HPS307 Study Guide - Final Guide: Defence Mechanisms, David Buss, Reaction Formation
HPS307 – Personality Lecture Notes: Emily Zukic
Topic 1 ~ The Study of Personality
General Definition of Personality
The psychological structures underlying consistent patterns in thoughts, feelings &
behaviours
ex. Impulsive/careful
The value of Theory
Theory = understanding
If you understand something you have the power to change it
1. Understand process/outcome = increased ability to intervene & change outcome
2. Expert understanding = helps change behaviour in increasing efficiency
Conceptual Issues
1. How is personality studied?
Majority of psychologists pursue in a scientific way
Scientific theory: systematic/objective observation to test propositions derived from theory
Support theory + or – less confident
Psychology is evidence based
Behaviour change techniques should be empirically validated
Ex. CBT, Interpersonal Therapy, RCT to demonstrate effectiveness
2. Consistency in behaviour?
Cross-situational consistency
Behaviour consistent across various situations
Ex. Grumpy all the time/trusting all the time
Within-situational consistency
Behaviour consistent within situations not across situations
Ex. Fearful in horror movies always, not outside context
Longitudinal consistency
Patterns of behaviour stable overtime regardless of situations
Theories differ but all focus on temporal personality related behaviour
3. More than 1 Theory?
Theories may work well but not in all relevant contexts
Evidence can be contradictory or mixed
People prefer different kinds of evidence
People are biased
4. General aims of personality Theory?
All theories have same general aim
To explain consistent patterns in thoughts/feelings/behaviour and individual differences
1. What are the psychological structures underlying consistency?
2. How do the psychological structure interact with eachother/enviro to explain behaviour?
3. How do the psychological structure change/develop over time?
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5. Nature of empirical evidence underlying various theories?
Quality of evidence underlying theories is not consistent
Case-Studies:
Intensive study of a single/small number of individuals
- Large amount of info, hard to establish causality
- Generalisabilty/external validity an issue, bias potential
+ Benefit for specific study unique – ex. Brain function with injury
Correlation Studies:
Measuring variables of interest in relation to large sample to individual relationship
Ex. Smoking relate to lung cancer? Education – wage?
- Difficult to establish causality
+ Sufficient in size to generalise & associations are clearer
Experimental Studies
Manipulation of variables, test for causal relationships between variables
- Population of interest representative sample cntrl/exp group
+ Proven control over relevant variables & easy to test causality
- Sometimes can be quite artificial
Method of choice depends on research question & view of psychology
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Topic 2 ~ Trait Approaches
1. Trait Concept
Trait: Consistent patterns in the way unique individuals think feel & behave
Consistent refers to consist disposition to act in a particular way
Unique traits differentiate with individuals, different level of the trait
Traits are useful for describing personality & predicting behaviour
Less agreement whether traits explain behaviour
If want to use traits to explain behaviour need to add extra info
ex. Costa & McCrae add biological basis
Avoid circular tautological reasoning
Goal of Trait theory is to provide a more parsimonious taxonomy to find fundamental traits
that can be used to describe personality
Research methods:
Analyse natural language to discover these fundamental traits
Particularly look at how the adjective traits we use to describe ourselves and others group
together
Done by statistical technique Factor Analysis
Finds fundamental traits that makes up personality
Fundamental lexical hypothesis:
Goal is to uncover fundamental personality traits
By analysing peoples ratings of their personality using specific traits and analyse statistically
to see which ones go together as something is underlying
The approach of trait theorists relies on an assumption of the fundamental lexical
hypothesis characteristic ex. Honesty, reliability
The importance of these differences have been encoded into language
Thus a way to understand fundamental traits is to analyse people’s language
The Big 5
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism = OCEAN
Openness: to new experience (not associated w any mental illness)
Low = conventional, narrow interests, unartistic, rigid High = untraditional, curious, original
Conscientiousness: goal-directed behaviour & impulse control
Low = unreliable, hedonistic, aimless, lazy
High = organised, reliable, hard-working, ambitious, punctual
Extraversion: degree to which person desires stimulation & interpersonal interaction
Low = reserved, retiring, quiet High = sociable, active
Agreeableness
Low = rude, suspicious, uncooperative, manipulative
High = trusting, helpful, forgiving, soft-hearted, gullible
Neuroticism: emotional stability
Low = calm, relaxed, secure, self-satisfied
High = worrying, nervous, insecure, hypochondriacal
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The psychological structures underlying consistent patterns in thoughts, feelings & behaviours. If you understand something you have the power to change it. Understand process/outcome = increased ability to intervene & change outcome. Expert understanding = helps change behaviour in increasing efficiency. Majority of psychologists pursue in a scientific way. Scientific theory: systematic/objective observation to test propositions derived from theory. Support theory + or less confident. Behaviour change techniques should be empirically validated. Fearful in horror movies always, not outside context. Patterns of behaviour stable overtime regardless of situations. Theories may work well but not in all relevant contexts. To explain consistent patterns in thoughts/feelings/behaviour and individual differences. Quality of evidence underlying theories is not consistent. Intensive study of a single/small number of individuals. Large amount of info, hard to establish causality. Generalisabilty/external validity an issue, bias potential. + benefit for specific study unique ex. Measuring variables of interest in relation to large sample to individual relationship.
