Skip to main content
Loading Explore guides…
Personality & Compatibility · Acedra
Home
Explore
Psychology
Personality & Compatibility
Sign in to save
Chat
If YouTube asks you to sign in, open the video on YouTube.
Watch on YouTube
Reload player
Transcript
209 segments
Copy
Hide video
0:00
[upbeat music]
0:05
>> Personality.
0:08
Some people just naturally experience life in a unique way compared to us. That is, we find that they think or behave a certain way, and oftentimes, we like people that are kinda like us. We go, well, that person kind of has the same interests I have. There was a girl I remember dating, and I knew in one particularly situation, I would never be together with her, married. I knew it, and it was because we went to a particular museum, and it was about a comic.
0:46
You ever seen The Far Side comics before? And I love The Far Side comics, and everybody in this place was reading these originals. And everybody was laughing, and I was laughing, but the person I was with, she went, "I don't get that." And I went, "Oh, you know, he has like a birthmark, "it's a deer, and that birthmark's shaped like a target. "And it looks like a target, and so all his buddies "are razzing him, saying, 'That's a bummer of a birthmark.'" And she goes, "Oh, I don't get it."
1:14
I'm like, "Well, it's kind of, "well, I guess it's not that funny, maybe." And then the next one, and I'd be going, "This is really funny, what about that one," laughing, and she was like, "That's not that funny." And I realized, "I don't know if we could ever "get together." [class laughs] If we don't laugh at the same things, would you think you should get together with somebody whose personality is opposite of you when it comes to humor? Most of you are going, humor's a big one.
1:38
I wanna be the same personality, or close, right? You kind of want to laugh at the same things. Would you agree, most of you? How many of you agree that's a big, important variable for you? Huh. Some's like, oh, it's not the important variable. By the way, if you like a gauge to know what the most important variables are to see how you differ from somebody, that's what we're gonna do today.
2:01
You see, your predisposition to laugh at something or to think something or to behave in a certain way is the very definition of personality. So psychologists ask this question:
2:14
what variables have gone into the shaping of your personality?
2:22
How many think you laugh at weird things? [class chuckles] What are some weird things that you laugh at? And how do you know you laugh at weird things? Are you like in a movie, and you're the only one laughing at a very bad scene? [class laughs] That's a little disturbing at times, when you're the one laughing and no one else laughs. And you think, that's disturbed, or, they're weird.
2:46
But see, you have a disposition or a predisposition to laugh at certain things and have to have certain thoughts and therefore, to even engage in certain behaviors, and that's the definition that psychologists use about personality, your predisposition
3:05
to think certain patterns of thought and engage in certain patterns of behavior.
3:16
How do we judge or know another person's personality? See, you only know a few things about me. I've revealed now a couple of things in class, you might be able to guess some things about me, I might be able to guess some things about you, based upon what? I could look at some of you and figure out something about your personality. You're giving me all kinds of hints about what you're like, all kinds, just like your roommates and suitemates and the people that see you, and maybe people
3:47
in this room might be able to look at some things about you and judge some things about your personality, but the weird part is, we don't reveal that to people. You can't just look at me and go, ah, there it is, like a video screen on my head. Oh, that's his personality. Instead, you look at what?
4:04
How could you determine or judge another person's personality? That's a tough question. It's an important question though, right? Because you have an impact on me. I have an impact on you, you have an impact on your roommates, and friends, and the people you hang around with, and because people have an impact on them, we want to be able to predict their behavior.
4:22
In order to predict their behavior, what helps us is, ah, if this person has this personality, I can predict this thing. I know a person, by the way, who I can't predict
4:35
what they're going to be like in any given situation, and that's weird.
4:41
There's a person that I know that I'm not ever certain how they're going to respond, and it kind of freaks me out a little bit. Has that ever happened to you? There's one person in particular that I think, I don't know if they're gonna be angry or happy when I tell 'em this, what I'm about to tell 'em. And that I find a little disconcerting.
5:02
Because, you see, we like to predict, we like to kinda know, we like to know what to expect. My wife knows based upon my behavior that, when like I told you before, when our baby popped out, she knew I wasn't going to jump around, and scream, and weep, and cry. She just knew that. I was just gonna be, cool, there's the baby, and I'm happy, and she knew I was happy, I knew I was happy, we were all good with that. Because she could predict it.
5:31
It was consistent. My behavior was consistent with past behaviors, and therefore she could predict, in this situation, but it's also the same. I'm sitting there one time at an intersection with my wife. We're just sittin' there between the cities of Boulder and Fort Collins, Colorado, sitting there, minding our own business. It's midnight, nobody's on the road, we're at a red light, sitting there just like this at an intersection, and a motorcycle comes flying behind me,
6:00
heading our direction, and I see it in my rear view mirror, and I barely got the words out, "Whoa, this dude's not "gonna stop," and he didn't. He went right through the red light.
6:12
At the exact same moment, a car coming this way, decided to keep going through a green light,
6:19
and this motorcycle hit this car so hard that the car was pushed up against into the curb. And the motorcycle just went like a catapult. It went [mimics wind rushing], and the guy above it went [mimics wind rushing] like that and [mimics crashing], like that. And then we're just sitting in there going [gasps]. It's not really funny, but it was kind of funny. Like [gasps] well, she could kind of expect my behavior at that point. And my behavior, yeah, it was like,
6:54
I don't know how many of you all would have screamed and freaked out, and be like, oh, my God. By the way, shoes, gloves, helmets, motorcycle pieces everywhere.
7:03
Body pieces all in one, in one. [class laughs] All together.
7:11
Expect for, OK, well, I'm not going to describe the rest. But I go like this, I go, "Wow." I still see it, by the way, in my head. I still see that, sorry, it's pretty funny. I see that motorcycle just flying, like, dear, man. And that guy above it just flying. [mimics crashing] And I say, "Lis, don't look, go call nine." This was before cellphones. "Lis, go call 911, go to that house, go call people. "And I'll go out there." And I went out there, and the dude was just messed up.
7:43
And he couldn't get up. I don't wanna describe too many of his injuries, but he couldn't get up. There's no way and he tried to. And like, "Dude, lay down, you got issues." He goes, "What happened, what happened? "Was that a red light, green light, what happened?" I said, "Dude, you ran a red light. "You've been in an accident, just lay down." "Well, was that a green, was it red light?" "Dude, sit down, lay down, just be calm," OK.
8:07
That was probably pretty consistent. I stay kind of calm in things like that. Just two weeks ago, I'm coming down the mountain with my daughter, and she's saying, "Dad, I don't like coming down mountains like this. "There's big cliffs there." And I say, "Caroline, you'll be fine. "I'm a good driver." She goes, "No, but people get in accidents." "Caroline, that never happens." We come around a corner. Two motorcycles crash right in front of us. [class laughs]
8:27
"Well, Caroline, sometimes it happens. [class laughs] "Just a little bit, not all the time." So I jump out, and I help the guy on the motorcycle. He's laying there, he's completely out. Same thing, same process. I go up to him, "Dude." He was out, this second guy was. So the first guy, and the second guy, you just kind of calmly approach it, deal with the situation, whatever kicks in.
8:49
That's consistent.
8:51
It's predictable.
8:55
That kinda is a pattern. Some of you would have a similar pattern in other ways, and you could predict your own behavior, and there are important things that it tells us, like this is kind of how I respond in weird situations, or with meeting new people, or in ways in which I'm challenged, and therefore it's predictable. So my wife likes that. She's knows what she's going to get. I don't get overly excited. I don't get overly freaked out, all right?
9:22
All of us are designed in a certain way to respond,
9:29
and genetics, how we were formed, what God had ordained
9:36
for your days and my days are kind of some of the things that are built into us.
9:41
And yet some of our personal histories and tendencies are also built in by our experiences. They're built in by the things we've done. They're built in by our families and some of our cultures.
9:56
And therefore, the question comes in, is there someway to assess and to know what I'm like or what another person is like? 'Cause some of you might go, I don't want to be married to a guy who's calm all the time. I want to be married to someone who gets excited and who's jumping around, and that's more important to me. And so you're like, I want to know that ahead of time.
10:17
Are there easy and accurate ways to assess another person's personality, or maybe even your own personality?
10:24
See, psychologists will oftentimes not really get into some of the kind of fatty. Maybe that's too strong of a word. But some of the personality things that are out there. Like give me some ways that you've tested or been tested on your personality. Give me the name of a personality test that you've taken. >> Student: Myers-Briggs. >> The Myers-Briggs. How many of you have taken the Myers-Briggs test. Ah, is that any good? Does that assess your personality?
10:50
I think psychologists, the opinion by the way, would be pretty mixed on that, whether or not it's that good because is it that deep, and that scientific, and are they really able to get at it? What's another one? StrengthsQuest? How many have had that one before? Wow, almost all of y'all.
11:07
Is that a good gauge of your personality? Well, at the end of the day, some of these can really get at some things, but it's much harder
11:20
to get to some deeper personality things, and it takes a little bit more time than just simply taking some of these pretty quick tests. So psychologists say there's some easy ways, and then there's some not so easy ways.
11:35
Let me ask this question. What are some quick indicators? What might I use to look at you to pick out some of your personality, or what might you use to talk if you talk to somebody, what might be a gauge, real quickly, if you're trying to quickly assess their personality, what might be something you look for that would give you maybe an insight into a person's tendencies or traits? Give me something that you might use. >> Student: Posture. >> Their what? >> Student: Posture. >> Posture.
12:05
So the way they hold themselves or the way they carry themselves could tell you something about their, a lot of things about their personality. That's a good one, posture.
12:16
>> Student: Whether they're listening or not when you talk to them. >> Whether or not they respond by listening to you and respond back. So you can look at that. >> Student: Tone and inflection. >> Tone and inflection in their voice. Would their? >> Student: Eye contact. >> Eye contact. All good things that you could say, this gives me a sense. >> Student: Patterns of speech. >> Maybe their patterns of speech. How 'bout even more less things about them. Like how about their clothes?
12:50
Would their hairstyle or their clothes tell you anything? Do you ever look at somebody's clothes and go, whoa, I can kind of tell you what personality they're like? >> Students: Yes. >> Sometimes you can. Outward appearances, tattoos might show you some things
13:01
or tell you some things.
13:05
Clothing hair tattoos. Are those good gauges? Are they kind of quick ways we use to assess somebody's personality? I think so.
13:15
Piercings.
13:18
How about a Facebook page? [class laughs] Do you, maybe not, I don't know. Do you think Facebook pages are good gauges? [students disagreeing] Not really, like I'll put a couple up I just saw. That one, that tell you anything about her?
13:31
I don't know, maybe a little bit. She probably is kinda artsy.
13:36
She's a web designer, she's a self-professed technology addict. How about that guy?
13:43
I don't know, that's kinda cool. I don't know what he's doing,
13:47
but maybe that tells me something about, would I wanna know that guy and talk to that guy? Or that guy? [students laughing] He seems like an interesting guy. Does a Facebook page tell you anything about his personality? I don't know. I think it tells you a little bit. Does it tell you enough?
14:05
Maybe you look at past behavior. My wife certainly does. She goes, "Well this is what I expect from Chris, "this is what he's always told me he's about "and this is kinda how he happens." By the way, I do get excited about things a lot. Sports get me excited, but in a weird way. So like one time I'm playing in a game and this guy just nailed a basketball shot. It's coming down toward the end of the game and I go, we're killing this team. It's the end of the game and it's a wide open shot
14:32
so I take it and this guy was so mad that I shot. You know how you're not supposed to really shoot with like 30 seconds to play or something. And I don't know, and he just popped, hit me while I'm in the air and I just went flying. Now how would some of you react? How many would get mad at that? You'd get up swinging.
14:50
You'd get up like, you. Guess what? Half the guys, almost all the guys on the bench got up and went after and there was a big kind of fight. Me, I was like, too bad pal. I didn't think anything of it. I was like, whatever, isn't that weird?
15:07
But it's maybe not so weird, past behavior.
15:11
So, does your past behavior give an indication or does another person's past behavior give an indication about what they're like and their personality and should you avoid certain personality traits if you have certain personality traits? See that's the question I had. If you're like this and this other person is kinda like that should you go, we'll never be good together.
15:32
That's one of the ways we'll do this. But anyway, how about the cleanliness of their room? [students laughing] Does that tell you anything about their personality? Or the decorations in their room? >> Student: Yeah. Could you go, ah.
15:50
Oh by the way, guess what they have found. Researchers have actually found that there are some of these that are more important and more revealing about a person's personality than other things.
16:03
Body shape.
16:06
This is an old one, but people use to use and they used to say certain body shapes, real tall, skinny people have a certain personality associated with that compared to people who are short and squatty or people that are of muscular build. And there's different personalities associated with that. We used to think that. Well we, but years and years ago, 100 years go this was pretty common to make associations between body type and personality We don't do that. Do you think we do that much today?
16:34
Probably not, sometimes, every once in a while. Facial expressions, you all were bringing that out. Emotional expressiveness might tell us something about how they respond emotionally to things, how they don't.
16:49
Facial expressions, by the way, are the ones that most of you picked up as we started this as I asked this question, there was some quick indicators. Most of you went to this, you went to the face. You talked about their eyes, their posture their kind of look, their smile, their expressiveness. The face may be our best gauge if you're just doing this in a quick way. We tend to pay attention. We see the body, we see what they do clothing-wise,
17:18
hair-wise, dress-wise, but that face is really important and in fact most people would say, if I can only do one thing I'd just look at the face. By the way, they asked the students this question. What's the best way to get the gauge of somebody's personality? Suppose I give you some hints, things to look for. Would it be better to have a meal with them, sit and talk with them for let's say, I don't know, a half an hour to an hour and do that two or three times.
17:43
Would you have a better sense of their personality if you did that or if you got to go and spend about a half hour or something like that, 15, 20 minutes in their room without them there. Which would you pick and which one would be a better gauge for you determining their personality? Would you rather interact with somebody for a little bit of time, about an hour face to face or would you think it'd be more revealing to go into their dorm room without them there?
18:09
By the way, they did this study and then they compared to see who had the more accurate gauge of a person and it was the people that spend time in their dorm room that had the more accurate gauge of that person's personality. That's interesting, isn't it?
18:26
Because the face holds some appeal to us. We see something, we go oh, I can see what they're like. They seem to be not so happy. They seem to be kind of sad a lot. By the way, the face, 80% of the population see that as if not the most valid, an extremely valid guide to a person's personality.
18:47
OK, that's just kinda the way most people when you ask them, if you say give me a quick indicator they say, it's the face, that's what I look for. How good are we?
19:02
Ready, let's try this one.
19:05
If you looked at baby's faces could you see what they're going to grow up to be like? [students laughing] Could you go, I know what that kid, that's gonna be trouble.
19:16
The kid in the middle looks like a little bit of trouble. I don't know why, but he's going to probably enjoy, I don't know. How about this group of adults? By the way, the year's 1978, so their dress is funny and weird just like 1978. But would you invest your money with these people if they came up to you and said, hey you got $1,000? Invest in my company. How many would say, there is absolutely no way.
19:40
Many of you would go, because you're probably looking at their face and they say they want money from you, you might go, and what kind of cult do you run? [students laughing] By the way, the cult that they run is called Microsoft. >> Student: I knew it! [students laughing] >> And your $1,000, you would be worth like a couple of million.
20:03
If you had invested with them in 1978. That guy is. >> Student: Bill gates. >> Bill Gates.
20:09
Doesn't he look just like the baby in the picture before? [students laughing] Huh?
20:18
Don't judge by just a face. OK personalities. People throughout the ages have wanted to figure out a person's personality. We're always intrigued by that. I wanna know if this guy's safe, if this guy's fun, if this guy is somebody that I should pay attention to, worry about, be friends with, like, avoid.
20:46
And so people have always asked this.
20:50
The history throughout, as we look back even to ancient history people are writing about people and trying to figure things out about others. We're trying to figure out things about ourselves and other people.
21:03
In fact, historically this is a cool little aside but what are those? >> Student: Drama. >> Those are masks, they're called what? >> Student: Comedy and tragedy. >> Comedy and tragedy. Where do you see masks like that? >> Student: Drama. [students chatting] >> In theaters, right? Why do we associate masks like that with theaters?
21:26
Because in ancient theaters they didn't wear makeup. They wore masks.
21:34
Why did they wear masks in ancient theaters?
21:38
Because if I was up on this stage
21:42
and you were trying to figure me out I wouldn't be.
21:46
I would in an ancient Greek theater, for example, I would put one of these masks on and you would know what?
21:54
You would know I'm the tragic figure and you could expect behavior from me and you could predict my personality and you could know what's about to happen because I wore this particular mask. And so people in the audience would go, [gaps] here comes the tragic figure. We know what's going to happen now. And those masks were called personas.
22:20
That's what they were called. In ancient theaters stage actors would wear these masks
22:29
and the Latin word is persona, which is where we get our word personality. Do you see the connection? They were putting on their personalities. And we began to associate a person with that personality just like you might be associated with your persona by what the mask that you wear and show to people. And some people feel like sometimes they're wearing a mask to other people.
22:59
And you all are certainly wearing a face that other people are looking at and figuring out and using to help determine what you're like.
23:10
What's interesting by the way, and this is just a quick history. So the word persona now began to not only identify the word, that mask, but the person behind it. And so that's kinda into where we get our word. Ah, it's the persona, your persona, who you are, what you are like.
23:29
A quick side story, 15 miles, probably about 15, 20 years ago they discovered in some archeological digs not 15 miles from where Jesus was a little boy, they found what? They found the remnants of a theater that was active when He was a little boy.
23:50
A theater where they probably wore things like that.
23:55
So not far from Him, which is interesting because it might have played into something that He would do when a person would show up one way with their words but act a different way with their behavior.
24:15
He would then say what?
24:17
If at the time, what word was oftentimes associated with somebody who would say some things.
24:26
In writing down some of these stories and some of these things that would happen, when a person would show up in Jesus' crowds and they would say one thing, but then act a very different way, He would call them what? >> Student: Hypocrites. >> He would call them play-makers.
24:49
Actors, you're acting, just like that theater over there. You're play-making, you're acting and that word for play-maker in Greek was what? Hypocrite, that was the word, He was calling him an actor. He was saying, you show this, you say this, you tell me that, but you're an actor, you're a hypocrite, you're a play-maker and that name stuck. You don't have to write this down. You can write it down if you want. But He just simply told this person,
25:25
you're behaving one way when you're kind of over here and you're showing a different persona, different face, and so therefore you're acting, you're play-making, you're a hypocrite and that name stuck. So today when somebody does that we call 'em hypocrites.
25:43
By the way, in ancient times like with the Greek they oftentimes wrote about your personality was determined not so much by this mask that you would put on, but by the fluids that were going through your body. So they said if you had too much of a particular fluid going through your body or a humor, then you would show, it would come out in a certain way. Some of these words, what were some of the humors or fluids that people might have? There were four primary humors or fluids
26:20
and we'd say if you have too much of this you might show a personality characteristic like what? Give me some of the words they would use.
26:28
If you were very kind of melancholic.
26:33
OK, well you're melancholic, that was a fluid, so you were melancholy or phlegmatic or sanguine or choleric, if you're hot-headed, for example.
26:45
Well, I put this up just to demonstrate that people have always wondered about personalities. We've always wondered, because we've always wanted to predict other people because they always have an influence on us. I wanna know more about this person. I don't know if they have an influence. I don't know why they, why are they this way?
27:04
And the Greeks then, ah, it's because they have too much of this fluid. Others would say, no, as time has gone on we've found out other influences on our personality. Some of you find a genetic influence to be very powerful, you're just like mom or dad. How many say, gosh, the older I get I'm more and more seeing my mom or my dad in me and I act just like them? And you see this, how big of a role does genetics play? Certainly we don't believe fluids play a role anymore.
27:32
We use those words still, but it's more related to the type of personality that you may have been born with. So final definition of personality. It's just enduring response patterns
27:51
such as ways that you might think or feel or act across a variety of situations.
28:01
You know, it doesn't mean it's like a robot. You could vary, you can differ.
28:07
One time, I told you I had a motorcycle. I was sitting by myself on top of this cliff overlooking the city of Fort Collins. It's called Horsetooth Reservoir and I'm up there and I'm sitting on my motorcycle. It's about midnight.
28:23
There's nobody around
28:27
except for one car who's kind of, place you come up and park your car and I don't know, bring your date up there or something. And they're way at the other end, so I'm sitting on my motorcycle and here's what I hear. Ready, I hear [mimics tires squealing] and there's a huge mountain behind me before you get to this cliff. And here comes this car. [mimics tires squealing] And you could just hear it come around these corners very fast [mimics tires squealing] and then it gets to the cliff.
28:54
It's a big hairpin turn and they missed it. [mimics tires squealing] And they went right off the cliff. [students gasp] [mimics car crash] And I'm by myself on a motorcycle going, why does this always happen? [students laughing] And I see this guy way down there with his girl and I go, "Hey", and I finally get his attention. "Hey, hey, hey, there's a car went off the cliff!" And he's like [gasps]. Go call people, go call 911, he goes, "OK, I'll see you, they went off the cliff?"
29:26
"Yeah, they're down there." So he gets in his car and he goes down and he goes and gets 'em. And so OK, my response at the time was like oh. So you could predict what was my response. I've told you enough about me. Could you predict what I did?
29:40
I left and never came back. No, not really. [students laughing] I realized, but see I wasn't happy about it. In fact the whole time I'm goin' doggone it, I gotta go down there and help. And there's probably pieces of body everywhere. I'm sorry, that's gross, huh? But that's what I was thinking the whole time, like, I just don't wanna, ah man, it's pitch dark and I gotta go down this cliff and I'm climbing down and the car's upside down way down I see it. Smoke coming out of it and I'm thinking,
30:09
it wasn't calmness, it was like, oh man this stinks. I gotta go down there, and I was just mad.
30:16
So we all differ. By the way, going down there and these girls were hanging in the car upside down by their seatbelts. A lot of beer cans came out of the car. I helped the girl get out. One girl was just got out of her seatbelt. Another one was just waking up trying to get out of her seatbelt. They both survived. The police came and go, this is,
30:37
they brought in firetrucks and they helped. The girls kinda could mostly move and walk and got 'em all the way up and they were just surprised at the fact that they survived this. In fact, they kept talking about it like, I can't believe it, are you sure there's nobody else down there? And they kept asking the girls and they asked me. Like I don't know, they said there's only two, I don't know. And they're like, there's gotta be more. No one survives these things. I don't know, there they are.
31:02
And at the end of the day I remember realizing that some situations call for us, and we're going to be different and sometimes it's hard for us to predict our behavior. Sometimes things like that get me freaked out and I don't like it. Sometimes you can say, I don't wanna be in that and your response pattern varies, but they key is it tends to be across a variety of situations, OK? So in this case to come up with a theory about why I am or why you are like this comes up with
31:35
a couple of ways of expressing this. They look for certain patterns or tendencies or habits.
31:46
We call these oftentimes a strategy, a theory of personality is really a strategy that provides us ways,
31:59
like guidelines if you want, or assumptions, to investigate a person's personality.
32:07
So now a theory says, well here's this strategy. Go find out these questions. Find out about a person in this kind of environment and you'll know a little bit about their personality. There's a big snake right outside this room earlier today.
32:23
How many saw the big boa snake? How many avoided it as far and you walked as far around it and OK. Some of you were like, I don't wanna see this snake. Some of you like, oh, that's a cool snake. I wanna go see the snake. Some of your personalities like, I've never really been around a snake, but I wanna go see this, and OK. The point for a theory is, OK, let's go find out a little bit about how people respond to novel situations or new situations and let's use that as a strategy
32:49
to help us predict or determine or investigate and measure their personality. There are five that I want you to know about. Learning, humanism, traits, cognitive, and psychoanalytic.
33:08
Because these are just a few, but they're the most kind of researched. They're the strategies or the theories
33:22
that has been a lot of effort and thought and time and research has gone into studying them.
33:31
So here they are, learning,
33:36
humanism, trait perspective, cognitive, and psychoanalytic.
33:41
And they would answer a question like this.
33:45
Each of these would come up with a different answer to this question. Why are some people shy and outgoing?
33:51
Why are some people maybe friendly or edgy or laid back? Or why are some people more organized or disorganized? All big personality questions. By the way, if you went into their dorm room and it was very organized and set up in a certain way in a nice organized fashion do you think that person's gonna be pretty organized in life? If their room was clean and meticulous and then the pencils were in a certain place and their computer was in a certain place
34:14
and their desk was arranged in a certain way and their drawer and their closet was all neat, you know, and every clothes hanger was two fingers apart?
34:24
Would that tell you something about their personality? >> Students: Yes. >> Do you think that person is life is gonna be probably pretty organized? Yes. The question is, why are they like that? Did they learn that?
34:39
Were they reinforced, did their parents say, keep your room clean?
34:45
And so a learning theorist says, I, they will say the strategy they use to measure a person's personality is by looking at things like reward structures.
34:59
What are the reward structures or punishments in this person's life that have led them
35:09
to behave this way or act this way? What's gone on in their external environment that has conditioned them this way, OK. So by the way, I just summarized all of learning theory in like, two sentences, that's it. Humanists would say, this is a little bit harder to do in just two sentences, but a humanist would use a strategy that says, what's a person's conscious experience and awareness right now and what are they feeling about their trait
35:48
or their ability to be organized? What's their feeling or when they're shy, what's going on with them? And so a humanist perspective is a little harder to describe in a brief form, but they would look at things like conscious awareness or subjective feelings.
36:05
Traits, a trait theorist, somebody like the Myers-Briggs, by the way is a trait theory. Or it's based on a trait theory. They are going to look at your temperament or your abilities or things that are lasting, enduring about you and they call that the trait perspective, or it flows from that, does that make sense? Questions so far?
36:31
Anything about personality and using these five theories? So that's trait. So you see, we're trying, each of these theories are going to attempt to measure or investigate why somebody is shy or outgoing or organized, but they're gonna ask different questions. They're gonna come at it differently. Someone from a cognitive perspective is going to say, well let's go talk to the person's organized. Why do they think this way? Do they think that by being organized their life will stay in control?
37:00
How many know somebody who is very, well, let's try this. How about you know somebody that's very organized and clean and it sets up this way. Do you think they do it for a reason? How do they think? Tell me, if you raise your hand, how does that person think and why do they do that? Because they think what? Anybody? >> Student: This is the one thing they can have control of. >> Oh, maybe this is the thing that they have control over and by being in control here they feel like,
37:28
I'm in control of more things in life, right? So a cognitive psychologist is, well how are you thinking about being organized or not so organized? How do you interpret your reality or organize it, OK?
37:44
And then lastly a psychoanalyst oftentimes will tend to look at maybe some unconscious motives.
37:53
Freud would have looked at sexual instincts. They might even, some from this perspective could look at things like childhood experiences and say the reason you like to be organized, the way we would go about assessing that is we'd look at your childhood and see what happened during that time where you might have felt unorganized and this gave you more control and you liked that.
38:18
And so it comes from something deeper within your childhood. Okay, does that all make sense? These are just some of the many different kinds of theories that are out there on personality. And no questions, I'm gonna move forward to just looking at how we measure. You wanna try that real quick? Here's a measure then, and some of the ways that we could try, like the Myers-Briggs and others. And I'll give you a real quick way to do this. Questions on the theories? Make sense?
38:48
All right, OK. So to measure personality is another key point. So each of these theories would have different ways of measuring, some are really hard by the way.
39:01
Some are difficult and find measuring a person's personality can take on a couple of different forms. So let's try an easy way, ready? Here is a strategy and an easy way that you could probably go and do in about 15 to 20 minutes by looking at what we call some of the most important traits we all have. Each of us have a personality characteristic or trait that we share with other people to some level or degree or another. In fact, we've narrowed down the five most important traits
39:43
that we all vary on, and if you know where a person stands on these five traits you can see where they stand and where you stand and you get a good gauge of their personality. We call it the big five.
39:57
The big five, and by the way, you can find it at that website and take it, what's called this personality inventory that psychologists would say this after 20, 30, 40, 50 years of research these five personality traits. Anybody wanna take a guess what one of those five big personality traits are that we all share and like and we're somewhere on the continuum. Give me one, give me something that all of us you would know and wanna know about somebody
40:30
that would peg them if where they stood on this one. Anybody?
40:36
>> Student: Introverted. >> Ooh, how about introversion and extroversion. Do you think that's one of 'em? If you know where somebody stands on this you'd probably have a pretty good gauge of what kinda person you're gonna interact with, right? Introversion extroversion, and that's exactly it. So how to assess a person by watching their behavior. You could do that, too. Here's some clues to look for. Here are the big five. I'll tell you what, I'll put 'em in a different order.
41:01
So don't write these down. I'm gonna put 'em in a different order that I think it'll be more memorable. But here's what we're gonna look at. Extroversion, being talkative or sociable or fun-loving. Being agreeable, sympathetic, or warm, or trusting. How many have a friend that's high on the agreeable scale? How many know somebody that's sympathetic or trusting and warm? How about, know somebody on the conscientious scale. They're ethical, dependable, productive, purposeful.
41:28
How many know somebody that's high on that scale, you would say? Uh-huh, how about high on the neuroticism scale? They're anxious, insecure, guilt-prone, and self-conscious. You know anybody? More hands. Openness to experience, how many know somebody that's daring, nonconforming, they have broad interests and kind of imaginative? OK, these are the five. Think of 'em as the OCEAN. [students laughing] The OCEAN traits, Ocean 11.
41:56
In this case it's only OCEAN five.
41:59
O for openness, C for conscientiousness, E for extraversion, A for agreeableness and N for neuroticism.
42:10
And we call these, ready, the Big Five personality traits.
42:18
Put a person somewhere on the continuum on each of these five and you've got a pretty good gauge of the person and you could therefore kind of predict a little bit of their behavior or what to expect from them in any given situation, and that's the goal. So openness, by the way, there's the website again.
42:43
And I told you before that people did go into dorm rooms to try and measure their personality.
42:51
And I'm gonna pull back just a second. I wanna show you the past slide and it goes like this, remember extroversion, agreeableness conscientiousness neuroticism, and openness to experience. So now we ask, a cool study went into a person's dorm room and they looked around and they tried to see how accurate they were at gauging a person they never met just by looking at their dorm room. Which of these five, which of the OCEAN traits do you think they were able to best, accurately nail
43:26
or predict based upon what they saw in the dorm room? How many would say that openness was something they were able to see in a dorm room? They're open to new experiences, open to, OK, good. How many think conscientiousness? How conscious they were about, remember, where we talked about conscientiousness. Ethical dependable productive. How many think that would have been on there? It's pretty high. How about extraversion introversion in a dorm room? Yeah, how about agreeableness?
43:55
Were they agreeable or not so agreeable? Were they sympathetic or warm, trusting? I don't know if a dorm room showed that one. How about neuroticism?
44:03
Were they kinda anxious, insecure, guilt-prone? You see in a dorm room? Well, by the way, here were the top three and they were very good at assessing openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism better than people who interacted with the person face to face. They had just as good of a measure about this by looking at their rooms. So those are the big five.
44:30
All right, questions? Do you understand the five? Here's how quickly this test is. By the way, the reason the dorm room worked is because people left things like their identity kinda claims, you know, how they left their room, how they decorated was something a little bit about what they were like kind of came out in their decorations. And so people that were judging rooms and trying to figure out a person's personality would look for things like, ah, I see,
45:01
they read these books, or they have these pictures, or their room looks like that, or what we call behavioral residue laying around. That is, how clean or not so clean. And then things that would regulate their thoughts and feelings, like maybe they had a bunch of, I don't know, candles in the room or a bunch of other things in the room that would kind of show how they might regulate their thoughts or feelings, so that's why it was there. So let's try this.
45:32
Here is the website one more time, and this is what you'll get. It'll show you on that scale from one end to the other and here are my results. I took it just to show you and you could see how good you are, predict, am I more closed-minded or more open to new experiences?
45:48
So you guys know me a little bit, I'm kinda more open. Am I more disorganized conscientious? [students chatting] [students laughing] I don't know if I liked that answer. I'm more conscientious. Am I more introverted or extroverted? >> Students: Extroverted. >> Ah, I'm more intro, I'm more neutral, but if I'm a room with y'all and I don't really know you I'm like, it's a little bit weird for me. This, I have to be extroverted. Does that surprise some of you? >> Students: Yeah.
46:20
Am I more agreeable or disagreeable? >> Students: Agreeable. >> Be quiet. [students laughing] I'm more agreeable.
46:27
Am I more nervous and high-strung or calm and relaxed? I think I told you, I'm like way over there. [students laughing] So I did this for my wife and I took hers to see where she is at and just to show you, 'cause some of you want to go, this is me. What would be a good five pattern for me if I wanna date somebody? Better yet, what would be a bad way, and a bad five. So here's my wife by the way, Alisa.
46:52
She is not close-minded, we're about the same. Conscientious, you guys don't know her, but look at her face, what do you think? More disorganized or conscientious? >> Students: Conscientious. >> Yeah, she's more disorganized. I know, it's been a challenge. [students laughing] I'm learning and I was like, wow. OK, how about introverted extroverted. [students replying indistinctly] Look at her face.
47:17
She's like extroverted to the extreme. Like, oh, we should go party right now. Let's go find a bunch of people.
47:26
Why? [students laughing] I don't know, because people are fun. No, they're not always fun. What is she, more agreeable or disagreeable?
47:37
Look at her face again, she's very disagreeable. [students laughing] She's like, way, no, not really. She's like so far on the agreeable it's like, that sounds great, let's do that, like, OK. And nervous calm, she's like with me over there. Nothing really, just like, whatever. We'll rarely get things done because we're so calm and relaxed. [students laughing] Does that bug you? Nah, it doesn't bug me either. Awesome, let's move forward.
48:07
By the way, you could decide which of these people, which ones are you really like committed to that, I don't want anybody who's that, does that make sense? And so by the way, you could fill out for them
48:22
and see where they're at. I did it for somebody that I would say is the wrong person for me. They would, well, look like that. No, not really, but somebody that's highly disagreeable and highly nervous and you could see Alisa is completely oppose of those and I think that works for me because if that person would be like, I don't know if I could get along with that. Does that make sense? That is how you can assess. And would you like to see the website again or did you already get it?
48:46
Most of you got it.
48:48
A not so easy way, who wants to try and be the subject for the day?
48:57
Brooke raised her hand pretty quickly and tell me your name. >> Kyler: Kyler. >> Tyler. >> Kyler. >> Kyler? >> Yeah. >> With a K? >> Yeah. >> Cool name.
49:08
Klyer and Brooke, ready, here we go.
49:11
I'm gonna put a picture up.
49:15
And I want you to tell me what you think is going on in that picture? All right, tell me out loud, what's goin' on? >> Brooke: She's, it's a girl. >> It's a girl. >> Brooke: She's very upset. >> She's very upset. >> Brooke: And she's at the foot of her bed crying. >> She's at the foot of her bed crying.
49:38
Brooke, let me ask this question, why is she upset?
49:42
>> Brooke: Because her stepfather. [students laughing] Has really hurt her feelings and disowned the family. >> Her stepfather. [students laughing] Let's go with Kyler over here.
50:00
Because her stepfather has disowned the family and hurt her feelings. >> Uh-huh. >> Uh-huh, how do you know she's upset? What gives it away that she's upset? >> Brooke: She's in a like, closed-in-- >> In a kind of a fetal, closed-in position.
50:16
Kyler, what do you see up there? >> Kyler: Kinda looks like she's grieving like she's-- >> She's grieving because what? >> Kyler: Suffering a loss of like a loved one. >> She's suffering a loss of a loved one. [students chatting indistinctly] How many did not see anything at all like that in this picture? Maybe some of you did. Maybe some of you were like, you see other things. By the way, this is why it's not so easy because ready? This, Brooke, Kyler, is something that you told me
50:48
from your personality you've just projected it onto that picture.
50:53
So therefore you've projected onto that picture something about you, so what kind of test do you think we call this? Wait, I'll say it one more time. You've projected your stuff onto this picture so we call this kind of test a. >> Student: Projection >> Projective test.
51:10
Like a projector you've taken your stuff, your personality and put it on that picture and told me things about it,
51:22
about she's sad or hurt.
51:27
And you see things there, so we call this a projective test. So to analyze your statements, by the way, I can't do it. I'm not trained, but there are people being trained in projective tests who can take all of your questions, all of your projections and start to map out. They wouldn't stop with this picture. They'd show you other pictures. Some things some of you might have picked up in this picture and some of you didn't, but some of you might go, [gasp]
51:50
look what's right there, that's a knife.
51:55
[student gasps] [students laughing] And so some of you might have picked that up, and some of you are are like, oh my that's what this is. She's really, really sad and someone just broke her heart, or whatever.
52:10
That's a projective test. By the way, this is called the TAT test.
52:16
Thematic, there's themes, themes apperception.
52:22
Thematic, apperception test, the TAT.
52:28
So people who are trained in projective tests will not only give you this picture, they'll give you many more and after a while they'll start to see some themes that show up. If every time the same themes start to show up they start to use that as, ah, I'm starting to see a theme in your life that you're projecting onto that. That's the same thing as a Rorschach. You would say the same thing. We could ask you what do you see here. Oh, I see a girl who's crying because her stepfather left her.
52:54
[students chatting indistinctly] And you're like, OK, there's a theme going on here, you get it?
53:01
By the way, some of you are seeing. I don't know what you see in that. It doesn't really matter what you see in this, does it? Like you see mooses at the top and, I don't know what else you see, horns. >> Student: Ducks. >> Ducks, two guys with big noses looking at each other.
53:17
By the way, these two tests, the thematic apperception test and the Rorschach ink blot test are both projective. Ink blot, called the Rorschach are both projective because they require the person taking the test to project their personality onto those images and a trained assessment person would be able to say,
53:50
oh, you see this and this therefore it gives me insight into your personality. That's why they call it projective test. And that's why they call things like the MMPI,
54:00
the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. How many have heard of the MMPI? That's called an objective test. You just simply answer yes, no, true, false, whatever and that's more of an objective rather than a projective test, does that make sense?
54:17
By the way, these are very subjective. What you see up there depends, and that's why it's called a subjective or projective test. So ultimately at the end of the day we do have people who use tests in a legitimate, scientific way, not like in a maybe quick, random way that you've seen on websites that say here, take this five-minute test or this three-minute thing. Those can be OK, like the big five,
54:45
but oftentimes they can be used the wrong way. And so scientists that study this use, maybe, I don't know, you call them the, who use profiles. So if a psychologist or somebody who has a Ph.D will use personality tests and assessments in helping professions.
55:04
That is, like you would think about a clinical or a counseling psychologist, they will use a personality test to help them assess how to give help to a person who may be struggling or who may need help. So they'll use a personality test and that'll say, OK, this helps me understand a little bit more about you and so now I can see a better way to bring you help. But by the way, psychologists or Ph.Ds who work in the area of personality could also, besides treating disorders or doing therapy,
55:37
the legal profession uses them, right, in maybe catching criminals. So some people use personalities and assessing a person
55:49
and the legal profession relies on some of them in their kinda goal to, let's say, catch criminals.
55:59
A lot of TV shows use these, right? Give me an example of some TV shows that might use a profiler. What is it? >> Student: Criminal Minds. >> Criminal Minds. >> Student: Psyche. >> Yeah, Psyche, Lie to Me, have you seen that one? All of these, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, Lie to Me. All would be examples, so to speak, of somebody using the field of personality to catch criminals. Government, military might use it to analyze foreign leaders
56:30
and so you have legitimate ways in which this whole field
56:36
of assessing and measuring personalities could be used.
56:43
So here's what I'm gonna do.
56:45
What we'll do is we'll finish real quickly next time looking at one particular original approach, the psychoanalytic approach, Freud's approach. So here's what I need you to do, ready? I need you to read about, in Personality, read Freud's perspective and his approach to personality. Things like the id, ego, and superego. Read that, I'll briefly summarize it next time and then we'll start disorders as well. [upbeat music] >> Announcer: Biola University offers a variety
57:15
of biblically-centered degree programs ranging from business to ministry to the arts and sciences. Visit biola.edu to find out how Biola could make a difference in your life.
Here to help you learn
Sign in to keep a private conversation with your course tutor.
Ask me anything about the material…
Sign in to chat