Psychology ch-2

• Self


  The totality of an individual's conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings with regard to herself or himself
• Personal identity


  Attributes of a person that make her/him different from others
• Social identity


  Aspects of a person that link her/him to a social or cultural group or are derived from it
• Self as subject


  The self described as a 'knower' or 'actor'
• Self as object


  The self described as something that can be 'known'
• Kinds of self

  • Biological self
  • Personal self
  • Social self
• Self-concept


  The way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies and attributes
• Self-esteem


  The value judgment a person makes about their own worth
• Self-efficacy


  The belief in one's ability to control life outcomes
• Self-regulation


  The ability to organise and monitor one's own behaviour
• Self-control


  The ability to delay or defer the gratification of needs
• Culture


  Influences various aspects of self
• Analysis of self in Indian cultural context reveals features distinct from Western cultural context
• After reading this chapter, you would be able to:

  describe the concept of self and learn some ways for self-regulation of behaviour,

  explain the concept of personality,

  differentiate between various approaches to the study of personality,

  develop insight into the development of a healthy personality, and

  describe some techniques for personality assessment.
• Self-instruction


  Instructing ourselves to do something and behave the way we want to
• Self-reinforcement


  Rewarding behaviours that have pleasant outcomes
• Self-instruction and self-reinforcement are techniques that have been tried out and found quite effective with respect to self-regulation and self-control
• Self and Group Boundaries in Western and Indian Cultural Perspectives


  • In the Western view, the boundary between self and other appears to be relatively fixed
  • In the Indian view, the boundary between self and other is characterised by a shifting nature
• • In the Western culture, the self and the group exist as two different entities with clearly defined boundaries
  • In the Indian culture, the self is generally not separated from one's own group; rather both remain in a state of harmonious co-existence
• Personality


  Our characteristic ways of responding to individuals and situations
• Personality is characterised by: 1) It has both physical and psychological components, 2) Its expression in terms of behaviour is fairly unique in a given individual, 3) Its main features do not easily change with time, 4) It is dynamic in the sense that some of its features may change due to internal or external situational demands
• Understanding personality allows us to deal with people in realistic and acceptable ways
• Personality-related Terms

  • Temperament
  • Trait
  • Disposition
  • Character
  • Habit
  • Values
• Psychologists distinguish between type and trait approaches to personality
• Type Approaches


  • Attempt to comprehend human personality by examining certain broad patterns in the observed behavioural characteristics of individuals
  • Each behavioural pattern refers to one type in which individuals are placed in terms of the similarity of their behavioural characteristics with that pattern
• Trait Approach


  • Focuses on the specific psychological attributes along which individuals tend to differ in consistent and stable ways
• The interactional approach holds that situational characteristics play an important role in determining our behaviour
• Personality Typologies

  • Hippocrates' four types (sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic and choleric)
  • Charak Samhita's three types (vata, pitta and kapha)
  • Trigunas (sattva, rajas, and tamas)
  • Sheldon's three types (endomorphic, mesomorphic, and ectomorphic)
  • Jung's two types (introverts and extraverts)
  • Friedman and Rosenman's two types (Type-A and Type-B)
  • Morris' Type-C personality
  • Type-D personality
• Personality typologies are usually very appealing, but are too simplistic. Human behaviour is highly complex and variable. Assigning people to a particular personality type is difficult.
• Trait Approach


  • Traits are relatively stable over time, generally consistent across situations, and their strengths and combinations vary across individuals leading to individual differences in personality
• Allport's Trait Theory


  Individuals possess a number of traits, which are dynamic in nature and determine behaviour in such a manner that an individual approaches different situations with similar plans<|>Traits integrate stimuli and responses which otherwise look dissimilar
• Allport's Categorisation of Traits

  • Cardinal traits
  • Central traits
  • Secondary traits
• Allport considered traits more like intervening variables that occur between the stimulus situation and the response
• Cardinal traits


  Traits that indicate the goal around which a person's entire life seems to revolve. Examples: Mahatma Gandhi's non-violence, Hitler's Nazism
• Central traits


  Less pervasive in effect, but still quite generalised dispositions. Examples: warm, sincere, diligent
• Secondary traits


  The least generalised characteristics of a person. Examples: likes mangoes, prefers ethnic clothes
• Allport acknowledged the influence of situations on behaviour, but held that the way a person reacts to given situations depends on their traits
• Allport considered traits more like intervening variables that occur between the stimulus situation and response of the person
• Primary/source traits


  Stable, building blocks of personality identified by Cattell through factor analysis
• Surface traits


  Result out of the interaction of source traits