IAS1162

1. IAS1162 Human Personality and Team Building

2. What type of a person are you? • Can you judge yourself? • Do you handle any situations in only one way? • How do you cope with stress? What do you perceive yourself to be?

3. People behave because of a situation/events surrounding them or because the type of the person himself? • People do not act identically at the same place, the same time, the same situation, the same event • Psychologists study how people behave :: is it that situation influence our behavior or our behavior reflects us as an individual? Person and Situation

4. Psychologists are divided into several theorists and study human behavior through different angles • Social psychologist • Identify kinds of situations that increase of decrease some type of behavior (example, helping people) • Personality psychologist • Looking at why someone does something different from another person under the same circumstances No concrete answer

5. The axiom: “There are few differences between people, but what differences there are, really matters” • What makes you different from the person next to you? • Why some people make friends easily, some don’t? • Why some people are prone to being depressed? • There are millions of questions to be answered Psychologist’s viewpoint

6. Psychologists themselves are having trouble accepting a single definition of personality • A personality psychologist might have a never-ending discussion about how to describe personality and to which topic it belongs in the field of psychology, basically, what to study? • Other might think about learning histories, how people organize their thoughts • Loose definition: “Consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within the individual” Defining Personality

7. 1st part: concerned with the consistent patterns of behavior • Individual differences • Consistent personality • Patterns that we learnt about someone across time and across situations • “It’s just how he/she is” :: but people may change in a particular situation The two parts of the definition

8. 2nd part: concerns intrapersonal processes • Question: the difference between INTERpersonal and INTRApersonal? • Interpersonal: processes that take place between people • Intrapersonal: processes that take place within ourselves • Include the emotional, motivational, cognitive processes that go inside of us that affect how we act and feel • Leads to study of depression, information processing, happiness, denial, etc. • A group of people might react the same way in certain situations (fear of ghosts for instance), but how an individual deals with the situation play a role in determining the individual character …cont’d

9. External sources do influence personality • The way people are brought up • A pheasant would act differently compared to blue-blood Does environment play a role in moldings personality?

10. What are the sources of consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes? • Again, no simple answer to that • Psychologists and researchers have answered this question in different ways/ approaches • Psychoanalytic approach • Trait approach • Biological approach • Humanistic approach • Behavioral / social learning approach • Cognitive approach Six Approaches to Personality

11. Psychoanalytic approach: argues that people’s unconscious minds are largely responsible for differences in their behavior styles • Trait approach: identify where a person might lie along the continuum of various personality characteristics • Biological approach: points to inherited predispositions and physiological processes to explain individual differences in personality • Humanistic approach: identify personal responsibility and feelings of self-acceptance as the key causes of personality difference • Behavioral / social learning: explains consistent behavior patterns as the result of conditioning and expectations • Cognitive approach: look at differences in the way people process information to explain differences in behavior Differences in the approaches

12. Psychoanalytic: unconscious death instinct; possess an unconscious desire to self-destruct • Self-destructive impulses may be unconsciously turned outward and expressed against others • Results when goals blocked • frustration • Trait: focus on individual differences and aggressive behavior stability • E.g. a researcher interviewed 8-year old aggressors and again when the 8-year olds become 30 • Discovered aggressive children at elementary school are likely to become aggressive as adults :: abuse spouse and with violent criminal behavior The 6 approaches to ‘aggression’

13. Biological: interested in stable patterns of aggressive behavior • Point to genetic predisposition as one reason • Inherit the behavior from upbringing • Humanistic: deny people are born aggressive • All people can become happy, non-violent adults IF allowed to grow and develop in enriching and encouraging environment • Problems develop when something interferes with natural growth process, e.g. homes in which basic needs are frustrated; children have poor self-image, thus strikes out at others …cont’d…

14. Behavioral / Social Learning: a complete contrast to humanistic • People learn to be aggressive the same way they learn other behaviors • To be an aggressor means to be rewarded • Continued to be aggressive from one situation to another different situations • If the aggression continually gets rewarded instead of punishment, the aggression will linger • People learn from models • Results of the fear that children get violent from watching too much violence on television …cont’d…

15. Cognitive: main focus is on the way aggressive people process information • What do you think if you’re walking alone in a park and someone behind you walk faster towards you? How do you react? • Psychologists holding on this approach argue that how you respond depends on how you interpret it • You will react if you interpret it as threatening, annoying, etc. before you either run away, prepare to fight etc. • Many school children think of everything as threatening, even simple innocent actions by other, e.g. an accidental bump on the corridor is taken as an attempt to start a fight …cont’d

16. Different experience in different cultures affect how personalities develop • Psychologists have come to see that people and their personalities exist within a cultural context Personality & Culture

17. Individualistic • Include most Northern European countries and the United States • Place a great emphasis on individual needs and accomplishments • They like to think of themselves as independent and unique Types of culture

18. Collectivist • More concerned about belonging to a larger group (family, tribe, nation) • More interested in cooperation than competition • Obtain satisfaction when the group does well rather from individual accomplishment • Mostly Asian, African, Central and South American • Individual success / personal recognition may even be frowned upon …cont’d

19. How many approaches to Personality are there? • What are they? • What does each approach study / research on? • How does humanistic approach explain aggression? • How many types of cultures are there? • How do these cultures differ from one another? • Can the study of personality in one culture be used in the other? Recap

20. See you next week?