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CHAPTER OUTLINE
LEARNING OBJECTIVESINTRODUCTIONWHAT IS PERSONALITY?PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES – FREUD AND BEYOND
Freud’s models ofthe mindIn the wake ofFreud
HUMANISTIC THEORIES – INDIVIDUALITY
The drive to fulfil potentialUnderstanding our own psychological world
TRAIT THEORIES – ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY
Cattell’s 16 trait dimensionsEysenck’s supertraitsFive factors ofpersonality Trait debates
BIOLOGICAL AND GENETIC THEORIES – THE WAY WE ARE MADE
Inhibition and arousalGenetics vs. environment
SOCIAL–COGNITIVE THEORIES – INTERPRETING THE WORLD
Encodings – or how we perceive eventsExpectancies and the importance ofself-efficacy  Affects – how we feelGoals, values and the effects ofrewardCompetencies and self-regulatory plans
FINAL THOUGHTSSUMMARYREVISION QUESTIONSFURTHER READING
Personality
14
 
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter you should appreciate that:
n
personality theorists are concerned with identifying generalizations that can be made about consistent individualdifferences between people’s behaviour and the causes and consequences of these differences;
n
Sigmund Freud developed a psychoanalytic approach that emphasized the role of the unconscious in regulatingbehaviour;
n
Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck proposed traits as descriptors that we use to describe personality and thathave their origins in everyday language;
n
biological theories of personality attempt to explain differences in behaviour in terms of differences in physiology,particularly brain function;
n
research in behavioural genetics has permitted the examination of both genetic and environmental factors inpersonality;
n
social–cognitive theories of personality examine consistent differences in the ways people process socialinformation, allowing us to make predictions about an individual’s behaviour in particular contexts.
You do not need to be a psychologist to speculateabout personality. In our everyday conversationswe refer to the personality traits of people weknow. Novels, playwrights and filmmakers makeconstant use of the personality of key figures intheir stories, and this is one of the great attrac-tions of popular fiction. The term ‘personality’ isnow part of everyday language, and theories of personality are generated by all of us every timewe answer the question, ‘What is she or he like?’As a branch of psychology, personality theorydates back to the beginning of the twentieth cen-tury and the psychoanalytic approach of SigmundFreud. During the last century a number of differ-ent approaches have developed:
n
trait approaches (G.W. Allport, 1937; Cattell,1943; Eysenck, 1947);
n
biological and genetic approaches (Eysenck,1967, 1990; Plomin, 1986; Plomin et al.,1997);
n
phenomenological approaches (Kelly, 1955;Rogers 1951);
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behavioural and social learning approaches(Bandura, 1971; Skinner, 1953); and
n
social–cognitive approaches (Bandura, 1986;Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Mischel, 1973).This chapter focuses on trait, biological andgenetic, and social–cognitive approaches, provid-ing a representative account of current researchactivity. We will also look at psychoanalytic andhumanistic approaches for an insight into thebeginning and history of personality theory.
INTRODUCTION
 
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Personality
we can predict how our friends will behave, and we expect themto behave in a recognizably similar way from one day to the next.Child (1968) includes consistency (within an individual) anddifference (between individuals) in his definition, and Allport(1961) refers to characteristic patterns of behaviour within anindividual. These are also important considerations. So personal-ity is what makes our actions, thoughts and feelings consistent (or relatively consistent), and it is also what makes us different fromone another.By the early years of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud(1856–1939) had begun to write about psychoanalysis, whichhe described as ‘a theory of the mind or personality, a method of investigation of unconscious process, and a method of treatment’(1923/62).Central to a psychoanalyticapproach is the concept of 
unconscious mental processes
 – the idea that unconsciousmotivations and needs have arole in determining our behaviour. This approach also emphasizesthe irrational aspects of human behaviour and portrays aggres-sive and sexual needs as having a major impact on personality.
F
REUD
’
SMODELSOFTHEMIND
Freud developed a number of hypothetical models toshow how the mind (or whathe called the
 psyche
) works:
n
a
topographic model of the psyche
 – or how themind is organized;
n
a
structural model of the psyche
 – or how person-ality works; and
n
a
 psychogenetic model of development 
 – or howpersonality develops.
Topographic model ofthe psyche 
Freud (1905/53b) argued that the mind is divided into the con-scious, the preconscious and the unconscious. According to Freud, the conscious is the part of the mind thatholds everything you are currently aware of. The preconsciouscontains everything you could become aware of but are notcurrently thinking about. The unconscious is the part of themind that we cannot usually become aware of. Freud saw the
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES –FREUD AND BEYOND
In 400 BC, Hippocrates, a physician and a very acute observer,claimed that different personality types are caused by the balanceof bodily fluids. The terms he developed are still sometimes usedtoday in describing personality. Phlegmatic (or calm) people werethought to have a higher concentration of phlegm; sanguine (or optimistic) people had more blood; melancholic (or depressed)people had high levels of black bile; and irritable people had highlevels of yellow bile.Hippocrates’ views about the biological basis of personality areechoed in contemporary theories that link the presence of brainchemicals such as noradrenaline and serotonin to mood and behaviour.But how do we define ‘personality’? Within psychology twoclassic definitions are often used:
Personality is a dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psy-chophysical systems that create the person’s characteristic pat-terns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings.
G.W. Allport, 1961
More or less stable, internal factors...make one person’s beha-viour consistent from one time to another, and different from the behaviour other people would manifest in comparable situations.
Child, 1968
Both these definitions emphasize that personality is an internalprocess that guides behaviour. Gordon Allport (1961) makes thepoint that personality is psychophysical, which means both phys-ical and psychological. Recent research has shown that biologicaland genetic phenomena do have an impact on personality. Child(1968) makes the point that personality is stable – or at least rela-tively stable. We do not change dramatically from week to week,
WHAT IS PERSONALITY?
Figure 14.1
Jekyll-and-Hyde personality changes are, thankfully, extremely rare.
unconscious mental processes
pro-cesses in the mind that people are notnormally aware of 
topographic model of the psyche
Freud’s model of the structure of themind
structural model of the psyche
Freud’smodel ofhow the mind works
psyche
psychoanalytic term meaning ‘mind’
psychogenetic model of develop-ment
Freud’s model of personality development
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