Measuring Personality

Hi, I'm Dr Anthony Miller from Staffordshire University.

And then this course today we're gonna be talking about what personality

is how it's measured as well as the nature of personality.

But I do. We develop personality through our nature.

Are we born with a certain personality or

his personality developed through our social environment?

And then we're gonna talk about research on personality and

sport and the kind of nuances that come with that.

Then we're gonna talk about strategies to

improve sports performance based on personality alone,

and they were going to summarise in a couple of minutes video.

So why shall we study?

Personality and personality is a broad term that

is defined roughly on its enduring nature,

who we are as a person

and that enduring nature of who we are now

personality can potentially be shaped over our lifetime,

but we're going to go into that during the course now.

The problem here is that

there are so many definitions of what personality is that there are enough

people to actually suggest that personality is a plethora of different things.

So generally speaking, personality is something that has received some cynicism,

which we'll talk about in a moment

The current thoughts in sport and exercise on personality

is that there's not much we can use,

or it's hard to actually measure personality.

Personality research hasn't given much to put

the sport and exercise in terms of adherence

and elite level sports. At least that's what the current thoughts are.

So historically, there's been quite a lot. Actually,

in the thirties,

we've seen that over 1000 papers have been published

in sport and exercise with regards to personality.

And actually,

in 1930 we suggested that the personality of an

individual is likely to lead to better sporting performance,

exercise, adherence.

And just generally we can map out and profile.

Who is going to be good in sport and who isn't

during that time?

I think Charlie Chaplin Charlie Chaplin was a big

personality and a big character during that time,

and I like to use Charlie Chaplin is an example of being good in their field.

Charlie Chaplin was known to be a character. And what is a character?

What is it about Charlie Chaplin that made him good?

People would say his personality. Here he is as a person,

and that is why research was so key and big in the 20th century. Because

personality can dictate sporting behaviour,

though in the 21st century we're starting to learn more

about the differences in people and accepting these things,

which will come onto later.

But in general, through the 20th century,

we can see that personality does influence sporting behaviours

It wasn't until 19 eighties that Costa and McCrae develops

the first theoretical understanding of what personality is now.

This is the Big Five personality traits now the Big Five traits.

I use an acronym for this, and it's Ocean

Ocean being that Oh, his openness.

See his conscientiousness.

E is extra. Version A is agreeableness

and neuroticism now, broadly personality can fit within these five things.

Or at least that's what costume McRae think.

So Costume McCree

develops these five factors,

and I'm going to explain each factor individually.

So always about openness.

This is where you are curious and open to new ideas,

conscientiousness about diligence,

doing things beautifully and well,

and this is very well linked to perfectionism,

wanting to do things perfectly and with rigour, shall we say,

and then we have extra version.

Extra version is around this openness to experiences outgoing, talkative,

sociable.

Whereas the opposing element to extra version is introversion,

where you have an inward personality and don't need

that much social interaction to fulfil your own needs,

whereas an extroverted individual will be talkative and social,

need that social interaction to feel good enough.

And then we have agreeableness.

Agreeableness Is that sensitively interesting nature of an individual and

being tolerant of others even though they are different.

And this comes with age, which I'll come to talk to you soon.

And last but not least, we have anxious nous, which is a byproduct of neuroticism.

So anxiousness and irritability is something that is developed, um,

in Children who have been abused, for example, which again we'll talk about later.

But that is another or the last of the Big Five trace, which is again openness,

conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

But let's just critically appraise this.

Let's just have a think

so as a person,

that's all of the boxes, ticked

openness all the way through to neuro system.

There's nothing else. See.

Cartel during a similar time came up with a 16 personality factors,

with some of which were warmth reasoning, private nous sensitivity.

One of them is perfectionism,

so you can see there's a crossover between these two people.

We've got cattle, and we've got Costa McCrae.

Neuroticism, conscientiousness and so on is limited.

But let's just use conscientiousness for a moment.

Conscientiousness Is that diligence wanting to do those things beautifully?

Perfectionism is a very similar construct,

wanting to do things you know with with rigour.

So there's a big crossover in how people measure personality.

But there's still all the factors that are taken into account.

So Costa and McCrae don't account for warmth, reasoning, tension,

all of these things that cartel does.

So this is where the problem is with measurement of personality.

Personality isn't something that can just be measured directly because there

are hundreds hundreds of things that make up who we are.

And this is where the fall of personality research comes in.

But it's the same with Isaac Isaac.

Isaac's work was talking about introversion and extroversion,

as well as stability and instability and the mix of

these things and how that influences the way you are.

So, in essence,

personality research is a little bit of a slow burner in

the 21st century because it's very difficult to both define and measure

and we'll talk about this going forward.

So one of the very,

very common models in this area is the Hollander model in the seventies,

and this just sheds light on the issue with personality.

Research in that personality can be contextual.

What I mean is we can have three layers of who we are. Take this if you will.

But think of a Twix bar. It's a bit strange, but think of a Twix bar.

I've got three layers to that to expire.

You've got the chocolate, you've got the biscuit and you've got the caramel,

the biscuit being the bottom layer, right.

That bottom layer,

which you cannot see when you open it to expire, is your psychological core,

who you are as a person.

And not many people get to know who you are as a person, only close family and friends.

If that even happens itself, it's who you are up here.

Deep down, not many people get to see this, that inner core, that biscuit layer

that's

that doesn't get see,

and then

the layer above is the caramel, isn't it?

That caramel is your typical response to a scenario that

you're How does Jeff typically respond to stressful situation?

Is he a bit more anxious? Is he a calm person on the pressure?

Generally, how does this person react? And again, this has implications.

And then we have the chocolate layer on the outside,

so the chocolate layer on the outside is what people can see.

Right?

So you open the Twix packet and you see that

chocolate layer That is the role related behaviour of personality.

So personality as we know it is what we see.

I I am a different person when I am at home.

So when I am at work,

I'm a different person in a sporting situation,

and these characteristics are carried with me in these situations.

Does that mean that these aren't me?

No. Does it mean it is me?

Yes, but in terms of measurement of personality, if you get me at home with family,

I'll probably feel it indifferently.

They form. So when I'm at work,

not only that,

but when you're filling these forms in about who you are as a person,

this is an issue as well,

because if you're next to someone at college, for example,

Are you going to feel it to feel like

your ideal self?

Are you gonna want to be your ideal self in that fault,

are you gonna want to kind of be a bit bias in your response?

Oh, yeah. I'm really, you know, conscientious. I'm not. I'm not a free will at all.

I'm just, you know, I'm very extroverted, individual

when generally this.

This doesn't happen

in the reality where you tend to

Phil things incorrectly.

And this is again the fall of personality

research because there's layers to who you are.

And we can only measure you in that specific context.

So moving on, we're going to talk about the nature of personality.

I is personality,

something that has developed over time for your social environment.

Or are we going to be determined by genetics with regards to our personality?