Personality Psychology
(Differences between people)
(advanced 2024-2025)
Psychological traits - ✔✔✔characteristics that describe way sin which people are different from
each other
Psychological mechanisms - ✔✔✔processes of personality
Murray's 3 Levels of Personality Analysis
Every human being is: - ✔✔✔1) Like all others (human nature level)
2) Like some others (individual/group level)
3) Like no others (individual uniqueness level)
6 Domains - ✔✔✔1) Dispositional: ways individuals differ
2) Biological: genetics, psychophysiology, evolution
3) Intrapsychic: mental mechanisms of personality
4) Cognitive-Experiential: cognition and subjective experience
5) Social and cultural: personality affects and is affected by social and cultural contexts
6) Adjustment: personality plays a key role in how we adjust to our everyday lives
Don't Buy Swiss cheese, It's Aged!
@ pg. 1
, Personality psychology 2025
Is there a grand theory of personality - ✔✔✔NO?
The 6 domains can ultimately provide foundations for a unified theory
Sources of Personality Data - ✔✔✔S-data
O-data
T-data (fMRI, projective techniques, experiments)
L-data (life outcome--info gleaned from events)
Agreement across data sources is ___ to____ - ✔✔✔low to moderate
Some traits more observable
Depends heavily on research questions
Triangulation - ✔✔✔examine results that transcend data sources *using two methods to check
the results*
Reliability - ✔✔✔the degree to which an obtained measure represents the true level of a trait
Mary Rothbart - ✔✔✔6 dimensions of temperament (Activity Level, Smiling, Fearfulness,
Distress, Soothability, and Duration of orienting)
Modern Temperament Science - ✔✔✔Higher-order traits
Big 3 of modern temperament science - ✔✔✔Positive Emotionality
Negative Emotionality
Effortful Control
@ pg. 2