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Gordan Allport
- Started the whole trait approach
- "dirt phobia"
- counted over 4,000 personality traits in the dictionary
- wanted to find the major traits
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Early typologies
- Assumed that everyone fit into one or the other category
- Phrenology
- Morphology
- humorism
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Phrenology
Ones personality can be related to the mapping of one's brain by the mapping of the bumps of the brain.
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Morphology
- The body type of an individual can determine personality
- ectomorphic
- endomorphic
- mezomorphic
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ectomorphic
- Thin body type
- seen as fragile
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endomorphic
- overweight body type
- seen as lazy
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mezomorphic
- muscular type
- seen as productive ans sucessful
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Humorism
- looked at bodily fluids to determine personality
- four temperments: sanguine, melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic
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melancholic (greek)
unhappy
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choleric (greek)
tempermental
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phlegmatic (greek)
apathetic
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Modern Trait Dimensions
- Personalities can be measured on a continum
- normally distributed
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Normal Distribution
few people are at the extremes while everyone else lies somewhere in the middle
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Henry Murray
- Personology
- having an affair with his wife but was encouraged to continue the affair to save marriage by jung
- idealist, patriotic, loyal, creative
- created the TAT test
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Raymond Cattell
- created the 16 PF test
- first in family to go to college
- chemist but switched to personality psychology
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Walter Mishel
criticized personality psychology tests
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Nomothetic approach
- Created by Gordon Allport
- method of understanding personality that compares many people along the same personality dimensions
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idiographic approach
- method of studying personality through in-depth analysis of one individual and the dimensions relevant to that person's personality.
- central traits then cardinal traits
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common traits
- traits that only appear depending on a certain situation
- example: anxious before public speaking
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central trait
- specific traits that are specific to the individual
- example: shy, honest, intelligent,
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Cardinal Trait
- a trait that completely defines ones personality
- very rare
- example: christ-like
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functional autonomy
Our present motives are interdependent from our past behaviors
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"Letters from Jenny"
- to study the idiographic approach, Allport studied a woman who used the pseudonum Jenny Masterson
- identified eight of her central traits by studying more than 300 of her letters over 12 years.
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Psychogenic Needs
the need for power, affiliation, achievement
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Thematic Apperception test
- Created by Henry Murray
- shows a picture and the patient tells a story of what is happening
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Interaction with the "press"
- Your behavior will not be activated unless there a situation( press) that calls for it
- example: the need for order will be pressed when you need to make time to clean your room even if it is slightly messy
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Factor analysis
- statistical procedure used to determine the number of dimensions in a data set.
- emprical search for central traits
- putting taits onto a 2d space (dimension scale)
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16 Personality Factor Inventory
- relevant to business and performance
- tests adults based on 16 major personality factors
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The Big five
- Neroticism
- Extraversion
- Openness
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
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Neuroticism
insecure, emotionaly unstable, anxious
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Openness
adaptable, open minded, variety
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extraversion
outgoing, social, lively
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agreeableness
warm, friendly, soft-hearted
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conscientiousness
detail-oriented, carefeul, dependeable, organized
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criticism of personality psychology
- tests were misused and should not be a diagnosis
- not reliable or valid
- needs to look at situations
- Tests need to predict a constellation of behaviors in order to be more reliable
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Response to criticism
- personality psychology was paralyzed for the time being
- tests became aggregated
- Personality Psychology is not a separate discipline
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One item measurement
Testing for one major trait
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aggregate data
finding a "constellation" of behaviors
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Person-by-situation
looking at the relationship between a persons traits, situation, and behavior
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Big 5 in the workplace
- #1 most important trait is conscientiousness
- tied for #2 are agreeableness for teamwork
- and extraversion for sales
- openness for creativity
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Type A personality
- An extreme description of a personality
- workaholic, time urgency, competitive, efficient, short tempered
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Type B personality
- an extreme description of a personality
- laid back, not urgent on time, less competitive
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predictive validity for type A personality
- higher awards, faster job advancement, work longer hours
- less job satisfaction, high blood pressure
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toxic component of type A personality
- hostility towards little occurances in everyday life and could lead to heart disease
- if this can be controlled type A is very beneficial
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evaluation apprehension
- self anxiety about others will view yourself
- they mostly fear a negative evaluation
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Drug Rehab changing personality
- Those in drug rehab were tested at the beginning and after fifteen month this was found:
- Decreased neuroticism
- increased agreeableness and conscientiousness
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Changing Social Anxiety
- Must have an increase in motivation and courage
- It will be a complete change however it will be enough so that it is significant to the individual.
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Trait Profiling and Bullies
- Have a high level of Neuroticism, conflicts with family, high levels of psychoticism
- At age 26, bullies are 65% more likely to have a felony
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Trait profling and whipping boys
High levels of Neuroticism, low self-esteem, and low social skills
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Trait profiling and smokers
High neuroticism, extraversion, sensation seeking
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Trait profiling and alchoholics
- High Neuroticism and sensation seeking; impulsive
- low agreeableness and conscientiousness
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Trait profiling and serial killers
- Serial killer triad (almost always shows in every serial killer)
- torturing small animals
- starting destructive fires
- bedwetting (lack of control, anal repulsive, aggression)
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Hans Eysenck
- Super Traits
- Backgournd: Jewish sympathizer during WWII,originally studied biology but forced to study psychology, wanted a big family
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David Buss
- Evolutional theories of universal traits
- Background: bad grades in school except math, dropped out of highschool but got into a prestigous university by a lottery pick, grew up in poverty
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Biological Approach
Personality is formed by a combination of genetic and physiological traits
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Heritability of temperament
- The characteristic phenomena of an individuals emotional nature
- depends on experiences and how person responds to the experience
- largely inherited before first year of age
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EAS temperaments
- E- emotional activity (how easily angered is the child)
- A- acionality (the energy output; are they figity?)
- S- Sociability (tendency to socialize with others)
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Super traits
- used rudemetary by Eysenck
- Extraversion, Neuroticism, psychotocism
- believed that these three were largely inherited
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Hierarchy of traits
Supertraits -> traits-> habitual resonse -> specific response
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example of hierarchy of traits
extraversion -> sociability -> likes to go to parties -> how person socializes at the party
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Intraversion vs extraversion research
- Eysenck studied different peoples reactions to caffeine
- extraverts are more likely to drink more caffeine because they are less sensitive to stimulation
- intraverts CNS operates at an above normal level so caffeine affects them more
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Natural selection
- inherited characteristics that help species meet and survive threats from the environment
- makes them more likely to survive and pass on traits to offspring
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Universal traits
- traits that have a reproductive advantage will most likely be passed on to future generations until it becomes a universal trait within genders
- example: fertility in women
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Evolutionary mating behavior in males
- tend to want the more mating partners
- parental investment: sperm
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evolutionary mating behavior in females
- more choosier of mating partner
- parental investment: 9 months of limited mobility
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evolutionary mate selection in males
- males tend to look for fertility cues
- anything that signals that the female is of fertile mating age (healthy skin, hair color, etc)
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evolutionary mate selection in females
- tend to look for resource cues
- anything to shoe that the male can provide for female and child
- example: money, status, intelligence
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evolutionary sexual jealousy in males
- males tend to have stronger sexual jealousy than emotional jealousy
- stems from paternal uncertainty in that the father may be unsure of who the real biological father is
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evolutionary sexual jealousy
- emotional jealousy is stronger than sexual jealousy
- stems from the fact that the female may leave the resources that the father would provide female and child
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Goodness of fit model
- the sucess of a child in schools depends on how well its environment matches its learning capabilities, characteristics, an style of behavior,
- example: teacher's expectations, pace of learning, amount of content learned at a time
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heritability of extraversion
- extraverts require stronger stimulations to operate at peak level
- need some kind of "life" in surroundings to focus
- more impulsive
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heritability of intraverts
- more receptive to stimulants; require less
- need few distractions to focus
- thinks things through before acting
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