Invitation to Psychology

COn

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ept Map

Chapter 2

t

heories of

p

ersonality

Chapter 2 Theories of Personality 77

Situations and Social Learning

The social-cognitive learning

theory of personality:

• holds that traits result in part
  from a person’s learning history
  and resulting expectations and
  beliefs.


• emphasizes reciprocal deter-
  minism, the two-way interac-
  tion between a person’s qualities
  and the specific situation.


• helps explain why siblings who
  grow up together are often so
  different, a result of their
  nonshared environment.

Parental Influence—and Its Limits

The widespread belief that parents are the

major influence on their children’s personali-

ties has been undermined by three lines of

evidence:

• The shared environment of the home
  has relatively little effect on children’s
  personalities; the strongest influences are
  experiences in the nonshared environ-
  ment.


• Few parents have a single child-rearing
  style that is consistent over time and that
  they use with all their children.


• Even when parents try to be consistent,
  there may be little relation between what
  they do and how their children turn out.

The Power of Peers

Peer groups’ influence can be more

powerful than parents’ influence on a

child’s personality development.

Environmental Influences

Culture, Values, and Traits

A culture is a program of shared rules or values that govern the behavior of members of a community or society.

• In individualist cultures, the independence of the individual often takes precedence over the needs of the group.


• In collectivist cultures, group harmony often takes precedence over the wishes of the individual.

Evaluating Cultural Approaches

• Cultural psychologists seek to describe cultural
  influences on personality without stereotyping.


• Individuals are affected by their culture, but
  they vary within it.

Cultural Influences

The Inner Experience

Humanist psychology emphasizes a person’s subjective sense of self.

• Abraham Maslow introduced the concepts of peak experiences and self-actualization.


• Carl Rogers stressed the importance of unconditional positive regard.


• Rollo May’s inclusion of existentialism emphasized some of the inherent human challenges that result from free will.
  Many humanist assumptions are untestable and hard to define operationally, but humanist ideas about positive qualities, such
  as courage and resilience, have added balance to the study of personality.


• When people fail to understand
  the influence of culture on
  behavior, they may misattribute a
  person’s behavior to personality.
  For example, cultures differ in
  their rules governing notions of
  cleanliness, helpfulness, and time.


• Male aggressiveness is often less
  a matter of testosterone or personality
  than of cultural norms, determined in turn by a culture’s
  economy and whether men come from a culture of honor.