1. Introduction to Personality Theory
PSY136 – Personality 1

2. Personality
• Came from the word persona, a
mask worn by Roman actors to
project a role.
• A pattern of relatively permanent
traits and unique characteristics
that give both consistency and
individuality to a person’s
behavior.

3. Traits
• Contribute to individual
differences in behavior,
consistency of behavior over
time, and stability of behavior
across situations.
• Pattern is different for each
individual.

4. Characteristics
• Unique qualities of an individual
that include attributes such as
temperament, physique, and
intelligence.

5. Theory
• A set of related
assumptions that
allows scientists to
use logical deductive
reasoning to
formulate testable
hypothesis.

6. Philosophy
• Love of wisdom
• It deals with what ought to be
• Theories deal with if-then statements.

7. Speculations
• Theories rely on speculations.
• Speculation and empirical observation are
essential cornerstones of theory building, but
must not run rampantly in advance of
controlled observation.

8. Hypothesis
• An educated guess or prediction specific
enough for its validity to be tested through
the use of the scientific method.
• A theory can generate several hypotheses.

9. Taxonomy
• Classification of things according to their
natural relationships.
• It is essential to the development of science.

10. Why Different Theories?
• Varying frames of reference, based on the author’s
personal backgrounds, childhood experiences,
philosophy, interpersonal relationships, and unique
ways of looking at the world.

11. What Makes a Theory Useful?
• Stimulates and guides • Ability to guide
future research. practitioners over
• It is falsifiable; precise the rough course of
enough to support or daily problems.
reject its major tenets. • It must be consistent
• It is able to organize with itself.
research data that are • It is parsimonious.
incompatible with each
other.

12. Each personality theorist has an explicit
or implicit concept of humanity.

13. Concept of Humanity
• Determinism vs. Free Choice
• Pessimism vs. Optimism
• Causality vs. Teleology
• Conscious vs. Unconscious
• Biological vs. Social Forces
• Uniqueness vs. Similarity