Introduction to Personality TheoryPSY136 – Personality 1

Personality

• Came from the word persona, a mask worn by Roman actors to project a role.

• A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior.

Traits

• Contribute to individual differences in behavior, consistency of behavior over time, and stability of behavior across situations.

• Pattern is different for each individual.

Characteristics

• Unique qualities of an individual that include attributes such as temperament, physique, and intelligence.

Theory

• A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypothesis.

Philosophy

• Love of wisdom• It deals with what ought to be• Theories deal with if-then statements.

Speculations

• Theories rely on speculations.• Speculation and empirical observation are

essential cornerstones of theory building, but must not run rampantly in advance of controlled observation.

Hypothesis• An educated guess or prediction specific

enough for its validity to be tested through the use of the scientific method.

• A theory can generate several hypotheses.

Taxonomy

• Classification of things according to their natural relationships.

• It is essential to the development of science.

Why Different Theories?

• Varying frames of reference, based on the author’s personal backgrounds, childhood experiences, philosophy, interpersonal relationships, and unique ways of looking at the world.

What Makes a Theory Useful?• Stimulates and guides

future research.• It is falsifiable; precise

enough to support or reject its major tenets.

• It is able to organize research data that are incompatible with each other.

• Ability to guide practitioners over the rough course of daily problems.

• It must be consistent with itself.

• It is parsimonious.

Each personality theorist has an explicit or implicit concept of humanity.

Concept of Humanity

• Determinism vs. Free Choice• Pessimism vs. Optimism• Causality vs. Teleology• Conscious vs. Unconscious• Biological vs. Social Forces• Uniqueness vs. Similarity