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CYP1 Intro+Definitions

The document provides answers to questions about personality from a textbook chapter. It defines personality as patterns of behavior, thinking, and feeling that characterize an individual. Personality structure refers to the basic enduring components of personality and their relationships. Key characteristics of personality traits are their consistency over time, situations, and duration. The concepts of comprehensiveness, parsimony, bandwidth, and fidelity are explained in relation to developing personality theories, with bandwidth-fidelity tradeoff referring to the need to balance coverage of phenomena with specificity of predictions.

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Diya Aggarwal
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
72 views

CYP1 Intro+Definitions

The document provides answers to questions about personality from a textbook chapter. It defines personality as patterns of behavior, thinking, and feeling that characterize an individual. Personality structure refers to the basic enduring components of personality and their relationships. Key characteristics of personality traits are their consistency over time, situations, and duration. The concepts of comprehensiveness, parsimony, bandwidth, and fidelity are explained in relation to developing personality theories, with bandwidth-fidelity tradeoff referring to the need to balance coverage of phenomena with specificity of predictions.

Uploaded by

Diya Aggarwal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Diya Aggarwal

3038664124

CYP-1: What is personality? (Chapter 1)

1--What is the definition of personality? Briefly describe each of the major elements of the
definition. Is the definition in the textbook different from the one Prof. John gave in his lecture?

Answer: Personality in the textbook is defined as the characteristics an individual may


encompass in terms of their patterns of behavior, thinking and feeling. What I understand by this
is that one’s constant changes in action, thought processes and feeling which may result in the
behavioral change again, causes a personality type. Moreover, it has a lot to do with their
consistency to fall under a category. It goes on to explain about the human universals, individual
differences, and uniqueness of human beings.
Professor John in his lecture, spoke about the central components in terms of traits, states, and
acts, all of which fall under the spectrum of the definition in the textbook just with more nuance
to temperament, activities, and emotional states of people. Both the textbook and the lecture
draw out similar definitions of personality.

2--What is personality structure? Also give an example.

Answer: Personality structure is the organization of personality in terms of its basic enduring
components and their relationship to one another. More so, it’s the enduring and stable aspects of
personality which can be comparable. It goes on to understand the components of personality to
understand the structuring. Traits may help in formulating and categorizing people within a
personality structure. For instance, to test the level of humility in an individual one could engage
with other traits like honesty and empathy to figure out the level of humility. So, different traits
helping in understanding their personality.
3--What are the defining characteristics of a personality trait? Give 3 examples of personality
traits.

Answer: Personality traits may help in formulating what may be called an individual’s
temperament, character, values, and beliefs. It could perhaps show their consistency across time,
situation, and duration. All in all, it gives a sense of how the person may be in general which
showcases their ‘typical behavior’. Examples of personality traits could include, ideas of
compassion, loyalty, confidence and perhaps determination.

4--Define (a) comprehensiveness and (b) parsimony. Why are these good things to have? Do
they apply only to scientific theories? How are they related to each other (e.g., could one
maximize both at the same time)?

Answer:
a) Comprehensiveness encompasses the psychological behavior which may be external or
internal. It may not necessarily have a framework falling under the ‘theory of personality’
since it does not only cover the theories but their significance in life. It thus, becomes
essential to understand the level of comprehensiveness of a theory, not just theory alone.
b) Parsimony is the ability of a theory to be economical and simple. This may encompass
the organization and the level of abstraction in a particular theory. This in turn leads to
the understanding of the theory in a much nuance and conceptual way which may be full
of abstraction.

These are perhaps good thing for a theory to have since it creates relevance and hypotheses
through systematic approach. The theories help in formulating new personality theories which
may not necessarily be used for generating new knowledge per say. No, both the concepts may
not apply to scientific theories since they are not really a part of the structuring, however they do
help in forming a comparative evaluation between theories with empirical evidence to be backed
with. Both the areas of interest may help in maximizing the ability to focus on human behavior
and emotional areas which may be helpful for specific predictions for future implications. They
can also be maximized to advance the level of a theory in terms of research relevance.
5—Define (a) bandwidth and (b) fidelity. How do these concepts apply to personality theory?
Explain in your own words what is meant by the bandwidth-fidelity trade-off.
Answer:

a) Bandwidth is a concept referring to the range of phenomena that may be covered by a


theory.
b) Fidelity is a concept which refers to the specificity or clarity which a theory relates to a
phenomenon.

Both the concepts may be applied to a personality theory, however, may sometimes be made to
trade off with one another. It focuses on functionality of personality along with emphasis on
behavior predictions. It focuses on great clarity and specificity which make a personality theory
more comprehensive and understandable.

According to me, both the concepts have a trade off because sometimes there may not be clarity
but there might be a range of variety within the phenomenon whereas sometimes there may be
clarity and precision but lack of range of phenomenon. Thus, considering the potential levels and
degrees of dominance of one concept in a theory the tradeoffs are likely to occur. This may lead
to formulating a good theory.

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