called this theory Situationalism.

Humanistic Perspectives Carl Rogers Person Centered Theory Self-concept based on: Unconditional positive regard Incongruence and anxiety Congruence and fully functioning people Abraham Maslow Self-actualization theory aka Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Figure 12.9 Rogers’s view of personality structure

Figure 12.11 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Biological Perspectives Hans Eysenk fused biological, evolutionary, and trait theory. 3 higher order traits Extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism Determined totally by genetics

George Kelley’s Fundamental Postulate In contrast to these theories, Kelly saw individual differences as a result of how we interpret and predict the events that affect us.  He called these personal constructs, bipolar concepts (good/bad, right/wrong, pretty/ugly, for example) referring to our individual way of gathering information from the world and developing hypotheses based on these interpretations. His Fundamental Postulate states that we act in a manner congruent with how we expect the world to be based on our interpretations of past events. For example, if we see people as friendly and helpful we are much more likely to engage with others and seek advice. If we see people as selfish and cruel, it would only be logical to avoid interpersonal relationships and rely solely on our own problem solving abilities.

Julian Rotter and Locus of Control Theory Julian Rotter greatly influenced Martin Seligman's work with positive psychology. Seligman talks about optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles, which are after the fact ideations, whereas Rotter talked about locus of control, which represent the preconditions before an event occurs. A person who has an external locus of control believes that outside factors control their actions, that they are essentially powerless. This leads to a more pessimistic style of explaining past behavior. A person with an internal locus of control feels empowered, and believes that they are the force behind all of their actions and decisions. This will lead to a more optimistic explanatory style when assessing past behavior.

Personality Assessment Self-Report Inventories – MMPI-2: 500+ questions assessing personality on many clinical scales assessing mental health problems (i.e. depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder), personality characteristics (i.e. psychopathy) and general personality traits such as anger, somatization, hypochondriasis, ‘type A behavior’ addiction potential, poor ego strength among others. The 16PF and NEO Personality Inventory are other personality self report measurements, but neither is as widely used as the MMPI-2. Strengths of self-report inventories: they are objective and precise and provide extensive comparative data. Weaknesses of self-report inventories : deliberate or accidental deception, social desirability bias, and response sets.

Personality Assessment Projective Tests are personality tests designed to allow a person to respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts projected by the person into the test. Rorschach inkblot test Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Strengths not transparent to respondents sensitive to unconscious features of personality Weaknesses scientific evidence is unimpressive susceptible to intentional deception “techniques” rather than tests

The First of the Rorschach Inkblots

Figure 12.21 The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)