EXAM PACK
, Personology is the branch of psychology which focuses on the study of the
individual’s characteristics and of differences
between people.
Chapter One: Personology outcome of a purposeful, sustained
effort to develop a logically consistent
conceptual system for describing,
Everyday knowledge of Human explaining or predicting human
Nature involves the ability to Behaviour.
judge, understand, explain and The particular nature and purpose of
predict Behaviour of one’s fellow this conceptual handling of human
human beings. functioning differs from theory to
theory, includes some of the
Everyone has this kind of following.
knowledge but not everyone - an underlying view of the person
develops it to the same degree. - certain proposals about the
structure of personality and how
Our Ability to “judge” people the structure functions.
depends mainly on four (4) - Ideas about what motivates
sources of information; human Behaviour.
1. Cultural Tradition - A description of human
2. Direct communication from development and propositions
others about ideal human development.
3. observations of other - Reflections on the nature and
behaviours causes of behavioural problems
4. self-observations or psychopathology.
- An explanation of how human
Cultural Tradition: is an Behaviour might be controlled
especially rich source of and possibly changed.
- Ideas about how to study,
The Complexity of Humans and their Behaviour measure and predict Behaviour.
information. However, it is not Human Behaviour: is a highly
always reliable, as it is complex phenomenon which is
unsystematic, inaccurate, determined by a wide range of
contradictory and at times simply interdependent factors.
wrong.
Factors which have an influence on
Behaviour:
Personologists aim at improving
- Biological Factors such as the
such everyday knowledge about nervous system
people by basing their theories - The food one eats
on scientific methods. - Environmental circumstances
such as weather
Personology may be described - Environmental stimuli such as the
as the formal scientific things people say
counterpart of our informal - Social Factors such as the things
knowledge of human nature. people say
Personality Theory: is the - Overall social Milieu and culture
in which one lives