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Personality
Overview of the Day
Personality
Traditional approaches
EP questions of traditional
approaches
EP and personality
Personality
Relatively stable constellations of
behaviors and attitudes that reflect how:
a person responds to social (and other)
stimuli
a person thinks about himself or herself
how other people regard the person
Traditional Approaches to
Personality in Psychology
Dysfunctional personality and how to help
people deal with their troublesome personalities
(Freud and others)
 The actualized, well-functioning personality and
how it serves as a model for the rest of us
(Maslow and others)
Individual differences: identifying classifying
thousands of personality traits and showing how
high (or low) levels on some traits relate life
success (Cattell and many applied psychologists)
Evolutionary Questions about
Traditional Approaches to Personality
Why is there so much variability in
personality traits?
Why has the variability persisted? (When a
characteristic is adaptive and heritable, variation
on that trait becomes very small)
If some traits (or levels of some traits) are
“better” than others, why do the others
persist?
Why are possible functions of personality?
Personality Traits as
Genetic “Noise”
Personality traits are random noise
Not adaptive (that is, not related to
survival and reproduction)
An analogy: Like color on wires in car:
arbitrary and unrelated to how well the car
functions
Niche Picking and
Specialization
Individual differences are adaptively
patterned but not generally heritable
They are a species-typical mechanisms for
niche specialization
For example, people with aggressive
personalities will survive and reproduce in
hostile environments.
Frequency Dependency
Differential occurrence as a function of
the frequency of other traits
bluegill sunfish male personality traits
(parental, sneak, mimic)
Mealey’s theory of psychopathy
small numbers of psychopaths can be maintained
in large populations of cooperators
Facultative Adaptations
Highly variable environments lead to traits
that manifest themselves differently
depending on differential environmental
exposure
Belsky-Draper theory of the effects of fatherpresence and father-absence on daughters’
personality
The Functional Value of Traits
may Not Always be Obvious
Traits may serve different functions.
Useful functions in one context may not
be useful in another.
Examples:
Emotional instability is positively related to kin
altruism. (People who are not much distressed by
others’ suffering are less likely to assist them).
Emotional instability discourages behaviors that are
dangerously bold
Assessing Personality
How important is it that we accurately
assess our own and others’ personalities?
Individuals who can accurately assess
others as resources and threats are more
likely to survive and reproduce
universal tendency to attribute personality
characteristics to others
nature of personality descriptions
(evaluative)
Reactive Heritability
The ability to assess one’s own abilities
and traits and those of others. This is
adaptive, although the traits are not.
Sex Difference in
Personality Traits
The importance of the Big Five
OCEAN
Sex differences
aggression, nurturance, emotional stability
Personality inTosca
Describe the personalities of Maurizia, Ezio, and
Leonardo.
How important were their personalities to the
course of their lives?
What do you think “caused” their personalities?
Would you like any of them as a friend? Why or
why not?
Summary
Personality
Traditional approaches
EP questions of traditional approaches
EP and personality
For Next Time
Cognition and Intelligence: Buss, pp.
374-384. 12; G & M 179-192;
Allende, If You Touched My Heart