SOCI2029: The Individual & Society The Psychology of the Self as Individual - Personality Theory

Lecture 4 & 5Dr. Michelle CowleyMCowley@soton.ac.uk

Overview

The self and other: social cognitionThe self: personality theory

Personality and Social Psychology: A contradiction The consistency debate: Disposition vs Situation

Introduction to Trait Theories of Personality

Personality Theory: The Analyst in Wonderland

Personality theory: aims to devise a science which can predict human behaviour

Crucial- the theory implies consistency

But consider the example of Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)

“Who are you?” said the CaterpillarAlice replied, rather shyly, ‘I-I hardly know, sir, just at present

– at least I know who I was when I got up this morning,, but I think I must have been changed several times since then…”

The Uniqueness of the Individual Key debate in Ψ: While scientific psychology attempts to predict

human behaviour consistently; human behaviour is not consistent across situations.

Do personality traits or social contexts predict our behaviour?

The tension between the individual and society is contained within the following question: Are individuals unique?

“Our experience with other people as well as with ourselves- tells us that there is a certain regularity, consistency & uniqueness in the behaviours, thought and feelings of a person which define his or her personality” (Krahe, 1992)

The Uniqueness of the Individual

Presently, the scientific model of personality views the trait approach as best. We have measurable, definable traits that predict our behaviour…

Surely we are not 100% predictable- inhuman

Delicate balance: “ to be totally at the mercy of one’s surroundings, like a rudderless ship, would seem to pose as many problems as being insensitive to varying environmental demands” (Pheres, 1979).

Personality and Social Psychology: A contradiction within PsychologyPersonality theorists view that individuals can be characterised by enduring qualities which distinguish them from others

High intra-individual consistency

But! Social Psychologists have emphasised the impact on individuals by social situations

High inter-individual consistency

Personality and Social Psychology: A contradiction within Psychology

The contradiction-

Dispositionism vs Situationism

Resolving this contradiction: Walter Mischel (1977)

Strong situations: channel behaviour into specific channels making individual differences irrelevant (highly closed/stereotyped), e.g., Zimbardo’s prison when most people behave the same

Weak situations: allow people to express their personal qualities easily- they ‘leave room’ for individual differences (Open ended) , e.g., dinner party…

The Interactionist ApproachBehaviour = Person x situationAn individual’s behaviour is highly predictable in similar

situations academic (Lecture/conference) vs social (nightclub/Pub)

But! Interactionism means different things to different people

For example, that personality differences are essential for understanding people’s behaviour in particular situations,

but there is a very real sense in which the situation is defined in terms of the individual involved (Jane’s vs Caren’s dinner parties)

Trait Approaches

Eysenck (1960s) 3 factors-Extraversion, Neuroticism, Psychotism…

Dispositions that characterise an individual from one situation to the next

Value: Longterm consistency (e.g., Epstein, 1979) Nomothetic (e.g., Ross & Nisbett, 1991) Stability across like social contexts

Despite its troubled history, the trait concept is still in good shape in contemporary psychology.

Five Personality FactorsA small but comprehensive number of basic trait dimensions have been finalised to account for the structure of personality and individual difference

The ‘Big Five’ Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Agreeableness Conscientiousness

See Pervin & John (2003)

Personality Factor Methods Rest on statistical factor analysis assumptions

But! The meaning of the factors has been contested

For example cultural interpretations of ‘Openness’…

Tomorrow: the history and development of the trait approach Detailed discussion and critical appreciation of the disposition

vs situation debate.

SOCI2029 Trait Theories of the self: The Five Factor Model of Personality

Trait Theories Continued: The FFMDr. Michelle Cowley

OverviewThe Five Factor Model and ConsistencyRejuvenation of Trait TheoryFive Factor Theory Personality SystemAssumptions of Trait TheoryCritique: Personality Theory as ScienceNext week:

Evidence for and against the Five Factor Model Evaluation of the Five Factor Model

The Five Factor Model and Consistency The Five Factor Model (FFM) “is the Christmas tree on

which findings of stability, heritability, consensual validation, cross-cultural invariance, and predictive utility are hung like ornaments” (Costa & McCrae, 1993, p.302)

After decades of floundering, personality theory has begun to accumulate a store of replicable findings about the origins, development and functioning of personality traits (McCrae & Costa, 1999)

The Five Factor Model and Consistency

The consistency controversy (Walter Mischel, 1968) undermined the concept of personality trait

But, if there were only situational factors which influenced behaviour, then personality theory would be obselete.

Traits: point to more-or-less consistent and recurrent patterns of acting and reacting that differentiate one individual from another, for example, Cattell’s 16pf and Eysenck’s 3 Factors (EPN).

Allow empirical discovery to improve prediction of human behaviour (McCrae & Costa, 1999)

The Five Factor Model and ConsistencySeek to evaluate:

“Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognise him and carry an image of him in their mind…” (William James, 1890)

Rejuvenation of Trait Theory The domain of personality descriptors is almost completely accounted

for by 5 robust factors FFM (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Openness,

Agreeableness) amounts to a reinvigoration of trait psychology.

Diverse Evidence Evidence from diverse populations (McCrae, Costa, Del Pilar, Rolland

& Parker, 1998)

Consistent across decades of the lifespan (Costa and McCrae, 1992c)

Multiple methods of assessment (Finder et al., 1995): peer rating scales, self-reports on trait descriptive adjectives; expert ratings, personality disorder symptom clusters…

Even case studies (Costa & McCrae, 1998)

Why is FFT attractive?Different parts of the FFM agenda appeals to different

psychologists.

Factor analysts are concerned with identifying the facet traits and interpreting the resulting factors (e.g., Hofstee et al., 1997)

Psycho-biologists emphasise the identification of underlying biological mechanisms (e.g., Eysenck, 1967; Buss, 1999)

Clinicians tend to be concerned with problematic characteristic adaptations, which they may aim to modify (Harkness & Lilienfeld, 1997)

Assumptions of Trait Theory• Trait theory makes assumptions about itself

(Hjelle & Siegler, 1976)

– Knowability: that personality is a proper object of scientific study

– Rationality: despite biases people are capable of understanding themselves and others… How sociable, how competitive is he or she?

– Variability: people differ from each other in psychologically significant ways

– Proactivity: locus of causation is to be sought within the person… personality actively shapes human lives

FFT Personality SystemPersonality is the dynamic psychological organisation that coordinates experience and action.

Basic tendencies:The Five Factors

Characteristic Adaptations

Self Concept

Objective biography External

influences

Traits are deep psychological entities that can only be inferred from behaviour. Traits are separate from more observable components of personality such as habits and skills, or roles.. They are enduring core adaptations to external influences…

Critique: Personality Theory as Science“…without the belief in the inner harmony of our world,

there could be no science” (Albert Einstein, The Evolution of Physics)

That said, it is doubtless true that each of us is in some respects unique, FFT has little to say about this aspect of the person.

Generalisations reduce individuals to automatons, and abstracts agency from the individual (Bandura, 1999)

Contradiction 1: Personality traits are insulated from the environment, so how is change over time explained?

Critique: Personality Theory as Science Contradiction 2: It assumes that traits are internal and

immune from the environment yet pays little attention to the biology of the personality

Contradiction 3: FFT is more of a Model than a theory in the strictest sense

Contradiction 4: If all science is nomothetic and science psychology should be concerned with the study of individuals, how can psychology be considered a science?

What does FFT contribute to treatment of Psych-disorders?

It doesn’t! 2 major disadvantages:

Example: the anxious neurotic, introverted, reserved person ‘stands condemned as a lesser human being’. Should any liberal society tolerate this way of classifying people?

The consistency debate has focussed exclusively on ‘normal’ behaviour, but the inconsistencies are most striking in the breakdown of normal functioning.

Seminar: Beginning the Evaluation of FFT

FFM does “not provide a definition of the system, a specification of its components, a model of their organisation & interaction, and an account of the system’s development” (Mayer, 1998)- static description

Should trait theory see the locus of personality not within the individual, or in patterns of interpersonal relationships? (Wiggins & Trapnell, 1996).

Characteristic adaptations vary across cultures, families, and portions of the life-span, but personality traits do not.

Deterministic? Passive? (Next week we will evaluate this approach).