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THE JOURNEY OF ADULTHOOD

Barbara R. Bjorklund

PERSONALITY

Chapter 8

Personality

Personality: relatively enduring set of

characteristics that define our individuality

and affect our interactions with the

environment.

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Personality Structures

Personality traits and factors

Differential continuity

Mean-level change

Intra-individual variability

Personality Traits and Factors

Personality traits: consistent patterns of

thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Personality states: short-term characteristics of

person.

Personality factors: group of traits that occur

together in an individual.

Five-Factor Model

McCrae and Costa: Five-factor model

1. Neuroticism

2. Agreeableness

3. Conscientiousness

4. Extraversion

5. Openness

Self-report technique may lead to biased

responding.

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Differential Continuity

Differential continuity: stability of individuals’

rank order within a group over time.

Personality traits remain stable during

childhood and throughout adulthood,

increasing steadily through age 50.

Intra-Individual Variability

Intra-individual variability: refers to degree to

which individual’s personality traits remain

stable over time.

Variability in rate and direction of change for

individuals.

Mean-Level Change

• Mean-level change: changes in a group’s

average scores over time.

• Personality does change predictability with

age and continues to change to at least age 92.

• Patterns relatively independent of gender and

cultural influences.

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What do you think?

Can personality be changed

intentionally?

Continuity, Change, and Variability

Continuity, change and variability co-exist.

Research varies in terms of stability or change

over time.

Generally, some people change over time, and

some do not.

What do personality traits do?

Define human uniqueness.

Shape personality by cultivating relationships;

striving and achieving; and maintaining and

promoting health.

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Personality and Relationships

Personality traits important in development of

intimate adult relationship.

People high in neuroticism:

• seek people with similar trait;

• meet partner’s negative behavior with further

escalation; and

• evoke certain behaviors from other partners.

Personality and Job Achievement

Personality traits within conscientiousness are

most important predictors of work-related

markers of achievement.

Traits include competence, order, dutifulness,

and self-discipline.

How do conscientiousness traits affect

job achievement?

1. People choose niches that fit their

personality traits.

2. Conscientious people are singled out, given

jobs, and promoted.

3. Non-conscientious people leave high

achievement jobs.

4. Conscientious people do jobs better.

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Personality and Health

Personality is related to health and

longevity.

Give two examples to substantiate this

claim.

Explanations of Continuity and

Change

Genetics

Environmental influences

Evolutionary influences

Explanations of Continuity and

Change in Adult Personality Traits

Behavior Genetics and Personality Traits

• Genes determine our personalities to a large

degree.

• Heritability of 5 major personality factors.

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Figure 8.4: Monozygotic twins’ scores for five

personality factors show higher correlations than

scores for dizygotic twins, showing that there is a

genetic influence for personality structures.

Explanations of Continuity and

Change in Adult Personality Traits

Environmental Influences on Personality Traits

Person-environment transactions serve to maintain

personality trait consistency.

• Reactive transactions

• Evocative transactions

• Proactive transactions

• Manipulative transactions

Explanations of Continuity and

Change in Adult Personality Traits

Evolutionary Psychology and Personality

Traits

• Traits are based on basic social groups our

early ancestors lived in.

• Differences in personality and the ability to

perceive them have been important to the

survival of our species.

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Psychosocial Development

Identity

Intimacy

Generativity

Ego integrity

Theories of Personality Development

Erik Erikson:

• The most influential theory on adult

development.

• Psychosocial development continues over entire

life span.

• Development follows a universal sequence.

• Successful identity development involves

resolving eight crises or dilemmas.

Identity

To achieve identity, young person:

• Develops specific ideology.

• Develops set of personal values and goals.

• Develops several linked identities.

If identity is not achieved, role confusion

occurs.

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Intimacy

To achieve intimacy, adolescent:

• Fuses identity with someone else without fear.

• Failure to achieve intimacy results in isolation.

Generativity

To achieve generativity, adult:

• Is successful in procreation, productivity, and

creativity.

When generativity is not achieved, adult is self-

absorbed or experiences a sense of stagnation.

Ego-Integrity

If ego integrity is achieved, older adult:

• Finds meaning and integration in life review.

• Resolves conflicts.

• Demonstrates wisdom.

If ego integrity is not achieved, despair

emerges.

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Erikson’s Stage V for Two Cohorts

Loevinger’s Theory of Ego

Development

• The most influential theory on adult

development.

• Psychosocial development continues over entire

life span.

• Development follows a universal sequence.

• Successful identity development involves

resolving eight crises or dilemmas.

Mature Adaptation: Vaillant

• Accepts Erikson’s stages as basic framework for

development.

• Focuses on direction of growth or development.

• Major form of adaptation is the defense

mechanism.

• Developed Defensive Functioning Scale.

• Focuses on progress adults make towards higher

levels of maturity.

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Gender Crossover

Gender crossover: gender characteristics are

accentuated during young adulthood and

relaxed in middle and old age to allow some

“other gender” characteristics to emerge.

Age presents gain in personal freedom and new

roles.

Positive Well-Being

Maslow

• Grew out of psychoanalytic theory.

• Development of motives or needs.

• Deficiency motives: instincts or drives to

correct imbalance or maintain physical or

emotional homeostasis.

• Being motives: distinctly human motives.

Maslow’s Hierarchy

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Self-Actualization

Highest level of Maslow hierarchy.

Being motive that emerges only when all four

types of deficiency needs are largely satisfied.

Peak Experiences

Peak experiences: feelings of perfection and

momentary separation of self when one feels

in unity with universe.

Only achieved in self-actualized people.

Positive Psychology

Positive psychology: humanist psychological

approach that focuses on valued subjective

experiences and positive individual traits.

--Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi

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Self-Determination Theory

Self-determination theory: personality is based

on individuals’ evolved inner resources for

growth and integration.

• Eudaimonia—sense of integrity and well-being

(like Maslow’s self-actualization).

• Hedonia—happiness that involves presence of

positive feelings and absence of negative feelings.

--Ryan and Deci

Ryan and Deci: Competence,

Autonomy, and Relatedness

Competence: feelings of effectiveness as one

interacts with one’s environment.

Autonomy: need to feel that our actions are done

by our own volition.

Relatedness: feeling of being connected to,

cared about, and belonging with significant

others in our lives.

Chapter Review

1. Early ideas about adult _____ were based on

grand theories of development that were

popular and enthusiastically endorsed but not

empirically tested and validated.

2. One of the first methods of testing and

validating ideas about personality was the

_____approach, in which a small number of

trait structures were identified through factor

analysis.

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Chapter Review

3. _____has been found for the major five

factors of personality through childhood and

adulthood. People tend to keep their rank

orders within groups regardless of gender.

4. What happens to personality traits as people

get older? We become more agreeable and

conscientious, less neurotic and open. This

seems to be true regardless of _____ and

gender.

Chapter Review

5. Personality trait structures can be stable in

some ways (_____) and change in others

(_____).

6. _____traits are related to the development of

intimate relationships, career success, and

health in adulthood.

Chapter Review

7. The five major personality structures have a

significant _____component, but there are

mixed findings about the primary factors.

8. _____psychologists argue that personality

traits give us important survival cues about

the people in our environment, and as a

result, have been selected for throughout our

evolutionary history.

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Chapter Review

9. _____’s theory of psychosocial development states

that personality development takes place in distinct

stages over the life span.

10. _____’s theory of ego development states that

adults make their way along the incline from one

stage to the other, but don’t have to complete the

whole progression.

Chapter Review

11._____’s theory of mature adaptation is based

on levels of defense mechanisms-normal,

unconscious strategies we use for dealing

with anxiety.

12._____’s theory of gender crossover explains

that young adults strive to display

accentuated gender traits to attract mates and

raise children.

Chapter Review

13._____’s theory of self-actualization consists

of stages of a sort, in the form of a needs

hierarchy, with the most pressing biological

needs coming first; once they are satisfied,

the individual turns his or her attention to

higher-level needs.