hey my name is Theodore this is
practical psychology and my mission is
to help you improve yourself by learning
how your brain works so if I accomplish
that go ahead and leave a like and if I
don't leave a comment so that I might be
able to improve these videos hope you
enjoyed this video have you ever taken a
personality quiz the results might tell
you that you're the center of attention
or maybe something like you're an ENTJ
people describe personalities in
different ways and scientists still have
a lot of questions about how our
personalities actually influence our
actions and that make us who we are if
you've ever been curious about what this
word personality really means we'll get
comfortable in this series we're gonna
be talking about personality so first
off what is personality now there are a
ton of ways to define personality in
fact top personality psychologists Feist
and Feist says this although no single
definition is acceptable to all
personality theorists we can say that
personality is a pattern of relatively
permanent traits and unique
characteristics I give both consistency
and individuality to a person's behavior
so let's zoom in and focus on one word
here traits you need to know this word
in and out when it comes to personality
psychology it's the center traits are a
unique characteristics that influence
our behavior these characteristics
typically set us apart from other people
for example you might describe yourself
as a respectful person or a genuine
person these are two examples of
personality traits before we talk about
the big five personality traits it's
important to remember that traits
influence our behavior they don't
dictate it when you are a respectful
person you have a tendency to be
respectful to other people around you
but you might act outside of these
traits due to well really anything you
might have a sick day a bad history with
someone or even nervousness may cause
you to act out of character now this is
one of the reasons why traits are
usually measured on a scale so let's
move on to how personality works we
display traits through something called
psychological mechanisms you need to
remember this term too because it comes
up almost as often as traits does
psychological mechanisms are like traits
except that they are the processes of
personality now a process has three
parts the input the rules the decision
rules in the middle and then the output
our traits determine the output and
sometimes they even determine what type
of input that we encounter let's say
you're a courageous person the input is
a dangerous situation so you have rules
in
right decision rules these rules are
based on your traits and they make
decisions on how you act so the output
if you're a courageous person is to face
danger now if you're not a courageous
person the output will be you fleeing
the scene so let's go over these two
again traits are characteristics and are
the individual words that we use to
describe people mechanisms are the
processes that people follow based on
these traits so I want to talk a little
bit about the three levels of
personality analysis so how do
psychologists measure personality well
for the answer we look to cluck Allah
and Murray in 1953 they published
personality and nature society and
culture in the book they say that every
man is in certain respects like all
other men like some other men and like
no other man so think about it there are
universal traits and mechanisms that
make humans unique to other species like
for example think of Maslow's hierarchy
of needs we all belong to one big group
the human race but within our species we
separate ourselves in other groups we
might call ourselves introverts
Americans messy people go-getters these
smaller groups share personality traits
at the most specific level we all have
things that make us unique maybe you
have a special talent or a strange
behavior that confuses your friends
habits routines and emotional
connections to people are all types of
things that make us different from the
person next to us so here's three
examples of ways that you're like all
other humans you have a need to belong
you want a feeling of purpose all humans
want this and you might tear up if I
smack your nose that's actually called
the NASA ciliary nerve reflex now here's
some examples of ways that you're like
some other humans you might be
introverted you might be really good at
doing your taxes and maybe you wince
whenever you watch someone give
themselves a paper cut and lastly you're
like no other humans maybe you
absolutely love doing your taxes maybe
you plan your days and you set very
specific goals that nobody else on this
planet does and you might cry if I show
you an image of your deceased family
member that's something that might
happen to you but doesn't happen to
anyone else
so these similarities and differences
don't just give us a group to belong to
they're the cornerstone of predicting
behavior so as you can see a lot of
personality is understanding the
similarities and the differences of
different people and how they act so
let's move on to where does personality
come from you might hear your family
members tell you that you have a similar
analogy to your mother or to your father
now does this mean our personality is
inherited do we get it from our family
how do we adopt the personality traits
that make us like all other people like
some other people and like no other
people well there are a ton of different
explanations that explain this or
attempt to explain this genetics is one
but environment the experiences you have
biology and trends going on in your
culture may also explain where you get
your personality traits one interesting
thought is that we co-create our
personalities and the personalities of
the people were you interact with so
they're all changing now here are some
common personality theories and I'm
gonna be going in depth in the future
videos so if you haven't already and you
already like this style of video go
ahead and click the subscribe button
number one is trait theory then
behavioral theory then humanistic theory
then biological theory and
psychoanalytic theory which is basically
from Freud now not all personality
traits are positive but we usually
prefer to talk about positive
personality traits we tend to reward
people that show positive personality
traits maybe like being respectful or
genuine now if someone is kind
we usually reward that type of behavior
by being kind back right now already you
might find some arguments against this
idea
not everyone characterizes the same
traits to be positive or negative
someone may think that respectfulness is
a top-tier personality trait that you
need to have in culture to succeed
someone else who has a lot of distrust
and authority or if the so called system
they might view respectfulness as a
negative personality trait so how do
people form their personalities when
they're both rewarded and chastised for
the same trait in different situations
well these are some of the questions
that psychologists are trying to answer
so at this point you might be thinking
why is personality psychology important
well there are tons of other questions
that can only be answered with research
and the study of personality psychology
and I'm going to go over a few of the
big ones the first one is freedom versus
determinism so this is basically asking
do we really choose our behavior and if
we wanted to change as humans could we
actually change or are we determined to
become a specific type of person
question number two is hereditary versus
environment so in reality where do our
personality traits actually come from
nature or nurture
number three is unique or universal some
psychologists say humans are very unique
while others agree that we're pretty
fairly universally the same
so what are we lastly is proactive
versus reactive now as humans do we act
on our own initiative or do we simply
respond to stimuli so as we continue to
move forward in this video you should
know why our personality psychologist so
determined why is it so important to
answer these types of questions well
they can use it to predict your future
behavior if you had the ability to
predict who is on track to becoming a
criminal wouldn't you want to steer them
in a different path and maybe even save
someone's life from a life in prison
look at Ted Bundy's personality
psychologists generally agree that he
had a classic sociopathic personality
well where did it come from well some
people say that he started forming a
sociopathic personality when he was
rejected by the love of his life at a
young age others believe his failure to
become a lawyer sparked these
personality traits and other
psychologists traced the root of his
personality to the shame of never
knowing his real birth parents well we
do know that his sociopathic behaviors
did start early and some argue his
killings could have been statistically
predicted how crazy is that predict that
someone would kill someone else he was a
pyromaniac and he had tortured animals
as a child some psychologists point to
his early bedwetting as a sign that he
was on track to becoming sociopaths in
fact these three traits form the
sociopathic personality number one being
amused and playing with fire which would
be like a pyromaniac number two
bedwetting when you're a child and
number three torturing animals we don't
really know why this happens but it
seems to happen throughout time and
because of that we can use it to predict
sociopathic personalities now being
adopted or wetting the bed obviously
doesn't mean that you were born to
become a sociopath but these theories
and discoveries are the first steps in
determining how we actually form our
personalities and how those
personalities influence our behavior if
psychologists can get a good idea of a
map that leads us to certain behaviors
then maybe we can redraw that map and
develop a co-creation process that
influences more positive personality
traits and less sociopathic ones the
psychology of personality isn't just
important for determining the future of
humans scientists in fact and artificial
intelligence look at massive amounts of
data relating to personality traits and
their behaviors artificial intelligence
can help us in our efforts to predict
future behavior from specific
personalities and possibly prevent bad
things from happening since analyzing
personality data involves looking at
massive amounts of information you know
the history of people what they're like
recognizing traits organizing traits
what
artificial intelligence is really good
at organizing and looking at massive
amounts of data now right now data
currently just shows correlations
between different levels of personality
traits and future behaviors or
classifications for example there's a
correlation between conscientiousness
and good grades in school there's also a
correlation that exists between
extroverts and car accidents
now personality psychologists say that
this could be due to extroverts need for
constant stimulation the data also links
low agreeableness to competitive
behaviors so if you want to be an
entrepreneur you probably want to have a
little bit lower agreeableness also high
neuroticism may predict the presence of
a mental illness in fact high
neuroticism is very closely linked to
mental illnesses now this list of
examples goes on and on but this data
still isn't perfect yet and I'll talk
about all kinds of predictions you can
make from your results of a personality
test in future videos so again hit that
subscribe button and that bell icon if
you haven't already psychologists use a
lot of different sources to collect this
type of data they use studies surveys
crime data and all kinds of other
sources of information and I'm going to
attempt to explain all of this to you in
an easy-to-understand format in the rest
of the series the results from data and
studies of personality can help improve
humankind there's no doubt about that
but what have we actually collected so
far as I in this video I want to let you
know about something called the unifying
theory of personality so far you've
heard a lot of names and theories
mentioned in this video well you might
be wondering who can we look to for the
end-all-be-all theories of how we
actually develop personality traits and
how we use them to make decisions well
it doesn't work like that yet we have
grand unifying theories that explain a
lot of our questions for example the
theory of evolution by natural selection
is a grand unifying theory in the world
of biology we're still looking for a
theory like that in personality
psychology think of a grand unifying
theory of personality like a bunch of
blind men trying to feel an elephant one
man walks up to the elephant from the
front and it feels its long nose this
blind man says the elephant is much like
a snake another man walks up to the
elephant from the side he says the
elephant is very much like a large cow
because that's what he can feel the last
blind man walks up to the elephant and
feels his ear he says much like a
land-dwelling stingray this is now each
man is only touching one part of the
elephant so they don't fully understand
what a whole elephant looks like
similarly the theories that we use to
describe personality are much like this
they only touch a specific part of our
personality an elephant is a combination
of a large round body a long snake-like
nose and big floppy ears personality is
likely made up of biological behavioral
and cognitive aspects so you should know
that we do have a grasp on different
elements of personality psychology and
again in this series I'll take you
through the elements of trait theory
behavioral theory humanistic theory
biological theory and the infamous
psycho analytical theory right now we
believe that those theories may play a
part in the grand unifying theory of
psychology but there's still a lot of
research to be done and lastly in this
video I want to talk about the Big Five
personality traits so traits
psychologists have been trying to create
a concise list of personality traits
that can be used to describe the basics
of anyone's personality after coming up
with lists of thousands of words and
then 16 words and then three well top
psychologists have settled on a happy
medium five traits you should keep these
big five traits in mind as you start to
evaluate your own personality
many people use an acronym to remember
the Big Five ocean or canoe the big five
personality traits are openness
conscientiousness extraversion
agreeableness and neuroticism and I'll
explain one of these in depth in another
video
each of these traits has a polar
opposite the opposite of extraversion is
introversion a trait psychologists
believe that we all lie somewhere along
a scale between each of these big five
traits and its opposite so example
you're not an introvert and you're not
an extrovert but maybe you're 25%
extraversion and 75% introversion now
here's a little bit of my own thoughts
there's not very much research on this
but I think one of the main things in
self-improvement is learning to push the
boundaries of your personality so you
might be a point-seven introverted well
over time as you improve yourself you
can extend your range from 0.5 to 0.9
and depending on your situation you can
change you can become a chameleon and
push your boundaries so as I in this
video I want to let you know that this
research is really exciting I had a ton
of fun going through all these text
books and learning all this type of
stuff imagine what could really happen
if we fully understood self-esteem or
trust or even leadership traits if you
want to watch the rest of the videos in
this series to learn how predictable
that you really are and if you can
actually change your personality or if
your future is set in stone if you
enjoyed this video feel free to watch
some of the other videos in this
personality series and if you want to
learn more about your own
personality check out my free
three-in-one personality quiz in the
description below it basically combines
three of the major personality quizzes
into one quiz that you can take in under
10 minutes it also predicts some things
about you like your political stances
your relationship style your health
anyways the link is in the description
below if you're interested in that and I
just wanted to thank you guys for
watching this was a longer video than
normal and I hope you have a great day