Personality Theory & AssessmentChapter 14

Part I

William G. Huitt

Last revised: May 2005

Personality Theorieshttp://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/perscontents.html

Humanistic Personality Theories

• Abraham Maslow– Emphasized self-actualization and transcendence– Found self-actualizers to be accurate in perceiving reality, able

to judge honestly and to spot quickly the fake and the dishonest

• Carl Rogers– Focus on self-worth, self-esteem– Unconditional positive regard is designed to reduce threat,

eliminate conditions of worth, and bring the person back into tune with his or her true self

– Major goal of psychotherapy is to enable people to open themselves up to experiences and begin to live according to their own values rather than according to the values of others in order to gain positive regard

Humanistic Personality Theories

• Self-esteem– One source of variations in self-esteem arises from

comparisons of actual to desired traits– Another source is achievement compared to

expectations– Self-esteem is fairly stable from childhood through

the late adult years with the exception of early adolescence

Learning Theories and Personality

• Locus of control– A concept used to explain how people

account for what happens in their lives • internal locus of control—people see themselves

as primarily in control of their behavior and its consequences

• external locus of control—people perceive what happens to be in the hands of fate, luck, or environment

Learning Theories and Personality

• Social-cognitive theory– Reciprocal determinism

• Bandura’s concept that behavior, cognitive factors, and environment all influence and are influenced by each other

– Self-efficacy• A person’s belief in his or her ability to perform

competently in whatever is attempted

Trait Theories

• Early trait theories– Gordon Allport

• Claimed that each person inherits a unique set of raw materials for given traits, which are then shaped by experiences

– Raymond Cattell• Referred to observable qualities of personality as surface

traits• Found certain clusters of surface traits that appeared

together time after time• Believed these were evidence of deeper, more general,

underlying personality factors, which he called source traits• Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire,

commonly called the 16 PF, yields a personality profile

Trait Theories

• Factor models of personality– Five-factor Theory

• Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect

– Big Five• Extraversion, Agreeableness,

Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience (OCEAN).

Trait Theories

• Factor models of personality– Costa and McCrae

• Developed the NEO Personality Inventory and, more recently, the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, which are used to measure the Big Five dimensions of personality

• The NEO and other measures of the Big Five are currently being used in a wide variety of personality research studies

Nature, Nurture, and Personality

• Twin and adoption studies– Most studies have found similarity between identical

twins on several personality factors, regardless of whether they are raised together or apart

– Correlations similar to those for intelligence• Neurotransmitters and personality

– Researchers hypothesize that genes contribute to personality through their influence on the brain’s neurotransmitter production, transport, and reuptake systems

– Researchers propose that people who are emotionally unstable possess a serotonin system that is unusually sensitive to dangers and threats

Nature, Nurture, and Personality

• Personality and culture– Hofstede

• Analyzed questionnaire responses measuring the work-related values of more than 100,000 IBM employees in 53 countries around the world

• Factor analysis revealed four separate dimensions related to culture and personality

• Rank-ordered the 53 countries on each of the four dimensions

Nature, Nurture, and Personality

• Personality and culture– Power distance—the extent to which the less

powerful members of organizations and institutions (such as the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.

– Uncertainty avoidance—a society’s tolerance for ambiguity.

– Individualism/collectivism—signifies a culture’s emphasis either on individuals or on social relationships

– Masculinity/femininity—the distribution of emotional roles between the sexes

Nature, Nurture, and Personality

Criterion Predictors Cumulative Adj.

R2

Neuroticism + Uncertainty avoidance 0.31

  + Masculinity 0.55

Extraversion + Individualism 0.39

  – Masculinity 0.46

Openness to experience + Masculinity 0.13

  – Power distance 0.29

  + Uncertainty avoidance 0.36

Agreeableness – Uncertainty avoidance 0.28

Conscientiousness + Power distance 0.24

Source: Hofstede, G., & McCrae, R. (2004). Personality and culture revisited: Linking traits and

dimensions of culture Cross-Cultural Research, 38(1): 52-88.

• Projective tests– A personality test in which people respond to

inkblots, drawings of ambiguous human situations, incomplete sentences, and the like, by projecting their own inner thoughts, feelings, fears, and conflicts onto the test materials

– Based on the assumption that the test taker will transfer (“project”) unconscious conflicts and motives onto an ambiguous stimulus.

Personality Assessment

The Rorschach Inkblot Test

• Ambiguous stimuli• Person is asked to

report what they see

Sample Rorschach Card

Thematic Apperception Test

• Person is asked to tell a story about the “hero” in the picture

• Based on Murray’s personality theory– People are distinguished

by the needs that motivate their behavior

Personality Assessment

• Observation, interviews, and rating scales– Using an observational technique known as

behavioral assessment, psychologists can count and record the frequency of particular behaviors

– Useful because they provide a standardized format, including a list of traits or behaviors to evaluate

Personality Assessment

• Personality inventories– A paper-and-pencil test with questions about

a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which can be scored according to a standard procedure

– Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)• An inventory for classifying personality types

based on Jung’s theory of personality

Personality Assessment

• Personality inventories– Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

(MMPI)• The most extensively researched and widely

used personality test• Used to screen and diagnose psychiatric

problems and disorders• Originally published in 1943• MMPI-2 was published in 1989• Does not reveal differences among normal

personalities very well

MMPI Score Profile

Personality Assessment

• Personality inventories– NEO PI-R™ (240 items)

• considered by many psychologists to be the best inventory for measuring traits within the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality

– International Personality Item Pool (IPIP)