The Self, and the Type and Trait Approaches to Personality
Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation
| Aspect | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Self-concept | The way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies and attributes |
| Self-esteem | The value judgement a person makes about her or his own worth |
| Self-efficacy | The belief that one can control one's life outcomes and succeed at a task — from Bandura's social learning theory |
| Self-regulation | The ability to organise and monitor one's own behaviour, including resisting situational pressures and delaying gratification |
Self-esteem is not one judgement but several: by the age of 6 to 7, children seem to have formed self-esteem in at least four areas — academic competence, social competence, physical/athletic competence and physical appearance — which become more refined with age. High self-esteem goes with good school performance and social acceptance; low self-esteem with anxiety and depression. Self-efficacy, from Albert Bandura's social learning theory, can be built: people who believe they can succeed persist and take on challenges, and it grows with models of success and with positive reinforcement. Self-regulation relies on three psychological techniques of self-control: observation of one's own behaviour, which shows what needs changing; self-instruction, telling oneself what to do and how; and self-reinforcement, rewarding behaviour that has pleasant outcomes. The Indian tradition values the same capacity through practices such as fasting and non-attachment to worldly pleasures.
Culture and self. In the Indian view the boundary between the self and the other is not fixed: the self can expand to include one's family, community and others, or contract to the personal self, depending on the situation. In the Western view the boundary is relatively sharp and fixed, and the self is separated from others. This is linked to the broad contrast between collectivistic cultures, where group goals and relationships come first, and individualistic cultures, where personal goals and independence do.
Personality, and the Type Approaches
The word personality comes from the Latin persona, the mask actors wore in ancient plays. Psychologically it refers to the characteristic ways in which a person responds to people and situations — features that are relatively stable across time, consistent across situations, and unique to the person, with both physical and psychological components. Type approaches comprehend personality by examining broad patterns in observed behaviour and grouping people into types, each with a set of shared characteristics.
| Source | Types | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Hippocrates | Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic | Body fluids (humours) |
| Charaka Samhita (Ayurveda) | Vata, pitta, kapha | The three doshas or humoural elements, which together make up a person's prakriti |
| Trigunas (Indian thought) | Sattva, rajas, tamas | Three qualities present in everyone in different degrees |
| William Sheldon | Endomorphic, mesomorphic, ectomorphic | Body build linked to temperament |
| Carl Jung | Introverts and extraverts | Orientation inward (alone, shy) or outward (sociable, outgoing) |
| Friedman and Rosenman | Type A and Type B | Type A: high motivation, impatience, feeling short of time — prone to hypertension and coronary heart disease; Type B: absence of these traits |
| Morris | Type C and Type D | Type C: cooperative, unassertive, suppressing negative emotions — prone to cancer; Type D: prone to depression |
- Sattva: cleanliness, truthfulness, dutifulness, detachment, discipline.
- Rajas: intensive activity, desire for sense gratification, dissatisfaction, envy, a materialistic mentality.
- Tamas: anger, arrogance, depression, laziness, a feeling of helplessness.
- Sheldon: endomorphs are fat, soft and round — relaxed and sociable; mesomorphs have strong musculature and a rectangular body — energetic and courageous; ectomorphs are thin, long and fragile — brainy, artistic and introverted.
The Trait Approaches
A trait is a relatively enduring attribute or quality on which one individual differs from another; traits are relatively stable over time, generally consistent across situations, and their strength and combination vary across people. Gordon Allport proposed that individuals possess traits that are dynamic and determine behaviour, and that the words a language uses to describe people are a guide to them. He classified traits into three kinds. Cardinal traits are highly generalised dispositions that indicate the goal around which a person's entire life revolves — Mahatma Gandhi's non-violence is the book's example. Central traits are less pervasive but still generalised — warm, sincere, diligent — and are the kind often used in writing a letter of recommendation. Secondary traits are the least generalised — "likes mangoes", "likes ethnic clothes".
Raymond Cattell applied the statistical technique of factor analysis to a large number of descriptive adjectives and identified 16 primary or source traits — stable, and the building blocks of personality — and a number of surface traits that result from the interaction of source traits. He built the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) to measure them. H.J. Eysenck reduced personality to two broad dimensions, biologically and genetically based: neuroticism versus emotional stability (the degree to which people control their feelings, from anxious and moody to calm and even-tempered) and extraversion versus introversion (from active, sociable and outgoing to passive, quiet and reserved). He later added a third, psychoticism versus sociability, and measured the dimensions with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). The Five-Factor Model of Paul Costa and Robert McCrae holds that five broad factors capture personality: openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness.
The interactional approach adds a qualification: situational characteristics play an important role in determining behaviour, so that people may behave honestly in one setting and not in another. Personality and situation together, rather than traits alone, predict what a person will do.
Key takeaways
- The self is known as subject (the knower) and object (the known); personal identity sets a person apart, social identity links them to a group.
- Self-esteem is a judgement of worth; self-efficacy (Bandura) is belief in one's ability to succeed; self-regulation uses self-observation, self-instruction and self-reinforcement.
- The Indian self has a flexible boundary that expands and contracts; the Western self has a sharper, fixed one.
- Types: Hippocrates' four humours, the Charaka Samhita's vata-pitta-kapha, the trigunas, Sheldon's body builds, Jung's introverts and extraverts.
- Friedman and Rosenman: Type A prone to hypertension and coronary heart disease; Morris: Type C prone to cancer, Type D to depression.
- Allport: cardinal, central and secondary traits. Cattell: 16 source traits (16PF). Eysenck: neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism (EPQ). Costa and McCrae: the Big Five.
Practice questions (8)
Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.
Traits such as "warm", "sincere" and "diligent", which are generalised but not all-pervading and are often used in writing a letter of recommendation, are what Allport called:
Show answer
Answer: C — Central traits
Allport's central traits are less pervasive than cardinal ones but still generalised, and the book's example is exactly the set of qualities written into a recommendation. Cardinal traits organise a whole life, as non-violence did Gandhi's; source traits are Cattell's term, not Allport's.Friedman and Rosenman described Type A people — highly motivated, impatient and always short of time. Such people were found to be more prone to:
Show answer
Answer: B — Hypertension and coronary heart disease
Type A people, with their impatience and constant time pressure, were found more prone to hypertension and coronary heart disease. The cancer option describes Morris's Type C — cooperative, unassertive and suppressing negative emotions — and depression is his Type D.Match the source with its typology. A. Hippocrates B. Charaka Samhita C. Sheldon D. Jung — 1. Endomorphic, mesomorphic, ectomorphic 2. Introverts and extraverts 3. Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic 4. Vata, pitta, kapha
Show answer
Answer: A — A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2
Hippocrates classified people by body fluids into sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic; the Charaka Samhita by the three doshas, vata, pitta and kapha; Sheldon by body build; and Jung by orientation into introverts and extraverts. Swapping the first two is the usual slip, because both systems are based on humours.Which of the following is NOT one of the dimensions of personality proposed by H.J. Eysenck?
Show answer
Answer: D — Openness to experience
Eysenck proposed neuroticism versus emotional stability and extraversion versus introversion, and later added psychoticism versus sociability. Openness to experience is one of the Big Five of Costa and McCrae, which is why it tempts — extraversion and neuroticism appear in both models.Meena believes that if she works at it she can master any chapter in mathematics, so she chooses the hardest problems and keeps at them when they go wrong. This belief is best described as high:
Show answer
Answer: B — Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy, from Bandura's social learning theory, is the belief that one can succeed at a task and control the outcome, and it shows in choosing challenges and persisting. Self-esteem is a judgement of one's overall worth, which Meena's statement does not express; self-regulation is monitoring and organising one's own behaviour.Assertion (A): According to Cattell, surface traits are the stable building blocks of personality. Reason (R): Cattell used factor analysis to identify 16 primary or source traits.
Show answer
Answer: D — A is false, but R is true
R is true: Cattell's factor analysis of descriptive adjectives yielded sixteen primary or source traits, measured by the 16PF. A is false because it reverses his terms — the source traits are the stable building blocks, and surface traits are what result from their interaction. Reading the two as both true is the trap the reversal sets.In the Indian classification of the three gunas, anger, arrogance, depression, laziness and a feeling of helplessness characterise:
Show answer
Answer: A — Tamas
Tamas is marked by anger, arrogance, depression, laziness and helplessness. Rajas is the trap, since it too carries negative qualities — envy and dissatisfaction — but it is defined by intense activity and the desire for sense gratification. Pitta is a dosha of the Charaka Samhita, not a guna.Consider the statements. I. The self as subject actively knows itself; the self as object is observed and comes to be known. II. Personal identity refers to the attributes that link a person to a social or cultural group. III. In the Indian view the boundary between self and others is flexible; in the Western view it is relatively sharp. IV. By 6–7 years children seem to have self-esteem in academic, social, physical/athletic competence and physical appearance. Which are correct?
Show answer
Answer: C — I, III and IV only
I, III and IV are the book's own statements about the self, culture and the four areas of self-esteem. II is false because it describes social identity; personal identity is the set of attributes — name, characteristics, capacities — that make a person different from others. Stopping at I and III leaves out the true statement about self-esteem.