Psychology 001Introduction to Psychology

Christopher Gade, PhDOffice: 621 Heafey

Office hours: F 3-6 and by apt. Email: gadecj@gmail.com

Class WF 7:00-8:30 Heafey 650

The State/Trait Approach to Personality• When defining personality, current psychologists

often turn to traits. When they do this, they attempt to maintain a clear cut distinction between traits and states when describing people and behaviors.– Traits – a consistent, long-lasting tendency in behavior• Much more consistent over time• Less influenced by social cues (supposedly)• e.g. kindness, shyness, hostility, laziness

– States – a temporary activation of a particular behavior• The result of social cues• Short-lived and slightly more influential while they are

experienced• e.g. fear, excitation, sorrow, surprise

How many traits do we have?

• The best answer for that question is… It depends

• When defining a large group of individuals, the amount of personality traits that can be used to describe these people can range anywhere from 2 – ??? traits

• When looking to predict a specific behavior, only one or two defining traits might be necessary to describe an individual

The Big 5 Model of

Personality

• When looking to determine the number of traits needed to define a person’s overall personality, past psychologists attempt to do this based on the premise of parsimony– Parsimony (AKA Occam’s Razor):

Results should be explained through the most consistent and simplest conclusion that can be drawn in the context of the situation.

• To do this, psychologists began looking for ways to describe personality in the most parsimonious fashion possible

• How did they do it?

The Big 5 Model of Personality (cont.)• The dictionary…– Looked in dictionaries to find every word in the English

language that related to personality– 18,000 words were found

• Comparing words for synonyms and antonyms…– Similar to each other (e.g. nice and friendly)– Opposite of each other (e.g. nice and mean)– This search reduced the list down to 35 traits

• Conducting “factor analyses” to see which remaining words/traits emerged…– Found the ones that overlapped with each other in response

frequency– This reduction left us with a total of 5 personality traits… the big

5

What are the big 5?• (O)penness to experience – a tendency to enjoy new

intellectual experiences and new ideas

• (C)onscientiousness – a tendency to show self-discipline, to be dutiful, and to strive for achievement and competence

• (E)xtraversion – a tendency to seek stimulation and to enjoy the company of others

• (A)greeableness – a tendency to be compassionate toward others

• (N)euroticism – a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions relatively easily

What are some shortcomings of “the big 5”?• Not always a good predictor of other cultures– Remember, this grouping was based on the English language– Modest supportive evidence has shown that the big five has

some value in other cultures• Might have too few variables– Religiosity, to name one variable, might also be an important

aspect of personality not covered in the big 5• Might have too many variables– Some variables are modestly positively correlated (E with O),

others are negatively correlated (both E and O with N)• Might not be a good predictor of specific behaviors– Some behaviors might not be predicted by big 5 measures,

others might just be better predicted by different, more specific personality traits

Where Do “The Big 5” and Other Personality Characteristics Come

From?

• We’ve looked at Freud, Jung, and some other theorists who presented less… scientific… ideas about personality.

• What research based theories have we formed about where personality comes from?

Other Determinants of Personality• Genes!!!– Twin studies have

shown us that genes have a large impact on our personality

– However, specific genes have not been linked to specific personality characteristics (at least they haven’t been linked yet)

George Alexander Kelly• Like Freud, Rogers, Jung, etc, examined the

whole person (through clinical experiences)• After clinical interactions, and observations of teacher

biases in reports of student “laziness”, began to believe that “constructs” were the basis of personality– Constructs – personality structures, perceptions of behaviors and

events, and other concepts of the environment that come from experience and are used to interpret/interact with the world– Note: he admitted that some things were less ambiguous (a tree is a

tree) than others (attributions of human behaviors)

• Argued that we are all scientists at heart, testing our environment in an attempt to try to understand, interpret, and predict the world around us

Applying Kelly’s Constructs• Constructs are used more when they

are convenient to the situation– Range of convenience– Example, you’d consider your construct of

extravert/introvert when you’re at a party, but you probably wouldn’t consider your construct of republican/democrat when you’re at the grocery store looking for a check out clerk

• Core constructs – constructs that are often accessed and are difficult to change

• Peripheral constructs – constructs that can easily be altered, and are not often accessed

Another Assessment: They’re all wrong!• Psychoanalysis and positive psychologists were too abstract

and overemphasized unconscious– Continued development– Less unconscious reactions

• Trait theorists are limited in their scope of applicability– What you do differently in situation A1 is as important as what

you do across similar situations (A1, A2, A3, etc.)

• Behaviorists don’t address the internal learning and thoughts that shape personality– Interpretation and planning

• Kelly was close, but forgot to look at the impact of social factors on the individual– Roles, socially derived constructs

Social Cognition: Adding to Kelly

• Individuals are still active engagers in their environment, trying to predict outcomes

• However, in social-cognition we’re also modeling behavior based on our interpretations of the social environment– “Social learning” and “social

cognition”• In essence, we’re interacting

with our environment to obtain things that we learn to want, through techniques that we learn to use

Introducing the Theorists• Albert Bandura– Early work was in clinical

side, focused on how learning was important

– We learn from the environment to develop our personality (modeling)• Bobo doll experiments

– And our interpretation of the situation by the individual

Introducing the Theorists• Walter Mischel– Student of George Kelly (cognitive approach)– Stressed the dynamics of the situation in personality• Expectations of results from behaviors• Interpretations of the situation

• Bandura and Mischel focused on empirical research to guide their theories and explanations for behavior

• Both played critical roles in the development of our focus in personality over the past few decades

• Embraced other fields of psychology to address questions about personality

The Basic Components of Personality in the Social-Cognitive Approach

• Competencies – the skill sets available to deal with social situations– Example: Introverts react shyly because

of their set of skills that they possess to deal with social interactions

– Context specificity – the notion that competencies are only appropriate for or applied in specific situations

– Note how learning can change our competencies, and thus change our “personality”

More on Competencies

• Responses can be learned through personal experience or vicarious experiences– Bandura’s monkey

phobia experiment• Competencies can also

be related to skills of inactivity and carry over– Mischel’s delay of

gratification findings

Ways to Determine Personality• Observations– Delay of gratification video– Behavioral reports

• Questionnaires/Interviews– Big Five Inventory– Peer/family ratings– Surveys– Therapy Sessions

• Projective measures– Rorschach Inkblots– Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Rorschach Inkblot Test