Social - Nomothetic vs. Idiographic Personality Theories PDF

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Personality theories - individual psychology ...

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Nomothetic vs. Idiographic Personality Theories Nomothetic Personality Theories Nomothetic  

Looking for general patterns o Similarities and differences Comparing large numbers

Multi-trait Theories - personality affects behaviour for all situations What are personality traits? (Allemand, Steiger & Hill, 2013) 

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‘Personality traits are defined as relatively enduring patterns of behaviour, thought and feeling that are consistent across a wide variety of situations and contexts (Roberts, 2009) ‘Traits describe the most basic and general dimensions upon which individuals are typically perceived to differ’

Traits vs. states  

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Trait of anxiety: ‘the disposition to respond with anxiety to situations that are perceived as threatening’ (Spielberger & Gorsuch, 1966) State of anxiety: ‘a condition of the organism characterised by subjective feelings of apprehension and heightened autonomic nervous system activity’ (Spielberger & Gorsuch, 1966) Anybody at any time can be in a state of anxiety, except some people have a predisposition to be more anxious than the general population

Multi-trait fundamentals  

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Normally distributed Key questions o Structure amongst different traits? o Which are related? o Which are more basic? Factor analysis o Factors arrive and bunch together in clusters which can be named and identified

Cattell’s trait theory   

Bottom up theory o Observed life and derived a theory from observations Allport & Odbert (1936) factor analysed 16 personality factors (PF) = 16 ‘source traits’ (Cattell, 1966). Those highest on the list… 1. Reserved vs. warm 2. Concrete-reasoning vs. abstract-reasoning 3. Reactive vs. emotionally stable 4. Deferential vs. dominant 5. Serious vs. lively 6. Expedient vs. rude-conscientious 7. Shy vs. socially-bold 8. Utilitarian vs. sensitive 9. Trusting vs. vigilant 10. Practical vs. imaginative 11. Forthright vs. private

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

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12. Self-assured vs. apprehensive 13. Traditional vs. open to change 14. Group-orientated vs. self-reliant 15. Tolerates disorder vs. perfectionist 16. Relaxed vs. tense Since then, it has been revised 4 times with the most recent 5th version, the 16PF5 (1993) o Factors have been supported by 60+ studies, e.g. Hofer & Eber (2002), Aluga & Black (2004) o Still in use, e.g. Booth & Irwing (2011)

Eysenck’s trait theory 

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Top down theory o Generated a theory from previous theories and then observed the theory in practise in real life  Hippocrates & Galen: Melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine (4 types of humour) and Jung (1933): Extroversion & introversion ‘Type’ dimensions o Extroversion-introversion o Emotional stability-neuroticism  Two dimension became four quadrants UNSTABLE

Moody, anxious, rigid, unsociabl e, quiet INTROVERT ED

Sober, pessimist ic, reserved

Touchy, restless, aggressi ve

Melancholi Choleric c

Excitable, changeable, impulsive, optimistic, active EXTROVERT ED

PhlegmaticSanguine

Passive, careful, Reliable, thoughtful even, peaceful, tempered, controlled calm

Responsiv e, easySociable, going, outgoing, lively, talkative carefree, leadershi p

STABLE Eysenck: The basis of personality (biological and hereditary) 

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Hereditary extroversion-introversion o Reticular activating system (RAS): Extroverts habitually have low cortisol arousal so they seek strong stimuli. Introverts habitually have high cortical arousal so they avoid strong stimuli o Conditioning: Introverts are easily conditioned whereas extroverts are conditioned with difficulty, slowly and weakly Hereditary emotional stability-neuroticism

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

Autonomic nervous system (ANS): High neuroticism individuals have a strong and fast reaction to stress whereas low neuroticism features weak and slow reactions to stress o Not all biological – some environmental effects too Psychoticism: a 3rd dimension (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1976) o Traits include: Aggressive, impersonal, unemphatic, cold, impulsive, creative, egocentric, antisocial, tough-minded o

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Eysenck’s theory today? 

Personality research has developed beyond Eysenck but his theory is still celebrated as historically important and elements are still relevant today, e.g. Evans & Wilson (2016)

The ‘Big Five’ 

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Five traits are consistently found as opposed to the 16 of Cattell’s theory although there is a disagreement on names of these traits o Fiske (1949) o Norman (1963) o Goldberg (1990) o Costa & McCrae (1992) - OCEAN  Openness to experience (culture – Norman, 1963)  Conscientiousness  Extraversion  Agreeableness  Neuroticism (emotional stability – Norman, 1963) Popular in the 21st century recent work o Jones (2015) o Luyckx, Teppers, Klimstra & Rassart (2014) o Furnham & Thorne (2013)

Situationism – situation affects behaviour for all people   

Behaviour is not consistent across situations Mischel (1968): SLT and situationism Situation is more important than personality on impacting behaviour

A criticism – Funder & Ozer (1983) 

Situations are no better than traits at predicting differences in behaviour o Situation explains 30% variance and personality explains 30% variance o This only equates to 60% - there are still 40% other influences o Interactionism is needed

Interactionism – situation & personality interact   

Situationism: situation affects behaviour for all people Trait theory: personality affects behaviour for all situations Interactionism: situation & personality interact

Four levels of interaction 1. Effect strength: traits can vary strength of an effect o Hodges (1968) on anxiety and stress: whether individuals have trait anxiety or not, simply everybody experiences an increase in state anxiety when given a stressful situation associated with failure, although those with high trait anxiety become significantly more anxious than those with low trait anxiety

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

2. Opposing effects: traits reverse direction of an effect o Extroversion-introversion and talkativeness example: in a low stress situation, extroverts are only a little more talkative than introverts, but in high stress situations, introverts may draw within themselves and become less talkative whereas extroverts may become ‘scatty’ and become even more talkative than before 3. Choice effects o Different personality > choose different situations 4. Participation effects o Different personality > others behave differently > different situations

Observer has expectancy about target

Observer acts in a certain way towards target

Target responds

Observer interprets target's response

Constructivism – focusses highly on participation effects 

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Personality is constructed out of the beliefs of society, actors and others o Hampson (1988; 1995) o Snyder & Swann (1978) o Fazio, Effrein & Falender (1981) Five steps to the confirmation of expectancies (Darley & Fazio, 1980) o In real life, this happens even more: two-way o Impression management o Negotiation & construction Multiple building blocks

Social & I

Target interprets their own response

Idiographic Personality Theories – Phenomenological Theories Idiographic   

Unique structure Individual by individual Often therapy orientated

Phenomenology    

Subjective experience: ‘phenomenon’ is an observed or people’s perceptions of a fact/event Self-determination and free-will Adults now: not past childhood or about heredity Humanistic: people are inherently good and self-perfecting

Self-actualisation theory (Rogers, 1951)   

Actualisation: inborn drive for fullest potential Self-actualisation: drive towards wholeness, known of as ‘congruence’ Have reached the goal when you are a fully functioning person

Positive regard (Rogers, 1951)    

Humans need positive regard: acceptance, love, friendship of others If unconditional positive regard is given by parents to children, we have an unconditional self-regard Conditional positive regard Conditions of worth begin from others and become internalised

Conflict between self-actualisation and the need for positive regard 

Striving to meet others’/own conditions of worth is an obstacle to attaining true potential o E.g. wanting to grow as a person by moving away from home but also wanting to please others and stay with family to look after them as this is what they expect from you

Non-directive/client-centred therapy (Rogers, 1951)     

Therapy is a place of unconditional positive regard Therapy is free of conditions of worth Work through problems Lead to self-actualisation Examples of recent use o Bazzano (2012) o Murphy, Cramer & Joseph (2012) o Moerman (2012)

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1970)   

Focuses on self-actualisation in a hierarchy of other needs Hierarchy is in pyramid form comprising of primitive and most demanding needs and also distinctly human and least demanding needs Transcendence was added afterwards

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

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Selfactualisation is an intrinsic drive but is often blocked by lower needs Interested in self-actualising people

Characteristics of frequent self-actualisers (Carver & Scheier, 1996)            

Are efficient and accurate in perceiving reality Accept themselves, others and the world as they are Are spontaneous and natural in thought and emotion, rather than artificial Are problem-centred e.g. concerned with philosophical issues Are independent of their culture and environment Preserve a childlike freshness of appreciation and creativity Experience ‘oceanic feelings’ – being at one with the universe Identify with humanity as a whole and have respect and compassion for others Form deep relationships with a select few Appreciate doing things for their own sake Have a philosophical and intellectual sense of humour Are guided by an inner vision: can mean they appear temperamental and even ruthless

Interaction of the innate, experience and perception 

Constantly interacting o Innate: hierarchy of needs o Experience of environment determined if we have food, shelter, love etc. o Perceptions determines if needs met e.g. perceptions of feared objects, others’ regard, beauty etc.

This decade – recent work   

Bayoumi (2012) Mousavi & Dargahi (2013) Noltemeyer, Bush, Patton & Bergen (2012)

Personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955)  

PCT: theory, philosophy and method Phenomenological: people’s experience of reality

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

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The need to organise and predict: organisation > prediction > behaviour

Person as a scientist    

Making sense of the world Understand through predictions/understandings – ‘constructs’ Personal constructs – unique Fundamental postulate: behaviour, thoughts and feelings determined by constructs

Constructs 

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Bipolar o Emergent = activated o Implicit poles = opposite emergent Construct as o A way in which two things are similar and thereby different from a third

Some characteristics of personal constructs    

‘Predictive efficiency’ – how good at predicting events ‘Range of convenience’ – how widely applicable ‘Focus of convenience’ – the core of what it is applicable to ‘Permeability’ – how good at applying to new things

Systems of constructs  

Hierarchical organisation Openness to change

The personalness of personal constructs   

Constructs different for different people and over time Different organisation Challenges trait approaches o Analyst’s list of traits – not individuals o Meaning of trait labels differ for every person o Organisation (into 2 super-traits, for example) = analyst’s, not individual’s

Repertory Grids (‘Repgrids’) 

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Many possible elements: o Personality characteristics o Other characteristics of people o Things o Events o Situations o Beliefs etc. Flexibility – used in: o Therapy o Market research o Training Advantages: o Personal fit o Flexibility o Multiple methods of analysis  Qualitative  Computer based (e.g. Bringmann, 1992)

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

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Disadvantages: o Need to articulate o Choice of constructs by  Ease of access  Ease of explanation  Not necessarily importance

This decade – recent work   

Hare, Searson & Knowles (2011) Sharma, Winter & McCarthy (2013) Young (2011)

Kelly and cognitive psychology   

Phenomenology People’s experience of reality Highly cognitive  Idiographic Personality Theories – Phenomenological Theories Idiographic Personality Theories – Psychoanalytic Theories

Sigmund Freud The components of personality - Levels of consciousness (1923)   

The conscious – currently aware The preconscious – not currently aware but little effort The unconscious – no direct access and once in, never out again

The components of personality – Id, Ego & Superego ( 

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The Id o Biological drives and instincts o Entirely unconscious o Pleasure principle The Ego o Dealing with reality – reality principle o Conscious, preconscious and unconscio The Superego o Morals, ethics, ego-ideal and conscienc o Conscious, preconscious and unconscio

Conscious SUPERE GO

Unconsciou s ID

The stages of psychosexual development (1905)  Fixation leads to personality type – can overindulge or be deprived 1. The oral stage: pleasure from the mouth – sucking and biting o Overindulged: optimistic, trusting, manipulative o Deprived: pessimistic, sarcastic, argumentative 2. The anal stage: pleasure from anus – toilet training o Anal expulsive: messy, generous, hostile o Anal retentive: misery, rigid, obsessed 3. The phallic stage: pleasure from masturbation o The Oedipus Complex:  Love for mother leads to sexual desire for her  Leads to hostility to father and castration anxiety  Hostility leads to fear

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

EGO

 Transformed to identification of father which allows the development of the superego and ego-ideal (moral compass develops and learn how to act appropriately as a male) o The Electra Complex:  Love for father leads to sexual desire for him  Leads to penis envy and hostility towards mother  Hostility leads to fear  Transformed to identification with mother which allows the development of the superego and ego-ideal (moral compass develops and learn how to act appropriately as a woman) 4. The latency period: attention to the external world 5. The genital stage: sexuality directed at sexual partner Anxiety and the mechanisms of defence (1917)         

Anxiety: warning mechanism Repression: a lid on negative energy Denial: unconscious refusal to believe Rationalisation: find reason after action. Is unconscious, so not an excuse Displacement: move to safer target Sublimation: socially acceptable displacement Projection: self leads to other-belief Reaction formation: conversion to opposite. Often displayed by over the top behaviour, e.g. over-protective mothers Regression: revert to stages fixated at

Defence mechanisms lead to personality 

Not ‘personality traits’ like fixations but can be stable habits o Sublimation – sporty o Projection – bigoted

Psychoanalysis today  

Still alive and strong – still being practised Numerous journals o Psychoanalytic Psychology o Psychoanalytic Inquiry o Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy o The psychoanalytic Quarterly

Freud critiqued  

Not empirically testable/verifiable Observed sample were o Clinical populations o Victorians – over 100 years ago o Vienna  Different culture to nowadays – cannot directly apply to people now

Carl Jung  

Worked with Freud – his disciple BUT disagreed with Freud and his work was rejected by Freud and Freudians o ‘Freud’s teaching is definitely one-sided in that it generalised from facts that are relevant to neurotic states of mind; its validity is really confined to those states’ -Jung, 1933

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

Instead focussed on the positive aspects of humans: ‘I prefer to look at man in the light of what in him is healthy and sound.’ -Jung, 1933  Sexual urge is not as important as Freud said it to be. Problems with sexual urge was exaggerated because of Victorian damming up (1933)  Aims and aspirations are just as important: Attainment of self-hood, striving for grown and creative self-actualisation Freud did not allow for anyone else to use his term ‘psychoanalysis’, so Jung names his ‘Analytical Psychology’ o

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Components of personality   

Ego Personal unconscious Collective unconscious o Archetypes

Psychological types (1971)  

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Based on contrasting preferences Orientations o Introversion – looks inwards o Extroversion – looks outwards  One dominant orientation with the other underdeveloped but still present – have a bit of both, not one or the other Perception processes o Sensing o Intuition Judging processes o Thinking o Feeling Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a psychometric tool

Alfred Adler Five basic Adlerian principles (Dreikurs, 1950) 1. Socially embedded  Unlike Freud who thought humans were consistently focussed on themselves, Adler says humans have an inherent social interest and community feeling (1939)  Humans are social beings and strive to belong  Contrasts with biological/hereditarian view 2. Self-determining  We decide what happens – we are decision makers  We can change out reaction to things  Contrasts with mechanistic/deterministic view 3. Goal-directed  Pulled by goals, not pushed by causes  Goals are called ‘finalisms’ (1930)  Fictional goals (guiding fictions) are what we strive towards. They provide us with security/safety and importance/significance  Contrasts with causal view

Social & Individual Psychology – Lecture 9a & 9b

4. Subjective  Truth is not absolute – it is determined by how we feel about it  Contrasts with absolutist view 5. Holistic  Whole – more than sum of its parts  Dividing into parts misses essence of the person o E.g. dividing it into the Id, Ego and Superego  ‘Individual’ psychology, whereby individual means indivisible o Journal of Individual Psychology  Contrasts with reductionist view Striving for superiority 

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Central human goal/finalism is superiority, also called (Mosak, 2000) o Completion o Perfection o Self-realisation o Self-actualisation o Competence o Mastery  BECOME THE BEST VERSION OF ONESELF When one becomes too obsessed with superiority, they can begin to feel inferior o Inferiority complex leads to personality configuration

Personality as lifestyle/style of life (1931)   

Cognitive style/approach to problems and tasks Organising principle guiding us o Not how we use the word today Lifestyle forms the lens which ‘selects what information it allows to enter, what it wi...