PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Getting Started

What is Personality?

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PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Getting Started

Topics Covered
Questions of Personality What Is the Personality System? What Is the Field of Personality Psychology? Why Study Personality? How Is this Course Organized?

Copyright 2007 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Fundamental Questions of Personality

What Are Your Questions?

What Have You Wondered About Yourself? What Have You Wondered About Others? What Is Personality to You?

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Fundamental Questions of Personality

Three Big Questions

1. Who Am I?

2. How Do People Differ?

3. What is My Future?

These inter-related questions (and others) tie ancient philosophy to contemporary personality psychology
Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Fundamental Questions of Personality

Who Am I?
Origins
Temple at Delphi Know Thyself SocratesInterested only in self-knowledge

Secondary Realization
It is hard to know oneself! Unconscious influences

Today
Implicit personality theory Personality psychology
Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Fundamental Questions of Personality

How and Why are People Different?

Origins
Characterology: The literary study of different personalities
Theophrastus: The flatterer is a person who will say as he walks with another, Do you observe how others are looking at you? This happens to no man in Athens but you. Theophrastus (again): The Garrulous man is one that will sit down close beside somebody he does not know, and begin talk with a eulogy of his own life, and then relate a dream he had the night before, and after that tell dish by dish what he had for supper. As he warms to his work he will remark that we are by no means the men we were, and there is a new ship in town, and(description continues in orig.)
Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Fundamental Questions of Personality

How and Why are People Different? (Cont.)

Origins (Continued)
Humoural Theory: The attempt to find biological bases for individual differences Developed by Hippocrates; Galen Four Types
Sanguine (even-tempered; blood) Choleric (irritable; yellow-bile Melancholic (depressed; black bile) Phlegmatic (low energy; phlegm).

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Fundamental Questions of Personality

How and Why are People Different? (Cont.)

Contemporary
Assessment of personality Mental measurement The study of individual differences

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Fundamental Questions of Personality

What Will My Future Be?

Origins
Since the ancient oracle at Delphi, people have wondered about their futures

Contemporary
Personality psychology tells us
given characteristic, x how will x influence life outcomes?

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Personality System?

Wundts Views: Psychologys Job

Wilhelm Wundt: Founder of experimental psychology The discipline of psychology studies various mental systems one by one
Sensation Perception Memory Etc.
Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Personality System?

Wundts Views: Personalitys Job

Personality

Sensation and Perception

Motives and Emotion

Emotion and Cognition

Sensation Perception

Memory

Emotion

Cognition

Consciousness

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Personality System?

Analyzing Wundts Conception

Personality is a system A system is a set of interrelated parts. Examples of systems:
The jewelry organizer (top, right) A boiler (to right) Personality

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Personality System?

Definition of Personality
Personality is the organized, developing, system within the individual that represents the collective action of that individuals major psychological subsystems.
Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Self Control Some Psychological Systems

Knowledge Guidance

Action Implementation

Motives and Emotions

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Personality System?

The Molecular Molar Continuum

Molar Sociology Psychology Biology Chemistry Molecular
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Physics
Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Personality System?

Personality Amidst Its Subsystems

Sociological Level

Groups Including or Interacting with Personality

Psychological/ Symbolic Level

Biological Level
Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Internal Personality
Nervous System

External Situation Situational Elements

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Field of Personality Psychology?

Comparative biologists Professors who teach personality psychology Researchers in artificial intelligence

Occupations contributing to personality psychology

Psychotherapists interested in personality psychology

Human resource personnel studying job performance

Educational psychologists studying learning styles

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What Is the Field of Personality Psychology?

Most Common Training Programs

Central Training
Ph.D. programs in Personality Ph.D. programs in Personality and Social Psychology

Related Training
Ph.D. programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology M.B.A. & Ph.D. programs in Organizational Behavior M.D. programs in Psychiatry Ed.D. programs in Educational Psychology
Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Why Study Personality Psychology?

Rationale for Studying Personality Psychology Knowledge for knowledges sake Applications to assessment Applications to prediction and selection Applications to change

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

How Is This Course Organized?

Early Field-Wide Personality Frameworks

Field-wide frameworks provide an outline of a discipline and what it studies Earlier frameworks in personality psychology:
1958-1968: Theory by Theory approach
Freud Jung Sullivan Cattell Rogers Maslow Psychodynamic Humanistic Trait Social-Cognitive

1968-1998, Theoretical Perspective by Perspective approach

Problems with these approaches:

Different theorists (or perspectives) conflicted An emphasis on theory often overlooked relevant research which didnt fit neatly into a theory

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

How Is This Course Organized?

New Field-Wide Frameworks of Personality

The Systems Framework for Personality Psychology (e.g., Mayer, 1997)
What is personality? What are its parts? How is it organized? How does it develop?

McAdams (1996) Levels of Knowing

What is personality? What are a persons traits? (the psychology of the stranger) What are a persons current concerns? What is a persons life story? (the most personal knowledge)
Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

How Is This Course Organized?

The Four Topics of this Course

The four topics follow the systems framework for personality psychology The four topics:
1. Identifying the personality system
Introduction Theory and research Here, you may feel interestedbut frustrated by fragmentation Many small parts to cover We will pull the parts together by examining structure Look at dynamics Provides a second way to pull together what we have learned Speaks to a persons past and future

2. Parts of personality 3. Personality organization 4. Personality development

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach

PART 1: EXPLORING PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

How Is This Course Organized?

~Enjoy the Course!~

Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon

Mayers Personality: A Systems Approach