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Transcript of PsychExchange.co.uk Shared Resource
*What is personality?* • Although we are able to describe personality of people
around us, defining what we mean by ‘personality’ is more difficult.
• Spend two minutes with the person next to you thinking about how you would define personality then summarise your discussion in 3 words
Personality
• ‘those relatively stable and enduring aspects of individuals which distinguish them from other people, making them unique, but which at the same time allow people to be compared with each other’ (Gross, 2003)
• Personality is made up the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavioursthat make a person unique
AQA Syllabus
• Definition of personality, including temperament.• Description and evaluation of studies of
temperament, including the work of Thomas (1977), Buss & Plomin (1984), and Kagan (1991).
• Eysenck's type theory (1952); extraversion, introversion, neuroticism.– Personality scales, including EPI (1964) & EPQ (1975).– Evaluation of Eysenck's type theory.
• Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD); – characteristics of APD (DSMIV 2008) – causes of APD;
• biological: the role of the amygdala,including the work of Raine (2000).• situational: including the work of Farrington (1995), and Elander (2000).
– Description and evaluation of studies of the causes of APD.– Implications of research into APD.
You should be able to...
• Define personality and temperament
• Describe the work of Thomas (1977) by identifying characteristics of types of temperament
• Evaluate the work of Thomas (1977)
Why is understanding personality important?
• Sybil's personalities included• Female Personalities Vanessa: Holds Sybil's musical
abilities• Vickie: 13 year old who speaks French, a very strong,
sophisticated and mature personality who knows about all the other personalities, though Sybil does not.
• Peggy: 9 year old who speaks like a little girl. Holds Sybil's artistic abilities.
• Marsha: dresses in funeral attire and constantly has suicidal thoughts and attempts suicide.
• Mary: is Sybil's memory of her grandmother; speaks, walks and acts like a grandmother.
• Nancy: who kept waiting for the end of the world and was afraid of Armageddon.
• Ruthie:• Clara:• Ellen:• Male Personalities: Mike: built the shelf in the top of
Sybil's closet.• Sid: wants to be just like her father, loves football.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
• 4.30min
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfiB82OUXf0&feature=related
Temperament • Present from early childhood
• Innate (biologically determined)
• Can change as we get older (hence nature plus nurture results in personality)
Thomas, Chess and Birch (1977)
Aim To discover whether ways of responding to the environment
remains stable throughout participants’ lives
Method They studied 133 children from infancy (2-3 months) to early
adulthood (longitudinal study) . The children’s behaviour was
observed and their parents were interviewed at various intervals.
The parents were asked about the child’s routine and its reaction
to change. There were 9 behaviour categories including ‘quality
of mood’ and attention span’
Results They found that children fell into three types: ‘easy’, ‘difficult’,
or ‘slow to warm up’. The ‘easy’ children were happy, flexible
and regular. The ‘difficult’ children were demanding, inflexible
and cried a lot. The children that were ‘slow to warm up’ did not
respond well to change or new experiences to begin with, but
once they had adapted they were usually happy.
Conclusion These ways of responding to the environment stayed with the
children as they developed. Thomas, chess and Birch therefore
concluded that temperament was innate.
*activity* Word soup
• Below are the none behavioural categories from Thomas et al.
• Sift the ‘word soup’ of behavioural categories by placing each of them into one of the 3 temperament types (there should be 5,5,4...two are duplicated as they appear in 2 temperament types)
Word soup Thomas, Chess and Birch (1977) - Findings
Easy
Temperament
(5)
Difficult
temperament
(5)
Slow-to-warn-
up
temperament
(4)
Thomas, Chess and Birch (1977) - Findings
Easy
Temperament
1. Consistent in approach (regular)
2. Predictable
3. Adaptable
4. Mild intensity of emotional reactions
5. Positive mood
Difficult
temperament
1. Inconsistent in approach
2. Withdrawn
3. Not adaptable
4. Negative mood
5. Intense emotional reactions
Slow-to-warn-
up
temperament
1. Mild negative reaction to new stimuli or persons
2. Slow adaptation to new stimuli or persons
3. mild intensity of emotional reactions
4. Consistent in approach (regular)
*bold indicates a duplicated behavioural category
Buss and Plomin (1984)
Aim Test the hypothesis that temperament is innate
Method They studied 228 pairs of monozygotic twins and 172 pairs of
dizygotic twins at 5 years old. They looked at 3 dimensions of
behaviour - Emotionality , Activity and Sociability
Results There was a closer correlation between the scores of the MZ twins
than between the scores of the DZ twins
Conclusion Temperament has a genetic basis
Evaluation •Study supports the view that temperament is innate
•However, MZ twins are treated in very similar ways hence
environment/experience could explain the higher correlation
between their scores
•Twin studies cannot be generalised to the whole population
Other research into temperament...
Final thoughts
• Where does your personality come from?
• Is your personality fixed or can it change?
You should be able to...
• Define personality and temperament
• Describe the work of Thomas (1977) by identifying characteristics of types of temperament
• Evaluate the work of Thomas (1977) (once homework is complete)
GCSE Psychology Homework (Jan 2011)Evaluate Thomas, Chess and Birch’s Study
Please complete these questions on a separate sheet of paper and bring them to class next week
1. What do you think of the study? (2 marks)2. This was a longitudinal study. Outline one
advantage and one disadvantage of this. (2 marks)
3. All the children were from middle-class families. What is the drawback of choosing all the participants from one social class? (2 marks)
4. The parents were interviewed for this study. Outline one drawback asking parents about their children. (2 marks)
Homework
• Pages 40-42
• Complete evaluation sheet for Thomas et al (1977)
• Extension –identify your temperament by going to http://www.ptypes.com/temperament_test.html
The Pet Personality Test!
• http://www.quirkology.com/UK/Experiment_pets.shtml