Chapter 9: Personality

• dispositional traits
• personal concerns
• life narrative

things that define you (aspects of personality consistent across contexts

this is comparable across a group along a continuum representing the high and low degrees of the characteristic

ex: shy, talkative

consult of things that are important to people, their goals, and their major concerns in life

described in motivtional, developmental, or strategic terms

your goals; what are you motivated to accomplish

consists of the aspects of personality that pull everything together, those integrative aspects that give a person an identity or sense of self

your storyline

state processes

self-regulatory processes

cognitive processes

act with dispositional traits to create transient, short-term changes in emotion, mood, hunger, and anxiety

act in tandem with personal concerns that include such processes as primary and secondary control

act jointly with life-narratives to create natural interaction that occur between a storyteller and a listener; central to organizing life stories

as you age, you shift how you tell the story. You go from transformation actor to agent to author

Consists of five independent dimensions of personality

• OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE
• CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
• EXTRAVERSION
• AGREEABLENESS
• NEUROTICISM

OCEAN

• Traits stop changing around 30 and many remain stable across the lifespan
• very old-->increased suspiciousness and sensitivity

• Extraversion and openness decrease with age
• agreeableness increases with age
• conscientiousness peaks during middle age
• neuroticism tends to disappear in old age 

that there are personality changes as we grow older

Ursula Staudinger says that personality adjustment and personality growth play a part as well

developmental changes in terms of their adaptive value and functionality

absence of neuroticism, presence of agreeableness and conscientousness

• ideal end states such as increased self-transcendence, wisdom, and integrity
• decrease in openness

• absence of neuroticism
• presence of agreeableness and conscientiousness
• decrease in openness to new experiences with increasing age
• Adjustment aspect with increasing age could normative
• Personality changes are tied to cohort differences

it is not there in old age

data are averaged over large groups of people

But loking at specific aspects of personality in speciic kinds of people, there may be less stability and more chagne

are explicitly contextual in contrast to dispositional traits

are narrative descriptions that rely on life circumstances

change over time

• personality traits
• behaviors

• conscious descriptions of what a person is trying to accomplish during a given period of time
• goal-based concerns

self-regulation processes implemented to effect change in the concerns

environment or life context

if the context changes, the goals change

They are very situational and change over time as you and the environment changes

emphasizes that each aspects of a person's personality must be in balance with all the others

personality development during adulthood.

the notion of midlife crisis

• Young= extraverted 
• Old= introverted

Life events impact these levels

• Young= gender-role stereotypes
• Old= let out suppressed parts of personality

first theorist to develop a truly lifespan theory of personality deveopment

his eight stages represent the eight great sttruggles that he believed people must undergo (psychosocial crisis)

Each struggle has a certain time of ascendancy...the epigenetic principle

each struggle must be resolved to continue development

• Trust versus mistrust
• autonomy versus shame and doubt
• initiative versus guilt
• industry versus inferiority
• identity versus identity confusion
• intimacy versus isolation
• generativity versus stagnation 
• integrity (ego) versus despair

• pride and embarrassment
• responsibility and ambivalence
• career productivity and inadequacy
• parenthood and self-absorption

these are all reflection periods

• the idea that at middle age we take a good look at ourselves in the hopes of achieving a better understanding of who we are
• --> many adults face difficult issues and make behavioral changes

a midlife correction

re-evaluating one's roles and dreams and making the necessary corrections

argues that people build conceptions of how their lives should proceed

• They create a unified sense of their past, present, and future
• --> The life-span construct

People's identity changes over time via Piaget's concepts of assimilation and accommodation

scenario and lifestory

• consists of expectations about the future
• translates aspects of our identity that are important at specific points in life into a plan for the future
• a game plan for how we want our lives to go

personal narrative history organizing past events into a coherent sequence

distortions occur with tie and retelling

using already existing aspects of identity to handle present situations

higher in older adults

reflects the willingness of the individual to let the situation determine what he or she will do

higher in younger adults

has six stages:

• 1-3: incorporative, impulsive, imerial
• 4: interpersonal stage
• 5: institutional stage
• 6: interindividual stage

taking control of life and developing an ideology

• post-formal thought
• self is a complex system that takes into account other people

created by projecting yourself into the future and thinking about what you would like to become and what you are afraid of becoming

hoped for and feared selves

family issues

personal issues

improving in life

• self-acceptance
• positive relationships with others
• autonomy
• environmental mastery
• purpose in life
• personal growth

older adults use religion more often than any other strategy to help them cope with problems in life, including

• - pastoral care
• - participating in organized and non-organized religious activities
• - expressing faith in a God who cares for people

strong influence on identity, especially for African Americans