Development of personality
- Created by: 11pyoung
- Created on: 05-04-16 12:14
View mindmap
- Development of personality
- Defining personality and temperament
- Personality
- The thoughts, feelings and behaviours that make an individual unique
- Temperament
- The genetic component of personality
- Longitudinal study
- A study carried out to show how behaviour changes over time
- Thomas, Chess + Birch
- They studied 133 children from infancy to early adulthood. The behaviour was observed and parents were interviewed
- Parents asked about child's routine and their reaction to change
- Found that the children fell into 3 types
- Easy
- Difficult
- Slow to warm up
- These ways of responding to the environment stayed with the children as they developed.
- Temperament is innate
- Evalution
- Longitudinal
- Study children as they grow, results can be more reliable
- participants could drop out partway through and affect the results
- The children were from middle-class families in New York
- Can't be generalised to other social classes
- Parents may have been biased in their answers as they wanted to show their child in the best way
- Longitudinal
- They studied 133 children from infancy to early adulthood. The behaviour was observed and parents were interviewed
- Personality
- Eysenck's type theory of personality
- Type theory
- Personality types are thought to be inherited. They can be described using related traits
- Extroversion
- A personality type that describes people who look to the outside world for entertainment
- Introversion
- A personality type that describes people who are content with their own company
- Neuroticism
- A personality type that describes people who are highly emotional and show a quick, intense reaction to fear
- Eysenck
- Each soldier completed a questionnaire. the results were analysed using a technique known as factor analysis
- Two dimensions identified
- Extroversion-Introversion
- Neuroticism-Stability
- Everyone can be placed along these two dimensions of personality
- Most people lie in the middle of the scale
- Evaluation
- Limited sample size
- Limited number of personality types described
- Questionnaires used
- People could answered based on how they were feeling at the time
- He believed personality is genetic
- Doesn't consider the idea that personality can change as a result of experience
- Psychoticism
- A third dimension identified Eysenck.
- People who score high on this dimension are hostile, aggressive, insensitive and cruel
- A third dimension identified Eysenck.
- Personality scales
- Ways of measuring personality using yes/no questions
- Type theory
- APD
- Biological causes
- Amygdala
- Part of the Brain concerned with emotions
- Cerebral cortex (Grey matter)
- The outer layer of the brain
- Prefrontal cortex
- The very front of the brain. Involved in social and moral behaviour, controls aggression
- Raine
- MRI scans of 21 people's brains who had APD and 34 healthy volunteers
- The APD group had an 11% reduction of grey matter compared with the control group
- APD is caused by reduction in the brain's Grey matter
- Evaluation
- Supports the biological explanation of APD
- Raine had only studied males so their findings may not relate to women with APD
- His participants were all volunteers so it may not be representative of all people with APD
- Practical implications
- Difficult to know how to prevent APD as researchers don't know the cause
- If APD has a biological cause then it can't be prevented
- If APD has a situational cause then reducing childhood problems should lower the risk of APD
- Amygdala
- Situational causes
- Socioeconomic factors
- Social and financial issues that can affect an individual
- Farrington
- Longitudinal study of 411 males. They all lived in a deprived area of London. They were first studied at age 8 and were followed up to the age of 50. Their parents and teachers were also interviewed. Criminal records were searched to see if any family members had been convicted
- 41% of the males were convicted of at least one offence between the ages of 10 and 50
- Situational factors lead to the development of antisocial behaviour
- Evaluation
- Experiment was not controlled
- People gave socially desirable answers when being interviewed
- Practical implications
- Difficult to know how to prevent APD as researchers don't know the cause
- If APD has a biological cause then it can't be prevented
- If APD has a situational cause then reducing childhood problems should lower the risk of APD
- Socioeconomic factors
- Biological causes
- Defining personality and temperament
Comments
No comments have yet been made