Personality-Psychology-Englsih-Version-munotes

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INTRAPSYCHIC DOMAIN - I
Unit Structure
1.1 Psychoanalytic aspects of personality.
1.1.1 Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective: Exploring the Unconscious
1.1.2 Division of the Mind
1.1.3 Personality Structure
1.1.4 Developmental Stages of Personality
1.1.5 Defense Mechanisms
1.2 Psychodynamic perspective: contemporary issues
1.2.1 Psychodynamic Theorists
1.2.2 Assessing Unconscious Processes
1.2.3 Evaluating Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective and Modern Views
of the Unconscious
1.2.4 The Modern Unconscious M ind
1.1 PSYCHO ANALYTIC ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY
Psychodynamic theories of personality consider human behavior as a
dynamic interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind and its
associated motives and conflicts. These theories originated from Sigmund
Freud’s psychoanalysis theory and later on Neo -Freudian theories were
included. So, let us begin with psychoanalytic perspective.
1.1.1 Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective: Exploring the Unconscious:
Sigmund Freud was born 1856. That was a Victorian era i n Europe – a
time of tremendous discovery and scientific advancement, but also a time
of sexual repression and male dominance. In general, only male sexuality
was acknowledged and that too very discreetly. Freud was very
independent, brilliant and voraciou s book reader right from his teens. He
became a doctor specializing in nervous disorders and started a private
clinic. Very soon he became famous because of his work in psychiatry.
Till today his influence lingers in psychiatry and clinical psychology as
well as in many other courses.
Many of his patients were rich females, and while treating them he
realized that they had disorders without any neurological base, e.g., a
patient may complain that she has lost all sensations in her hand and yet he
observed that no sensory nerve was damaged that would numb only the
entire hand but nothing else. Freud’s search for a cause for such disorders
made him realize that some neurological disorders can have psychological
causes. He called his theory of personality and the associated treatment munotes.in

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2 techniques as Psychoanalysis. In his personality theory, he emphasized
first of all on division of mind, then on structure of personality, psycho -
sexual stages of personality development and defense mechanism.
1.1.2 Division of the Mind:
Freud believed that mind is divided into three parts. The conscious, the
preconscious, and the unconscious.
1) The Conscious Mind :
The conscious mind is the uppermost part of the mind. It contains
information that one is aware of at any given time. This is an Individual’s
current perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies, feelings that he is
aware of. It is quite close to short -term memory concept which you have
studied in earlier chapters. Freud believed that mind is mostly hidden and
the consciou s awareness is like the part of an iceberg. In other words, what
we are aware of is a very small part of our consciousness and beneath this
awareness is the large unconscious mind with its thoughts, wishes,
feelings and memories.
2) The Preconscious Mind :
The preconscious mind contains ideas, feelings, events, concerns beliefs,
thoughts that person is not aware of at present but can easily be made
accessible to the conscious. This contains memories that are not at the
moment in the conscious thought proce ss, but can readily be brought to
mind whenever needed. It works closely with the conscious mind. Today,
it can be called as explicit long -term-memory. But Freud suggested that
these two are the smallest parts of mind.
3) The Unconscious Mind:
The unconsc ious mind (often called as “the unconscious”) is the most
central and significant part of Freudian theory. The unconscious is most
important determinant of human personality and behaviour. According to
Freud, the unconscious is a mass of unacceptable passi ons and thoughts
that he believed we repress or forcibly block from our consciousness
because it would be too stressful to acknowledge them. These are the
major source of our motivations ranging from simple desires for food, and
sex to the complex motives like creativity of an artist. This largest part of
mind remains hidden toconscious. Without our awareness, these
troubleshooting feelings and ideas powerfully influence us, sometimes
getting expressed in disguised form such as dreams, slip of tongue, the
work we choose, the beliefs we hold, our daily habits, or other behavior
that people carry out without understanding the reasons for it. He believed
that nothing is ever accidental and considered jokes as expression of
repressed sexual and aggressive tenden cies and dreams as the “royal road
to the unconscious”. In dream analyses, he searched for patients’ inner
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3 To gain access to patients’ unconscious mind, initially he used hypnosis.
But that did not work. So, he devised a new method called “Free
Association”. In using this method, he asked his patients to relax and say
whatever came to their mind, no matter how embarrassing or trivial it is.
He assumed that certain mental blocks from patient’s distant past are
responsible for his troubled present and free association will allow him to
retrace those mental blocks, allowing him to peep into patient’s
unconscious mind and retrieve and remove painful memories stored from
his childhood.
1.1.3 Personality Structure:
According to Freud, personality can b e divided into three parts. They
dynamically interact with each other. They are: Id, Ego, and Superego.
1) ID:
The first and primitive part of personality is Id. It is present since infancy.
It is completely unconscious and amoral. It contains all the ba sic
biological drives to survive, reproduce and aggress. The id is the
impulsive, child -like portion of the psyche that operates on the “pleasure
principle”. The pleasure principle states that there should be immediate
gratification of the needs without ca ring about outside world’s restrictions
or societal conventions of civilized, standard, and moral behaviour.
People dominated by ID will concentrate on present pleasure rather than
think about future pleasure, e.g., they will enjoy parties, movies now
rather than sacrifice today’s pleasure for future success and happiness.
Freud believed that human personality is the result of our efforts to resolve
these conflicts between impulses and restraints between our aggressive,
pleasure seeking biological urges a nd our internalized social control over
these urges.
2) EGO:
This second part of personality is developed to handle the reality. It is
partially conscious part of mind that includes our higher cognitive
abilities, rationality, perceptions, thoughtfulness , memories, learning, and
logical processes. It provides buffer between illogical, amoral impulses of
id and societal restrictions. The Ego works on reality principle , which
means that the id’s drives are satisfied in a realistic way that will avoid
negati ve outcomes and will bring long term pleasure. So, there are times
when ego denies the gratification of id’s drive because of possible
negative consequences. For example, if a very young kid is hungry, then
he picks up food from anybody’s plate, but slight ly older kids will not do
that. Instead they would wait for their plate to come or make a request in
more formal ways. If they are at stranger’s place, then they will prefer to
stay hungry than asking for food. This is because ego develops with the
age.
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4 3) SUPEREGO:
Freud believed that around the age of 4 or 5 our superego starts
developing and ego starts recognizing the demands of superego. Superego
represents our moral values imbibed from the society. These are the rules
and regulations about what is ri ght and wrong taught by parents, teachers,
and important others. The superego tells us how we ought to behave. It
forces ego to consider not only the real world but also the ideal world. In
other worlds, it tells ego to not only avoid punishment but also t o strive for
ideal behavior. It strives for perfection. It prevents us from doing morally
incorrect things, by producing guilt (also called as moral anxiety ). It
produces feeling of pride when we do morally correct things. A person
with very strong supereg o may be virtuous and yet guilt -ridden, while
another person with weak superego may be low in using self -restraint and
yet may not feel any guilt.
Fig. 14.1







Since t he Id is unrealistically impulsive and the superego is unrealistically
moralistic, the id and superego’s demands are always in conflict, the ego
tries to strike a balance between the two. The ego is the “executive” part
of the personality. It mediates between the impulsive demands of the id
and the restraining demands of the superego an d the real life demands of
the external world. Anxiety is created when ego cannot meet their needs.
Extreme anxiety leads to disorders. The Psychological Defense
Mechanisms are used to deal with anxiety and stress created by conflicts
between the three com ponents of personality. They are unconscious
strategies people use to deal with the anxiety and by distorting the reality.
They have been classified as psychotic, immature, neurotic and healthy
defense mechanisms. But before talking about defense mechanism s in
detail let us look at the developmental stages of personality.
1.1.4 Developmental Stages of Personality:
Freud proposed that development of personality takes place when a child
passes through a series of psychosexual stages. Freud has identified
particular body parts as a focus of specific developmental stage. In each
psychosexual stage, id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on specific body
parts that provide sensation of pleasure during that stage. It is called as
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5 erogenous zone. In every psychosexu al stage, there is a conflict between
id, ego and superego. Conflicts unresolved during earlier psychosexual
stages could lead to maladaptive behavior in the adult years. These stages
are Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital .
Table 1.1
Freud’s Psychos exual Stages of Development
Stage Age Erogenous Characteristics


Oral Birth to 18
months

Mouth Indulges in oral activities like
sucking, biting, mouthing, eating,
to obtain pleasure.



Anal
18 to 36
months
Anus
Gratification obtained from
withhold ing and expelling fesses,
try to handle the pressures of
society regarding toilet training.
Fixation leads to anal expulsive or
anal-retentive personality.


Phallic

3 – 6years

Genitals
Derives pleasure by fondling
genitals.
Oedipal Conflict is impor tant
characteristics, and it is resolved by
identifying with same sex parents.

Latency
6 years to
Puberty

Adolescence
Social skills
intellectual
abilities. The sexual feelings are kept latent
by repressing them in unconscious.


Genital
Puberty
onwa rds Maturation of sexual interests - The
mature, adult sexuality develops
during this stage.

1) Oral Stage :
The duration of first stage of psychosexual development, namely Oral
Stage , is from birth to 18 months. The erogenous zone of oral stage is
mout h. Children enjoy activities like sucking, biting, mouthing, etc. The
conflict that is experienced in this stage is weaning the child from bottle or
mother’s breast feed. The child will get fixated in the oral stage if the child
overindulges (continue to b reast/bottle feed for longer duration)or become
frustrated (due to early or abrupt weaning) with the oral gratification. This
leads to development of oral personality in adulthood. Aggressive -
pessimistic traits develop if oral needs are under gratified and dependency -
optimism develops if they are over gratified. If they are over gratified,
they may continue to seek oral gratification by overeating, talking too
much, smoking, etc. If they are weaned away too early leading to under
gratification they may act tough or speak in “bitingly” sarcastic way, etc. munotes.in

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6 2) Anal Stage:
The duration of Anal Stage of psychosexual development is from 18
months to 3 years. The erogenous zone of anal stage is anus. Children at
this stage derive pleasure by both withholding and e xpulsion of fesses at
will. In addition to physical pleasure, child also derives pleasure from self -
control and the praise from parents. The conflict that is experienced in this
stage is toilet training. The child will get fixated in the anal stage if toil et
training is too harsh. The conflict leads to development of anal personality
in adulthood. They are of two types: anal expulsive personalities and anal
retentive personalities . Anal Expulsive Personality results from child’s
rebel against toilet trainin g by parents. The adult would show
destructiveness, hostility, emotional outbursts, disorganization,
rebelliousness and carelessness. They could also become extremely
generous and indiscipline. Anal -Retentive Personality develops due to fear
of punishment. The child retains fesses and refuses to go to toilet. They
develop traits like excessive orderliness, neatness, stubbornness, a
compulsion for control and have interest in collecting, holding, and
retaining objects.
3) Phallic Stage:
The Phallic Stage is between 3 years to 6years. The genitals are erogenous
zone during this stage. Child derives pleasure by fondling genitals. Boys
develop unconscious sexual desires for their mother and jealousy and
hatred for their fathers, whom they consider as their riva ls. Similarly, girls
develop unconscious sexual desire for their fathers. Boys experience
Oedipal Conflict and girls experience Electra Complex in this phase.
Father is perceived as powerful, and they develop castration anxiety, a fear
that their penis wil l be cut -off by their fathers, if fathers come to know of
their sexual attraction towards their mothers. To resolve this anxiety boys
Identify with their fathers and girls identify with their mothers. This is
called as Oedipus complex. According to Freud, girls get attracted to
father and experience penis envy , feeling of inferiority for not having that
anatomical part. They held mother responsible for this. To resolve this
conflicting feeling towards mother, girls identify with mother. Normal
sexual develo pment occurs if the conflict is resolved. Immature sexual
attitudes, promiscuous or sexually inhibited behaviour, and sexual
confusion in adulthood may result from fixation in phallic stage.
4) Latency Stage:
The duration of this stage is from 7 to 12 yea rs. The sexual feeling of child
is repressed in unconscious, or kept latent , and the child grows physically,
intellectually, and socially. This is relatively a calm stage where sexual
energy is converted into interest in excelling in school work and sports ,
etc.
5) Genital Stage:
The duration of this phase is from 13 years onwards till death. The mature,
adult sexuality develops during this stage. At this stage, once again the munotes.in

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7 attention is shifted to genitals but sexual attraction is shifted from one’s
parents to members of the opposite sex. Sexual urges are expressed
through socially approved channels. Sex takes a matured form by moving
from desire for pleasure only to a desire for reproduction. The sexual and
aggressive motives are transferred into energ y for marriage, occupation
and child rearing.
1.1.5 Defense Mechanisms:
Table 14.2
Defense
Mechanism Unconscious process
employed to avoid anxiety -
arousing thoughts/feelings Examples
Regression Reverting back to more
immature behavior from
infantile psyc hosexual stage,
where some psychic energy
remains fixated. Throwing temper
tantrums as an adult
when you don’t get
your way or reverting
back to the oral
comfort of thumb
sucking .
Reaction
Formation Acting in exactly the
opposite way to one’s
unaccepta ble impulses. Being overprotective
of and generous
towards an unwanted
child, or repressing
angry feelings, a
person may display
exaggerated
friendliness.
Projection Attributing one’s own
unacceptable feelings and
thoughts to others and not to
yourself. Accusing your friend
on cheating on you
because you have felt
like cheating on her.
There is a saying “The
thief thinks everyone
else is a thief”.
Rationalization Creating false excuses for
one’s unacceptable feelings
and thoughts to others and
not to yourself. In other
words, offering self -
justifying explanations in
place of the real, more
threatening unconscious
reasons for one’s actions. Justifying cheating in
an exam by saying
that everyone else
does that, or a habitual
drinker says he drinks
just to be sociable.
Displacement Redirecting unacceptable
feelings from the original
source to a safer, more
acceptable substitute target. Taking your anger
towards your boss out
on your wife or
children by shouting munotes.in

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8 at them and not at
your boss or a child
bangs the door hard
instead of shouting
back at his mother.
Denial Blocking external events
from awareness. If some
situation is just too much to
handle, the person refuses to
believe or even perceive
painful realities. Smokers may refuse
to admit to th emselves
that smoking is bad
for health, or a person
may refuse to believe
that his son is
involved in anti -
national activities.

Freud held that anxiety is the price we pay for civilization. There is a
constant tug of war between id and superego and eg o has to balance both
of them. Sometimes, ego fears losing control over this inner war and we
experience anxiety. At such times, ego protects itself with defense
mechanisms, i.e., the tactics used to reduce or redirect anxiety by
distorting reality. All th ese defense mechanisms work at unconscious level
and ego unconsciously defends itself against anxiety. Some of these
defense mechanisms are discussed here.
1.2 PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE:
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
1.2.1 Psychodynamic Theorists:
Freud’s theory has been criticized as well as praised by his contemporaries
and by other psychologists later. Those who followed broad framework of
Freud and developed their own theories of psychoanalysis are called as
Neo-Freudians . Neo -Freudians accepted his basic idea s such as
personality structure of id, ego, superego; the importance of the
unconscious; the shaping of personality in childhood; and the role of
anxiety and defense mechanisms in personality development. However,
they did not agree with the idea that only sex and aggression are dominant
motives in our lives. They believed that social interaction also plays an
important role. Similarly, while accepting the role of unconscious mind
they emphasized the role of conscious mind also in interpreting our
experienc es and in coping with our environment. Some of the important
Neo-Freudian theorists are Jung, Adler, Horney, etc.
Carl Jung :
Carl Gustav Jung differed from Freud on the nature of unconscious and
parted away from Freud. In addition to Personal Unconscious , he
developed the concept of Collective Unconscious . It is the store house of
our experiences as a species since ancient ages. We are born with it and
are not conscious of it. He called these collective universal human
memories as Archetypes, an unlearned inclination to experience world in a munotes.in

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9 particular way. Among the many archetypes, Mother (our inner tendency
to identify a particular relationship of “mothering”), Anima/Animus
(feminine component within males/ masculine component within females),
Shadow (dark side of ego containing sex and life instincts), persona
(individual’s public image) are important.
Jung was initially Freud’s disciple but later turned his dissenter. While he
agreed with the idea that unconscious exerts a powerful influence on our
behav ior, he believed that unconscious holds more than our repressed
thoughts and feelings. He criticized Freud’s theory of the Oedipus
complex and his emphasis on infantile sexuality. He said we all have a
collective unconscious, a storehouse of repressed memo ries specific to the
individual and our ancestral past. This is a level of unconscious shared
with other members of the human species comprising latent memories
from our ancestral and evolutionary past. ‘The form of the world into
which [a person] is born is already inborn in him, as a virtual image’
(Jung, 1953, p. 188). Jung called these ancestral memories and images that
have universal meaning across cultures as archetypes. These archetypes
show up in dreams, literature, art or religion. These past exper iences
explain why people in different cultures share certain myths and images,
e.g., mother as a symbol of nurturance, or f ear of the dark, or of snakes
and spiders.
Alfred Adler:
Alfred Adler had struggled to overcome his own childhood illnesses and
accidents due to which he had suffered from inferiority complex. So,
while proposing the concept of inferiority complex he stated that
everybody experiences sense of inferiority, weakness and helplessness as a
child and struggle to overcome the inadequacies b y become superior and
powerful adults. He identified ‘striving for superiority’ as a thrust
propelling thought, feelings, and actions of humans. Two important
concepts in his theory are: Parenting and Birth Order . According to Adler,
the order in which per son is born in the family innately influences persons
personality. The firstborn , experience crisis as the attention shifts to
younger sibling after their births and to overcome this they become
overachievers. Middle born children are not pampered but get the
attention and become more superior. After dethroning older sibling, they
have power over their younger siblings and engage in healthy competition.
The youngest children have the least amount of power in family and are
more pampered and protected. This creates a sense that they cannot take
responsibilities and feel inferior to others.
Adler identified two Parenting Styles that leads to problems in adulthood:
Pampering and Neglect . Pampering parents overprotect a child, provide
excessive attention, and pr otect from the dark part of life. As adults, child
has poor skills to deal with realities, self -doubts about abilities. A
Neglecting Parent do not protect child at all, and they are left to deal with
life problems alone. As adults, they fear the world, can not trust others, and
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10 Karen Horney:
Karen Horney differed from Freud on his masculine focus and idea of
‘penis envy’ and women having weak superego. She substituted the
concept of ‘penis envy’ with her idea of ‘ womb envy’. She said that “The
view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such,
incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine
tendency to lower women’s self -respect”. She considered that the basic
anxiety, a f eeling of fearfulness and anxiety experience in childhood
triggers the desire for love and security.
Post Freud’s life, most contemporary psychodynamic theorists and
therapists do not accept the idea of sex as the basis of personality. They do
not accept the idea of id, ego and superego and do not classify their
patients in terms of oral, anal or phallic characters. But they do accept that
much of our mental life is unconscious, that very often we struggle with
inner conflicts among our wishes, fears and v alues and that our childhood
experiences shape our personality and the way we become attached to
others in later life.
Neo-Freudians’ major disagreements with Freud can be summarized as -
1. Socio cultural factors determine conflicts, not instincts.
2. Infan tile sexuality is of little importance compared to socio - cultural
factors. Conflicts can be or are predominately non - sexual.
3. Societal factors cause anxiety, not a defense.
4. Dreams have no latent content: could be metaphorical expressions of
the patien t’s real concern or reflect struggles to achieve self -awareness
and responsibility.
5. Oedipal complex has no sexual component, is due to interpersonal/
social factors.
6. Technique of treatment: normally emphasize ‘here and now’, de -
emphasis on past, gaining i nsight etc.
1.2.2 Assessing Unconscious Processes:
To peep into unconscious mind, early childhood experiences and to
unearth hidden impulses and conflicts, psychologists have developed
certain tools that do not ask direct questions and expect answers in ye s-no
or true -false format as objective assessment tools do. These tools that
measure personality indirectly are known as projective tools. Projective
tests are like “psychological X -ray” in which a test taker is asked to tell a
story or describe an ambiguo us stimulus. It is assumed that any hopes,
desires and fears that test taker sees in the ambiguous image are the
projections of their own inner feelings or conflicts. One of these projective
tests is
Rorschach Inkblot Test:
People are presented a series of 10 inkblots printed on cards and people
are asked to describe what they see in these inkblots. The test has been
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11 power of Rorschach test so much that they have used it to assess
criminal’s violence potential and present it to court as evidence. Others
consider it as a helpful diagnostic tool, an icebreaker and a revealing
interview technique. However, the scoring and interpretation of the test
had been criticized often and to over come this criticism a research based,
computerized tool has been designed to bring uniformity in scoring and
interpretation. Yet many critics comment that only some of Rorschach
based scores, such as scores for hostility and anxiety, have shown validity.
So these tests are not reliable as a whole. Other critics believed that this
test diagnoses many normal people as pathological as clinician’s
interpretations of the answers given are based on intuitions of the
clinicians.
1.2.3 Evaluating Freud’s Psychoana lytic Perspective and Modern
Views of the Unconscious:
Recent research disagrees with Freud’s ideas on many counts. For
instance -
1. Modern developmental psychologists believe that development is a
lifelong process and not fixed in childhood only as Freud bel ieved.
2. They do not believe that an infant’s neural networks are mature enough
to hold as much emotional trauma as Freud assumed that they do.
3. Some critics think that Freud overestimated the parental influence and
underestimated the peer influence.
4. Freud’s idea that conscience and gender identity develops when
children resolve Oedipus complex at the age of5 or 6 was also
criticized. It is observed that children develop their gender identity
much earlier than age of 5 or 6 and become strongly masculine or
feminine even without a same sex parent present.
5. Critics also believe that Freud’s ideas about childhood sexuality arose
from his skepticism of stories of childhood sexual abuse told by his
female patients. He attributed these stories of childhood abuse to their
own childhood sexual wishes and conflicts.
6. Freud is also criticized on his methodology of collecting information.
The way he framed his questions might have created false memories of
childhood sexual abuse.
7. New ideas about why we dream are also cont rary to Freud’s belief that
dreams display hidden feelings and are tools for wish fulfillment.
Similarly, slips of the tongue can be explained as competition between
similar choices in our memory. When someone says that “I don’t want
to do it - it’s a lot o f bother” may simply be blending bother and
trouble.
8. Freud’s idea that defense mechanisms disguise sexual and aggressive
impulses, and suppressed sexuality causes psychological disorders, is
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12 inhibitions have gone down but psychological disorders have not gone
down.
9. Psychoanalytic theory assumes that the human mind often represses
troublesome wishes and feelings, banishing them into the unconscious
mind until they resurface. He believed th at if we can recover and
resolve childhood’s conflicts and wishes, emotional healing would
follow. However, modern researchers believe that repression is a rare
mental response to trauma. Even those who have witnessed a parent’s
murder or survived Nazi dea th camps retain their unrepressed
memories of the horror. (Helmreich 1992; Pennebaker,1990)
10. It is also argued that Freud’s theory does not meet the criteria of being
scientific theory. A scientific theory must offer new testable
hypotheses and objective wa y of testing the existing theory.
11. The most serious problem with Freud’s theory is that it offers after -
the-fact explanations of any characteristic but fails to predict such
behaviors and traits, e.g., according to his theory, if you feel angry at
your mot her’s death, it is because your unresolved childhood
dependency needs are threatened. On the other hand, if you do not feel
angry, it is because you are repressing your anger. Lindzey (1978)
rightly commented that it is like betting on a horse after the ra ce is
over.
12. Critics said that a good theory should give testable predictions but
Freud’s supporters said that Freud never claimed that psychoanalysis
was a predictive science. He merely claimed that looking back,
psychoanalyst could find meaning in our st ate of mind.
13. His supporters further point out that some of Freud’s ideas are
everlasting, e.g., he drew attention to the idea of unconscious,
irrationality, self -protective defense mechanisms, importance of
sexuality, tension between our biological impuls es and our social well -
being. He challenged our self -righteousness, punctured our pretensions
and reminded us of our potential for evil.
1.2.4 The Modern Unconscious Mind
Modern researchers agree with Freud that we have very limited access to
all that goe s on in our minds, but they think unconscious does not
comprise of just seething passions and repressive censorings, rather there
is information processing going on there without our awareness. This
information processing can involve:
a.) Formation of the sch emas that automatically control our behavior
b.) The implicit memories that operate without conscious recall, even
among those with amnesia.
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13 d.) The formation of self -concept and stereotypes that unc onsciously
influence the way we process information about ourselves and others.
So, our lives are guided by off -screen, out -of-sight, unconscious
information processing. The unconscious mind is huge.
Recent research also supported Freud’s idea of defense mechanisms.
People tend to see their own faults and attitudes in others. Freud called this
tendency as ‘Projection”, a defense mechanism. Modern researchers call it
“False Consensus Effect”, the tendency to overestimate the extent to
which others share our beliefs and behaviors. For example, people who
break traffic rules assume that everyone does it, people who are happy,
kind and trustworthy assume all others are also have same attributes.
Similarly, another defense mechanism used by people to defend thei r self -
esteem is Reaction formation. Baumeister stated that defense mechanisms
are less likely to be used by seething impulses and more by our need to
protect our self -images.
Modern research has supported Freud’s idea that we unconsciously defend
ourselv es against anxiety. Greenberg et.al. (1997) rightly said that one
source of anxiety is “the terror resulting from our awareness of
vulnerability and death”. Terror management theory shows that death
anxiety increases contempt for others and esteem for ones elf (Koole
et.al.,2006). Living in a threatening world, people tend to act not only to
enhance their self -esteem but also to stick strongly to worldviews that
answer questions about life’s meaning. For example, the likelihood of
death increases religious s entiments and deep religious beliefs enable
people to be less defensive (Jonas & Fishcher,2006). When faced with
death, people yearn for and stick to close relationships, e.g., when a person
is nearing his end, he/she yearns to meet family and friends, and put in
extra efforts to reach out to them even if they have not communicated
before for years together.
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INTRAPSYCHIC DOMAIN - II
Unit Structure
2.1 Motives and personality: basic concepts, big three motives
2.1.1 Understanding Personality
2.1.2 Characteristics of Personality
2.1.3 Assessing Personality
2.1.4 The Big Three Motives Achievement Power and Inti macy
2.2 Humanistic tradition.
2.2.1 Abraham Maslow’s Self -Actualizing Person
2.2..2 Carl Rogers’ Person -Centered Perspective
2.2.3 Assessing the Self
2.2.4 Evaluating Humanistic Theories
2.3 Questions
2.1 MOTIVES AND PERSONALITY: BASIC CONCEPTS,
BIG THRE E MOTIVES
2.1.1 Understanding Personality
To begin our discussion of personality, I will offer a definition but know
that no universally accepted definition exists. For our purposes,
personality is defined as an individual’s unique pattern of thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors that persists over time and across situations.
Personality traits refer to a specific set of behaviors or habits that persist
over time and across situations. Traits help us to understand why people
respond the way they do when faced w ith a situation, and why they
approach certain situations and avoid others. We will define these two
questions about behavior more specifically in Section 7.3.
Our personality changes across childhood and into adolescence and does
so due to our temperament which is all of our behavioral and emotional
predispositions present when we are born (McCrae et al, 2000).
Temperament has been proposed to have nine dimensions to include:
rhythmicity, intensity of reaction, distractibility, persistence, mood quality,
activity level, responsiveness, approach/withdrawal, and ability to adapt to
new experiences (Thomas & Chess, 1977). From this, three types of
temperament emerge. According to Thomas and Chess (1977), the types
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15 are regular in their biological function. In contrast, difficult children cry
more, are irritable, and generally negative when new events occur. They
are also less regular in their biological function compared to easy children.
Finally, slow -to-warm -up children display few intense reactions and are
fairly positive once they have adapted to a new event or person. From
these early styles of temperament, our personality emerges over time.
Temperament serves as a foundation of sorts.
2.1.2 Characteristics of Personality
It is not an overstatement to say that personality is universal, meaning that
everyone has one. Of course, our definition indicated that personality is
unique, reflecting a great deal of diversity. Take a moment to desc ribe
your personality, listing as many descriptive words that you
can……………………What did your list look like? How might it
compare to your significant other? Your children? A classmate? A
coworker? Your boss? A stranger on the street? I bet you have some
personality traits in common. But what if you and another person both said
you were affectionate or vindictive. Could there be differences in what
these terms mean to the both of you? We might say personality falls on a
continuum, with not very affectionate o n one end and very affectionate on
the other end. You could assess this trait by asking yourself (and the other
person) on a scale of 1 -10 with 1 being not very and 10 being very, how
affectionate are you? If you answered 8 and your counterpart answered 7,
what does this mean? You both are affectionate but not to the same
degree. Remember our earlier discussion of the dimensions of behavior
from Module 6. Intensity was one such dimension. Does it apply in this
scenario?
Personality is also stable across tim e, meaning that it is consistent and
persistent throughout life. As this is the case, it should also be predictable.
We discussed this in Module 2 in relation to emotions. Affective traits are
our more emotional personality traits and help to generally det ermine our
response to different demands in our environment. This is not set in stone
though, as mood affects our emotional response. Though we might be
affectionate in general, if our significant other makes a disparaging
comment about us, we may not want to share a kiss or hug until the issue
is resolved.
Is personality inheritable or is the environment responsible? A study from
2015 investigated this issue in animals and found that 52% of the variation
was due to genetics and that this value is much high er for the heritability
of personality compared to behaviors (Dochtermann, Schwab, & Sih,
2015). Do these cross -species findings hold up in humans? Twin studies
typically attribute about half of the variance in personality to
heritability/genes and the re maining half to the environment, but some
studies suggest that this may not always be the case and parental
relationships can enhance or diminish genetic and environmental
influences (Krueger, South, Johnson, & Iacono, 2008). A recent meta -
analysis confir med this 2008 finding, indicating that 40% of the variability
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16 (Vukasovic & Bratko, 2015). This said, childhood personality disorders
have been found to have a substantial genetic compone nt similar to
heritability estimates in adults (Coolidge, Thede, & Jang, 2001). This
earlier finding has been confirmed in more recent research of Cluster B
personality disorders, defined in Section 7.4 (Torgersen et al., 2012).
2.1.3 Assessing Personality
Personality assessment involves the measurement of personality and is
conducted by a wide range of psychologists. For example,
industrial/organizational psychologists examine whether certain
personality traits make a person more likely to succeed in a job . Clinical
psychologists examine the personality traits of their clients to see if certain
treatment methods will work better for them than others but also who
measure to find maladaptive traits that may be causing problems in living.
Finally, the social p sychologist measures authoritarianism or aggressive
tendencies in participants.
Assessment involves making sure the personality test is reliable or
provides consistent responses and valid meaning it measures what it says
it measures. In the case of reliabi lity, your score on a personality test today
should be the same, or very close, tomorrow. In the case of validity, if a
test is supposed to measure sensation seeking, then if we compare it to a
known test that has been confirmed to measure this trait, our results should
be similar between the two tests. If for some reason the results for the new
scale differ greatly from the old/existing scale, then our new scale is
measuring some other aspect of personality and not the targeted trait of
sensation seeking.
Personality assessments take on two main forms. First, personality
inventories are objective tests that ask the participant questions about their
behavior and feelings in different situations and uses numbered scales.
They are also called self -report inven tories and the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory or MMPI is one such example. A second example is
the NEO -PI-R used to assess the Big Five traits.
Second, projective tests arose out of the work of Sigmund Freud and probe
our unconscious mind. Ind ividuals are presented with an ambiguous
stimulus, such as an inkblot, and asked to interpret it. As the object is
described, our innermost fears or needs are revealed. Examples include the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT; Morgan & Murray, 1935) which
presents the client with an ambiguous picture to interpret and the
Rorschach Inkblot Test, which presents inkblot cards to individuals one at
a time.
2.1.4 The Big Three Motives Achievement Power and Intimacy
Although Murray proposed several dozen motives, res earchers have
focused most of their attention on a relatively small set. These motives are
based on the needs for achievement, power, and intimacy. Research with
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17 primary motives. Let' s review what we know about each of these
fundamental human motives.
Need for Achievement
Behavior that is motivated by the need for achievement has long interested
psychologists. Because it has received the most research attention we will
begin with this m otive.
Doing Things Better
Following Murray at Harvard, psychologist David McClelland carried on
the tradition of motive research. McClelland was best known for his
research on the need for achievement, defined as the desire to do bette , to
be successful, and to feel competent. Like all motives, we assume that the
need for achievement will energize behavior in certain (achievement -
related) situations. It is energized by the incentives of challenge and
variety, it is accompanied by feelings of interest and surprise, and it is
associated with the subjective state of being curious and exploratory
(McClelland, 1985). People motivated by a high need for achievement
obtain satisfaction from accomplishing a task or from the anticipation of
accomplishing a task.
They cherish the process of being engaged in challenging activities.
Many researchers have demonstrated that state need for achievement can
be aroused and that stories written in these aroused conditions contain
more achievement imagery. For example, in one experiment, subjects are
led to believe that they are taking a test of general intelligence and
leadership ability . After the test, some are told they scored very high,
some are told they scored very low , and some are given no feedback
whatsoever. The ex perimenters assume that success and failure feedback
on a test of intelligence and ability would arouse state need for
achievement. After a short period, the subjects complete the TAT. The
stories written by the subjects who received feedback on the earlie r test
(either the success or the failure feedback) contain more achievement
imagery than the stories written by the people who did not get any
feedback.
The effect of achievement arousal on TAT scores has been successfully
demonstrated on both men and wom en and on people from such diverse
cultures as Germany, India, Japan, Poland, and Brazil (reviewed in
Koestner & McClelland, 1990). An extensive study of racial influences on
TAT scores found no dif ferences between African American and white
subjects in t heir need for achievement (nAch) scores (Lefkowitz & Frazer,
1980). Neither the race of the TAT administrator nor the race of the
figures in the TAT had an impact on nAch scores. These cross -cultural
and cross -racial replications are important, because the y demonstrate that
the ef fects of arousing state achievement needs, as evidenced by the
fantasy content provided by subjects, are the same for people from dif
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18 definitions of the concepts of achievement and success This finding
exemplifies the concept of generalizability discussed in Chapter
In terms of trait levels, high nAch individuals prefer moderate levels of
challenge, neither too high nor too low . This preference makes sens e,
given that the high nAch person is motivated to do better than others. A
task that is almost impossible to accomplish will not be attractive because
it will not provide the opportunity to do better if everyone does poorly. A
task that is too easy will b e easy for everyone; the high nAch person will
not do better if everyone is successful. Theoretically, we expect high nAch
persons to have a preference for moderately challenging tasks. Dozens of
studies have found support for this idea. One study examined children' s
preference for challenge in a variety of games (e.g., the ring -toss game, in
which children attempt to toss rings around sticks that are placed at
varying distances). Children high in nAch preferred a moderate challenge
(e.g., tossed their rin gs at the sticks in the middle), whereas children low
in nAch tried either the very easy levels of the games (closer sticks) or the
levels at which success was almost impossible (McClelland, 1958). This
relationship has also been demonstrated outside the l aboratory. Young
adults high in nAch have been found to choose college majors that are of
intermediate dif ficulty and to pursue career that are of moderate dif
ficulty (reviewed in Koestner & McClelland, 1990)
To summarize the characteristics of persons h igh in nAch, (1) they prefer
activities that provide some, but not too much, challenge, (2) they enjoy
tasks in which they are personally responsible for the outcome, and (3)
they prefer tasks for which feedback on their performance is available.
2.2 HUMA NISTIC TRADITION
By 1950s and 1960s, some personality psychologists were dissatisfied
with Freud’s deterministic and B. F. Skinner’s mechanistic explanation of
personality. They objected to Freud’s ideas that human behavior is
determined by forces beyond o ur control, that human beings are basically
evil and would destroy themselves if not restrained by social norms which
are internalized in the form of superego. Moreover, Freud’s theory was
developed on the basis of motives reported by sick people. On the other
hand, Skinner viewed human personality through respond -reward prism
and emphasized only on learning. He considered human beings like
machines, where they respond to environmental inputs on the basis of
reward or punishment received in the past. They felt that these theories
ignored the qualities that make humans unique among animals. Two
psychologists, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, became well known for
their humanistic theories. Humanistic theorists focused on the ways
‘healthy’ people strive for s elf-determination and self -realization and
offered a ‘third force’ option that emphasized human potential
2.2.1 Abraham Maslow’s Self -Actualizing Person:
Maslow developed his theory based on healthy, creative people rather than
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19 of needs. First, we are motivated to satisfy our physiological needs
followed by safety needs, then need to be loved or belong and then self -
esteem and finally self -actualization and self -transcendence. Self -
actualization refers to a process of fulfilling our potential and self -
transcendence refers to searching meaning, purpose and communion
beyond the self.
He based his study of self -actualization on the basis of studying people
like Abraham Lincoln, who wer e known for their rich and productive
lives. Maslow stated that such people share certain similar characteristics.
They are more self -aware, self -accepting, open and spontaneous, loving
and caring and not stuck by their own opinions. While working with
college students, Maslow said that those who will become self -actualizing
adults later on are the ones who are likeable, caring, privately affectionate
to their elders and secretly uneasy about the cruelty, meanness and mob
spirit.
Maslow's self -actualizing characteristics:
 Efficient perceptions of reality : Self-actualizers are able to judge
situations correctly and honestly. They are very sensitive to the fake
and dishonest, and are free to see reality 'as it is'.

 Comfortable acceptance of self, others and nature: Self-actualizers
accept their own human nature with all its flaws. The shortcomings of
others and the contradictions of the human condition are accepted with
humor and tolerance.

 Reliant on own experiences and judgment: Independent, not reliant
on culture and environment to form opinions and views .

 Spontaneous and natural: True to oneself, rather than being how
others want. They have outgrown their mixed feelings towards their
parents, have found their ultimate goals, have enough courage to be
unpopular, to be unashamed about being openly virtuous.

 Task centering : Since they are secure in their sense of who they are,
their interests are problem -centered and not self -centered. They focus
their energies on a particular task and make that task as t he mission of
their lives. Most of Maslow's subjects had a mission to fulfill in life or
some task or problem 'beyond' themselves to pursue

 Autonomy : Self-actualizers are free from reliance on external
authorities or other people. They tend to be resource ful and
independent.

 Continued freshness of appreciation : The self -actualizer seems to
constantly renew appreciation of life's basic goods. A sunset or a
flower will be experienced as intensely time after time as it was at
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20
 Profound interpersonal relationships: The interpersonal
relationships of self -actualizers are marked by deep loving bonds.

 Comfort with solitude : Despite their satisfying relationships with
others, self -actualiz ing people value solitude and are comfortable
being alone.

 Non-hostile sense of humor : This refers to the ability to laugh at
oneself.

 Peak experiences: All of Maslow's subjects reported the frequent
occurrence of peak experiences (temporary moments of self -
actualization). These occasions were marked by feelings of ecstasy,
harmony, and deep meaning. Self -actualizers reported feeling at one
with the universe, stronger and cal mer than ever before, filled with
light, beauty, goodness, and so forth. According to Maslow, peak
experiences are "Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the
vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also
more helpless than one e ver was before, the feeling of ecstasy and
wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally,
the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had
happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and
strengthen ed even in his daily life by such experiences."In other
words, these are moments of transcendence in which a person emerges
feeling changed and transformed.

 Socially compassionate: Possessing humanity. They are emotionally
mature and have learned enough about life so that they are
compassionate towards others.

 Few friends: They have f ew close intimate friends rather than many
superficial relationships.
2.2..2 Carl Rogers’ Person -Centered Perspective:
Carl Roger also believed that people are basically g ood and are endowed
with self -actualizing tendencies. Unless faced with an environment that
hinders growth, each of us is like a fruit, ready for growth and fulfillment.
Roger believed that growth promoting climate needs to fulfill three
conditions:
1. Genuin eness : Genuine people are open with their feelings, drop their
pretentions or deceptive outward appearance, are transparent and self -
disclosing.
2. Acceptance: When people are accepting, they offer unconditional
positive regard, an attitude of grace that valu es us even knowing our
failings. It is a great relief to drop our pretentions, confess our worst
feelings, and discover that we are still accepted, that we are free to be
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21 3. Empathy: Empathic people shar e and mirror other’s feelings and
reflect their meanings.
Rogers believed that genuineness, acceptance and empathy are like water,
sun and nutrients that help us to grow like a fruit. As people are accepted
and prized, they tend to develop a more caring a ttitude toward themselves.
When people are heard emphatically, it becomes possible for them to
listen more accurately to the flow of inner experiencing. Unconditional
love makes a person optimistic, enthusiastic and helpful. For Carl Rogers
and Maslow, the central figure of personality is self -concept. Self -concept
refers to all the thoughts and feelings that one has in response to a
question -Who am I? If self -concept is positive we view the world
positively and if we have negative self -concept, we view the world
negatively and we will feel dissatisfied and unhappy.
2.2.3 Assessing the Self:
To measure personality, humanistic psychologists ask people to fill out a
questionnaire that would evaluate their self -concept. The questionnaire has
questions asking p eople to describe themselves both as they would ideally
like to be and as they actually are. Rogers said that the self -concept will be
positive when ideal self and real self are nearly alike.
Some humanistic psychologists believe that using a standardized
assessment tool such as questionnaire, to measure personality is
depersonalizing. Instead of forcing a person to respond to narrow
categories, it is better to use tools like interviews and intimate
conversations for a better understanding of each person’s unique
experiences.
2.2.4 Evaluating Humanistic Theories:
Just like Freud, Maslow and Carl Rogers also have had a tremendous
impact on other psychologists. Their ideas have influenced counseling,
education, child -rearing, and management. Unintendedly, the y have also
influenced today’s popular psychology. But there has been some criticism
for humanistic theories.
1. Humanistic psychology believes in tenets such as positive self -
concept is key to happiness and success, acceptance and empathy nurture
positive f eelings about oneself, people are basically good and capable of
self-improvement, h umans are basically rational, socialized and forward
moving (striving to be better), humans are constructive, trustworthy, and
congruent when they are free ofdefensiveness. These ideas are well
accepted in western cultures but not in all cultures.
2. Critics are of the opinion that humanistic theories are vague and
subjective. For example, Maslow’s description of self -actualizing people
as open, spontaneous, loving, self -accept ing and productive is not a
scientific description. This description is merely a description of Maslow’s
own values and ideals, an impression of his personal heroes. However, if
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22 Thatch er, he would probably describe self -actualizing people as
“undeterred by others’ needs and opinions”, “motivated to achieve”, and
“comfortable with power”. (M. Brewster Smith,1978) . In other words,
subjective ideas such as authentic and real experiences a re difficult to
objectify; an experience that is real for one individual may not be real for
another person.
3. Humanistic psychology is not a true science because it involves too
much common sense and not enough objectivity. Humanistic concepts are
difficul t to define operationally and test scientifically. These theories have
been criticized for merely describing personality, rather than explaining it
4. Critics also objected to the idea that put by Rogers that the only
thing that matters is the answer to a que stion, “Am I living in a way which
is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly expresses me?” Critics said that
this encouragement on individualism in humanistic psychology can be
detrimental. Emphasizing on trusting and acting on one’s feelings, being
true to oneself, fulfilling oneself can lead to self -indulgence, selfishness,
and an erosion of moral restraints. Those who focus beyond themselves
are most likely to experience social support, enjoy life and cope
effectively with stress. However, humanistic psychologists defended
themselves by saying that a secure, non defensive self -acceptance is the
first step towards loving others. If people don’t love themselves, how can
they love others.
5. There are those who believe humanistic theory falls short in its
ability to help those with more sever personality or mental health
pathology. While it may show positive benefits for a minor issue, using
the approach of Rogers to treat schizophrenia would seem ludicrous.
6. Critics also say that humanistic psychology is na ïve, i.e., lacking
wisdom. It fails to appreciate the reality of our human capacity for evil.
We are living in a world where we are facing the challenges of climate
change, overpopulation, terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons. In
such a situation, i t is most likely that we may lose optimism that denies the
threat and we may drown in dark despair where we think it is hopeless to
try to change the situation. Critics say that humanistic psychology does
encourage the hope that is needed for taking action but it does not provide
equally necessary realism about the evil and how to cope with it.
2.3 QUESTIONS
1. Explain the concept of self -actualization given by Maslow.
2. Discuss Carl Rogers’ person -centered perspective to explain
personality.
3. Critically evaluat e Humanistic theories of personality.

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23 3
BIOLOGICAL DOMAIN AND COGNITIVE -
BEHAVIORAL DOMAIN - I

Unit Structure
3.1 Genetic and personality evolutionary approach to personality.
3.1.1 Genetic And Personality
3.1.2 Evolutionary Approach To Personality
3.2 Physiological approaches to personality.
3.2.1 Temperament and Personality Traits
3.2.2 Extraversion/Sociability
3.2.3 Neuroticism/Anxiety/Harm Avoidance
3.3 Conclusion
3.1GENETIC AND PERSONALITY EVOLUTIONARY
APPROACH TO PERSONALITY
3.1.1 Genetic And Personality
Heritability:
The foundation for an etiological understanding of personality structure
and for a behavioral genetic approach is provided by evidence that genetic
influences account for approximately 40 –60% of the variance for virtually
all personality traits, with most of the remaining va riance being explained
by nonshared environmental effects (Bouchard, 1999; Loehlin & Nicholls,
1976; Plomin, Chipeur, & Loehlin, 1990). The broad traits of extraversion
and neuroticism have received most attention. The data from several twin
studies yield heritability estimates of approximately 60% for extraversion
and 50% for neuroticism. Loehlin (1992) also examined multiple
personality scales organized according to the five -factor framework.
Estimates of about
40% heritability were obtained for each doma in. Subsequent studies using
the NEO -PI-R yielded heritability estimates of 41% for neuroticism, 53%
for extraversion, 41% for agreeableness, and 40% for conscientiousness
(Jang, Livesley, Vernon, & Jackson, 1996; see also Bergeman et al., 1993;
Jang, McCr ae, Angleitner, Riemann, & Livesley, 1998). Nonadditive
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24 Although the evidence points to a significant genetic component to
personality traits, it has been suggested that traits could be divided into
temperament traits that have a substantial heritable component and
character traits that are largely environmental in origin. If this is the case
and environmental factors give rise to distinct traits, the role of genetic
criteria in clari fying trait structure would be limited. The evidence does
not, however, support the proposal. Putatively characterological traits such
as openness to experience are as heritable as so -called temperament traits.
Moreover, molecular genetic studies have foun d significant allelic
associations between so -called character traits such as cooperativeness and
self-directedness as assessed using the Temperament and Character
Inventory and the 5 -HTTLPR allele (Hamer, Greenberg, Sabol, &
Murphy, 1999). To date, a self -report measure of personality that has no
genetic influence has not been identified (Plomin & Caspi, 1998). The
qualification should be added that heritability studies have relied largely
on self -report measures —alternative methods of assessment may yield
different results. However, this was not the case with the few studies using
other methods (Heath, Neale, Kessler, Eaves, & Kendler, 1992; Riemann,
Angleitner,&Strelau, 1997). Riemann and colleagues (1997), for example,
reported a twin study conducted in Germany and Poland that compared
assessments of the five factors using self -report questionnaires with peer
ratings. Estimates of heritability based on self -report were similar to those
reported by other studies. The peer ratings also showed evidence of
heritability, although estimates were lower than those obtained from self -
reports. Multivariate genetic analyses showed that the same genetic factors
contributed to self -report and peer ratings. These results suggest that
findings of a heritable component to all self -report measures are likely to
generalize to other methods of measurement. Evidence of heritability
alone, however, is not sufficient to justify the use of behavioral genetic
criteria to clarify trait structure. It is possible that environmental f actors
that account for about 50% of the variance have a substantial effect on
trait covariation. If this were the case, the finding that traits are genetically
related would be of less value in clarifying personality structure. The
evidence, however, sugg ests that the phenotypic structure of traits closely
parallels the underlying genetic architecture (Livesley, Jang, & Vernon,
1998; Loehlin, 1987) —a point that is discussed in detail later in this
chapter.
It should be noted, however, that information ab out heritability merely
explains the variance in a single trait as opposed to the covariance between
traits. Such information has limited value in explicating personality
structure. As Turkheimer (1998) argued, all individual differences in
behavior are he ritable and “. . . the very ubiquity of these findings make
them a poor basis for reformulating scientists’ conceptions of human
behavior” (p. 782). Nevertheless, information on heritability forms the
foundation for understanding of the etiology of persona lity. The major
contribution of behavior genetics to understanding personality structure,
however, comes from multivariate genetic analyses that elucidate the
genetic structure underlying multiple traits (Carey & DiLalla, 1994).
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Biological Domain and
Cognitive -Behavioral Domain - I
25 environmental influences on a trait to evaluate genetic and environmental
components of the covariation between two or more traits (DeFries &
Fulker, 1986). It is this extension that promises to contribute to person ality
theory by explicating the etiological basis for trait covariance by
evaluating the degree to which different traits are influenced by the same
genetic and environmental factors. This issue is central to resolving some
of the problems of personality d escription and structure.
Phenotypic Structure And Genetic Architecture Of Personality
A critical issue for understanding the etiological structure of personality
and for the use of multivariate genetic analyses to clarify personality
structure is the degr ee to which the phenotypic organization of traits
reflects an underlying biological structure as opposed to the influence of
environmental factors. The evidence indicates that the phenotypic
structure of traits closely resembles the underlying genetic arch itecture
and to a lesser degree environmental structure. The evidence also suggests
that environmental factors do not appreciably influence trait covariation.
These conclusions are based on comparisons of the factors extracted from
matrices of phenotypic, genetic, and environmental correlations computed
among traits comprising a given model or measure. In one of the earliest
studies of this kind, Loehlin (1987) analyzed the structure of item clusters
from the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough, 1989) in
samples of MZ and DZ twins. Three matrices were derived that
represented the covariance among different traits due to genetic, shared
environmental, and nonshared environmental factors. When these matrices
were examined with factor analysis, four factors emerged from analyses of
genetic covariance that could be interpreted as representing Neuroticism,
Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness (few items related to the
fifth factor, Agreeableness, are included in the CPI; see McCrae, Costa, &
Piedmont, 1993). Analysis of shared environmental effects yielded two
factors: family problems and masculinity -femininity. The former is not an
aspect of personality per se, and the latter is probably an artifact of the
exclusive use of same -sex twins (Loehl in, 1987). It should be noted,
however, that shared environmental effects make relatively little
contribution to the variance of personality traits. Hence, the important
finding is the structure of nonshared environmental effects. Analysis of the
nonshared environmental covariance matrix yielded three interpre table
factors that resembled Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness.
Thus, the structure of nonshared environmental influences largely
mirrored genetic influences. This is not an isolated fin ding: Livesley et al.
(1998) found similar structures in genetic and nonshared environmental
components of traits related to personality disorder.
Gender Differences
Personality tests are usually constructed to minimize genderbased
differences by eliminati ng items whose intercorrelations with the other
items can be attributable to gender and eliminating items evoking marked
gender differences in endorsement. The approach yields scales that are
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Personality Psychology
26 gender differences in the etiology. Behavioral genetic methods may be
used to determine whether the same genetic and environmental factors
influence personality measure scores in males and females and whether
the etiological architecture underlyin g the factorial structure of a
personality measure is the same in males and females.
The first question can be answered by fitting sex -limitation models to
personality data (Neale & Cardon, 1992). This is accomplished by fitting a
simple extension of the u sual heritability model that uses data from same -
and opposite -sex twin pairs to test whether the same genetic factors
operate in males and females. In this case, gender differences are limited
to differences in the magnitude of genetic and environmental i nfluences.
Another form of sex -limited gene expression occurs when different genes
control the expression of a trait that is measured in the same way in males
and females. With this form of sex -limitation, it is also possible to
determine whether the same genes are present in both sexes but only
expressed in one sex. This is evaluated by comparing the similarities of
opposite -sex DZ twin pairs with same -sex DZ pairs. Sex -specific genetic
influences are suggested when the similarity of opposite -sex pairs is
significantly less than the similarities of male or female DZ pairs. The
difference in the correlation is attributable to the gender composition of
each zygosity group. When the same and opposite -sex DZ correlations are
similar, gender differences are not indicated.
Only a few studies have investigated sex -limited gene expression in
normal personality. The most notable is Finkel and McGue’s (1997) study
that showed that the same genetic loci influence 11 out of the 14 scales of
Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982) in
males and females. The heritable influences on the remaining three
traits —Alienation, Control, and Absorption —indicated that the genetic
influences were gender -specific. Jang, Livesley, and Vernon (1998)
reported som e evidence for sex -limited gene expression in 18 traits
delineating personality disorder measured by the DAPP. All dimensions
except Submissiveness in males, and Cognitive Dysfunction,
Compulsivity, Conduct Problems, Suspiciousness, and Self -Harm in
female s were significantly heritable. Sex -by-genotype analyses suggested
that the genetic influences underlying all but four DAPP dimensions
(Stimulus Seeking, Callousness, Rejection, Insecure Attachment) were
specific to each gender, whereas environmental influ ences were the same
in both genders across all dimensions. Furthermore, the four higher -order
dimensions derived from the 18 basic traits (Livesley et al., 1998) were
also heritable across sex, and genetic effects were in common to both
genders; the except ion was Dissocial Behavior, which was not heritable in
females.
3.1.2 Evolutionary Approach To Personality
Personality, as a whole, refers to an individual’s characteristic pattern of
behavior that arises from the interplay among psychological mechanisms,
thoughts, and emotions. It is an individual difference variable that is stable
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27 behaviors, but similar across individuals at the level of overarching traits.
At first glance, this may seem outside the scope of evolutionary
psychology, which has largely focused on explaining human universals.
However, a more contemporary view of evolutionary mechanisms has
emerged focusing on the types of individual differences that are important
to traditional personality researchers. This understanding has led to an
increasing role of evolutionary theory in personality and social psychology
(reviewed in Webster 2007).
Major players in personality research successfully developed and tested
generativ e theories in the area long before evolutionary psychology
branched out to become an independent approach to studying
psychological phenomena. The social psychologist may ask why the
evolutionary perspective should be considered at all when established
theories perform reasonably well with regard to predicting behavior. The
value added by evolutionary psychology to the measurement of
personality is a key argument we hope to make in this chapter. We aim to
illustrate that there is substantial explanatory pow er to be gained by
applying evolutionary theory to the understanding of personality. In
addition, evolutionary perspectives may serve the dual purpose of data
reduction by way of consolidating lower -order factors in a theoretically
coherent fashion and pro viding overarching theory that describes a
broader swath of behavior than extant personality theories.
Evolutionary Principles
1. Species -Typical Products of Natural and Sexual Selection
Personality theories have tended toward explanations that encompass a ll
humans (Buss 1984). For instance, Erikson’s (1950) developmental stage
theory was global in its intent to explain personality development and
Maslow’s (1943) theory of human motivation (or anyone in the aptly
termed humanist school of thought) focused o n those characteristics
thought to be uniquely human. In ethological or evolutionary terms, this
approach examines “species -typical” components of personality. It was
perhaps not surprising then that evolutionary psychologists were able to
propose ultimate causes of personality with relative ease. Buss (1984) and
Tooby and Cosmides (1990) were among the earlier proponents of a
marriage between personality research and evolutionary theory with the
latter arguing that personality must be nested within a “univ ersal human
psychological architecture” (p. 40). While this quest to identify human
nature was not new to the field, the implication that a personality system
was produced out of natural and sexually selective forces was in its
infancy.
2. Role of Selectio n and Fixation
Part of the perplexity in understanding personality from an evolutionary
perspective lies in the vast observable differences seen in human behavior.
On the one hand, as Tooby and Cosmides (1990) argue, the adaptive
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28 population. Those characteristics that were quite adaptive in evolutionary
history should approach fixation in the population. In other words, if it is
so adaptive, everyone should have it. On the other hand, t o what
evolutionary process can we attribute different behavioral patterns and
tendencies? One popular illustration is the Hawk versus Dove paradigm
(Maynard Smith and Price 1973, who actually employed a hawk/mouse
taxonomy in their original paper), wherei n the proportion of individuals
who will escalate conflicts (“hawks”) relative to those who will yield from
it (“doves” or “mice”) may reach equilibrium under frequency - dependent
selection. Further examination of selective forces with the capability of
producing variable phenotypic (i.e., observable characteristics) outcomes
is described below.
3. Balancing Selection
A variety of evolutionary processes may lead to heritable individual
differences in traits. Among these, balancing selection causes phenotypi c
variations to be maintained within a population due to no single alternative
producing a fitness optimum. As such, a population will produce more
than one variant with equal fitness payoffs. Different forms of balancing
selection exist, producing specifi c outcomes in relation to the speed of
evolution and population variations. As argued by Buss (2009) and others
(e.g., Penke et al. 2007), the two types of balancing selection of primary
importance in understanding personality variation are frequency -
depen dent selection and environmental heterogeneity of selective optima
(i.e., variation in traits due to variation in ecological niche).
A Factor -Analytic Evolutionary Model of Personality
Although the FFM has become the most widely used personality
taxonomy s ince the late 1980s, there is still some disagreement concerning
the number of higher -order personality dimensions. There is factor
analytic evidence supporting six (e.g., HEXACO; Lee and Ashton 2004),
five (e.g., FFM; McRae and Costa 1987), three (e.g., P EN; Eysenck 1992),
two (e.g., Alpha and Beta
Model; Digman 1997), and even one -dimensional taxonomies (e.g.,
Musek’s general factor of personality). Further, none of these approaches
have attempted to incorporate an evolutionary basis as to why these
ident ifiable common factors would have been shaped to aid survival or
reproduction. Below we offer an integrative model.
The General Factor of Personality
Using exploratory factor -analytic techniques, Musek (2007) identified a
hierarchical model of personality with a single global personality factor at
the top, Digman’s factors of Stability (Alpha) and Plasticity (Beta) in the
middle, and the FFM at the bottom. As such, the FFM personality
dimensions are absorbed by Stability (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness,
and Neuroticism) and Plasticity (Extraversion and Openness), and a
general factor of personality (GFP) absorbing each of these. In the end,
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29 single factor of personality. By considerin g the possibility of evolutionary
forces shaping the GFP, he produced a plausible argument that selective
forces facilitated the evolution of socially desirable personality
characteristics, which fit with the pattern of human evolution.
Evolutionary Psycho logy and the General Factor of Personality
Although we believe that efforts by researchers like Musek are valuable as
a first step, we argue that taking a theory -driven approach that integrates
Tinbergen’s four questions within a research program and is co nsistent
with a meta -theory as powerful as evolutionary theory leads to more
interpretable scientific results. As an example, we present a synthesis of
the research on the GFP and life history theory (LHT; see Chap. 29 in this
volume for full consideration of LHT).
LHT is a midlevel evolutionary theory of resource allocation wherein
individuals have limited bioenergetic and material resources (e.g., time,
energy, food) which constrain reproductive strategies. Under this
framework, an individual may allocate their resources toward two major
fitness categories: somatic effort and reproductive effort. Somatic effort
entails all allocation of resources that are devoted to keeping the organism
alive (e.g., food acquisition, predator avoidance, investment in one’s
immune system), whereas reproductive effort is devoted to producing and
maintaining new genetic variants (i.e., mating, parenting, and aiding
genetic relatives; Figueredo et al. 2004). As resources are limited, the
relative cost of devoting effort to one category over the other is an
important consideration. LHT therefore predicts that natural selection
drives species to evolve overall adaptive strategies that are shaped by the
evolutionary history of the species or a particular genetic lineage.
3.2 PHYSIO LOGICAL APPROACHES TO
PERSONALITY
Whether we speak of mice or men, every member of a species is the same
as other members in many respects but different in others. One task of
personality psychology is to describe the basic behavioral differences and
disco ver their origins. Description of personality is usually in terms of
observable traits, and various models have been proposed to classify them.
Biology has confronted a similar task in the classification of species
(taxonomy). Taxonomy has been based on ph enomenal and functional
similarities and differences but more recently has been moving in the
direction of using evolutionary analyses to define species in terms of their
ancestries. Psychology still depends on phenomenal similarities and
differences. As t he genome reveals its secrets, both fields will eventually
turn to DNA for the classification task. There are two basic pathways for
the second task, the search for the sources of individual differences. and
neurons are organized into brain and nervous sys tems. Neurons operate
through chemical neurotransmitters and the enzymes that govern their
production and catabolism, as well as through hormones produced in other
loci. This is the biochemical level. Differences in neurochemical makeup
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30 Physiological differences affect conditionability, both of the classical and
operant types. Individuals differ in both their conditionability and their
sensitivities to conditioned stimuli associated with reward and
punishment.
3.2.1 Temperament and Personality Traits
Researchers of temperament in children and behavioral traits in other
species have typically included certain dimensions like emotionality,
fearfulness, aggressiveness, approach versus withdr awal (in reactions to
novel stimuli), general activity, playfulness, curiosity, sociability versus
solitariness, and inhibition versus impulsivity (Strelau, 1998). From the
1950s through the 1970s personality trait classification was dominated by
two model s: Eysenck’s (1947) three -factor theory (extraversion,
neuroticism, and psychoticism) and Cattell’s (1950) 16 -factor model.
Eysenck’s (1967) model was biologically based with an emphasis on
genetics, physiology, and conditioning. Gray’s (1982, 1987) model is a
bottom -up model that starts with behavioral traits in animals and
extrapolates to human personality. He places his three behavioral
dimensions (anxiety, impulsivity, fight -flight) within the axes of
Eysenck’s dimensions, but not lying on the axes of t hose dimensions or
being precise equivalents of them.
The first five -factor model originated in lexical studies of trait -descriptive
adjectives in language done in the 1960s (Norman, 1963; Tupes &
Christal, 1961) with its roots in a much earlier study by Fiske (1949).
Interest in this model reawakened in the 1980s (Digman & Inouye, 1986;
Goldberg, 1990; Hogan, 1982; McCrae & Costa, 1985). Most of these
studies used adjective rating scales. The translation of the model into a
questionnaire form (NEO -PI-R; C osta & McCrae, 1992a) increased the
use of the scales by personality investigators. The five factors incorporated
in this tests are labeled extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness,
conscientiousness,
and openness to experience. The five factors have been replicated in
studies in many countries although with some differences —particularly on
the last factor, openness. The enthusiasts for the Big Five insist it is the
definitive and final word on the structure of personality (Costa&McCrae,
1992b), although cr itics regard this claim as premature (Block, 1995;
Eysenck, 1992; Zuckerman, 1992). One of the criticisms of the model is
its atheoretical basis in contrast to Eysenck’s development of his factors
from theory as well as empirical factor analytic studies of questionnaire
content. However, recent studies in behavior genetics have used the
model, and some of the data from earlier studies has been translated into
the form of these five factors (Loehlin, 1992).
3.2.2 Extraversion/Sociability
All models of basic personality, with the exception of Cloninger’s,
recognize extraversion (E) as a primary and basic personality factor, but
different models have defined it differently. In his earlier model Eysenck
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31 impulsivity. This amalgam was questioned by Carrigan (1960) and
Guilford (1975), who claimed that sociability and impulsivity were
independent traits. Sybil Eysenck and Hans Eysenck (1963) initially
defended the dual nature of extraversion. Howeve r, the introduction of
psychoticism (P) into a new version of their questionnaire resulted in a
drift of impulsivitytype items to the P dimension, leaving E defined
primarily by sociability and activity types of items. Hans and Michael
Eysenck (1985) final ly defined E in terms of the subtraits: sociable, lively,
active, assertive, sensation seeking, carefree, dominant, surgent, and
venturesome.
Cortical Arousal
Eysenck’s (1967) theory of extraversion has shaped much of the
psychobiological research on this trait even to the end of the century
(Strelau&Eysenck, 1987). The model suggests that introversion -
extraversion is based on arousal characteristics of the cerebral cortex as
regulated by the reticulocortical activating system. The extravert’s cortex
in wak ing, nonstimulating conditions is underaroused relative to his or her
optimal level of arousal. In these conditions the extravert is prone to seek
out exciting stimulation in order to increase the level of arousal to a level
that makes him or her feel and function better. The introvert is usually
closer to an optimal level of arousal in low stimulation conditions and has
less need to seek additional stimulation to feel better. The introvert may be
overstimulated at a level of stimulation that is positive fo r the extravert.
The theory was initially tested with measures of brain activity from the
electroencephalogram (EEG). Spectrum analyses break the raw EEG into
bands characteristic of different degrees of arousal: sleep (delta),
drowsiness (theta), relaxed wakefulness (alpha), and alert excitement
(beta). Alpha has often been regarded as inversely related to arousal on the
assumption that any interruption of this regular wave means an increase in
arousal. However, some have used the frequency of alpha within the usual
band (8 –13 Hz) as a measure of relative arousal or alpha amplitude as an
inverse measure of arousal. EEG spectrum characteristics are highly if not
completely heritable (Lykken, 1982). The findings relating extraversion to
EEG criteria of arousa l in various conditions from nonstimulating to
mentally engaged have been summarized by Gale (1983), O’Gorman
(1984), and Zuckerman (1991). Gale tried to reconcile the wide variety of
results with the hypothesis that differences between introverts and
extraverts appear only in moderately active conditions and not in either
low stimulation (eyes closed, no stimulation) or activating conditions.
Both O’Gorman and Zuckerman concluded that neither Eysenck’s broad
hypothesis nor Gale’s narrow hypothesis, limitin g the prediction to
specific experimental conditions, were consistently supported by studies.
Zuckerman noted that among the best studies, those confirming Eysenck’s
hypothesis used samples with either all female or equal male and female
participants, wher eas those with all male or a preponderance of male
participants did not support the hypothesis arousal.
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32 Hormones
The hormone testosterone (T) is produced by both men and women but is
8 to 10 times as high in men as in women. Plasma T is highly heritable
(66%) in young adult males and moderately heritable (41%) in females
(Harris, Vernon, & Boomsa, 1998). In rats T ha s reward effects in the
nucleus accumbens, the major site of dopaminergic reward.
Administration of a dopamine receptor blocker eliminates t he rewarding
effects of T in rats, suggesting that its rewarding effects are mediated by
an interaction with dopamine in the mesolimbic system (Packard,
Schroeder, & Gerianne, 1998). The hormone T affects personality traits
and may account in part for many of the personality trait differences
between men and women. Men and women do not differ on the pure
sociability or affiliative type of extraversion, but they do on the agentic
type, which includes dominance, assertiveness, surgency, and self -
confidence. T o the extent that sensation seeking is associated with
extraversion, it is with the agentic type.
3.2.3 Neuroticism/Anxiety/Harm Avoidance
Although the broad trait of neuroticism/anxiety includes other negative
emotions, such as depression, guilt, and hos tility, and character traits such
as low self -esteem, neuroticism and anxiety are virtually indistinguishable
as traits. Neuroticism is highly correlated with measures of negative affect,
but when the negative affect was broken down into anxiety, depressio n,
and hostility components, anxiety had the highest correlation, and hostility
the lowest, with the N factor while depression was intermediate
(Zuckerman, Joireman, Kraft, & Kuhlman, 1999). Hostility had a higher
relationship to a factor defined by aggres sion.
Autonomic Arousal
Large -scale studies of the relationship between cardiovascular measures,
either in resting levels of activity or reactivity to stressful experimental
situations, and Measures of N failed to reveal any significant relationships
(Fahrenberg, 1987; Myrtek, 1984). On the assumption that high
cardiovascular activity put high -N subjects at risk for cardiovascular
disease, Almada et al. (1991) investigated the relation between measures
of N and subsequent health history in nearly 2,000 men . N was not
associated with systolic BP or serum cholesterol but was associated with
cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. When tobacco and alcohol
consumption were held constant there was no relationship between N and
cardiovascular disease. Similar studies have failed to find any
relationships between electrodermal activity and N or trait anxiety
(Fahrenberg, 1987; Hodges, 1976; Naveteur & Baque, 1987).
Brain Arousal
Studies of general cortical arousal using the EEG have historically focused
on E, bu t some of these studies found interactions with N. These effects
were inconsistent; some found higher and some reported lower arousal for
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33 association of general cortical or limbic arousal with N in situations that
were not emotionally provoking (Fischer et al., 1997; Haier et al., 1987).
Similar results are seen in anxiety patients; but when anxiety is provoked
in patients by presenting them with feared stimuli, increased activity is
seen in areas like the orbitofrontal cortex, insular cortex, temporal cortex,
and anterior cingulate (Breier et al., 1992; Rauch et al., 1995). These
studies identify an anxiety pathway in humans (orbitofrontal -frontal to
cingulate to temporal lobe and amygdala) alread y established in animals,
but they do not show a preexisting sensitivity of this pathway in normals
scoring high in N. Another study of anxiety patients in nonstimulated
conditions, which did use normal controls, found that whole brain blood
flow did not d istinguish anxiety patients from normals but did find a
negative correlation between a depression scale and caudate activation.
The previously mentioned study by Canli et al. (2001) found that in a
small sample of normal women N correlated with increased b rain
activation to negative pictures (relative to activation by positive pictures)
in left -middle frontal and temporal gyri and reduced activation in the
right -middle frontal gyrus. Taken together, the clinical studies and this last
study of normals sugges ts that whole brain activation does not vary with
NAnx, but given negative emotional provocation there may be a reactive
disposition in frontal cortex of high -N persons that activates a pathway
through the orbitofrontal cortex around the cingulum to the te mporal lobe
and amygdala.
3.3 CONCLUSION
The objective of this chapter was to illustrate the utility of evolutionary
perspectives in personality psychology. To this end, we reviewed some of
the major theoretical approaches in mainstream personality psychol ogy,
including trait -based models such as the FFM, and showed how
incorporating evolutionary theory can produce novel, testable predictions
and provide additional, integral explanatory power to the understanding of
personality and individual differences. A n additional objective of this
chapter was to highlight how a research program can be evaluated using
multiple levels of analysis that are informed by evolutionary biology. By
asking Tinbergen’s four questions, evolutionary psychologists are forced
to tack le topics related to ontogeny and proximate mechanisms, levels of
analysis more familiar to social psychologists.
We hope that in turn social psychologists begin considering the roles that
their typical proximate hypotheses have, in a broader picture of hu man
behavior that incorporates ultimate (adaptive) explanations.
Wilson (1998) described consilience as a quality of science that links
knowledge across disciplines to create a common background of
explanation. Personality psychology, extending from social psychology at
the higher level to biopsychology at the more fundamental level, provides
a daunting challenge to consilience. The introduction to this chapter
presented a model of levels along the biological and social pathways
leading up to a merger in pe rsonality traits. Such a levels approach
suggests a goal of reductionism, a pejorative term for critics of science and munotes.in

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34 many scientists as well. The artist is contemptuous of the critic’s attempts
to reduce his or her art to a textual formula, and the socia l scientist may
resent the presumptious intrusion of the biological scientist into his or her
own complex type of explanation. Wilson, however, views reductionism
as a natural mode of science:
The cutting edge of science is reductionism, the breaking apart of nature
into its natural constituents. . . . It is the search strategy employed to find
points of entry into otherwise impenetrably complex systems. Complexity
is what interests scientists in the end, not simplicity. Reductionism is the
way to understan d it. The love of complexity without reductionism makes
art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science. (pp. 58 –59)
Later, Wilson (1998) admits that reductionism is an oversimplification that
may sometimes be impossible. At each level of organ ization the
phenomena may require new laws and principles that cannot be predicted
from those at more general levels. My view is that this is always true for
levels that involve an interaction between biological traits or genes and
experience in the social environment. A learned association cannot be
reduced to a specific set of neural events, at least not in the complex brain
of a higher organism. It is not inconceivable, however, that the difference
in general neural events that make an association more l ikely in one
individual than another is not only explicable but also essential for a
complete understanding of the event. Consilience is more possible at the
borders of two levels, and this is where the breakthroughs are most likely
to take place. As Wilso n puts it, “The challenge and the cracking of thin
ice are what gives science its metaphysical excitement”

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35 4
BIOLOGICAL DOMAIN AND COGNITIVE -
BEHAVIORAL DOMAIN - II
Unit Structure
4.1 Behaviorist and learning aspects of personality.
4.1.1 Behavioral approaches And Personality
4.1.2 Learning aspects of personality
4.2 Cognitive and cognitive -experiential aspects of personality
4.2.1 Cognitive -Experiential Self -Theory of Personality
4.3 Conclusion
4.1 BEHAVIORIST AND LEARNING ASPECTS OF
PERSONALITY
4.1.1 Behavioral approaches And Personality
Behavioral approaches to personality might seem of central importance to
personology because behaviorism deals with learning and it is pretty
generally acknowledged that learning affects personality. Moreover,
behaviorist theories were once the models of what theory could be in
psychology. But certain features militate against behaviorism’s
significance for the field of personality. Those features spring from the
traditional behaviorist mission.
Traditional Behaviorism and Personality
One feature is behaviorism’s search for general laws. That is ingrained in
the approach, as we can see from its strategy of discovering learning -
behavior principles with rats, pigeons, dogs, and cats —for the major
behaviorists in the first and second generation were animal psychologists
who assumed that those learning -behavior principles would const itute a
complete theory for dealing with any and all types of human behavior.
John Watson, in behaviorism’s first generation, showed this, as B. F.
Skinner did later. Clark Hull (1943) was quite succinct in stating
unequivocally about his theory that “all behavior, individual and social,
moral and immoral, normal and psychopathic, is generated from the same
primary laws” (p. v). Even Edward Tolman’s goal, which he later admitted
was unreachable, was to constitute through animal study a general theory
of hum an behavior. The field of personality, in contrast, is concerned with
individual differences, with humans, and this represents a schism of
interests. A second, even more important, feature of behaviorism arises in
the fact that personality as conceived in personology lies within the
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36 for an approach that placed scientific methodology at its center and
modeled itself after logical positivism and operationism. Watson had
decried as mental istic the inference of concepts of internal, unobservable
causal processes. For him personality could only be considered as the sum
total of behavior, that is, as an observable effect, not as a cause. Skinner’s
operationism followed suit. This, of course, produced another, even wider,
schism with personology because personality is generally considered an
internal process that determines external behavior. That is the raison d’être
for the study of personality.
Behavior Therapy and Personality
The major beh aviorists such as Hull, Skinner, and Tolman were animal
learning researchers. None of them analyzed the learning of functional
human behaviors or traits of behavior. Skinner’s empirical approach to
human behavior centered on the use of his technology, that is, his operant
conditioning apparatus. His approach was to use this “experimental
analysis of behavior” methodology in studying a simple, repetitive
response of a subject that was automatically reinforced (and recorded).
That program was implemented by h is students in studies reinforcing
psychotic patients, individuals with mental retardation, and children with
autism with edibles and such for pulling a knob. Lovaas (1977), in the best
developed program among this group, did not begin to train his autisti c
children in language skills until after the psychological behaviorism (PB)
program to be described had provided the foundation. Although
Skinner is widely thought to have worked with children’s behavior, that is
not the case. He constructed a crib for in fants that was air conditioned and
easy to clean, but the crib had no learning or behavioral implications or
suggestions. He also worked with programmed learning, but that was a
delimited technology and did not involve behavior analyses of the
intellectual repertoires taught, and the topic played out after a few years.
Skinner’s experimental analysis of behavior did not indicate how to
research functional human behaviors or problems of behavior or how they
are learned.
Personality: The Psychological Behavi orism Theory
More than 45 years ago, while still a graduate student at UCLA, I began a
research program that for some years I did not name, then called social
behaviorism, later paradigmatic behaviorism, and finally PB. I saw great
importance in the behavi orism tradition as a science, in fundamental
learning principles, and in experimentation. But I saw also that the
preceding behaviorisms were incompletely developed, animal oriented,
and too restricted to laboratory research. They also contained fundamenta l
errors and had no plan by which to connect to traditional psychology, to
contribute to it, and to use its products. Very early in the research program
I began to realize that animal conditioning principles are not sufficient to
account for human behavior and personality. In my opinion a new
behavioral theory was needed, it had to focus on human behavior
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37 treatments of many phenomena of human behavior, and it had to include a
new philo sophy and methodology.
4.1.2 Learning aspects of personality
Human Learning Principles
As indicated earlier, a basic assumption of traditional behaviorism is that
the animal learning principles are the necessary and sufficient principles
for explaining hum an behavior. Psychological behaviorism’s program has
led to the position that while the animal conditioning principles, inherited
through evolution, are indeed necessary for explaining human behavior,
they are far from sufficient. I gained an early indicat ion of that with my
research on the language conditioning of attitudes, and later findings
deepened and elaborated the principles. What the traditional behaviorists
did not realize is that human learning also involves principles that are
unique to humans —human learning principles. The essential, new feature
of these principles is that much of what humans learn takes place on the
basis of what they have learned before. For example, much human
learning can occur only if the individual has first learned langua ge. Take
two children, one of whom has learned a good verbal -motor repertoire and
one of whom has not. The first child will be able to follow directions and
therefore will be able to learn many things the second child cannot
because many learning tasks req uire the following of directions. The
goodness of that verbal -motor repertoire distinguishes children (as we can
see on any intelligence test for children). In PB, language is considered a
large repertoire with many important learning functions. Learning t o
count, to write, to read, to go potty, to form attitudes, to have logic and
history and science knowledge and opinions and beliefs, to be religious, to
eat healthily and exercise, and to have political positions are additional
examples in which language is a foundation. A child of 18 months can
easily learn to name numbers of objects and then to count if that child has
previously learned a good language repertoire (see Staats, 1968). On the
other hand, a child of 3 years who has not learned language will not be
able to learn those number skills. The reason for the difference is not some
genetic difference in the goodness of learning. Rather, the number learning
of the child is built on the child’s previous language learning. It is not age
(biology) that ma tters in the child’s learning prowess; it is what the child
has already learned.
Cumulative -Hierarchical Learning
Human learning is different from basic conditioning because it typically
involves learning that is based on repertoires that have been previo usly
learned. This is called cumulative hierarchical learning because of the
building properties involved —the second learning is built on the first
learning but, in turn, provides the foundation for a third learning. Multiple
levels of learning are typical when a fine performance is involved. Let us
take the learning of the language repertoire. When the child has a language
repertoire, the child can then learn to read. When the child has a reading
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38 which the child can learn an algebra repertoire, which then is basic in
learning additional mathematics repertoires, which in turn enable the
learning of physics. Becoming a physicist ordinarily will involve in excess
of 20 years of cumulative h ierarchical learning. Cumulative -hierarchical
learning is involved in all the individual’s complex characteristics. A
sociopath —with the complex of language -cognitive, emotional -
motivational, and sensory motor repertoires this entails —does not spring
forth full-blown any more than being a physicist. Understanding the
sociopathic personality, hence, requires understanding the cumulative -
hierarchical learning of the multiple repertoires that have been involved.
Learning and Personality
While biological con ditions are the most basic level of study proposed, it
is the field of learning that is the most important basic level. Anomalously,
however, especially since most every personologist would agree that
personality is in good measure learned, personologists generally have not
studied how learning -behavior principles are involved in the acquisition
or function of personality. There seems to be an implicit view that learning
is not that much different for people except in extreme cases. The PB
position, on the contrary, is that the personality repertoires are learned,
that there are wide individual differences in the learning conditions
involved, and that those differences produce infinitely varied personality
characteristics. Psychological behaviorism says tha t the first major task of
a personality theory is formulating a basic theory of learning -behavior and
a theory of human learning. No other existing personality theory does this.
Human Learning and Personality
The basic animal -conditioning principles are n ot sufficient for dealing
with the learning of personality. There have been studies, long since
abandoned, employing human subjects that dealt with more complex
learning situations and produced principles such as mediated
generalization, sensory preconditi oning, and verbal associations. But there
has not been a conceptual framework to guide the field to study what is
necessary, that is, to study how humans learn complex, functional
repertoires in an advancing cumulative -hierarchical way. There has been
no systematic goal of studying the basic behavioral repertoires that are
important to humans. Although there are research fields that study
language, emotion, and sensory motor behavior, these fields do not
systematically address how these behaviors are import ant for human
adjustment. Studies should be conducted that indicate how such
repertoires function to (a) change the individual’s experience, (b) change
the individual’s behavior, and (c) change the individual’s ability to learn.
Such knowledge is needed to provide foundations for advancing the study
of personality. For constructing theory, personology needs fundamental
knowledge of cumulative -hierarchical learning, the BBRs, their content,
and how the BBRs work to affect experience, learning, and behavior.

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39 4.2 COGNITIVE AND COGNITIVE -EXPERIENTIAL
ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY
4.2.1 Cognitive -Experiential Self -Theory of Personality
Cognitive -experiential self -theory (CEST) is a broadly integrative theory
of personality that is compatible with a variety of other th eories, including
psychodynamic theories, learning theories, phenomenological self -
theories, and modern cognitive scientific views on information processing.
CEST achieves its integrative power primarily through three assumptions.
The first is that people process information by two independent,
interactive conceptual systems, a preconscious experiential system and a
conscious rational system. By introducing a new view of the unconscious
in the form of an experiential system, CESTis able to explain almost
everything that psychoanalysis can and much that it cannot, and it is able
to do so in a scientifically much more defensible manner. The second
assumption is that the experiential system is emotionally driven. This
assumption permits CEST to integrate the pa ssionate phallus -and-tooth
unconscious of psychoanalysis with the “kinder, gentler” affect -free
unconscious of cognitive science (Epstein, 1994). The third assumption is
that four basic needs, each of which is assumed in other theories to be the
one most f undamental need, are equally important according to CEST. In
this chapter, I review the basic assumptions of CEST, summarize the
research conducted to test the theory, and note the implications of the
theory for research and psychotherapy.
Two Information -Processing Systems
According to CEST, humans operate by two fundamental information -
processing systems: a rational system and an experiential system. The two
systems operate in parallel and are interactive. CEST has nothing new to
say about the rational s ystem, other than to emphasize the degree to which
it is influenced by the experiential system. CEST does have a great deal to
say about the experiential system. In effect, CEST introduces a new
system of unconscious processing in the experiential system t hat is a
substitute for the unconscious system in psychoanalysis. Although like
psychoanalysis, CEST emphasizes the unconscious, it differs from
psychoanalysis in its conception of how the unconscious operates. Before
proceeding further, it should be noted that the word rational as used in the
rational system refers to a set of analytical principles and has no
implications with respect to the reasonableness of the behavior, which is
an alternative meaning of the word. It is assumed in CEST that everyone,
like it or not, automatically constructs an implicit theory of reality that
includes a self -theory, a world -theory, and connecting propositions. An
implicit theory of reality consists of a hierarchical organization of
schemas. Toward the apex of the conceptu al structure are highly general,
abstract schemas, such as that the self is worthy, people are trustworthy,
and the world is orderly and good. Because of their abstractness,
generality, and their widespread connections with schematic networks
throughout th e system, these broad schemas are normally highly stable
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40 system would be destabilized. Evidence that this actually occurs is
provided by the profound disorganization following unas similable
experiences in acute schizophrenic reactions (Epstein, 1979a). At the
opposite end of the hierarchy are narrow, situation -specific schemas.
Unlike the broad schemas, the narrower ones are readily susceptible to
change, and their changes have litt le effect on the stability of the
personality structure. Thus, the hierarchical structure of the implicit theory
allows it to be stable at the center and flexible at the periphery. It is
important to recognize that unlike other theories that propose specif ic
implicit or heuristic rules of information processing, it is assumed in
CEST that the experiential system is an organized, adaptive system, rather
than simply a number of unrelated constructs or so -called cognitive
shortcuts (e.g., Tversky & Kahneman, 1 974). As it is assumed in CEST
that the experiential system in humans is the same system by which
nonhuman animals adapt to their environments, it follows that nonhuman
animals also have an organized model of the world that is capable of
disorganization. S upport for this assumption is provided by the widespread
dysfunctional behavior that is exhibited in animals when they are exposed
to emotionally significant unassimilable events (e.g., Pavlov, 1941).
Unlike nonhuman animals, humans have a conscious, expli cit theory of
reality in their rational system in addition to the model of reality in their
experiential system. The two theories of reality coincide to different
degrees, varying among individuals and situations.
How the Experiential System Operates
As n oted, the operation of the experiential system is intimately associated
with the experience of affect. For want of a better word, I shall use the
word vibes to refer to vague feelings that may exist only dimly (if at all) in
a person’s consciousness. Stati ng that vibes often operate outside of
awareness is not meant to imply that people cannot become aware of
them. Vibes are a subset of feelings, which include other feelings that are
more easily articulated than vibes, such as those that accompany standard
emotions. Examples of negative vibes are vague feelings of agitation,
irritation, tension, disquietude, queasiness, edginess, and apprehension.
Examples of positive vibes are vague feelings of well -being, gratification,
positive anticipation, calmness, and light-heartedness. When a person
responds to an emotionally significant event, the sequence of reactions is
as follows: The experiential system automatically and instantaneously
searches its memory banks for related events. The recalled memories and
feelings influence the course of further processing and of behavioral
tendencies. If the recalled feelings are positive, the person automatically
thinks and has tendencies to act in ways anticipated to reproduce the
feelings. If the recalled feelings are negati ve, the person automatically
thinks and has tendencies to act in ways anticipated to avoid experiencing
the feelings. As this sequence of events occurs instantaneously and
automatically, people are normally unaware of its operation. Seeking to
understand t heir behavior, they usually succeed in finding an acceptable
explanation. Insofar as they can manage it without too seriously violating
reality considerations, they will also find the most emotionally satisfying
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41 system for what was determined primarily by the experiential system and
doing so in a manner that is emotionally acceptable corresponds to what is
normally referred to as rationalization. According to CEST, such
rationaliza tion is a routine process that occurs far more often than is
generally recognized. Accordingly, the influences of the experiential
system on the rational system and its subsequent rationalization are
regarded, in CEST, as major sources of human irrationali ty.
4.3 CONCLUSION
The PB theory of personality is set in a general theory that goes from the
study of basic learning, including the biology of that learning, through the
multiple levels of study that provide its principles and concepts. The
theory of per sonality, thus, is sunk into general psychology, making
connections to various fields in psychology. It is specific, objective, and
empirical. It draws widely on various areas of study, and it has
implications for conducting large amounts of additional res earch and
application in various areas and fields of study. The theory provides a
philosophy of science and methodology of theory construction. This is the
only theory of personality that claims it can be employed to establish or to
change personality, a c laim that if fulfilled would have enormous
importance. It is the only theory that is unified and has comprehensive
scope —sorely needed developments for the field and psychology
generally. It is a theory that ties together personality and personality
measur ement on a broad front. And it projects new areas and topics of
research.An important need for the twenty -first century is to compare this
theory with others as part of the general comparison and evaluation of
personality theories called for by PB. Another is to exploit the theory in
the various areas of theoretical analysis and empirical research it suggests.
Cognitive -experiential self -theory (CEST) is a psychodynamic global
theory of personality that substitutes a different kind of unconscious
processin g for the Freudian unconscious. Unlike the maladaptive Freudian
unconscious, the unconscious of CEST is an adaptive, associative learning
system. It is the same system with which higher -order animals have
increasingly effectively adapted to their environme nts over millions of
years of evolution. Because it is a system that learns from experience, it is
referred to as the experiential system. In addition to an experiential
system, humans uniquely have a rational system. The rational system is a
logical, infe rential system that operates with the aid of language. The
experiential system can account for the widespread irrationality in the
thinking of humans despite their unique capacity for reasoning rationally
by recognizing that it biases conscious thinking au tomatically and outside
of awareness. The operating principles of the experiential system were
described and contrasted with those of the rational system. Although the
systems are independent in the sense that they operate by different rules,
they neverthe less are highly interactive. The two systems usually operate
in synchrony and produce compromises between them, but sometimes
they conflict with each other, resulting in what are commonly referred to
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42 described that provided support for many of the assumptions in CEST.
The implications of CEST were discussed for psychotherapy and
psychological research. It was noted that neither system is superior to the
other. They are simply different ways of understanding the world and
behaving in it. The experiential system is intimately associated with
emotions and adapts by learning from outcomes. The rational system is a
affect -free and adapts by logical inference. Each has its advantages and
disadvant ages. Although the rational system is responsible for remarkable
achievements in science and technology, it is less well suited for everyday
living than is the experiential system. Moreover, the experiential system
can intuitively and holistically solve om e problems that are beyond the
capacity of the analytical, rule -based reasoning of the rational system
(Hammond, 1996). The experiential system is also a source of some of
humankind’s most desirable attributes, including the capacity for passion,
compassio n, love, creativity, and appreciation of aesthetics. However, it is
also a source of serious difficulties, including superstitious thinking,
prejudice, violence, and — perhaps most important —undermining people’s
ability to think rationally. Thus, the experi ential system is a mixed
blessing; it is difficult to live with it, but it would be impossible to live
without it.

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43 5
DISPOSITIONAL DOMAIN: TRAIT
APPROACH - I

Unit Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.1.2 What is a trait?
5.1.3 Identification of important traits
5.2 Allport
5.3 Eysenck
5.4 Cattell
5.5 Circumplex taxonomies of personality
5.6 Five -Factor Model
5.7 Summary
5.8 Questions
5.9 References
5.0 OBJECTIVES
After studying this unit, you should be able to:
 Understand what are traits.
 Know the different properties of traits.
 Study act frequency formulation to understand traits.
 Know how to identify important traits.
 To know how Allport’s theory of personality
 Understand the personality taxonomy given by Eysenck.
 Know the taxonomy of personality developed by Cattell.
 To understand the circumplex taxonomies of personality
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44 5.1 INTRODUCTION
Imagine a situation where your friend introduces you to their colleague
from work at a party. When your friend asks you what you thought about
the colleague, you say that you found them to be friendly, generous,
poised, etc. These descrip tions are exactly what make up the trait-
descriptive adjectives - words that describe traits, and attributes of a
person that are reasonably characteristic of the person and perhaps even
enduring over time. (Larsen & Buss, 2009 p. 61). This means that they are
consistent and stable. Most personality psychologists state that personality
characteristics are fairly stable over time which means they do not go
through significant change over even as time passes by.

Researchers, when studying personality often ask three important
questions?
a. How should we conceptualize traits?
b. Which are the most important traits and how do we identify them?
c. How often can we formulate a comprehensive taxonomy of traits i.e.
is a system that includes all major traits of personali ty?
5.1.2 What is a trait?
There are two broad views of personality as per personality psychologists.
First, internal properties (hidden) that cause behaviors to occur. The other
does not attempt to explain the cause, they simply describe the enduring
and consistent aspects of the person’s behavior.
Traits As Internal Causal Properties:
People tend to carry a certain desire, need or want that drives the behavior.
This changes from one situation to the other e.g., Dinesh needs
excitement, Dhruv has the desire for materialistic things and Dhaval wants
to have power over others. These traits shown in the example are all
internal to these individuals. They also cause certain behaviors to occur.
So, Dinesh will engage in certain behaviors to full his need fo r excitement
e.g., going sky diving, Dhruv may go shopping frequently and Dhaval
may take up leadership roles at work to be able to have power over others.
Thus, internal desires are influencing external behavior.
Just because an individual possesses these internal desires does not mean
they will constantly exhibit behaviors in line with the desires. For
example, you may be craving a cheeseburger and fries but you have also
made a new year’s resolution to eat healthily and lose weight, so you do
not give in to your craving and end up not eating the burger and fries.
Similarly, in the earlier example just because Dhruv loves materialistic
things and loves to go shopping frequently, that does not mean he can
afford to shop every day.
Psychologists also use th e example of glass. Glass is brittle (the ability to
break), but that does not mean that the glass will break without any reason.
Thus, psychologists view traits as an internal state that people have the
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45 exist in the absence of observable expressions. This view helps us rule out
other possibilities when we are trying to explain the cause of people’s
behavior. For example, when Dhruv goes to the mall frequently because
he loves shopping and because he loves materialistic things helps us
understand his behavior.
Traits As Purely Descriptive Summaries:
Psychologists who follow this alternative formulation define traits simply
as descriptive summaries of attributes of persons; they make n o
assumptions about internality or causality (Hampshire, 1953). For
example, the trait of jealousy may come across through several behaviors.
Jay may possess this trait because of which he may engage in certain
behaviors with his partner like restricting h er from going out alone,
expecting her to dress a certain way, etc. All these behaviors describe or
summarize the trait of jealousy. those who view traits as descriptive
summaries do not prejudge the cause of someone’s behavior. They merely
use traits to d escribe, in a summary fashion, the trend in a person’s
behavior. Personality psychologists of this persuasion (e.g., Saucier &
Goldberg, 1998; Wiggins, 1979) argue that we must first identify and
describe the important individual differences among people, then
subsequently develop causal theories to explain them. (Larsen and Buss,
2008 p. 63,64)
The Act Frequency Formulation of Traits – An Illustration of the
Descriptive Summary Formulation:
Several psychologists who support the descriptive summary formulat ion
of traits have explored the consequence of this formulation through a
research program called the “act frequency approach” (Amelang, Herboth,
& Oefner, 1991; Angleiter, Buss, &
Demtroder, 1990; Buss & Craik, 1983; Romero et al., 1994)
The act frequency approach begins with the notion that traits are
categories of acts like “animals” are a category that includes dogs, tigers,
elephants, etc. Similarly, traits like dominance or aggression will have
specific behaviors that fall under it. For example, in th e category of
dominance, you will see acts like constantly ordering people to do things,
wanting control over the situation, wanting to assign roles to other people
in a group task, etc. Thus, dominance is a trait category comprising of
such and several ot her acts that fall under it. Someone who is highly
dominant will thus engage in a large number of these acts. Hence,
according to the act frequency formulation, a trait like dominance is a
descriptive summary of the large number of behaviors that people en gage
in.
Act Frequency Research Program:
The act frequency approach includes three important elements: act
nomination, act prototypicality judgment and recording of activity
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46 Act Nomination:
Act nomination is a procedure designed to identify which acts belong in
which trait categories (Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 64). Think about some
who are “impulsive”. Now list the specific acts or behaviors that fall under
this. One might say “she immediately accepted a dare given to her even
though it coul d have been dangerous”, “he agreed to go to the party even
if he was unwell”, and “she decided to bunk the lecture just to go watch a
movie with friends”. By inquiring about such nominations researchers try
to identify the several acts that fall under the category.
Prototypicality judgment:
The next step in this research is to identify which acts are the most
prototypical or central to each of the trait categories. For example, animals
like dogs, cats, tigers and lions may be the ones to come to your mind
when you hear the word “animal”. But animals like a koala bear,
hedgehog, and iguana may not be the first to come to your mind. Thus,
dogs, cats, lions and tigers are better examples or they are more central to
the category of animals.
Similarly, the acts that are most typical of that particular category will
become the prototypes. There may be a panel of raters who would be
asked to rate which acts are prototypical of the category. For example,
raters find the acts “She controlled the outcome of the meeti ng without the
others being aware of it” and “She took charge after the accident” to be
more prototypically dominant than the act “She deliberately arrived late
for the meeting.” All three examples could be considered to be part of the
dominant category, b ut the first two are more prototypical of the category.
Recording of act performance:
This stage includes securing the information on the actual act or
performance of individuals in daily life. Most researchers have used self -
reports or collected data fro m family or close friends.
Here is an example:
Table1: Self -Report of Impulsive Acts
Instructions: Following is a list of acts. Read each act and circle the
response that most
accurately indicates how often you typically perform each act. Circle “0”
if you never perform the act; circle “1” if you occasionally perform the
act; circle “2” if you perform the act with moderate frequency; and circle
“3” if you perform the act very frequently.
Circle Acts
0 1 2 3 1. I say what I think without thinking about the possible
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47 0 1 2 3 2. I react quickly and aggressively to verbal thoughts.
0 1 2 3 3. I bought a new car without giving it too much
thought.
0 1 2 3 4. I decide to live with somebody without due reflection. 0 1 2 3 5. I make hasty decisions.
0 1 2 3 6. I speak without thinking about what I am going to
say.
0 1 2 3 7. I am led by feelings of the moment.
0 1 2 3 8. I spend my money on whatever strikes my fancy.
0 1 2 3 9. Having made definite plans, I suddenly change them
and do something totally different.
0 1 2 3 10. I do the first thing that comes to my mind.

Source: Adapted from Romero et al. (1994) and Buss and Larsen (2008),
from among the most prototypical impulsiv e acts. According to the act
frequency approach, you would be judged to be “impulsive” if you
performed a high overall frequency of these impulsive acts, relative to
your peer group.
Critique of the act frequency formulation:
This formulation has been cri ticized by several researchers (Angleitner &
Demtroder, 1988; Block, 1989). Most of the criticism is aimed toward
technical implementation. It does not specify how much context should be
included in the trait relevant act. Consider the following dominant a ct:
Rahul insisted that the others go to his favourite restaurant. To understand
this act as a dominant act, we might need to know (1) the relationships
among the people involved, (2) the occasion for going out to eat, (3) the
history of restaurants going for these people, and (4) who is paying for the
dinner. How much context is needed to identify the act as a dominant act?
Thus, we need more information to understand if these acts are truly
frequent and prototypical of the category.
Another criticism of this approach is that it is only applicable to overt
actions i.e., to actions that are easily observable. It does not apply to
failures to act or covert actions that are not directly observable. A person
may be very courageous, but we will never know this under everyday life
circumstances in which people do not need to display courageousness.
Another challenge to the approach is whether it can successfully capture
complex traits, such as the tendency of narcissistic individuals to oscillate
between high and low self -esteem (Raskin & Terry, 1988).
Despite its limitations, the act frequency formulation has its fair share of
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48 simply because the primary way to understand behaviors. “Behavioral acts
constitute the building blocks of interpersonal perception and the basis for
inferences about personality traits” (Gosling, John, Craik, & Robins,
1998). Therefore, the understanding of the behaviors as a way to
understand the personality is essentia l even though there may be
difficulties that could occur. The act frequency approach is also helpful in
identifying behavioral regularities (behaviors that occur on a regular and
constant basis). This approach also helps in understanding the meaning of
some traits that were difficult to be studied such as creativity and
impulsivity.
Understanding the act frequency approach also helps identify the domains
in which it provides insight into personality. One study examined the
relationship between self -reporte d act performance and observers’ reports
of individuals’ actual behavior (Goslin et al., 1998). Some acts like
extraversion and conscientiousness showed higher agreement when
measured using self -report. This meant that for such acts the self -report
and the observer reports showed a greater match. Other acts like
agreeableness showed lower agreement. It was concluded that the more
observable the act, the higher the agreement between self -report and
observer ratings. For example, acts that are associated with extraversion
like going out to party, having a larger number of friends, and frequency
of talking to strangers, are more observable and thus there is a greater
agreement between self -report and observer report.
There are other researches which have shown that the act frequency
approach can also be used to predict essential outcomes in everyday life
like job, salary, promotions, business acumen, etc. (Kyl -Heku & Buss,
1996; Lund et al., 2006).
To conclude, there are two formulations of traits. One that lo oks at internal
cause and effect relations and how that affects observable behavior. The
second considers traits to be descriptive summaries of the observable
behavior.
5.1.3 Identification of Important Traits:
There are three essential ways to identify i mportant traits.
i. Lexical approach – According to this approach, all traits listed and
defined in the dictionary form the basis of the natural way of describing
differences between people (Allport & Odbert, 1936, Larsen and Buss,
2008 p. 67). This approach suggests we begin with language as a source
of identifying important traits.
ii. Statistical approach – uses statistical approaches like factor analysis to
identify major personality traits.
iii. Theoretical approach – in this approach researchers rely on theor ies to
explore the important personality traits.
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49 Lexical Approach:
This approach is based on the lexical hypothesis which states that “all -
important individual differences have become encoded within the natural
language” (Buss and Larsen, 2008 p. 67). Ov er time, the differences
among people are identified and noted and subsequent changes or
additions are made in the natural language as and when required. People
will invent words like hot -headed, hot -tempered, self -centred, etc. which
help describe people and is useful for communicating information about
them. Thus, these terms begin to be used frequently. But words that do not
communicate information accurately are not used frequently and thus are
eliminated from the natural language over a period of time.
There are several words in the English language that are used as adjectives
for example manipulative, arrogant, warm, etc. A perusal of the dictionary
yields about 2,800 trait -descriptive adjectives (Norman, 1967). This
highlights how trait terms are ext remely essential to communicating with
others.
There are two ways in which important traits can be identified according
to the lexical approach – synonym frequency and cross -cultural
universality. For the synonym frequency criteria, the idea is that if t here
are more than two or three trait adjectives associated with a dimension, it
must be important. The more the number of trait adjectives, the more
important it seems to be. “The more important is such an attribute, the
more synonyms and subtly distincti ve facets of the attribute will be found
within any one language” (Saucier & Goldberg, 1996, p. 24). For example,
the trait of dominance has several synonyms to it dominant, bossy,
assertive, powerful, pushy, forceful, leaderlike, domineering, influential,
ascendant, authoritative and arrogant. Each synonym has a subtle and
minor difference and it conveys important aspects of the dominance trait.
All these adjectives are important to understand the trait and for social
communication.
Cross -cultural univers ality states that “the more important is an individual
difference in human transactions, the more languages will have a term for
it” (Goldberg, 1981, p. 142). Also, “the most important phenotypic
[observable] personality attributes should have a correspond ing term in
virtually every language” (Saucier & Goldberg, 1996, p. 23). The logic
used is that if the trait is important then it will be frequently used across
cultures. Contrary to this if the trait is specific to one or two cultures, there
may not be a word or adjective for it in all cultures.
For example, the Yanomamö Indians of Venezuela have the words unokai
and “ non-unokai ,” which mean, roughly, “a man who has achieved
manhood by the killing of another man” (unokai) and “a man who has not
achieved m anhood status by the killing of another man” (non -unokai)
(Chagnon, 1983). In Yanomamö culture, this individual difference is of
critical importance, because someone who identifies as the unokai is
known to have an elevated status, they are widely feared, have more
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50 American culture, there is the generic killer, but there is no single word
that has the specific connotations of unokai. Thus, although this individual
difference is of criti cal importance to the Yanomamö, it is unlikely to be a
candidate for a universal taxonomy of personality traits. (Buss and Larsen,
2008, p. 68). For the cross -cultural universality criteria, researchers must
examine the natural language and trait usage acr oss cultures.
Several problems can occur with the lexical strategy. Many trait terms are
ambiguous like elliptical, snaky, and stygian. There may also be terand ms
that are difficult to understand like clavering (inclined to gossip or idle
talk), davering , gnathonic and theromorphic (Saucier & Goldberg, 1998).
These terms are not often used and are eventually eliminated from natural
language.
Another issue with the lexical strategy is that personality is not always
conveyed through adjectives but can be d one through nouns and adverbs.
For example, there are also dozens of noun terms encoded within the
English language to describe someone who is not too smart: birdbrain,
blockhead, bonehead, chucklehead, cretin, deadhead, dimwit, dolt, dope,
dullard, dumbbe ll, dummy, dunce, jughead, lunkhead, moron, peabrain,
pinhead, soft head, thickhead, and wooden head. However, researchers
choose to focus on trait -adjective for personality description.
The lexical strategy has made remarkably remarkable contributions to
identifying important individual differences.
Statistical Approach:
This approach begins with a pool of personality items. Similar to the
lexical approach it starts with trait words or a series of questions about
behavior, experience and emotion. Frequen tly, those researchers who
begin with the lexical approach turn to the statistical approach to help
form basic categories of personality traits. Researchers can begin with
self-ratings of trait adjectives on a large collection of personality -relevant
sente nces (example – I find that I am easily able to persuade people to my
point of view). Once a large enough number of adjectives, items and
statements are generated the statistical approach is applied. A large
number of people begin to rate themselves on the se items and then
statistical procedures are applied to identify categories or clusters. The
major goal of the statistical approach is to cover all the trait adjectives that
fall under a category.
A procedure called factor analysis is most commonly used. It is a complex
mathematical procedure. To explain it simply, factor analysis essentially
identifies groups of items that covary [i.e., go together] but tend not to
covary with other groups of items (Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 69). Take for
example, in the university the cabins of psychology professors, sociology
professors, history professors, etc. Each psychology professor’s cabin will
be near to each other i.e., in the department building. And the sociology
department will have the cabins of the sociology professors nearby. Thus,
after factor analysis, we will be able to understand which traits are similar
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51 understand which traits have some common properties. Factor analysis
reduce s a large number of factors or traits into understandable and easily
usable clusters or categories.
Here is a tabular example of factor loadings (which are indexes of how
much of the variation in an item is “explained” by the factor.) Factor
loadings indi cate the degree to which the item correlates with, or “loads
on,” the underlying factor. (Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 69)
Adjective Rating Factor 1 (Extraversion) Factor 2
(Ambition) Factor 3
(Creativity)
Humorous .66 .06 .19
Amusing .65 .23 .02
Popu lar .57 .13 .22
Hard -working .05 .63 .01
Productive .04 .52 .19
Determined .23 .52 .08
Imaginative .01 .09 .62
Original .13 .05 .53
Inventive .06 .26 .47
Source: Adapted from Matthews & Oddy (1993).
Note: The numbers refer to factor loadings, which indicate the degree to
which an item correlates with the underlying factor.
The first factor of extraversion has the highest loadings on humorous,
amusing and popular. The second factor of ambition has the highest
loading on hard -working, productiv e and determined. The third factor of
creativity has the highest loadings on imaginative, original and inventive.
Because of the factor analysis, the researcher may be able to cluster the
trait adjectives appropriately rather than looking at all these nine traits
independently.
One important thing to keep in mind while using factor analysis is that if
you miss out on putting in the data for a particular trait adjective, the
results will not account for it. Thus, what input you give when calculating
the fac tor loadings will be critical.


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52 Theoretical Approach:
This approach begins with a theory that determines which variables are
important. It begins with a strong assumption of which traits are
important. For example, the sociosexual orientation theory was developed
by psychologists Jeff Simpson and Steve Gangestad (1991). This theory
states that men and women pursue either one of the sexual relationship
strategies. First, seeking a single committed relationship that entails
monogamy (having one partner at a given time) and having a significant
investment in children. The second includes a great degree of promiscuity
(having multiple sexual partners), frequent partner switching and less
investment in children. Based on this theory we can identify traits that are
essential to explain the mate selection strategy. Psychologists have also
developed a scale to measure these aspects of mate selection.
Thus, under this approach, the theory and what we know about it will be
the driving force to understanding persona lity and the various traits that
are included under those categories. It lets theory determine which traits
are important.
The drawback of the theoretical approach is that we must have a strong
enough theory to support the understanding of the personality traits being
studied. If the theory is weak it may lead to omission or misinterpretation.
There is no consensus amongst researchers about which of the three
approaches is the best to be used by itself. The researchers most often use
a combination of all t hree strategies to understand personality traits. For
example, Norman (1963) and Goldberg (1990) started their work with the
lexical strategy to identify their first set of variables for inclusion. Then
they applied factor analysis to selected traits and r educed the set of five
variables. In this way, they used the lexical strategy to sample the traits
and the factor analysis strategy to find statistical support and structure.
5.2 ALLPORT
Gordon Allport was born on November 11, 1897, in Montezuma, Indiana,
USA. He developed a theory of personality that emphasizes the
uniqueness of the psychologically healthy individual who strives
proactively towards a goal that they have consciously set. He viewed traits
as the basic structural elements of personality. He sed to term
“predisposition to respond”. Allport stated that the traits brought together
a set of behaviors. These behaviors lead to a consistency in the kind of
response that could be expected from a person who possessed the traits.
These behaviors are vi ewed as forms of adaptive and expressive behavior.
For example, a highly sociable person, s/he will be more friendly and
outgoing. They will view these situations as opportunities to meet and
interact with people and relate to them. This helps them functio n better in
the world. Traits represent a readiness to respond to a certain situation in a
particular way. Allport believed that traits existed as a “neuropsychic
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53 they were rooted in bio logy and are seen through the individual difference
among people.
Allport suggested different categories of traits. The first distinction he
made was whether traits could be used to describe just a single individual
or people in general. This is known as the nomothetic -idiographic issue.
The nomothetic approach emphasizes that it’s important to develop traits
that could be applied to all. The idiographic approach insists that traits are
unique to individuals. The second distinction Allport makes is among
cardinal, central and secondary traits. A cardinal trait expresses a
disposition that is so pervasive in a person’s life that virtually every act is
traceable to its influence. Central traits [e.g., honesty, kindness,
assertiveness] express dispositions tha t cover a more limited range of
situations than cardinal traits but still represent broad consistencies in
behaviour. And secondary dispositions represent tendencies that are the
least conspicuous, generalized, and consistent (Pervin, 2002, p. 39).
Allpor t rejected factor analysis as a method to understand personality
clusters. He identified important terms from the English dictionary, added
some slang terms and classified almost 18,000 terms. These included
stable and enduring categories, temporary mood a nd activity -based, social
evaluations and physical characteristics and talent or abilities. The stable
category was most significantly related to traits (which are known to be
fairly enduring). Although Allport’s method of coming up with the
categories was not based on research, his work initiated the movement to
understand how ordinary language could be used to develop a taxonomy.
Allport emphasized the idiographic approach and was critical of those
researches that attempted to identify individual differe nces or compare
individuals to other large groups. He believed that people’s behaviour
cannot always be predicted and that there was always a strong influence of
situational factors. He also believed included motives in the trait approach.
He believed moti ves/motivation was important to the understanding of
traits and behaviors.
5.3 EYSENCK
Hans Eysenck proposed the hierarchical model of personality. He
developed this based on the traits which he believed were highly heritable
i.e., they could be passed on from one generation to the next and they also
had a psychophysiological foundation (based on the psychology and
physiology). According to Eysenck the three main traits that met this
criterion include extraversion -introversion (E), neuroticism -emotional
stability (N) and psychoticism (P). Together they were abbreviated as
PEN.

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54






















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55










Figure: 5.0: Distribution of Specific traits for Eysenck’s hierarchical
model
Eysenck described extraversion to include traits like sociable, ac tive,
lively, venturesomeness, dominant, etc. Eysenck described extraverts to be
people who enjoyed going to parties frequently, having many friends, and
constantly wanting to have several people around them to talk to them,
they enjoy playing practical jo kes on people, they are carefree and easy
manner and the high level of activity (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975). On
the contrary, introverts were described as people who enjoy spending time
alone, prefer quiet time and solitude and seek activities accordingly. They
are sometimes aloof and distant but often have a small number of intimate
friends with whom they share confidence. They are described to be more
serious than extroverts and prefer a moderate pace. They are well
organized, prefer and a routine and pre dictable lifestyle (Larsen &
Kasimatis, 1990 Buss and Larsen, 2008)
The trait of neuroticism (N) includes specific traits such as anxiety,
irritability, guilty, lacking self -esteem, tension, shy, and moody.
Generally, anxiousness and irritability may be vi ewed differently but,
factor analysis has helped us understand that these two traits are related to
each other. When one is anxious, they can become irritable and factor
analysis has confirmed this. Those high on neuroticism are worriers and
they get easil y anxious and depressed. They also have trouble sleeping and
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56 through bodily symptoms). Another key characteristic of those high in
neuroticism is that they experience high emotional arousal in response to
normal stresses of life. That means that even if the stressors in their life
are similar to those experienced by others, they have a stronger emotional
response to them. Thos e who score low on neuroticism are found to be
emotionally stable, even -tempered and calm and they react slowly to
stressful events. They also can return quickly and easily to a normal
emotional state after a stressful event has occurred.
The third target trait proposed by Eysenck is psychoticism (P). those high
on this trait exhibit narrower traits like aggression, egocentric, creativity
impulsiveness, lacking empathy, and antisocial. Factor analysis has helped
us understand that lack of empathy and impul sivity co -occur. This means
that those who tend to act without thinking (impulsivity) also find it
difficult to see situations from other people’s perspectives (lack of
empathy). Those scoring high on psychoticism are typically solitary
individuals, often called loners. They also are cruel in many ways they
may show cruelty to animals as well (e.g., laughing when an animal gets
hurt). They also show insensitivity to the pain and suffering of others even
/her family members. They are physically and verbally aggressive with
their family members. They show deep interest in strange and unusual
things and do not get scared of dangerous things/act simply out of
curiosity. They enjoy making a fool of other people and in extreme cases,
they can display symptoms of a ntisocial personality disorder.
Several interesting correlations have been studied by researchers in line
with psychoticism. High scorers tend to show a strong preference for
violent films and rate violent scenes from films more enjoyable and even
more co mical than those who score low on P (Bruggemann & Barry,
2002; Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 75). High scorers on P, prefer unpleasant
paintings and photographs more than do low -P individuals (Rawling,
2003; Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 75). Men, but not women, w ho score high
on Machiavellianism (which is highly correlated with P) endorse
promiscuous and hostile sexual attitudes - they are more likely than low
scorers to divulge sexual secrets to third parties, pretend to be in love
when they are not in love, ply potential sex partners with alcoholic drinks,
and even report trying to force others into sex acts (McHoskey, 2001;
Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 75). Low scorers of P tend to be more deeply
religious, whereas high -P scorers tend to be somewhat cynical about
religion (Saroglou, 2002; Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 75). Also, high
scorers are predisposed to getting into severe and life -threatening events,
such as violence and criminal activity (Pickering, Farmer, Harris, Redman,
Mahmood, Sadler, & McGuffin, 2003; Bus s and Larsen, 2008, p. 75).
There are two characteristics of Eysenck’s theory which also need to be
discussed: hierarchical structure and biological underpinnings.
Hierarchical structure:
As seen in figure 5.0 there are two levels of the traits. The fir st level
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57 Followed by the second level is a third level called habitual acts. For
example, one habitual act under sociable might be talking on the
telephone; another might be taking fr equent coffee breaks to socialize with
other students. Narrow traits include a variety of habitual acts. At the very
lowest level in the hierarchy is a specific act (e.g., I talked on the
telephone with my friend and I took a coffee break to chat at 10:30 A.M.).
If enough specific acts are repeated frequently, they become habitual acts
at the third level. Habitual acts when clustered together become narrow
traits at the second level and these narrow trait clusters become super -
traits at the top of the hiera rchy. This hierarchy helps understand
behaviors.
Biological underpinnings:
Two aspects of understanding Eysenck’s hierarchy by understanding the
biological underpinnings. Inclusive of the biological underpinnings are
two components heritability and identi fiable physiological substrate.
Eysenck’s criteria for any basic personality trait is that it has high
heritability. Behavioural genetics show evidence to support that the three
super traits given by Eysenck have moderate heritability. The second
criterion is that basic personality traits must have an identifiable
physiological substrate. This means that one can identify the brain and
nervous system that corresponds to the traits and are known to be partly
involved in producing these traits. According to Ey senck, extraversion is
supposed to be linked with central nervous system arousal and reactivity.
Eysenck predicted that introverts would be more easily aroused as
compared to extroverts. Also, he predicted that neuroticism was linked
with a high degree of changeability. High scorers are also shown to have
high testosterone (a sex hormone) levels and low levels of MOA
(Monoamine Oxidases) which is an inhibitory neurotransmitter.
Despite the admirable qualities associated with Eysenck’s taxonomy, there
are s ome limitations. One, there are many other traits aside from the one
prescribed that show heritability. Second, is that some psychologists argue
that Eysenck may have missed some important traits in his taxonomy. This
point was argued by several prominent psychologists such as Raymond
Cattell, Lewis Goldberg, Paul Costa, and Robert McCrae.
5.4 CATTELL
Cattell worked closely with Charles Spearman who was the inventor of
factor analysis. Cattell was very impressed by the potential and utility of
factor anal ysis and realized how important it is for developing a scientific
taxonomy of personality. He devoted much of his career to using factor
analysis to apply and develop factor analytic techniques to understand
personality.
Cattell followed the work of bioch emists, who back then were discovering
the basic vitamins. He was influenced by how they used alphabets from
the English language to name the vitamins. He followed a similar system.
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58 sets of data such as self -report (S -data) and laboratory tests (T -data).
Cattell developed a 16 -factor taxonomy which was one of the largest
taxonomies.
Here is a brief description of the 16 factors developed and identified by
Cattell:
Factor Name Description
Factor A Interpersonal
warmth Warm -hearted, personable, easy to get
along with, likes being with other people,
likes helping others, adapts well to the
needs of others rather than has others
adapt to his or her needs; this is similar to
Eysenck ’s extraversion
Factor B Intelligence A rough indicator of intellectual
functioning or efficiency of processing
information
Factor C Emotional
stability A high level of emotional resources with
which to meet the challenges of daily
life, ability to wor k toward goals, not
easily distracted, good emotional control,
ability to “roll with the punches,”
tolerates stress well; this is similar to
Eysenck’s neuroticism factor (reverse
scored).
Factor E Dominance Self-assertive, aggressive, competitive,
forcef ul and direct in relations with
others, like to put their ideas into practice
and have things their way; occupational
groups scoring high on this dimension
include athletes and judges, and low -
scoring groups include janitors, farmers,
and cooks.
Factor F Impulsivity Happy -go-lucky, lively, enthusiastic,
enjoy parties, likes to travel, prefers jobs
with variety and change; occupational
groups scoring high on this dimension
include airline attendants and
salespersons; adults scoring high on
impulsivity tend to leave home at an
earlier age and move more often during
their adult lives.
Factor G Conformity Persistent, respectful of authority, rigid,
conforming, follows group standards,
likes rules and order, dislikes novelty and
surprises; military cadets sco re above
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59 however, tend to be below average on
conformity.
Factor H Boldness Likes being the centre of attention,
adventurous, socially bold, outgoing,
confident, able to move easily into new
social groups, not socially anxious, and
has no problems with stage fright.
Factor I Sensitivity Artistic, insecure, dependent,
overprotected, prefers reason to force in
getting things done; high scorers are
found among groups of employment
coun sellors, artists, and musicians,
whereas low scorers are found among
engineers
Factor L Suspiciousness Suspecting, jealous, dogmatic, critical,
irritable, holds grudges, worries much
about what others think of him or her,
tend to be critical of others; accountants
are one group scoring high on this
dimension.
Factor M Imagination Sometimes called the “absent -minded
professor” factor; unconventional,
impractical, unconcerned about everyday
matters, forget trivial things, and not
usually interested in m echanical
activities; high -scoring groups include
artists and research scientists; high
scorers are more creative than low
scorers but also tend to have more
automobile accidents.
Factor N Shrewdness Polite, diplomatic, reserved, good at
managing the imp ression made on others,
socially poised and sophisticated, and
good control of her behaviour; high
scorers may appear “stiff” and
constrained in their social relations.
Factor O Insecurity Tends to worry, feels guilty, moody, has
frequent episodes of depression often
feels dejected, sensitive to criticism from
others, becomes upset easily, anxious,
often lonely, self -deprecating, and self -
reproaching; extremely low scorers come
across as smug, self -satisfied, and overly
self-confident; low -scoring persons may
not feel bound by the standards of society
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60 Factor Q1 Radicalism Liberal attitudes, innovative, analytic,
feel that society should throw out
traditions, prefers to break with
established ways of doing things; high
scorers tend to be effective problem
solvers in group decision -making studies;
however, high scorers, because they tend
to be overly critical and verbally
aggressive, are not well -liked as group
leaders.
Factor Q2 Self-
sufficiency Prefers to be alone, dislikes being on
committees or involved in group work,
shuns support from others; social
workers tend to be below average on this
dimension; accountants and statisticians
tend to be high, with An tarctic explorers
among the highest groups ever tested on
self-sufficiency.
Factor Q3 Self-discipline Prefers to be organized, think before
talking or acting, is neat, does not like to
leave anything to chance; high -scoring
persons have strong control ov er their
actions and emotions; airline pilots score
high on this dimension.
Factor Q4 Tension Anxious, frustrated, takes a long time
calming down after being upset, irritated
by small things, gets angry easily, and
has trouble sleeping.
Source: Adapted from Krug, 1981; Buss and Larsen, 2008, p. 78 -79

Cattell has developed a strong system for studying personality traits but
there is some criticism associated with his work some researchers have
failed to replicate his taxonomy and some argue that a smalle r number of
factors can explain the individual difference.
5.5 CIRCUMPLEX TAXONOMIES OF PERSONALITY
Timothy Leary and Jerry Wiggins were the most prominent advocates of
circular representation of personality spheres. The circumplex model tries
to explain personality traits using a circular representation.
Wiggins (1979) started with a lexical assumption that all individual
differences can be depicted within the natural language. He went further in
his efforts by arguing that trait terms specify different types of ways in
which individuals differ. One of the ways prescribed was intrapersonal
traits . Other kinds include temperament traits like gloomy, nervous,
sluggish, and excitable. Then there are character traits like moral,
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61 attitude traits such as pious, and spiritual; mental traits such as clever, and
logical; physical traits such as healthy and tough. Wiggins was only
concerned with intrapersonal traits. Based on the theorizin g given by Foa
and Foa (1974) he defined interpersonal as interactions between people
involving exchanges. The two resources that define social exchange are
love and status: “interpersonal events may be defined as dyadic
interactions that have relatively c lear-cut social (status) and emotional
(love) consequences for both participants” (Wiggins, 1979, p. 398). Thus,
the love and status dimensions are two major axes in the circumplex.


Source: Adapted from “Circular Reasoning About Interpersonal Behavior”
by J. S. Wiggins, 1989, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 56, p.
297. Copyright 1989 by the American Psychological Association.
Love and status are two axes of Wiggins’ model. For example, someone
who is cold -hearted will be low on love and mayb e high on status.
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62 love. This model helps explain traits in a circular manner where every trait
can be explained in the context of love and status and a circular
relationship of some kind can be established.
The advantages of Wiggins circumplex include firstly, that it provides an
explicit definition of interpersonal behavior. We can explain any behavior
or transaction about this circumplex. For example, acts of giving love
(giving a hug), granting status (showing respect and honor to a parent),
denying love (shouting at your partner) or denying status (disrespectfully
talking to a colleague). The model gives explanations for everyday
interactions.
The second advantage is that it specifies the relationship between each
trait and every trait within the model. There are three types of
relationships specified by this model.
1. Adjacency: how close the traits are to each other in the circumplex
(traits close to each other are positively correlat ed to each other)
2. Bipolarity: traits which are bipolar i.e., on the opposite ends of the
circumplex are negatively correlated to each other.
3. Orthogonality: traits that are perpendicular (90 -degree separation or at
right angles to each other) to each other are entirely unrelated to each
other. There is zero correlation with each other. Orthogonality allows
us to specify with greater precision the different ways in which traits
are expressed in actual behavior.
The third advantage of the model is that it ale rts investigators to the gaps
while studying interpersonal behavior. The model directs the attention of
researchers to unexplored areas associated with personality.
The major limitation of this model is that it is limited only to two
dimensions. Some argue that other traits have not been captured by the
model. And those that have not been captured hold important explanations
for interpersonal behavior. For example, traits like conscientiousness,
neuroticism and emotional stability.
5.6 FIVE -FACTOR MODEL
This model has received the most attention and support. It is also called
the Big -Five model. The broad categories have been provisionally named
as follows:
1. Surgency or extraversion
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Emotional stability
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63 The model was based on a lexical and statistical approach. The lexical
approach was developed by Allport and Odbert (1936) who developed
identified around 17,953 traits from the dictionary. Allport and Odbert
then divided the original set of trait terms i nto four lists: (1) stable traits
(e.g., secure, intelligent), (2) temporary states, moods, and activities (e.g.,
agitated, excited), (3) social evaluations (e.g., charming, irritating), and (4)
metaphorical, physical, and doubtful terms (e.g., prolific). From this
original list, Cattell used 4,500 as a starting point for his work. Due to the
lack of limited advances in computers, Cattell could not use factor
analysis. He limited his list to 171 clusters by clubbing some traits
together and eliminating some . He ended up narrowing it down to 35
traits.
Fiske (1949) used 22 subsets of Cattell’s list of 35 clusters and using
factor analysis identified a five -factor taxonomy. He was the first known
researcher to develop a five -factor model.
Tupes and Christal ( 1961) made the subsequent major contribution to the
five-factor taxonomy. They examined the factor structure of 22 simplified
descriptions: surgency, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional
stability, and culture. This factor structure was subsequently replicated by
Norman (1963), and then by a host of other researchers (e.g., Botwin &
Buss, 1989; Goldberg, 1981; Digman & Inouye, 1986; McCrae & Costa,
198).
This model has seen a tremendous amount of literature and research
generated around it. There is also great consensus amongst research for
this model. However, there are key questions and controversies raised.
1. What is the empirical evidence?
2. What is the identity of the fifth factor?
3. Is the Big Five taxonomy comprehensive, or are there major trait
dimensions that lie beyond the Big Five?
What is the empirical evidence?
The five -factor model has generated tremendous research. Studies have
been conducted over a decade with varying samples in different formats.
In the modern format, the model was measu red using predominantly in
two ways. One way is based on self -ratings of single word trait adjectives
like talkative, shy, warm, etc. (Goldberg, 1990) and the second is based on
self-ratings of sentence items like “Life is fast -paced.” (McCrae & Costa,
1999).
Lewis Goldberg has conducted extensive research surrounding the five -
factor model. According to Goldberg (1990), some key adjectives are:
1. Surgency or extraversion: talkative, extraverted, assertive, forward,
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64 2. Agreeableness: sympathetic, kind, warm, understanding, sincere
versus unsympathetic, unkind, harsh, cruel.
3. Conscientiousness: organized, neat, orderly, practical, prompt,
meticulous versus disorganized, disorderly, careless, sloppy,
impractical.
4. Emotional stability: calm, relaxed, stable versus moody, anxious,
insecure.
5. Intellect or imagination: creative, imaginative, intellectual versus
uncreative, unimaginative, unintellectual. (Larsen and Buss, 2008,
p. 83)
Paul T. Cost a and Robert McCrae developed a measure of the Big Five
model using sentence structures called NEO -PI-R (the neuroticism -
extraversion - openness (NEO) Personality Inventory (PI) Revised (R)
(Costa & McCrae, 1989).
Each of the five factors has a host of spe cific facets which cover subtle
components of personality. For example, the trait of conscientiousness
includes facets like self -discipline, competence, order, dutifulness,
achievement striving and, deliberation. The global trait of neuroticism
includes fa cets like anxiety, angry hostility, depression, self -
consciousness, impulsivity, and vulnerability.
What is the identity of the fifth factor?
There is still a lack of consensus regarding the fifth factor of this model.
Different researchers have labelled it differently such as culture, intellect,
intellectance, imagination, openness, openness to experience, and even
fluid intelligence and tender -mindedness (see Brand & Egan, 1989; De
Raad, 1998). The reason for the difference is that different researchers
begin from different starting points. Some have begun from the lexical
approach and prefer intellect as the meaning and label (Saucier &Godberg,
1996) and those who began with the questionnaire items prefer openness
or openness to experience. (McCrae and Costa, 1997; 1999).
To resolve this issue, cross -cultural research could be conducted. Traits
that emerge universally rather than in specific cultures can be considered.
Unfortunately, there is still a lack of consensus even in the various cross -
cultural or culture -specific research conducted. In a study conducted in
Turkey, a clear fifth factor emerged that is best described as openness
(Somer & Goldberg, 1999). A separate Dutch study found a fifth factor
marked by progressive at one end and conservative at the other (DeRaad et
al., 1998). In German, the fifth factor represents intelligence, talents, and
abilities (Ostendorf, 1990). In Italian, the fifth factor is conventionality,
marked by the items rebellious and critical (Caprara & Perugini, 1994;
Larse n and Buss, 2008, p. 85). More extensive research, especially cross -
cultural and beyond the Western cultures is required to further understand
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65 What are the empirical correlates of the fifth factor?
Tremendous literature has been generate d surrounding the five factors.
Below is the summary of some of the important research findings:
Surgency or extraversion : Those high on extraversion love to party - they
engage in frequent social interaction, take the lead in livening up dull
gatherings, and enjoy talking a lot. Recent evidence suggests that social
attention is the key feature of
extraversion (Ashton, Lee, & Paunonen, 2002). Extraverts have a greater
impact on their social environment, often assuming leadership positions,
whereas introvert s tend to be more like wallflowers (Jensen -Campbell &
Graziano, 2001). Extraverted men are more likely to be bold with women
they don’t know, while introverted men tend to be timid with women
(Berry & Miller, 2001). There are also downsides to having high scores on
extraversion such as wanting to drive fast, and listening to music while
driving, and as a consequence, they tend to get into more car accidents,
and even road fatalities, than their more introverted peers (Lajunen, 2001)
(Larsen and Buss, 2008, p. 86).
Agreeableness: Those high on agreeableness favor using negotiation to
resolve conflicts; low agreeable persons try to assert their power to resolve
social conflicts (Graziano Tobin, 2002; Jensen -Campbell & Graziano,
2001). They are agreeable and mo re
likely to withdraw from social conflict, avoiding unharmonious situations.
These individuals like harmonious social interaction and cooperative
family life. Agreeable children tend to be less often victimized by bullies
during early adolescence (Jensen -Campbell et al., 2002). (Larsen and
Buss, 2008, p. 86).
Conscientiousness : Those high on this trait are hardworking and punctual
which leads to several positive outcomes such as higher grade point
average, greater job satisfaction, greater job security, a nd more positive
and committed social relationships (Langford, 2003). On the contrary,
those who score low are likely to perform poorly at school and work. They
tend to procrastinate more than the high scorers. High scorers are more
industrious and put in long working hours (Lund et al., 2006). Those
scoring low on conscientiousness exhibit risky sexual behaviors and are
likely to have multiple romantic relationships at a time (Trobst, Herbst,
Masters, & Costa, 2002). They also tend to have higher arrest ra tes
(Clower & Bothwell, 2001). (Larsen and Buss, 2008, p. 87)
Emotional stability: This taps on people’s emotional ability to cope with
life stresses. The hallmark of those who show emotional stability is mood
fluctuations. They can manage their mood swing s (Murray, Allen, &
Trinder, 2002) which leads them to experience fatigue over the day (De
Vries & Van Heck, 2002). Those with emotional instability are more
likely to have dissociated experiences, where they cannot remember
incidents/life events properly, they may feel disconnected from others
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66 unfamiliar place (Kwapil, Wrobel, & Pope, 2002). Those high in
neuroticism also have frequent suicidal thoughts as compared to those who
score l ow (Chioqueta & Stiles, 2005). High scorers show poorer physical
health, and more physical symptoms and engage in fewer health -
promoting behaviors behaviors (Williams, O’Brien, & Colder, 2004).
Those scoring high on neuroticism show ups and downs in their social
relationships. Emotionally unstable individuals experience more sexual
anxiety (e.g., worried about performance) as well as a greater fear of
engaging in sex (Heaven, Crocker, Edwards, Preston, Ward, &
Woodbridge, 2003; Shafer, 2001). Self -handicapp ing is defined as a
tendency to “create obstacles to achievement in performance or
competitive situations to protect one’s self -esteem” (Ross et al., 2002, p.
2). Such self -handicapping is observed frequently in those with emotional
instability. Those high on neuroticism seem to undermine themselves and
create roadblocks to their achievements.
Openness: This trait has been linked to experimentation with new foods,
novel experiences, and sometimes even openness to extramarital affairs
(Buss, 193). Peterson, Smith & Carson (2002) found that those high in
openness had more difficulty in ignoring previously experienced stimuli.
The process of information processing is different and people who are
high on openness are even open to receiving information.
Some re search findings with combinations of Big Five variables:
 Good grades are best predicted by high conscientiousness and high
emotional stability (Chamorro -Premuzic & Furnham, 2003). Watson
(2001) attributes this to emotionally stable and conscientious peopl e as
they are less likely to procrastinate (Watson, 2001).
 Risky sexual behaviors, such as having many sex partners and not
using condoms, are best predicted by high extraversion, high
neuroticism, low conscientiousness, and low agreeableness (Miller et
al., 2004; Trobst et al., 2002).
 Alcohol consumption is best predicted by high Extraversion and low
Conscientiousness (Paunonen, 2003). A study by Grano et al. (2004)
showed that more than 5,000 workers in Finland found that a low
conscientiousness also pred icts increases in alcohol consumption over
time, that is, who ends up becoming a heavy drinker.
 Egan and Stelmack (2003) found that mountain climbers that climbed
Mount Everest tend to be extraverted, emotionally stable, and high on
psychoticism (Egan & S telmack, 2003).
 Happiness and experiencing positive affect in everyday life are best
predicted by high extraversion and low neuroticism (Cheng &
Furnham, 2003; Steel & Ones, 2003; Stewart, Ebmeier, & Deary,
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67  Likelihood to engage in volunteer work, such as campus or community
services, is best predicted by a combination of high agreeableness and
high extraversion (Carlo et al., 2005).
 Forgiveness, the inclination to forgive those who have committed
some wrong, characterizes individ uals who are high on agreeableness
and high on emotional stability (Brose, Rye, Lutz -Zois, & Ross, 2005).
 Silverthorne (2001) found that leadership effectiveness in business
settings is best predicted by high extraversion, high agreeableness,
high conscien tiousness, and high emotional stability.
Is the Five -Factor Model comprehensive?
There are critiques of the models who believe that the model leaves out
key aspects of personality. Almagor, Tellegen, and Waller (1995) suggest
that there are two more facto rs namely positive evaluation (e.g.,
outstanding vs. ordinary) and negative evaluation (e.g., awful vs. decent).
Goldberg (1995) suggested components like religiosity or spirituality also
emerge as factors. Lanning (1994) found a sixth factor which he labe ls
attractiveness which includes items tapping on physical attractiveness, and
seeing self as attractive and charming. Schmitt and Buss (2000)
found individual differences in the sexual sphere, such as sexiness
(e.g., sexy, stunning, attractive, alluring, arousing, sensual, and seductive)
and faithfulness
(e.g., faithful, monogamous, devoted, and not adulterous). They found
sexiness is positively correlated with extraversion, and faithfulness is
positively correlated with both agreeableness and conscientio usness
(Larsen and Buss, 2008, p. 89). Proponents of the model encourage the
addition of more dimensions if there is sufficient empirical evidence
(Costa & McCrae, 1995; Goldberg & Saucier, 1995).
An alternative to the Five -Factor Model is the personality descriptive
nouns rather than adjectives. Saucier (2003) discovered eight personality
domains of personality nouns like Dumbbell (e.g., dummy, moron, twit),
Babe/Cutie (e.g., beauty, darling, doll), Philosopher (e.g., genius, artist,
individualist), Lawbr eaker (e.g., pothead, drunk, rebel), Joker (e.g., clown,
goof, comedian), and Jock (e.g., sportsman, tough, machine) (Larsen and
Buss, 2008, p. 90).
A second approach is to adopt the lexical approach focusing on large pools
of adjectives in different lang uages. One study of seven languages (Dutch,
French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, and Polish) found variants of
the Big Five, plus a sixth -factor Honesty -Humility (Ashton et al., 2004).
At one end of the Honesty -Humility factor lies trait adjectives such as
honest, sincere, trustworthy, and unselfish; the other end is anchored by
adjectives such as arrogant, conceited, greedy, pompous, self -important,
and egotistical (Larsen and Buss, 2008, p. 90). The inclusion of the sixth
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68 for Honesty -Humility, E is emotionality, X is extraversion, A is
agreeableness, C is conscientiousness and O is openness to experience.
Based on this model an inventory was also developed called the
HEXACO -PI-R by Lee and Ashton (2004). The HEXACO -PI-R assesses
the six broad HEXACO personality factors, each of which contains four
"facets", or narrower personality characteristics. (An additional 25th
narrow facet, called Altruism, is also included and represents a blend of
the Honesty -Humility, Emotionality, and Agreeableness factors.) The six
factors, their facets, and the personality -descriptive adjectives that
typically belong to these six groups are as follows (Ashton and Lee,
2007):
 Honesty -Humility (H):
o Facets: Sincerity, Fairness, Greed Avoidance, Modesty
o Adjectives: {Sincere, honest, faithful, loyal, modest/unassuming}
versus {sly, deceitful, greedy, pretentious, hypocritical, boastful,
pompous}
 Emotionality (E):
o Facets: Fearfulness, Anxiety, Dependence, S entimentality
o Adjectives: {Emotional, oversensitive, sentimental, fearful, anxious,
vulnerable} versus {brave, tough, independent, self -assured, stable}
 Extraversion (X):
o Facets: Social Self -Esteem, Social Boldness, Sociability, Liveliness
o Adjectives: {O utgoing, lively, extraverted, sociable, talkative,
cheerful, active} versus {shy, passive, withdrawn, introverted, quiet,
reserved}
 Agreeableness (A):
o Facets: Forgivingness, Gentleness, Flexibility, Patience
o Adjectives: {patient, tolerant, peaceful, mild, agreeable, lenient,
gentle} versus {ill -tempered, quarrelsome, stubborn, choleric}
 Conscientiousness (C):
o Facets: Organization, Diligence, Perfectionism, Prudence
o Adjectives: {organized, disciplined, diligent, careful, thorough,
precise} versus {sloppy, ne gligent, reckless, lazy, irresponsible,
absent -minded}
 Openness to Experience (O):
o Facets: Aesthetic Appreciation, Inquisitiveness, Creativity,
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69 o Adjectives: {intellectual, creative, unconventional, innovative, ironic}
versus {shallow, uni maginative, conventional}
Aside from extending the Big Five factor and adding more factors, there is
also research which is exploring predicting behavioral criteria from within
the Big Five using facets. Paunonen and Ashton (2001a) found
significantly gre ater predictability from the facet subscales of need for
achievement (a facet of Conscientiousness) and need for understanding (a
facet of Openness) than from the higher -level factor measures of
conscientiousness and openness themselves. Dudley et al., (20 06) found
greater predictability for job performance by includ ing facets such as
achievement, dependability, order and cautiousness with
conscientiousness.
Thus, to conclude whether the Big Five model is comprehensive or not,
there is evidence to support its robustness and replicability. Four out of the
five factors have shown replicability across investigators, formats, data
sources, samples, languages and cultures. This model also is the basis for
several personality inventories. But as a limitation Bloc k (1995b) states
that the model fails to establish the causal personality processes that
researchers are trying to establish. For example, describing someone as
high on neuroticism may be helpful in social communication or global
character descriptions, bu t it does not capture the underlying psychological
processes involved in things like feeling guilty, obsessing over worst -case
scenarios, and worrying excessively when someone fails to respond to an
e-mail.
There continues to be scope for further research in the area to develop a
comprehensive personality taxonomy.
5.7 SUMMARY
In this unit, we began by explaining what are traits. We tried to see how
traits are related to behaviors and how they are also often explanations of
behaviors. Then we began lookin g into how important traits can be
identified. Identification of important traits follows three methods: lexical
approach, statistical approach and theoretical approach. We then moved to
understand the theory of personality and the personality traits ident ified by
Allport. Then we looked into the taxonomy proposed by Eysenck who
proposed three primary personality factors and some secondary factors.
Lastly, we discussed Cattell’s personality taxonomy. Cattell proposed 16
factors that he viewed to be essentia l in understanding personality. We
then tried to understand the widely used and popular Five -Factor Model
and also the circumplex taxonomy. We critically evaluated them to
understand if they can be useful in understanding personality traits.


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70 5.8 QUESTIONS
A) Write long answers:
a) Discuss in detail how important traits are identified.
b) Discuss Allport’s theory of personality.
c) Discuss Eysenck’s three -factor theory.
d) Explain Cattell’s 16 -factor theory of personality.
e) What is the frequency formulation of traits?
f) Write about the circumplex taxonomy of personality.
g) Explain the five -factor model in detail.
B) Write short notes:
a) Lexical approach.
b) Statistical approach.
c) Act frequency research program.
d) Limitation of act frequency formulation program.
e) Evaluate if the Five-Factor model is comprehensive.
f) Explain the identity of the fifth factor in the Five -Factor model.
5.5 REFERENCES
Pervin, L. A. (2002). The Science of Personality (2nd ed.). Oxford
University Press.
Larsen, R. J., & Buss, D. M. (200 ). Personality Psy chology: Domains of
Knowledge About Human Nature, 3rd Edition. McGraw -Hill.

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71 6
DISPOSITIONAL DOMAIN: TRAIT
APPROACH - II
Unit Structure
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Concept of Disorder
6.3 Personality Disorders
6.4 Measurement of Traits and Theoretical Measurement Issues:
Introduction
6.5 Theoretical Issues
6.6 Measur ement Issues
6.7 Personality Prediction
6.8 Personality Disposition Over Time
6.9 Three Levels of Analysis
6.10 Personality Stability Over Time
6.11 Personality Change
6.12 Personality Coherence Over Time
6.13 Summary
6.14 Questions
6.15 Reference s
6.0 OBJECTIVES
After studying this unit, you should be able to:
 Understand the concept of disorders.
 To know personality disorders.
 To understand the measurement of traits and theoretical
measurement issues.
 Understand the personality prediction.
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72  To evaluate the three levels of analysis.
 To understand personality stability over and the changes that occur.
 To know the personality coherence over time.
6.1 INTRODUCTION
Personality traits are described as consistencies in behavior, thought, or
action andrepresent meaningful differences between persons.
Personalitydisorders thus can be viewed as maladaptive variations or
combinations ofnormal personality traits. Extremes on either end of the
personality spe ctrum can be associated with personality disorders. Widiger
and colleagues demonstrated how being extremely high or low on a trait
would be associated with a personality disorder. Someone with extremely
high hostility and low trust might be predisposed to paranoid personality
disorder. Someone else with extremely high sociability and low anxiety
has a likelihood of developing a histrionic personality disorder.
Motivation is another factor that can contribute to understanding
personality disorders. Motives describe what people want and why they
behave in a particular way (Larsen and Buss, 2008, p. 622). A common
theme across all the personality disorders is the maladaptive variation of
the common motives, especially factors such as power and achievement.
In some personality disorders, there may be extremely low motivation to
engage in intimacy. Another factor could be an extremely high need for
power over the situation or people, wanting to be superior and receive
praise from others (usually observed in narci ssistic personality disorder).
Those with
Cognition also will contribute to the understanding of personality and
personality disorders. It would involve perceiving, interpreting and
planning. These factors are prone to distortions. Some disorders involve
routine and consistent misinterpretations of the intentions of others. This
would also involve impairment of social judgment, for example, an
individual with paranoia may think others are out to get them or a person
with borderline personality may misinter pret innocent comments as signs
of criticism or rejection.
Emotions also help in understanding personality disorders. Usually, people
with a personality disorder do not present a normal range of emotions.
They usually depict an extreme variation of inexpe rienced emotions. Some
may show extreme volatility in emotions (e.g., borderline) whereas some
may show volatility with a specific emotion like anxiety, fear or rage.
Another building block is self -concept (the person’s collection of self -
knowledge – one’s understanding of oneself). Most personality disorders
exhibit some distortion in this area. There is a lack of stability in their self -
concept. Related to self -concept is self -esteem is also an important part of
the self and some disorders are associated with extremely high or
extremely low levels of self -esteem. The self provides an important
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73 Social relationships are also frequently affected by maladaptive
personality disorders. This would involve issues with sexual and
emotional intimacy. They may also showcase issues with interpersonal
skills which are the basis for any social relationship. This would include
empathy (usually extreme lack of empathy). They may also struggle with
poor social skills such as maintaining a healthy or appropriate
conversation with someone.
Biology is another essential building block for personality and personality
disorders. Some personality disorders have been found to have a genetic
component.Others have been studied via p hysiological components, such
as examining the brainfunctioning of antisocial persons. There has even
been an evolutionary theory proposedto explain the existence of
personality disorders (Millon, 2000a; Larsen and Buss, 2008, p. 623).
6.2 THE CONCEPT OF DISORDER
According to the American Psychiatric Association (1994)distressing and
painful to the person, that leads to disability or impairment in importantlife
domains (e.g., problems with work, marriage or relationship difficulties),
and that is associat ed with increased risk for further suffering, loss of
function, death, or confinement (Larsenand Buss, 2008, p. 624). An early
concept derivedby French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel was manie sans
delire (madness without lossof reason). This applied to those individuals
who demonstrated disordered behavior andemotions but who did not lose
contact with reality (Morey, 1997; Larsen and Buss, 2008, p. 624). Kurt
Schneider an influential psychiatrist proposed the term psychopathic
personality which referred to th e behavior patterns that caused the person
and the community to suffer. He emphasized statistical rarity that hurts the
person and the community in which those individual lives. This idea
proposed by Schneider highlights how all forms of personality disord ers
have an impact on social relationships and the people associated also
suffer in some way or the other.
The concept of a disorder helps us identify the difference between normal
and abnormal or pathological behavior. The field of abnormal psychology
studies this in -depth. There are multiple perspectives to defining what is
abnormal. One definition may look at anything that is away or different
from the normal to be considered abnormal. A statistical way of defining
abnormal may be to observe how often s omething occurs and how rare is
this abnormal behavior. The social definition may be to consider those
behaviors abnormal that are socially unacceptable. The statistical and
social definitions are subject to changes in society and culture, what may
be abno rmal today may not be considered so 10, 15 or 50 years later. For
example, 20 to 30 years ago homosexuality was considered abnormal but
that is not the case now (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
What is a personality disorder?
A personality disord er is an enduring pattern of inner experience and
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74 individual'sculture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence
or early adulthood,is stable over time, and leads to distress or
impairment(American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 645).If a trait
becomes maladaptive and inflexible an causes significant impairment or
distress, then it is considered to be a personality disorder. As per the
American Psychiatric Association (1994), a p ersonality disorder reflects
itself in many forms: in the person’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, ability
to control their behavior, beliefs, how they get along with other people,
etc. They display rigidity in many ways which increases distress and
impairm ent in a variety of situations.
To understand personality disorders researchers have assumed two views:
categorical and dimensional views. The categorical view is the one that is
dominant in psychiatry and clinical psychology. This view tries to
categoriz e people as either having the disorder or not. Contrary to this, the
dimensional view assumes personality disorders to be placed on a
continuum. This view assumes that the only difference between people
with and without a diagnosis of a personality disorde r is based on the
intensity. This means that those who are diagnosed with a personality
disorder, have a higher degree of intensity of the symptoms as compared
to those without the diagnosis. Since it is a continuum, some will be on the
end as well, those who exhibit severe and intense symptoms. This view
suggests that a person diagnosed with a personality disorder engages in
behaviors which pose to be a problem to others and themselves.
The effect of context:
An individual’s culture, age, gender, the soc ial and ethnic background has
a definite impact on our understanding of personality disorders. For
example, immigrants, those who have relocated to a different country will
have difficulty fitting into the new culture. They will be influenced by the
cultur e, customs, traditions, religion, habits, expressions, values, etc. of
their country of origin. Thus, before judging whether an individual should
be diagnosed with a personality disorder, we must take into consideration
their cultural background.
Age is a lso an important consideration that must be kept in mind. For
example, adolescents may go through a phase of instability and rebellion
and it may also include identity crises. They may be rebellious, challenge
authority, not follow instructions given by pa rents and elders, behave
recklessly, etc. This may be misinterpreted as a form of personality
disorder. This is why the American Psychiatric Association (1994)
cautions against diagnosing an individual with a personality disorder
before the age of 18. Besi des this, those who experience loss, trauma and
abuse may also exhibit certain behaviorsof instability or impulsive
behaviors which may look like a personality disorder. Those who
experienced such a traumatic event may also suddenly behave violently or
may enter sexual relationships impulsively.
Gender also is an important influencing factor. Certain personality
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75 diagnosed amongst men more than women. Other disorders are more
frequent ly diagnosed amongst women than men. There isa gender
difference in how men and women respond to a distressing situation which
may influence the diagnosis or decision to diagnose.A study of morethan
Huselid and Cooper (1994) found that males exhibit
extern alizingproblems, such as fighting and vandalism, while females tend
to exhibit relatively more internalizingproblems, such as depression and
self-harm.
6.3 PERSONALITY DISORDERS
The Erratic Cluster:
This cluster has trouble with emotional control and has difficulties getting
along with other people. This group includes antisocial, borderline,
histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders.
Antisocial Personality Disorder:
People with this diagnosis show a general disregard for other people and
care ve ry less about peoples’ feelings, rights and happiness. Those adults
who have been given this diagnosis usually have faced a troubled
childhood with behavioral issues. They end up violating rules, violating
the rights of others (minor thefts), and breaking age-related social norms
(smoking at an early age or fighting other children). They also behave
aggressively or cruelly with animals, they scare young children, destroy
property, lie and break rules in general. They may also use harmful
weapons which may b e a threat to themselves and others. When the
childhood behavioral problems are identified as a pattern, the likelihood of
the diagnosis becomes higher. As this person grows up the issues also
worsen because they are growing in their strength, cognitive po wer and
sexual maturity. The issues begin as minor behavioral problems but
escalate into more serious issues. For example, it may start as simply
shoplifting and escalate to theft, vandalism, etc. Thus, the key features of a
person diagnosed with an antiso cial personality disorder are lack of
concern for social norms/rules, repeated lying and conning people for their
profit, impulsivity, becoming easily irritated, being irresponsible, lack of
remorse (not feeling sorry for whatever bad they have done), disr egard for
the safety of themselves and others.
Borderline Personality Disorder:
People with this personality disorder are marked by extreme amounts of
instability. This instability is seen in their relationships, behaviors,
emotions and their view of the mselves. They have intense, emotional and
sometimes potentially violent relationships. They have a constant fear of
abandonment. When their relationship goes through difficulties, they may
become angry and aggressive. This may also lead to self -harm (burni ng or
cutting oneself or attempting suicide). They also have a constantly shifting
view of themselves. Their values and goals are shallow and constantly
change. Their opinions also tend to change constantly, and they may
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76 strong emotions and they are usually due to interpersonal events. They
frequently experience feeling empty and lonely. They may experience
anger and bitterness followed by shame and guilt. This cycle of negative
emotions may quickly continue and occurs frequently. They show major
swings between their positive and negative emotions.
Histrionic Personality Disorder:
The hallmark of this personality disorder is excessive attention -seeking
and emotionality. They are found to be overly dramatic and want to be the
centre of attention constantly. They can come across as charming and
flirtatious. And they also tend to thus be sexually provocative. They show
excessive and strong emotions in public which may be embarrassing for
friends and family members. They get influenced by people’s opinions
easily i.e., they are suggestible. They take up whatever the popular opinion
is. Their excessive need for attention makes them often act impulsively
and they may manipulate others to care fo r them.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
The important feature of this disorder is they want to be admired by
everyone, they have a strong sense of self -importance and they lack an
understanding and insight into other people’s feelings. Those with a
narcissistic personality disorder will overstate their accomplishments and
undervalue other people’s work. They constantly want people to
appreciate, value and compliment them i.e., they exhibit constant feelings
of entitlement. They believe that they should receive special treatment,
respect and privilege from everyone. They always showcase a sense of
superiority over others. They also cannot recognize the needs or desires of
people. This is seen through their conversations which will constantly
revolve arou nd “I” and “myself”. Ironically there is a narcissistic paradox.
This paradox states that although people with narcissistic personality
disorder demonstrate that they have high self -esteem, they have fragile
self-esteem. Even though they may appear confide nt and strong, internally
they are sensitive to any minor criticism and get into a rage if they are
criticized or hear something negative about themselves. They are also
envious of other people and their successes.
The Eccentric Cluster:
The second clust er under personality disorders is defined by their oddness.
This oddness is seen most commonly in the way they interact with others.
Some have no interest in others, some are suspicious and some are
extremely uncomfortable.
Schizoid Personality Disorder:
The word schizoid is derived from the word schism which means split off
or detached from normal social relations. They show no desire to be
attached to their friends or family members. They do not derive any
satisfaction from being around family members w hich usually other
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77 hobbies that can be done alone. They also experience little or no pleasure
from bodily or sensory experiences such as eating or having sex. Their
emotional life is limi ted. They also appear to be socially clumsy and they
are also usually passive in the face of unpleasant social situations.
Schizotypal Personality Disorder:
Those with schizotypal personality disorder are anxious in social
situations, especially around s trangers. And unfortunately, they are not
typically found to be comfortable around familiar people either. For
example, we all experience mild discomfort around strangers at a party or
in a new setting but we can overcome that and become comfortable in the
presence of a known person or as we begin to interact with other. But
people with this personality disorder may not become comfortable at all,
no matter what. They may become anxious and eventually begin to
become suspicious as well. They constantly feel like they do not fit in and
are different from others. They behave in odd and eccentric ways. They
have unusual perceptions that may border around delusions and
hallucinations. They believe in superstitions, psychics and other
paranormal phenomena. Because of the social discomfort and eccentricity,
they violate common social conventions like the inability to make eye
contact, not dressing in a tidy way, etc. They also exhibit disorganized
thoughts and speech where they may not always make sense in the way
they behave or what they speak. This leads to a tendency to avoid people
and they exhibit nonconformity in many ways.
Paranoid Personality Disorder:
This personality disorder is characterized by major mistrust of others and
they see others as a constant th reat. They believe people are going to take
undue advantage of them and cheat and deceive them always, even though
they do not have sufficient evidence to support this idea. The people with
this disorder feel that others may injure them and they constantly are seen
doubting the intentions of people in their life. They also tend to
misinterpret social events and fear sharing information with others
assuming that the information may be misused. They also tend to hold
bitterness against someone who may have in sulted them in the slightest
way possible. They also may look out for unnecessary hidden meaning in
the things people say and do. They also are seen be experiencing
pathological jealousy. This is an extreme form of jealousy where the
person may misinterpre t the situation and go out of their way to act upon
these feelings of jealousy. For example, a man may suspect that his wife is
unfaithful to him without any objective evidence/proof. He may restrict
her activities, forbid her from going out of the house, or meeting friends or
family members, he may also track her activities, etc. Due to the
mistrustful nature of people with paranoid personality disorder, they may
also show argumentative and hostile behavior which may provoke others.
This in turn will feed the person’s paranoid beliefs.

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78 The Anxious Cluster:
This cluster exhibits the neurotic paradox: a behavioral pattern that may
successfully solve a problem but may also give rise to a new set of equally
or even more severe problems.
Avoidant Personality Disorder:
They experience a constant sense of inadequacy i.e. they feel like they are
insufficient. These people are also poor at handling criticism and are
sensitive. Generally, no one likes being criticized but people with an
avoidant personality disor der will go out of their way to avoid situations at
home, work, or school, where they believe they may stand a chance of
being criticized. They experience anxiety around their performance for the
fear of being criticized. This leads them to avoid making fr iends and going
out to new places even though friends and family may be encouraging.
They end up losing out on important opportunities due to the anxiety.
They are seen as shy, quiet, lonely and solitary. They also show low self -
esteem, their feelings are easily hurt and because they keep away from
people at most times, they may find it difficult to find a constant source of
social support. The paradox is that they avoid social interactions and shun
supportive relationships with caring others that could imp rove their self -
esteem.
Dependent Personality Disorder:
People with this disorder have an excessive need to be taken care of,
nurtured and told what to do. They act in an extremely submissive manner
and encourage people to take care of them or be in char ge of the situation.
They need constant advice and encouragement from others and have great
difficulty in making decisions. They rarely will take initiative in things for
making big or small decisions like what to eat at a restaurant or which
course to cho ose in college. They fear losing people so they avoid
disagreement. These people are also not able to work independently so
they will wait for others at school or work to take initiative and begin
working. They may also avoid becoming experts on a task so that they can
always be dependent on someone to help them with it. Their dependence
can make them bear extreme situations simply to obtain assurance and
support from others. They may go to the extent of tolerating abuse.
Obsessive -Compulsive Personality D isorder:
The person with an obsessive -compulsive personality disorder is worried
about perfection and order. They pay unnecessary attention to small and
trivial details, rules, rituals, procedures and schedules. They tend to hold
very high standards for t hemselves and end up working so hard at being
perfect that they may never be satisfied with their work. For example, a
student may not submit their assignment in time because it was not perfect
as per their standards. This may lead them to not take a break and find
leisure time leading to extreme fatigue and burnout. They may also tend to
work at the cost of leisure and friendships. They may also select leisure
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79 detail like stitching , or computer programming. These people may also
come across as being inflexible with their ethics and morals and may not
mould as per the situation’s demands. They believe there is one right way
to do things, that is their way. Several people with this pe rsonality disorder
are also stingy and miserly.
This disorder may be often confused with Obsessive -Compulsive
Disorder(OCD) which is an anxiety disorder. However, people with
Obsessive -Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) have a high risk of
developing OCD.
Dimensional Model of Personality Disorder:
Theorists are now moving to a dimensional model instead of the prior
categorical model. This model states that personality traits lie on a
continuum where the traits when present at normal levels are on one end
and those exhibited at an extreme, rigid and maladaptive level are to be
diagnosed as a disorder. Widiger (1997) states that personality disorders
are simply rigid and extreme presentations of normal -range personality
traits.
This view accounts for ho w there may be variations between people with
the same diagnosis. This view also allows for people to be diagnosed with
multiple types of personality disorders. And finally, the fact that
something is categorized as abnormal may be a matter of degree than a
qualitative break. These points make for the advantages of the dimensional
model.
Causes of Personality Disorder:
Some researchers have attempted to find the causes of specific personality
disorders. Researchers have examined both biologicaland environ mental
factors that may contribute to the development of personalitydisorders
(Nigg & Goldsmith, 1994). For example, pe rsons whosuffer from
borderline personality disorder experienced poor attachment
relationshipsin childhood (Kernberg, 1975, 1984; Nigg et al., 1994), and
several borderline personality persons were the target of sexual abuse in
childhood (Westen et al., 1990).There is sufficient evidence that most
people with borderline personality disordergrew up in chaotic homes, with
a lot of exposure to the impulsive behaviour ofadults from their life
(Millon, 2000b). There is also evidence to implicate that loss or neglect by
parents is another contributing factor to borderline personality disorder.
Schizotypal personality disorder shows causes associa ted with genetic
factors. Several families, twin, and adoption studies suggest
thatschizotypal disorder is genetically similar to schizophrenia (Nigg &
Goldsmith, 1994). Prevalencerates for paranoid and avoidant personality
disorderswere also high among th e relatives of the schizophrenia patients
which suggests that these disorders may be genetically related to
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80 There are several explanatory theories for antisocial personality disorder
too.Several antisocial persons wer e themselves abused and victimized
when they were children (Pollock et al., 1990). A high proportion of
antisocial persons also abuse multipleillegal drugs or alcohol, thus, some
researchers propose biological changes associated with drug abuse are
respons ible for antisocial behaviour. There are also clearfamilial trends
suggesting that antisocial personality disorder is partly due to
geneticcauses (Lykken, 1995). Some other researchers have proposed
learning theories of antisocial personalitydisorder, due to research
showing that such persons are deficient in learning through punishment
(e.g., Newman, 1987).
There are biological, learning, psychodynamic and cultural explanations
for several personality disorders. Biology and experiences are strongly
interco nnected. Further research can help clarify the causes in due course
of time.
6.4 MEASUREMENT OF TRAITS AND THEORETICAL
MEASUREMENT ISSUES: INTRODUCTION
Personality measures can be used in several settings like in an
organization for a job interview select ion process, it may be used also by
dating apps to help people find the right partner for them. Personality
evaluations may be used in legal matters to understand the personality
characteristics of the individuals involved in the case. It could also be par t
of aptitude testing for college admissions for specialized courses and high
education. Some theoretical issues may arise while conducting or
developing such personality scales which will be discussed further.
6.5 THEORETICAL ISSUES
Trait theories are on e of the most prominently used sets of theories when
understanding personality psychology. They share some common
assumptions and are the basic foundation of trait psychology. These
include:
1. Meaningful individual differences.
2. Stability and consistency.
3. Consistency across situations.
Meaningful individual differences: Trait psychologists will want to
identify how people are different from each other and these differences
help them to identify the personality traits. For example, some people talk
a lot, some don’t talk much, some people are more active than others,
some people enjoy challenges, and some love to relax more than others.
Thus, trait psychology sometimes is also called differential
psychology. Differential psychologyincludes the study of other forms of
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81 The trait approach takes a quantitative approach which attempts to
understand the emphasis on the difference between individuals and the
agreed-upon average. This means, trying to understand how much a
person differs from the average that has been defined by theory. This
approach is the most systematic and statically oriented. We can compare
trait psychologists to chemistry scientists. They be lieve that by combining
a few primary traits in various amounts, one can distil the unique qualities
of an individual. So no matter how complex or unusual someone’s
personality is, it is a combination of basic or primary elements.
Stability and consistenc y: This assumption believes that personality traits
will be consistent over time. If someone is highly extroverted when a
psychologist observes them, it can be assumed that the extroverted
tendency will remain stable over long periods. Especially those per sonality
traits that show biological basis like extraversion, sensation seeking,
activity level, shyness, etc. tend to show consistency over time. Attitudes,
opinions, and behaviours are less consistent as they tend to change over
time based on the social environment that the person is in. Although the
assumption states that some traits will be consistent over time, there could
be a change in how the traits manifest in particular situations. For
example, a child tends to throw temper tantrums frequently whi ch shows
high levels of disagreeableness they may start fist pounding and may have
undirected rage. But as this child grows up their disagreeableness may
manifest i.e., it may be represented in the form of being uncooperative at
work and having difficulty in holding a job. Thus, the same trait of
disagreeableness is consistent over time but has managed to manifest itself
differently in different situations.
There also may be times when traits decrease as the individual grows older
like activity level. An a dolescent growing up as a teenager may have high
activity levels but as they grow older into an adult and then as an older
adult their activity levels may decrease. Similarly, the trait of being
impulsive can also show a reduction in overage. The way a 20 -year-old
would show impulsivity would be different from how a 5 -year-old would.
Also, one person who is highly impulsive at age 20 when compared to
others of their age, may continue to show high levels of impulsivity at age
50 when compared to other 50 -year-olds.
Consistency across situations: Trait psychologists believe that people’s
personalities show consistency from one situation to another. For example,
if a young man is “really friendly”, he would be this way at work, at home
and with friends. This p erson may also be friendly to strangers and people
from different backgrounds and age groups. But there will remain a
difference in how friendly the person would be for example this person
may be more friendly while at home than to strangers or may be more
friendly to elderly people than people of their age. Thus, there exists
debate in the field about whether traits remain consistent across situations.
Walter Mischel in his book called Personality and Assessment (1968)
published the results of an important study conducted by Hartshorne and
May (1928) who were trying to see the consistency of traits across
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82 self-control traits were consistent across situations. They observed a large
group of elementary school students who were at a summer camp. They
observed honest and dishonest behaviours in various situations. For
example, a child may cheat while playing football but was not likely to
cheat during an examination. In line with these resul ts, in the book,
Mischel reported low correlations for personality scores across situations.
Mischel (1968) concluded that “behavioural consistencies have not been
demonstratedand the concept of personality traits as broad predispositions
is thus untenable ” (p. 140). Mischel suggested that differences across
situations must be understood as situational differences and not as
personality traits changing. This is called situationism. The situationist
position can be explained with an example, where a young gi rl may be
friendly with her basketball team and coaches because she wants to pursue
her professional basketball career while she may be more shy, quiet and
less friendly with her classmates. Thus, Mischel proposed that behaviour
is a function of the situat ion rather than broad personality traits.
Two changes in theory that have been adopted by trait psychologists are
person -situation interaction and the practice of aggregation as a tool for
assessing personality traits.
Person Situation Interaction: Accord ing to this view, there are two
possible explanations for behaviour:
1. Behavior is a function of personality traits: B = f(P).
2. Behavior is a function of situational forces: B = f(S).
Thus, we can say that both personality traits and situational forces both
work toward explaining behaviour. For example, we would find someone
who is quiet and shy across all situations and there could be someone quiet
and shy only in some situations.
We can then modify the two formulas: B = f(P x S). this formula suggests
an interaction between personality traits and situational forces. For
example, the trait of being hot -tempered is a tendency to respond
aggressively to minor frustrations. People who know that a person is hot -
tempered may not be aware of the intensity of the trait unless they have
been around the person during minor frustrating situations. The trait may
only be expressed when a frustrating situation may arise. Thus, when this
person is at the ATM which does not function properly, they may
experience frustratio n and may show their hot temperedness by maybe
kicking the ATM or pounding their fist. Thus, the interaction view
suggests that the personality trait and the situational factors together help
explain this incident. This is known as situation -person interac tion. In
this view, the difference in people will be understood under the right
circumstances. Some traits are specific to certain situations while some are
not. For example, the trait of test anxiety will only occur when someone is
going to give a test an d they will begin to experience anxiety in that
specific situation. This is also referred to as situational specificity.
However, some situations are so strong that everyone may end up reacting
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83 understand who overreacted emotionally to everyday events. Participants
in this study were asked to keep a daily diary of life events for two
months. They also rated their emotions each day. Based on the emotional
reactivity and the events that occurred, some incidents evoked strong
emotions from everyone like the death of a pet. These situations were
called strong situations. Some situations like funerals, religious services,
crowded places, etc. may be vague and ambiguous where different
persona lities may react differently.
Situational selection: It is the tendency to choose the situations in which
one finds oneself (Ickes, Snyder, & Garcia, 1997; Snyder & Gangestad,
1982). This means people tend to select situations in which they will
spend the ir time. This is viewed as a conscious choice that may reflect the
personality's features. So, if someone is extraverted, they may choose
situations that bring out this personality trait or go hand in hand with it.
Thus, personality influences the kind of situations in which people wish to
spend their time. But there is also literature to show how personality can
be affected due to the situations encountered by the individual. Bolger and
Schilling (1991) wanted to understand this by trying to see if those
individuals are high on neuroticism, do they experience stressful situations
frequently or react to ordinary situations with greater reactivity. They
discovered that both were true: high neuroticism led to frequent stressful
life events and they reacted to such stressful events with more subjective
distress.
Evocation is another form of person -situation interaction. It is how certain
personality traits evoke specific responses from the environment. For
example, those who are disagreeable and manipulative ma y evoke certain
hostile or avoidant reactions from others.
Manipulation is the third form of person -situation interaction. It is
defined as the different means by which people influence the behaviour of
others. It is when people intentional use certain ta ctics to influence, force
or change others. Manipulation involves altering the environment that they
are part of. Researchers have found that people use different manipulation
tactics like charm tactics complementing others, acting in a caring and
warm man ner and doing favours. People also use the silent treatment,
ignoring, failing to respond and coercion (making demands, yelling,
criticizing, cursing and threatening) (Buss e al., 1987). Extravertstend to
deploy the charm tactic more than introverts do.Th ose high on neuroticism
tend to use silent treatment to get their way. And thosehigh on
quarrelsomeness tend to use the coercion tactic to get their way. (Larsen
and Buss, 2018, p. 106).
Aggregation: It is the process of adding up and averaging multiple si ngle
observations which result in a better and more reliable measure of
personality traits rather than a single observation of behaviours.
Personality psychologist Seymour Epstein published several papers (1979,
1980,1983) showing that aggregating several questions or observations
result in better traitmeasures. Also, longer tests are knownto be more
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84 in improving the trait measures by adding items to a questionnaire and
adding obse rvations to an overall score that is obtained. It implies that
traits are one of the many factors that influence a person’s behaviour in a
given situation. Thus, personality becomes an averaging tendency and
cannot be very good for predicting a single actio n in a single
event/occasion.
6.6 MEASUREMENT ISSUES
Most of the personality measures rely on self -report measures although
other measurement methods can be used. The rationale is to identify how
much an individual differs from the other on a particular t rait. Traits are
assumed to be on a continuum i.e., someone who is low on
conscientiousness is on the end of the continuum and someone who is
extremely high will be on the other end. So, the best way to find out about
someone’s personality characteristics is to ask them. This assumes that
people are willing and able to report accurately on their behaviour. There
may be people who may not be willing, some may over -report or under -
report. So, the validity, accuracy, reliability and utility must be evaluated
carefully.
Carelessness:
Some participants may not be motivated to answer the questionnaire
truthfully or carefully. Some may be motivated to complete it carefully but
may rush through the items and answer randomly. Some may accidentally
skip items, or th ey may not read the items carefully enough and respond
randomly. Some may even face difficulty in reading and understanding the
meaning of the statements presented. A common way of identifying the
possible error is by using an infrequency scale which is em bedded in the
questionnaire items. These scales contain items that almost all participants
will answer in the same or similar manner. For example, a statement
which says “I do not believe that wood burns” or “I walk down the stairs
using my hands on the st eps”. Most people should be answering “false” to
these statements. Those who answer “true” can be identified as answering
the questionnaire in a random and untrue manner. Another way to identify
carelessness is to duplicate items which may come at differen t sections of
the scale. The psychologists can verify if the same participant has given
the same answer to the two items.
Faking on questionnaires:
When personality questionnaires are used to make important decisions like
for a job, promotion, etc. there is a strong possibility that the person
responding may try to fake their responses. Some may be attempting to
“fake good” (wanting to appear to be good) or some may “fake bad”
(wanting to appear to be bad or maladjusted). For example, in a legal case,
the accused may use want to appear as being maladjusted so that they can
be proven innocent so they may try to “fake bad” to get a diagnosis from
the psychologist. Questionnaire developers must be careful regarding this.
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85 distinguishing between genuine and faked responses. They may conclude
that someone truthful may be faking it (called a false negative ) or
someone who is faking it is being genuine (called a false positive ). This
could certainly become a limitation of self -report measures since the true
nature of the faking may not be truly understood.
Response sets:
It is the tendency for some people to respond to a question on a basis that
is unrelated to the question content. Psychologists may assume that people
will be thinking about the content of the item in the context of all the
instances that are related for example for the item “have you smashed
items when being angry?” people may not be able to recall all instances
when they may or may not have done so. They may not always make a
deliberate and conscious effort to consider the content of the question to
answer honestly. This tendency is also known as non-content
responding. An example of this could be acquiescence or yea saying
which is the tendency to simply agree with the questionnaire regardless of
the content of the items. Psychologists attempt to counter acquiescence by
using reverse scoring the items. For example, they may word an item for
extraversion as “I frequently prefer to be alone”. There is also extreme
responding that could take place which is the tendency to give endpoint
responses and avoid the middle part response. So, if there are two extreme
options like “strongly agree” and “strongly disagree”, they may frequently
keep selecting these rather than options such as “slightly agree” or
“slightly disagree”. Response sets may hamper the validity of the
questionnaire because the person is not responding to the content of the
items.
Another important response set is social de sirability. It is the tendency to
answer items in a way which comes across as socially attractive, likeable
or acceptable. For example, there could be and time “I am happy most of
the time”, or “I do not intentionally harm animals” these may evoke social
desirability i.e., for both the statements the person may respond as “True”
when it may not be the case. Social desirability represents distortion or
error and should be eliminated or minimized as much as possible. While
another view states that it is a val id part of other desirable personality
traits like happiness, conscientiousness or agreeableness. It may not be an
outright effort to distort responses and thus must be differentiated from
outright faking or lying. It simply is the case that the person has a distorted
view of themselves or may want others to like them. Although several
psychologists believe that it must be eliminated as it does create a bias.
Some psychologists believe the questionnaire must be designed well
enough so that it measures the c onstruct accurately and does not evoke
social desirability, to begin with. This can be done by selecting items that
have low correlations to social desirability. Another way to solve the issue
of social desirability suggested by psychologists is to elimina te those
responses statistically. For example, the social desirability scale developed
by Crowne and Marlowe (1964) asks about minor mistakes or
transgressions we all make and some saint -like behaviour. For example, “I
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86 gossip at times”. Those who show perfect saint -like behaviour and do not
admit to committing any mistakes can be judged to be high on social
desirability. A third approach is to use a forced -choice questionnaire
format. Here the test takers are confined to two pairs of statements and
must select one that describes them the best. By forcing the participants to
choose between equally socially desirable items, it may reduce the effect.
For example:
1. a. to read the book.
b. to w atch the movie.
2. a. continuous hallucinations.
b. continuous anaesthesia.
Many psychologists are also of the opinion that it can be considered a
valid response. They view social desirability as a trait in itself, which
means, some people are prone to be giving socially desirable responses
regularly. Some research correlates social desirability with happiness,
adjustment and conscientiousness. The assumption made is that being
mentally healthy involves having an overly positive view of oneself and
abilities. Shelly Taylor in her titled “Positive Illusions” (1989) summarizes
research surrounding positive and self -enhancing illusions to state that
they can promote psychological adjustment and mental health.
Psychologist Delroy Paulhus has developed a s ocial desirability inventory
called the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding which contains
two subscales namely the self -deceptive enhancement subscale and the
impression management subscale. They help identify self -presentation
motives and faking g ood or bad tendencies. (Paulhus, 1984, 1990).
Barnum statements:
These are general statements that could apply to anyone. They often
appear in astrology advice columns in newspapers and magazines. For
example, “You sometimes have doubts about whether you have done the
right thing”, and “You need others to admire and love you.” Or “Although
you can deal with confrontation, you tend to avoid it.”. one needs to be
careful when getting personality testing done from someone who may not
be well -trained or unlic ensed. They could use Barnum statements in the
interpretation which could be misleading.
6.7 PERSONALITY AND PREDICTION
Personality measures have wide applicability in the industry and
government. They can be used in prisons to make decisions about
prison ers, can be used in the industry to match the person with a job, can
help screen people for employment, and may also be used for making
promotion related decisions in an organization. For example, an industry
may need someone who is emotionally stable (e.g ., psychologist,
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87 (e.g., a jewellery salesman or a money delivery truck driver) some jobs
may preference organization and social skills.
Applications in the workplace:
Organizations are now realizing the importance of using psychological
measures, especially personality. Some industries may prefer to identify
the normal range of personality characteristics while some may want to
identify psychopathology or an abnormal level of functio ning. There are
options like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) or
the California Personality Inventory (CPI).
The personality inventories can be used for personnel selection to select or
de-select people for a job.
It can be used for integrity testing especially common in retail and
financial service industries for selecting employees at the entry level since
they handle cash or merchandise sometimes in an unsupervised
environment.
There could arise issues with negligent hiring. For ex ample, if an
employee harms another employee, the employer can be held responsible
and accountable for negligent hiring. The employer can be held
responsible for irresponsibly hiring potentially problematic employees.
But personality tests can come in hand y in such cases since the employer
can defend themselves provided, they have screened the employee
beforehand. It can also come in handy if finding criminal and other past
relevant records of the employee becomes difficult.
Apart from personnel selection, personality testing can also be used in
legal matters surrounding criminals or suspects which can aid the
legislation to arrive at some decisions on the matter.
6.8 PERSONALITY DISPOSITION OVER TIME
Conceptual Issues: Personality Development, Stability, Change and
Coherence:
Personality development is defined as the continuities, consistencies and
abilities in people over time and how people change over time (Larsen and
Buss, 2008, p. 138). Many forms of personality change and stability have
been identifi ed by researchers.
Rank order stability is the maintenance of an individual position within a
group. This means that if someone scores high on traits like
conscientiousness or impulsivity for their age of 15 years, as they grow
older, they will continue t o have a high -rank order for this trait. So, when
this individual high on conscientiousness or impulsivity turns 30 years old,
they will continue to remain in the high -rank order when compared to
other 30 -year-olds.
Mean Level Stability: it is the constanc y level. If there is an average level
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88 the increase in age. There could also be a mean level change, maybe due
to socio -political conditions and the average level of religiousness may
shift.
Personality Coherence: a change in the manifestation of a trait is
personality coherence. Consider the example of dominance at the age of
20. This 20 -year-old’s manifestation of dominance may be seen amongst
friends and family members. They are know n to be high on the dominance
trait. As this individual grows old, they continue to show high dominance
with friends, coworkers and their partner where the manifestation has
become more physical. Thus, this shift in manifestation but maintenance
of the ran k order is known as personality coherence. Personality coherence
does not require the manifestation to be constant. This includes elements
of continuity and change.
Personality Change: not all personality changes can qualify as
development. And not all int ernal changes can properly be considered
development. Like when we fall sick, the way our body changes may not
always account for development. Hence, the two qualities of personality
change include firstly that changes are usually internal to the person an d
not just changes that take place in the external surroundings. Second, the
changes are relatively enduring over time and not temporary changes.
6.9 THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
Population -level: this level of personality development is the changes and
const ancies that apply to more or less everyone. Almost everyone will hit
sexual puberty, overall, there is a decrease in impulsivity level or risk -
taking behaviour as an individual grows up. So, these changes are part of
almost the entire population.
Group D ifference Level: some changes affect different groups differently.
For example, sex differences. Females go through puberty differently than
males. Age -based differences can also be observed. The aggression shown
by adolescents versus that shown by adults w ill vary. Cultural and ethnic
groups will also show differences in some aspects. For example, body
image satisfaction varies across American, European, and African
American women.
Individual Differences Level: personality psychologists focus on the
individ ual differences in personality differences. There are issues related
to whether we can predict the individual’s change over time in the various
characteristics that they exhibit.
6.10 PERSONALITY STABILITY OVER TIME
This section examines the research ev idence surrounding change and
stability across infancy, childhood and adulthood.

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89 Stability Of Temperament During Infancy:
Many parents often state how their children are different from each other.
One extreme but a good example of this is Albert Einstei n, the Nobel prize
winner, and father of modern physics who had two sons. The older son,
Hans was fascinated by puzzles as a child and he had a gift for
mathematics. He went on to become a distinguished professor of
hydraulics at the University of Californ ia at Berkley. The younger son,
Eduard took interest in music and literature, but unfortunately, he ended
up in a Swiss psychiatric hospital and died. This is an example of no
matter if you have good genes passed on from your parents, you and your
sibling may turn out to be different in many ways.
The most commonly studied aspect related to infancy is temperament,
which is the individual differences that emerge very early in life and have
been heritability. These are often behaviours like emotionality of
arousability. Researcher Mary Rothbart (1981, 1986) conducted a study of
a group of infants at different ages starting at 3 months and examined their
temperament using some measures that the infants’ caregivers filled out.
The measures included:
1. activity level: the overall motor activity of legs, arms, etc.
2. Smiling and laughter: how much did the infant smile or laugh?
3. Fear: the amount of distress and reluctance shown by the child to
approach new stimuli.
4. Distress to limitations: how much distress did the child express at being
denied food, being dressed, being confined, etc.
5. Soothability: the degree to which the child reduced stress or calmed
down after being soothed.
6. Duration of orienting: the degree to which the child sustained attention
to objects in the absence of a sudden change.
The results showed that in those infants who scored high on these aspects
of temperament, these traits increased with age (3 to 6 months, 3 to 9
months, 3 to 12 months, etc.). activity level and smiling and laughter
showe d higher levels of stability over time. Personality traits also showed
to be stable at the end of infancy i.e. around 9 to 12 months. The limitation
of this study by Rothbart is that caregivers may not always be honest or
accurate in reporting about their infants. It may be their conception rather
than the actual behavior of the infant. However, we can draw important
conclusions from this study which are that stable individual differences
appear to emerge early in life, temperament variables show moderate
levels of stability overtime during the first few years of life, and the
stability temperament tends to be higher over short intervals of time rather
than long intervals of time and lastly that the level of stability of
temperament tends to increase as infa nts mature (Goldsmith and Rothbart,
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90 Stability during Childhood:
Longitudinal studies which examine the same groups of individuals over
time have their set of limitations since they can be costly and difficult to
conduct. Becau se of such limitations, there are few such studies. An
important study is a Block and Block Longitudinal Study which was
conducted by testing a sample of more than 100 children from the
Berkley -Oakland region of California. This sample has been followed
through ages 4, 5, 7, 11 and adulthood. The first publication from this
project was to identify the differences in activity levels of the children.
The activity level of the sample when they were 3 years old was measured
using an actometer a recording device that is attached to the wrists of the
children during playtime. This records the motoric movement. There was
also a teacher -observed activity level questionnaire containing three items
enquiring whether the child was “physically active”, “is vital, energe tic,
active” and “has rapid personal tempo”. The actometer readings were
correlated at ages 3 and 4 and also different sources such as a judge were
given the questionnaire. The correlations between the same measure
obtained at two different points in time are called the stability coefficient
while those correlations that are different measures of the same trait
obtained at the same time are called validity coefficients . (Larsen and
Buss, 2008, p. 145).
This study helped draw critical conclusions. First, th e actometer
measurements of activity level showed significant positive validity
coefficients with the judge -based measurements of activity. This meant
that activity levels in childhood can be assessed validly through
observational judgements and activity r ecordings. Second, the activity
level measurements are positively correlated with measurements of
activity level taken at different ages. Thus, when the measures were taken
at 4 and 7 years, those who scored high at age 3 continued to score high at
age 4 a nd 7. Third, the measures that are taken early are stable over time
and have predictability for later life. If the activity levels are measured
between short intervals the predictability may reduce.
In sum, the individual personality differences emerge ve ry early in life and
they are moderately stable over time. The stability coefficients gradually
decline as the distance between testing increases.
Rank Order Stability in Adulthood:
Several studies were conducted to evaluate the stability of adult
persona lity. Costa and McCrae (1994) categorized five personality factors
for the five -factor model. The self -report measures data indicated that
traits of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness
and conscientiousness are all moderate to highly stable traits with average
correlations between these traits, scales and time intervals was roughly
+.65. There were studies with others reports which also showed stability
like a six -year longitudinal study of adults where spouse ratings were
used. Neuroticism, openness to experience and extraversion showed stable
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91 McCrae, 1988, 1992). A study conducted by Richard Robins and
colleagues (2001) evaluated 275 college students dur ing their freshman
year and again in their senior year. They made use of NEO -PI inventory
which indicated stability for extraversion (.60), agreeableness (.59),
conscientiousness (.53) and neuroticism (.70). Trzesniewski, Donnellan,
and Robins (2003) also found stability in self -esteem over time. They
found consistency in self -confidence levels too. Roberts and DelVecchio
(2000) found that personality consistencies have a step -wispatternsrn with
increasing age. The average personality consistency during tee nage years
was +.47 which increased to +.57 in the twenties and was +.62 during the
thirties. Also, the consistency was found to peak in the fifties. Thus, as
people age, their personality appears to become traits become more
set/stable.
Mean Level Stabil ity in Adulthood:
The five -factor model by Costa and McCrae shows mean level stability
over time. Especially after the age of 50, there are little changes to the
average level of stability in openness, extraversion, neuroticism and
agreeableness. Little c hange does not mean any change. There is a
tendency for openness, extraversion and neuroticism to gradually decline
with increasing age, till age 50. Conscientiousness and agreeableness on
the other hand show a gradual increase over time. Recent studies
confirmed that the mean -level personality traits change is slight but
important during adulthood. The most consistent change is in lower levels
of neuroticism. Students have shown a decrease in neuroticism (Vaidya,
Gray, Haig, & Watson, 2002). 2001). Similar findings were obtained in a
massive longitudinal study of 2,804 individuals over a 23 -year time span -
negative affectivity decreased consistently as the participants got older
(Charles, Reynolds, & Gatz, 2001). A massive meta -analysis of 92
different sam ples found that both women and men gradually become more
emotionally stable as they grow older, with the largest changes occurring
between the ages of 22 and 40 (Roberts, Walton, &Viechtbauer, 2006).
People were also found to score higher on agreeableness and
conscientiousness as they grow older. Studies found that college students
became more agreeable, conscientious and extraverted from freshman year
to two and half years later, and conscientiousness and agreeableness
showed an increase throughout early a nd middle adulthood (Vaidya et al.,
2002; (Srivastava, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2003). “The personality
changesthat did take place from adolescence to adulthood reflected growth
in the direction of greater maturity; many adolescents became more
controlled and socially more confident and less angry and alienated”
(Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2001, p. 670). Interestingly, Ralph Piedmont
(2001) found that the Big Five personality dispositions may change due to
therapy. They administered therapy to 82 men and 50 women over six
weeks. The sample showed a decrease in neuroticism and an increase in
agreeableness and conscientiousness. And these results were maintained
post a 15 month follow up assessment. Thus, predictable changes do occur
for certain personality tr aits but overall stability can be observed.
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92 6.11 PERSONALITY CHANGE
Most of the global measures of personality traits focus heavily on
personality stability. There is very little literature to understand personality
change.
Changes in Self -esteem from A dolescence to Adulthood:
Block and Robbins (1993) studied self -esteem about personality
characteristics associated with it. They defined self -esteem as “the extent
to which one perceives oneself relatively close to being the person one
wants to be and/or as relatively distant from the kind of person one does
not want to be, concerning person -qualities one positively and negatively
values.” (Block and Robbins, 1993, p. 911). It was measured by an overall
difference between the current self -description and t he ideal self -
description. The researchers hypothesized that the smaller this difference
higher the self -esteem. They assessed the sample at age 14 and then at age
23. There was no change in self -esteem with increasing age for the sample
as a whole. When m ales were compared to females there were stark
differences. Males’ self -esteem increased with age, while it showed a
decrease for females. There were also interesting differences with the
other personality correlates. Those females whose self -esteem was
increasing over time, observers judged them to have an excellent sense of
humour, be protective of others and be a talkative and giving person. The
females whose self -esteem tended to go down over time were judged to be
moody, hostile, negativistic, irritabl e, unpredictable and condescending.
For males whose self -esteem increased over time, they were observed to
be socially at ease, regard themselves as physically attractive and were
observed to be calm and relaxed. Those who showed a decrease in self -
esteem tended to be anxious, easily stressed, ruminative and self -
defensive. There was thus a significant difference in males and females as
they age in their self -esteem levels.
Flexibility and Impulsivity:
In a study of creative architects, the researchers m easure personality twice
with testing across 25 years (Dudek & Hall, 1991). The California
Psychological Inventory (CPI) and Adjective Check List (ACL) were
administered. The architects were tested at the beginning of their careers
and again after 25 years . Some architects turned out to be highly creative
and successful while some were just average. The highly creative
architects displayed high scores on spontaneity, the intensity of motivation
and independence. The less creative ones showed high scores on
conformity even 25 years later. They all showed a decrease in impulsivity
and flexibility with age.
Autonomy, Dominance, Leadership and Ambition:
Howard and Bray (1988) conducted a longitudinal study with 266
managerial candidates at AT&T. They tested th ese men in their twenties
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93 Personal Preference Schedule. There were several dramatic observations
throughout the study. There was a steep drop in the ambition scores which
was dropping d uring the first 8 years and continued to drop for the next 12
years. The men who went to college started with high ambition but saw a
sharp drop compared to non -college men. The men became more and
more realistic about their expectations which were discove red through the
interviews conducted. Their scores on autonomy, leadership, motivation,
dominance and achievement increased over time. The men seemed to
become less dependent on others.
Sensation Seeking:
It is commonly believed that people become more ca utious and
conservative with age. The literature surrounding sensation -seeking
confirms that. The Sensation -Seeking Scale (SSS) has four subscales
namely thrill and adventure -seeking (e.g., “I would like to try out
parachute jumping”), and experience -seeki ng (e.g., I am not interested in
experience for its own sake” vs. “I like to have new and exciting
experiences and sensations even if they are little frightening,
unconventional or illegal”), disinhibition (e.g., “I like wild uninhibited
parties” vs. “I pr efer quiet parties with good conversation”) and boredom
susceptibility (e.g., “I get bored seeing old faces” vs. “I like the
comfortable familiarity of everyday friends”). The trait of sensation
seeking is known to increase with age from childhood to adole scence
around the age of 18 to 20. Then it begins to fall continuously as one ages
(Zuckerman, 974).
Femininity:
Helson and Wink (1992) examined personality changes in a longitudinal
study of women from Mills College in San Francisco. They used the
Califo rnia Psychological Inventory to study the femininity scale. High
scorers were described by observers as being dependent, emotional,
gentle, feminine, high strung, nervous, mild, worrying, sympathetic,
sentimental, sensitive, and submissive (Gough, 1996). L ow scorers i.e.,
those who scored high on masculinity were described as tough, strong,
self-confident, masculine, independent, forceful, determined, confident,
assertive, boastful and aggressive. An interesting finding is that this
sample of educated women showed a consistent drop in femininity as they
moved from the age of 40 to 50, but the underlying cause remains
undetermined.
Competence:
A key element from the longitudinal study from Mill College mentioned
earlier is self -assessment of competence. It w as measured using the
Adjective Check List (ACL) scale. Which contained items such as items:
goal-oriented,organized, thorough,efficient, practical, clear thinking,
realistic, precise,mature, confident, and contented (Helson & Stewart,
1994). The high scor ers state that these items describe them well. The
women who were part of the sample showed a sharp increase in the self -
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94 two time periods. The scores did not depend on they whether they had
children or not.
Independence and Traditional Roles:
The study also gave some other fascinating findings. The women in the
study were divided into four categories:
1. Homemakers with intact marriages and children.
2. Working mothers with children (neo -traditional)
3. Divorce mothers
4. Non-mothers (Helson and Picano, 1990).
The CPI Independence scale measured two related facets. First included
self-assurance, resourcefulness and competence. Second, distancing self
from others and not bowing to conventional dem ands of the society. Those
who were high on independence tended to set goals for groups that they
were part of, they would talk to many people at the party, and they would
also take charge of situations when called for. The high scorers also tend
to interr upt conversations and do not necessarily follow instructions from
those who are in the position to lead. for divorced mothers, working
mothers and non -mothers the independence scores increased significantly
over time. Only traditional homemakers showed an increase over time in
independence. Causation cannot be assumed since the data was
correlational. The study nevertheless shed light on the idea that specific
subgroups will show specific changes in personality characteristics.
Personality Changes across C ohorts: Women’s Assertiveness in
Response to Changes in Social Status and Roles
Interesting to understand whether personality changes are a function of
individual variations or there can be a cohort effect observed i.e., the
effect of the social time that they lived in on the personality. Jean Twenge
(2000, 2001a, 2001b) studied the cohort effect extensively. She argues that
American society has drastically changed over the past seven decades
which has led to a change in women’s status and roles. During the 1930s
women had more domestic roles which kept changing from the 1960s to
the 1990s. Twenge (2001a) also discovered that women’s scores on
assertiveness also shifted as per the cohort in which they were raised.
6.12 PERSONALITY COHERENCE OVER TIME
Person ality coherence is the predictable changes in the manifestations or
outcomes of personality factors over time even if the underlying
characteristics remain stable.
Marital Stability, Marital Satisfaction and Divorce:
Kelley and Conley (1987) studied 300 c ouples from the 1930s from the
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95 broke their engagements. 278 couples did get married and 50 ended up
divorced. During the first testing in the 1930s, the acquaintances of the
participants were asked to give ratings to each participant’s personality on
several dimensions. There were three predictors of divorce - neuroticism
of the wife and the husband and the impulse control of the husband. Those
high in neuroticism were found to be high in marital dissatisfaction in the
1930s, 1955 and 1980. When the husband and wife were high on
neuroticism and lacked impulse control it was a strong predictor of
divorce. Those husbands who showed low impulse control when first
assessed were more likely to e ngage in extramarital affairs as compared to
those high on impulse control who managed to avoid engaging in flings.
Neuroticism was also important for resilience after losing a spouse. A
study found that the best predictor of coping with the death of a sp ouse
was emotional stability (Bonanno, Wortman, Lehman, Tweed,
Haring,Sonnega, Carr, & Nesse, 2002). Out of the 205 individuals
assessed, several years before the death of their spouse, then 6 and 18
months post the demise, those who were high on emotional stability
grieved less, showed less depression and showed quick psychological
recovery.
Alcoholism and Emotional Disturbance:
Conley and Angeldes (1984) found that early personality predictions can
help understand the development of alcoholism and emoti onal
disturbance. They studied 233 men and 40 were judged to develop serious
emotional problems or alcoholism and they were rated as being high on
neuroticism by acquaintances. The early personality characteristics helped
distinguish between men who had be come alcoholics and men who
developed emotional disturbance. Impulse control was found to be related
to emotional disturbance. Recent studies have found that those who are
high scorers on measures of sensation -seeking and impulsivity and low
scorers on agr eeableness and conscientiousness tend to use and abuse
alcohol more than others (Cooper, Wood, Orcutt, & Albino, 2003;
Hampson, Severson, Burns, Slovic, &Fisher, 2001; Markey, Markey, &
Tinsley, 2003; Ruchkin, Koposov, Eisemann, &Hagglof, 2002)
Education, Academic Achievement and Dropping Out:
Kipnis (1971) conducted a self -report measure of impulsivity. He also
obtained their SAT scores which measure academic achievement and
potential. Those high scorers on SAT showed high impulsivity. Impulsive
individua ls were more likely to drop out of college. Impulsivity has also
been found to affect workplace performance. A longitudinal study looked
at personality dispositions at the age of 18 and then checked the work -
related outcomes at age 26. They found that thos e high on self -control at
age18 showed higher occupational attainment, were more involved in their
work and had superior financial security at age 26 (Roberts, Caspi, &
Moffitt, 2003).
Conscientiousness was the best predictor of achievements at work and
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96 to perform successfully in academics, nine years later. (Asendorpf and
Van Aken, 2003). Emotional stability, agreeableness and openness also
are predictors of success but conscientious ness is the strongest. As adults
these people become less alienated, they are better at handling stress, they
show an increase in social closeness, they like people more, and they turn
to others for comfort.
Health and Longevity:
High conscientiousness, p ositive emotionality (extraversion) and low
levels of hostility are predictors of longevity (Danner et al., 2001,2001;
Friedman et al.,1995; Miller et al., 1996). Conscientious individualsengage
in more health -promoting practices, like maintaining a good di et and
engaging in regular exercise; they also avoid unhe althy practices such as
smoking and having a sedentary lifestyle. Those low
onconscientiousnessin adolescence are more likely to get addicted in
young adulthood to all sorts of drugs. Extroverts tend to have lots of
friends so they have a social support network which is linked with positive
health outcomes. Those low on hostility put less stress on their heart and
overall cardiovascular system.
Prediction of Personality Change:
Caspi and Herbener (19 90) tried to answer the question of whether we can
predict who is likely to change their personality and who is not. They
studied middle -aged couples over 11 years. They tested the couples twice,
in 1970 and 1981. The question was if you marrysomeone simil ar to you,
do you tend to remain more stable over time than ifyou marry someone
different from you? They reasoned that by marrying someone similar you
would find a supportive and stable environment and marrying someone
different may lead to attitudinal cla shes and encountering social and
environments that you may not generally seek which may make you
uncomfortable. Thus, they divided the sample into those couples who were
highly/moderately/least similar to each other. They found that men and
women who are m arried to someone similarto themselves in personality
show the highest levels of personality stability over time.
6.13 SUMMARY
In this chapter, we first understood the concept of disorders, specifically
personality disorders. We then examined the various t ypes of personality
disorders based on the categorization i.e., the erratic cluster, the eccentric
cluster and the anxious cluster. We then moved on to understanding the
measurement process, and how can psychologists measure the various
personality traits and disorders. There could be some possible issues that
could arise in the measurement process, those were also examined. We
then try to understand how personality characteristics can be used to
predict certain everyday aspects of human life. We also attem pted to
explore the literature surrounding personality change and whether there is
stability or change that occurs.
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97 6.14 QUESTIONS
A) Write long answers:
a) Detail the erratic cluster of personality.
b) Explain the eccentric cluster of personality.
c) Detail the anxious cluster of personality.
d) Evaluate personality change with research examples.
e) Explain measurement issues surrounding personality traits.
B) Write short notes:
a) Explain the concept of personality disorders.
b) Write a note on personality coherence over time.
c) Explain the theoretical issues that can arise during the measurement
of personality traits.
6.15 REFERENCES
Larsen, R. J., & Buss, D. M. (2008 ). Personality Psychology: Domains of
Knowledge About


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98 7
SOCIO -CULTURAL AND ADJUSTMENT
DOMAIN - I
Unit Structure
7.0 Objectives
7.1 Personality and Social Interaction
7.1.1Selection
7.1.2 Evocation
7.1.3 Manipulation: Social influence tactics
7.1.4 Panning Back: An overview of personality and social interactio n
7.2Sex, gender and personality
7.2.1 The Science and Politics of studying gender
7.2.2Sex differences in personality
7.2.3 Masculinity, Femininity, Androgyny and sex roles
7.2.4Theories of sex differences
7.3 Summary
7.4 Questions
7.5 References
7.0 OB JECTIVES
After studying this unit, you should be able to:
 To understand how personality is affected by and expressed through
social institutions, social roles and expectations, and through
relationship with other people in our lives.
 To understand how lar ge or small the sex differences are there in
different personality traits as there is debate among researchers.
 To understand the process of selection, evocation and manipulation.
 To understand how cultures shapes personality and how specific
cultures are different from, or similar to, each other.
 Understand the History and study of sex differences, technique of
interpreting a difference between men and women on a particular
Psychological trait by examining the concept of effect size, the
concept of Androgy ny, etc.
 Actual sex differences found in research on various psychological
variables.
 Various theories of sex differences.

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99 7.1 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
Sue and Joan were discussing about their first date. Sue said that,
“Micheal at first seemed like a nice guy, but eventually he started
displaying aggression towards the waitress in the restaurant we went and
also dominated what I should eat for the dinner that day. He did not even
give me a good -night kiss, and when I tried, he acted aggressivel y!”
The personality characteristic of others affects whether we select the
people as dates, friends, or marriage partners. People's personality
characteristics also play a role in the kinds of interpersonal situations they
select to enter and stay in. For example, someone with a personality
different from Sue's might actually be attracted to a guy like Michael and
could put up with his self -centeredness and brash behaviour.
The personality traits of other people evoke certain responses in us.
Michael's aggr essive displays upset Sue, evoking an emotional response
that would not have been evoked if he had been kinder and more caring.
Personality is also linked to the ways in which we try to influence or
manipulate others. The question here is, “What are the st rategies that
people use to get what they want from others?” A person may first use a
charming tactic to convey others, then, may use the boasting tactic and
finally use the aggressive tactic. People have different personalities. So,
different people use d ifferent tactics of social influence.
7.1.1 Selection:
People choose to enter some situations and avoid other situations. We
select social situations often on the basis of our personality characteristics
in everyday life. The choices range in importance fr om trivial ("Should I
attend this party tonight?") to the profound ("Should I select this person as
my marriage partner?"). Social selections are decision points that direct us
to choose one path and avoid another.
E.g., by selecting a mate, you are alter ing your social environment as you
are simultaneously selecting the social acts you will experience and the
network of friends and family in which those acts will be carried out.
Questions arise generally in our mind that who do people select as mates?
Any common personality characteristics highly desired by anyone? Do we
look for mates similar to our personality or different than other
personality? And how is the choice of a mate related to the likelihood that
a couple will stay together over -time?
 Persona lity characteristics desired in a marriage partner:
What do people want in a marriage partner? A total of 37 samples were
chosen from 33 countries, representing every major racial group, religious
group, and political system including Australian, South -African and Zulu
people, Gujrati Indians. The sample varied in socio -economic status.
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100 each culture and were administered to the samples by native residents of
each culture. This study rev ealed that personality characteristics are
important in selecting a long -term mate.
Mutual attraction or love was the most desired/favoured characteristic by
almost everyone. After love, other characteristics that were important were
—dependable character, emotional stability, and pleasing disposition.
 Assortative Mating: Search for the similar:
There are two competing theories have been developed regarding who is
attracted to whom. y competing scientific theories have been advanced for
who is attracted to whom. Complementary needs theory postulates that
people are attracted to those who have different personality dispositions
than they have E.g., people who are submissive, will choose a mate that
dominates and controls them. We can think of this Theory by
remembering a phrase, “Opposites attract”.
Attraction similarity theory says that people are attracted to those who
have similar personality characteristics. People who are submissive, will
be attracted to people who are submissive. We can remember this The ory
by a phrase, “Birds of a feather, flock together.”
Assortative mating phenomena tells us that people are married to people
who are similar to themselves. For physical characteristics such as height,
weight, and, astonishingly, nose breadth and earlobe length, couples show
positive correlations. Couples who have been together the longest
appeared most similar in personality, which may result from the fact that
couples growing more similar in personality over time or from dissimilar
couples breaking up mo re often.
Are these positive correlations due to the active selection of mates who are
similar? Or they are by -products of other causal processes? E.g., people
may marry each other because they stay close -by, called “Shared
proximity.” since people in clos e proximity may have certain common
characteristics, the positive correlations found between married couples
may be just a side effect of mating or being with those who are close by,
rather than the active selection of partners who are similar. When we are
born in a particular culture, or go to a College or School, these institutions
may promote associative mating by selecting individuals who are similar
with respect to intelligence, social skills, etc.
Research by Botwin, Buss, & Shackelford, 1997 found th at the
correlations between people’s personality traits and the traits they desired
in partner were positive. Those partners who were high on Extraversion
wanted to select a partner who is Extraversive. But there is one caution in
the study: The preference s people express for the personalities of their
ideal mates might be influenced by the mates they already have. If an
emotionally stable person is already mated to an emotionally stable
person, perhaps they justify their choice by claiming that they are tr uly
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101 between one's own personality and the personality people express for a
desired mate.
Even people who are not mated, show similar pattern of results - They
prefer those who ar e similar to themselves, supporting the attraction
similarity theory.
 Do People get the mates they want and are they happy?
Many people are mated with those who fall short of their ideals.
Therefore, we can predict that individuals whose mates deviate, or are
different from their ideals will be less satisfied than those whose mates
embody their desires. But, research by Botwin et al, 1997 shows that there
are modest but consistently positive correlations between the personality
desired in a partner and the actual personality characteristics displayed by
the partner. The correspondence/agreement between what one wants and
what one gets is strong for Extraversion and Intellect -Openness. But,
people seem to get the mates they want in terms of personality.
Let u s say, that people get what they want in marriage partners. So, are
they happier than those who do not get what they want? To test this,
Botwin et al. (1997) created difference scores between the preferences
each individual expressed for the ideal personal ity of a mate and
assessments of the spouse's actual personality. The results showed that
one's partner's personality had a substantial effect on marital satisfaction.
People were happy with their relationships if they were married to partners
who were hig h on Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, and Openness.
And, the difference scores between the partner's personality and one's
ideal for that personality did not predict marital satisfaction. Thus, it
seems that the key to marital happiness is having a part ner who is
agreeable, emotionally stable, and open, regardless of whether the partner
departs in specific ways from what one wants. It has been found that
people married to agreeable partners are more satisfied with their sex
lives, view their spouses as m ore loving and affectionate, as a source of
shared laughter, and as a source of stimulating conversation.
It was also found that men whose wives score high on Conscientiousness
are significantly more sexually satisfied with the marriage than are other
husb ands. Women whose husbands score high on Conscientiousness are
more satisfied, happier with their spouses as sources of stimulating
conversation. Both men and women whose spouses are high on Emotional
Stability are more satisfied, view their spouses as sou rces of
encouragement and support, and enjoy spending time with their spouses.
Both men and women whose spouses score high on Openness are
generally satisfied with the marriage and perceive that a lot of love and
affection are expressed in the marriage. Op timism also predicts high levels
of satisfaction in romantic relationships overtime.
 Personality and selective breakup of couples:
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102 will frequently dissolve marriage/breakup. So, breakup should occur more
when your desires are violated rather than satisfied. We can also predict
that couples who are dissimilar on personality traits will breakup more
often than those who fulfill their desires for similarity.
Emotional instability has been a consistent predictor for marital instability
and divorce. One reason why this characteristic is associated with marital
instability and divorce is that these emotionally unstable p eople may
experience jealousy within romantic relationships. Husbands who are low
on impulse control and conscientiousness are good predictors of marital
dissolution. Low agreeableness also predicts marital dissatisfaction and
divorce although this is a le ss consistent finding. One reason maybe that
low agreeableness and low conscientiousness were associated with sexual
infidelity. Although extraversion and dominance are also related to sexual
promiscuity, these variables are not related to marital breakups and
satisfaction.
Other researches point to two other influences of personality on
relationship satisfaction or dissatisfaction. One is similarity in overall
personality profile, rather than similarity in individual personality traits.
The second is close ness/extent of match between an individual's
conception of an ideal mate and their partner's actual personality.
 Shyness and selection of risky situations:
Shyness is a tendency to feel anxious, tense, worried during social
interactions are anticipating so cial interactions. Shyness is not unusual, it
is a common phenomenon, as more than 90% of people report feeling shy
atleast in some point of their life or the other. But, some people are
dispositionally shy - they tend to feel awkward in most social situati ons
and, so, tend to avoid situations in which they will be forced to interact
with people. Effects of shyness are well -documented, as, e.g., shy women
avoid others, creating social isolation, are less likely to go a doctor for
gynecological exams, put the mselves at greater health risk, are less likely
to bring the issue of contraceptives with sexual partners, etc.
It is also seen that shyness also affects whether a person is willing to select
risky situation in the form of gambles. In a research study by A ddison and
Schmidt, 1999, it was found that shy women chose smaller bets that had a
high likelihood of winning whereas non -shy women preferred/chose
riskier bets with a low probability of winning, but a larger payoff, if they
did win. Thus, shy women avoid choosing risky gambles.
 Other personality traits and selection of situations:
Empathy is another personality trait. It is found that those who are
empathic choose to volunteer for community activities, etc. People who
are high on psychoticism seem to choo se volatile and spontaneous
situations more than formal or stable ones. Those high on
Machiavellianism (a personality trait marked by a calculating attitude
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103 ruthless.) prefer face -to-face situations, as theygive a better chance to ply
their social manipulative skills to exploit others.
High sensation -seekers are more likely to volunteer for unusual things,
like experimenting with drugs and sex, frequently choose to enter risky
situation s, engage in unwanted sex when drunk, engage in risky sexual
behaviour such as having unprotected sex, etc.
7.1.2 Evocation:
Evocation is the ways in which features of our personality elicit reactions
from others. Let us take an example. There are 2 groups of children - one
highly active and the other, less in activity. As compared to less active
peers, children who are high in activity elicit/evoke hostility and
competitiveness from others. Whereas, social interactions of less active
people are more peacefu l andcalm, harmonious. Thus, — a personality
characteristic (in this case, activity level) evoke s a predictable set of
social response s from others (hostility and power struggles).
 Aggression and evocation of hostility:
It is seen that aggressive people expect that others will be hostile toward
them. One study has shown that aggressive people chronically interpret
ambiguous behavior from others, such as being bumped into or a
mistakenly clashed into someone, as intentionally hostile. This is known
as “Hos tile Attributional Bias” - the tendency to infer hostile intent on the
part of others in the face of uncertain or unclear behaviour from them.
Because they expect others to be hostile towards them, they themselves
also behave aggressively towards others. An d, so, as a result, others will
aggress back. Thus, it becomes like a cycle. Thus, aggressive reactions
form others confirm what the aggressive person suspected all along - that
the other person has hostility towards him/her. But, the person with hostile
attributional bias fails to realize that aggression on the part of others is a
product of his own making -the aggressor evokes it from others by treating
them aggressively.
 Evocation of anger and upset in partners:
After the initial selection of partner, ther e are 2 ways in which personality
can evoke conflict in close relationships. First way is the person can
perform an action that can evoke an emotional response in a partner. E.g.,
a dominating person can act in condescending manner, habitually evoking
upset in the partner. The second way is when a person evokes actions from
others, those actions, can inturn upset the original elicitor. Let us take an
example. An aggressive man, may elicit silent treatment from his mate,
which results in upsetting him becaus e she won' t speak to him.
In order to support these 2 processes, a research study was carried out. The
personality characteristics of both husbands and wives were assessed
through three data sources: self -report, report by partner, and independent
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104 determine which personality traits predicted that the spouse became upset.
Results indicated that husbands who were high on dominance tended to
upset their partners by being condescending (treating opinions of wives as
stupid or inferior and putting more values on their own opinions). The
husbands who scored low on conscientiousness, in contrast, tended to
upset their wives by having extramarital affairs —seeing someone else
intimately or having sex with another woman. Husbands low on openness
evoked upset in their wives by acting rejecting (ignoring the wife's
feelings), abusive (slapping or hitting the wife), physically self -absorbed
(focusing too much on his face and hair), sexually withholding (re fusing
the wife's sexual advances), and abusive of alcohol (getting drunk).
The strongest predictors of evoked anger and upset were the personality
characteristics of emotional instability and disagreeableness. Disagreeable
husbands upset their wives in wa ys such as condescending, neglecting
them, rejecting them, abusing them, etc. The emotionally unstable
individuals evoked anger and upset in ways such as condescending,
abusive, unfaithful, inconsiderate, and abusive of alcohol, and these
husbands’ upset w ives by being moody, jealous, possessive.
The personality traits that are found to evoke or diminish conflict in
interpersonal relationships are Agreeableness and emotional stability. It
has been found in a study that people high on agreeableness tend to e voke
less interpersonal conflict than people low on agreeableness. One reason
maybe that they tend to use compromise as a way of dealing with conflicts
and people who are low on Agreeableness are less willing to use
compromise and use physical force and ve rbal insult to deal with conflict.
The links between personality and conflict show up at least as early as
early adolescence as e.g., young teenagers low in agreeableness not only
evoke more conflict, but also are more likely to be a victim/victimized by
their peers in high school. Also, it was found that people high on
agreeableness use effective conflict resolution strategies, a path leading to
harmonious social interactions. Those high in negative emotionality (high
neuroticism) were likely to experience more conflict in all their
relationships, whereas those high in positive emotionality (a close cousin
of agreeableness) had less conflict in all of their relationships.
Thus, we can say that Agreeableness and emotional stability are key traits
which are c onsistently found to be most conducive to evoking satisfaction
in relationships.
 Evocation through expectancy confirmation:
Expectancy confirmation is a phenomenon which means people's beliefs
about the personality characteristics of others cause them to e voke in
others, actions that are consistent with their initial beliefs. It is also called
as Self -fulfilling prophecy.
In one study regarding this, researchers Synder and Swann(1978) led
people to believe that they would be dealing with aggressive and hos tile
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105 caused them to behave aggressively with the unsuspecting target. Then,
the behaviour of unsuspecting target was examined. It was found that the
unsuspecting target actually acted i n a more hostile manner, behaviour that
was evoked by the person who was led to expect hostility. In this example,
beliefs about the personality of the other (Here, the other person will be
aggressive) actually created the behavior that confirmed those ini tial
beliefs (These expectations led Participants to behave in a hostile manner
towards the unsuspecting target, and then, due to Participant’s aggressive
behaviour, the target also responded in an aggressive manner).
Thus, we often hear about the person’s reputation prior to or following the
actual encounters with other person. Our beliefs regarding these
personality characteristics have far -reaching effects on evoking behaviour
that confirm our initial beliefs. Sometimes, it is said that if you want to
change your personality, move to a place where people do not know
you.Through the process of expectancy confirmation, people who already
know you may unwittingly evoke in you, the behavior that confirms their
beliefs, thereby constraining your ability to ch ange.
7.1.3 Manipulation: Social Influence tactics:
Manipulation, or social influence, involves all the ways in which people
intentionally try to change the behavior of others. We influence each other
all the time. Thus, the term manipulation is used here descriptively, with
no negative connotation. Natural selection favours people who
successfully manipulate their objects in the environment. Objects can be
inanimate such as tools, shelter or animate, such as parents, members of
different species, etc.
Ther e are 2 questions that can be asked. One can ask, "Are some
individuals consistently more manipulative than others?" Second, we can
ask, "Given that all people attempt to influence others, do stable
personality characteristics predict the sorts of tactics that are used?" Do
extraverted people, more often use the charm tactic, and introverts use the
silent treatment tactic?
 A Taxonomy of Eleven tactics of manipulation:
A taxonomy is a classification scheme - the identification and naming of
groups within a pa rticular subject field. Example, taxonomies of plants
and animals, for example, have been developed to identify and name all
the major plant and animal groups. In Psychology, the Big 5 personality
traits is a taxonomy is an attempt to develop taxonomy rega rding the
major dimensions of personality.
A taxonomy of tactics of manipulation was developed through the
following steps: (1) nominations of acts of influence and (2) factor
analysis of self -reports and observer -reports of the previously nominated
acts. The act -nomination procedure is: “"Please think of your [romantic
partner, close friend, mother, father, etc.]. How do you get this person to
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106 acts that you perform in order to get this p erson to do things. List as many
different sorts of acts as you can.”
After this list was generated, the researchers converted it into a
questionnaire that could be administered via self -report or observer report.
Several participants completed versions of an expanded instrument,
consisting of 83 acts of influence or tactics. Factor analysis was then used
to identify clusters of acts of influence, or tactics. After doing Factor -
Analysis (A statistical technique of data -reduction). 11 tactics of
manipulation were discovered as showed in the following table:
Table 7.1
11 tactics of manipulation.
Tactic Sample Act
Charm I try to be loving when 1 ask her to do it
Coercion I yell at him until he does it.
Silent treatment I don't respond to her until she does it
Reason I explain why I want him to do it.
Regression I whine until she does it.
Self-abasement I act submissive so that he will do it.
Responsibility invocation I get her to make a commitment to do it.
Hardball I hit him so that he will do it.
Pleasure induction I show her how much fun it will be to do
it.
Social comparison I tell him that everyone else is doing it.
Monetary reward I offer her money so that she will do it.
Source: R.J. Larsen and D.M. Buss (2009). Personality Psychology:
Domains of Knowledge about human nature (4th ed.). McGraw Hill.
 Sex differences in tactics of manipulation:
Do men and women differ in their use of tactics of manipulations? In a
research by Buss(1992), it was found thatwomen and men equally
performed almost all o f the tactics of social influence. There was only a
small exception regarding the regression tactic. In dating couples and
married couples, women more than the men reported more frequent use of
the regression tactic, including crying, whining, pouting, and sulking to
get their way. The differencewas quite small, thus, supporting the overall
conclusion that men and women, in general, are similar in their
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107  Personality predictors of tactics of manipulation:
Whether people with particular personality traits are more likely to use
particular tactics of manipulation? More than 200 participants rated each
act of influence on the degree to which they used it in each of four
relationships: spouse, friend, mother, and father. Cor relations were then
computed between the personality traits of the participants and their use of
each tactic of manipulation.
Findings indicated that those scoring relatively high in dominance
(extraversion) tended to use coercion, such as demanding, threa tening,
cursing, and criticizing, in order to get their way. Highly dominant people
tended to use responsibility invocation, getting others to make
commitments to a course of action and saying that it was their duty to do
it. People low in dominance (relat ively submissive individuals) used the
self-abasement tactic as a means of influencing others. They also tended to
use the hardball tactic —deception, lying, degradation, and even violence.
Agreeable people used pleasure induction and reason. Those who were
disagreeable used silent treatment and coercion. Low -agreeable
individuals are also likely to take revenge on people whom they have
perceived to have wronged them in some way. They tend to be more
selfish in their use of collective resources, whereas high agreeable
individuals exercise more self -restraint when the group's resources are
scarce or threatened.
Conscientiousness is relatedto only one tactic of manipulation: Reason.
They explain why they want the other person to do something, provide
logical ex planations for wanting it done, and explain the underlying
rationale for doing it. People low -conscientious individuals are more likely
to use criminal strategies in gaining resources.
Emotionally unstable individuals use hardball and coercion and also the
use of monetary reward. They also most commonly used regression. Thus,
this kind of behavior comes close to the definition of emotional
instability —the display of volatile emotions, some positive and some
negative. People high on Intellect -Openness use th e tactic of reason above
all other tactics as they are smart and perceptive and pleasure induction
and responsibility invocation. Whereas, people low on Intellect -Openness
use the tactic of social comparison - comparing the partner with someone
else who wou ld do it, and telling others that they will look stupid if they
do not do it.
7.1.4 Panning Back: An overview of Personality and social
interaction:
The most important message we should take is that personality does not
passively reside within the individu al, but reaches out and profoundly
affects each person’s social environment. Let us consider selection first. In
the physical habitat, an Introvert is more likely to “choose/select” a rural
habitat whereas an Extravert is likely to choose a city with has l ot of
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108 select a mate who is extraverted and introverted will select a mate who is
introverted.
For the process of evocation, In the social domain, narcissistic people
evoke admiratio n from their followers and contempt from those who
dislike their unbridled self -centeredness. For the process of manipulation,
research has shown that personality affects how people mold and modify
the rooms in which they live. Those with high in Openness will decorate
their rooms with unconventional, fashionable and stylish objects, books
and C.D.’s that are highly varied in Genre. People low on Openness have
fewer and more conventional decorations, narrower range of books, more
delimited collection of CDs . In the social area, disagreeable individuals
are more likely than stable people to use "the silent treatment" as a tactic
of manipulation. Those high in Intellect -Openness tend to use reason and
rationality to get their way.
Personality, thus, affects th e mates and friends a person chooses as well as
the environments a person decides to enter or avoid (selection); the
reactions elicited from others and from the physical environment
(evocation); and the ways in which one's physical and social environments
are altered once inhabited (manipulation). See figure 7.1.
Figure 7.1
Personality and social interaction.

Figure 7.1 : Source: Buss D.M. & Larsen R.J. (2009). Personality
Psychology: Domains of knowledge about human nature (4th ed.).McGraw
Hill.
Further re search is needed to determine whether the causal arrows in the
figure run in both directions. Does the choice of a mate who is similar in
personality, for example, create a social environment that reinforces that
personality and makes it more stable over t ime? Does the wide variety of
manipulative tactics used by emotionally unstable individuals —from
hardball to threats to sulking, whining, and pouting —create a social
environment that is indeed rocked with greater turmoil, thus maintaining
the personality d isposition of neuroticism?

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109 7.2 SEX -GENDER AND PERSONALITY
People are intrinsically fascinated with psychological sex differences:
average differences between women and men in personality or behavior.
Second, many people are concerned with the political i mplications of
findings of sex differences. Will such findings be used to foster gender
stereotypes (beliefs about how men and women differ or are supposed to
differ, in contrast to what the actual differences are.)? Will such findings
be used to oppress w omen? People are concerned with the practical
implications of sex differences for their everyday lives. Will knowledge of
sex differences help us, for example, understand and communicate better
with others?
7.2.1 The Science and Politics of studying sex an d gender:
Few topics generate as much controversy as the topic of sex differences.
Some people worry that findings of sex differences might be used to
support certain political agendas, such as excluding women from
leadership or work roles. Still others wo rry that findings of sex differences
might be used to support the status quo, such as keeping men in power and
women out of power. Some people argue that findings of sex differences
merely reflect gender stereotypes rather than real differences. Some
psych ologists argue that any discovery of sex differences merely reflects
the biases of the scientists and are not objective descriptions of reality.
A Psychologist Roy Baumeister actually advocated that study on sex
differences must be stopped because sex diff erences may conflict with the
ideas of egalitarianism, although he has reversed his views on this and
published articles on sex differences. Others argue, that both scientific
psychology and social change will be impossible without coming to terms
with the real sex differences that exist.
Feminist Psychologist Alice Eagly (1995), for example, argues that sex
differences exist, they are consistent across studies, and they should not be
ignored merely because they are perceived to conflict with certain polit ical
agendas. She says that feminists who try to minimize these differences or
pretend that they do not exist, actually hamper the feminist agenda and
present a dogma that is out -of-touch with reality. Janet Hyde, argue that
sex differences have been exagg erated and that there is so much overlap
between the sexes on most personality traits that the differences are
minimal.
 History of the study of sex differences:
The study of sex differences has a fascinating History within Psychology.
Prior to 1973, little attention was paid to sex differences and in
Psychology research, participants used to be of only one sex, males. And
even when participants were of both genders, few articles actually
analyzed or reported whether the effects differed for men and women.
All these things changed in early 1970’s. In 1974, Eleanor Maccoby and
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110 Differences, in which they reviewed hundreds of studies and then drew
conclusions about how men and women differed.
Their c onclusion was that women were slightly better than males in verbal
ability and men were slightly better than women in Mathematical and
Spatial ability.
In terms of personality characteristics, they concluded that men were more
aggressive than women. With o ther aspects of personality and social
behavior, they concluded that there was not enough evidence to determine
whether men and women differed. They concluded that sex differences
were less/few in number and trivial in importance.
The book set off an avala nche of research on the topic. The book itself
was criticized on various grounds. Some argued that many more sex
differences existed than mentioned in the book itself or by the authors.
Also, method by which authors drew their conclusions were crude with
respect or if we compare them to today’s standard.
Following the publication of the book, journal began to change their
reporting practices. They started to require authors who calculated and
report sex differences. There began the explosion of research and
thousands of studies were conducted on sex differences.
Since Maccoby and Jacklyn's early work, researchers have developed a
more precise quantitative procedure for examining conclusions across
studies and for determining sex differences, called meta -analysis.
Meta -analysis is a statistical method for summarizing the findings of large
numbers of individual studies.Meta -analysis allows researchers to
calculate with greater objectivity and precision whether a particular
difference —such as a sex difference —is consistent across studies. It also
allows researchers to estimate how large the difference actually is —called
the effect size.
 Calculation of Effect size: How large are the sex differences?
Most commonly used Statistic in meta -analysis is effect size, or d statistic.
It is used to indicate a difference in standard deviation units. How to
interpret d?
A d of 1.00 means that the difference between the groups is one full
standard deviation (S.D.)A d of 0.25 means -the difference between the
groups is one -quarter of a S.D. An effect size can be calculated for each
study of sex differences and then averaged across studies to give a more
precise and objective assessment of whether and how much sex
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111 Most meta -analyses have adopted a convention for interpreting effect sizes
as follows:
Table 7.2:
Interpretation of effect sizes.
d score Meaning
0.20 or -0.20 Small difference
0.50 or -0.50 Medium difference
0.80 or -0.80 Large difference
Source: R.J. Larsen and D.M. Buss (2009). Personality Ps ychology:
Domains of Knowledge about human nature (4th ed.). McGraw Hill.
Positive d scores, such as 0.20 or 0.50, indicate that men score higher than
women. Negative d scores, such as -0.20 or -0.50, indicate that women
score higher than men. E.g., a d sc ore of —0.85 means that women score
much higher on a particular trait.
Let us take an example. Which sex can throw the ball faster? Although
individual differences in ball throwing exist, it generally clear that men, on
an average throw the ball faster tha n women. One researcher reported that
d is approximately 2.00.It means that the sexes differ, on average, by 2
standard deviations, which is quite large.
Another example: Which sex scores higher in verbal ability? It turns out
that women are slightly bett er than men, but the d is only —0.11. Findings
from most research tells us that men and women are generally same with
respect to cognitive abilities, but only one exception is in the realms of
spatial ability. The d value for spatial ability is 0.73, which comes close to
the standard for "large".
It is important to keep in mind that even large effect sizes for average sex
differences do not necessarily have implications for any one particular
individual. Even with a d of 2.00 for throwing distance/spatial a bility,
some women can throw much farther than the average man and some men
cannot throw as far as the average woman.
 Minimalists and Maximalists:
Those who describe sex differences as small and inconsequential are
called “Minimalists". They say, first, em pirically most research findings
show small magnitude of affect arguing that any personality variable
shows tremendous overlap in men and women. Second, is that if the sex
differences are small, they have little practical importance and do not have
much co nsequences for people’s lives, so it is important to focus on other
psychological issues.
Maximalists argue that magnitude of sex differences are equal to the
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112 or trivialized. Accordin gly,some sex differences tend to be small in
magnitude, whereas others are large in magnitude, and many are in the
moderate range. Eagly, a Maximalist, notes that even small sex differences
can have large practical importance. A small sex difference in the
proclivity to help other people, for example, could result in a large sex
difference in the number of lives each sex aids over the long -runin times
of distress.
7.2.2 SEX DIFFERENCES IN PERSONALITY:
The five -factor model of personality provides a convenie nt framework for
organizing a number of findings about sex differences in personality.
 TEMPERAMENT IN CHILDREN:
Temperament reflects biologically -based emotional and behavioural
consistencies that occur early in life and predict in conjunction with other
factors -patterns and outcomes in several other domains such as
Psychopathology and personality. One research included a massive meta -
analysis ever undertaken of sex differences in temperament in children.
They found that inhibitory control (the ability to c ontrol inappropriate
responses and behaviours) showed the largest sex difference, d = -0.41,
considered in moderate range. Inhibitory control is related to the later
development of Conscientiousness. The sex difference appears to get
less/fade, as adult me n and women do not differ much in
conscientiousness. Perceptual sensitivity (The ability to detect subtle
stimuli from the environment)showed a sex difference favouring girls.
Thus, girls are more sensitive than boys on Perceptual sensitivity.
Surgency (A cluster of approach behaviour, high inactivity and high
impulsivity) showed a sex difference with boys scoring higher than girls.
The combination of high surgency and low inhibitory control may account
for the fact that boys land up with more disciplinary difficulties in School
than girls in early lives. In addition, this combination may also account for
males scoring high on physical aggressiveness than girls. The contexts in
which this sex difference emerged, however, were quite specific, leading
the aut hors to suggest that "gender differences in personality can be
conceptualized as patterns of social adaptation that are complex and
context -specific".
Is there any dimension on which boys and girls show no sex difference?
Yes! That is negative affectivity that includes anger, difficulty, amount of
distress, sadness. Only on the component of fearfulness, it was found that
girls were slightly more fearful than boys. This general lack of gender
difference in negative affectivity is interesting because it is cl osely
connected with emotional instability, which does show a moderate sex
difference in adulthood. Else -Quest and her colleagues (2006) speculate
that gender stereotypes —beliefs that females are more emotional than
males —may lead to the actual development of the gender difference in
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113  FIVE -FACTOR MODEL:
Five-Factor model are a broad set of personality traits within which we
can examine whether men and women differ.
Extraversion: Three facets o f extraversion have been examined for sex
differences: gregariousness, assertiveness, and activity. A study of
personality in 50 different cultures revealed a relatively small gender
difference. Women score slightly higher on gregariousness than men, but
the difference is quite small. Men score very slightly higher on activity
level. A study of personality in 50 different cultures revealed a relatively
small gender difference gender difference on extraversion. The only
subscale of extraversion showing gende r difference is Assertiveness, with
men scoring moderately higher than females on that. A related study also
showed that men placed more importance on the value of power than do
women. Means, men value social status and dominance more than women.
Thus, men are more likely than women to interrupt in conversation than
women. An important source of conflict between the sexes — unwanted
interruptions of dialogue —may stem from this moderate sex difference in
assertiveness.
Agreeableness: The 50 -culture study reve aled a small to medium sex
difference (d = -0.32) was found on Agreeableness, with women scoring
higher than men. Older adults (65 -98) also show a similar pattern with
women scoring higher on this facet than men. On the facet of trust in
Agreeableness (the proclivity to cooperate with others, giving others the
benefit of the doubt, and viewing one's fellow human beings as basically
good at heart), women scored higher than men. Tendermindedness,
another facet of Agreeableness (a nurturant proclivity —having e mpathy
for others and being sympathetic with those who are downtrodden.),
women scored substantially higher than men.
Meta -analyses of smiling show that women smile more often than men,
with an effect size of —0.60. If smiling reflects Agreeableness, we ca n
conclude than women are more Agreeable than men. But, if, some argue
that low -status people do a lot of smiling. So, if this is correct, then,
smiling maybe more a reflection of low status rather than Agreeableness.
Aggressiveness is at the opposite end of agreeableness. In general, the
effect sizes for aggression are largest for projective tests, such as the TAT
(d = 0.86), the next largest for peer report measures of aggression (d =
0.63), and the smallest for self -report measures of aggression (d = 0.4 0).
Worldwide, men commit roughly 90 percent of all homicides, and most of
the victims of these homicides are other men, men are also involved in
gang wars, various violent crimes. The largest sex differences in violent
crimes show up just after puberty, p eaking in adolescence and the early
twenties. After age 50, violent crimes of all sorts start to reduce, and men
and women become much more similar to each other in criminal
aggressiveness.
Conscientiousness: The 50 -culture study revealed negligible sex
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114 Conscientiousness is d = -0.13. This means that women and men are
essentially the same on this dimension. Even very small effects can
sometimes have large cumulative effects over time. E.g., a small
difference in order between marriage partners may result in a large
number of arguments about housecleaning over the course of a year.
Emotional stability: At one end of the dimension are those who are steady,
calm, and stable. One can label this end "emotionally stable." The opposite
end is characterized by volatility and changeability of mood. The 50 -
culture study found that Emotional stability found the largest sex
difference(d= -0.49) indicating women are moderately lower than men on
this dimensio n. This pattern is true even in case of older adults.
Intellect -Openness to experience: The 50 -culture study revealed no sex
differences on this factor (d= -0.05). Openness means the range of
thoughts or concepts that a person entertains. Botwin et al. (19 97) studied
sex differences in Intellect -Openness to experience using three data
sources: self -report, spouse -report, and independent interviewer reports
(one male and one female interviewer). Separate analyses of these three
data sources yielded no sex di fferences in Openness -Intellect.
 Basic emotions: Frequency and Intensity:
The most extensive research studied 2,199 Australians and an international
sample of 6,868 participants drawn from 41 different countries (Brebner,
2003). 8 fundamental emotions were studied, four "positive" emotions
(Affection, Joy, Contentment, Pride) and four "negative" emotions (Fear,
Anger, Sadness, Guilt). Participants used rating scales to indicate how
frequently/often they experienced each emotion andthe intensity with
which t hey experienced each emotion. Table 3 summarizes the basic
findings of research.
Table 7.3
Basic emotions: Frequency and Intensity
Emotion Frequency Intensity
Positive emotions 0.20 0.23
Affection (Positive
emotion) 0.30 0.25
Joy 0.16 0.26
Contentment 0.13 0.28
Pride Ns Ns
Negative emotions 0.14 0.25
Fear 0.17 0.26
Anger 0.05 0.14
Sadness 0.16 0.28
Guilt Ns 0.07
Source: Source: Buss D.M. & Larsen R.J. (2009). Personality Psychology:
Domains of knowledge about human nature (4th ed.).McGraw Hill.
As shown in the table, there are small, but statistically significant
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115 point to women experiencing both positive emotions and negative
emotions more frequently and intensely than do men. In the positive areas,
affection and joy show the largest sex differences. Pride, shows no sex
difference in either frequency or intensity. In the negative areas, women
experience fear and sadness more than men, especially in the reported
intensity of the experience. Guilt, in contrast, shows a minimal sex
difference in intensity and no sex difference in frequency —perhaps
contradicting the stereotype that women are more guilt -prone than men.
These results must be qualified in two ways. First, the effe ct sizes are
generally small. Next, other research has revealedthat more specialized
explorations of emotions reveal some reversals of these sex differences,
such as women experiencing more intense jealousy in response to the
emotional infidelity of a part ner. One of the most common complaints that
women express about men is that they don't express their emotions enough
(Buss, 2003). Menoften complain that women are too emotional. The
results point to one possible reason for these complaints —perhaps men
don't express their emotions because they literally don't experience
emotions as frequently or as intensely as do women.
 OTHER DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY:
SELF -ESTEEM: It is how we feel good about ourselves. Research has
explored many facets of self -esteem suc h as, self -esteem in athletic
abilities, social skills, etc. One far measured component is Global self -
esteem - “The level of global regard one has for self as a person.” It can
range from highly positive to highly negative and reflects an overall
evaluatio n of self.
People with high self -esteem appear to cope better with the stresses and
strains of daily life. When faced with negative feedback about one's
performance, people with high self -esteem perform better on cognitive
tasks. They tend to take credit f or their successes but deny responsibility
for their failure.
The overall effect size is relatively small, with men scoring slightly higher
than females in self -esteem (d = 0.21). Young children (ages 7 -10) showed
only a slight sex difference in self -estee m {d = 0.16). As the children
approached adolescence, the gap between the sexes widened/expanded. At
ages 11 -14, d was 0.23. The sex difference was at the peak during the ages
of 15 -18 (d = 0.33).
Females seem to have lower self -esteem than males as they hit their mid -
to late teens. In adulthood, the self -esteem gap starts to close. During the
age range 19 -22, the effect size shrinks to 0.18. During the ages of 23 -59,
the sexes come even closer, with a d of 0.10. From age 60 on up, the d is
only —0.03, wh ich means that the males and females are virtually
identical in self -esteem.
The magnitude of all these effects is very small, and even during
adolescence, the gap between the sexes is widest. So, it is not true that
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116 self-esteem can be extremely important to day -to-day well -being, so this
sex difference cannot be dismissed.
SEXUALITY AND MATING: Meta -analyses show profound sex
differences in certain aspects of sexual desire, motivation, and attitudes. It
was found that men have a more favourable attitude towards casual sex
than women(d = 0.81). Can men and women be just friends? It turns out
that men have more difficulty than women in just being friends than
opposite sex. Men are more li kely than women to initiate friendship with
someone of the opposite sex because they are sexually attracted to them;
more likely to actually become sexually attracted to opposite sex friends,
and men dissolve friendships if such friendships do not result i n sex.
Not all men, but men who have hostile masculinity (domineering and
degrading attitudes towards women), men who lack empathy, who are
narcissistic, are more sexually aggressive than women in the form that in
forcing women to have sex when they expres s an unwillingness to have
sex.
People -Things Dimension: People who score toward the "things" end of
the dimension prefer vocations that deal with impersonal objects —
machines, tools, or materials —examples include carpenters, auto
mechanics, building contra ctors, tool makers, and farmers. Those scoring
toward the "people" end of the dimension prefer social occupations, which
include thinking about others, caring for others, or directing others. The
correlation between sex and the people -things dimension is . 56, or a d of
roughly 1.35, which means that men are more likely to score at the things
end of the dimension, and women are more likely to score at the people
end of the dimension.
When girls are asked to describe themselves spontaneously, they more
likely than boys make references to their close relationships. They value
personal qualities linked to group harmony, such as sensitivity to others.
They more likelyidentify their personal relationships as central to their
identity.
7.2.3 MASCULINITY, FEMININITY , ANDROGYNY AND SEX
ROLES:
In 1930’s, it was found that men and women differed on personality items
in large inventories. Researchers assumed that the differences could be
described by a single personality dimension, with masculinity at one end
and feminin ity at the other end. A person who scored high on masculinity
was assumed to score low on femininity. Researchers thought that all
could be located on this single personality dimension - Masculinity -
Feminity. But does a single scale with masculinity and fem ininity really
capture the important individual differences? Can't someone be both
masculine and feminine? This question takes us to a new concept -
Androgyny.
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117  THE SEARCH FOR ANDROGYNY:
New researchers started with the premise that masculinity and Feminini ty
are independent dimensions. Thus, one can be high on both, or, low on
both. Or, one can be stereotypically masculine, means high on masculinity
and low on Femininity or stereotypically feminine, high on Femininity and
low on masculinity. Two major perso nality instruments were published in
1974 to assess people using this new conception of sex roles (Bern, 1974;
Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974). The masculinity dimension contained
items reflecting assertiveness, boldness, dominance, self -sufficiency, and
instrumentality.
The femininity dimension contained items that reflected nurturance,
expression of emotions, and empathy. Those who agreed with personality
trait terms connoting these qualities scored high on femininity. Those who
scored high on both dime nsions were labeled androgynous, to reflect the
notion that a single person could possess both masculine and feminine
characteristics. Researchers who developed these measureswere of the
view that androgynous persons are most highly developed as it was
believed that they had most valuable elements of both the sexes. They
were presumed to be liberated from the shackles of traditional notions of
sex roles.
This approach of Androgyny led to the concept of feminism in America as
women started working in workfor ce and men also began to opt for more
nurturant roles. The new androgynous conception of sex roles, was not
without its critics. The new scales were criticized on several aspects. Like,
items on the inventories and their correlations with each other.
Resea rchers assumed that masculinity and femininity were single
dimensions. Other researchers argued,that both constructs were actually
multidimensional, containing many facets. Another criticism is that
masculinity and femininity, indeed, consist of a single, bipolar trait.
In response to these criticisms, the originators of Androgyny changed their
views as one author believes that their instrument does not measure sex
roles, but measures personality characteristics of instrumentality and
expressiveness. Instru mentality consists of personality traits that involve
working with objects, getting tasks completed in a direct fashion, showing
independence from others, and displaying self -sufficiency.
Expressiveness, is the ease with which one can express emotions, suc h as
crying, showing empathy for the troubles of others, and showing
nurturance to those in need.
Another author also says that the inventory measures Gender schemata,
cognitive orientations that lead individuals to process social information
on the basis of sex -linked associations. Thus, the ideal is not to be
androgynous but, to be gender -aschematic. That is, the ideal is not to use
gender at all in one's processing of social information. Findings generally
suggest that at genes also play a role, even wi thin each gender, in the
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118  GENDER STEREOTYPES:
Stereotypes are beliefs that we hold regarding way in which the sexes
differ, regardless of whether those beliefs are acc urate reflections of
reality. Gender stereotypes have three components. The first component is
cognitive which deals with the ways in which we form social categories.
The second component is affective. The third component is behavioral.
For example, you ma y discriminate against someone (Action/behavioural
component) simply because he belongs in a social category —in this case,
"man."
In most of the studies, it was found that women, compared with men, were
commonly seen as more affiliative, deferent, heterose xual, nurturant, and
self-abasing (Communal) oriented towards the group. Men, are perceived
to be more instrumental —asserting their independence from the group. In
addition to general gender stereotypes, studies show that most people have
more finely diffe rentiated stereotypic views of each sex. Stereotypes of
women fell into a smaller number of subtypes. One might be called the
"classically feminine" subtype, which includes housewives, secretaries,
and maternal women. A second subtype is defined by short -term or overt
sexuality which includes sex bombs, tarts, and vamps.
A third stereotype of women, however, involves a subtype that may have
emerged relatively recently, perhaps over the past 20 or 30 years —the
confident, intellectual, liberated career woman.
7.2.4 THEORIES OF SEX DIFFERENCES:
 SOCIALIZATION AND SOCIAL ROLES: The most widely held
theory, Socialization theory, the notion that boys and girls become
different because boys are reinforced by parents, teachers, and the media
for being "masculine," an d girls for being "feminine." Example, boys are
given baseball bats and trucks. Girls are given dolls. Boys are praised for
engaging in rough -and-tumble play. Girls are praised for being cute,
obedient. Boys are punished for crying. Girls are comforted whe n they
cry. Over time, according to socialization theory, children learn behaviors
deemed appropriate for their sex.
In Bandura’s social learning theory, boys and girls also learn by observing
the behaviors of others, called models of their own sex. Boys o bserve their
fathers, male teachers, and male peers. Girls observe their mothers, female
teachers, and female peer models. Overtime, through direct reinforcement,
the model provides guidance for behaviours that are masculine or
feminine.
Studies of sociali zation practices have found that both mothers and fathers
encourage dependency more in girls than in boys (J. H. Block, 1983).
Parents encourage girls to stay close to home, and boys are permitted or
even encouraged to roam. Fathers get involved in more ph ysical play with
their sons than with their daughters. Fathers do not interact with their
daughters as frequently as with their sons (Whiting & Edwards, 1988).
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119 In most cultures, boy s are permitted to stray farther from home than are
girls and are socialized to be more competitive than are girls. Girls are
trained to be more nurturant than the boys. In the majority of the cultures,
the parents tried to teach their daughters to delay h aving sexual
intercourse, whereas the boys were encouraged to have sexual intercourse.
One potential difficulty, however, pertains to the direction of effects —
whether parents are socializing children in sex -linked ways or whether
children are eliciting the ir parents' behavior to correspond to their existing
sex-linked preferences.E.g., parents may buy a variety of toys for boys and
girls. But, if girls show no interest in trucks and boys show no interest in
dolls, parents may stop purchasing masculine toys for girls and feminine
toys for boys. Another problem for traditional theories of socialization is
that they provide no account of the origins of differential parental
socialization practices. Why do parents want their boys and girls to grow
up differently ?
According to this Theory, sex differences originate because men and
women are distributed differently into different occupational and family
roles. Men, are expected to devote to the breadwinning role. Women are
expected to assume the homemaker role. Ove r time, children learn these
behaviors that are linked to these roles.But, like socialization theory,
however, social role theory fails to provide an account of the origins of
sex-linked roles. This theory is becoming increasingly testable as family
and oc cupational roles change. Women are pursuing breadwinning roles
more often than in the past, and men are pursuing greater responsibility for
domestic duties. With these changes, if social role theory is correct, sex
differences should decrease as well. The countries that are most sexually
egalitarian —which give most equal access to education and knowledge
and the greatest levels of economic wealth —show the largest, not the
smallest, sex differences in personality.
 HORMONAL THEORIES:
Men and women differ bec ause the sexes have different underlying
hormones. It is these physiological differences, not differential social
treatment, that causes boys and girls to diverge over development. There is
some evidence that hormonal influences on sex differences begin in utero.
The hormonal bath that the developing fetus is exposed to, for example,
might affect both the organization of the brain and consequently the
gendered interests and activities of the individual. Good evidence for this
comes from a condition called c ongenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), in
which the female fetus has an overactive adrenal gland. This results in the
female being hormonally masculinized.
There are some researches that have triedto identify links between
hormones such as testosterone (pres ent in greater amounts in men) and
sex-linked behavior. There are even sex differences in circulation of
testosterone levels. sex differences in circulating testosterone are linked
with some of the traditional sex differences found in behavior, such as
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120 testosterone are associated with pursuing a more masculine career and
having greater success within the chosen career. Also, higher testosterone
levels are linked with greater dominance and ag gressiveness in both sexes.
Sexual desire is linked to levels of circulating testosterone. Women's
testosterone levels peak just prior to ovulation, and women report a peak
in their sexual desire at precisely the same time. Men whose testosterone
level is high also report a higher level of sexual motivation.
But,correlation does not mean causation. There is some evidence in
nonhuman primates that rises in testosterone levels follow rises in status
and dominance within the group, rather than cause them.
An a dditional limitation of hormonal theories of sex differences in
personality is one shared with socialization theories —that is, neither of
these theories identifies the origins of the differences.
 EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY THEORY:
Men and women are predicted to be essentially the same in domains where
they have faced similar adaptive problems. They are assumed to be
different in those domains where they have faced different adaptive
challenges. Here, adaptive problems mean the problems that need to be
solved f or survival and reproduction. E.g., men and women show
similarities in food preferences for sugar, fat, protein, etc. These
preferences point out to an adaptive problem of getting calories and
nutrients to survive.
In the domain of mating, men and women ha ve faced different adaptive
problems like women must carry and gestate and embryo for nine months
inorder to reproduce and men only do that with a single act of sex. Thus,
women have faced the adaptive problem of securing resources to carry
them through ha rsh winters or droughts, when resources might be scarce
and a woman's mobility might be restricted by the burden of pregnancy.
The costs of making a poor choice of a mate, according to this logic,
would have been more damaging to women than to men. Thus, w omen’s
mate preferences for men who have the ability and willingness to invest
them and their children.
On the other hand, men are predicted to be sexually wanton, and more
aggressive than other men because they compete with other men for
opportunities for sexual access to women. Because of women’s heavy
investment, they become and extraordinary valuable reproductive
resources over which men compete. Women are more selective than men.
An act of casual sex will be more reproductively beneficial for ancestral
man than to ancestral woman. Research has shown us that men desire a
larger number of sex partners, seek sex after a shorter time period has
elapsed in knowing a potential partner, and have more fantasies about
casual sex than do women.
But, this perspect ive also, leaves some questions unanswered for us: What
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121 women very much interested in casual sex? Why are some men meek,
dependent, and nurturing, whereas others are callous and aggressive?
Some women benefit greatly from having a short -term sexual strategy,
which can lead to obtaining more and better resources, switching to a mate
who is better than her regular mate, and possibly securing better genes for
her offspring.
 AN INTEGRATED THEORET ICAL PERSPECTIVE:
The theoretical accounts we have examined seem very different, but they
are not necessarily incompatible. To some extent, they operate at different
levels of analysis. An integrated Theoretical perspective will take into
account all the l evels of analysis because they are clearly compatible with
one another. It has been found that parents have interest in socializing
boys and girls differently, and these differences are universal. There is
also evidence that both sexes change their behavio ur according to the roles
to which they are assigned. E.g., both become dominant in supervisor role,
both become submissive when being supervised. Thus, socialization
theories play a role in integrated theory of sex differences.
Men and women clearly diffe r in circulating testosterone levels, and these
differences are linked with differences in sexuality, aggression,
dominance, and career interests. Although, we cannot ignore the casual
possibility, that, being in a dominant position causes the testosterone level
to rise. Thus, social roles and hormones are closely linked and this finding
is important for an integrated theory of sex differences. These proximate
paths —socialization and hormones —might provide the answers for how
the sexes differ, whereas evolu tionary psychology provides the answers
for why the sexes differ.
But, it’s true that all the 3 level of analysis - current social factors,
circulating hormones and evolutionary processes are needed for a
complete understanding of gender and personality.
7.3 SUMMARY
In this unit we began by understanding the three processes of personality:
Selection meaning we selecting situations or avoiding situations based on
our personality dispositions, evocation, meaning, personality qualities of
othersevoke certain re sponses in us and manipulation, personality
influences the ways in which we try to influence or manipulate others. We
also saw the different aspects that selection affects such as personality
characteristics desired in marriage partners, effect of shyness on selecting
risky situations, etc. We also saw factors such as aggression, expectancy
confirmation in evocation. We also understood tactics of manipulation
used by both sexes.
Then, we saw how the study of sex differences evolved through History,
the impo rtant factor of “Effect size” when analyzing sex differences. We
also took a look at sex differences in temperament, basic emotions and sex
differences on the factors of Five Factor model. We also understood a munotes.in

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122 newer concept of Androgyny, related concepts o f instrumentality and
expressiveness, etc.
We also looked at some Theories and their varying views regarding why
and how sexes differ, namely the socialization, hormonal and
Evolutionary views on why and how sexes differ.
7.4 QUESTIONS
A) Write long answer s:
a) Explain the concept of “Selection” and related concept of assortative
mating, personality characteristics desired in a marriage partner and
shyness and selection of risky situations.
b) Explain the concept of “manipulation”. The taxonomy of 11 tacti cs of
manipulation and sex differences in manipulation and personality
predictors of tactics of manipulation.
c) Comment on the Science and Politics of studying gender, History of
study of sex differences, calculation of effect size. And, the views of
Mini malists and Maximalists.
d) Explain socialization/social roles Theory and Evolutionary Theory of
sex differences.
B) Write short notes:
a) Evocation through expectancy confirmation.
b) Evocation of anger and upset in partners.
c) Sex differences in the Fi ve-Factor Model.
d) Hormonal Theories of sex differences.
7. 5 REFERENCES
1. Buss D. M. & Larsen R. J. (2009). Personality Psychology: Domains of
Knowledge About Human Nature (4th ed.). NJ: McGraw ‐Hill
Humanities.
2. Myers, D. G. (2013). Psychology .(10thed.). Customized edition for
Mumbai University. Macmillan Publishers India Ltd.


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123 8
SOCIO -CULTURAL AND
ADJUSTEMENT DOMAIN -II

Unit Structure
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Culture and Personality
8.1.1 Cultural violations: An Illustration
8.1.2 What is Cultural Personality Psychology?
8.1.3 Three major approaches to culture
8.2Stress, Coping, Adj ustment and Health
8.2.1 The models of personality -illness connection
8.2.2The concept of stress
8.2.3 Coping strategies and styles
8.2.4 Type A and cardiovascular disease
8.3 Summary
8.4 Questions
8.5 References
8.0 OBJECTIVES
After studying this unit, yo u should be able to:
 Understand how culture affects personality, the within cultural
similarities and between -cultural variations with regards to personality
traits.
 Understand The three major approach to understanding personality
across cultures: Evoked culture, Transmitted culture and whether
personality traits found in the West effectively can be replicated and
found in other cultures or not (Cultural universals).
 Understand stress and coping the theories telling us theories of how
personality and illne ss are connected, as well as stress and coping
styles of people.
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124 8.1 CULTURE AND PERSONALITY
Let us begin with an example. There are two groups of a cultural heritage:
High -land Yanomamo I ndians and low -land Yanomamo Indians. Both
differ in various personality traits. Like, the low -land people like fighting,
raid neighbouring villages when food stock goes down, show aggressive
tendencies, beat wives, etc. The high -land people are more peace ful and
dislike fighting, are more agreeable, do not raid neighbouring villages.
The question is how can we understand the differences between
personality of high and low -land Yanomamo Indians? Was one group
temperamentally more disposed to aggression than the other group? Or,
did the two groups start out the same, and only subsequently did cultural
values took hold in one group different from those that took hold in other
group? Other questions that we will try to find out in this Unit are What is
the effe ct of culture on personality? What is the effect of personality on
culture? And how can we understand patterns of cultural variation amid
patterns of human universals?
Personality Psychologists explore personality across cultures because they
want to find out whether concepts of personality in one culture are also
applicable in other cultures. Another reason is understanding whether
cultures differ, on an average, in the level of different personality traits.
E.g., are Indians more Agreeable than Americans? Third reason is to see
whether factor structure of personality traits across cultures and see
whether it is universal. E.g., Will the five -factor model of personality
discovered in American samples, for example, be replicated in Holland,
Germany, and the Philippines? A fourth reason is to see whether certain
features of personality are universal, corresponding to human nature level
of personality analysis.
8.1.1 CULTURAL VIOLATIONS: AN ILLUSTRATION:
Consider the following events:
1. One of your family memb ers eats beef regularly, (your beef -eating
family member)
2. A young married woman goes alone to see a movie without letting her
husband know.When she returns home, her husband says, "If you do it
again, I will beat you black and blue." She does it again; he beats her
black and blue.
3. A poor man goes to the hospital after being seriously hurt in an
accident. The hospital refuses to treat him because he cannot afford to
pay. (the refusing hospital)
Examine each event and decide whether you think the beha vior on the part
of the person or institution in parentheses is wrong and a serious violation,
a minor offense, or not a violation at all?
If you are a Brahman Hindu, you will believe that first event is a serious
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125 American, he will not see first event as a serious violation, you see
nothing wrong in eating beef, but you will see second event as serious
violation. Thispoints out that some aspects of personality (attitudes,
values, self-concepts) are highly variable across cultures, but other aspects
are universal. The main question is "What are the ways in which people
from different cultures differ in personality, and what are the ways in
which people from all cultures are the same ?"
8.1.2 WHAT IS CULTURAL PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY?
“Humans everywhere show striking patterns of local within -group
similarities in behaviour and thought and profound intergroup
differences.” (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992, p. 6). These local within -group
similarit ies and between -group differences can be of any sort – physical,
psychological, behavioural, or attitudinal. This is known as cultural
variations.E.g., beef -eating: It is rare among Hindu’s and considered
abhorrence among Hindus. Among Hindus in India, val ues and behaviours
are shared for most part(within -group similarity). But they differ from
widely shared American attitudes towards beef -eating(between -group
differences). This difference —a local within -group similarity and
between -group difference —is an e xample of a cultural variation. But it
doesn't explain what has caused the cultural difference or why the groups
differ.
Cultural Personality Psychology has three key goals: 1)To
understand/discover principles underlying cultural diversity, 2)To
understand /discover how human Psychology shapes culture, 3) To
understand how cultural understanding, in -turn shape our Psychology.
8.1.3 THREE MAJOR APPROACHES TO CULTURE:
Certain traits are common to all, whereas certain traits show differences.
Cultural variation s are personality attributes that differ from group to
group. Psychologists have developed three major approaches to explaining
and exploring personality across cultures: evoked culture, transmitted
culture, and cultural universals: Evoked culture, Transmi tted culture and
Cultural Universals.
 Evoked Culture:
These are cultural differences caused by differing environmental
conditions activating predictable set of responses. E.g., Kung Bushmen of
Botswana, for example, tend to have thicker calluses on their f eet than
most Americans because they walk around without shoes. These
differences can be thought of aspects of evoked culture - different
environments have different effects on people’s callus -producing
mechanisms and on sweat glands. People who live near t he equator sweat
more because they are exposed to more intense heat than people who live
in more Northern parts.
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126 Environ mental differences in the degree to which the mechanism is
activated (In this case, differences in ambient temperature). Droughts,
snakes are all environmental events that affect some groups more than
others. These events cause the operation of mechanisms in some groups
that lay dormant in other groups.
This concept provides one model for understanding and explaining
cultural variations in personality traits, such as cooperativeness or
aggression. It says that all humans have the same potentials.The aspects of
these potentials that get evoked depend on features of the social or
physical environment.
Evoked cooperation: An example of evoked culture is the patterns of
cooperative food sharing found among different bands of hunter -gatherer
tribes. High -variance foods, means the foods that differ in their availability
from day -to-day. E.g., on any particular day,one hunter will be successful,
whereas another hunter will be empty -handed. Gathered food, is a lower -
variance food resource. Under high -variance conditi ons, there are large
and high benefits to sharing. As, you may share your meat with an
unlucky hunter today, and next week, the same hunter will share his meat
with you.The benefits of sharing are also increased by the fact that large
game animal contains more meat that a single person, or even a single
family can share. So, if it is not shared, it will get spoiled.
In one research study, it was found that for gathered food (low -variance
condition),sharing did not occur outside family. Cooperative sharing
seems to be evoked by environmental condition of high -variance. It has
been also found in another research that the degree of egalitarianism is
correlated with variance in food supply. E.g., Kung San's food supply is
highly variable, and they share food and express egalitarian beliefs.
Among the Gana San, where the food variance is low, and they show great
economic inequality. They tend to hoard their food and rarely share it
outside extended families.
Thus, environmental conditions can activate some behavio urs like
cooperation and food sharing. Everyone indeed has the capacity to
cooperate, but the degree of cooperation depends on external
environmental conditions, such as variance in food supply.
Early experience and evoked mating strategies: Jay Belsky and his
colleagues found that harsh, inconsistent, rejecting child -rearing practices,
erratically provided resources and marital discord lead children to develop
a personality of impulsivity and mating strategy of early reproduction.
Whereas, sensitive, suppo rtive, responsive child -rearing, reliable resources
and spousal harmony foster in children conscientiousness and mating
strategy of commitment marked by delayed reproduction and stable
marriage.
As, children in uncertain and unpredictable environments seem to learn
that they cannot rely on a single mate, so, opt for a sexual life that starts
early andto seek gratification from multiple mates. In contrast, children
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127 welfare, opt for lon g-term mating because they expect to attract a stable,
high-investing mate.Research shows that children from divorced
homes,reach puberty early, have sexual intercourse earlier, be more
impulsive, have more sex partners than children from intact homes.
The sensitivity of personality and mating strategies to early experiences
may help explain the differences in the value placed on chastity across
cultures. E.g., in China, marriages are lasting, divorce is rare, and parents
invest heavily in their children ov er extended periods. In Sweden, there
are many children are born out of wedlock, divorce is common, and lesser
fathers invest consistently over time. These cultural experiences may
evoke in the two groups different mating strategies, with the Swedes more
than the Chinese tending toward short -term mating and more frequent
partner switching.These examples illustrate how a consistent pattern of
individual differences can be evoked in different culture producing a local
pattern of within -group similarity and be tween -group differences. As, all
humans have within them a strategy of short -term mating, frequently
switching sexual partners, strategy of long -term mating such as
commitment and love. But, these mating strategies maybe differentially
evoked in different cultures, resulting in enduring cultural differences in
mating strategies.
Honors, Insults and evoked aggression:
Why do people from some cultures engage in killing more, whereas
people from some other cultures engage in killing less? Nisbett (1993) has
provided a Theory to account for these cultural differences.
Nisbett has proposed that the economic means of subsistence of a culture
affects the degree to which the group develops what he calls a culture of
honor where insults are viewed as highly offensive public challenges, that
must be met with direct confrontation and physical aggression. The
differences in the degree to which honor becomes a central part of culture
rests ultimately within economics, the manner in which the food is
obtained. In herding e conomies, one's entire stock could be lost suddenly
to thieves.
Cultivating a reputation as willing to respond with violent force —e.g., by
displaying physical aggression when publicly insulted —presumably deters
thieves and others who might steal one's pro perty. In more settled
agricultural communities, the cultivation of an aggressive reputation is less
important as one's means of subsistence cannot be rapidly undermined/
lessened.
Nisbett found that people from Southern parts of United States
(Historicall y using animal herding for subsistence)were more likely to
endorse violence for protection and in response to insults as compared to
Northerners (Historically, who use farming or agriculture for subsistence).
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128 Nisbett found a same pattern in the laboratory, where the northern and
southern participants were insulted by an experimenter. The experimenter
intentionally bumped into the participants and then called them "an
asshole." T hen, the participants were asked to complete a series of
incomplete word stems, such as "hate". The southerners who had been
insulted wrote down more aggressive words, such as hate, than did the
northerners who had been insulted, suggesting that the insult s had evoked
in the southerners a higher level of aggression.
We all have the capacity to develop a high sensitivity to public insults and
a capacity to respond with violence. These capacities are evoked in certain
cultures, and lie dormant in others.
 Tran smitted Culture:
It comprises of ideas, values, attitudes, beliefs that are originally there in
one person’s mind and those are transmitted to other person’s mind
through interaction with the original person(Tooby & Cosmides, 1992).
E.g., among Hindus, the view that it is wrong to eat beef, for example, is
an example of transmitted culture. This value originated in the mind of
one person, who then transmitted it to all others.
Cultural differences in moral values:
Cultures differ tremendously in their belie fs about what is morally right
and what is morally wrong. E.g., consider this statement, “It is immoral
for adults to disobey their parents.” If you are a Hindu -Indian, you would
agree to this statement. If a person is an American, odds are great that
he/she will disagree with the statement strongly. Culturally variable views
of morality are transmitted to children early onwards in life.
Views ofwhat is right and what is wrongare important psychological
principles that guide behavior, and they are central t o personality.
Different cultures differ in their views of what is right and wrong,
sometimes in seemingly arbitrary ways. Among the Semang of Malaysia,
for example, is sinful to comb one’s hair during thunderstorm, to watch
dog’s mate, to act casually wit h one’s mother -in-law. There are also
universal similarities in what is considered right and wrong. E.g., Indian
Brahman’s and American’s agree about the following wrongs: Ignoring an
accident victim, breaking a promise, committing brother -sister incest,
stealing a flower, etc.
In certain royal dynasties, incest between brother and sister was actively
encouraged as a way to preserve the family's wealth and power.
Statements about universality are relative in the sense that there are always
some cultural or subcultural exceptions. Thus, many moral values are
specific to particular cultures and are likely to be examples of transmitted
culture. They appear to be passed from one generation to the next, not
through genes but through the teachings of parents and t eachers or through
observations of the behavior of others within the culture.
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129 Cultural differences in self -concept:
The ways in which we define ourselves are self -concepts - they influence
our behaviour. E.g., A woman who defines herself as conscientious, may
take pains to show up for classes on time, to return all phone calls from
friends and family, etc. So, our self -concepts affect how we present
ourselves to others and how we behave in everyday life.
Markus and Kitayama (1991, 1994, 1998) propose that e ach person has
two fundamental "cultural tasks," which have to be confronted. First is
Interdependence, this cultural task deals with how much you are affiliated
with, attached to a larger group of which you are a member, your
relationships with other memb ers of the group, your embeddedness with
your group. The second cultural task is of Independence, —involves how
you differentiate yourself from the larger group. It includes your unique
abilities, your personal internal motives and personality dispositions , the
ways in which you separate yourself from the larger group.
People from different cultures differ in the ways in which they balance
these two tasks. Western cultures, according to this theory, are
characterized by independence. Conversations focus on individual choices
(e.g., "Where do you want to eat tonight?"). In contrast, many non -
Western cultures, such as Japan and China, are characterized by
interdependence and value the fundamental interconnectedness among
those within the group.
The self is me aningful, only with reference to the larger group of which
the person is a part. The major cultural tasks in these cultures are to fit in
and to promote harmony and group unity. Personal desires are to be
constrained rather than expressed in a selfish mann er (e.g., "Where do we
want to eat tonight?"). Conversational scripts focus on sympathy,
deference, and kindness.
This fundamental distinction between independence and interdependence
is similar to a distinction that many other cultural psychologists do.
Triandis (1989, 1995), coined the terms individualism (a sense of self as
autonomous and independent, with priority given to personal goals) and
collectivism (a sense of self as more connected to groups and
interdependent, priority given to group goals). I n individualist societies,
people tend to act independently of their groups, giving priority to
personal rather than group goals. They act according to their own attitudes
and desires rather than succumbing to the norms and attitudes of their in -
group. In collectivist societies, people are interdependent with others in a
group, giving priority to the ingroup goals. Here, people are especially
concerned about social relationships. They tend to be more self -effacing
and are less likely to boast about their ow n personal
accomplishments.There is a lot of overlap between the independent -
interdependent conception of cultural differences advanced by Markus and
Kitayama and the individualistic -collectivistic conception of cultural
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130 Is there empirical evidence that the way in which we define
ourselvesdepends on the culture in which we reside? Using the Twenty
Statements Test, researchers have discovered that North American
participants tend to describe themselves using abstract interna l
characteristics, such as smart, stable, dependable, and open -minded (Rhee
et al., 1995). Chinese participants, more often describe themselves using
social roles, such as "I am a daughter" or "I am Jane's friend”.
The study was designed to examine cultura l differences in self -concept,
but with an interesting twist: do Asians living in New York who self -
identify as Asian differ in self -concept from Asians living in the same
place who do not self -identify as Asian? In other words, do some people
shift their self-concepts and adopt self -concepts similar to those of the
adopted culture? The process of adapting to the ways of life in one's new
culture is called acculturation. The Asian Americans living in New York
who did not self -identify as Asian described the mselves using highly
abstract and autonomous self -statements, similar to the responses of
European Americans residing in New York.
These Asian Americans used even more trait terms in their self -
descriptions (45 percent) than did the European Americans (35 percent).
In contrast, in the study, the New York -dwelling Asians who identified
themselves as Asian used more socially embedded self -descriptions, much
as the Chinese respondents did. They often referred to themselves by
describing their role status (e.g ., student) and their family status (e.g., son).
They were more likely to qualify their self -concepts with contextual
information. (Rather than describing themselves as reliable, they described
themselves as "reliable when I'm at home.")
Another study aske d Japanese and American College students to complete
Twenty Statements Test in four social contexts: With a friend, in a
classroom with other students and in a Professor’s office. They found that
the Japenese students tended to describe themselves using pr eferences (I
like yoghurt) and context -dependent activities (I like to listen to rock
music on weekends). The American students used abstract, context -
independent items such as “friendly, “assertive” to describe themselves.
Also, the Japenesestudents tende d to characterize themselves differently in
different contexts.
In another study, it was found that 84% Japenese students described
themselves as ordinary, whereas only 18% American students did. Thus,
the theme of being standing out and being unique versu s fitting in and
getting along the group is seen in the folk sayings of American and
Japenese culture proverbs. In America, people say, “The squeaky wheel
gets the grease.” In the Japenese culture, people say, “The nail that stands
out gets pounded down.”
These cultural differences may be linked to the ways in which people
process information. Japanese, compared with Americans, tend to explain
events holistically — with attention to relationships, context, and the links
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131 Americans, in contrast, tend to explain events analytically —with the
object detached from its context, attributes of objects or people assigned to
categories, and a reliance on rules about the categories to explain
behav iour.So, we can see that the cultural differences in the personality
attributes of individualism -collectivism or independence -interdependence
may be linked to underlying cognitive proclivities in the ways in which
individuals attend to, and explain, events in their world.
Criticisms of Interdependence -Independence and Collectivistic -
Individualistic concepts:
Matsumoto (1999) contends that the evidence for the Markus -Kitayama
theory comes almost exclusively from North America and East Asia and
may not genera lize to other cultures. Also, there is far more overlap in the
self-concepts of people from different cultures than Markus and Kitayama
imply. Many people in collectivist cultures, do use global traits (e.g.,
agreeable, fun -loving) when describing themselv es. Many in individualist
cultures use relational concepts (e.g., "I am the daughter of . . .") when
they describe themselves. The cultural differences are more a matter of
degree.
Church (2000) notes that "attempts to characterize cultures of individuals
in terms of such broad cultural dichotomies may be overly simplistic" (p.
688). Views of the self in all cultures incorporates both independent and
interdependent self -construals, and self -concepts in all cultures vary
somewhat across social contexts. A me ta-analysis also suggested that
caution needs to be taken in generalizing about cultural differences in
individualism and collectivism. It found that even though European
Americans tended to be somewhat more individualistic (valuing
independence) and less collectivistic (valuing interdependence) than those
from other cultures, the effect sizes proved to be small and had important
exceptions.
European Americans were not more individualistic than either African
Americans or Latinos. Neither were they less co llectivistic than Japanese
or Koreans —two cultures anchoring one end of the interdependence
continuum. Actually, the Chinese, rather than the Japanese or Koreans,
were unusually collectivistic and non -individualistic in self -concept. Still
other studies ha ve found little support for the influence of transmitted
culture on self -concept. One study of two individualistic and two
collectivistic cultures found: 1)People in all four cultures described
themselves in trait terms with a high level of frequency, 2) P eople in all
four cultures mentioned personal rather than collective or social identity as
important to their sense of self.
Also, these characterizations such as Individualistic -Collectivistic have
been criticized on the grounds that they are far too gene ral conflating the
different kinds of social relationships and ignoring the context -specificity
in which they are expressed.E.g., Americans, may be individualistic and
independent at work and while playing computer games, but more
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132 Despite these criticisms, there are real differences across cultures, and
these must be explained. Most researchers have assumed that cultural
differences in individualism -collectivism are instances of trans mitted
culture. Others on the basis of evolutionary psychology and evoked
culture (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002b)hypothesize that
humans have evolved psychological mechanisms for both types of self -
concepts and can switch/transfer from one mode to a nother depending on
fitness advantages. When one's group is low in mobility, is limited in
resources, and has many relatives in close proximity, it has paid fitness
dividends to be highly collectivistic and interdependent. One's genetic
relatives then, ten d to benefit. When mobility is high and when resources
are relatively abundant, and when few genetic relatives live close by, it has
paid fitness dividends to adopt a more individualistic and independent
proclivity.
Cultural Differences in Self -enhancement :
Self-enhancement is described as tendency to describe and present oneself
using socially valued and positive attributes as kind, understanding,
intelligent, industrious. One research showed that the self -concepts of
American adults contain more than four times as many positive attributes
as negative ones (Herzog et al., 1995). Japanese give far fewer
spontaneous positive statements about themselves. The Japanese
participants score lower than American participants on translations of self -
esteem scales (Fis ke et al., 1997). Japanese respondents tend to give more
negative descriptions of themselves, (Yeh, 1995). Even the positive self -
descriptions of the Japanese tend to be in the form of negations, such as
"I'm not lazy.”
Korean participants are more likely to endorse negative statements about
themselves, whereas American participants are more likely to endorse
positive statements. Differences in self -enhancement also are visible in
parents' self -descriptions of the quality of their parenting practices.
Ameri can parents describe their parenting in generally glowing terms
whereas Korean parents give mostly negative self -evaluations. Cultural
differences in self -enhancement extend to evaluation of one’s group
compared to the evaluation of other groups. Heine and Lehman (1995)
asked Japanese and Canadian students to compare their own university
with a rival university within their own culture. The two pairs of
universities used for the study were matched in reputation. Among the
Canadians, there was a strong tende ncy toward in -group enhancement,
with the rival university evaluated negatively by comparison. Among the
Japanese, there was no favoritism in the evaluation of one's own university
in comparison with the rival university.
Why do these cultural differences in self -enhancement occur?
Psychologists have advanced 2 explanations. One is that Asians engage in
Impression -management - as deep in hearts, they evaluate themselves
positively, but they do not do so publicly as it may damage their
reputation. Second expl anation is that cultural differences accurately
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133 differences in values, evaluate themselves truly negatively as compared to
North -Americans. There has been only one empirical research test of these
competing explanations (Fiske et al., 1997). When self -evaluations are
made in conditions of total anonymity, (no one will identify the
respondent), researchers still found that the self -enhancement commonly
seen among Americans does not occur among Asian respondents. This
study supports the theory that these cultural differences reflect the actual
subjective experiences of the respondent and are not merely surface
differences due to impression management by the Asians.
Cultural differences are matter s of degree; people in all cultures appear to
display a self -enhancement bias to some extent. In a study of three
cultures —Kurman (2001) asked participants whether they considered
themselves to be below average or above average for the sex and age
group on six traits: intelligence, health, (agentic traits) and cooperation,
and generosity (communal traits). Although the Singaporeans showed
slightly more self -enhancement than the other two culture in agentic traits,
as people in all cultures showed a self -enhancement bias. On the
communal traits, 85 percent of the participants in all three cultures viewed
themselves as "above average" for their age and sex group. On the agentic
traits,the Druze and Jewish Israeli samples showed a self -enhancement
level of 90 p ercent and 87 percent, respectively, the Singaporeans showed
a self -enhancement level of nearly 80 percent.
Do cultures have distinctive personality profiles?
Are people from the Mediterranean region of Europe or a particular region
of the world really mor e emotionally expressive, or is this merely an
incorrect stereotype? Robert McCrae and 79 colleagues from around the
world studied the personality profiles of 51 different cultures, using
12,156 participants (McCrae, Terracciano, et al., 2005a). They studi ed the
aggregate Big Five personality scores for each culture. The largest
difference they found across cultures was on Extraversion. As a general
rule, Americans and Europeans scored higher than Asians and Africans on
Extraversion.
It is important to bear in mind that these differences in average
personalities are relatively small. Most of the differences in personality
occur within cultures, not between cultures. The most significant finding is
how similar the 51 cultures actually are in their overall sco res on the five -
factor model.
Personality Variations within cultures:
Within -culture variations can arise from several sources, including
differences in growing up in various socioeconomic classes, differences in
historical era, or differences in the racia l context in which one grows up.
Social class also has an influence on one’s personality. Parents from
lower -class value obedience to authority, whereas parents from upper -
class emphasize self -direction and nonconformity to dictates of others.
According to Kohn, these socialization practices result from the sorts of
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134 (e.g., manager, start -up company founder, doctor, lawyer) often require
greater self -direction, and lower -status jobs (e.g., factory worker, gas
station employee) more often require the need to follow rules and permit
less latitude for innovation. In studies of American, Japanese, and Polish
men, Kohn and colleagues found that men from higher social classes in all
culture s tended to be more self -directed, had lower levels of conformity,
greater intellectual flexibility than men from lower social classes.
These findings are correlational, so, direction of effects cannot be
unambiguously assumed. People with personalities ha ving self -direction
and intellectual flexibility tend to move towards the higher social classes.
Or the socialization practices of higher -social -class parents tend to
produce children with personalities that are different from the personalities
of lower -social-class children. Even though cultures can differ in their
average level on a particular trait, many people within that one culture can
be higher (or lower) than many individuals in the other culture.
Another type of intracultural variation are the effe cts of historical era on
personality. E.g., people who grew up during Great Depression in 1930’s,
might be more anxious about job security, adopting a more conservative
spending style. Disentangling the effects of historical era on personality is
an extrem ely difficult endeavor because most currently used personality
measures were not in use in earlier eras.
 CULTURAL UNIVERSALS:
The third approach to culture and personality is to identify features of
personality that appear to be universal, or means present in most of the
cultures. In the History of study of personality and culture, the study of
cultural universals has long been remained in disfavour. For most of the
twentieth century, the focus was almost exclusively on cultural
differences. This emphasis w as fueled by anthropologists who reported on
exotic cultures, which did everything differently than American culture
did. Human nature was presumed to be infinitely variable, infinitely
flexible, and not constrained in any way by a universal human nature: "We
are forced to conclude that human nature is almost unbelievably
malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural
conditions" (Mead, 1935, p. 280).
Over the past few decades, the pendulum has swung to moderate view.
Anthropolog ists who visited the islands Mead had visited failed to confirm
Mead's findings (e.g., Freeman, 1983). In cultures in which sexual
jealousy was presumed to be entirely absent, it turned out that sexual
jealousy was the leading cause of spousal battering an d spousal homicide.
In cultures such as the Chambri, where the sex roles were thought to be
reversed, anthropologists instead found that men were considered to be in
charge (Brown, 1991; Gewertz, 1981). All available evidence back to
1850, suggest that the Chambri's sex roles are, in fact, strikingly similar to
those of Western cultures. Now we will see three examples of cultural
universals.
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135 Beliefs about personality characteristics of men and women:
Williams and Best (1990) studied 30 countries over a per iod of 15 years.
In each country, university students were asked to examine 300 trait
adjectives (e.g., aggressive, emotional, dominant) and indicate whether
each trait is more often linked with men, or women, or with both sexes.
Results were shocking: Man of the trait adjectives which were highly
associated with one or the other sex and there proved to be tremendous
consensus across cultures.
How can we summarize, interpret these differences in beliefs about men
and women? Williams and Best (1994) scored s ometrait adjectives on the
following dimensions: favorability (How desirable is the trait?), strength
(How much does the trait indicate power?), and activity (How much does
the trait signify energy?). These dimensions originate from older classical
work in the field that discovered three universal semantic dimensions of
evaluation (good -bad), potency (strong -weak), and activity (active -
passive) (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). The traits ascribed to men
and women were equally favourable. As, some masculi ne traits, such as,
“serious and inventive” were viewed as favourable, whereas, other traits,
such as “arrogant” and “busy” were viewed as unfavourable. Some
feminine traits such as “Charming and Appreciative” were seen as
favourable. Whereas others, “Fear ful” and “affected” were seen as
unfavourable.
How can we interpret these cultural universals in beliefs regarding the
personality characteristics of men and women? One is that these beliefs
represent stereotypes based on the roles men and women take unive rsally.
Williams and Best (1994), argue that society assumes that men are
stronger than women and so assigns men to roles and occupations such as
soldier and construction worker. A second possibility is that the traits
ascribed to men and women in all 30 c ultures reflect actual observations of
real sex differences in personality. Studies of the five -factor model, tell
usthat women score lower on Emotional Stability, suggesting that they are
more fearful and emotional. Thus, it means universal beliefs about
differences in men and women reflect actual differences in personality.
Expression of emotion:
It is widely and commonly believed that people in different cultures
experience different emotions. Personality psychologists have argued that
different cultures have different words to describe emotional experience.
E.g., the Tahitiansdo not experience the emotions of grief, longing, or
loneliness, so they have no words in their language to express these
emotions.
Thus, cultural variability in the presence or abs ence of emotion words has
been interpreted by some personality psychologists to mean that cultures
differ in the presence or absence of experiences of emotions.Are emotions
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136 The oldest/earliest evidence of cultural universals in emotions came from
Charles Darwin. In gathering evidence for his book on emotions, The
Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin (1872/1965) asked
anthropologists and travelers w ho interacted with peoples on five
continents to give detailed information about how the native people
expressed different emotions, such as grief, contempt, disgust, fear, and
jealousy. He summarized the answers he received as: "The same state of
mind is expressed throughout the world with remarkable uniformity; and
this fact is in itself interesting as evidence of the close similarity in bodily
structure and mental disposition of all the races of mankind".
Darwin's methods, crude by today's scientific sta ndards, but subsequent
research over the past few decades has confirmed his basic conclusions.
Psychologist Paul Ekman developed a set of photographs of people
expressing six basic emotions and then showed them to people in various
cultures (Ekman, 1973). Some cultures, such as the Fore foragers of New
Guinea, had had almost no contact with Westerners. The Fore spoke no
English, had seen no TV/movies, had never lived with Caucasians. He also
administered the tests to people in Japan, Brazil, Chile, Argentin a, and the
United States. Ekman asked each participant to label the emotion
expressed in each photograph and to make up a story about what the
person in the photograph had experienced. The six emotions —happiness,
sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise —were universally recognized
by people in the various cultures. These findings have been subsequently
replicated in other countries also. Further research by Ekman and his
colleagues has grown the list of universal emotions to include contempt,
embarrassme nt, and shame (Ekman, 1999).
Ekman also reversed the procedure. He then asked the Fore participants to
act out situations, such as "Your child has died" and "You are angry and
about to fight," and then photographed them. The emotions expressed in
these pho tographs were easily recognized by facial expressions and were
strikingly similar to the expressions of the same emotions seen in the
photographs of the Caucasian participants.
Further evidence for the universality, and possible evolutionary origins, of
these basic emotions comes from the research showing that children who
are blind from birth display the same facial expressions than those with
full sight display (Lazarus, 1991).
Pinker suggests that whether a language has a word for a particular
emotion or not matters little, if the question is whether people experience
the emotion in the same way: Tahitians are said not to have a word for
grief; however, "when a Tahitian woman says 'My husband died and I feel
sick,' her emotional state is hardly mysterious ; she is probably not
complaining about acid indigestion" (Pinker, 1997, p. 367). People
universally may experience the emotion of pleasure in an enemy's
misfortunes in the same way, even if all cultures do not have a single word
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137 The view that language is not necessary for people to experience emotions
may be contrasted with Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity, which
contends that language creates thought and experience. In the extreme
sense, the Whorfian hypothesis argues that the ideas that people can think
and the emotions they feel are constrained by the words that happen to
exist in their language and culture (Whorf, 1956).
The difference between experiencing an emotion and expressing that
emotion in public may be important to resolve this debate. Ekman (1973)
performed an experiment to explore the difference between the experience
of emotion and its expression in public. He secretly videotaped the facial
expressions of Japanese and American students when they wa tched a
graphic film of a primitive puberty rite involving genital mutilation. In one
condition, experimenter wearing a white lab coat was present in the room
(Public context). In another condition, the participants were alone. When
the experimenter was pr esent, the Japanese students smiled politely during
the film, but the American students expressed horror and disgust. If this
were the only condition conducted in the study, we might conclude that
Japanese and American students experience the emotion of di sgust
differently. When the students were filmed when they were alone in the
room viewing the film, both the Japanese and American students showed
equal horror. This result suggests that Japanese and American students
experience this emotion in the same wa y, even if they differ in their
expression of it in a more public setting.
Five- Factor Model of Personality:
A question is whether there is a universal structure of personality, such as
the five -factor model, or whether different factorial models exist in
different cultures. According to some, even the concept of personality
lacks universality. Hsu, for example, argues that "the concept of
personality is an expression of the Western ideal of individualism" (Hsu,
1985, p. 24). Shweder, a well -known cultural psychologist, argues that
"the data gathered from ... personality inventories lends illusory support to
the mistaken belief that individual differences can be described in
language consisting of context -free global traits, factors, or dimensions"
(Shweder , 1991, pp. 275 -276).
These views have been elaborated on: "Universal [personality] structure
does not by itself imply that 'personality' as understood within a European -
American framework is a universal aspect of human behavior . . . nor does
it imply tha t the variability that appears as an obvious feature of human
life is a function of attributes called 'personality'" (Markus & Kitayama,
1998, p. 67). Cultural anthropologist Lawrence Hirschfeld argues that "in
many, perhaps most, cultures there is a marke d absence of discourse that
explains human behavior in terms of trans -situationally stable motivational
(or intentional) properties captured by explanations of trait and
disposition" (Hirschfeld, 1995, p. 315).
What is reflected in all these quotations is a fundamental challenge to
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138 instead, is a local concept applicable only in Western cultures. The most
extreme perspective suggests that the very notion of personality, as an
internal set of psychological characteristics, is an arbitrary construction of
Western culture (Church, 2000). If this extreme position were really true,
then any attempt to identify and measure personality traits in non -Western
cultures would be doomed to failure (Church, 2000). At the other extreme
is the position that personality traits are universal and precisely the same
personality structure will emerge across cultures.
The first source of evidence bearing on this debate pertains to the
existence of trait ter ms in other cultures. Many non -Western psychologists
have, in fact, described trait -like concepts that are indigenous to non -
Western cultures and that appear strikingly like those that appear in
Western cultures. Following are some examples: the Filipino c oncepts of
pakikiramdam (sensitivity, empathy), pakikisama (getting along with
others); the Korean concept of chong (human affection); the Japanese
concept of amae (indulgent dependence), etc.
A second source of evidence on the debate concerns whether the same
factor structure of personality traits is found across cultures. The trait
perspective does not require the existence of precisely the same traits in all
cultures. The trait perspective might be extremely useful even if cultures
were to differ radica lly in terms of which trait dimensions they used.
Thesupport for the trait perspective across cultures would be there if the
structure of personality traits were found to be the same across cultures.
Two approaches have been taken to exploring this issue. In first, called the
"transport and test" strategy, Psychologists have translated existing
questionnaires into other languages and then have administered them to
native residents in other cultures. It has generated some findings
supporting the five -factor model. The five -factor model has now been
replicated in France, Holland, and the Philippines and in languages from
entirely different language families, (McCrae et al., 1998).
The most impressive was a massive study of 50 different cultures
(McCrae, Terrac ciano, et al., 2005b). This research, involving 11,985
participants, had college -age individuals rate someone they knew well
using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Factor analyses of these
observer -based ratings yielded the five -factor model, with on ly minor
variations in factor structure across cultures. This study is important in
suggesting that cross -cultural evidence for the five -factor model is not
limited to self -report data but extends to observer -based data also. Using
the transport and test s trategy, the five -factor structure of personality
appears to be general across cultures only it failed to emerge among those
with relatively low levels of intellectual ability.
A more powerful test of generalizabilitywould come from studies that start
out using indigenous personality dimensions first, then testing whether the
five-factor structure still emerges. This approach has been tried in Dutch,
German, Hungarian, Italian, Czech, and Polish (De Raad et al., 1998). The
trait terms in each of the langua ges were identified. Although the absolute
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139 percentage of words in each language that constituted trait terms was
remarkably consistent, averaging 4.4 percent of all dictionary entries . It is
similar to the Lexical Hypothesis - which states that the most important
individual differences have been encoded within the natural language.
The next step in the study was to reduce this list to a manageable number
of several hundred trait terms, identified as indigenous to each culture,
which could then be tested in each culture. Factor analyses of each sample
within each culture showed that there was tremendous replicability of four
of the five factors: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousn ess, and
Emotional Stability. Despite cross -cultural agreement on these four
factors, this study found some differences in what constituted the fifth
factor. As, in Polish and German, the fifth factor resembled the American
fifth factor of Intellect/Openne ss, in which Intelligent and imaginative
were on one end and dull and unimaginative at the other end.
Other languages, revealed different fifth factors. E.g.,in Dutch, the fifth
factor seemed more like a dimension of political orientation, ranging from
conservative at one end to progressive at the other.Recent cross -cultural
research using the lexical approach, has found strong evidence for six
factors, rather than five (Ashton et al., 2004; Saucier et al., 2005). The
new sixth factor —honesty -humility —indic ates a major discovery.
Thus, in summary, further indigenous tests are needed to determine
whether the five -factor trait model of personality structure is universal or
not. Based on the existing data, we can conclude trait terms appear to be
present in al l languages. Using more rigorous standard of instruments
developed indigenously, four of the five factors emerged consistently
across cultures. The fifth factor is somewhat variable across cultures and
therefore may reflect an important lack of universalit y of personality trait
structure.
8.2 STRESS, COPING, ADJUSTMENT AND HEALTH
AIDS: Its cause is a virus; its transmission is through specific behaviors.
For example, unsafe sex practices (e.g., not using condoms) and sharing
intravenous needles by drug addi cts. Psychologists are searching for the
best ways to change people's high -risk behavior. This is one example of
the importance of behavior in understanding illness. In earlier centuries,
most of the serious illnesses that afflicted humans were caused by m icrobe
infection, e.g., tuberculosis. As modern medicine developed effective
vaccines, these microbial diseases disappeared as major causes of death (at
least in the United States). Today, many of the leading causes of death and
disease are related to life style factors, such as smoking, poor diet,
inadequate exercise, and stress., Now we are curing microbial infections,
psychological factors have risen as important contributors to the
development of illness.
The fact that Psychological and behavioural facto rs can have important
health consequences has given rise to the field of Health Psychology.
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140 mind and the body, and the ways in which these two components respond
to challenges from the e nvironment (e.g., stressful events, germs) to lead
to either illness or health. Many of the psychological variables of interest
have to do with stable patterns of behavior —for example, whether a
person copes well with stress, exercises some or not at all, etc.
Life-span studies tell us that personality can have lifelong effects on
health, though the effects differ depending on the traits being considered
(Aldwin et al., 2001) or the specific health outcomes under investigation,
such as the cancer -prone pers onality characterized by being unassertive
and emotionally inhibited, the coronary -prone personality characterized by
being hostile and aggressive.
8.2.1 MODELS OF PERSONALITY -ILLNESS CONNECTION:
Stress is the subjective feeling produced by events that are not controllable
or threatening. It is important to understand that stress is a response to the
perceived demands in some situation. Stress is not in the situation; stress is
how people respond to a particular situation.
An early model of the personality health relationship, called the
interactional modelsuggests personality factors determine the impact of
objective events by influencing people's ability to cope. Personality has its
effects on coping responses —that is, on how people respond to the event.
It is called the interactional model because personality is thought to
moderate (influence) the relationship between stress and illness. Events
such as exposure to microbes or chronic stress cause illness, but
personality factors make a person more or less vulnerable to those events.
E.g., if a person were infected with a cold virus but had a hard -driving,
competitive personality, such that the person would not rest, would not
take time off from work, and would not do other behaviors necessary to
quickly rec over from a cold, this person could become very ill, with the
cold turning into pneumonia, because the person's personality influenced
how well he or she coped with the viral infection.
One limitation of the above model was that researchers could not find
stable coping responses that were adaptive or maladaptive. Then, this
model got developed into realistic model, Transactional model –
Personality has these effects: It can influence coping, it can influence how
the person appraises or interprets events, it can influence the events
themselves. In this model, we can see that it is not the event itself that
causes stress but how the event is appraised, or interpreted, by the person.
The third point on the transactional model at which personality can have
an im pact consists of the events themselves, i.e., people don't just respond
to situations; they also create situations through their choices and actions.
As we saw in earlier Unit, people choose to be in certain kinds of
situations, they evoke certain response s from others from those situations.
These two parts of the transactional model —appraisal and the person's
influence on events —are why the model is called transactional. These two
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141 perso ns; persons also influence events. And this influence comes through
the appraisal of events, as well as the selection and modification of events.
This reciprocal influence of persons and events makes this a more
complicated, though perhaps more realistic, model of how the process
actually works.
The Third model is Health Behaviour Model, adds another factor to
Transactional model.It says personality does not directly influence the
relationship between stress and illness. Instead, personality affects health
indirectly, byhealth -promoting or health -degrading behaviors. Everyone
knows that poor health behaviors, such as eating too much fat,
smoking,increase the risk of developing certain illnesses. Personality
affects the degree to which a person engages in var ious health -promoting
or health -degrading behaviors. E.g., individuals who are low in the trait of
conscientiousness engage in a variety of health damaging behaviors,
including smoking, unhealthy eating habits, dangerous driving, and lack of
exercise (Bogg & Roberts, 2004).
A fourth model is Predisposition model, is completely different and holds
that personality and illness are both expressions of an underlying
predisposition. It suggests that associations exist between personality and
illness because of a third variable, which is causing them both. E.g.,
enhanced sympathetic nervous system reactivity may be the cause of
further/subsequent illnesses, as well as the cause of the behaviors and
emotions that lead a person to be called neurotic.
The predisposit ion model has not been the topic of much study, though it
seems likely that this model will guide investigators interested in the
genetic basis of illnesses. Some genetic predispositions are expressed both
in terms of a stable individual difference and in terms of susceptibility to
specific illnesses (Bouchard et al., 1990). For example, some researchers
speculate that there is a genetic cause of novelty seeking (a trait like
sensation seeking) and that this genetic sequence also causes, or increases
the pr obability of a person more likely to develop, an addiction to drugs
(Cloninger, 1999). Consequently, the correlation between the novelty -
seeking personality trait and addiction to drugs such as cocaine, meth, or
heroin may be due to the reason that these t wo variables are both
independently caused by a third variable —genes. This simple model may
be useful as the human genome project progresses from mapping the
genome to understanding what specific genes control.
The final model is Illness -behaviour model - Illness is defined asthe
presence of an objectively measurable abnormal physiological process,
such as fever, high blood pressure, or a tumor. Illness behavior, is the
action that people take when they think they have an illness, such as
complaining to othe rs about their symptoms, going to a doctor, taking the
day off from school or work, or taking medication. Illness behaviors are
related to actual illnesses, but not perfectly. Some individuals may tough
out an illness, refusing to engage in illness behavio urs (e.g., refusing to
take the day off from work when ill). Other people engage in all sorts of
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142 Personality influences the degree to which a person perceives and pays
attention to bodily sensa tions and interprets and labels those sensations as
an illness. The way in which a person perceives and labels those
sensations, then, influences the person's illness behaviors, such as
reporting the symptoms and going to a doctor. E.g., the personality tr ait of
neuroticism is associated with a tendency to complain about physical
symptoms.
It is important to note that these models linking personality to physical
health are not mutually exclusive, i.e., they may all apply, depending on
the personality trait and the illness under consideration. E.g., hostility may
be associated with heart disease because it is a manifestation of the same
underlying process (the predisposition model), conscientiousness may
relate to illness through specific health behaviors (th e health behavior
model), and neuroticism may relate to ill health through its effects on
stress appraisal and stress exposure (the transactional model).
8.2.2 The Concept of Stress:
Events that cause stress are called stressors, also, appear to have seve ral
common attributes: 1. Stressors are extreme - They produce a state of
feeling overwhelmed or overloaded, that one just cannot take it much
longer, 2. Stressors often produce opposing tendencies, such as wanting
and not wanting an activity or object —as in wanting to study but also
wanting to put it off as long as possible, 3. Stressors are uncontrollable,
i.e., outside our power to influence, such as an exam we cannot avoid.
Stress response:
When a stressor appears, people experience a pattern of emotion al and
physiological reactions. You experience some startle, your heart beats
faster and your blood pressure goes up, and your palms and the soles of
your feet begin to sweat. This pattern of reaction has been called the fight -
or-flight response. This phys iological response is controlled by an increase
of sympathetic nervous system activity. These physiological reactions
prepare you for action such as running away, or holding a weapon.This
physiological response is usually very brief, and, if the stressor i s as minor
as someone honking a car horn to see you jump, then you return to your
normal state in a minute or so.
If, however, a person is exposed to a particular stressor day in and day out,
then this physiological fight -or-flight response is just the fir st step in a
chain of events termed the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) by Hans
Selye (1976), a pioneer in stress research. ALARM STAGE is Fight -or-
flight response of the sympathetic nervous system and the associated
peripheral nervous system reactions. They involverelease of hormones that
prepare the body for challenge. RESISTANCE STAGE occurs if the
stressor from the Alarm stage continues, The body is using its resources at
an above average rate, even though the immediate fight -or-flight response
has su bsided. At this point, stress is being resisted, but it is taking a lot of
effort and energy. EXHAUSTION STAGE occurs if the stressor still
continues, people enter into this stage. This is the stage in which a person munotes.in

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143 is most susceptible to illness, as his or her physiological resources are
depleted.
 MAJOR LIFE EVENTS:
Holmes and Rahe (1967) studied various major life events, that require
people to make major adjustments in their lives. Holmes and Rahe wanted
to estimate the potential stress value of a wide variety of life events. They
started with a long list of events such as the death of a family member,
loss of a job, or being put in jail. They then had a large number of subjects
rate each of the events for how much stress each was likely to provoke.
Each event was then associated with so many stress "points" and, by
counting up the events a person had experienced, and adding up the stress
points for all of those events, a good estimate of the amount of stress
experienced by that person could be achieved. They also developed
“Stressful event schedule." For high levels of stress, there are several
things you can do like monitoring for early signs of stress, recurring
stomachaches or headaches. Avoid negative thinking, pessimism, or
catastrophizing, Practicin g relaxation technique regularly. Consider your
friends and relatives for support.
Holmes and Rahe tallied up the stress points that each of the research
participants had accumulated in the prior year. They found that the persons
with the most stress point s were also the most likely to have a serious
illness during that year. This research was among the first systematic
demonstrations that elevated stress —a psychological phenomenon — was
associated with elevated risk of developing an illness.
Cohen, Tyrrell, and Smith (1997) obtained reports of stressful life events
for a group of volunteers and were able to score each participant along the
lines of Holmes and Rahe's criteria for stressful points for various events.
These researchers then tried to infect half of them with a cold by giving
them nose drops containing the cold virus. The other half of them were
given plain nose drops; they served as the control group in this
experiment. The participants with more negative life events in the
previous year like a l ot of stress, were more likely to develop a cold after
being given the cold virus than the participants who had fewer stressors in
life (Who were more resistant to cold virus).
The researchers interpreted this finding as consistent with the general
adaptat ion syndrome: persons under chronic stress eventually deplete
bodily resources and become vulnerable to microbial infections. Stress is
thought to reduce/lessen the functional ability of the immune system to
mount an effective response to the presence of m icrobes, thereby leading
to lowered immunity to infection and resulting illness.
 DAILY HASSLES:
Although only minor, daily hassles can be chronic and repetitive. E.g.,
having too much to do all the time, having to fight the crowds while
shopping, getting s tuck regularly in heavy traffic, waiting in lines all the
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144 be chronically irritating, though they do not initiate the same general
adaptation syndrome evoked by some major life events. People with a lot
of minor stress in their lives suffer more than expected from psychological
and physical symptoms.
 VARITIES OF STRESS:
Acute stress is what most people relate with the term stress. It results from
the sudden onset of demands and is experi enced as tension headaches,
emotional upsets, gastrointestinal disturbances, feelings of agitation, and
pressure.
Episodic acute stress is more serious, the repeated episodes of acute stress,
such as a weekend job that is stressful or having to meet a dead line each
month. It can lead to migraines, hypertension, stroke, anxiety, depression,
or serious gastrointestinal distress.
Traumatic stress refers to a massive instance of acute stress, the effects of
which can reverberate for years or even a lifetime (e. g., Bunce, Larsen, &
Peterson, 1995). Traumatic stress is different from acute stress in terms of
the symptoms associated with the stress response. This collection of
symptoms, called posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is a syndrome that
occurs in some persons following the experience of or witnessing life -
threatening events, such as military combat, natural disasters, terrorist
incidents, serious accidents, or violent personal assaults such as rape.
Thesymptoms can be severe enough and last long to sign ificantly impair
the person's daily life.
Chronic stress refers to stress that does not end. Chronic stress grinds us
down until our resistance is gone. Serious illnesses, such as diabetes,
decreased immune system functioning, or cardiovascular disease, re sult
from chronic stress.Health Psychologists believe and think that stress has
additive effects; i.e., the effects of stress add up and accumulate in a
person over time. Stress affects each person differently.
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY APPRAISAL:
According to psychologist Richard Lazarus (1991), for stress to be evoked
for a person, two cognitive events must occur. The first is primary
appraisal, is for the person to perceive that the event is a threat to his or
her personal goals. The second cognitive event, secondary appraisal, is
when the person concludes that he or she does not have the resources to
cope with the demands of the threatening event. If either of these
appraisals is absent —then stress is not evoked.E.g., if an event, such as an
upcoming exam, i s perceived as threatening to someone's goals, yet the
person feels he or she has the resources demanded by that event (i.e.,
person has been studying and otherwise preparing for the exam), then the
person might experience the event more as a challenge tha n as stress. Or,
the person might feel he or she does not have the resources demanded by
the event (secondary appraisal) but might not think that the event is very
important to his or her long -term goals (primary appraisal) and, so, might
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8.2.3 COPING STRATEGIES AND STYLES: Some people seem better
able to cope, to get over stressful events, or to somehow see such events as
challenges rather than as sources of stress.
 ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE:
Attributional style is a dispositional way o f describing/explaining the
causes of bad events. "Where does the person typically place the blame
when things go wrong?" The threedimensions of attribution are external
versus internal, unstable versus stable, and specific versus global. Various
measures have been developed for assessing people's typical attributional
style. One such measure is the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ),
developed by psychologist Chris Peterson and his colleagues (1982).
Anothertechnique for scoring attributional style is by analyzing the
content of people's written or spoken explanations. It is possible to find
these explanations in verbatim material and to rate them along the
attributional dimensions of internality, stability, and globality. This
technique for measuring attributional style was also developed by Peterson
and his colleagues (1992), who called it the Content Analysis of Verbatim
Explanations (CAVE). The CAVE technique has an advantage of allowing
the researcher to study participants who are either not availa ble or not
willing to participate in typical research, provided that such participants
have made public some material involving causal explanations.
Peterson, who has done a great deal of research on attributional style, now
prefers the term optimism to re fer to this individual difference construct
(Peterson, 2000). Persons who make stable, global, and internal
explanations for bad events are seen as pessimists, whereas persons who
make unstable, specific, and external explanations for bad events are seen
as optimists. Optimism/pessimism is viewed as a trait -like dimension
along which people differ. Optimists think/believe that life events are
unstable and specific and that what they do actually influences outcomes
in life. Pessimists, believe that they are helpless when it comes to bad
events, that bad events have long -lasting causes that adversely affect many
aspects of their lives (i.e., they blow things out of proportion). Pessimists
believe that their behaviour is not related to outcomes in their lives.
Researchers emphasize dispositional optimism as the expectation that
good events will be plentiful in the future, and that bad events will be rare
in the future. Another concept related to optimism, called self -efficacy,
was developed by Bandura (1986). It is the belief that one can do the
behaviors necessary to achieve a desired outcome.
Optimists also perceive that they are at lower risk for such negative events
than the average person is. Most people generally underestimate their
risks, the average pers on rating his or her risk as below what is the true
probability. This has been called as the optimistic bias, and it may actually
lead people in general to ignore or minimize the risks inherent in life or to
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146  OPTIMISM AND P HYSICAL WELL -BEING:
Optimism in general has been shown to predict good health as measured
by self -report, ratings of general health made by the participants'
physicians, immune system functioning, longer life (Carver et al., 1993;
Scheier & Carver, 1992; S cheier et al., 1999). It is found to correlate with
a number of positive health behaviors, such as exercising regularly,
avoiding fatty foods, drinking only in moderation or not at all, etc.
The correlations between optimism and health or health behaviors tend to
run between .20 and .30.Peterson and colleagues (1998) examined more
than 1,000 individuals over almost a 50 -year period. The researchers
found that the participants who scored in the more pessimistic direction
were more likely to die at an earlier age than the optimistic participants
were. They thought that the biggest difference s might be in deaths due to
cancer and heart disease, and they predicted that pessimists would have
more of these lethal medical problems. This was not the case as they fo und
that the real difference between the optimists and pessimists, in terms of
the causes of death, was in the frequency of accidents and violent deaths,
with pessimists having more accidental deaths and deaths due to violent
causes, resulting in a general ly shorter life span, than that of the optimists.
This effect was strong for the men in this sample.
Pessimists, specially male pessimists, have a habit of being in the wrong
place at the wrong time. This research does not actually tell us specifically
what the participants were doing when they accidentally or violently died.
The link between pessimism and a greater likelihood of mishaps appeared
to be due to a preference for potentially hazardous situations and activities
on the part of pessimists to escap e gloomy mood. Because of optimism' s
obvious health benefits, psychologist Marty Seligman and his colleague s
are attempting to develop therapeutic ways to increase people' s level of
optimism (2002; Seligman & Peterson, 2003).Seligman has introduced a
"pessimism prevention" program for use in grade schools.
 MANAGEMENT OF EMOTIONS:
We sometimes try to inhibit the expressions of negative emotions under
certain circumstances and that is called emotional inhibition. Are there any
Major consequences of inhibi ting one’s emotions? Some theorists suggest
that it leads to undesirable consequences. For example, Sigmund Freud
believed that most psychological problems were the result of inhibited
negative emotions and motivations, pushing undesirable wishes and
impul ses in the unconscious. i.e., repression and the other defense
mechanisms are mechanisms of preventing an unacceptable emotion from
surfacing and being directly experienced and expressed.
Psychoanalytic therapy, or as called the “Expressive therapy” (As th eir
goal was to get person release inhibited feelings), was designed to bring
unconscious emotion into conscious awareness, so that the emotion could
be experienced and expressed in a mature manner.The therapeutic
relationship was seen as a place to experi ence and express emotions that
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147 The ability to inhibit emotions is acquired at an early age, at around 3
years, and is a major developmental achievement. What are the effects of
chronically inhibited emotions? Psychologists James Gr oss and Robert
Levenson (1993, 1997; Gross, 2002) designed studies in which some of
the participants were asked to suppress the expression of any emotions
they were feeling while they watched a video designed to generate the
emotions of happiness (a comedy routine), then sadness (scenes from the
funeral of a child, showing a distraught and highly emotional mother).
Half were assigned to suppression condition and other half were assigned
to no -suppression condition.While the participants watched the video, t he
researchers videotaped them to determine how much they expressed their
emotions while watching it and they also asked participants to report their
feelings after each segment of the video.
It was found that the participants who were instructed to suppre ss their
emotions showed increased levels of physiological arousal, even before
the video began, compared with the no -suppression participants, meaning,
they were preparing for the effort necessary to suppress their
emotions.They showed heightened physiolo gical activity during the video,
indicating increased sympathetic nervous system arousal, compared with
the no -suppression participants. The researchers suggested that
suppression of emotion takes effort and exerts physiological costs above
and beyond the emotional arousal. The participants in the suppression
condition displayed less outward expression of emotion than did the
control participants.The participants who suppressed the emotion reported
slightly less amusement in the amusement condition, but not less sadness
in the sadness condition, compared with the no -suppression participants.
Gross and John (2003) showed that the suppression of negative emotions,
was also associated with diminished positive emotions later in the
experiment. Butler et al. (200 3)showed that people who suppressed their
negative emotions had worse interpersonal relations and lower levels of
well-being than the more expressive persons. They said that by not
expressing themselves, suppressors disrupt what is a normal form of
communi cation.
Brain areas associated with the successful regulation of negative
emotionswere mainly in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This frontal part
of the brain, involved in planning and executive control, is active when
people are controlling their em otions.
Problems can arise when someone who chronically and characteristically
inhibits the free expression of emotion may suffer the effects of chronic
sympathetic nervous system arousal.For example, Levy and colleagues
(1985) have shown that people who keep their negative emotions to
themselves are more likely than expressive persons to have a higher
mortality rate, a greater probability of recurrence of cancer after treatment,
and a suppressed immune system. It also has been found that cancer
patients w ho express their negative emotions and emotionally fight their
disease, sometimes live longer than patients who accept their situation,
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148 also found that emotional expressiveness correl ated with higher levels of
happiness over the three weeks, lower levels of anxiety and guilt, fewer
problems in relationships when partners express their emotions, etc.
 DISCLOSURE:
Disclosure is telling someone about a private aspect of oneself.
Psychologi st James Pennebaker has been a pioneer in researching the
effects of disclosure. In his studies, he asks participants to think of an
upsetting or traumatic event that has happened to them, something they
have not discussed with anyone. Then, he asks them t o write down these
secrets. Pennebaker argues that not discussing traumatic, negative, or
upsetting events can result in problems. It requires physical energy to
inhibit the thoughts and feelings associated with such events. Thus, it is
not easy to keep a secret to ourselves, and keeping something in,
especially if it is a major trauma, is upsetting and takes a lot of energy.
Over time, this stress builds and, like all stress, can increase the likelihood
of stress -related problems, such as trouble sleeping, irritability, physical
symptoms (e.g., stomachaches and headaches), and even illness resulting
from lowered immune system functioning. Telling the secret, relieves this
stress. Confronting the traumatic memory by telling someone or even
writing about it f rees the person from the work of keeping the secret.
In a study (Pennebaker & O'Heeron, 1984), researchers contacted
participants who had lost a spouse through accident or suicide. Such a
sudden and complete loss of a loved one through an unexpected and
traumatic death must have a huge impact on the surviving spouse. The
survivorswere asked how much they discussed the tragedy with friends,
family, or other helping professionals, as a priest, minister, or therapist.
Researchers also did a thorough assessment of the survivors' health since
the death of the spouse. They found, the more the participants had talked
about the tragedy with others, the better their subsequent health. Those
who kept the trauma to themselves tended to suffer more health problems
than those who disclosed their feelings to others.
In another research, one group was asked to recall and write about an
experience that they found distressing. The other group was asked to write
about a trivial topic, such as what they normally ate for breakfa st. The
students wrote about their assigned topic for 15 minutes each night for
four consecutive nights. The participants writing about the traumatic event
reported feeling more distress and discomfort while writing, and measures
of blood pressure taken wh ile writing suggested they were feeling more
stress than was the trivial topic group. Six months later, the participant’s
health history was obtained. Students who had written about a trauma for
four days had had fewer illnesses in the next six months, com pared to
those who had written about trivial topics. Just the mere act of writing
about an upsetting event, even if no one ever reads the writing, may have a
beneficial effect on health.
People who keep unpleasant information about themselves as a secret a re
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149 someone. Being open to others with our feelings may be curative, and one
reason why talk therapy may workis because through it we uncover secrets
and reveal what we have been keeping t o ourselves.
How does disclosure promote healthy adjustment? Pennebaker's first
theory of the mechanism concerned the relief that results from telling a
secret.It basically says that disclosure reduces the cost of having to inhibit
this information. Penneb aker has put forward a second explanation. It
concerns how writing about an event allows a person to reinterpret and
reframe the meaning of that event. A person writing or talking about a past
traumatic event can try to better understand that event, search for some
positive meaning in the event (the silver lining that is in every cloud), and
can integrate that event into her or his current situation.
8.2.4 TYPE A AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE:
In the 1970s, physicians began to consider a new risk factor, a sp ecific
personality trait. This grew out of the observation by some physicians that
the patients who had had heart attacks often behaved differently, and they
seemed to have different personalities, compared with other patients. The
heart attack patients we re more frequently competitive and aggressive,
more active and energetic in their actions and speaking, and more
ambitious and driven (Friedman & Rosenman, 1974). They called this
cluster/collection of behaviors the Type A personality.
One thing to keep in mind is that Type A and Type B personalities are not
categorical variables, but, dimensional variables, ranging from one
extreme to the other, with most people falling somewhere around the
middle.. It is distributed normally, not as a category variable.
Type A is a syndrome of several traits. It is a collection of three sub -traits.
One is competitive achievement motivation. They like to work hard and
achieve goals. These people like recognition, power, the defeat of
obstacles and feel that they are at thei r best when competing with others.
The second subtrait is time urgency. Type A persons hate wasting time
and are always in a hurry and feel under pressure to get the most done in
the least amount of time. They do two things at once, quite often, such as
eat while reading a book. Red lights are their enemies, and they hate to
wait in line for anything. The third subtrait is hostility. When blocked
from attaining their goals, which means frustration, Type A persons can be
hostile and aggressive. They get frus trated easily, and this frustration can
make them act in an unfriendly or in a malicious manner.
Early researches on the Type A personality found that it was an
independent risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease. An
independent risk factor opera tes independently from other known risk
factors, such as being overweight or smoking.
Physicians conducted most of the early researcheson Type A personality,
and to they developed a structured interview to measure this personality
variable. The interviewe r was very interested in the behavior of the
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150 the interviewer or put words in interviewer’s mouth? Did they fidget? Did
they vigorous gestures with their hands and heads frequently? In one part
of the interview, the interviewer tries/aims to aggravate the participants by
talking very slowly. Type A people are especially aggravated when other
people talk slowly, and Type A people interrupt, talk out of turn, or finish
sentences for peo ple in order to speed them up.
As research on Type A personality gained momentum in the 1980s,
researchers tried to devise a more efficient measure as interviews take a lot
of time to measure each participant. Hence, they began using
questionnaires as they are much cheaper because they are generally faster,
as they can be given to whole groups of people, and one person can assess
100 or more persons at a time. One of the most widely used questionnaire
measure of Type A personality is - Jenkins Activity Surv ey.
In the beginning, researchers using the structured interview often found a
relationship between Type A personality and risk for heart attack and
cardiovascular disease. Later,using the Jenkins questionnaire, often failed
to replicate this finding. Thi s puzzled researchers for several years.
Researchers using the questionnaire measure were less likely to find a
relationship between Type A and heart disease than the studies using the
structured interview (Suls & Wan, 1989; Suls, Wan, & Costa, 1996).
Researchers have reached to the conclusion that the questionnaire measure
taps into different aspects of Type A behavior than does the structured
interview measures. The structured interview taps more on the lethal
component of Type A. But, what component of Type A behaviour is lethal
and related to heart disease?
 HOSTILITY: THE LETHAL COMPONENT OF TYPE A
BEHAVIOUR PATTERN:
As researchers began to use the questionnaires more and more, evidence
began to accumulate, showing that general Type A personality did no t
predict heart disease.After comparing the interviews with the
questionnaires and learned that the interview method tapped more of the
hostility component than the questionnaire method. Researchers began to
test the hypothesis that it was really the more specific trait of hostility,
rather than the general syndrome of Type A personality, that was the
better predictor of heart disease.
People who were high in hostilityare likely to react disagreeably to
disappointments, frustrations, and inconveniences. Fru stration is the
subjective feeling that comes when you are blocked from an important
goal. They are easily irritated, even by small frustrations, become visibly
upset, sometimes even becoming rude and uncooperative or even
antagonistic. Several studies hav e now established that hostility is a strong
predictor of cardiovascular disease.Psychologists Dembrowski and Costa
have demonstrated that even a questionnaire measure of the specific trait
of hostility is a better predictor of artery disease than are ques tionnaire
measures of Type A. Recent studies have also shown that hostility is
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Domain - II
151 leukocyte counts, also known as white blood cell counts (Surtees et al.,
2003). Thus, the correlation with hostility, while not large, was
statistically significant and remained so even after accounting for known
risk factors for chronic inflammation, such as age, sex, smoking history,
and alcohol intake. Chronic inflammation may be the pathway of how
hostility is linked to the health endpoint of cardiovascular disease.
 HOW ARTERIES ARE DAMAGED BY HOSTILE TYPE A
BEHAVIOUR:
Strong feelings of hostility and aggression produce the fight -or-flight
response. This response involves an increase in blood pressure,
accom panied by a constriction of the arteries, plus an increase in heart rate
and in the amount of blood pumped out with each heartbeat. The person's
body suddenly pumps more blood through smaller arteries. These changes
can lead to wear and tear on the inside lining of the arteries, causing
microscopic tears and abrasions. These abrasions then become
sites/locations at which cholesterol and fat can become attached. Stress
hormones released into the blood during the fight -or-flight response may
lead to artery da mage and subsequent buildup of fatty deposits on the
artery walls causing the arteries become progressively narrower. This is
called arteriosclerosis, or hardening or blocking of the arteries. When the
arteries that feed the heart muscle are blocked, the s ubsequent shortage of
blood to the heart is called a heart attack.
8.3 SUMMARY
In this unit we began by understanding what is cultural personality
Psychology. We looked at the three major approaches to studying culture:
Evocation, Transmitted culture and C ultural Universals. We also tried to
understand how cooperation and mating strategies have evoked and how
culture affects self -concepts, self -enhancement behaviours, etc. (Aspects
of Transmitted culture). We also saw various models that explain the
illness -behaviour relationship. Then, we tried to figure out what is stress,
how daily hassles and major life events cause stress. There we also saw
varieties of stress and primary and secondary appraisal. Under coping
strategies or strategies to deal with stress , we saw attributional style,
optimism, management of emotions and disclosure. Then, finally, we
looked at what is Type A Behaviour, how hostility as a Type A component
particularly is related to lethality or cardiovascular disease and how
arteries are dam aged by hostile, Type A behaviour.
8.4 QUESTIONS
A) Write long answers:
a) Explain transmitted culture as an approach to exploring cultural
Personality Psychology.
b) Explain cultural universals as an approach to exploring cultural
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152 c) Explai n the models of Personality -Illness connection and the concept
of stress.
d) Explain the relation between Type A personality and cardiovascular
disease.
B) Write short notes:
a) Explain attributional style and optimism and physical well -being as
coping strategie s.
b) How does disclosure help to cope with stress?
c) Explain evoked culture and evoked cooperation as a related concept.
d) Explain cultural differences in self -concept.
8.5 REFERENCES
1. Buss D. M. & Larsen R. J. (2009). Personality Psychology: Domains
of Knowledge Abo ut Human Nature (4th ed.). NJ: McGraw ‐Hill
Humanities.
2. Myers, D. G. (2013). Psychology . (10thed.). Customized edition for
Mumbai University. Macmillan Publishers India Ltd.

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