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personality psychology
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and
its variation among individuals. It is a scientific study which aims to show how
people are individually different due to psychological forces. ... investigation
of human nature and psychological similarities between individuals.
personality - The unique, relatively enduring internal and
external aspects of a person’s character that influence behavior in
different situations.
Personality theorists differ on basic questions about human nature: free will versus
determinism, nature versus nurture, the importance of the past versus the present,
uniqueness versus universality, equilibrium versus growth, and optimism versus
pessimism.
Methods of assessment - unique methods for assessing personality, ways that
were appropriate for their theories. By applying these methods, they derived the data
on which they based their formulations. Their techniques vary in objectivity, reliability,
and validity, and they range from dream interpretation
and childhood recollections to paper-and-pencil and computer-administered tests.
In psychology today, the major approaches to personality assessment are:
• Self-report or objective inventories
• Projective techniques
• Clinical interviews
• Behavioral assessment procedures
• Thought and experience sampling procedures
It is important to note that assessment for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes
should not be based solely on a single approach. Ideally, multiple assessment
measures are used
to provide a range of information about a person.
self-report inventory or test approach involves asking people to report on
themselves by answering questions about their behavior and feelings in various
situations.
personality psychology 1
, These tests include items dealing with symptoms, attitudes, interests, fears, and
values.
Clinical psychologists developed projective tests of personality for their work
with emotionally disturbed persons. Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on
the importance of the unconscious, projective tests attempt to probe that
invisible portion of our personality. A personality assessment device in which
subjects are presumed to project personal needs, fears, and values onto their
interpretation or description of an ambiguous stimulus.
Rorschach Inkblot Technique The Rorschach was developed in 1921 by the
Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922), who had been fascinated
by inkblots since childhood. As a youngster he had played a popular game
called Klecksographie, or Blotto, in which children gave their interpretations of
various inkblot designs. He wrote about his work with inkblots, but the
publication was a failure. Few copies were sold, and the few reviews it received
were negative. Although the test eventually became immensely popular,
Rorschach became depressed and died 9 months after
his work was published.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Henry Murray and Christiana Morgan
developed the TAT (Morgan & Murray, 1935). The test consists of 19 ambiguous
pictures, showing one or more persons, and 1 blank card. The pictures are
vague about the events depicted and can be interpreted in several ways.
Clinical Interviews
In addition to the specific psychological tests used to measure an individual’s
personality, the assessment procedure often includes clinical interviews. After
all, it is reasonable to assume that valuable information can be obtained by
talking to the person being evaluated and asking relevant questions about past
and present life experiences, social and family relationships, and the problems
that led the person to seek psychological help. A wide range of behaviors,
feelings, and thoughts can be investigated in the interview, including general
appearance, demeanor, and attitude; facial expressions, posture, and gestures;
preoccupations; degree of self-insight; and level of contact with reality.
Armed with the results of psychological tests such as the MMPI, which are
usually administered before or during a series of interview sessions, the
psychologist can focus on problems indicated by the test results and explore
those areas in detail.
personality psychology 2
, Behavioral Assessment
In the behavioral assessment approach, an observer evaluates a person’s
behavior in a given situation. The better the observers know the people being
assessed and the more frequently they interact with them, the more accurate
their evaluations are likely to be.
Thought and Experience Samples
In the behavioral approach to personality assessment described in the preceding
paragraphs, specific behavioral actions are monitored by trained observers. In
the thought-sampling approach to assessment, a person’s thoughts are recorded
systematically to provide a sample over a period of time. Because thoughts are
private experiences and cannot be seen, the only person who can make this
type of observation is the individual whose thoughts are being studied. In this
procedure, then, the observer and the person being observed are the same.
The thought-sampling assessment procedure is typically used with groups, but it
has also been applied to individuals to aid in diagnosis and treatment. A client
can be asked to write or record thoughts and moods for later analysis by the
psychologist.
The three major methods used in personality research are:
1. The clinical method - The primary clinical method is the case study or case
history, in which psychologists search their patients’ past and present for clues that
might point to the source of the patients’ emotional problems. case study a detailed
history of an individual that contains data from a variety of sources.
2. The experimental method - The fundamental defining characteristic of research
in any scientific discipline is objective observation. The clinical method does not
meet that requirement very well. Two other requirements of scientific research are
even more difficult
to fulfill by using the clinical method but are satisfied by the experimental method.
One of these requirements is that observations be well controlled and systematic.
Such control is not possible when dealing with a person’s past life events or
unconscious phenomena. The other requirement involves duplication and
verification. With careful control of experimental conditions, a researcher working at
another time and in another place can duplicate precisely the conditions under which
the earlier research was conducted. Events in a person’s life cannot be repeated or
duplicated so exactly. An experiment is a technique for determining the effect of one
or more variables. or events on behavior
3. The correlational method - A statistical technique that measures the degree of
personality psychology 3
, the relationship between two variables, expressed by the correlation coefficient. The
Correlational Method In the correlational method, researchers investigate the
relationships that exist among variables. Rather than manipulating an independent
variable, the experimenters deal with the variable’s existing attributes. For example,
instead of experimentally creating stress in research participants in the psychology
laboratory and observing the effects, researchers can study people who already
function in stressful situations such as police officers, race car drivers, or college
students suffering from test anxiety.
Sigmund Freud
"Turn your eyes inward, look into your own depths, learn to first know
yourself"
Freud is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach
to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud
believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions
that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are
three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud
believed people are "simply actors in the drama of their own minds, pushed by
desire, pulled by coincidence.
Freud’s Structure of the Human Mind -According to Freud, our personality
develops from the interactions among what he proposed as the three fundamental
structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego. Conflicts among these
three structures, and our efforts to find balance among what each of them “desires,”
determines how we behave and approach the world. What balance we strike in any
given situation determines how we will resolve the conflict between two overarching
behavioral tendencies: our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives vs. our
socialized internal control over those drives.
The Id - the most primitive of the three structures, is concerned with instant
gratification of basic physical needs and urges. It operates entirely
unconsciously (outside of conscious thought). For example, if your id walked
past a stranger eating ice cream, it would most likely take the ice cream for itself.
personality psychology 4
personality psychology
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and
its variation among individuals. It is a scientific study which aims to show how
people are individually different due to psychological forces. ... investigation
of human nature and psychological similarities between individuals.
personality - The unique, relatively enduring internal and
external aspects of a person’s character that influence behavior in
different situations.
Personality theorists differ on basic questions about human nature: free will versus
determinism, nature versus nurture, the importance of the past versus the present,
uniqueness versus universality, equilibrium versus growth, and optimism versus
pessimism.
Methods of assessment - unique methods for assessing personality, ways that
were appropriate for their theories. By applying these methods, they derived the data
on which they based their formulations. Their techniques vary in objectivity, reliability,
and validity, and they range from dream interpretation
and childhood recollections to paper-and-pencil and computer-administered tests.
In psychology today, the major approaches to personality assessment are:
• Self-report or objective inventories
• Projective techniques
• Clinical interviews
• Behavioral assessment procedures
• Thought and experience sampling procedures
It is important to note that assessment for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes
should not be based solely on a single approach. Ideally, multiple assessment
measures are used
to provide a range of information about a person.
self-report inventory or test approach involves asking people to report on
themselves by answering questions about their behavior and feelings in various
situations.
personality psychology 1
, These tests include items dealing with symptoms, attitudes, interests, fears, and
values.
Clinical psychologists developed projective tests of personality for their work
with emotionally disturbed persons. Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on
the importance of the unconscious, projective tests attempt to probe that
invisible portion of our personality. A personality assessment device in which
subjects are presumed to project personal needs, fears, and values onto their
interpretation or description of an ambiguous stimulus.
Rorschach Inkblot Technique The Rorschach was developed in 1921 by the
Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922), who had been fascinated
by inkblots since childhood. As a youngster he had played a popular game
called Klecksographie, or Blotto, in which children gave their interpretations of
various inkblot designs. He wrote about his work with inkblots, but the
publication was a failure. Few copies were sold, and the few reviews it received
were negative. Although the test eventually became immensely popular,
Rorschach became depressed and died 9 months after
his work was published.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Henry Murray and Christiana Morgan
developed the TAT (Morgan & Murray, 1935). The test consists of 19 ambiguous
pictures, showing one or more persons, and 1 blank card. The pictures are
vague about the events depicted and can be interpreted in several ways.
Clinical Interviews
In addition to the specific psychological tests used to measure an individual’s
personality, the assessment procedure often includes clinical interviews. After
all, it is reasonable to assume that valuable information can be obtained by
talking to the person being evaluated and asking relevant questions about past
and present life experiences, social and family relationships, and the problems
that led the person to seek psychological help. A wide range of behaviors,
feelings, and thoughts can be investigated in the interview, including general
appearance, demeanor, and attitude; facial expressions, posture, and gestures;
preoccupations; degree of self-insight; and level of contact with reality.
Armed with the results of psychological tests such as the MMPI, which are
usually administered before or during a series of interview sessions, the
psychologist can focus on problems indicated by the test results and explore
those areas in detail.
personality psychology 2
, Behavioral Assessment
In the behavioral assessment approach, an observer evaluates a person’s
behavior in a given situation. The better the observers know the people being
assessed and the more frequently they interact with them, the more accurate
their evaluations are likely to be.
Thought and Experience Samples
In the behavioral approach to personality assessment described in the preceding
paragraphs, specific behavioral actions are monitored by trained observers. In
the thought-sampling approach to assessment, a person’s thoughts are recorded
systematically to provide a sample over a period of time. Because thoughts are
private experiences and cannot be seen, the only person who can make this
type of observation is the individual whose thoughts are being studied. In this
procedure, then, the observer and the person being observed are the same.
The thought-sampling assessment procedure is typically used with groups, but it
has also been applied to individuals to aid in diagnosis and treatment. A client
can be asked to write or record thoughts and moods for later analysis by the
psychologist.
The three major methods used in personality research are:
1. The clinical method - The primary clinical method is the case study or case
history, in which psychologists search their patients’ past and present for clues that
might point to the source of the patients’ emotional problems. case study a detailed
history of an individual that contains data from a variety of sources.
2. The experimental method - The fundamental defining characteristic of research
in any scientific discipline is objective observation. The clinical method does not
meet that requirement very well. Two other requirements of scientific research are
even more difficult
to fulfill by using the clinical method but are satisfied by the experimental method.
One of these requirements is that observations be well controlled and systematic.
Such control is not possible when dealing with a person’s past life events or
unconscious phenomena. The other requirement involves duplication and
verification. With careful control of experimental conditions, a researcher working at
another time and in another place can duplicate precisely the conditions under which
the earlier research was conducted. Events in a person’s life cannot be repeated or
duplicated so exactly. An experiment is a technique for determining the effect of one
or more variables. or events on behavior
3. The correlational method - A statistical technique that measures the degree of
personality psychology 3
, the relationship between two variables, expressed by the correlation coefficient. The
Correlational Method In the correlational method, researchers investigate the
relationships that exist among variables. Rather than manipulating an independent
variable, the experimenters deal with the variable’s existing attributes. For example,
instead of experimentally creating stress in research participants in the psychology
laboratory and observing the effects, researchers can study people who already
function in stressful situations such as police officers, race car drivers, or college
students suffering from test anxiety.
Sigmund Freud
"Turn your eyes inward, look into your own depths, learn to first know
yourself"
Freud is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach
to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud
believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions
that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are
three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud
believed people are "simply actors in the drama of their own minds, pushed by
desire, pulled by coincidence.
Freud’s Structure of the Human Mind -According to Freud, our personality
develops from the interactions among what he proposed as the three fundamental
structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego. Conflicts among these
three structures, and our efforts to find balance among what each of them “desires,”
determines how we behave and approach the world. What balance we strike in any
given situation determines how we will resolve the conflict between two overarching
behavioral tendencies: our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives vs. our
socialized internal control over those drives.
The Id - the most primitive of the three structures, is concerned with instant
gratification of basic physical needs and urges. It operates entirely
unconsciously (outside of conscious thought). For example, if your id walked
past a stranger eating ice cream, it would most likely take the ice cream for itself.
personality psychology 4
