Chapter 12 Notes

SOMETHING FUNKY HAPPENED TO MY EMAIL ACCOUNT SO HERE IT IS....

C. Evolutionary Approach to Personality
1. Personality traits and the ability to recognize these traits in others, may have contributed to reproductive fitness in ancestral human populations. Pg502
2. Looks at evolution through the eyes of the big five
-extraversion
-agreeableness
-conscientiousness
-openess to experience
-low neuroticism

D. Critics of Biological Perspective
1. Overly focused on heritability
2. Nature and nurture are tangled together and to separate them is nearly impossible.
3. Too young of a perspective...not enough theory to go along with the empirical evidence.

VII. Contemporary Empirical Approaches to Personality
A. Sensation Seeking
1. Personality Traits
-thrill and adventure seeking
-experience seeking
-disinhibition
-susceptibility to boredom
2. Positive
-tolerant to stress
3. Negative
-poor decision making

B. Self-Monitoring
1. Refers to the degree to which people attend to and control the impression they make on others in social situations.
2. High = “all the world is a stage”.
-these individuals know what their audience is looking for...good for interviews.
-can control and fake emotions.
-good at catching others deceptive impressions


VIII. Culture and Personality
A. Freud
1. Previous research in this area has been biased due to the Eurocentric nature.

B. Can cultures have an impact on personality?
1. American culture tends to be independent oriented.
2. Asian culture tends to be interdependent oriented.