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Personality

Personality. September 29, 2008. Costa & McCrae. The “Big Five” Extraversion Neuroticism Conscientiousness Agreeableness Openness to experience Is this all there is to personality? Is this all we should be studying?.

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Personality

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  1. Personality September 29, 2008

  2. Costa & McCrae • The “Big Five” • Extraversion • Neuroticism • Conscientiousness • Agreeableness • Openness to experience • Is this all there is to personality? Is this all we should be studying?

  3. McAdams and Pals want an “integrative framework for understanding the whole person” • Kluckhohn and Murray (1953): every person is like all other persons, like some other persons, and like no other person • What does this mean? What areas of personality does this suggest should be studied further?

  4. Problems with personality texts? • Either theory-by-theory texts • Or collection of research topics with no overarching links/conclusions drawn • Why is this a problem? • Personality is divided up into autonomous spheres that appear to not integrate with each other; study each seperately

  5. McAdams and Pals constructed their own “five big principles” for studying personality in an integrative fashion • Includes the “Big Five” expanded to a broader framework

  6. First Some Definitions/Clarification

  7. The Five Principles for an Integrative Science of Personality

  8. Principle 1 • Begin with human nature and how every person is like every other person • What 20th century theories attempted to address human nature? How do the authors argue they were flawed? • Freud, Rogers/Maslow, Skinner/Bandura • All require a “leap of faith;” can’t test them • What do McAdams/Pals propose instead? • Human evolution • Explain… • Natural selection for behaviors that allow survival and reproduction; everyone has this general design – core set of dispositional traits • What do you think? Are we all fundamentally the same at our core?

  9. Principle 2 • Variations on dispositional traits (Costa and McCrae’s Big Five) • Personality traits provide “a rough outline of human individuality” • How did some psychologists try to do away with “traits” in the 1970s? (What is the person-situation debate?) • Proposed human behavior is more situationally specific (contingent) than cross-situationally consistent (trait-like) • What was the outcome of the person-situation debate?

  10. Principle 2 • Traits research stemming from person-situation debate (Traits are here to stay) • Traits • Often predict behavioral trends across situations and time • Show long-term stability in individual differences (for personality traits) • Appear heritable (~50% for twins) • Are linked to functioning of the brain in new research (ex. extraversion and the behavioral approach system – BAS) • Are summarized well by the Big Five model both in repeated English studies and studies in other countries • Can you conceptualize personality without traits?

  11. Principle 3 • Humans vary on motivational, social-cognitive, and developmental adaptations (situational variables) – these may effect personality • How do you reconcile the debate for roots of human individuality: motivation/cognition or traits? • Costa and McCrae’s characteristic adaptation – behavior influenced by both traits and situational variables

  12. Principle 3 • McAdams/Pals disagree • Characteristic adaptations aren’t just byproducts of an interaction between traits and environment • Characteristic adaptations function differently than traits • Traits address: What kind of person is this? • C.A.s address: Who is the person? (more existential)

  13. Principle 4 • Individuals differ by their life narratives – integrative stories that give meaning and identity in the world • Our lives as ongoing stories – our narrative identity • Clinical applications???

  14. Brief Recap • Dispositional traits -> outline of personality • Characteristic adaptations -> fill in some details of individuality • Narrative identities -> give lives unique, culturally anchored meanings • Every person’s like every other person • Every person is like some other persons • Every person is different from all other persons

  15. Principle 4 • Narrative identity shows how every person is different from every other person. How? • Unique life stories • Individual differences in narrative identity can’t be reduced to differences in dispositional traits or characteristic adaptations

  16. Principle 5 • Culture’s effects on different levels of personality • What are its effects on: • Traits • Characteristic adaptations • Individual narratives • Let’s examine each

  17. Principle 5 – Culture/Traits • McAdams/Pals state that environment subtly influences traits. What two supporting evidences do they provide? • Even if ~50% of traits are accounted for by genetic heritability, there’s still an interplay between environment and genetics that shapes trait expression throughout development • Cultural forces likely shape phenotypic expression of traits • An example from the article, or another that you can think of???

  18. Principle 5 – Culture/C.A.s • How do McAdams/Pals explain culture’s effect on characteristic adaptation? • C.A.s are situated in social, cultural, and developmental contexts; C.A.s are shaped by social class, ethnicity, gender, historical events • Goals based on life trajectories society makes available to the individual • Values based on ideals passed down through families • Other examples???

  19. Principle 5 – Culture/Narritive Identity • How do McAdams/Pals explain culture’s effect on narrative identity? • Culture provides themes/images/plots for psychosocial construction of narrative identity • Life stories are at the center of culture

  20. Who Wants to Explain this Figure?

  21. Why Personality in a Psychopathology Class? • What do you think? • Clinical applications • Framework proposed by McAdams/Pals may be used to identify aspects of personality for change in treatment • Therapy exerts changes in personality – if you’re gonna mess with it, you need to know the mechanics of what’s “under the hood” • Narrative therapy approaches to treatment • Conceptualize psychopathology in respect to different levels of personality • Ex. Depression • Trait-like expressions of depression • Characteristic adaptation: thoughts/motivation pertaining to certain social roles and/or developmental periods • Depressed life story, perhaps themes of loss

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