1. Getting Started Copyright © 2007 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? What is Personality? This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law: any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network; preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part, of any image; any rental, lease, or lending of the program.

2. Getting Started Copyright © 2007 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Topics Covered Questions of Personality What Is the Personality System? What Is the Field of Personality Psychology? Why Study Personality? How Is this Course Organized?

3. Fundamental Questions of Personality © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? What Are Your Questions? What Have You Wondered About Yourself? What Have You Wondered About Others? What Is Personality to You?

4. Fundamental Questions of Personality © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Three Big Questions 1. Who Am I? 3. What is My Future? 2. How Do People Differ? These inter-related questions (and others) tie ancient philosophy to contemporary personality psychology

5. Fundamental Questions of Personality © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Who Am I? Origins –Temple at Delphi… Know Thyself –Socrates…Interested only in self-knowledge Secondary Realization –It is hard to know oneself! –Unconscious influences Today –Implicit personality theory –Personality psychology

6. Fundamental Questions of Personality © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? How and Why are People Different? Origins –Characterology: The literary study of different personalities Theophrastus: The flatterer is a person who will say as he walks with another, Do you observe how others are looking at you? This happens to no man in Athens but you. Theophrastus (again): The Garrulous man is one that will sit down close beside somebody he does not know, and begin talk with a eulogy of his own life, and then relate a dream he had the night before, and after that tell dish by dish what he had for supper. As he warms to his work he will remark that we are by no means the men we were, and there is a new ship in town, and…(description continues in orig.)

7. Fundamental Questions of Personality © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? How and Why are People Different? (Cont.) Origins (Continued) –Humoural Theory: The attempt to find biological bases for individual differences Developed by Hippocrates; Galen Four Types –Sanguine (even-tempered; blood) –Choleric (irritable; yellow-bile –Melancholic (depressed; black bile) –Phlegmatic (low energy; phlegm).

8. Fundamental Questions of Personality © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Contemporary –Assessment of personality –Mental measurement –The study of individual differences How and Why are People Different? (Cont.)

9. Fundamental Questions of Personality © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? What Will My Future Be? Origins –Since the ancient oracle at Delphi, people have wondered about their futures Contemporary –Personality psychology tells us given characteristic, x how will x influence life outcomes?

10. What Is the Personality System? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Wundts Views: Psychologys Job Wilhelm Wundt: Founder of experimental psychology The discipline of psychology studies various mental systems one by one –Sensation –Perception –Memory –Etc.

11. What Is the Personality System? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Wundts Views: Personalitys Job Personality Sensation and Perception SensationPerception Motives and Emotion MemoryEmotion and Cognition Conscious- ness

12. What Is the Personality System? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Analyzing Wundts Conception Personality is a system A system is a set of interrelated parts. Examples of systems: –The jewelry organizer (top, right) –A boiler (to right) –Personality

13. What Is the Personality System? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Definition of Personality Personality is the organized, developing, system within the individual that represents the collective action of that individuals major psychological subsystems. Some Psychological Systems…

14. What Is the Personality System? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? The Molecular Molar Continuum MolarSociology Psychology Biology Chemistry MolecularPhysics

15. What Is the Personality System? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Personality Amidst Its Subsystems Socio- logical Level Groups Including or Interacting with Personality Psycho- logical/ Sym- bolic Level Internal Personality External Situation Bio- logical Level Nervous SystemSituational Elements

16. What Is the Field of Personality Psychology? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Occupations contributing to personality psychology Comparative biologists Researchers in artificial intelligence Educational psychologists studying learning styles Human resource personnel studying job performance Psycho- therapists interested in personality psychology Professors who teach personality psychology

17. What Is the Field of Personality Psychology? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Most Common Training Programs Central Training –Ph.D. programs in Personality –Ph.D. programs in Personality and Social Psychology Related Training –Ph.D. programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology –M.B.A. & Ph.D. programs in Organizational Behavior –M.D. programs in Psychiatry –Ed.D. programs in Educational Psychology

18. Why Study Personality Psychology? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Rationale for Studying Personality Psychology Knowledge for knowledges sake Applications to assessment Applications to prediction and selection Applications to change

19. How Is This Course Organized? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? Early Field-Wide Personality Frameworks Field-wide frameworks provide an outline of a discipline and what it studies Earlier frameworks in personality psychology: –1958-1968: Theory by Theory approach Freud Jung Sullivan Cattell Rogers Maslow –1968-1998, Theoretical Perspective by Perspective approach Psychodynamic Humanistic Trait Social-Cognitive –Problems with these approaches: Different theorists (or perspectives) conflicted An emphasis on theory often overlooked relevant research which didnt fit neatly into a theory

20. How Is This Course Organized? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? New Field-Wide Frameworks of Personality The Systems Framework for Personality Psychology (e.g., Mayer, 1997) –What is personality? –What are its parts? –How is it organized? –How does it develop? McAdams (1996) Levels of Knowing –What is personality? –What are a persons traits? (the psychology of the stranger) –What are a persons current concerns? –What is a persons life story? (the most personal knowledge)

21. How Is This Course Organized? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? The Four Topics of this Course The four topics follow the systems framework for personality psychology The four topics: 1.Identifying the personality system Introduction Theory and research 2.Parts of personality Here, you may feel interested…but frustrated by fragmentation Many small parts to cover 3.Personality organization We will pull the parts together by examining structure Look at dynamics 4.Personality development Provides a second way to pull together what we have learned Speaks to a persons past and future

22. How Is This Course Organized? © Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITYCHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY? ~Enjoy the Course!~