Discovering the Personality -Psychology of the personality and its theory
The psychology of personality is a branch of psychology that studies personality and its variation among individuals. The most classic author of the discipline is the American psychologist Gordon Allport, who in 1936 published the book "The personality".
_Personality also refers to the pattern of thoughts, feelings, social adjustments and behaviors exhibited consistently over time that strongly influence one's expectations, self-perceptions, values and attitudes. The personality also predicts human reactions to other people, problems and stress. _
Allport (1937) described two main ways of studying personality: the nomothetic and the idiographic. The nomothetic psychology seeks general laws that can be applied to many different people, such as the principle of self-realization or the trait of extraversion. Idiographic psychology is an attempt to understand the unique aspects of a particular individual.
The focus areas of personality psychology include:
- The construction of a coherent image of the individual and of the main psychological processes.
- The investigation of psychological differences.
- The investigation of the human and psychological nature of the similarities between individuals.
"Personality" is a dynamic and organized set of characteristics that a person has that uniquely influences their environment, cognitions, emotions, motivations and behaviors in various situations. The word "personality" has its origin in the Latin person, which means mask.
The study of personality has a broad and varied history in psychology with abundant theoretical traditions. The main theories include the dispositional perspective (trait), the psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, behavioral, evolutionary and social learning perspective. However, many researchers and psychologists do not identify explicitly with a certain perspective and instead adopt an eclectic approach. Research in this area is driven empirically, like dimensional models, based on multivariate statistics, such as factor analysis, or emphasizes theoretical development, such as that of psychodynamic theory. There is also a substantial emphasis in the applied field of personality tests. In education and psychological training, the study of the nature of personality and its psychological development is usually reviewed as a prerequisite for courses in abnormal psychology or clinical psychology.
Personality theories
The study of personality is based on the essential idea that all people are similar in some aspects, but different in others. There have been many different definitions of personality proposed. However, many contemporary psychologists agree on the following definitions that differentiate the HEXACO model from other personality frameworks. Specifically, the H factor is described as sincere, honest, faithful / loyal, modest / non-pretentious, impartial, astute, deceitful, greedy, pretentious, hypocritical, boastful and pompous. Factor H has been linked to criminal, materialistic, power-seeking and unethical tendencies.
Trait models have been criticized for being purely descriptive and offer little explanation for the underlying causes of personality. Eysenck's theory, however, proposes biological mechanisms as driving traits, and researchers in the genetics of modern behavior have shown a clear genetic substrate for them. Another potential weakness of feature theories is that they can lead some people to accept simplified classifications (or worse, offer advice) based on a superficial personality analysis. Finally, trait models often underestimate the effect of specific situations on people's behavior.
Traits are considered statistical generalizations that do not always correspond to the behavior of an individual.
The importance of genetic influences on personality characteristics can change over a period of five years. Age differences create more variables even within a family, so the best comparisons are using twins. The twins usually share a family environment called shared environment because they can share other aspects such as teachers, school and friends. A non-shared environment means a completely different environment for both subjects. "Biologically related children who are separated after birth and raised in different families live in non-shared environments".
Identical twins separated at birth and raised in different families are the best cases for inheritance and personality, because the similarities between the two are due only to genetic influences. Vulnerability was a factor in this study that was taken into consideration with respect to the issue of genetic influences on vulnerability. The study concluded that monozygotic twins would be more similar than dizygotic twins in contrast over time. The data concluded that there were no significant differences for the variances between monozygotic and dizygotic twins.
Personality tests
There are two main types of personality tests, projective and objective.
Projective evidence assumes that the personality is primarily unconscious and evaluates individuals by the way they respond to an ambiguous stimulus, such as an inkblot. Projective tests have been in use for approximately 60 years and continue to be used today. Examples of such tests include the Rorschach Test and the Thematic Apperception Test.
The Rorschach test involves showing an individual a series of cards with ambiguous ink spots. The individual who is being tested is asked to provide interpretations of the spots on the cards by indicating everything the inkblot may look like based on their personal interpretation. The therapist then analyzes their answers. The rules to qualify the exam have been covered in manuals that cover a wide variety of features such as content, originality of the response, location of "perceived images" and various other factors. Using these specific qualification methods, the therapist will attempt to relate the test responses to the personality attributes of the individual and their unique characteristics.The idea is that the unconscious needs will come out in the person's response, an aggressive person can see images of destruction.
The Thematic Apperception Test (also known as TAT) involves presenting individuals with vague images / scenes and asking them to tell a story based on what they see. Common examples of these "scenes" include images that may suggest family relationships or specific situations, such as a father, a son, a man and a woman in a bedroom. Answers are analyzed for common themes. The unique responses for an individual are theoretically intended to indicate underlying thoughts, processes and possible conflicts present in the individual. It is believed that the answers are directly related to unconscious motives. There is very little empirical evidence available to support these methods.
Objective tests assume that the personality is consciously accessible and that it can be measured by self-report questionnaires. Research on psychological evaluation has generally found that objective tests are more valid and reliable than projective tests. Critics have pointed out the Forer effect to suggest that some of them seem to be more accurate and discriminative than they really are. Problems with these tests include false reports because there is no way to know if a person answers a question honestly or accurately.
Philosophical assumptions
Many of the ideas developed by theorists of historical and modern personality derive from the basic philosophical assumptions they possess. The study of personality is not a purely empirical discipline, as it provides elements of art, science and philosophy to draw general conclusions. The following five categories are some of the most fundamental philosophical assumptions on which theorists disagree:
Freedom versus determinism:
This is the question of whether humans have control over their own behavior and understand the motives behind it or whether their behavior is causally determined by forces beyond their control. The behavior is categorized as unconscious, environmental or biological by several theories.
The inheritance in front of the environment:
One thinks that the personality is determined largely by the genetics and the biology, or by the surroundings and the experiences. Contemporary research suggests that most personality traits are based on the joint influence of genetics and the environment. One of the forerunners in this field is C. Robert Cloninger, who pioneered the temperament and character model.
Singularity versus universality:
This question discusses the scope of the individuality (singularity) or similarity of the nature of each human being (universality). Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were supporters of the uniqueness of people. Behaviorists and cognitive theorists, on the other hand, emphasize the importance of universal principles, such as reinforcement and self-efficacy.
Active versus reactive:
This question explores whether humans act primarily through individual (active) initiative or through external stimuli. Traditional behavioral theorists generally believed that humans are passively molded by their environments, whereas humanistic and cognitive theorists believe that humans are more active in their role. Most modern theorists agree that both are important, and aggregate behavior is determined mainly by the features and situational factors that are the main predictor of short-term behavior.
Optimistic versus pessimistic:
_ Personality theories differ with respect to whether humans are integral in changing their own personalities. Theories that put a lot of emphasis on learning are often more optimistic than those that do not._
References :
Winnie, J.F. & Gittinger, J.W. (1973) An introduction to the personality evaluation system. Journal of Clinical Psychology.
Krauskopf, C.J. & Saunders, D.R, (1994) Personality and ability: The personality evaluation system. University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland.
Engler, Barbara (2008). Theories of personality: an introduction (8th edition). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.