Personality Psychology 12 Ms. Rebecca

Do Now:  In your journal:  Describe your personality with at least 4 descriptive words.

What is Personality?  My definition: How each individual person feels, thinks, and acts

Why do people care about Personality?  Helps us to achieve goal #3: Predict how different people will act in different life situations. -If we understand a bit about peoples’ personalities, we can get along better with them.

HOW do people study personality?

5 different approaches:  1. Trait theory  2. Psychoanalytic theory  3. Learning Theory  4. Humanistic Theory  5. Sociocultural Theory

TODAY….  We are going to focus on the Trait Theory

What is a trait?  Trait Part of your personality that doesn’t really change. Example: I’m very loud and annoying all the time so that would be a personality trait for me.

Problem  Are traits really unchanging? Maybe I’m ONLY loud and annoying in grade 12 psychology classes!

Where do traits come from?  A few different ideas about this

Hippocrates- a Greek dr.  Thoiught that traits came from body fluids:  Yellow Potty: Quick temper  Red Blood: Warmth and cheerfulness  Yellow Mucus: Sluggish and cool  Black bile (poo poo): thoughtful

According to Hippocrates, all of the fluids needed to be balanced  Some sicknesses were thought to be a result of a lack of balance

How do you fix lack of balance in fluids?  Throw up!  Or bleed!  NO scientific evidence to back this up

Today things are a bit different  Now psychologists give tests and ask people questions to figure out what traits a person has.

Do traits define a person  Yes according to believers of the trait theory  “A person’s behavior is a product of a person’s combination of traits which are the building blocks of personality” (Gordon Allport).

5 Factor Model  Recently, psychologists have developed a theory that there are 5 basic personality traits:  1. Extroversion  2. Agreeableness  3. Conscientiousness  4. Emotional Stability  5. Openness to Experience

1. Extroversion  Are you talkative, assertive and active?  OR are you quiet, passive and reserved?

2. Agreeableness  Are you kind, honest, and like- able?  OR are you mean, selfish, and un- trustworthy?

3. Conscientiousness  Are you organized, reliable and hardworking?  OR are you careless, neglectful and unrealiable?

4. Emotional Stability-Instability  Can you cope with difficult situations well?  OR do you get nervous, moody, and deal poorly with bad events?

5. Openness to Experience  Are you imaginative, curious and creative  OR are you shallow, only thinking about yourself and unable to see or try anything new?

Different Levels of the 5 factors  You won’t always be able to define yourself as completely having one trait, such as Extroversion.  There are different degrees of the factors.

For example:  I think that I am pretty emotionally stable, but SOMETIMES I don’t deal well with difficult situations.

So psychologists ask people to rate how much people can identify with certain traits  By circling the trait they identify most with and then drawing a point on a line to show HOW much they identify with it:  Example:  NOT agreeable__________X_Agreeable

So what makes you have certain levels of each of the 5 factors?  Why are some people extroverted, agreeable, and open to new things while others are close minded, mean, and selfish?

Believers of the 5 traits say:  Traits are with you when you are born. They mature as we grow up.  NOT really a product of our environment but the way we express our traits may be affected by our culture. Example: Someone who is an extrovert may keep quiet in a lecture setting.

Why should we care about the 5 factor model?  What is it used for?  It helps psychologists to diagnose psychological problems that need to be fixed.

More research  Is being done on how the 5 factors are connected with the way people interact with their friends and family.

Research also being done  On the links between the 5 factors and psychological disorders like anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide.

Problems with the Trait Theory  Doesn’t explain exactly where traits come from

Or investigate how people with “bad” traits can change for the better

Homework  Make picture notecards of the following words:  Personality  Trait  Introvert  Extrovert  Agreeableness  Conscientiousness  Emotional Stability-Instability  Openness to Experience  5 Factor Model