Hoorcolleges Persoonlijkheidspsychologie
Tilburg University 2017-2018
Femke van Leth
Inhoudsopgave
Lecture 1 (1-11) 2
Introduction 2
Lecture 2 (3-11) 5
Assessment, measurement and research design 5
Types of data 5
Evaluation and quality 8
Hoorcollege 3 (8-11) 10
Trekken en Trek-taxonomieën 10
Lecture 4 (10-11) 13
Theoretical points and measurement problems in personality psychology 13
What criteria should a personality trait fulfill? 13
Which measurement problems can affect validity (using S-data)? 15
What do we know about personality -> how is personality a predictor? 15
Hoorcollege 5 (15-11) 16
Hoofdstuk 5 – Persoonlijkheid over de tijd heen: Stabiliteit, coherentie en verandering 16
Hoorcollege 6 (17-11) 19
Hoofdstuk 8 – Evolutionaire psychologie 19
Hoorcollege 8 (24-11) 21
Hoofdstuk 19 – Persoonlijkheidspathologie 21
Wat is een stoornis? 21
Specifieke persoonlijkheidsstoornissen 22
Prevalentie van persoonlijkheidsstoornissen 25
Dimensioneel model van persoonlijkheidsstoornissen (DSM) 25
Hoorcollege 9 (29-11) 25
Hoofdstuk 14 - Benaderingen van het zelf 25
Zelfconcept ontwikkeling 25
Zelfconcept: functies en zelfschemata 26
Zelfwaardering 27
(Sociale) identiteit 28
Hoorcollege 10 (1-12) 29
Hoofdstuk 6 - Genetica en persoonlijkheid 29
Lecture 11 (6-12) 31
Personality and emotions 31
Approaches to studying emotions 32
States versus traits 33
Measurement of emotions 33
Emotional traits 33
Content versus syle of emotional life 34
Lecture 12 (8-12) 35
Extra material: replication of research 35
,Lecture 1 (1-11)
Introduction
- Personality psychology is the study of differences between people
- Primary aims of this course: acquire knowledge and insight in personality psychology
o Basic terms
o Basic techniques
o Basic theories
- In the workgroups, you use what you learn and you practice it
o Use the knowledge in practice
o Evaluation
o Knowledge synthesis: creation of new knowledge
- After having finished this course:
o You will be able to distinguish the most important theoretical approaches to
personality and recognize the most important corresponding ideas and
mechanisms;
o You will be able to recognize the most important methods of research and
research results from personality research and you know how to analyse and
use these in practice;
o You will be able to critically analyse and evaluate existing methods of
research
o You will be able to recognize, determine, interpret and apply ideas from
personality psychology
- The workgroups/labs are optional
- 13 lectures in total
o 11 about the book
o 1 about replication and reproducibility in personality psychology
o 1 summing it all up -> you can ask questions
- The book contains 6 domains of knowledge:
o Traits (dispositional approach to personality psychology)
▪ How do people differ?
▪ What are the most important traits that describe these differences?
o Biology
▪ Biological processes determine behaviour, thoughts and emotions
▪ Psychophysiology, genetics and evolution
o Psychic factors and motives (intrapsychic) -> Freud -> subconscious
o Wishes, goals, experiences, self-concept (cognitive-experiential)
▪ How do we see ourselves?
o Social positions, relations and culture (social and cultural domain)
▪ Personality influences and is influenced by interaction with the
environment
• Social environment (partner, friends, family)
• Cultural environment: what is normal in one culture may not
be normal in another culture
o Disorders and adjustments to stress and challenges (adjustment)
▪ Personality determines how we feel and deal with daily hassles
▪ Dysfunctional characteristics: personality disorders
• When it goes wrong
,- What you should take with you during the workgroups: a laptop!
- Material that comprises the exam:
o The stuff discussed during the lectures
▪ Slides
o Book -> all chapters except chapters 9, 12 and 17
• 60 multiple choice questions
- The exam contains of:
o 25 items tapping factual knowledge
o 25 items tapping comprehension
o 10 items tapping applications
▪ The workgroups/labs are useful to refresh your memory and info
- Flashcards are recommended to study for the exam
- What is personality and what can you do with it?
o In contrast with general psychology (biological, social), personality psychology
focusses on differences between people and what makes people unique
o Personality psychology has many implications:
▪ Organizations, corporations
▪ School, education
▪ Clinical psychology (ordinary traits, psychopathology)
• How are personality traits involved in pathological behaviour?
▪ Social psychology
• You can also have differences between groups, which are in
interaction with the differences between people
▪ Neuro-/Biological psychology
• Differences in biological factors, like hormones, can affect our
behaviour and personality
- Personality psychology is present in daily life (tests) and in the media (many
references to personality traits in investigations of special people)
o Many articles in popular magazines tell us about our personality
- The aim of personality psychology is to describe the differences between people, the
relation between these differences and to explain these differences
o Intrapersonal differences -> inside people
▪ How people change over time
▪ Intra-individual differences
• Differences in conditions, situations, time
o Interpersonal differences -> between people (focus!)
▪ Inter-individual differences
▪ How people differ from each other
o Intergroup differences
▪ Many types of groups possible (gender, country, culture
▪ Differences between groups
- We study differences in traits, motives, emotion (positive, negative/ duration,
fluctuations) and the self (how people define themselves in different situations)
- Differences in level of one variable are sometimes related to differences with
another variable -> how do these individual differences hang together?
- In the explaining of differences, there is a difference between
, o Proximal explanations: factors that co-occur in time with the phenomena you
want to explain (close explanations -> here and now approach)
o Distal explanations: factors that are further away in time (in our individual
past or way beyond our own past -> the evolutionary past)
- A short history of personality psychology
o Descriptions in (Greek) ancient times
▪ Tests regarding skills also in China
▪ Theophrastus, a student of Plato
• Collection of personality sketches: ‘characters’: personality
types
• ‘Primitive descriptions’ of personality trades and types
o Came back in the 19th century
▪ Francis Galton, James McKeen Cattell -> sensorimotor tasks
▪ Alfred Binet -> IQ-test, Stanford-Binet test
▪ Studying individual differences in character
• William James, Freud -> ideas, but no empirical research
• WOI: recruitment of soldiers, detection of ‘combat stress’
o The beginning was the publication of the book of Gordon Allport: Personality:
A Psychological Interpretation
- Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual
that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions
with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic/unconscious,
physical, and social environment)
- Psychological traits
o How many are there and how are they related?
o Which are the most important?
o Where do they come from? Are they nature or nurture?
o What correlates or are the consequences of a certain trait?
- Mechanisms
o Strategies of information processing
▪ Input -> decision rule (on the basis of your personality) -> output
- Within the individual
o How do individuals differ from one another in personality traits and
mechanisms?
- That is organized and relatively enduring
o No random set of traits or mechanisms
▪ Our traits in mechanisms are related to each other
o Linked in a coherent fashion
o Consistent over time and situations
- That influences his or her interactions with
o We don’t live in a social vacuum but in a social context
▪ Our personalities are linked to the social context in which we live
o Perception (how different people experience a situation), Selection (what
situations we choose is dependent of our personality), Evocation (how do
people react to our personality), Manipulation (how we persuade other
people to act in a way that is in line with our personality)
Tilburg University 2017-2018
Femke van Leth
Inhoudsopgave
Lecture 1 (1-11) 2
Introduction 2
Lecture 2 (3-11) 5
Assessment, measurement and research design 5
Types of data 5
Evaluation and quality 8
Hoorcollege 3 (8-11) 10
Trekken en Trek-taxonomieën 10
Lecture 4 (10-11) 13
Theoretical points and measurement problems in personality psychology 13
What criteria should a personality trait fulfill? 13
Which measurement problems can affect validity (using S-data)? 15
What do we know about personality -> how is personality a predictor? 15
Hoorcollege 5 (15-11) 16
Hoofdstuk 5 – Persoonlijkheid over de tijd heen: Stabiliteit, coherentie en verandering 16
Hoorcollege 6 (17-11) 19
Hoofdstuk 8 – Evolutionaire psychologie 19
Hoorcollege 8 (24-11) 21
Hoofdstuk 19 – Persoonlijkheidspathologie 21
Wat is een stoornis? 21
Specifieke persoonlijkheidsstoornissen 22
Prevalentie van persoonlijkheidsstoornissen 25
Dimensioneel model van persoonlijkheidsstoornissen (DSM) 25
Hoorcollege 9 (29-11) 25
Hoofdstuk 14 - Benaderingen van het zelf 25
Zelfconcept ontwikkeling 25
Zelfconcept: functies en zelfschemata 26
Zelfwaardering 27
(Sociale) identiteit 28
Hoorcollege 10 (1-12) 29
Hoofdstuk 6 - Genetica en persoonlijkheid 29
Lecture 11 (6-12) 31
Personality and emotions 31
Approaches to studying emotions 32
States versus traits 33
Measurement of emotions 33
Emotional traits 33
Content versus syle of emotional life 34
Lecture 12 (8-12) 35
Extra material: replication of research 35
,Lecture 1 (1-11)
Introduction
- Personality psychology is the study of differences between people
- Primary aims of this course: acquire knowledge and insight in personality psychology
o Basic terms
o Basic techniques
o Basic theories
- In the workgroups, you use what you learn and you practice it
o Use the knowledge in practice
o Evaluation
o Knowledge synthesis: creation of new knowledge
- After having finished this course:
o You will be able to distinguish the most important theoretical approaches to
personality and recognize the most important corresponding ideas and
mechanisms;
o You will be able to recognize the most important methods of research and
research results from personality research and you know how to analyse and
use these in practice;
o You will be able to critically analyse and evaluate existing methods of
research
o You will be able to recognize, determine, interpret and apply ideas from
personality psychology
- The workgroups/labs are optional
- 13 lectures in total
o 11 about the book
o 1 about replication and reproducibility in personality psychology
o 1 summing it all up -> you can ask questions
- The book contains 6 domains of knowledge:
o Traits (dispositional approach to personality psychology)
▪ How do people differ?
▪ What are the most important traits that describe these differences?
o Biology
▪ Biological processes determine behaviour, thoughts and emotions
▪ Psychophysiology, genetics and evolution
o Psychic factors and motives (intrapsychic) -> Freud -> subconscious
o Wishes, goals, experiences, self-concept (cognitive-experiential)
▪ How do we see ourselves?
o Social positions, relations and culture (social and cultural domain)
▪ Personality influences and is influenced by interaction with the
environment
• Social environment (partner, friends, family)
• Cultural environment: what is normal in one culture may not
be normal in another culture
o Disorders and adjustments to stress and challenges (adjustment)
▪ Personality determines how we feel and deal with daily hassles
▪ Dysfunctional characteristics: personality disorders
• When it goes wrong
,- What you should take with you during the workgroups: a laptop!
- Material that comprises the exam:
o The stuff discussed during the lectures
▪ Slides
o Book -> all chapters except chapters 9, 12 and 17
• 60 multiple choice questions
- The exam contains of:
o 25 items tapping factual knowledge
o 25 items tapping comprehension
o 10 items tapping applications
▪ The workgroups/labs are useful to refresh your memory and info
- Flashcards are recommended to study for the exam
- What is personality and what can you do with it?
o In contrast with general psychology (biological, social), personality psychology
focusses on differences between people and what makes people unique
o Personality psychology has many implications:
▪ Organizations, corporations
▪ School, education
▪ Clinical psychology (ordinary traits, psychopathology)
• How are personality traits involved in pathological behaviour?
▪ Social psychology
• You can also have differences between groups, which are in
interaction with the differences between people
▪ Neuro-/Biological psychology
• Differences in biological factors, like hormones, can affect our
behaviour and personality
- Personality psychology is present in daily life (tests) and in the media (many
references to personality traits in investigations of special people)
o Many articles in popular magazines tell us about our personality
- The aim of personality psychology is to describe the differences between people, the
relation between these differences and to explain these differences
o Intrapersonal differences -> inside people
▪ How people change over time
▪ Intra-individual differences
• Differences in conditions, situations, time
o Interpersonal differences -> between people (focus!)
▪ Inter-individual differences
▪ How people differ from each other
o Intergroup differences
▪ Many types of groups possible (gender, country, culture
▪ Differences between groups
- We study differences in traits, motives, emotion (positive, negative/ duration,
fluctuations) and the self (how people define themselves in different situations)
- Differences in level of one variable are sometimes related to differences with
another variable -> how do these individual differences hang together?
- In the explaining of differences, there is a difference between
, o Proximal explanations: factors that co-occur in time with the phenomena you
want to explain (close explanations -> here and now approach)
o Distal explanations: factors that are further away in time (in our individual
past or way beyond our own past -> the evolutionary past)
- A short history of personality psychology
o Descriptions in (Greek) ancient times
▪ Tests regarding skills also in China
▪ Theophrastus, a student of Plato
• Collection of personality sketches: ‘characters’: personality
types
• ‘Primitive descriptions’ of personality trades and types
o Came back in the 19th century
▪ Francis Galton, James McKeen Cattell -> sensorimotor tasks
▪ Alfred Binet -> IQ-test, Stanford-Binet test
▪ Studying individual differences in character
• William James, Freud -> ideas, but no empirical research
• WOI: recruitment of soldiers, detection of ‘combat stress’
o The beginning was the publication of the book of Gordon Allport: Personality:
A Psychological Interpretation
- Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual
that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions
with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic/unconscious,
physical, and social environment)
- Psychological traits
o How many are there and how are they related?
o Which are the most important?
o Where do they come from? Are they nature or nurture?
o What correlates or are the consequences of a certain trait?
- Mechanisms
o Strategies of information processing
▪ Input -> decision rule (on the basis of your personality) -> output
- Within the individual
o How do individuals differ from one another in personality traits and
mechanisms?
- That is organized and relatively enduring
o No random set of traits or mechanisms
▪ Our traits in mechanisms are related to each other
o Linked in a coherent fashion
o Consistent over time and situations
- That influences his or her interactions with
o We don’t live in a social vacuum but in a social context
▪ Our personalities are linked to the social context in which we live
o Perception (how different people experience a situation), Selection (what
situations we choose is dependent of our personality), Evocation (how do
people react to our personality), Manipulation (how we persuade other
people to act in a way that is in line with our personality)
