II. Questions Confronting the Personality Theorist

1 Chapter 1 - What is Personality?Chapter Outline

• Proposed Determinants of Personality
• Genetics
• Traits
• Sociocultural Determinants
• Learning
• Existential-Humanistic Considerations
• Unconscious Mechanisms
• Cognitive Processes
• Personality as a composite of the above factors

II. Questions Confronting the Personality Theorist

• What is the relative importance of the past, present, and future?
• What motivates human behavior?
• How important is the concept of Self?
• How important are unconscious mechanisms?
• Is human behavior freely chosen or is it determined?
• What can be learned by asking people about themselves?
• Uniqueness versus commonality
• Are people controlled externally or internally?
• How are the mind and the body related?
• What is the nature of human nature?
• How consistent is human behavior?

III. How Do We Find the Answers?

• Science as an epistemological pursuit
• Science as a combination of rationalism and empiricism

C. The roles of scientific theory: Synthesizing and Heuristic Functions

• The principle of verification

IV. Science and Personality Theory

• Kuhn's view of science and scientific paradigms
• Popper's view of science and the principle of falsifiability

Discussion or Essay Questions

• In your opinion, what are the most important questions about human personality? In other

words, what questions about human nature should be contained in a theory of personality?

• In your opinion, can human personality be studied scientifically? Why or why not?

An Introduction to Theories of Personality 1st Canadian Edition 1e Hergenhahn Matthew Olson Ken Cramer (Instructor Manual (Lecture Notes Only) with Test Bank All Chapters, 100% Original Verified, A+ Grade) 1 / 4

2

• How important is it for a theory of personality to make risky, testable statements?

Explain your answer.Multiple Choice Questions Test 1

4. The term personality is derived from the Latin word persona which means:

• * mask

b.mind

• brain
• the person

5. According to Kluckhohn and Murray every human being is:

• like every other human being
• like some other human beings
• like no other human beings
• * all of the above
• According to the author of your text, probably the most common lay explanation of

personality is based on:

• learning
• cultural norms
• * genetics
• existential-humanistic considerations
• Recent findings by Bouchard and others suggest that the role of genetics in personality

development is:

• * substantial
• minimal
• nonexistent
• substantial in lower animals but minimal in humans
• The question, "How much of an attribute is accounted for by heredity and how much of it

is accounted for by experience?” defines the:

• mind-body problem
• * nativism-empiricism controversy
• existential-humanistic controversy
• uniqueness-lawfulness controversy
• A person who believes that a person's IQ level is determined mainly by experience can be

considered a(n):

• * empiricist
• existentialist
• humanist
• nativist 2 / 4

3

• The researcher who is interested in knowing what organizations you belong to and the

economic level of your family is stressing _____ determinants of personality:

• genetic
• * sociocultural
• existential-humanistic
• unconscious
• Those emphasizing the learning process in their explanation of personality are:
• nativists
• existentialists
• humanists
• * empiricists
• Those theorists who say, “We are what we have been rewarded for being,” emphasize

in their explanation of personality:

• * learning
• genetics
• early experience
• unconscious mechanisms
• According to the theorist emphasizing the learning process in the explanation of

personality, control _____ and you can control personality development:

• inheritance
• * patterns of reward
• cultural expectations
• early experience
• Theorists who emphasize the importance of either sociocultural determinants or learning

in their explanations of personality are said to accept:

• nativism
• unconscious thought processes
• free will
• * environmentalism
• Which of these questions is the existential-humanistic theorist likely to ask:
• Why are you the way you are?
• What have you been rewarded for being?
• * What does it mean to be you?
• Why doesn't anyone like you? 3 / 4

4

• The _____ theorist assumes that a person knows a great deal about the determinants of

his or her own personality:

• learning
• trait
• * existential-humanistic
• psychoanalytic
• According to the psychoanalytic theories, the ultimate causes of behavior are:
• * unconscious
• learned
• traits
• cultural norms
• Behavior that is pulled by the future rather than pushed by the past is called _____

behavior:

• * teleological
• hedonistic
• humanistic
• existential
• For which of the following theories are childhood experiences considered of vital

importance for subsequent personality development:

• existential-humanistic
• sociocultural
• learning
• * psychoanalytic
• The _____ believes that all of the influences acting on a person at a given time can

actually be known:

• determinist
• existentialist
• free-willist
• * none of the above

21. The intense study of the individual case is called _____ research:

• * idiographic
• nomothetic
• introspective
• humanistic

22. The mind-body problem consists of determining how:

• our behavior can be both freely chosen and determined at the time
• * mental events and bodily events are related to each other
• bodily experiences are similar to mental experiences
• the mind can inhibit undesirable behavior
• / 4