Psychology: Personality

Definitions of personality
"the sum total of an individual's characteristics which make them unique" (Hollander, 1971)
"those characteristics of a person that account for consistent patterns of behavior" (Pervin, 1993)

Theories of personality
Trait (Nature) Theories
B=F(P)

• Personality is made up of genetically inherited traits (characteristics)
• These traits are stable and enduring
• They imply consistency & generability in behavior

Critisisms of Trait theory
Advantages: children are like their parents
Disadvantages: mood, changes after a life event, changes in different environments

Examples of Trait theories

Girdano's Narrow Band Theory (Type A v Type B personality types)
Type A: people are irritable, anxious and competitive. They like control & work fast. They have a strong desire to succeed. Research has shown Type A people to be more prone to heart disease.
Type B: people are calm, relaxed, quiet and focused. They work slowly & and are less likely to become stressed.

Cattell's 16 Personality Factors
Cattell identified 16 different and independent traits that make up personality, such as;
Shy------------------Bold
Concrete thinking------------------Abstract thinking
Submissive------------------Dominant
Practical------------------Impractical
Relaxed------------------Tense

Eysenck's Trait theory
Eysenck focuses on 2 dimensional traits:
Extroversion (seeks attention, enjoys being ) <<<>>> Introversion (happy in own company, work alone)
Neurotic (unstable happy at one point then sad at the next) <<<>>> Stable (predictable, reliable)

Bandura's Social Learning (Nurture) Theory
B=F(E)

• Bandura suggests we learn behaviour through experience in the environment - behaviour can be predicted by the state of the environment
• This suggests sport "shapes" personality

Principles

1. Modeling - copying the behavior of somebody else
2. Reinforcement - reinforced modelled behaviour is more likely to be repeated

Interactionist theory
B=F(PE)

• Combination of trait & social learning theories
• Behaviour is predicted by the interaction of personality traits with the environmental situation
• This is the most likely/realistic explanation

Same environment = same behaviour
Change environment = change behaviour

Hollander's structure of personality (1971)
3 levels - more permeable away from the centre

1. Psychological core
2. Typical response
3. role related behaviour

Personality profiling

Questionnaires
Advantages: easy to administer, cheap to produce, produce lot of data,can be used anywhere, usually reliable
Disadvantages: lack of validity as difficult to define what personality is, misinterpretation of questions, answers may not be truthful / provide socially desirable answers, questions may not allow for full answers, biased questions, situation when completed may not be ideal


Interview
Advantages: greater validity than questionnaires, can gather more detailed answers

Disadvantages: lower reliability due to different answers, depends on skill of interviewer to ask relevant questions & interpret answers, expensive and time consuming


Observation
Advantages: personality profile can be built up over period of time, high ecological validity as takes place in "real life"
Disadvantages: subjective, reliant on skill of the observer, time consuming / expensive / needs to be completed several times, observer needs to know normal behaviour patterns of performer for comparison, may need several observers (at the same time), if performer knows observation is occurring they may behave differently

Morgan's Profile Of Mood States (POMS)
Suggests "mental health" is a predictor of success in sport. This research found successful sports performers to possess high positive mental health characteristics (vigour) and low negative mental health characteristics (tension, depression etc.) compared to less successful athletes and the general population. These results are known as the "iceberg profile" due to the shape of the graph.
Measures:

1. vigour
2. fatigue
3. tension
4. anger
5. depression
6. confusion

Problems:

• measures mood not personality
• mood can change
• don't know what the dependent is
• not all successful athletes have the iceberg profile
• many unsuccessful athletes have the profile
• problems with questionnaires
• not suprising that negative mental health is associated with poor performance

Using personality profiling in sport
Credulous approach
Suggests we should use personality profiling to identify top performers.
Sceptical approach
Suggests there are other more important factors that determine performance (ability, physical capacity, skill etc.) so we should not use personality profiling to identify potential top performers.