Dimensions of
Personality

Character. A subjective evaluation of personality, particularly with regard to a personÍs desirable or undesirable qualities. Term implies that a person has been judged or evaluated, not just described. Not everyone has character--or at least, not good character.

Temperament. The physical foundation of personality, including prevailing mood, sensitivity, energy levels, and so forth. It is the ñraw materialî from which personality is formed. Temperament refers to the hereditary aspects of oneÍs emotional nature: sensitivity, strength and speed of response, prevailing mood, and changes in mood. Differences in temperament are apparent from birth onward.

Traits. Relatively permanent and enduring patterns of behavior that a person displays in most situations. Lasting qualities within a person that are inferred from observed behavior. Often use traits to predict future behavior from past behavior. Traits also imply some consistency in behavior. Dan talks to strangers at a supermarket and later at a party--deduce that he is sociable--probably will be at school and at work. How much have the personality traits of your friends changed in past five years. Sociable, orderly, intelligent, shy, sensitive, and creative.....

Types. Categories used to describe personality, with each category representing a collection of related traits. Represents a category of individuals who have a number of traits or characteristics in common. Executive type, athletic type, motherly type, Yuppie type, strong silent type...... Types are used by psychologists as shorthand way of labeling people who share similar personality traits. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung advanced idea of introvert and extrovert:

Introvert. Shy, self-centered person.
Extrovert. Bold, outgoing person.

Self-concept. A personÍs perception of his or her own personality traits. It consists of all your ideas and feeling about who you are. Many psychologists believe that self-concepts have a major impact on behavior. We creatively build our self-concepts out of daily experience. Then we slowly revise them as we have new experiences. Once a stable self-concept exists, it tends to shape our subjective world by guiding what we attend to, remember, and think about. An individualÍs self-concept can greatly affect personal adjustment--especially when the self -concept is inaccurate or inadequate.

Personality Theory. An interrelated system of concepts and principles used to understand and explain personality. A system of assumptions, ideas, and principles proposed to explain personality. [Personality is so complex it is easy to become lost without a guiding framework for understanding it. How do the observations we make aut personality fit together? Can we explain and predict behavior from our knowledge of personality? How does personality develop? Why do people become emotionally unhealthy? How can they be helped?]

THE TRAIT APPROACH
Trait theorists attempt to classify traits and to discover which are most basic. Traits are relatively permanent and enduring qualities that a person shows in most situations. If you are usually optimistic, reserved, and friendly, these qualities might be considered stable traits of your personality. What is most TYPICAL of your behavior? Are some more basic than others?

aggressive -- organized -- ambitious
confident -- loyal -- generous
warm -- bold -- cautious
sensitive -- mature -- talented
sociable -- busy -- funny
dominant -- dull -- accurate
humble -- uninhibited -- future-oriented
thoughtful -- serious -- helpful
orderly -- anxious -- conforming
liberal -- curious -- optimistic
meek -- neighborly -- passionate
kind -- compulsive -- honest
cheerful -- emotional -- good-natured
clever -- calm -- reliable
jealous -- religious -- nervous

Classifying traits. Psychologist Goron Allport (1961) identified several kinds of traits.

Common traits. Shared by most members of culture. Show how people from a particular nation or culture are similar, or which traits the culture emphasizes. In American culture, for example, competitiveness is a fairly common trait. Among the Hopi of Northern Arizona, it is a relatively rare trait.

Individual traits are each personÍs unique qualities.

Cardinal trait is so basic that all of a personÍs activities can be traced to the traitÍs existence. An overriding factor in the life of Albert Schweitzer was ñreverence for every living thing.î Abraham LincolnÍs personality was dominated by the cardinal trait of honesty. Few people have cardinal traits.

Central traits are the basic building blocks of personality. A surprising small number of central traits are enough to capture the essence of a person. Secondary traits in contrast are less consistent and less important aspects of a person. OneÍs own personality traits include such things as food preferences, attitudes, political opinions, musical tastes, and so forth.


Name: Jane Doe
Age: 22
Cardinal traits: None
Central traits: Possessive, autonomous, artistic, dramatic, self-centered, trusting.
Secondary traits: Prefers colorful clothes, likes to work alone, politically liberal, always late . . . .

Source Traits. Raymond B. Cattell wanted to reach deeper into personality to learn how traits are organized and interlinked. He began by studying: Surface traits - The visible portions of personality. He noted that surface traits often appear in clusters, or groups. Some traits appeared together so often that they seemed to represent a single more basic trait. He called such underlying personality characteristics source traits. Using a statistical technique called factor analysis to reduce surface traits to source traits, he developed a list of 16 underlying source traits he considers the basic number necessary to describe an individual personality. His source traits are measured by a test called the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF). It is used to produce:

Trait profile. A trait profile presents a graph of a personÍs scores for each trait. Trait profiles can e very helpful for obtaining a ñpictureî of an individual personality or for making comparisons between the personalities of two or more persons.

Trait-situation interactions. Traits interact with situations to determine behavior. (Becoming more loud and boisterous as you moved from church to class, to party, to football game.

Ordinal position. Birth order in family.

Firstborn. High achievers--responsible, hardworking, and disciplined persons with high levels of pride and self-esteem. Also--shyer, more conforming, and more likely to be anxious or neurotic than later-born persons. Have a higher chance of achieving eminence that later-born persons. Have better high school and college grade averages. More become National Merit Scholars, more are medical students or graduate students. Parental attitudes: First on the scene, first borns get more attention, praise, and concern. Talked to more, punished more, and gets more stimulation and affection. Parents are also apt to be more anxious and inconsistent with first born--thus, they develop higher levels of anxiety and a tendency to conform to adult values. More likely to be a planned child and is breast-fed longer. They tend to think of themselves as important persons. High self-expectations.

Later-born. Excel in social relationships. Affectionate, friendly, and at ease with others. Youngest children also tend to be more original and creative than first borns. Typically more popular with their peers. They also display better social skills when interacting with strangers.

Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). Psychologist Sandra Bem constructed a list of 20 ñmasculineî traits (self-reliant, assertive, etc.), 20 feminine traits (affectionate, gentle, etc.), and 20 neutral traits (truthful, friendly). She believes that our complex society requires flexibility with respect to sex role. Of thousands of people tested, 50% fell into traditional masculine or feminine categories; 15% scored higher on traits of the opposite gender; 35% were androgynous. Bem feels that more people should be androgynous and use traits - as the situation requires. Rigid sex roles can seriously restrict behavior, especially for men. Males have great difficulty expressing warmth, playfulness, and concern, even when these qualities are appropriate--because they view such traits as ñfeminine.î Likewise, feminine women have trouble being independent and assertive, even when these qualities are called for. Now, having ñmasculineî traits primarily means that a person is independent and assertive. Scoring high in ñmasculinity,î therefore, is related to high self-esteem and to success in many situations. Having ñfeminineî traits primarily means that a person is nurturant and interpersonally oriented. People who score high in ñfemininity,î therefore, tend to experience greater social closeness with others and more happiness in marriage.

Masculine. Aggressive, ambitious, analytical, assertive, athletic, competitive, decisive, dominant, forceful, independent, individualistic, self-reliant, and willing to take risks.

Feminine. Affectionate, cheerful, childlike, compassionate, flatterable, gentle, gullible, loyal, sensitive, shy, soft-spoken, sympathetic, tender, understanding, warm and yielding.

Androgynous Means ñman-woman.î Having both masculine and feminine traits. Can be a highly adaptive balance.

PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT.
Trait approach has brought refinement to personality measurement and testing. Psychologists have fund it helpful to create ways of assessing personality to study traits--the results have been of tremendous value in research, industry, education, and clinical work. They use interviews (have you ñsized upî a potential friend?), observation (Have you watched the behavior of others when angry or embarrassed to learn what they are ñreallyî like), questionnaires (Perhaps you have asked a friend, ñWhen I am delayed I get angry. Do you?î), and projective tests (ñI think people feel.....) to measure personality. Each method is a refinement of more informal ways of judging individuals. Each way of assessing personality has limitations--thus, they are often used in combination.

1. The Interview. A very direct way to learn about personality is to engage a person in conversation. Interviews are used to identify personality disturbances; to select persons for employment, college, or special programs; and to study the dynamics of personality. Interviews also provide information for counseling or therapy. In addition to providing information, interviews make it possible to observe a personÍs tone of voice, hand gestures, posture, and facial expressions. Body language cues are important because they may radically alter the message conveyed.

(+ and -): They give rapid insight into personality, but they can be swayed by preconceptions, and interviewers own personality may influence the intervieweeÍs behavior, thus accentuating or distorting some of the intervieweeÍs characteristics. Third problem is the halo effect: a tendency to generalize a favorable or unfavorable impression to unrelated details of personality. A person who is likeable or physically attractive may be rated more mature, intelligent, or adjusted than he or she actually is.

Unstructured. If the conversation is informal and the interviewee determines what subjects are discussed.

Structured. The interviewer obtains information by asking a series of planned questions.

2. Direct Observation and Rating Scales. When used as an assessment procedure, direct observation is a simple extension of this natural interest in ñpeople watching.î Fascinated by bus depots, airports, subway stations, or other public places? Many people relish a chance to observe the behavior of others. Misperceptions can be a difficulty, as in interviews, thus some use:

Rating scales (Low, average, above average, etc.) A format that limits the chance that some traits will be overlooked while others are exaggerated. And, as an alternative to rating scales, some do a:

Behavioral assessment. Observers record how often various actions occur, not what traits they think a person has. Psychologists working with hospitalized mental patients may find it helpful to record the frequency of patientsÍ aggression, self-care, speech, and unusual behaviors. Behavioral assessments are not limited to visible behavior. They can also be helpful in probing thought processes. In one study, for example, students high in math anxiety were asked to think aloud while doing math problems. Then their thoughts were analyzed to pinpoint the causes of their anxiety.

Situational testing. A specialized form of direct observation. They are based on the premise that the best way to learn how a person reacts to certain types of situations is to simulate those situations. A person is exposed to frustration, temptation, pressure, boredom, or other conditions capable of revealing personality characteristics. ñShoot-DonÍt Shoot Testî tests judgment and decision-making of police officers in training.

3. Personality Questionnaires. More objective than interviews or observation. Questions, administration, and scoring are all standardized so that scores are unaffected by the opinions or prejudices of the examiner. Many personality tests have been developed: Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey, the California Psychological Inventory, the Allport-Vernon Study of Values, the 16 PF, and many more. The best known and most widely used objective tests of personality is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). It is composed of 550 items to which a subject must respond ñtrue,î ñfalse,î or ñcannot say.î Items include statements such as: Everything tastes the same. There is something wrong with my mind. I enjoy animals. Whenever possible I avoid being in a crowd. I have never indulged in any unusual sex practices. Someone has been trying to poison me. I daydream often. The MMPI measures 10 major aspects of personality. After the MMPI is scored, results are charted as an MMPI profile. By comparing a personsÍ profile to scores produced by normal adults, a psychologist can identify various personality disorders. And, the MMPI has additional validity scales to detect attempts of subjects to ñfake goodî or ñfake bad.î Other scales help adjust final scores that are affected by personal defensiveness or by tendencies to exaggerate shortcomings and troubles. Even this is not conclusive. Must take into account information from interviews or other sources. Many organizations, including businesses, routinely use personality tests, and errors or abuses sometimes occur. U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision limiting the use of tests as conditions of employment or promotion.

4. Projective Tests of Personality. Projective tests attempt to uncover deeply hidden or unconscious wishes, thoughts, and needs. Projective tests provide ambiguous stimuli that subjects are asked to describe or make up stories about. When you are faced with an unstructured stimulus or situation you must organize and interpret what you see in terms of your own life experiences. Everyone sees something different--and what is perceived can reveal the inner workings of oneÍs personality.

Rorschach Inkblot test. One of the oldest and most widely used projective tests. Developed by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach in the 1920Ís, it consists of a set of 10 standardized inkblots. These very in color, shading, form, and complexity. Subjects are shown each blot and asked to describe what they see in it. Psychologist may later return to a blot, asking a subject to identify specific sections of it--to elaborate on previous descriptions, or to suggest a completely new story about it. Surprisingly content is considered less important than what parts of the inkblot are used to form an image and how the image is organized. These factors allow a psychologist to view the ways in which a person perceives the world and to detect disorders in personality functioning.

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Developed by Harvard psychologist and personality theorist Henry Murray. It consists of 20 sketches depicting various scenes and life situations. The subject is shown each sketch and is asked to make up a story about the people in it. Later, the subject is shown each sketch a second or, perhaps, a third time and asked to elaborate on previous stories or to construct new stories for each. Scoring the TAT is restricted to analyzing the content of the stories. The psychologist is concerned with what the basic issues are in each story: Interpretation focuses on how people feel, how they interact, what events led up to the incidents depicted in the sketch, and how the story will end. The psychologist might also count the number of times the central figure in each story is angry, overlooked, apathetic, jealous, or threatened. Although popular with clinical psychologists, their validity is considered lowest among tests of personality. Because of the subjectivity involved in scoring, objectivity (consistency) of judgments among different users of the TAT and Rorschach is also low. The scorer must interpret the subjects (sometimes) ambiguous responses. However, psychologists attest to their value as part of a battery (group) of tests and interviews. Can detect major conflicts and aid in setting goals for therapy in the hands of a skillful and experienced clinician. And, since the projective tests are unstructured, they may be more effective for getting clients to talk about anxiety-provoking topics than are the direct questions of inventories and interviews.

Sudden Murderers Research example - Interviews and other observations have revealed that quiet, overcontrolled individuals are likely to be especially violent if they ever lose control--reflecting years of unexpressed feeling of anger and belittlement.