INTRODUCTION AND APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

Office Management

CONTENT

Definition of personality Shaping of personality

Genetic influencesEnvironmental influencesCultural influences

Continuity of personality Consequences of personality Approach in understanding personality

PERSONALITY

Definition

Personality traits are enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself, and are exhibited in a wide range of important social and personality context.

(American Psychiatric Association, 1987)

PERSONALITYThe characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behavior that define an individual’s personal style and influence his/her interactions with the environment.

SHAPING OF PERSONALITY

Genetic influences

Environmental influences

Cultural influences

GENETIC INFLUENCE

Research shows that reliable differences can be observed among infants beginning at about 3 months of age.

GENETIC INFLUENCE

Such characteristics are activity level, attention span, adaptability to changes in the environment & general mood.

GENETIC INFLUENCE

Such mood related personality characteristics, called temperament are building blocks for the individual’s later personality.

GENETIC INFLUENCE

The early appearance of such characteristic suggests that they are determined in part by genetic factors and are inherited from the parents.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

Most psychological theories of development assumes that forces acting early in life have more influence in shaping our personalities than do later forces.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

Children differ from one another in the degree to which they form secure attachments to their primary caregivers in the 1st year of life.

Attachment

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

Those who form such attachments are observed in later childhood to approach difficult problems with enthusiasm and persistence, to be self-directed and eager to learn & to be social leaders among their peers.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

In contrast, children who are less securely attached at the end of their first year are more easily frustrated, are more dependent on adults and tend to be socially withdrawn

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

The failure to form secure attachments in the early years has been related to an inability to develop close personal relationships in adulthood.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE Childrearing practice

Accepting/Responsive/Child centeredRejecting/Unresponsive/Parent-

centered

DemandingControlling

UndemandingNot controlling

Authoritative Authoritarian

Indulgent Neglecting

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

Types of childrearing Individual (child) personalitypractices1. Authoritative Increase level of control,

warmth & able to use 2-way communication

2. Authoritarian Competent & capable individual BUT might lack of spontaneity & social withdrawal.

3. Indulgent Accepting, responsive, have positive mood BUT too much indulgent will create immature individual, lack of impulse control, lack of social responsibility & self-reliance.

4. Neglecting Neurotic, abuse substances

CULTURAL INFLUENCE

Western culture independent self-assertive motivated to achieveNon-Western culture Interdependence of persons with

others in the community Children are encourage to be

part of functioning community

CULTURAL INFLUENCE

Parents in non-Western culture punish wrong behavior & do not explicitly praise or reward good behavior.

CONTINUITY OF PERSONALITYEvidence for continuity

2 studies:1. Barkeley Guidance Study conducted at Inst. Of Human Dev. At U California.2. Oakland Growth study

Result:1. There was strong continuity of personality from early to later adolescence.2. The strongest continuities related to intelligence & intellectual interests.3. Personality variables like extraversion, emotional stability & impulse control are next.4. Political attitude & measures of self-opinion are last.

CONSEQUENCES OF PERSONALITY

Example:Childhood ill-temperedness

Poor education

Low occupational status

Erratic worklife

Approaches To Personality

A) Trait ApproachB) Psychobiological

ApproachC) Social Learning

ApproachD) Psychodynamic

ApproachE) Humanistic

Approach

The English vocabulary contains nearly 20,000 trait terms. But there is a lot of redundancy among them (sociable, outgoing).

Decades of research on similarities between traits have yielded five clusters:

– Neuroticism– Extroversion– Openness– Agreeableness– Conscientiousness

These tendencies mix in different proportions to create different personalities.

The Big Five(Trait Approach)

Psychobiological Approach

Focuses on the role of biology in determining personality.

There are a number of ways to look at the role of biology in personality. One way is to look at the heritability of

personality traits.

Another way is to look at the effect of brain damage on personality.

Nature vs. Nurture

Optimum-Level Theory Some personality traits like extroversion and thrill

seeking, produce behaviour that increases arousal.

Could it be that such people are trying to raise their natural low level of arousal to an optimal level?

Optimal Level Theory states that:– There is an optimal level of arousal for

motivated action. – When arousal is low, we feel bored and

unmotivated.– When arousal is very high, we feel tense and

fearful.

Social Learning Approach

States that our personality is shaped by what we learn from our experiences.

We develop expectations about the outcome of our behaviour in certain situations.

One particularly interesting effect of such expectations is reflected in what is known as self-handicapping.

Self-Handicapping

Making excuses for one’s performance before the act.

Sometimes this is done by saying things that suggest that one is not at one’s best (I have a headache, I slept terribly, etc.)

At the extreme one may actually engage in behaviour that will handicap one’s performance (getting drunk the night before a competition).

Self-handicapping is an attempt to protect one’s self-esteem.

Research shows that people who self-handicap do not cope well with stress.

Psychodynamic Approach

According to this approach, diverse sources of psychic energy

interact dynamically in each of us.

Sigmund Freud is the most famous proponent of this view.

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory begins with the idea that the mind exists on two basic levels: conscious and unconscious.

Freud believed that the mind has three basic structures:– Id: unconscious irrational source of primitive impulses.– Ego: conscious and realistic (respects “reality principle”)– Superego: both conscious and unconscious. Based on

rules and prohibitions we have internalized.

Defense Mechanisms

The conflicts created by the id’s strong impulses and the inhibitions imposed by the ego and superego can be very upsetting.

Defense mechanism:– Repression– Reaction Formation– Projection– Sublimation– Rationalization– Conversion

Personality Disorders

According to Psychodynamic theory, problems during early personality development can result in personality disorders in later life.

Narcissism is a sense that others are there to serve the self.

Narcissists love attention and praise, but respond to criticism with extreme anger.

Humanistic Approach

Humanism emphasizes the individual’s potential for growth and change.

Abraham Maslow proposed that personality is shaped by motivation to satisfy a hierarchy of needs:

– Self-actualization– Aesthetic needs– Cognitive needs– Esteem needs– Attachment needs– Safety needs– Physiological needs

Carl Rogers proposed that people seek to be fully functioning.

Personality Assessment

Projective tests such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test assess how people project unconscious conflicts in their responses to non-specific or ambiguous stimuli.

Standardized Personality Tests

Standardized Personality tests use a set of items and have been screened for psychometric properties such as reliability and validity.

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