Chapter 6: Personality

Objectives of this Chapter

• On the completion of this section the students will be able
to:
-define personality in their words
-identify the kinds of personality theory
-explain the ultimate goal of personality
theory
-discuss central assumptions of each theory
of personality
-identify sub theories under some types of
personality theories
-explain the underlining assumptions of
each of the sub theories of personality
-identify the methods of assessing
personality in each personality theory.
 Definition
• Dwaretzky (1988) defined personality as “The
organization of relatively enduring
characteristics unique to an individual as
revealed by individual’s interaction with
his/her environment”
• It is a consistent behavior of an individual that
remains fairly stable under varying conditions.
• To a psychologist personality is the whole
person.
• It encompasses such behavior as:
-intelligence, -abnormality,
-motivation, -cognition, and
-learning, -even social interactions
-emotion,
• In describing someone’s personality, we might
refer to any of these behaviors.
• We might say that someone is:
-intelligent, -humored,
-friendly, -eager to learn,
-good, -abnormal.
How is Personality Studied?
• Historically, investigators of personality have
attempted to study people by grouping them
into types (according to their behavioral
differences).
 Theories of Personality
• Once these personality types had been
described, however, researchers began to
question as to what created the personality in
the first place.
• In the attempt to answer this question, many
personality theories are developed.
• Each of these theories attempts to explain
why certain personality develops.
 The Theory of Personality Type

I. Hypocrites’ Theory of Personality Type

• Hypocrites (460-377 B.C) was Greek physician.
• According to him, there are four personality
types namely,
-melancholic temperament,
-phlegmatic temperament,
-sanguine temperament, and
-choleric temperament.
A. Melancholic temperament
• Persons with such temperament said to be sad
individuals.
• This type of temperament is said to be the
result of too much black bile
B. Phlegmatic temperament

• Persons with such temperament are

listless/tired, submissive, indecisive,
calm/introverts.
• They live to please others, avoid conflicts,
accomplish tasks on time,
• Resulted from much body phlegm/mucus
C. Sanguine Temperament

• People with such temperament are content

and optimistic about their future. Such
personality type is said to be the result of too
much blood
D. Choleric temperament
• Individuals with this temperament are easy to
anger.
• This temperament is said to be the result of
too much yellow bile
N.B. These body fluids were collectively called
humoxs.
II. Sheldem’s Theory of Personality Type
• According to Sheldem, individuals are
classified on the basis of a correlation between
physique (body type) and personality.
• The three physiques are:
-endomorph,
-mesomorph, and
-ectomorph.
• A. Endomorph
• Such persons are:
- broad or thick in proportion to height,
- round, and
- have fairly weak (soft) muscles and
bones.
• They are said to have overdeveloped
digestion.
• The corresponding temperament is
viscerotonic, which means:
- relaxed,
- sociable, and
- loves to eat.
• Such individuals may find vigorous sports
unconformable and thus may avoid them
B. Mesomorph
• People with such appearance are characterized by a
predominance of muscle and strong bone as in the
athlete.
• The corresponding temperament is somatonic, meaning:
- energetic,
- assertive, and
- courageous.
• Individuals with this temperament may excel in sport and
frequently take part in sport activities.
C. Ectomorph
• People with physical appearance are relatively
thin, long and fragile.
• They are physically weak with large brain and
sensitive nervous system.
• The corresponding temperament is cerebrotonic
which means:
- restrained,
- fearful,
- introversive,
- and artistic.
• Such people may learn at an early age that they are
weaker than others do and consequently may
become fearful and introverted.
N.B. -The problem with this theory is the possible
subjectivity of the observer and raters. That is,
because many people think of:
- fat individuals as jolly,
- thin ones as restrained (self-controlled), and
- muscular ones as athletic, raters may
emphasize these characteristics regardless of
subject’s actual behavior.
 -Hence, the observed correlation between
the body type and the behavior could be due to
this bias instead of assumed cause-effect
relationship between the two.
III. Jung’s Theory of Personality Type
• Another modern theory of personality type
was developed by Carl Jung (1875-1961), a
Swiss psychiatrist.
• He classified people into two types- introverts
and extroverts:
A. Introverts
• Introverts are:
-socially withdrawn (tend to avoid social
contact),
-emotionally reserved, and
-self absorbed individuals.
B. Extroverts
• Extroverts are outgoing and try to interact with
people as often as possible; they are also
generous and focus on external events.
N.B. The weakness of the personality type
theories is that it oversimplifies the complex
nature of people. That is, people may behave
differently under different situations and as a
result it was found so difficult to type individuals.
The Trait Theories
• A trait is distinguishing quality, property, or
attribute of person that consistently displayed.
• It is a predisposition to respond to many types of
stimuli in the same manner.
• It includes words (adjectives) that describe others
and us all time.
• These trait words (adjectives) are listed below.
(Dworetzky, 1988)p.417)
Moody Passive Thoughtful Excitable
Sociable Touchy Talkative Active
Anxious Careful Sober Outgoing
Restless Peaceful Responsive Rigid
Pessimistic Controlled Easygoing Lively
Changeable Reserved Reliable Carefree
Unsociable Impulsive Optimistic Calm
Even-tempered
I. Allport Trait Theory
• According to Allport, each person has certain
consistent aspects or” predisposition to
respond to environmental stimuli in certain
ways” (Dworetzky, 1988).
• One might make one person angry might make
another laugh because of the way the two
people are predisposed to respond (due to their
personality difference).
• Allport recognized that traits differ in the degree
of endurance and generality i.e. some are more
endurable/acceptable and general than the
others.
• Accordingly he identified three classes of traits:
-Cardinal traits,
-Central traits, and
-Secondary traits.
A. Cardinal Traits
• Cardinal traits are most general and enduring
ones.
• For a trait to be cardinal, it must be overriding
factor in person’s life.
• E.g. Hitler was overridden by hatred.
• Cardinal traits are observed only in few people
B. Central Traits
• Central traits are far more common, less
enduring, and less general than cardinal traits.
• They are basic units that make up personality.
• That is, they are behavioral or personality
tendencies that are highly characteristics of a
given individual and easy to infer.
• Only few central traits, perhaps, five or ten, can
give accurate description of an individual.
 C. Secondary Trait
• Secondary traits are what we call attitudes.
• They are far less enduring and less general
than are central traits and are not crucial as
central traits for describing personality.
• They are not demonstrated often because
they are related to only a few stimuli and few
responses.
• N.B. The drawback of Allport trait theory is
that it holds the view that no two people have
similar traits. But still there are many people
with similar traits.
II. Cattell's Trait Theory
• R. Cattell (1950) emphasized the need for
statistical analysis such as factor analysis to
isolate different traits, though absolute isolation
is impossible.
• He wanted to know how traits are organized and
how they are related to one another
• In his work he classified personality traits into
two, namely surface traits and source traits
A. Surface Traits
• These are the traits that can be identified
through simple observation
B. Source traits
• These traits are those that can be identified
only through factor analysis.
• According to Cattell, personality can be reduced to 16
source traits, which are recently more reduced to 5 traits
by researcher.
• These are:
-emotional stability,
-extroversive,
-openness,
-agreeableness, and
-conscientiousness.
These traits are more important than the surface traits.
N.B. One of the problems with trait theory is
that it can not make clear which traits are the
most enduring and general.
• Many personality traits may be situation
dependent.
• E.g. A person who is dominant in some
situation may be submissive in others.
• In summary, although the trait approach
enjoys a certain popular appeal, it remains a
descriptive rather than explanatory approach,
and it has not done a good job of predicting
the wide range of human behavior
encountered in different situation (Pervin, in
Dworetzky, 1988).
The Psychoanalysis Theory of Personality
• This theory was formulated by S. Freud, who
emphasized the hidden or unconscious thought
or desire as governing human behavior.
• To study the hidden desire (behaviors) of
human beings he developed the techniques like
free association and dream analysis
(interpretation).
The three parts of Personality
• Freud divided human personality into three parts,
namely the:
-id,
-ego, and
-superego.
• According to him id and ego are present at birth
while superego develops through experience, with
the culture.
A. The id
• It is the aspect of personality concerned with
primitive reactions.
• It is a reservoir of instinctive drives (motives)
for immediate gratification with little regard
for the consequence of action.
• That is, it ruthlessly and relentlessly drives the
organisms toward pleasure with no objective
knowledge of reality of life. It follows pleasure
principle.
• B. The ego
• This is conscious part of the personality that
regulates the impulses of the id in order to
meet the demands of reality and maintain
social approval and self – esteem, i.e. it is the
way of behaving and thinking realistically.
• It functions according to a reality principle.
C. The superego
• It is a part of the personality that represents the
internalized ideals, thus providing standards for
judgement (conscience) and for future aspiration.
• In other words it incorporates social standard of
morality – social and traditional values.
• As a result, it imposes restriction and keeps a
person working toward the ideals acquired earlier.
• E.g. When id insists to take the money from
the bank, superego imposes strong restriction
b/c stealing is socially forbidden (immoral).
• The main function of ego is mediating
between the demands of id and superego and
reality
Behaviorist Theory of personality
• Fundamentally behaviorists believe that anything
not directly observable has no place in an
objective science.
• As a result, they do not accept the idea that
internal process such as drives and other
motivational factors control personality.
• They believe that conditioning is responsible for
the development of personality.
• According to them, the complex social
interaction and aspects of personality are due
to the history of classical and operant
conditioning unique to each individual.
• Again behaviorists do not consider traits to
have root within the person.
• They believe traits are the products of
environment forces and learning.
• They argue that some traits seem stable
because the environments in which individuals
live often are stable for a long period of time.
• According to them, hence, if the environment
is sufficiently manipulated, then aspects of
personality that have appeared to endure will
disappear and quickly will be replaced by
others
• Hence, in the views of behaviorist theory,
behavior is controlled by stimulus conditions
and it is not necessary to form hypothesis
about internal process like motives, trait or
conflicts.
Social Learning Theory
• The advocates of this theory (like Bandura)
argue that personality is shaped not only by
environmental experiences on the person but
also by the person’s ability to influence the
environment.
• According to this group, thinking is an
important determinant of behavior.
• Personality learning theorists like Rotter
believe that most important variable in
determining personality are the person’s
expectations concerning future outcomes of
behavior and the value of different
reinforcements that might occur in particular
situation.
• In other words, a person’s behavior depends
on what he/she expects the outcomes of any
particular action to be and what those
outcomes are worth.
• So social learning theorists do not accept the
concept of traits – stable aspect of a
personality.
• In summary, behavioral and social learning
theorists believe that individual’s personality
depends upon situations or their expectation.
• On the other hand, trait and psychoanalytic
theorists believe that personality is stable
across many situations and shaped by
underlining predisposition and motivational
forces.
Humanistic Approach to personality
• The central focus of all humanistic theories of
personality is the concept of self.
• Self refers to individual’s own personal internal
experience and subjective evaluation of the
world.
• They reject the idea that traits or unconscious
motivation and conflicts are important forces in
the development of personality.
• In stead, they argue that human beings are
endowed with free will and free choice.
• Similarly they reject the idea that
environmental forces are the major
determinants of personality.
• Humanistic personality theorists also believe
that for each person there is no objective
world.
• To them, there is only subjective or personal
experience of the world, which depends on
his/her self –concept, attitudes, and believes.
• They argue that to understand anyone’s
personality we must know how he/she
perceives the world.