This is the 5th lecture of [[Keith Campbell]]'s [[PA Intro to Psychology]] from [[Peterson Academy]]. This lecture is about personality psychology, and the nature of the self. The angle of this lecture is to look at the Big Five personality traits, and then some classic ideas about the self by William James. This serves as an introduction to [[PA Psychology of the Self]] where Dr Campbell dives deeper into the self. --- ## Personality or Self **Personality**, coming from Latin term 'persona,' means mask. Personality traits are consistent patterns of thought, feelings and behaviors across time and situations; **Self**, coming from Old English, emphasizes what is 'separate' or 'one's own.' It's more about self-conception, narrative, and is generally richer in connotation. They are both used somewhat interchangeably, in the sense that they both carry ideas of how we differentiate ourselves from others. --- ## History of Personality Testing Lexical Hypothesis by Sir Francis Galton — for every single personality trait that is significant in describing somebody, there will be a word that is used to do so no matter the language. That means personality studies is reliant on words that describe traits. Gordan Allport and Henry Odbert compiled a list of around 4,500 personality traits. In order to make a useful (simple enough) model, psychologists would have to divide them into smaller buckets, with various methods including factor analysis. They ended up with what we today know as the Big Five (or OCEAN). --- ## Big Five (OCEAN) The five traits are: - Openness to Experience - Conscientiousness - Extraversion - Agreeableness - Neuroticism The Big Five is a model of general personality, but there are also other more specific personality traits, and studies designed for them (ie narcissism). --- ### General rules - All the personality traits are not personality types, they are continua. - Most people exist in the middle of a distribution. - Some people are high on some trait, and they may be so high on that specific trait that we can call that their cardinal or primary trait. - Both extremes of any trait is bad - The personality traits are highly heritable, probably about 40% - Personality is changeable, but it can only occur moderately, for about ⅓ of a standard deviation. - Personality is reflected everywhere. - There are many self-report tests available. Jordan Peterson's Understand Yourself is one of them, but it has 100 questions. Usually they measure personality at scale with TIPI which consists only of 10 questions. --- ### Extraversion The three main facets of this are: assertiveness, energy level, and sociability. On the TIPI, the questions for this are "extroverted, enthusiastic" vs "reserved, quiet." The low end of the pole is introversion. >[!quote] Extraversion covers up a multitude of sins ### Agreeableness The three main facets of this are: compassion, reliableness, and trust. On the TIPI, this is "sympathetic, warm" vs "critical, quarrelsome."The low end of the pole is antagonism. ### Neuroticism The three main facets of this are: anxiety—threat detection, depression—fear and lack of motivation, and volatility. Sometimes seen as hostile and angry. On the TIPI, this is "more neurotic, easily upset" vs "emotionally stable, calm." The low end of the pole is emotional stability. ### Openness to experience The three main facets of this are: esthetic sensitivity, creative imagination—the ability to visualize and actualize something new, and (intellectual) curiosity. The opposite is conventionally-minded. On the TIPI, it is "openness to experience and complex" versus "conventional and uncreative." ### Conscientiousness The workplace trait, whose main facets are: organization—ability to organize the world, productiveness and a sense of responsibility. On the TIPI scales, they are "dependable and self-disciplined" versus "disorganized and careless." --- ## The self based on James Williams This is work based on James Williams' Principles of Psychology from the late 1800s. The most important distinction regarding the self is the "I" vs the "me." ### "I" vs "Me" The "I" is where consciousness comes from, it is the observer, it is self-consciousness or self-awareness; The "Me" is our model or evaluation of ourself, it is our self-concept. >[!info] Psychology vs Philosophy >Since the psychologists have absolutely no idea what to do with the "I," they dedicated all their resources into studying the "Me" or the self-concept, leaving the "I" to philosophers—specifically philosophers of mind—to study it as what is today known as the hard problem of consciousness. ### Four components of the self #### [[Understanding Self Esteem|Self-esteem]] For James Williams, it is success divided by pretensions or aspirations. Modern research on self-esteem focuses a little bit differently. On top of its general meaning being self-evaluation, it is often studied as positive self-knowledge, a measure of how well one is fitting in socially, or how one is faring in a hierarchy. Self-esteem is generally high. There was an entire self-esteem movement in the 70s and the 80s in the US. High self esteem is an effective buffer against depression, and helping people initiate things. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory is the classic measure. #### Material self James Williams thinks that all our belongings become part of our selfs. Marketing researchers talking about this as the extended self concept. This is related to the Symbolic Self Completion Theory. We buy things to fill up our self concept. This is also related to Identity Negotiation Theory, as we communicate and negotiate our identities in a social context by our material possessions and outward expressions. #### Social self >[!quote] Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their minds. — James Williams Your self changes depending on the group you are interacting with. Different contexts activate different selves of ours. This is related to Charles Horton Cooley's Looking Glass Self Theory (or the Mirror Self in contemporary language), which suggests that we learn about ourselves by looking at how people react to us—other people serve as our mirrors. And we are shaped by that. #### Spiritual self This is a person's "inner or subjective being and psychic faculties or dispositions." This is where consciousness and morality lies, perhaps also conscience. This is where our classic personality traits lie too. Sometimes swapped out by psychological self, to avoid the idea of the spiritual. --- ## True self This is where self-actualization comes into play. The true self can also be understood as authenticity, as studied by Mike Kernis. Authenticity is a kind of self-knowledge, as these people report having an authentic awareness of both themselves and the world. It is also characterized by unbiased processing and acting in alignment with one's values. The other end of the stick is imposter syndrome. >[!question] What does unbiased processing have to do with acting in alignment with one's values? Some people think true self is found, others think the true self is chosen. James Williams wrote this beautiful passage about the need to choose and sacrifice others, but also lived a career having done it all. >[!quote] I'm often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher, a philanthropist, a statesman, a warrior, and an African explorer, as well as a tone-poet and a saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saints. The bon vivant and the philanthropist would trip up each other; the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably, at the outset of life, be alike possible to a man. But to make one of them actual, the rest must be more or less suppressed. So their seeker of his truest, strongest and deepest self must review the list carefully and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. — James Williams --- ## [[The Narrative Self|Narrative self]] Narrative is how we integrate all these different parts of ourselves. This is now its own subfield called Narrative Research (not restricted to relating to the self). - Daniel Dennett wrote an essay called "The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity," or better put in Keith's paraphrase—the self is the narrative center of gravity. - DanMcAdams describes life as the "I" telling the story of the "Me." ##### Classic stories - America's favorite story is Horatio Alger story, or "started from the bottom and worked my way up to the top" story. - Negative contagion story, or the tragedy, where things were good then turned bad. - The hero story—called to adventure, get allies, meet and overcome conflicts, bring something back, return home. The journey makes the hero—Hercules is paradigmatic of this. Obviously, Joseph Campbell is pivotal to formulating this. Conflicts, risks and challenges are essential—the story we like is the story we least want for ourselves. --- Directory: [[Peterson Academy]] > [[PA Intro to Psychology]] > 5. The Self Previous Lecture: [[Motivation and Maslow]] Next Lecture: [[Love and Attraction]]