1. Psychology Defined
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behaviour.

3. 2 ways to resolve disputes:
1) non-peacefully

5. 2) Peacefully
(1) by acceptance of authority
(2) by agreement on rules for resolving disputes

6. Dispute resolution mechanism?
Political Claims:
Dispute resolution mechanism?
voting

7. Dispute resolution mechanism?
Knowledge claims:
Dispute resolution mechanism?
Science

8. Science defined Procedures for adjudicating knowledge claims
Standards of evidence
Decision rules for evaluating competing claims
Methods for obtaining controlled or rigorous observations
Systematic observation (empiricism)
Independent replication
Publicity of methods
Public of findings

9. Personality Science Is Astrology a scientific theory of personality?
1. Are its claims empirically testable?
Yes.
2. Are its claims consistent with already well-established facts about the physical world?
No.
Therefore evidence will need to be very strong.
Astrology could in principle be a scientific theory, it is a very bad one. Why?
Because it consistently fails empirical testing.

10. Cool things we don’t cover…
1. X-raying your mind.
2. Finding your inner child.
3. Determining your “colour”.
5. Astrology, Phrenology, Graphology, Enneagram, Scientology…
1. No evidence that PhD training improves psychodiagnostic ability above paraprofessionals.
s-1990s Inner Child- ideas from Freudian personality theory; WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??
3. Not about psychopathology, but will do a chapter on Personality Disorders.
4. McNally-Robinson many, many shelves of pop psychology

11. Scientology

12. L. Ron Hubbard's Grades Chemistry (General) D, D
Math (Plane Geometry) F
German (1st yr) E, F
Math (Diff. Calculus) F
Physics (Sound/Light) E
Math (Diff. Calculus 2nd attempt) D
Math (Analytic Geometry) D
English (the Short Story) B,B
English (Rhetoric) C, B

13. Personality tests on the Web
If you google: "personality tests",
2,270,000 web pages

14. Chapter 1 Introduction to Personality

15. What are trait words for?
bold, timid
reliable, disorganized
cool, nifty,
goof (see Urban Dictionary)
incompetent
untrustworthy
pedophile

16. Functions of trait words
1. Describe
thrifty Someone good with money.
2. Evaluate
stingy A jerk who won’t give $$ to me.
We need to predict what someone will do.
We need to evaluate someone's significance for oneself.

17. George Bush's Personality

18. Defining Personality Popular meanings of "personality"
A boring person (“He lacks personality.”)
A desirable person ("She has a wonderful personality.")
A dramatic person (“You have quite the personality!")
A public person (“a well-known TV personality")

19. Defining Personality Latin root is persona “mask”
Per sonare = to sound through
The hole in the actor's mask
Cicero (50 BC): 4 meanings
1. Outer appearance to others
2. Inner, "real" self
3. A role, a part being played
4. A person of distinction

20. Cicero and Personality Debates
#1 & #2: Inner vs Outer
Debate: How to define personality
Hogan (1977):
Actor perspective (“inner self”)
Observer perspective (“outer self”)
The “Interpersonal perspective”
Personality is observer defined phenomenon
You have NO personality when deserted on an island

21. Cicero and Personality Debates
#3: “Role”
Debate: Person-Situation debate
Is behavior due to traits or the situation?
#4: “Person of distinction”
Distinction = high social value
Value: e-VALU-tion; social evaluation
Debate: social desirability debate
Are trait ratings descriptions or evaluations?
How badly biased are trait judgements?

22. Defining Personality
2 Definitions
Little
Big

23. Defining Personality Little definition (Gordon Allport, 1930s)
An individual person's characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting.

24. Personality Defined Personality
is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).

25. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Mechanisms are like traits, but they refer more to the processes of personality.
They have 3 essential ingredients: inputs, decision-rules, and outputs.

26. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Mechanisms are like traits, but they refer more to the processes of personality.
They have 3 essential ingredients: inputs, decision-rules, and outputs.

27. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Personality is something a person carries with him- or herself over time and from one situation to the next.
Personality psychologists look at internal factors (in comparison with, for example, social psychologists who look externally).

28. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Traits and mechanisms are not a random collection of elements.
They are relatively enduring over time and are generally consistent over situations.

29. Personality Defined Personality
is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).

30. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Mechanisms are like traits, but they refer more to the processes of personality.
They have 3 essential ingredients: inputs, decision-rules, and outputs.

31. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Mechanisms are like traits, but they refer more to the processes of personality.
They have 3 essential ingredients: inputs, decision-rules, and outputs.

32. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Personality is something a person carries with him- or herself over time and from one situation to the next.
Personality psychologists look at internal factors (in comparison with, for example, social psychologists who look externally).

33. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Traits and mechanisms are not a random collection of elements.
They are relatively enduring over time and are generally consistent over situations.

38. “For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people’s social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and reflection.... “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states and that would have implications for your morality,”
- author of 2009 MRI study, Immordino-Yang

39. Texting Frequency

46. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Traits and mechanisms are not a random collection of elements.
They are relatively enduring over time and are generally consistent over situations.

47. Shallow & Friendly? Unreflective Materialistic Prejudiced Extraverted
Is there psychological coherence in the pattern of correlations with texting?
Unreflective
Materialistic
Prejudiced
Extraverted
Shallow & Friendly?

48. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Traits and mechanisms influence our actions, how we view ourselves, how we think about the world, how we interact with others, how we feel, our selection of environments, what goals and desires we pursue in life, and how we react to circumstances.
In short, they influence how we think, act, and feel.

49. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
Interactions with situations include:
perceptions: how we “see” or interpret an environment
selections: the manner in which we choose situations to enter
evocations: the reactions we produce in others
manipulations: the ways in which we attempt to influence others

50. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
A central feature of personality concerns adaptive functioning—accomplishing goals, coping, adjusting, and dealing with numerous challenges and problems.

51. Personality Defined
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).

52. like some other persons, and like no other person.
Henry Murray (1938)
Personality refers to the ways a person is
like all other persons,
like some other persons,
and like no other person.

53. 3 levels of personality analysis
Every human being is like…
All others
Human nature level
Some others
Indiv & Group difference level
No others
Indiv uniqueness level

54. 1. Human Nature Level Species typical traits and mechanism
The traits and mechanisms of personality that are typical of our species and are possessed by everyone or nearly everyone.

55. 2. Individual and Group Differences Level
Ways in which each person is like
some other people
Worriers
Risk takers

56. 3. Individual Uniqueness Level
Every individual has personal and unique qualities not shared by any other person in the world.
Idiographic research (Paulness)
Nomothetic research (Shyness)
Individuals can be studied in two ways:
Nomothetically: As individual instances of general characteristics that are distributed in the population
Idiographically: As single and unique cases

57. A Fissure in the Field Grand Theories of Personality vs.
Contemporary Research in Personality.

59. Grand Theories of Personality
Primarily address the 1st level of analysis, the human nature level
Don’t represent contemporary research in the field of personality psychology.

60. Contemporary Research
Primarily addresses 2nd level of analysis ie., the ways individuals and groups tend to differ (e.g., "extraversion", "collectivism")
BUT, studying personality psychology needs to be more than just covering the current research topics.
Just surveying current topics in personality research would not result in any sense of the connection between the aspects of personality. Need to bridge the gap between the theories and current research.

61. Bridging the Fissure Domains of knowledge create specialization
Integrating the domains of knowledge gives us the whole personality…
D.O.K.
D.O.K.
D.O.K.
D.O.K.
D.O.K.
D.O.K.

62. A Whole Person.

63. And The Whole Picture of which the Person is a part.

64. Six Domains of Knowledge
Dispositional Domain
Deals centrally with the ways in which individuals differ from one another
e.g., basic traits
More statistical than other domains.

65. Six Domains of Knowledge
Biological Domain
Humans are collections of biological systems that provide the building blocks for behaviour, thought, and emotion.
3 main areas of research: genetics, psychophysiology, and evolution.

74. Six Domains of Knowledge
Cognitive-Experiential Domain
Our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and desires shape our personality.
Do I see myself as having a successful career?
Am I a good person or evil?
What makes me fearful?

76. Six Domains of Knowledge
Intrapsychic Domain
Refers to the mental mechanisms of personality, many of which operate outside the realm of conscious awareness.

78. Six Domains of Knowledge Social and Cultural Domains
Personality doesn’t merely reside within the head and nervous system, but affects, and is affected by, the social and cultural context.
Groups & Cultures differ tremendously from another. Personality differences among these groups are most likely due to cultural influences.
Includes gender differences

79. Six Domains of Knowledge
Adjustment Domain
Some personality traits are related to poor adjustment
Studying disorders of personality deepens our understanding of “normal” personality

81. What about theory?
If astrology is a bad theory, what are the characteristics of a good theory?
Provides a guide to the best questions to ask
Integrates known facts into a coherent framework of understanding
Makes accurate predictions (generates new facts)
1. GUIDE: Why do extraverts like loud music? Cortical arousal theory--> need for stimulation to feel "normal" optimal level of arousal.
2. COHERENCE: Bring together facts to stand "under" a common place (understand). Eg, why openness and extraversion correlated? Frontal dopamine--cognitive exploration/behavioral exploration.
3. PREDICT: Arousal theory predicts better performance for extraverts and worse performance for introverts if you give em caffeine.
ALSO-- Point out that in science a theory is not a "hunch", I.e, evoutionary theory is not hypothetical.

82. How Evaluate Theories? Comprehensiveness Heuristic value Testability
Parsimony
Compatibility with other theories
1. COMPREHENSIVENESS
2. HEURISTIC VALUE "Generativity", Spawns ideas, research activity
3. TESTABILITY generates hypotheses that can be tested.
4. PARSIMONY makes minimal #assumptions (Occams Razor)
5. COMPATIBILITY Astrology (NOT compatible with action at a distance).

83. Beliefs vs Theories Belief Theory
what you privately like or want to think
Theory
a claim of about the nature of the world verified by observatons

84. Methods chapter is next….