Personality: Theories, Assessment, and Contemporary Issues

Personality

Early Trait Research

Personality traits are enduring psychological characteristics that help predict an individual's behavior across situations. Early trait theorists sought to classify and organize these traits to better understand personality.

• Definition: A personality trait is a consistent pattern in the way individuals behave, feel, and think.

• Predictive Value: Traits can be used to predict behavior (e.g., extraverts are likely to be outgoing at social events).

Gordon Allport's Trait Typology

• Cardinal Traits: Dominant traits that define a person's behavior (e.g., nonconformist).

• Central Traits: Major characteristics that form the core of personality (e.g., creative, passionate).

• Secondary Traits: Traits that appear only in certain situations (e.g., metalhead, low conformity in self-presentation).

• Example: Eddie Munson's personality can be described using Allport's typology: cardinal (nonconformist), central (creative, loyal), secondary (metalhead).

The Five Factor Model (Big Five)

The Big Five model is the most widely accepted framework for understanding personality traits. It consists of five broad dimensions:

• Openness: Creativity, curiosity, openness to new experiences.

• Conscientiousness: Organization, reliability, and goal-directed behavior.

• Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness, and enthusiasm.

• Agreeableness: Compassion, cooperativeness, and trust.

• Neuroticism: Emotional instability, anxiety, and moodiness.

Sample NEO-PI-R Items

• I find it easy to smile and be outgoing with strangers (Extraversion).

• I prefer jobs that let me work alone (Introversion).

• I am dominant, forceful, and aggressive (Extraversion/Assertiveness).

• When I’m around people, I worry that I’ll make a fool of myself (Neuroticism).

• I seldom give in to my impulses (Conscientiousness).

• I have never literally jumped for joy (Low Extraversion).

Big Five Facts

• Universality: Traits are observed across cultures, though their emphasis varies (e.g., agreeableness is valued in collectivist cultures).

• Predicts Outcomes:

  • Conscientiousness: Academic and job success

  • Extraversion: Leadership roles

  • Neuroticism: Linked to anxiety and stress

• Trait Development: Agreeableness and conscientiousness tend to increase with age.

• Animal Studies: Big Five traits observed in dogs, chimpanzees, and octopuses.

• Relationships: High agreeableness and low neuroticism predict healthy relationships.

• Social Media: Extraverts post more socially; high openness correlates with artistic content.

• Cultural Variations: Scandinavians score high on agreeableness/openness; Americans on extraversion.

HEXACO Model

The HEXACO model extends the Big Five by adding a sixth factor: Honesty-Humility.

• Honesty-Humility (HH): Sincerity, fairness, modesty, and lack of greed.

• High HH: Sincere, honest, modest, altruistic.

• Low HH: Deceitful, greedy, pompous, manipulative, violent, selfish.

Stability of Personality Traits

Personality traits are relatively stable over time, though some changes occur with age and development.

• Maturity Principle: People become more dominant, agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable over time.

• Infant Temperament: Predicts adult personality (e.g., neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness).

• Under-Controlled Children: More likely to engage in externalizing behaviors (e.g., fighting, lying).

• Inhibited Children: More likely to internalize (e.g., worry, cry easily).

Behaviourist Perspectives

Behaviorist theories emphasize learned behavior patterns as the basis of personality.

• Personality: Collection of learned behaviors (Skinner).

• Reinforcement: Similarities in behavior are due to patterns of reinforcement.

• Changeability: Humans can change personality through learning new behaviors.

• Example: Sociability at parties and meetings is due to reinforcement.

Social Cognitive Approaches

Social cognitive theories focus on the interaction between individual and environment in shaping personality (Bandura).

• Observational Learning: People learn behaviors by watching others (modeling).

• Reciprocal Determinism: Personality is shaped by the interaction between behavior, cognition, and environment.

• Self-Efficacy: Belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations; influences personality traits over time.

• High self-efficacy leads to confidence; low self-efficacy results in anxiety or avoidance.

• Development: Self-efficacy develops through prior successes/failures and reinforcement from others.

Cultural Influences on Personality

Culture shapes the expression and development of personality traits.

• Individualist Cultures: Value independence, competition, personal achievement (e.g., U.S., England, Australia).

• Traits: Self-confidence, openness, assertiveness.

• Collectivist Cultures: Value social harmony, respectfulness, group needs (e.g., Asia, Africa, South America).

• Traits: Humility, empathy, cooperativeness.

Biological Approach

Biological theories propose that personality is largely inherited.

• Genetic Influence: Twin studies (e.g., Minnesota study) show that identical twins raised apart are as similar as those raised together.

• Suggests strong genetic component to personality.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud's psychoanalytic theory emphasizes unconscious forces as determinants of personality.

• Unconscious: Contains memories, beliefs, feelings, urges outside awareness.

• Behavior is motivated by unconscious processes.

• Personality consists of three interacting components:

Component	Principle	Description
Id	Pleasure Principle	Unconscious urges and desires; seeks immediate gratification.
Ego	Reality Principle	The executive; mediates between id, superego, and reality.
Superego	Moral Principle	Moral guardian; strives for perfection.

• Example: Deciding between studying and watching Netflix involves negotiation between id (pleasure), superego (responsibility), and ego (compromise).

Psychosexual Stages of Development

Freud proposed that personality develops through a series of stages, each focused on different erogenous zones.

Stage	Age	Focus	Fixation Outcome
Oral	0-1 year	Sucking, eating	Smoking, overeating, excessive talking
Anal	2-4 years	Toilet training	Messiness or obsessively clean/stingy
Phallic	4-6 years	Genital manipulation	Oedipus/Elektra complex, macho behavior, inferiority
Latency	6-12 years	Dormant sexual desires	Focus on skills/hobbies
Genital	12+ years	Mature sexual intimacy	Well-balanced relationships or intimacy difficulties

• Fixation: Failure to resolve conflicts at any stage can result in fixation (e.g., oral fixation leads to smoking).

Defence Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies used by the ego to reduce anxiety from conflicts between the id, superego, and reality.

• Repression: Blocking thoughts/feelings from consciousness.

• Denial: Refusal to acknowledge repressed feelings.

• Regression: Retreating to an earlier stage of development.

• Projection: Attributing one's own impulses to others.

• Displacement: Redirecting impulses to a safer target.

Neo-Freudian Theories

Neo-Freudians expanded on Freud's ideas, introducing new concepts and challenging some assumptions.

• Carl Jung: Proposed the collective unconscious and archetypes (universal symbols).

• Introduced introversion vs. extraversion.

• Karen Horney: Critiqued Freud's gender assumptions; argued women's inferiority is due to social status, not anatomy; proposed 'womb envy.'

Birth Order and Personality

Research on birth order suggests limited effects on personality traits.

• Firstborns score slightly higher on intelligence tests.

• No lasting effects of birth order on extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, or imagination.

• Takeaway: Birth order affects intelligence slightly but not personality traits.

Sibship Size and Personality

The number of siblings may influence certain personality traits.

• More siblings: Higher honesty-humility and agreeableness.

• Only children: Lowest honesty-humility and agreeableness; slightly higher openness.

• Having more siblings may promote cooperative personality development.

Humanistic Approaches

Humanistic theories emphasize the unique and positive qualities of human experience and potential.

• Humans are basically good and possess free will.

• Exceptional people share traits like creativity, realistic thinking, concern for others.

• Maslow: Self-actualization, few friends, well-developed sense of humor, peak experiences.

• Carl Rogers: Need for self-actualization; self-concept is central to personality.

• Discrepancy between 'ideal self' and 'true self' leads to anxiety; can be overcome with unconditional positive regard.

Personality Assessment

Personality can be assessed using self-report measures and projective tests.

• Self-Report Measures: Individuals answer questions about their behavior.

• MMPI-2: 567 items; identifies psychological difficulties and predicts behaviors; used in clinical settings.

• Sample MMPI Items: 'I have never been in trouble because of my sex behavior,' 'My stomach frequently bothers me,' 'I like to hurt animals,' 'Sometimes I smell strange things that others do not.'

• Projective Tests: Ambiguous stimuli (e.g., Rorschach, TAT); require interpretation; subjectivity involved.

The Dark Triad and Tetrad

The Dark Triad refers to three socially aversive personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. The Dark Tetrad adds sadism.

Trait	Key Features
Narcissism	Grandiosity, entitlement, superiority, excessive self-love, desire for admiration, fragile self-esteem
Machiavellianism	Cynical, unprincipled, manipulative, few emotional attachments, lack of empathy
Psychopathy	Impulsivity, thrill-seeking, low empathy, coldness, callousness
Sadism (Tetrad)	Pleasure from inflicting pain, humiliation, cruelty, low agreeableness/conscientiousness, disinhibited

• Dark Triad Behaviors: Aggression, violence, low empathy, hedonism, counterproductive workplace behaviors.

• Dating: Psychopathy: short-term strategies, charm, lack of remorse; Narcissism: attention-seeking, game-playing; Machiavellianism: strategic manipulation, mate poaching.

Sample Self-Report Items

• "It's not wise to tell your secrets" (SD3)

• "The best way to handle people is to tell them what you want to hear" (SD3)

• "I have a natural talent for influencing people" (NPI)

• "I insist upon getting the respect that is due to me" (NPI)

• "I enjoy seeing people get upset" (LSRP)

• "Payback needs to be quick and nasty" (LSRP)