How would you describe your personality?

a pattern of characteristic thinking, feeling

and behaving that distinguishes one person
from another and is stable over time
scientific study of the whole person in terms of
species-typical characteristics and individual
differences

species-typical characteristics concern how

individuals are alike

individual differences concerns how individuals are

different
 Unconscious
 Sense of Identity
 Biology
 Conditioning and Learning
 Cognitive
 Traits and Skills
 Spirituality
 Interactions
Feel… attraction towards another…

Think… it would be wrong to act on this…

Behave… approach and avoidance…

lots of definitions and conceptions

1) lay circles
2) pop psychology
Personality?

extraverted and outgoing

warm and engaging
 http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/intro.asp

 http://www.deeshan.com/horochin.htm
Nomothetic

Ideographic
grand theories
◦ Freud, Millon

single dimensions
◦ locus of control, extraversion
Important for a variety of reasons

when working with others

Can personality change?

Begin to stabilize?
 sociology
social psychology
psychology (personality psychology)
biology
Social Psychology
Abnormal Psychology
Development
Personality Psychology = the scientific study
of the whole person in terms of species-
typical characteristics and individual
differences
epistemology - the study of knowledge

rationalism = knowledge by exercising the mind

empiricism = one gains knowledge by sensory experience

Induction – “bottom up”

Deduction – “top down”

1) Observation
2) Theory
3) Testing
 1859 – Darwin
 1880s – Galton
 1900 – Freud
 1906 – Pavlov
 1917 – First self-report measure
 1919 – John B. Watson
 1910 to 1930s – Jung, Adler, Horney
 1920s – Kurt Lewin
 1930s – Henry Murray
 1930s – B. F. Skinner
 1930s – Margaret Mead
 1930s – Allport
 1940s – R. B. Cattell
 1940s – Existential Psychology in US
 1950s – Humanistic, Cognitive, Biological
 1960s – Interactionist
 1970s – Study of Gender Differences
 1970s – Behaviorism begins to fade
 1980s – Modern Interactionism
 1980s – Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology
 1990s – The Big Five
 1990s – Theories become narrower
 2000s – Neuroscience, Cognitive, Biological
anyone’s guess

Ideas move in a dialectical fashion

Current: empirical
Future: the opposite of empirical
Self-report: S Data
Peer-report: I Data
Life outcomes: L Data
Watch the person: B Data
Self-report

“S Data”

What person says about themselves

Questionnaires
Very common
Big Five
“S Data”

Advantage
◦ Best Expert
◦ Cause of what you do
◦ Simple and easy
“S Data”

Disadvantage
◦ 4 Sources of Distortion
Peer report

I Data - “Informant”
2) Peer report

Advantage
◦ Objectivity
Peer report

Disadvantages

Problem with closeness

leniency or harshness effect

Life Outcomes

L Data

How much money? Arrested? Graduate?

Life Outcomes

Advantage
◦ Objective
◦ Exactly what we study
◦ Link to psych variables
Life Outcomes

Disadvantage
◦ Behavior is multi-determined
Direct Observation

B Data

Natural Observation
“B Data”

Advantage
◦ Objective
◦ Quantifiable
◦ Natural actions
“B Data”

Disadvantage
◦ Hawthorne Effect
◦ Bias
 Behavioral Data

L Data
B Data
Life Outcomes
Person
Self-report S Data I Data Peer Report