Intro to Personality

What is personality? #

Personality encapsulates the characteristics of a person that describe and explain consistent patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving.

Unlike social psychology, which studies situational/external causes of behavior, personality psychology focuses on intraindividual/internal causes.

Some of the goals of studying personality include:

• Classifying the structure of personality (what)
• Explore the mechanisms that enable personality (why)
• Identify consistent patterns and regularities: make distinction between traits and states

History of Personality Psychology #

Freud #

1875: Freud

• Study of innate, unconscious, and physical instincts
• Psychodynamic theory: what functions do behaviors serve?
• Parents influence the behavior and development of instincts in children Early 1900s: Neo-Freudian
• Feeling of belonging is an innate need
• Acceptance/rejections in early interpersonal relationships impact personality

Behaviorism #

• Psychology is the science of behavior, not of the mind
• People are born as a blank slate and most behavior is learned through reinforcement and conditioning
• Humans are intrinsically good, with innate potential for positive growth

Cognitive Learning Theory #

• People and animals are active learners, and are born with the need to learn
• No reinforcement or motivation is required
• Expectations, beliefs, and attitudes affect behavior

Social-Cognitive Revolution #

• The mind can be modeled as an information-processing computer
• Creation of mental structures/processes to describe and explain personality

Trait Theory #

• Psycholexical approach: study personality characteristics important in a culture by studying vocabulary for personality traits
• Big 5 theory