Chapter 1
● Defining personality
○ Psychology Definition
■ Unique and relatively enduring internal and external aspects of a person’s
character that may change in response to different situations
○ More about it
■ Personality is incredibly determinant of our life course and plays a role in
virtually everything we do
○ This course will focus much less on describing personality and much more on
understanding different theories on how it develops
● Personality and Social Media
○ Do we present our real selves on social media: what some research suggests
■ Our true personality shows pretty well through social media
■ Those who are neurotic display themselves to be more emotionally stable
■ The introverted seem to have an easier time presenting their true selves
on social media
■ Having profanity on social media instantly shifts how people view us on
social media
○ Does the use of Social media influence or change our personalities: research
■ Excessive time online seems to cause
● More anxiety/depression for chinese teens
● Reduced psychological well being
● Loneliness, introversion, and low self esteem
○ Do people with different personalities use social media in different ways
■ Extraverted and narcissistic individuals are more likely to use facebook
■ Those who report high social media use tend to be more extroverted,
open to new experiences, lower in self esteem and socialization skills, ess
conscientious and lower in emotional stability
■ Those who are sadistic are more likely to be trolls
○ Pros/cons of social media
■ Pros
● More more friends, speedy communication, foster empathy,
makes the world seem smaller, helps you build relationships
■ Cons
● Lacks emotional connections, allows people to be hurtful,
decreases communication skills, conveys inauthentic expression
of feelings, diminished understanding, causes face to face
interactions to feel disconnected, facilitates laziness, creates
skewed self image, reduced family closeness, causes distractions
● The role of race and gender in shaping personality
○ Different cultures and gender norms, without a doubt, affects personality
development
● The role of culture in shaping personality
, ○ Cross-cultural Psychology
■ Focuses on the idea that is formed by both genetic and environmental
(mainly cultural) factors.
■ Longer exposure to other cultures for more of your childhood has a
stronger effect
○ Cultures differ on a number of things including
■ Destiny
● Deterministic vs free will personalities can lead to more resigned
or active personalities. This is very true in the east vs west
■ Individualism
● Individualistic viewpoints result more often from western culture
and genetics
● Individualistic individuals show :
○ Higher happiness extraversion, self esteem, and optimism
about the future
○ Higher depression and anxiety
● Asian-american students differed as they derive much more
satisfaction from meeting the expectations for others
■ Child-rearing practices
● In the west, parents tend to be more democratic, noncoercive, and
permissive
● In the east, parents tend to be more authoritarian, restrictive, and
controlling
○ In the east, however, it seems that authoritarian parenting
styles don’t negatively harm the mental health of their
children. They report being closer to them are being more
satisfied
■ Self enhancement
● Americans to be higher self enhancing: the tendency to promote
oneself aggressively and make it conspicuous.
● Asian societies find more cultural agreement in the opposite of
that: self-effacement.
○ Self criticism is much higher in Japanese college students
than canadian students
● The assessment of personality: the focus of much of the field
○ Reliability and validity: two important concepts
■ Reliability: involves the consistency of a response to an assessment
device
■ Validity: refers to whether an assessment device measures what it’s
intended to measure
○ Methods of assessment
■ Self Report of Objective Inventories
● Example: MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
○ The world’s most widely used psychological test
● Defining personality
○ Psychology Definition
■ Unique and relatively enduring internal and external aspects of a person’s
character that may change in response to different situations
○ More about it
■ Personality is incredibly determinant of our life course and plays a role in
virtually everything we do
○ This course will focus much less on describing personality and much more on
understanding different theories on how it develops
● Personality and Social Media
○ Do we present our real selves on social media: what some research suggests
■ Our true personality shows pretty well through social media
■ Those who are neurotic display themselves to be more emotionally stable
■ The introverted seem to have an easier time presenting their true selves
on social media
■ Having profanity on social media instantly shifts how people view us on
social media
○ Does the use of Social media influence or change our personalities: research
■ Excessive time online seems to cause
● More anxiety/depression for chinese teens
● Reduced psychological well being
● Loneliness, introversion, and low self esteem
○ Do people with different personalities use social media in different ways
■ Extraverted and narcissistic individuals are more likely to use facebook
■ Those who report high social media use tend to be more extroverted,
open to new experiences, lower in self esteem and socialization skills, ess
conscientious and lower in emotional stability
■ Those who are sadistic are more likely to be trolls
○ Pros/cons of social media
■ Pros
● More more friends, speedy communication, foster empathy,
makes the world seem smaller, helps you build relationships
■ Cons
● Lacks emotional connections, allows people to be hurtful,
decreases communication skills, conveys inauthentic expression
of feelings, diminished understanding, causes face to face
interactions to feel disconnected, facilitates laziness, creates
skewed self image, reduced family closeness, causes distractions
● The role of race and gender in shaping personality
○ Different cultures and gender norms, without a doubt, affects personality
development
● The role of culture in shaping personality
, ○ Cross-cultural Psychology
■ Focuses on the idea that is formed by both genetic and environmental
(mainly cultural) factors.
■ Longer exposure to other cultures for more of your childhood has a
stronger effect
○ Cultures differ on a number of things including
■ Destiny
● Deterministic vs free will personalities can lead to more resigned
or active personalities. This is very true in the east vs west
■ Individualism
● Individualistic viewpoints result more often from western culture
and genetics
● Individualistic individuals show :
○ Higher happiness extraversion, self esteem, and optimism
about the future
○ Higher depression and anxiety
● Asian-american students differed as they derive much more
satisfaction from meeting the expectations for others
■ Child-rearing practices
● In the west, parents tend to be more democratic, noncoercive, and
permissive
● In the east, parents tend to be more authoritarian, restrictive, and
controlling
○ In the east, however, it seems that authoritarian parenting
styles don’t negatively harm the mental health of their
children. They report being closer to them are being more
satisfied
■ Self enhancement
● Americans to be higher self enhancing: the tendency to promote
oneself aggressively and make it conspicuous.
● Asian societies find more cultural agreement in the opposite of
that: self-effacement.
○ Self criticism is much higher in Japanese college students
than canadian students
● The assessment of personality: the focus of much of the field
○ Reliability and validity: two important concepts
■ Reliability: involves the consistency of a response to an assessment
device
■ Validity: refers to whether an assessment device measures what it’s
intended to measure
○ Methods of assessment
■ Self Report of Objective Inventories
● Example: MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
○ The world’s most widely used psychological test
