Personality is a person's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. Personality is fairly stable over time and across situations.

What is a personality type?

A personality type is a category that groups people who share a set of characteristics. Each person is placed in one type rather than given a score on a continuum.

What are Type A and Type B personalities?

Type A people are competitive, impatient and hostile, with a strong sense of time urgency. Type B people are relaxed, patient and easy-going.

Why might psychologists prefer personality scales to personality types?

Scales show how much of a trait a person has, while types force people into a few categories. Most people fall somewhere between the extremes that types describe.

Edexcel GCSE Psychology 1PS0

Development

Topic overview Early brain development Piaget's theory of cognitive development Dweck's mindset theory and Willingham's learning theory The three mountains task and Gunderson's praise study The development of morality

Memory

Topic overview Information processing, duration and capacity Retrograde and anterograde amnesia Bartlett's theory of reconstructive memory The multi-store model, reductionism and holism War of the Ghosts and the Peterson and Peterson study

Psychological Problems

Topic overview Symptoms of depression and addiction Incidence and effects of mental health problems Explaining depression Explaining addiction Treating depression and addiction Key studies and the nature–nurture debate

The Brain and Neuropsychology

Topic overview Lobes of the brain and the effects of damage Lateralisation and Sperry's split-brain study Neurons, synapses and the central nervous system Phineas Gage and how brain research has changed

Social Influence

Topic overview Conformity to majority influence Obedience to authority Bystander intervention Crowd behaviour, society and culture Piliavin's subway study and the Stanford prison study

Criminal PsychologyOptional topic

Topic overview Operant conditioning and social learning explanations of crime Eysenck's criminal personality theory Punishment, recidivism and rehabilitation Bandura's Bobo doll study and Charlton's St Helena study

The SelfOptional topic

Topic overview Self-concept and influences on self-esteem Erikson's identity stages and belief in free will Rogers' and Maslow's humanistic theory Measuring personality and trait theory Vohs and Schooler's cheating study and Van Houtte and Jarvis's pet study

PerceptionOptional topic

Topic overview Depth cues, visual illusions and constancies Gibson's direct theory and Gregory's constructivist theory Perceptual set The Haber and Levin and Carmichael studies

Sleep and DreamingOptional topic

Topic overview Sleep stages and the sleep cycle Influences on sleep and sleep disorders Freud's theory of dreaming and activation synthesis theory Freud's Little Hans and Siffre's cave study

Language, Thought and CommunicationOptional topic

Topic overview Piaget and Vygotsky on language and thought Linguistic relativism and determinism Human and animal communication Non-verbal communication and Darwin's evolutionary theory The Yuki and Boroditsky studies

Research Methods

Topic overview Variables, hypotheses and controls Sampling methods Experiments and experimental designs Interviews, questionnaires and types of data Correlations, case studies and observations Ethical issues in psychological research Evaluating studies and the core areas of psychology Averages, calculations and graphs

The Self

Measuring personality and trait theory

3 things to know
Paper 2

Overview

Personality scales and types, Type A and Type B, self-report problems, Allport's cardinal, central and secondary traits, and Cattell's 16PF.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started

Key term

What is personality?

Key term

What is a personality scale?

Key term

How does a typical personality scale collect answers?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1
What is personality?
Model answer
Personality is a person's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. Personality is fairly stable over time and across situations.
2
What is a personality scale?
Model answer
A personality scale is a questionnaire that measures how much of each trait a person has. Scores fall on a continuum, such as from very reserved to very outgoing.
3
How does a typical personality scale collect answers?
Model answer
People rate how well statements describe them, often from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The ratings are added to give a score for each trait.
4
What is a personality type?
Model answer
A personality type is a category that groups people who share a set of characteristics. Each person is placed in one type rather than given a score on a continuum.
5
What are Type A and Type B personalities?
Model answer
Type A people are competitive, impatient and hostile, with a strong sense of time urgency. Type B people are relaxed, patient and easy-going.
6
Why might psychologists prefer personality scales to personality types?
Model answer
Scales show how much of a trait a person has, while types force people into a few categories. Most people fall somewhere between the extremes that types describe.

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Development

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