Case Study Subira personality evaluation PDF

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Case study Subira, the Big Five, personality psychology, extroversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, behaviour, McCrae & Costa...

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Personality Psychology Assignment – Case Study 2 Aly Daragay 100656037 PSYC 3060U – Personality Psychology University of Ontario Institute of Technology For Shannon Vettor

2 The Big Five is a model for measuring personality traits and has been a major focus on personality research. The Big Five often used “compiling lists of outcomes associated with personality (Funder, 2015, p. 202).” The big five traits: extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism, are used to predict outcomes such as career success, cognitive ability, partner pairing and most importantly human personality and psychology as a whole (Funder, 2015). Further on in this paper we will discuss what McCrae and Costa believe to be the characteristics of the Big Five. Extraversion: According to McCreae and Costa, extroverts are individuals who can be described as cheerful, optimistic, someone who loves social events, and is always on the go. Extroverts are the “life of the party” and are comfortable around social events; they make friends easily and take charge of situations. Part of the reason why extroverts are most sociable is because social activity makes them happy. When they have money they are likely to spend it on new experiences such as food, travel, company and other positive experiences rather than material things (Funder, 2015). In contrast, extroverts are people who cannot manage their time affectively and they often accumulate debt (Vettor, 2019). Given Subira’s lifestyle, Subira is an extrovert. She exhibits herself as a social individual even though she is much more reserved with her friends and boyfriend, Gordon. She loves to act; something an extrovert would do, seeming, as actors are typically “the star of the show.” She desperately wants to make it into Broadway, a place where she needs to be in the limelight. She even works at a trendy restaurant bar in Manhattan, which suggests that she loves to be in company. When she’s at work she would play very

3 gregarious and loud characters to practise for her auditions. She loves to try new things and new experiences as much as she can, but she also cannot afford it. Her debt, another extraversion trait, suggests that she tends to be buying things carelessly or goes out often and is attending to her itch for trying new experiences. Neuroticism: Individuals with neuroticism tend to have a wide variety of problems with themselves and the world around them. They may have an increased amount of anxiety or depression, and are likely to act negatively to social situations or stressful events, for example, if other people do not accept their ideas, they might shut down and act worrisome about what is going on (Funder, 2015 p. 205). Other factors are, unable to handle criticism, complain about nearly everything, unhappiness, anxiety and psychopathology (Funder, 2015). Subira is around middle to low on the dimension of neuroticism. Subira might feel that her true self is a loud outgoing individual, but she shadows it with self-doubts. Although she is very self-conscious about her appearance, she isn’t a hard woman to please. She seems to do things that make her happy like trying different types of foods and wandering the streets to observe the people she might be for the next character she plays. For someone who is beautiful, Subira has this deep insecurity about herself, and it is the belief that all actresses should look like Caucasian women. For her want to change her appearance completely seems like she is in constant battle with herself and beauty. Plastic surgeons talk usually talk with clients on the reasoning behind their surgery, and usually when a client says she wants to get plastic surgery because she or he simply doesn’t like her nose, she or he will never be happy with what they have (Jubilee, 2019).

4 Openness to experience: Openness to experience also called intellect, and is the most controversial of the Big Five. The factor on openness to experience is very wide and can mean the degree to which you can imagine, while it is also your level of intelligence, or conventionality. Some say it is the degree to which you are taught to value culture, art and literature (Vettor, 2019). This factor has many dimensions and overlap each other with different perspectives from critics because you can be open minded but it does not make you right. “McCrae and Costa (1997) also indicate you may be correct that you don’t have to be intelligent to be open to experience, but people high in openness are generally viewed as intelligent. People who have artistic interest such as singing, dance, art and theatre like Subira, are generally viewed as intelligent (Funder, 2015, p. 211). It is tricky to say whether Subira would score high on the dimension of openness to experience because many have their own extensive characteristics for what openness to experience actually mean. Subira is interested in other cultures and she implicates that in the way she dresses, with incorporating other cultures into her wardrobe such as African American and bohemian. She also spends her off days at Greenwich Village, wandering through the streets to observe people to try to develop new characters through her observations of people there. She would love to travel, see new cites and cultures, and generally, she tries to have many new experiences as possible to help in the development of her acting and her goal in making it into Broadway. In consideration of all of these factors, she challenges herself by thinking of new ways to come up with roles for characters, such as experiencing different foods from various cultures, dressing up

5 differently from how she would, and submerging herself in the public for inspiration, so Subira would score high on openness to experience. Agreeableness: The agreeableness trait is associated with conformity, friendly compliance, likeability, warmth and even love. This trait is associated with social groups, and over the course of time and evolution, you must survive in the company of people, and thus, it is an important factor to agree with one another and work together (Funder, 2015, p. 209). Agreeableness value working together and are more concerned about cooperation and social harmony. These are the people that want to get along with others and to compromise with others. People with high agreeableness are soaring with integrity, and believe the world and other individuals are honest, decent and trustworthy (Vettor, 2019). Whenever Subira’s friends come to her with problems she is always sympathetic and is always there to lend a hand when a friend is short on cash. Despite her tardiness with work and dates, her friends always know that Subira will always come through in a real crisis. She is loyal, caring and means well. She even tries to help out by taking her coworkers shifts at work although she forgets. Subira’s agreeableness is high and it shows by what her friends think of her. Even though she is tardy, her friends like her because she is not difficult to please. She seems to get along with the group and always complies with where her friends want to go.

6 Conscientiousness: Conscientiousness, also known as integrity, is a trait that values organization, cleanliness and ambition. People with high conscientiousness are always prepared and pay attention to the details, these people like order, like to get chores done right away and do things according to plan (Vettor, 2019). For example, someone who is high in conscientiousness performs better in med school because they might have a neat notebook and have a higher GPA scores. Subria is low in conscientiousness, and takes on more than she can handle. Although her ultimate goal is to become an actress on Broadway, she still has other priorities to account for. She goes to numerous acting classes, seminars and workshops, and is often too submerged in her attentiveness for acting, and she often forgets that she has work and does not show up. She is often late to dates with her friends and as well as her boyfriend Gordon. She is not very organized and because she has a lot going on, she often shows high impulsivity, for example, taking a co-workers shift, but not being able to deliver herself to work. This can also mean that her projects are often side tracked by scattered ideas and motivation (Vettor, 2019). All in all, Subria has a lack of rigidity and isn’t someone who plans their day carefully and is low in conscientiousness. How could McCrae and Costa explain some of the inconsistencies in Subira’s behaviour? According to McCrea and Costa, the inconsistencies in Subira’s behaviour are because of her desires, social acceptance and neuroticism. She makes acting her priority, and she puts it above all else. She makes sure that she is on time to her seminars,

7 workshops, and acting classes and stays till it is finished even if it means she might be late to her date with Gordon. Her conscientiousness tells us that she can only be responsible when it comes to her utmost desires, which in Subria’s case, is acting. Her extroversion and neuroticism propel her to become the person she always wanted to be, which is why she is takes the extra steps in making it to Broadway a come true (Watson, 2001). One of the reasons she takes extra shifts from work might be to make more money to afford the surgeries so she can look like the actress she believes to be successful. Subria is also quiet and more reserved around her friends, but when she is at work or at acting classes she tends to be more loud and gregarious, this is also another inconsistency in her behaviour. Neuroticism explains this behaviour and it is because the people around her accept her for who is on the outside and inside, but she still feels the need to change her appearance with plastic surgery—her boyfriend Gordon, definitely does not agree. Her anxiety causes her boyfriend a great concern, and it seems as though her anxiety with herself might be larger than it seems. She might be loud and gregarious around strangers, but around the people she actually knows, she can be self conscious in showing who she really wants to be and it’s the insecurity that hides her true character, which is why she desperately wants to change her looks.

8 References Funder, D.C. (2015). The Personality Puzzle 7th Edition. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. (pp. 200-211) Jubilee. (2019, Feb 17). Natural beauty vs cosmetic surgery: Is there middle ground?. [Video File] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cukT6xi-8Ro Vettor, S. (2019). Lecture 5 trait approach and the big give with audio. [Powerpointslides]. Retrieved from https://uoit.blackboard.com/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp? Watson, D. (2001). International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences. Neuroticism. pp. 10609-10612. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B008043076701771X?via%3Di hub...