Unit 5 personality

Meaning and Definition
 "Personality" is a dynamic and organized set
of characteristics possessed by a person that
uniquely influences their
environment, cognitions, emotions, motivatio
ns, and behaviors in various situations.
 The word "personality" originates from
the Latin persona, which means mask.
 According to Watson Personality is the sum
of activities that can be discovered by actual
observations over a long enough period of
time to give reliable information.

Meaning and Definition
 Personality is a dynamic organisation within
the individual of those psycho-physical
systems that determine his unique
adjustment to his environment.

Types/Theories of Personality
 The earliest attempt to categories personality was made
by Hippocrates a Greek Physician (400 BC).
 He categorised people on the basis of body elements
such as pitt (bile), vata(wind) and kufa (mucus) and
prominent personality characteristics associated with
them such as:

Types of Personality
 Recently, psychologists have attempted to
study personality in their own way.
 They have formulated various theories to
explain personality.
 These are divided into two types, viz., types
and traits theories.
 Both these theories of personality focus on
people’s personal characteristics.
 However, ‘type’ theorists and ‘trait’ theorists
differ in the ways they use characteristics to
describe people.

Type Theories
 Type theorists have explained personality on
the basis of physique and temperament.
Temperament refers to emotional aspect of the
personality like changes in mood, tensions,
excitement, etc. A ‘type’ is simply a class of
individuals said to share a common collection
of characteristics.
 Three important ‘Type theories’ of personality
are explained here:
1. Jung’s Classification
2. Kretschmer’s Classification
3. Sheldon’s Classification
4. Friedman’s & Rosenman’s Classification

Jung’s Classification
 CG Jung has classified personality on the
basis of sociability character as Introverts and
Extraverts.
 Introverts are described as people who share
characteristics such as shyness, social
withdrawal, and tendency to talk less. Because
of these characteristics these people appear to
be self-centered, unable to adjust easily in
social situations. They are not easily
suggestible. They are future oriented, very
sensible and rigid in ideas.

Jung’s Classification
 Extraverts share a tendency to be outgoing,
friendly, talkative, and social in nature. They
prefer social contacts, generous, sportive, and
courageous. They are happy-go-lucky persons
and show interest in present reality than
future. They express their feelings openly. Take
decisions quickly and act upon quickly. They
are not affected easily by difficulties.
 Ambiverts: There are only few people who are
pure introverts or pure extraverts. The
remaining majority of people possess both the
qualities of introverts and extraverts.

Kretschmer’s Classification:
 From his studies on mental patients, he found
that certain body types are associated with
particular types of mental disorders. He has
classified personalities into four types:
 Pyknic type: These are people who are short
and having round body. They will have
personality traits of extroverts. These people
are more prone to suffer from a mental
disorder called (MDP).
 Asthenic type/Leptosomatic: These people will
have a slender or slim body. They will have the
personality traits of introverts. These people
are more prone to suffer from a serious mental
disorder called Schizophrenia.

 Athletic type: These people will have strong
body. They are more energetic and aggressive.
They will be strong enough, determined,
adventurous and balanced. They are
comparable with ambiverts. They are more
prone to suffer from MDP.
 Dysplastic type: These people will have un-
proportionate body and do not belong to any
of the three types mentioned above. This
disproportion is due to hormonal imbalance.
Their behaviour and personality are also
imbalanced.

Sheldon’s Classification
 He has divided people into three types:
 Endomorphic: These people will have soft, fat and
round body, having predominance of abdominal
region. They are sociable and relaxed (can be
compared to pyknic type).
 Ectomorphic: These are the people who are tall,
thin and flat chested, having the skin, bones and
neural structure predominantly. They are shy,
reserved and self-conscious (can be compared
with asthenic/Leptosomatic type).
 Mesomorphic: These people are well built with
heavy and strong muscles appear predominantly.
They are physically active, noisy, adventurous by
nature (can be compared to athletic type).

Friedman’s & Rosenman’s Classification
 Type A and Type B personality theory describes two
contrasting personality types.
 Type A: The theory describes Type A individuals as
rude, ambitious, rigidly organized, highly status-
conscious, sensitive, impatient, anxious, proactive,
and concerned with time management. People with
Type A personalities are often high-achieving
"workaholics." They push themselves with
deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence.
 Type A behavior is expressed through three major
symptoms: (1) free-floating hostility/unfriendliness,
which can be triggered by even minor incidents; (2)
time urgency and impatience,(3) a competitive drive.

Friedman’s & Rosenman’s Classification
 Type B personality, by definition, are noted to live at
lower stress levels. They typically work steadily, and
may enjoy achievement.
 When faced with competition, they may focus less
on winning or losing than their Type A counterparts,
and more on enjoying the game regardless of
winning or losing.
 Type B individuals are sometimes attracted to
careers of creativity: writer, counsellor, therapist,
actor or actress.
 However, network and computer systems managers,
professors, and judges are more likely to be Type B
individuals as well. Their personal character may
enjoy exploring ideas and concepts. They are often
reflective, and think of the "outer and inner world".

Trait Theories
 In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional
theory) is an approach to the study of
human personality.
 Trait theorists are primarily interested in the
measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual
patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion.
 According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable
over time, differ across individuals (e.g. some people are
outgoing whereas others are shy), and influence
behavior.
 Traits are characteristic ways of behaving, such as
extraversion–introversion: an individual may fall along
any point in the continuum, and where they fall
determines how they will respond in various contexts.

Allport Trait Theory
 Gordon Allport was one of the first modern trait theorists
and he organized these traits into a hierarchy of three
levels:
 Cardinal traits: They stand at the top of the hierarchy and
are known as the individual's master control. They are
considered to be an individual's ruling passions. Cardinal
traits are powerful.
 Cardinal traits often develop later in life and serve to
shape almost all aspects of an individual's purpose,
behaviour, and attitudes. Historical figures are often
thought of in terms of their cardinal traits.
 Mother Teresa is strongly associated with goodness and
charity. Adolph Hitler is associated with evil, and his
name evokes the embodiment of ruthlessness.

Allport Trait Theory
 Central traits come next in the hierarchy. These are
general characteristics found in varying degrees in every
person such as loyalty, kindness, friendliness, wildness,
etc. They are the basic building blocks that shape most
of our behavior.
 Secondary traits exist at the bottom of the hierarchy and
are not quite as obvious or consistent as central traits.
They are plentiful but are only present under specific
circumstances; they include things like preferences and
attitudes.
 These secondary traits explain why a person may at
times exhibit behaviours that seem incongruent with their
usual behaviours. For example, a friendly person gets
angry when people try to tickle him; another is not an
anxious person but always feels nervous speaking
publicly.

Cattell’s Trait Theories
 The most recent advanced theory of personality based
on trait approach has been developed by Cattell. He has
defined trait as a structure of the personality inferred
from behaviour in different situations and describes four
types of traits.
 Common Traits: the traits found widely distributed in
general population like honesty, aggression, and
cooperation.
 Unique traits: unique to a person as temperamental
traits, emotional reactions.
 Surface traits: to be recognized by our manifestation of
behaviour like curiosity, dependability, tactfulness.
 Source traits: underlying structures or sources that
determine one’s behaviour such as dominance,
submission, emotionality etc.

Cattell’s Trait Theories
 Catell began to obtain a complete list of human traits
and he for med a list of 17000 traits.
 On the second step he managed to form some specific
groups which he called as surface traits. 35 nos.
 The analysis of surface traits: he found that some are
overlapping and made a list of traits called source traits.
15nos.
 Eg. Academic Performance of a student is predictable by
analysing two traits such as Intelligence and Reading
Habits.

Type cum Trait Theories
 This has both the characteristics features of type
approach as well as trait approach. Hence it is called
as Type cum Trait approach.
 H.J Eysenck has classified the personality by having
coordination between type and trait approach.
 According to him we have four levels of behavior
organization.
a. At the lowest level we have specific responses. For
example blushing / red face in a particular situation.
b. At the second level we have habitual responses.
We react in similar fashion when the same situation
reoccurs. Eg. Not easily picking up the friendships,
hesitant to talk to strangers etc.

Type cum Trait Theories
a. At the third level we have organization of habitual
acts into traits. In the given example the habitual
responses give rise to a trait called shyness.
b. At the fourth level we have the organization of
these traits into a general type. A type is defined
as a group of correlated traits. In the given
example repeated shyness make the person
introvert.
 He described four types based on these aspects
such as introversion, extroversion, Neuroticism
(negative emotions), Psychoticism (aggressive
IPR and anger)
 This explain the structure and integration of our
personality.

Developmental Theories: Freud
 Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of
personality argues that human behavior is the
result of the interactions among three component
parts of the mind: the id, ego, and superego.
 Freud's structural theory of personality, places
great emphasis on unconscious psychological
conflicts in shaping behaviour and personality.
 According to Freud, our personality develops from
the interactions among what he proposed as the
three fundamental structures of the human mind:
the id, ego, and superego. Conflicts among these
three structures, and our efforts to find balance
among what each of them "desires," determines
how we behave and approach the world.

Developmental Theories: freud
 The id, the most primitive of the three structures, is
concerned with instant gratification of basic
physical needs and urges.
 The superego is concerned with social rules and
morals—similar to what many people call their
"conscience" or their "moral compass." It develops
as a child learns what their culture considers right
and wrong.
 The ego is the rational, pragmatic part of our
personality. It is less primitive than the id and is
partly conscious and partly unconscious. It's what
Freud considered to be the "self," and its job is to
balance the demands of the id and superego in
the practical context of reality.

Developmental Theories: Freud
 Freud believed that the nature of the conflicts
among the id, ego, and superego change over
time as a person grows from child to adult.
 Specifically, he maintained that these conflicts
progress through a series of five basic stages,
each with a different focus: oral, anal,
phallic, latency, and genital.
 He called his idea the psychosexual theory of
development, with each psychosexual stage
directly related to a different physical center of
pleasure.

Developmental Theories: Adler’s
 Adler's Personality Theory was created by Alfred Adler
(1870 - 1937).
 Adler called his theory Individual Psychology because he
believed that people were unique and that no theory
created to be applied to all people.
 He originally followed Sigmund Freud's teachings but left
after a disagreement of Freud's theory which says that
the drive of human behavior is sex.
 Adler's Personality Theory is similar to that of Freud's
Personality Theory except that Adler's drive for human
behavior is the need to overcome the feelings of
inferiority.
 Inferiority is a feeling that humans feel since they are
born. It is humans drive to overcome inferiority and
become superior which causes humans to act.

 An inferiority complex brings an exaggerated feeling of
inferiority on the sufferer and they will feel less motivated
to strive for superiority.
 His theory also contains the effects of the order of the
family. Children who are the only child will get pampered
which will cause the child to feel inferior when left to do
things on their own.
 Those who are firstborn get all the attention at first but
then all that attention goes towards the middle child.
Now the firstborn feels neglected and inferior and
develops to reserved and conservative.
 The middle child will be competitive and constantly try to
beat the firstborn.
 The youngest child will be pampered and will feel inferior
when left to do things by themselves.

Adler also had 4 different psychological types that
described people based off of their energy levels.
Ruling Type: This type refers to those who will push
others in order to gain superiority. They have a lot of
energy which causes them to push others out of their
way.
Learning Type: They are sensitive and build a shell
around themselves. They are dependent on others to help
them with life difficulties. When overwhelmed they
develop phobias, obsessions, anxiety, etc.
Avoiding Type: These people are people who survive by
avoiding life. They have the lowest energy levels. They
usually become psychotic, living in their own worlds.
Socially Useful Type: This is a healthy person. They have
the right amount of energy and take interest in others.

Developmental Theories: Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers was a humanistic psychologist who
agreed with the main assumptions of Abraham
Maslow.
But added that for persons to "grow", they need an
environment that provides them with genuineness
(openness and self-disclosure), acceptance (being
seen with unconditional positive regard), and
empathy (being listened to and understood).
There are two basic systems underlying his
personality ie, the organism and the self.
The organism is the individual’s entire frame of
reference. It represents the totality of experiences
ie conscious and unconscious. The self is the
accepted awareness part of experience.

Rogers rejected the deterministic nature of
both psychoanalysis and behaviorism and
maintained that we behave as we do because of
the way we perceive our situation. "As no one else
can know how we perceive, we are the best experts
on ourselves.“
Carl Rogers believed that humans have one basic
motive, that is the tendency to self-actualize - i.e. to
fulfill one's potential and achieve the highest level
of 'human-beingness' we can. Like a flower that
will grow to its full potential if the conditions are
right, but which is constrained by its environment,
so people will flourish and reach their potential if
their environment is good enough.

If you say that you are a handsome person, you
tend to include in the concept of your self, the idea
that you are handsome.
Hence the importance ones life is to build self
which may differ from person to person.
Once the concept of self is formed the individual
strives to maintain it.
If a person develop a false image then the
personality will derailed.
It is also necessary to create a balance between
the concept of self and real life.

Developmental Theories: Learning Theories
According to Dollard and Miller the Freud’s concept of
pleasure seeking is substituted with principle of
reinforcement, concept of ego, learnt skills and drive, etc.
This theory stress the importance of learning and
objectivity to understand personality.
It says that personality is learnt.
Humans are impelled by drives both conditioned and
unconditioned.
Reinforcements give birth to motives and new learning or
behavioural processes.
Personality is also acquired in the same way as learning.
Habit formation is important in personality development.
Change is always possible by learning.

Bandura & Waletr’s : This theory emphasizes that
what one represents through his personality is very
much acquired through a process of continuous
structuring and restructuring of his experiences
through social learning.
Children observe the people around them behaving
in various ways.
In society, children are surrounded by many
influential models, such as parents within the
family, characters on children’s TV, friends within
their peer group and teachers at school. Theses
models provide examples of behaviour to observe
and imitate, e.g. masculine and feminine, pro and
anti-social etc.

The people around the child will respond to the
behaviour it imitates with either reinforcement or
punishment.
Reinforcement can be external or internal and can
be positive or negative. If a child wants approval
from parents or peers, this approval is an external
reinforcement, but feeling happy about being
approved of is an internal reinforcement.
The child will also take into account of what
happens to other people when deciding whether or
not to copy someone’s actions. e.g. a younger
sister observing an older sister being rewarded for
a particular behaviour is more likely to repeat that
behaviour herself.

PSYCHOMETRIC
ASSESSMENT
OF
PERSONALITY

SOME IMPORTANT TECHNIQUES
OBSERVATION
SITUATIONAL TESTS.
QUESTIONNAIRE.
PERSONALITY INVENTORY.
RATING SCALE.
INTERVIEW
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES.

OBSERVATION
 Observational skills play an important part in most asses
sment procedures.
 The things that we observe confirm the person's self-
report, and some times the person's overt
behaviour appears to be at odds with what he
or she says.
 Observational procedures may be either informal
or formal. Informal observations are primarily qualitative.
 The clinician observes the person's behaviour and
the environment in which it occurs without attempting to
record the frequency or intensity of specific responses.
 Observations are often conducted in
the natural environment, but also useful to observe the
person's behaviour in a situation that psychologist
can arrange and control. (tape recorder, camera etc.)

SITUATIONAL TESTS.
 The situation is artificially created in which an individual
is expected to perform acts related to the personality
traits under testing.
 Eg. Testing honesty
 Eg. Testing temptation to copy.

QUESTIONNAIRE.
 A group of questions are made related to personality
characteristics may be printed or written.
 In this the subject responds to these questions in the
space provided in the form under the columns.
 These answers are evaluated for personality
assessment.
Do you enjoy being alone? Yes // No
Do you enjoy seeing others successful? Yes // No
Do you laugh at a joke on you ? Yes // No
Do you get along well with your relatives? Yes // No

PERSONALITY INVENTORY.
 It resembles questionnaire in so many aspects like
administration, scoring, interpretation, etc.
 The difference can be seen in two ways.
 Firstly the questionnaire is the general device and can
be used for collecting all kinds of information. It is
connected to questions related to personality traits as
well as behaviour.
 Secondly all the questions are framed with first person
not second person (as per language).
 The best example for personality inventory is Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). It consists of
550 questions and each question is printed on a card.
 The subject reads each questions and place it in into
three groups separately such as YES/NO/DOUBTFUL

PERSONALITY INVENTORY. MMPI
 I have a good appetite.
 I wake up fresh & rested most mornings.
 I think I would like the work of a librarian.
 I am easily awakened by noise.
 I like to read newspaper articles on crime.
 My daily life is full of things that keep me
interested.
 I work under a great deal of tension.
 Once in a while I think of things too bad to talk
about.
 My father was a good man.
 My sex life is satisfactory.

RATING SCALE
 A rating scale is a procedure in which the observer
is asked to make judgments that place the person
somewhere along a dimension.
 Rating scales provide abstract descriptions of a
person's behaviour rather than a specific record
of exactly what the person has done.
 These are assessment tools, which are used before
the treatment to assess changes in patient behaviour
after the treatment.
 Brief psychiatric rating scales are usually used and
completed by hospital staff to assess
an individual on different constructs related with physic
al or psychological illness.
 Usually the degrees are indicated by numbers 1 to 3,
1 to 5 or 1 to 7

INTERVIEW
 The interview is most commonly used procedure
in psychological assessment.
 Interviews provide an opportunity to ask people for
their own descriptions of their problems.
 Interviews also allow clinicians to observe importa
nt features of a person’s appearance and
nonverbal behaviour.
 The limitation of this technique is that it needs a well
trained competent interviewer.
 It is costly in terms of labour, time and money.
 It also suffers from subjective bias of the interviewer.
 It permits explanation adjustment and variations
according to the situations.

PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
 These are methods to understand the covert or
unconscious behaviour which is more significant.
 These techniques are based on the concept of
projection.
 In this indefinite and unstructured stimuli like vague
pictures, ink blots, incomplete sentences are provided
to the subject and he is asked to structure them in any
way he likes.
 In doing so he unconsciously projects his own desires,
hopes, fears, repressed wishes, etc are reveals in
terms of clues.
 The common ones are the following;;;;

RORSCHACH INK-BLOT TEST
 The Rorschach test is a psychological test in
which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are
recorded and then analyzed
using psychological interpretation,
complex algorithms, or both.
 Some psychologists use this test to examine a
person's personality characteristics and emotional
functioning.
 It has been employed to detect underlying though
disorder, especially in cases where patients are
reluctant to describe their thinking processes
openly.

 The test consists of 10 cards on which there are
ink blots.
 Five of them are black & white and 5 are multi colour.
 They are unstructured and the shapes do not have
any specific meaning.
 The cards are presented to subject one at a time and
he asked to say what he sees in it, or what does it look
like.
 Time is given to the subject. The examiner notes the
responses both the descriptions and emotional or face
expressions.
 After the completion of the test there is a second
phase where the subject is asked to clarify his
expressions or narration.

 The scoring is based on four components such as
location, contents, originality and determinants.
 Location: The letters such as W, D, d, s are used for it.
 W= observing card as a whole. D= indicates large
details. d= indicates small details. s= indicate
response to white spaces.
 Contents: H= human forms, A= animal forms, etc.
 Originality: P= popular or repeated inference, O= new
inferences on every card.
 Determinants: C, M, K. manner of perception such as
its colour/movement and shading etc.
 The results are entered into a spread sheet column.
The frequency indicates the behaviour/personality of
the person.

 The number of Ws are greater than d or D then the
person is said to be mature, intelligent.
 More number on colour and human movement
indicates extrovert behaviour.
 Dominance on shading responses indicates anxiety
and depression.
 Emphasis on movement indicates increased power of
imagination.

TAT Thematic Apperception TEST
 This test consists of perception of certain pictures in a
thematic manner.
 It consists of 20 pictures which portray human beings
in a variety of actual life situations. The pictures are
different for male and female.
 The pictures are presented to the subject one at a
time. There is no right and wrong answer.
 He / She has to make up a story for each of the
pictures.
 The following aspects are considered while making up
the story; What is going in the picture? What is the
reason of the said scene? What will happen in such a
situation?

 In making up the story the subject unconsciously
projects so many characteristics of personality.
 Interpretation is based on the following
a. Hero of the story: personality of the hero.
b. Theme of the story: nature of the theme
c. Style of Story: language, expressions, organisation.
d. Content of the Story: interests , sentiments and
attitude.
e. Test situation: whole and part

CAT Child Apperception TEST
 It is similar to TAT.
 It consists of 10 cards
 The cards have pictures of animals instead of
humans.
 Administration is same as TAT.
 Interpretation is based on Hero of the story, theme,
end of the story, attitude towards parental figure,
family role, nature of anxieties, punishment and crime,
defence and confidence etc.

WORD ASSOCIATION TEST
 In this technique there are a number of selected words.
The subject is told that:-
 The examiner will speak a series of words one at a time.
 After each word the subject (usually 15 second are
given) is to reply to each word as possible as the first
word comes to his mind
 There is no right and wrong answer.
 The examiner then records the reply to wach word
spoken by him.
 The reaction time and any unusual speech or behaviour
manifestations accompanying a given response is noted.
 It is believed that word association can reveal something
of a person's subconscious mind (as it shows what
things they associate together).

WORD ASSOCIATION TEST
 Work: hard work is the key to success.
 Country: I love my country.
 Company: I have good friend company.
 Love: I love my daughter.
 Defeat: I want to defeat my enemies.
 Garden:
 Peace:
 Money:
 Travel:
 Happy:
 Books:
 Profession:
 Ghost:

SENTENCE COMPLETION TEST
 Sentence completion tests are a class of semi-
structured projective techniques.
 Sentence completion tests typically provide
respondents with beginnings of sentences,
referred to as "stems", and respondents then
complete the sentences in ways that are
meaningful to them.
 The responses are believed to provide indications
of attitudes, beliefs, motivations, or other mental
states.
 Therefore, sentence completion technique, with
such advantage, promotes the respondents to
disclose their concealed feelings.

SENTENCE COMPLETION TEST
 I am worried over ............................
 My hope is .............................
 I feel proud when ..............................
 My hero is ...........................

Projective techniques
 In addition to projective techniques mentioned
so far the following practices are also used for
measuring personality.
 Play technique.
 Drawing
 Painting etc.

ALTERATION IN PERSONALITY
 Although the personality of a person considered
as somewhat stable and enduring organization of
all that he possess with him in terms of his
physique, intellect and behavioural characteristics.
 In our day today life we consistently change our
social nature, temperament, etc.
 Sudden changes in the environmental set up, the
anxiety, fear and restlessness and economic
pressure introduced through the illness of the
person may also cause personality change.

The significant personality changes are;
 Irritable and ill-tempered behaviour may be shown to
staff nurses or others by the patients.
 Pessimism and withdrawal behaviour may be caused
due to chronic diseases.
 Resentment (unfair means) and aggression self directed
or towards the health care staff.
 Over Dependent and demanding behaviour such as
being in childhood.
 Unsocial and self centred behaviour because while ill we
like take care of self.
 Damaged self concept and helplessness. Also loss of
self confidence.
 Turning into abnormal personalities: pressure from
family, friends, and other social pressure, economic
pressure, frustrations and conflicts.

Unit 5 personality

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