Personality types and traits

Tema	Anglų kalba
Tipas	Topikas
Aprašymas	Personality psychology seeks to describe and to explain individual differences and to synthesize the many the many processes that can influence an individual’s interactions with his or her environment. The study of personality is the most ambitious and the oldest subfield of psychology.
Patalpinta	2005-05-09
Parsisiuntė	356
	Parsisiųsti6 KB

Išsamus aprašymas

In 400 B.C., Hippocrates suggested that there were four basic personality types, associated with the four bodily humors.
• An excess of black bile produces the melancholic (depressed) type;
• An excess of yellow bile produces the choleric (irritable) type;
• Blood produces the sanguine (optimistic) type;
• And phlegm produces the phlegmatic (calm, stolid) type.
A more differentiated typology was published by Theophrastus (372-287B.C.). He proposed a set of 30 personality types. Each of them began with a brief definition of the dominant characteristic of the type and then described several behaviors typical of the type. Among his characters were the Liar, the Tasteless Man, the Flatterer and the Penurious Man.
Body physique has also been a popular basis for personality typologies. The idea that body build and personality characteristics are related is reflected in such popular stereotypes as “fat people are jolly” or “skinny people are intellectuals”. In the 1940s the American physician William Sheldon reported correlations between three bodily physiques, called somatotypes, and temperament.
• The endomorphic somatotype looks soft and round and has a relaxed, sociable temperament.
• The mesomorphic somatotype is muscular and athletic; the main features of his temperament are energy, assertiveness, and courage.
• Ectomorphic (tall and thin somatotype has a restrained, fearful, introverted, artistic temperament.
However, Sheldon’s evidence was not very strong and the possibility that his temperament rating simply reflected popular stereotypes was left.
Although most contemporary psychologists do not consider somatotyping useful, some have continued to refine the system and to present confirming data.
All these theories are called type theories because they propose that individuals can be categorized into discrete types that are qualitatively different from one another. Typologies have been useful in many other sciences as chemistry (the periodic chart of the elements), biology (concepts of a species and of sex). Netherless, psychological type theories of personality are currently not very popular. The very simplicity that makes them appealing (patrauklus) also makes them less capable of capturing the complexity and variability of human personality. So in a few words: the typologies of personality have been rejected for the wrong reasons and their virtues have been overlooked.
The typologies comprise (apima) discontinuous (nutrūkstantis, netolydus) categories like male and female, and the traits are conceived (suprantamas) of as continuous dimensions. Sheldon, rather than categorizing body physiques into one of three pure types, rated them on three dimensions, using 7-point rating scales. For example the man who get 2-7-4 would be low on endomorphy, high on mesomorphy and moderate on ectomorphy. More generally, trait theories of personality assume that persons vary simultaneously on a number of personality dimensions or scales. We might rate an individual on scales of intelligence, emotional stability, aggressiveness and so on. Actually we are all trait theorists, when we informally describe ourselves and others with such adjectives as “aggressive”, “cautious”, “excitable”, “intelligent” and so on.
Trait psychologists attempt to go beyond our everyday trait conceptions of personality, however. Specifically, they seek
• to arrive at a manageably small set of trait descriptors that can encompass the diversity of human personality
• to craft ways of measuring personality traits reliably and validly and
• to discover the relationships among traits and between traits and specific behaviors.

Raktiniai žodžiai

• personality types and traits
• trait conceptions of personality
• personality types