PERSONALITY Trait Perspective

The Greeks  Four Humors that Governed the Body  Excess of either created a Different Personality  Blood  Sanguine (cheerfully optimistic) personality  Black Bile  Melancholic (gloomy) personality  Yellow Bile  Phlegmatic (calm) personality  Green Bile  Choleric (easily angered) personality

Trait Theories  Trait Theories do not seek to place value judgments on people’s behavior. These theories look to describe how people behave and to try to categorize those behaviors so we can understand each other better.  Are some traits more desirable than others?  Are some traits linked to the behavior of men or men? Does this cause limitations to each genders?

Personality Traits  Traits  A stable characteristic that influences your thoughts, feeling and behaviors  State  A Temporary emotional condition  The tricky part is separating traits from states or figuring out if people act in a certain way because of who they are or in response to the situation they are in

Gordon Allport  Cardinal Trait  A trait that a person organizes his/her life around  Not everyone has one  Central Traits  Major characteristic(s) of a person  Secondary Traits  Doesn’t explain general behavior.

Hans & Sybil Eysenck  Extraversion  Activity level, sociability, expressiveness, assertiveness, ambition, and aggressiveness  Neuroticism  Inferiority, unhappiness, anxiety, dependence, hypochondria, guilt & obsessiveness  Psychoticism  Risk-taking, impulsivity, irresponsibility, manipulativesness, sensation-seeking, tough-mindedness, and practicality

Raymond Cattell  16 Personality Factor Model He described these 16 traits on a continuum. In other words, everybody has some degree of every trait, according to Cattell. The key to assessment is determining where on the continuum an individual falls. The 16 traits are shown in the chart on the next slide.

Abstractednessimaginative versus practical Apprehensioninsecure versus complacent Dominanceaggressive versus passive Emotional Stabilitycalm and stable versus high-strung and Livelinessenthusiastic versus serious Openness to Changeliberal versus traditional Perfectionismcompulsive and controlled versus indifferent Privatenesspretentious versus unpretentious Reasoningabstract versus concrete Rule Consciousnessmoralistic versus free-thinking Self-Relianceleader versus follower Sensitivitysensitive versus tough-minded Social Boldnessuninhibited versus timid Tensiondriven and tense versus relaxed and easy going Vigilancesuspicious versus accepting Warmthopen and warmhearted versus aloof and critical

OCEAN – Big 5 Factors  Openness  Conscientiousness  Extraversion  Agreeableness  Neuroticism

Factor Analysis  A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of correlated test items that tap basic components of intelligence.

Personality Inventories  MMPI –  Minnesota Mulitphasic Personality Inventory  Purposes Assess major symptoms of social & personal maladjustment Assess medical patients & design effective treatment strategies, including chronic pain management Support college & career counseling recommendations Identify suitable candidates for high-risk public safety positions Provide valuable insight for marriage & family counseling

Personality Inventories  Myers-Briggs Type Indicator  A personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives.  Keirsey Temperament Sorter  A test that includes four scales assessing the dimensions of extraversion versus introversion, intuiting versus sensing, feeling versus thinking and judging versus perceriving