WRAPPING IT UP

SUMMARY

The Goals of Personality Psychology

  • Personality psychology’s unique mission is to address the psychological triad of thought, feeling, and behavior, and to try to explain the functioning of whole individuals. This is an impossible mission, however, so different approaches to personality must limit themselves by emphasizing different psychological topics.
  • Personality psychology can be organized into five basic approaches: trait, biological, psychoanalytic, phenomenological, and learning and cognitive processes. Each addresses certain aspects of human psychology quite well and ignores others. The advantages and disadvantages of each approach are probably inseparable.

The Plan of This Book

  • This book is grouped into six sections, beginning with a section on research methods and continuing with five sections that survey the basic approaches to personality. It ends with a chapter on the implications of personality for mental health, and then a final summing up.

Pigeonholing Versus Appreciation of Individual Differences

  • Sometimes regarded as a field that seeks to pigeonhole people, personality psychology’s real mission is to appreciate the ways in which each individual is unique.

KEY TERMS

psychological triad, p. 4

basic approach, p. 5

trait approach, p. 5

biological approach, p. 6

psychoanalytic approach, p. 6

phenomenological approach, p. 6

learning, p. 7

learning and cognitive processes approaches, p. 7

Funder’s First Law, p. 10

humanistic psychology, p. 13

THINK ABOUT IT

  1. What do we know when we know a person?
  2. What is the purpose of psychology? What questions should the science of psychology seek to answer?
  3. Why are you taking this course? What do you hope to learn? Of what use do you expect it to be?
  4. If you could choose what this course (or book) would be about, what would you ask for? Why?
  5. Are psychology textbooks and courses more boring than they should be? If so, why do you think that is? Can something be done about it? Should something be done about it? (Perhaps “boring” just means that a complex topic is being rigorously studied. Do you agree?)
  6. Which are more important: answers or questions?

QWant to earn a better grade on your test? Go to INQUIZITIVE to learn and review this chapter’s content, with personalized feedback along the way.

Glossary

  • psychological triad
    The three essential topics of psychology: how people think, how they feel, and how they behave.
  • basic approach (to personality)
    A theoretical view of personality that focuses on some phenomena and ignores others. The basic approaches are trait, biological, psychoanalytic, phenomenological, learning, and cognitive (the last two being closely related).
  • trait approach
    The theoretical view of personality that focuses on individual differences in personality and behavior, and the psychological processes behind them.
  • biological approach
    The view of personality that focuses on the way behavior and personality are influenced by neuroanatomy, biochemistry, genetics, and evolution.
  • psychoanalytic approach
    The theoretical view of personality, based on the writings of Sigmund Freud, that emphasizes the unconscious processes of the mind.
  • phenomenological approach
    The theoretical view of personality that emphasizes experience, free will, and the meaning of life. Closely related to humanistic psychology and existentialism.
  • learning
    In behaviorism, a change in behavior as a result of experience.
  • learning approach
    The theoretical view that focuses on how behavior changes as a function of rewards and punishments; also called behaviorism.
  • Funder’s First Law
    Great strengths are usually great weaknesses, and surprisingly often the opposite is true as well.
  • humanistic psychology
    The approach to personality that emphasizes aspects of psychology that are distinctly human. Closely related to the phenomenological approach and existentialism.