Personality theories

• Mnemonic for big 5 category traits is OCEAN
• Big 5 categories are: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
• Trait theory of personality states tha personality is relatively stable
• Biological theory of personality states that we receive temperament from our parents via heredity
• To measure biological contribution of something (nature vs nurture), the most common type of study used are twin study and adoption study
• In twin study, we compare monozygotic or identical twins (share 1 placenta) with dizygotic or fraternal twins (have separate placentas)
• Epigenetics describe how environment can affect gene expression
• Freud developed a psychoanalytic theory of personality
• As per Freud, id is a primitive you, avoids pain, disregards social norms, innate
• As per Freud, superego is your conscience and moral sense, how you should behave ideally
• As per Freud, ego works to resolve the conflict between other 2 of your personalities
• Freud encouraged psychodynamic therapy which focuses on mental and emotional processes (not behavior)
• Behaviourist theory of personality states that we are not born with a complete personality, but rather personality is developed over time by experimenting with different behaviors
• Social cognitive theory of personality states that we can consciously choose certain behaviors that will shape our personality by engaging in observational learning
• Humanistic theory of personality is promoted by Carl Rogers and emphasizes that conscious decisions define personality and it can change over time
• Rogers believed that optimal personality is when person's real, ideal and perceived selves overlap
• Situational approach to personality states that behavior does not depend on your internal world but rather on the external world and can change situationally, but you have consistent patterns of interpreting situations
• Personality are set of internal characteristics that make up how we behave
• Identity is a set of internal characteristics that make up how we see ourselves
• Self-identity is a function of 3 attributes: self-knowledge, self-esteem and social identity
• Self-knowledge is the information used to answer the question "what am i like" or schema about oneself
• Self-esteem is like a self-concept or a value judgement of oneself
• Social identity is one's perception of one's role in social groups and society
• Self-efficacy is the feeling of being capable of accomplishing goals which is attributed to the locus of control
• When you have internal locus of control, it is you having control over outcomes
• When you have external locus of control, it is luck, fate, chance etc determining the outcomes
• Looking glass self is a concept developed by Charles Cooley who believed that one's sense of self develops based on your persceptions of how others see you and everyone with whom you interact will influence that
• Mead thought that only certain people in certain periods of life will influence person's slef concept
• Mead developed social behaviourism which is the idea that mind and self emerge through communication with others BUT infants and children are not influenced by others at all, only imitate them
• Social behaviourism states that as we grow we start understanding how we are perceived by others and it happens in 3 stages: preparatory, play and game
• In preparatory stage of social behaviourism, infants imitate others
• In play stage of social behaviourism, children engage in pretend play and do role-playing, meaning they can cognitively perceive perspectives of others, but they model everyone non-discriminatory
• In game stage of social behaviourism, people start to understand the generalized other's beliefs, behaviours etc, and in the end they learn to be influenced by attitudes only of significant others
• Generlized other is basically a society as a whole
• In social behaviourism, as a child moves from play to game stage, I and Me separate, where Me is is the part that conforms to societal beliefs and I is the part that is non-conforming and does what is best for one self
• Attribution theory explores how we assign causes of others behavior
• Dispositional attribution is the tendency to attribute behaviour to a person's personality or internal factors
• Situational attribution is the tendency to attribute behaviour to external factors rather than to personality
• Actor-observer bias is the tendency to attribute our behavior to situational causes and attribute behavior of others to dispositional causes
• Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to favor dispositional attributions over situational when making comments about someone's behavior