Knowing Oneself

• Defining the “Self”

• Personality
- Nature, Nurture, and Personality

• Trait Theories

• Personality Traits

• Measuring Personality
 Defining the “Self”

• To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of oneself

• The individual's belief about himself or herself, including the

person's attributes and who and what the self is“

• The self-concept is an important term for both social and

 Personality
• Personality is defined as the characteristic set of behaviors,
cognitions, and emotional patterns that evolve from biological
and environmental factors

• Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic

patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.
•Nature •Nurture
 Trait Theories
• A trait is what we call a characteristic way in which an
individual perceives, feels, believes, or acts. When we
casually describe someone, we are likely to use trait terms: I
am, for example, somewhat of an introvert, a pretty nervous
person, strongly attached to my family, frequently depressed,
and awesomely intelligent.
 5 Major Factors of Personality

• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism
 Personality Traits

• Personality traits reflect people's characteristic patterns of

thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

• Personality traits imply consistency and stability—someone

who scores high on a specific trait like Extraversion is
expected to be sociable in different situations and over time.
 Measuring Personality
• Psychologists seek to measure personality through a number
of methods, the most common of which are objective tests
and projective measures. Objective tests, such as self-report
measures, rely on an individual's personal responses and are
relatively free of rater bias.
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based on Carl Jung’s theory
of personality. The MBTI is one of the most popular personality
inventories used with nonclinical populations; it has been criticized,
however, for its lack of statistical validity and low reliability. The MBTI
measures individuals across four bi-polar dimensions:
• Attitudes: Extraversion-Introversion. This measures whether someone
is “outward-turning” and action-oriented or “inward turning” and
thought-oriented.
• The perceiving function: Sensing- Intuition . This measures whether
someone understands and interprets new information using their five
senses (sensing) or intuition.
• The judging function: Thinking-Feeling. This measures whether one
tends to make decisions based on rational thought or empathic feeling.
• Lifestyle preferences: Judging-Perceiving. This measures whether a
person relates to the outside world primarily using their judging
function (which is either thinking or feeling) or their perceiving function
(which is either sensing or intuition).