Unit 10 Personality
Contemporary (Modern) Research on Personality:
Trait Perspective - Social Cognitive Perspective - Exploring the Self – Modern Unconscious Mind
1. Today’s personality researchers are less interested in grand theories than in focused analyses of the basic dimensions of
personality, on the biological roots of these dimension and the interaction of persons and environments.
The Trait Perspective:
1. Gordon Allport developed trait theory, which defines personality in terms of people’s characteristic behaviors & conscious motives.
He was generally less interested in explaining individual traits than in describing them.
Gordon AllPorT Personality Traits Trait Theory:
 personality = people’s characteristic behaviors &
conscious motives
 describes traits, does NOT explain them
 trait- relatively stable personal characteristic that
can be used to describe how an individual
consistently behaves
 Cardinal traits- dominate & shape person’s outlook
 Central traits- influence most of our beh.
 Secondary traits- situations only
Raymond Cattell
 Statistical technique – factor analysis- reduced Allport’s list
 16 key personality factors-“16 Personality Factor
Questionnaire”, 16PF
2. The ancient Greeks classified people according to 4 types: melancholic, or depressed;
sanguine, or cheerful; phlegmatic, or unemotional; choleric, or irritable.
3. Sheldon identified 3 body types: the jolly endomorph type, the bold mesomorph type,
and the high-strung ectomorph type.
Ancient Greeks:
 Melancholic- depressed
 Sanguine- cheerful
 Phlegmatic- unemotional
 Choleric- irritable
Sheldon’s 3 body types:
 Endomorph- jolly, big, round, Santa
 Mesomorph- bold, muscular, Superman
 Ectomorph- high strung, skinny/tall,
4. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator classified people according to Carl Jung’s personality types. Although recently criticized for its lack
of predictive value, this test has been widely used in business and career counseling.
5. To reduce the number of traits to a few basic ones, psychologists use the statistical procedure of factor analysis. The Eyesencks
think that 2 or 3 genetically influenced personality dimensions are sufficient; these include extroversion-introversion and emotional
stability- instability.
6. Some researchers believe that extraverts seek stimulation b/c their level of brain arousal is relatively low. PET scans reveal an area
of the frontal lobe that is less active in extraverts than in introverts.
7. Emotionally stable people react calmly b/c their autonomic nervous systems are not as
reactive as those unstable people.
8. Jerome Kagan attributes differences in children’s shyness & inhibition to autonomic
nervous system reactivity.
Eyesenck’s personality dimensions:
 Factor analysis
 2-3 genetically influenced trait
dimensions
 Extroversion   introversion
 Emotional stability   instability
9. Research increasingly reveals that our genes play an important role in defining our temperament and behavioral style.
10. Questionnaires that categorize personality traits are personality inventories. The most widely used of all such personality tests I
the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, MMPI-2. The test was developed by testing a large pool of items and selecting
those that differentiated particular individuals; in other words, the test was empirically derived (evidence).
11. Although personality tests that are based on self-reports are the most widely used, some psychologists believe that peer reports
are more trustworthy.
12. Several techniques used by astrologers to persuade people to accept their advice:
 Astrologers use a “stock spiel” that includes info that is generally true of almost everyone
 “Barnum Effect”- willingness of people to accept this type phony info
 Astrologers also “read people”- “read” a person’s clothing, features, reactions, etc. and build their advice from these
observations.
13. Researchers have arrived at a cluster of 5 factors that seem to describe the major features of personality: The Big Five:
1. Emotional Stability: on a continuum from calm to anxious; secure to insecure
2. Extroversion: from sociable to retiring
3. Openness: form preference for variety to routine
4. Agreeableness: from soft-heartedness to ruthless
5. Conscientiousness: from disciplined to impulsive
14. In adulthood, the Big Five are quite stable, with heritability estimated at 50% or more for each dimension. Moreover, these traits
describe personality in other cultures and predict other personal attributes.
15. Human behavior is influenced by both our inner traits/dispositions and by the external situation/ environment. The issue of which
of these is the more important influence on personality is called the person-situation controversy.
16. To be considered a personality trait, a characteristic must persist over time and across situations. Research studies reveal that
personality trait scores correlate with scores obtained seven years later. The consistency of specific behaviors from one situation to
the next is not predictably consistent.
17. An individual’s score on a personality test is not very predictive of his or her behavior in any given situation.
18. People’s expressive styles, which include their animation, manner of speaking, and gestures, are quite consistent.
19. Defend trait theory against the criticism that people seem not to have clear, consistent personalities:
 At any given moment a person’s behavior is powerfully influenced by the immediate situation, so that it may appear that the
person does not have a consistent personality. But averaged over many situations a person’s outgoingness, happiness, and
carelessness, for instance, are more predictable.
 Discuss trait theories of personality, and trace their history.
 Trait= people’s characteristic patterns of behavior
 Trait Theories:
‒ define personality in terms of identifiable behavior patterns and conscious motives
‒ Trait Theories describe personality! They are less concerned with explaining personality (psychoanalytic) and more
concerned with its description.
 History of Trait Theories:
 Ancient Greeks- classified people according to 4 bodily “humors” (fluids):
‒ Melancholic- depressed
‒ Sanguine- cheerful
‒ Phlegmatic- unemotional
‒ Choleric- irritable
 William Sheldon- classified people according to their body types:
‒ Endomorphs- relaxed & jolly (ex: Santa Clause)
‒ Mesomorphs- bold & physically active (ex: Superman)
‒ Ectomorphs- high strung & solitary (ex: Olive Oyl (from Popeye))
 Today, in business & career counseling, it is popular to classify people according to Carl Jung’s personality types using the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
 Factor Analysis- a statistical technique, used to identify clusters of personality test items that make up basic traits
 Hans & Sybil Eysenck- believe that many of the personality traits researchers have identified using factor analysis can be reduced
to 2 genetically influenced dimensions:
1. ExtraversionIntroversion
‒ Ex: Extraverts seek stimulation b/c their level of arousal in an area of the frontal lobe is lower than in introverts
2. StabilityInstability
‒ Emotionally stable people have less active autonomic nervous systems than do unstable people
 Describe the assessment techniques associated with the trait perspective.
 To assess traits, psychologists use:
‒ Trait Scales- measure single traits
‒ Personality Inventories- assess several traits at once
1. Scored objectively (empirically, impartially), unlike the subjective (biased) scoring of projective tests
2. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2, MMPI-2- most widely used personality inventory, used for assessing
psychological disorders; empirically derived; MMPI-2 contains 10 clinical scales, several validity scales, and 15
content scales
 Identify the Big Five personality factors, and discuss recent
research findings regarding them.
o Big Five trait dimensions- used by others across the world to
describe others
1. Emotional Stability
2. Extraversion
3. Openness
4. Agreeableness
5. Conscientiousness
o Big Five= OCEAN!
o Recent research provides evidence that these traits are:
1. Stable in adulthood,
2. Apply to various cultures,
3. Predict other personal attributes,
4. Have heritability values of approximately 50%
o Most personality traits are subject to genetic influences
 Evaluate the trait perspective on personality, and describe research findings regarding the consistency of behavior over time and
across situations.
o To be a genuine personality trait- a characteristic must persist over time and across situations.
o Critics of Trait Perspective question the consistency of traits.
o Recent Research on Trait Perspective:
1. Although people’s traits do seem to persist over time, research has revealed much less consistency of specific
behaviors from one situation to another.
2. However, although people do not act with perfect consistency, their average behavior over many situations is
predictable.
3. Although, in unfamiliar situations, where we pay attention to social cues, we may hide our traits, we cannot so easily
change our characteristic style of expressiveness.

The Social-Cognitive Perspective:
1. Social-cognitive theory, which focuses on how the individual and the environment interact, was proposed by Albert Bandura.
2. Social-cognitive theorists propose that personality is shaped by the mutual influence of our behaviors, personal/cognitive factors,
and environmental factors. This is the principle of reciprocal determinism.
3. 3 different ways in which the environment & personality interact:
1. Different people choose different environments partly on the basis of their dispositions
2. Our personality shapes how we interpret and react to events.
3. It also helps create the situations to which we react.
4. In studying how we interact with our environment, social-cognitive theorists point to the importance of our sense of personal
control. Individuals who believe that they control their own destinies are said to perceive an internal locus of control. Individuals
who believe that their fate is determine by outside forces are said to perceive an external locus of control. Self-control predicts good
adjustment, better grades, and social successes.
5. Seligman found that exposure to inescapable punishment produced a passive resignation in behavior, which he called learned
helplessness.
6. People become happier when they are given more control over what happens to them.
7. One measure of a person’s feelings of effectiveness is their degree of optimism. Our characteristic manner of explaining negative and
positive events is called our attributional style.
8. During its first century, psychology focused primarily on understanding and alleviating negative states. Today, however, thriving
Western cultures have an opportunity to create a more positive psychology, focused on 3 pillars:
1. Positive subjective well-being
2. Positive character
3. Positive groups, communities, & cultures
9. One factor that may help explain Asian-American students’ academic achievements is their somewhat greater pessimism. Success
requires enough optimism to provide hope, and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.
10. Our natural positive thinking tends to vanish when we are about to face feedback. People tend to be most overconfident of their
abilities where they are, in fact, most incompetent.
11. It follows from the social-cognitive perspective that the best means of predicting people’s future behavior is their past behavior in
similar situations.
12. Criticism of Social- Cognitive Perspective:
 Overemphasizes situational influences to the neglect of inner traits.
 Describe the social-cognitive perspective, and define reciprocal determinism, giving 3 examples.
 Social-Cognitive Perspective- believes that behavior is the result of interactions between people and their situations
o Applies principles of learning, cognition, and social behavior to personality and emphasizes the ways in which our
personalities shape and are shaped by external events
o personality is shaped through reciprocal determinism- the interaction between personality and environmental factors
 Reciprocal Determinism- refers to the ways in which our personalities are influenced by the interaction of our situations, our
thoughts and feelings, and our behaviors
o Ex 1: different people choose different environments
o Ex 2: our personalities shape how we interpret and react to events
o Ex 3: our personalities help create situations to which we react
 Discuss research findings on personal control.
 Personal Control- refers to a person’s sense of controlling the environment
 Whether people see themselves as controlling, or as controlled by, their environments is an important aspect of their
personalities:
o Internal Locus of Control- is the perception that, to a great extent, one controls one’s own destiny
 Achieve more in school
 More independent
 Less depressed
 Better able to delay gratification
 Better able to cope with various life stresses
o External Locus of Control- is the perception that one’s fate is determined by forces not under personal control
 Learned Helplessness- passive resignation and perceived lack of control that a person or animal develops from repeated
exposure to inescapable aversive events
o Seligman found that animals and people who experience uncontrollable negative events may perceive a lack of control
in their lives and develop the passive resignation of learned helplessness.
o One measure of how helpless or effective people feel is whether they generally are optimistic or pessimistic
 Describe how social-cognitive researchers study behavior, and evaluate this perspective on personality.
 Social-cognitive researchers study personality by exploring the effect of differing situations on people’s behavior patterns and
attitudes.
 Social-Cognitive Perspective has increases our awareness of how social situations influence, and are influenced by, individuals
 Critics say:
o This theory explains behavior after-the-fact and that it focuses so much on the situation that it ignores the importance of
people’s inner traits, unconscious motives, and emotions in formation of personality
Exploring the Self:
1. One of Western psychology’s most vigorously researched topics today is the self. Hazel Markus and colleagues introduced the
concept of an individual’s possible selves to emphasize how our aspirations motivate us through specific goals.
2. Our tendency to overestimate the extent to which others are noticing & evaluating us is called the spotlight effect.
3. According to self-theorists, personality development hinges on our feelings of self-worth, or self-esteem. People who feel good
about themselves are relatively independent of outside pressures, while people who fall short of their ideals are more prone to
anxiety and depression.
4. People who are vulnerable to depression often feel they are falling short of their hopes. Those vulnerable to anxiety often feel they
are falling short of what they think they ought to be.
5. In a series of experiments, researchers found that people who were made to feel insecure were more critical of other persons or
tended to express heightened racial prejudice.
6. Research studies demonstrate that ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and women generally do not have lower self-esteem.
7. Members of stigmatized groups maintain self-esteem in 3 ways:
 They value the tings for which they excel
 They attribute problems to prejudice
 They compare themselves to those in their own group
8. Research has shown that most people tend to have high self-esteem.
9. The tendency of people to judge themselves favorably is called self-serving bias.
10. Responsibility for success is generally accepted more readily than responsibility for failure.
11. Most people perceive their own behavior & traits as being above average.
12. Bushman & Baumeister found that students w/unrealistically high self-esteem were most likely to become exceptionally aggressive
after criticism.
13. A number of psychologists have suggested that humans function best w/modest self-enhancing illusions.
14. People who give priority to personal goals & define their identity in terms of personal attributes are members of individualist
cultures. People who give priority to the goals of their groups belong to collectivist cultures.
15. Contrast the influences of individualism and collectivism on personal identity:
 Individualists: identify themselves in terms of their personal convictions & values. They strive for personal control and individual
achievement.
 Collectivists: give priority to their groups and define their identity accordingly. They place a premium on maintaining harmony and
allowing others to save face.
16. Direct confrontation and blunt honesty are rare in collectivist cultures. People in individualist cultures have more personal freedom,
but they also experience more loneliness, more divorce, more homicide, and more stress-related diseases. Within individualist
cultures, people with the strongest social ties express the greatest satisfaction with their lives.
17. In recent decades, Western individualism has increased.

Describe recent research on the way people view themselves, including research on stigmatized people.
o Research on the self -documents the concept of possible selves, including people’s visions of the self or selves they would like to
become, in motivating their behavior
o Self-esteem- refers to an individual’s sense of self worth
o People with high self-esteem:
 Have fewer sleepless nights
 Succumb less easily to pressures to conform
 Less likely to use drugs
 Strive more at difficult tasks
 Happier
o Contrary to popular belief, and despite discrimination and lower social status, the following do not suffer from lower selfesteem:
 Ethnic minorities
 People with disabilities
 Women
o Self-Serving Bias- tendency to perceive oneself favorably
 People are more willing to accept responsibilities for good deeds and successes more readily than for bad deeds and
failures
 People have a tendency to see themselves as better than average on nearly any desirable dimension

Discuss how culture affects one’s sense of self, including research findings on differences between individualist and collectivist
cultures
o Individualism- is a cultural emphasis on personal goals over group goals, and defining one’s identity in terms of personal
attributes rather than group identification
 Individualistic cultures nurture the development of personal goals and define identity in terms of individual attributes
 Easily move in and out of social groups
 People in individualistic cultures have greater personal freedom and more privacy
 Tend to be lonelier, more likely to divorce, more homicidal, and more vulnerable to stress-related diseases
o Collectivism- is a cultural emphasis on the goals of one’s group, and defining one’s identity accordingly
 Give priority to the goals of their groups- often in family, clan, or work group
 Collectivists have fewer but deeper, more stable attachments to their groups and friends
 Collectivistic cultures also place a premium on maintaining harmony and allowing others to save face
The Modern Unconscious Mind:
1. Cognitive science reveals that the unconscious is not the site of instinctual urges, as Freud thought, but rather the site where
information is processed without awareness.
2. Recent research supports Freud’s idea that we defend ourselves against anxiety. According to terror management theory, our
awareness of vulnerability and death causes us to act in ways to enhance our self-esteem and adhere to worldviews that answer
questions about life’s meaning.
3. Recent research provides some support for the Freudian defense mechanism projection, which today’s researchers call the false
consensus effect. More supportive evidence exists for defenses that defend self-esteem than for defenses tied to instinctual energy
such as displacement.

Explain the modern concept of the unconscious mind.
o
Cognitive science has revealed that we are not consciously aware of all that goes on in our minds and that our capacity
for unconscious learning is actually quite sophisticated

Not the same as Freud’s view, however.

The contemporary view of the “nonconscious” is that it consists of:

Schemas that control our perceptions,

Priming that points us toward certain interpretations,

Parallel processing of information,

Implicit memories of some learned skills, emotions, and self-concepts & stereotypes that can instantly
be activated