1. Personality Development
Temperament: Basic types and categories
“Big Five” Personality factors
Theories of personality development: An overview
Implications of the different theoretical
perspectives for providing a wholesome education.

2. Personality Development
What is Temperament?
Temperament is a set of in-born traits that organize the child's approach to the world. 
It is defined as the stable individual differences in quality and intensity of emotional reaction, activity level, attention, and emotional self-regulation.
For example, when we describe a child as cheerful and happy, another as active and energetic, and still others as calm, cautious, or prone to angry outbursts, we are referring to temperament.

3. Three different types of temperament in children:
-Thomas and Chess (1956, 1984)
The easy-child (40 % of the sample)
–positive mood, quickly establishes regular routines, easy adaptation to new experiences.
The difficult child (10 % of the sample)
– react negatively, aggressive, lacks self-control, and slow to accept new experiences.
The slow-to-warm-up child (15 % of the sample)
– a low activity level, somewhat negative, low adaptability, low intensity of mood.
35 % of the children were found not fitting in any of these categories. Instead, they showed unique blends of temperamental characteristics.

4. What is Personality?
Personality is determined by the interaction of temperament traits with the environment. 
Personality refers to distinctive thoughts, emotions, and behaviours that characterize the way an individual adapts to the world.
Choose a friend that you know best and describe his/her personality
Our personality can be adequately described as a set of variations along five major dimensions, often referred to as the “Big
Five” personality factors.

5. How will you determine the personality of your students?
A number of research studies have pointed The Big Five factors as important dimensions of personality. Thinking about personality in terms of these factors can give a framework for thinking about the personalities of students.
The Big Five Factors of Personality:
- Clam or anxious
- Secure or insecure Emotional Stability/Neuroticism
- Self-satisfied or self-pitying
- Sociable or retiring
Fun-loving or somber Extraversion/Introversion
Affectionate or reserved

6. - Imaginative or simple, down to earth
- Broad interest/Narrow interest Openness/Closed
- Independent or confirming
- Soft-hearted or ruthless
- Trusting or suspicious Agreeableness/Disagreeableness
- Helpful or uncooperative
- Organized or disorganized
Careful or careless
- Disciplined or impulsive Conscientiousness/Unconscientiousness

7. Theories of Personality Development: An Overview
Psychoanalytic
Freud: humans are driven by inborn sexual and aggressive instincts (eros and thanatos) that must be controlled. Much of human behaviour reflect unconscious motives that people have repressed.
Erikson: stressed that children are active, curious explorers rather than slaves to the biological urges and moulded by parents; and placed more emphasis on cultural/ social influences rather than sexual urges.

8. Behaviourist/ Social-Learning
Watson: Human development should be based on observations of overt behaviour rather than on speculations about unconscious motives or cognitive processes that are unobservable.
Skinner: both animals and humans will repeat acts that lead to favourable outcomes and will suppress those that produce unfavourable outcomes.
Bandura: Humans are cognitive beings, and are often affected by what they believe will happen than by events they actually experience Observational learning is a central developmental process.

9. Cognitive-Development
Piaget: Children are inventive scholars. Intellectual activity is a basic life function that helps the child adapt to the environment.
Vygotsky: (1) Human development occurs in a particular sociocultural context that influences the form it takes.
(2) many of child’s noteworthy characteristics and cognitive skills evolve from social interactions with parents, teachers and other more competent associates.

10. Ethology : A Modern Evolutionary Perspective
Classical ethology assumes that members of species are born with “biologically programmed” behaviours that are products of evolution and adaptive in that they contribute to survival.
Behavioural Genetics:Biological Bases for Individual Differences
Behavioural geneticists believe that our genes influence the kinds of environments we experience in three ways (called Genotype/ Environmental Correlations):
Passive
Evocative
Active

11. Ecological Systems Theory: A Modern Environmentalists Perspective
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory emphasizes that the developing person is embedded in a series of environmental systems that interact with one another and with the person to influence development.
Teaching strategies involving students’ temperament
Sanson and Rothbart (1995) in Santrock (2001) suggests some teaching strategies that could be used by teachers in dealing with students’ temperament:

12. Be aware of problems that can emerge because of labeling a child
“difficult” and packaged programs for “difficult children.”
2. Show attention to and respect for individuality.
3. Consider the structure of the student’s environment.
Source:
Santrock, J.W. (2004), Educational Psychology, 2edn, McGraw-Hill, NY