Chapter 12: Personality
Chapter Review
Summarizing the Principles of Personality
How Have Scientists Studied Personality?1. Psychodynamic theories emphasize unconscious and dynamic processes: Freud believed that personality was in part the result of unconscious conflicts. The personality is comprised of the id, ego, and superego. Stages of psychosexual development occur from birth to adolescence. The ego uses defense mechanisms to reduce the anxiety of the oppositional demands of the id and superego. Neo-Freudians have focused on relationships, especially the emotionalmarizing the Principles of Personality attachments that children develop to their parents, rather than sexual forces (libido).
2. Humanistic approaches emphasize integrated personal experience: Humanists view personality as the result of human experiences and beliefs. Humans strive to realize their full potential, and may be hampered in doing so if they do not receive unconditional positive regard from their parents. The positive psychology movement researches subjective well-being.
3. Type and trait approaches describe behavioral dispositions: Personality type theories focus more on description than explanation. Trait theories are based on the assumption that personality is a collection of traits that individually vary, and exist in a hierarchy of importance. Eysenck proposed a model of personality that showed that the biologically based traits (extraversion, emotional stability, psychoticism) are the important traits, under which lesser traits are organized. The Big Five theory considers personality to be the result of the composition of the basic traits: openness to new experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
4. Personality reflects learning and cognitive processes: Through interaction with their environment, people learn patterns of responding that are guided by expectancies and values. The extent to which people believe they can achieve specific outcomes, called self-efficacy, is an important determinant of behavior. The Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) emphasizes self-regulation.
How Is Personality Assessed, and What Does It Predict?
5. Personality refers to both unique and common characteristics: Idiographic approaches are person-centered; they evaluate personality from the perspective of assessing the unique pattern of characteristics of an individual. Nomothetic approaches focus on characteristics that are common among all people, but on which people vary (i.e., traits).
6. We can use objective and projective methods to assess personality: Projective measures (e.g., the Thematic Apperception Test, the Rorschach inkblot test) subjectively evaluate the unconscious issues a person projects onto ambiguous stimuli. Objective measures are straightforward assessments, usually made by self-report questionnaires or observer ratings.
7. Observers show accuracy in trait judgments: Your close acquaintances may be more accurate at predicting your behavior than you are.
8. People sometimes are inconsistent: Mischel proposed that situations are more important than traits in predicting behavior (situationism).
9. Behavior is influenced by the interaction of personality and situations: Situations vary in the extent to which they influence behavior and interact with personality to determine behavior.
What Is the Biological Basis of Personality?
10. Personality is rooted in genetics: Nearly all personality traits have a genetic component. Twin and adoptions studies have found that 40-60 percent of personality variation is due to genetics. Personality characteristics are polygenetic, and their expression is the result of interaction with the environment.
11. Temperaments are evident in infancy: Temperaments, the general tendencies of how we behave, are biologically mediated and observable in infants.
12. Personality is linked to specific neurophysiological mechanisms: Cortical arousal is regulated through the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS), and results in characteristics of introversion/extraversion. The behavioral approach system (BAS) and the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) affect variations in arousal and the behavioral responses. Dopamine pathway activation is greater in extraverts.
13. Personality is adaptive: Variations in personality and skills of individual members benefit a group, and provide an advantage for group survival.
Can Personality Change?
14. Traits remain stable over time: Trait consistency is lowest for young children and highest for those over age 50. Biological and environmental factors are more stable in adulthood.
15. Characteristic adaptations change across time and circumstances: Basic tendencies are dispositional traits that are determined to a great extent by biological processes, and are therefore stable. Characteristic adaptations are contextualized by time, place, situation, and social role. Quantum-change events, as reported in life stories, are significant in changing personality.
16. Brain injury and pharmacological interventions affect personality: Drugs that affect the action of the neurotransmitter serotonin create changes in personality, particularly with regard to social dominance and reduced hostility.
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