getting started copyright © 2007 allyn & bacon mayers personality: a systems approach part 1:...

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Getting Started

Copyright © 2007 Allyn & Bacon Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach

What is Personality?

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Getting Started

Copyright © 2007 Allyn & Bacon Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach

Topics Covered

• Questions of Personality

• What Is the Personality System?

• What Is the Field of Personality Psychology?

• Why Study Personality?

• How Is this Course Organized?


Fundamental Questions of Personality

© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach

What Are Your Questions?

• What Have You Wondered About Yourself?

• What Have You Wondered About Others?

• What Is Personality to You?




Three Big Questions

1. Who Am I?

3. What is My Future?2. How Do People Differ?

These inter-related questions (and others) tie ancientphilosophy to contemporary personality psychology




Who Am I?

• Origins– Temple at Delphi… “Know Thyself”– Socrates…Interested only in self-knowledge

• Secondary Realization– It is hard to know oneself!– Unconscious influences

• Today– Implicit personality theory– Personality psychology




How and Why are People Different?

• Origins– Characterology: The literary study of different

personalities• Theophrastus: “The flatterer is a person who will say as he

walks with another, “Do you observe how others are looking at you? This happens to no man in Athens but you.”’

• Theophrastus (again): “The Garrulous man is one that will sit down close beside somebody he does not know, and begin talk with a eulogy of his own life, and then relate a dream he had the night before, and after that tell dish by dish what he had for supper. As he warms to his work he will remark that we are by no means the men we were, and there is a new ship in town, and…(description continues in orig.)”




How and Why are People Different? (Cont.)

• Origins (Continued)– Humoural Theory: The attempt to find biological bases

for individual differences • Developed by Hippocrates; Galen• Four Types

– Sanguine (even-tempered; blood)– Choleric (irritable; yellow-bile– Melancholic (depressed; black bile)– Phlegmatic (low energy; phlegm).




• Contemporary– Assessment of personality– Mental measurement– The study of individual differences

How and Why are People Different? (Cont.)




What Will My Future Be?

• Origins– Since the ancient oracle at Delphi, people

have wondered about their futures

• Contemporary– Personality psychology tells us

• given characteristic, x• how will x influence life outcomes?


What Is the Personality System?


Wundt’s Views: Psychology’s Job

• Wilhelm Wundt: Founder of experimental psychology

• The discipline of psychology studies various mental systems one by one– Sensation– Perception– Memory– Etc.




Wundt’s Views: Personality’s Job

Personality

Sensation and

Perception

Motives and

Emotion

Emotion and

Cognition

Sensation Perception Memory Emotion CognitionConscious-

ness




Analyzing Wundt’s Conception

• Personality is a system• A system is a set of

interrelated parts.• Examples of systems:

– The jewelry organizer (top, right)

– A boiler (to right)– Personality




Definition of Personality

Personality is the organized, developing, system within the individual that represents the collective action of that individual’s major psychological subsystems.

Self Control

ActionImplementation

Motives andEmotions

KnowledgeGuidance

Some Psychological Systems…




The Molecular Molar Continuum

Molar Sociology

Psychology

Biology

Chemistry

Molecular Physics




Personality Amidst Its Subsystems

Socio-logical Level

Groups Including or Interacting with Personality

Psycho-logical/Sym-bolicLevel

InternalPersonality

External Situation

Bio-logical Level

Nervous System Situational Elements


What Is the Field of Personality Psychology?


Occupations contributing to

personality psychology

Comparativebiologists

Researchers inartificial

intelligence

Educational psychologists

studyinglearning

stylesHuman

resource personnel

studying job performance

Psycho-therapists

interested in personality psychology

Professors who teach personalitypsychology


What Is the Field of Personality Psychology?


Most Common Training Programs

• Central Training– Ph.D. programs in Personality– Ph.D. programs in Personality and Social Psychology

• Related Training– Ph.D. programs in Clinical and Counseling

Psychology– M.B.A. & Ph.D. programs in Organizational Behavior– M.D. programs in Psychiatry – Ed.D. programs in Educational Psychology


Why Study Personality Psychology?


Rationale for Studying Personality Psychology

• Knowledge for knowledge’s sake

• Applications to assessment

• Applications to prediction and selection

• Applications to change


How Is This Course Organized?


Early Field-Wide Personality Frameworks

• Field-wide frameworks provide an outline of a discipline and what it studies• Earlier frameworks in personality psychology:

– 1958-1968: Theory by Theory approach • Freud• Jung• Sullivan• Cattell • Rogers• Maslow

– 1968-1998, Theoretical Perspective by Perspective approach • Psychodynamic• Humanistic• Trait• Social-Cognitive

– Problems with these approaches: • Different theorists (or perspectives) conflicted• An emphasis on theory often overlooked relevant research which didn’t fit neatly into a

theory




New Field-Wide Frameworks of Personality

• The Systems Framework for Personality Psychology (e.g., Mayer, 1997) – What is personality?– What are its parts?– How is it organized?– How does it develop?

• McAdams’ (1996) Levels of Knowing – What is personality?– What are a person’s traits? (the psychology of the stranger)– What are a person’s current concerns?– What is a person’s life story? (the most personal knowledge)




The Four Topics of this Course

• The four topics follow the systems framework for personality psychology

• The four topics:1. Identifying the personality system

• Introduction• Theory and research

2. Parts of personality• Here, you may feel interested…but frustrated by fragmentation• Many small parts to cover

3. Personality organization• We will pull the parts together by examining structure• Look at dynamics

4. Personality development• Provides a second way to pull together what we have learned• Speaks to a person’s past and future




~Enjoy the Course!~

getting started copyright © 2007 allyn & bacon mayers personality: a systems approach part 1:...

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