Personality psychology exam 2

• Started the whole trait approach
• "dirt phobia"
• counted over 4,000 personality traits in the dictionary
• wanted to find the major traits

• Assumed that everyone fit into one or the other category
• Phrenology
• Morphology
• humorism

Ones personality can be related to the mapping of one's brain by the mapping of the bumps of the brain.

• The body type of an individual can determine personality
• ectomorphic
• endomorphic
• mezomorphic

• Thin body type
• seen as fragile

• overweight body type
• seen as lazy

• muscular type
• seen as productive ans sucessful

• looked at bodily fluids to determine personality
• four temperments: sanguine, melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic

happy

unhappy

tempermental

apathetic

• Personalities can be measured on a continum
• normally distributed

few people are at the extremes while everyone else lies somewhere in the middle

• 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

• created the 16 PF test
• first in family to go to college
• chemist but switched to personality psychology

criticized personality psychology tests

• Created by Gordon Allport
• method of understanding personality that compares many people along the same personality dimensions

• 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

• traits that only appear depending on a certain situation
• example: anxious before public speaking

• specific traits that are specific to the individual
• example: shy, honest, intelligent,

• a trait that completely defines ones personality
• very rare
• example: christ-like

Our present motives are interdependent from our past behaviors

• 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.

the need for power, affiliation, achievement

• Created by Henry Murray
• shows a picture and the patient tells a story of what is happening

• 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

• 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)

• relevant to business and performance
• tests adults based on 16 major personality factors

• Neroticism
• Extraversion
• Openness
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness

insecure, emotionaly unstable, anxious

adaptable, open minded, variety

outgoing, social, lively

warm, friendly, soft-hearted

detail-oriented, carefeul, dependeable, organized

• 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

• personality psychology was paralyzed for the time being
• tests became aggregated
• Personality Psychology is not a separate discipline

Testing for one major trait

finding a "constellation" of behaviors

looking at the relationship between a persons traits, situation, and behavior

• #1 most important trait is conscientiousness
• tied for #2 are agreeableness for teamwork
• and extraversion for sales
• openness for creativity

• An extreme description of a personality
• workaholic, time urgency, competitive, efficient, short tempered

• an extreme description of a personality
• laid back, not urgent on time, less competitive

• higher awards, faster job advancement, work longer hours
• less job satisfaction, high blood pressure

• hostility towards little occurances in everyday life and could lead to heart disease
• if this can be controlled type A is very beneficial

• self anxiety about others will view yourself
• they mostly fear a negative evaluation

• Those in drug rehab were tested at the beginning and after fifteen month this was found:
• Decreased neuroticism
• increased agreeableness and conscientiousness

• 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.

• 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

High levels of Neuroticism, low self-esteem, and low social skills

High neuroticism, extraversion, sensation seeking

• High Neuroticism and sensation seeking; impulsive
• low agreeableness and conscientiousness

• Serial killer triad (almost always shows in every serial killer)
• torturing small animals
• starting destructive fires
• bedwetting (lack of control, anal repulsive, aggression)

• Super Traits
• Backgournd: Jewish sympathizer during WWII,originally studied biology but forced to study psychology, wanted a big family

• 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

Personality is formed by a combination of genetic and physiological traits

• 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

• E- emotional activity (how easily angered is the child)
• A- acionality (the energy output; are they figity?)
• S- Sociability (tendency to socialize with others)

• used rudemetary by Eysenck
• Extraversion, Neuroticism, psychotocism
• believed that these three were largely inherited

Supertraits -> traits-> habitual resonse -> specific response

extraversion -> sociability -> likes to go to parties -> how person socializes at the party

• 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

• inherited characteristics that help species meet and survive threats from the environment
• makes them more likely to survive and pass on traits to offspring

• 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

• tend to want the more mating partners
• parental investment: sperm

• more choosier of mating partner
• parental investment: 9 months of limited mobility

• males tend to look for fertility cues
• anything that signals that the female is of fertile mating age (healthy skin, hair color, etc)

• tend to look for resource cues
• anything to shoe that the male can provide for female and child
• example: money, status, intelligence

• 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

• 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

• 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

• extraverts require stronger stimulations to operate at peak level
• need some kind of "life" in surroundings to focus
• more impulsive

• more receptive to stimulants; require less
• need few distractions to focus
• thinks things through before acting