Personality

Psychology 12Ms. 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?

http://www.patricialin.com/images/confused.bmp

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

http://www.fpsrantings.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/no-personality.jpg

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!

http://www.clown-ministry.com/images/forever-darling-lucille-ball.jpg

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

http://legyozod.freeblog.hu/files/Mr_Hankey_the_Christmas_Poo_by_StaceyW.jpg

According to Hippocrates, all of the fluids needed to be balanced

Some sicknesses were thought to be a result of a lack of balance

http://www.cctexas.com/images/g17/GlassesOfWater.jpg

How do you fix lack of balance in fluids?

Throw up! Or bleed!

NO scientific evidence to back this up

http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/throw_up.jpg

Today things are a bit different

Now psychologists give tests and ask people questions to figure out what traits a person has.

http://www.junkscience.com/JSJ_Course/jsjudocourse/test3.jpg

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?

http://www.frumster.com/img/Forum/ExtrovertIntrovert.jpg

2. Agreeableness

Are you kind, honest, and like-able?

OR are you mean, selfish, and un-trustworthy?

http://ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/images/uploads_img/kindness_day.jpg

3. Conscientiousness

Are you organized, reliable and hardworking?

OR are you careless, neglectful and unrealiable?

http://www.organizingla.com/organizingla_blog/images/2007/09/30/get_organized.jpg

4. Emotional Stability-Instability

Can you cope with difficult situations well?

OR do you get nervous, moody, and deal poorly with bad events?

http://www.tc.gc.ca/TDC/publication/tp13959e/images/coping.jpg

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?

http://images.google.co.th/images?hl=en&q=Curious%20George&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

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.

http://images.google.co.th/images?hl=en&q=Curious%20George&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Research also being done

On the links between the 5 factors and psychological disorders like anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide.

http://www.drmcbee.com/images/disorders_eye.jpg

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

http://images.google.co.th/imgres?imgurl=http://forpd.ucf.edu/strategies/QUESTION.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forpd.ucf.edu/strategies/stratsq4r.html&h=874&w=750&sz=196&hl=en&start=7&um=1&usg=__c2NZ9Z0hGnaQ-UCRU-HV4eumn3s=&tbnid=Bu_MUiY0O2zW5M:&tbnh=146&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dquestion%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den

Homework

Make picture notecards of the following words:

Personality Trait Introvert Extrovert Agreeableness Conscientiousness Emotional Stability-Instability Openness to Experience 5 Factor Model