Measuring Personality: Crash Course Psychology #22
Summary
TLDRThis script delves into the complexities of personality, exploring ancient theories like Hippocrates' humors and Chinese elements, to Freud's psychoanalytic and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It highlights modern trait theory, which categorizes personality into the 'Big Five' traits, and the social cognitive perspective, emphasizing the interplay of traits and environment. The video discusses various methods of personality assessment, from projective tests to questionnaires, pondering the elusive nature of the 'self' and its influence on our motivations and behaviors.
Takeaways
- 🧬 Personality theories have evolved over time, from ancient Greek humors to modern psychological perspectives.
- 🔍 Traditional Chinese medicine attributes personality to the balance of five elements: earth, wind, water, metal, and fire.
- 🌐 Ayurvedic medicine views personality as a combination of three doshas, or mind-body principles.
- 💭 Sigmund Freud believed personality was influenced by the interplay between the id, ego, and super-ego.
- 🏔 Abraham Maslow suggested that personality development is linked to fulfilling a hierarchy of basic needs.
- 🔑 Trait theory, initiated by Gordon Allport, focuses on defining personality through observable behavior patterns and conscious motivations.
- 🌊 The Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) are seen as stable but flexible.
- 🤝 The social cognitive perspective, proposed by Albert Bandura, emphasizes the interaction between personality traits and social context.
- 🔮 Different personality theories use various methods for assessment, from projective tests like Rorschach's inkblots to self-report questionnaires.
- 🌟 The concept of 'possible selves', including ideal and feared selves, is a motivational factor in personality development.
- 🤔 The question of the self's nature and existence remains a profound and complex topic in psychology.
Q & A
What are the four humors that Hippocrates believed determined personality?
-Hippocrates believed that personality was determined by the balance of phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile.
How does Traditional Chinese Medicine view personality in terms of the five elements?
-Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that personalities depend on the balance of five elements: earth, wind, water, metal, and fire.
What are the three mind-body principles, or doshas, in Hindu Ayurvedic medicine?
-In Hindu Ayurvedic medicine, each person is viewed as a unique combination of three doshas, which are not specified in the script.
What are the 'Big Five' personality traits as defined by modern trait theory?
-The 'Big Five' personality traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
What is the concept of 'reciprocal determinism' in the social cognitive perspective of personality?
-Reciprocal determinism is the idea that people and their situations work together to create behavior, with the environment influencing personality and personality influencing the choice of environment.
What is the difference between an internal and external locus of control according to the social cognitive perspective?
-An internal locus of control means that a person believes they have control over their environment and can make their own luck, while an external locus of control implies that a person feels guided by forces beyond their control.
How did Gordon Allport's interaction with Freud influence his approach to personality theory?
-Gordon Allport's interaction with Freud led him to believe that sometimes behavior can be explained by motives in the present rather than unconscious influences from the past, leading him to describe personality in terms of fundamental traits and conscious motives.
What is the purpose of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in psychodynamic psychology?
-The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is used to present ambiguous pictures to subjects and ask them to tell a story about the scenes, revealing their concerns, motivations, and unconscious processes.
What types of questions are typically found in personality trait inventories?
-Personality trait inventories often include true/false or agree/disagree questions that assess a range of traits, such as enjoyment of being the center of attention or the ability to empathize with others.
How do humanistic theorists like Maslow measure self-concept?
-Humanistic theorists like Maslow measure self-concept through therapy interviews and questionnaires that ask subjects to describe both their ideal self and their actual self, focusing on the gap between the two.
What is the significance of 'possible selves' in understanding personality and motivation?
-The concept of 'possible selves' includes both the ideal self and the feared self, and the balance between these potential best and worst versions of oneself motivates individuals throughout their lives.
Outlines
🔍 Exploring Personality Theories
This paragraph delves into various historical and modern theories of personality. It discusses ancient Greek physician Hippocrates' four humors, traditional Chinese medicine's five elements, and Hindu Ayurvedic medicine's doshas. It then transitions to Sigmund Freud's id, ego, and superego and Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The text emphasizes the long history and diversity of methods used to characterize personality.
🧩 Introduction to Trait Theory
This section introduces trait theory, contrasting it with psychoanalytic and humanistic theories. It tells the story of Gordon Allport's meeting with Freud, leading to Allport's focus on describing rather than explaining traits. Modern trait researchers Robert McCrae and Paul Costa's Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—are explained, emphasizing their spectrum nature and predictive power for behavior.
🌐 Social Cognitive Perspective
The paragraph explains the social cognitive perspective, introduced by Alfred Bandura, highlighting the interplay between traits and social context. It describes reciprocal determinism, where environments and personal interactions shape personality. The concept of locus of control is introduced, differentiating between internal and external locus. It also mentions how this perspective measures personality by observing behavior in various contexts, focusing on personal control.
🧪 Methods of Personality Assessment
This section compares different methods of personality assessment. It discusses projective tests like the Rorschach inkblot test and Thematic Apperception Test, used by psychodynamic theorists to reveal unconscious processes. It contrasts these with modern trait assessments, such as the Big Five and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which use structured questionnaires to measure traits. The paragraph also touches on the humanistic approach, which favors interviews and self-report measures to gauge self-concept.
🔮 Understanding the Self
This final paragraph reflects on the concept of the self, discussing various theories and methods used to study it. It introduces the idea of possible selves—ideal and feared versions of oneself—that motivate behavior. The text concludes by acknowledging the complexity of defining the self, considering factors like environment, childhood experiences, culture, and biology. It emphasizes the ongoing debate and lack of a universal answer to what constitutes the self.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Personality
💡Hippocrates
💡Trait Theory
💡Big Five
💡Social Cognitive Perspective
💡Reciprocal Determinism
💡Locus of Control
💡Psychodynamic
💡Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
💡Humanistic Psychology
💡Self-Esteem
Highlights
Personality has been characterized in various ways over time, from ancient Greek humors to modern psychological theories.
Hippocrates' theory of four humors suggested personality is a balance of phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile.
Traditional Chinese medicine attributes personality to the balance of earth, wind, water, metal, and fire.
Ayurvedic medicine views personality as a combination of three doshas, or mind-body principles.
Sigmund Freud believed personality is influenced by the interplay between the id, ego, and super-ego.
Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs must be met for self-actualization to occur.
Trait theory, initiated by Gordon Allport, defines personality through observable behavior patterns and conscious motivations.
The Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—were developed to categorize fundamental characteristics.
Personality traits are stable but can flex in different situations, affecting behavior.
Social cognitive perspective, proposed by Albert Bandura, emphasizes the interaction between personality traits and social context.
Reciprocal determinism explains how personality and environment influence each other.
Personality can be measured through various methods, including projective tests like Rorschach's inkblot test.
Trait inventories and questionnaires assess personality by asking respondents to self-report on various traits.
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is a widely used test for identifying emotional disorders.
Humanistic theorists like Maslow reject standardized assessments, focusing on self-concept through therapy interviews.
The concept of possible selves, including ideal and feared selves, helps to understand what motivates individuals.
The self is considered the organizer of thoughts, feelings, and actions, central to personality.
The question of the self and its definition remains one of life's biggest questions, intertwined with environment, culture, and biology.
Transcripts
how would you describe your personality may be friendly creative quirky what
about nervous or timid or outgoing but has anyone ever called you a sanguine
what about a cava or full of metal ancient Greek physician Hippocrates
believed personality manifested itself in four different humors and basically
you are who you are because of your balance of phlegm blood and yellow and
black bile according to traditional Chinese medicine our personalities
depend on the balance of five elements earth wind water metal and fire those
who practice traditional Hindu Ayurvedic medicine view each other as unique
combinations of three different mind-body principles called doshas but
Sigmund Freud thought our personalities depended in part on who's winning the
battle of urges between the Ede ego and super-ego meanwhile humanistic
psychologist Abraham Maslow suggested that the key to self-actualization was
first successfully climbing a hierarchy of more basic needs and then you got
your BuzzFeed quizzes to determine what kind of pirate der font or sandwich or
Harry Potter character you are but I would never take one of those seriously
all this is to say the people have been characterizing one another for a long
long time and whether you're into blood or bile or ego or it or blt or PB&J
there are a lot of ways to describe and measure a personality and all these
theories all the years of research and cigar-smoking an inkblot gazing in the
fans debating whether they're more of a Luke or Leia they're all funneling down
the one big central question who or what is the self
last week we talked about how psychologists often study personality by
examining the differences between characteristics and by looking at how
these various characteristics combine to create a whole thinking feeling person
the early psychoanalytic and humanistic theorists had a lot of ideas about
personality but some psychologists questioned their lack of clearly
measurable standards like there was no way to really quantify someone's inkblot
response or how orally fixated they might be so this drive to find a more
empirical approach spawned two more popular theories in the 20th century
known as the trait and social cognitive perspective instead of focusing on
things like lingering unconscious influences or missed growth
opportunities trait theory researchers look to define personality through
stable and lasting behavior patterns and conscious motivations legend has it that
it all began in 1919 when young American psychologist Gordon Allport paid a visit
to none other than Freud himself Allport was telling Freud about his
journey there on the train and how there was this little boy who was obsessed
with staying clean and didn't want to sit next to anyone or touch anything
Albert wondered if the boy's mother had a kind of dirt phobia that had rubbed
off on him so yeah yeah yeah he's telling his tale and at the end of it
Freud looks at him and says hmm was that little boy you all port was basically
like no man that was just some kid on the train don't try to make this into
some big unconscious episode from my repressed childhood
Allport thought Freud was digging a little too deep and that sometimes you
just need to look at motives in the present not the past to describe
behavior so all-ports started his own Club describing personality in terms of
fundamental traits or characteristics and conscious motives it wasn't so much
interested in explaining traits as he was in describing them modern trait
researchers like Robert McRae and Paul Costa have since organized our
fundamental characteristics into what's casually known as the big five openness
conscientiousness extraversion agreeableness and neuroticism which you
can remember using the mnemonic ocean or canoe whichever one you prefer
each of these traits exists on a spectrum so for example your level of
openness can range on one end from being totally open to new things in variety or
one thing strict regular routine on the other end your degree of
conscientiousness can translate into being impulsive and care
lists are careful and disciplined someone high on the extraversion in will
be sociable while those on the low end will be shy and reserved a very
agreeable person meanwhile is helpful and trusting while someone at the
opposite end may be suspicious or uncooperative and finally on the
neuroticism spectrum an emotionally stable person will be more calm and
secure while a less stable person is often anxious insecure and self-pitying
the important idea here is that these traits are hypothesized to predict
behavior and attitude like an introvert might prefer communicating through email
more than an extroverted and agreeable person is much more likely to help their
neighbor move that couch then a suspicious one who's just glaring
through the window my adulthood trait theorists will tell you these
characteristics are pretty stable but isn't to say that they can't flex a
little in different situations like that same shy person might end up singing
Elvis karaoke in a room full of people under the right conditions so our
personality traits are better predicting our average behavior than what we do in
any specific situation and research indicates that some traits like
neuroticism seem to be better predictors of behavior than others this flexibility
that we all seem to have leads to the fourth major theory on personality the
social cognitive perspective originally proposed by our Bovo beading friend
alfred bandura the social cognitive school emphasizes the interaction
between our traits and their social context ventura noted that we learn a
lot of our behavior by watching and imitating others that's the social part
of the equation but we also think a lot about how these social interactions
affect our behavior which is the cognitive part so in this way people and
their situations basically work together to create behavior bandura referred to
this sort of interplay as reciprocal determinism meaning that for example the
kind of books you read or music you listen to or friends you hang out with
say something about your personality because different people choose to be in
different environments and then those environments in turn continue to
reinforce our personalities so if Bernice has a kind of anxious suspicious
personality and she has a serious Titanic crush on Sherlock Holmes she
might be extra attuned to potentially dangerous or fishy situations the more
she sees the world in that way the more anxious and suspicious she gets in this
way we're both the creators and the products of the situation's we surround
ourselves with that's why one of the key indicators of personality in this school
of thought has to do with our sense of personal
control that is the extent to which you perceive that you have control over your
environment someone who believes that they control their own fate or make
their own luck is said to have an internal locus of control while those
who feel like they're just guided by forces beyond their control are said to
have an external locus now whether we're talking about control versus
helplessness introversion versus extraversion calm versus anxious or
whatever each of these different personality perspectives have their own
methods of testing and measuring personality we talked before about how
the psychoanalyst super hunk Hermann Rorschach used his ink blot test to
infer information about a person's personality
we know that Freud used dream analysis and both he and Young were fans of free
association the broader school of theorists now known as the psychodynamic
camp that descended from Freud and pals also use other projective psychological
tests including the famous Thematic Apperception tests in this kind of test
you'd be presented with evocative but ambiguous pictures and then asked to
provide information about them you might be asked to tell a story about the
scenes considering things like how are the characters feeling or what's going
on or what happened before this event and what will happen after like check it
out is the woman crying because her brother just died from a bee sting or is
she a maid laughing because some royal just passed out drunk in his bed or
perhaps the object of her long burning affection has just confessed his love
and a fever hazel jane austen style and she's having a mini breakdown in the
hall the idea is that your responses will reveal something about your
concerns and motivations in real life or how you see the world or about your
unconscious processes that drive you by contrast with that approach though
modern trait personality researchers believe that you can assess personality
traits by having people answer a series of test questions there are lots of so
called personality trait inventories out there some provide a quick reading on a
particular enduring trait like anxiety or self-esteem
while others gauge a wide range of traits like our friends the Big Five
these tests like the myers-briggs which you might have heard of involve long
questionnaires of true false or agree/disagree questions like do you
enjoy being the center of attention do you find it easy to empathize with
others or do you value justice over mercy but the classic Minnesota
multiphasic personality inventory is probably the most widely used
personality test the most recent version asks a series of five
in 67 true/false questions varying from no one seems to understand me too I like
mechanics magazines too I loved my father and is often used to identify
emotional disorders and there's how bandura's social cognitive camp sizes
you up because this school of thought emphasizes the interaction of
environment and behavior rather than just traits alone
they aren't solely into questions and answers instead they might measure
personality in different contexts understanding behavior in one situation
is best predicted by how you acted in a similar situation like if Bernice
freaked out and tried to hide under the bed during the last five thunderstorms
we can predict the chip will do that again next time and if we conducted a
controlled lab experiment where say we looked at the effects of thunderstorm
noises on people's behavior we might get an even better sense of what baseline
psychological factors could best predict storm induced freak-outs and finally
there are the humanistic theorists like Maslow they often reject standardized
assessments altogether instead they tend to measure your self-concept through
therapy interviews and questionnaires that asked subjects to describe both how
they would ideally like to be and how they actually are the idea is that the
closer the actual and ideal are the more positive the subjects sense of self
which brings us back to that biggest motherlode question of them all who or
what is the self all the books out there about self esteem self-help self
awareness self control and so on are built upon one assumption that the self
is the organizer of our thoughts and feelings and actions essentially the
center of a personality but of course it's a sticky issue one way to think
about self is through the concept of possible selves like your ideal self
perhaps devastatingly attractive and intelligent successful and well loved as
well as your most feared self the one who could end up unemployed and lonely
and run down this balance of potential best and worst selves motivates us
through life. In the end, once you factor in environment and childhood experiences,
culture, and all that mess, not to mention biology, which we haven't even touched on
today, can we really firmly define self or
answer certainly that we even have one? That, my friend, is one of life's biggest
questions, insofar as it has yet to be universally answered. But you learned a lot,
anyway, today, right? As we've talked about the trait and social cognitive
perspectives and also about different ways these schools and others measure
and test personality we also talked about
what self is and how our self-esteem works thanks for watching especially to
our subbable subscribers who make crash course possible to find out how you can
become a supporter just go to subbable.com/crashcourse this episode
was written by Kathleen Yale edited by Blake de pastino and our consultant is
dr. Ranjit Bhagwat our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins and the
script supervisor is Michael Aranda who is also our sound designer and the
graphics team is thought cafe
you
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