| Psychology |
| Areas |
|---|
| Cognition |
| Development |
| Disorder |
| Emotion |
| Perception |
| Personality |
| Self |
| Social |
| Approaches |
| Behavioral |
| Biological |
| Cognitive |
| Evolutionary |
| Humanistic |
| Psychodynamic |
In psychology, personality describes the character of emotion, thought, and behavior patterns unique to a person. There are several theoretical perspectives on personality in psychology, which involve different ideas about the relationship between personality and other psychological constructs, as well as different theories about the way personality develops. Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of behaviour, mind and thought. ... Wiktionary has a definition of: Cognition The term cognition is used in several different loosely related ways. ... Developmental psychology is the scientific study of age related changes in behavior across the life span. ... Psychopathology is a term which refers to either the study of mental illness or mental distress the manifestation of behaviours and experiences which may be indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment. ... For the 1991 hit single from Mariah Carey, see Emotions (Mariah Carey song). ... In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. ... The Self is a key construct in several schools of Psychology. ... Social psychology is the study of the nature and causes of human social behavior. ... Behaviorism (or behaviourism) is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. ... Biological psychology may be looked at as a hybrid of neuroscience and psychology. ... In psychology cognitivism is a theoretical approach to understanding the mind, which argues that mental function can be understood by quantitative, positivist and scientific methods, and that such functions can be described as information processing models. ... Evolutionary psychology (or EP) proposes that human and primate cognition and behavior could be better understood by examining them in light of human and primate evolutionary history. ... Humanistic psychology emerged in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. ... Psychoanalysis is a family of psychological theories and methods which claim to elucidate unconscious relations in a systematic way through an associative process. ... Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of behaviour, mind and thought. ... For the 1991 hit single from Mariah Carey, see Emotions (Mariah Carey song). ... Thought or thinking is a mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires. ... Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. ...
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Personality theories
There is a wide range of psychological theories about the way personality works. Most specific theories can be grouped into one of the following classes of theories.
Trait theories
According to the diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association, personality traits are "prominent aspects of personality that are exhibited in a wide range of important social and personal contexts. ...". In other words: persons have certain characteristics which partly determine their behaviour. For example, a friendly person is likely to generally listen well and show interest in others. The American Psychiatric Association is a professional organization of psychiatrists whose members are American and international physicians who are trained in psychiatry. ...
Gordon Allport delineates three kinds of traits with varying degrees of intensity: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits. Gordon Allport (1897-1967) was born in Montezuma, Indiana, in 1897. ...
central traits: A trait that is associated with many other attributes of the person who is being judged. ...
Raymond Cattell's research propagated a two-tiered personality structure with sixteen "primary factors" and five "secondary factors". Building on the work of Cattell and others, Lewis Goldberg proposed a five dimension personality model, nicknamed the "Big Five": Raymond B. Cattell (20 March 1905 - 2 February 1998) was a British and American psychologist who theorized the existence of fluid and crystallized intelligences to explain human cognitive ability. ...
In psychology, the big five personality traits are an approach to personality theory. ...
- Extroversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Emotional Stability
- Intellect
John L. Holland proposed a "RIASEC" model of personality widely used in vocational counseling. The RIASEC is a circumplex model where the six types, which are represented as a hexagon where physically closer types are more related than distal types:
- Realistic - Physical, hands-on, tool-oriented, masculine
- Investigative - Scientific, technical, methodological
- Artistic - writing, painting, singing, etc.
- Social - nurturing, supporting, helping, healing
- Enterprising - organizing, activating, motivating
- Conventional - clerical, detail-oriented
Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Meyers alleged that the writings of Carl Jung delineated personality types by constructing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Their personality typology has some aspects of a trait theory: it explains people's behaviour in terms of fixed characteristics. Katharine Briggs, along with her daughter Isabel Myers, is the co-creator of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. ... Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical Psychology. ... The Center for Applications of Psychological Type is a non-profit organization co-founded by Isabel Myers in 1975 for MBTI development, research and training. ...
Psychodynamic theories
Psychodynamic (also called psychoanalytic) theories explain human behaviour in terms of interaction between various components of personality. Sigmund Freud was the founder of this school. He broke the human personality down to three significant components: the [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego%2C_Superego_and_Id#The_Id|id), the ego and the superego. According to Freud, personality is shaped by the interactions of these three components. Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. ... eGO is a company that builds electric motor scooters which are becoming popular for urban transportation and vacation use. ... In his theory of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud sought to explain how the unconscious mind operates by proposing that it has a particular structure. ...
Behaviorist theories
Behaviorists explain personality in terms of reactions to external stimuli. This school of thought was started by B. F. Skinner. According to these theories, people's behaviour is formed by processes such as operant conditioning. Behaviorism (or behaviourism) is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. ... Burrhus Frederic Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist and author. ... Operant conditioning, so named by psychologist B. F. Skinner, is the modification of behavior (the actions of animals) brought about by the consequences that follow upon the occurrence of the behavior. ...
Cognitive and social-cognitive theories
In cognitivism, people's behaviour is explained as guided by cognitions (e.g. expectations) about the world, and especially those about other people.
Albert Bandura, a social learning theorist suggested that the forces of memory and feelings worked in conjunction with environmental influences. Albert Bandura (born December 4, Canadian psychologist most famous for his work on social learning theory and is particularly noted for the Bobo doll experiment. ...
Observational learning or social learning refers to learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating behaviour observed in others. ...
Memory is a property of the human mind: the ability to retain information. ...
A feeling can refer to: sensation related to one of several senses (tactition, thermoception, nociception, equilibrioception, proprioception), See also: touch, qualia emotion intuition In the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, feeling means you tend to put a higher priority on personal factors than impersonal factors. ...
Humanistic theories
In humanistic psychology, it is emphasized that people have free will and that they play an active role in determining how they behave. Accordingly, humanistic psychology focuses on subjective experiences of persons, instead of factors that determine behaviour. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were famous proponents of this view. Humanistic psychology emerged in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. ... Abraham Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was a psychologist. ... Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902, Oak Park, Illinois - February 4, 1987) was perhaps the most influential psychologist in American history and was instrumental in the development of non-directive psychotherapy, also known as client-centered or Person centered psychotherapy. Rogerian psychotherapy became widely influential, embraced for its humanistic approach. ...
A typology of personality models
Modern personality models may generally be broken into three types: factorial models, typologies, and circumplexes.
Factorial models posit that there are dimensions along which human personality differs. The main purpose of a personality model is thus to define the dimensions of personality. Factor analysis is a primary tool of theorists composing factorial models. Such models arise directly from a classical individual differences approach to the study of human personality. Goldberg's Big Five model may be the best-known example of this type of theory. Factor analysis is a statistical technique that originated in mathematical psychology. ...
Individual differences psychology studies the ways in which people differ in their behavior. ...
In psychology, the big five personality traits are an approach to personality theory. ...
Typologies or type models arise naturally from some theories that posit types of people. For example, astrological signs represented a well-known, pre-scientific typological model. Typological models posit a relatively small number of modal types and possibly some interaction between the types. The Jungian typology implemented in the MBTI may best represent the typology approach.
Circumplex models may resemble factorial or type models but further specify a relationship between the different types or factors. Typically, some types or factors are more related than others and can be presented on a polygon. Holland's RIASEC may be the best-known example of this type of theory. Correlations of personality scores should resemble a simplex form where opposing types have low correlation and close types have a high correlation. In geometry, a simplex or n-simplex is an n-dimensional analogue of a triangle. ...
Personality tests
Types of personality tests include the Rorschach test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and the Thematic Apperception Test. Critics have pointed to the Forer effect to suggest that some of these appear to be more accurate and discriminating than they really are. A personality test aims to describe aspects of a persons character that remain stable across situations. ... The Rorschach (pronounced roar-shock) inkblot test is a method of psychological evaluation. ... The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is the most frequently used test in the mental health fields. ... The Center for Applications of Psychological Type is a non-profit organization co-founded by Isabel Myers in 1975 for MBTI development, research and training. ... The Thematic Apperception Test or TAT is a psychological test developed by the American psychologist Henry A. Murray. ... The Forer effect (also called personal validation fallacy or the Barnum effect after P.T. Barnum) is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a...
See also
- Alter ego
- Dissociative identity disorder
- Personality disorder
- Self-concept
- Self-esteem
- Will (philosophy)
External links
- Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool website (http://ipip.ori.org)
- Great Ideas in Personality (http://www.personalityresearch.org/)
Further reading
- Mischel, W. (1999). Introduction to personality. Sixth edition. Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace.
