Personality Lecture #14

Discussion thread for Personality and Its Transformations - Lecture #14

study group discussion

Discussion as part of our Study Group.

my notes

  • 00:00 - Psychoanalysis is engineering of people, as thus, requires philosophy

  • 02:00 - Listening to others prevents you projecting your ideology onto them

  • 03:00 - 06:00 - Eclectic psychologists are not as effective as strict adherents to one - perhaps if you pick and choose from every school of thought, you don’t know any sufficiently, so are less effective - and also that if someone is coming to you because they are chaotic and confused, helping them to impose ANY structure is better than none, as none will have you flounder - Piagetian, you are going to be happier playing ANY game, than NO game - a part of maturation, is that it is very important for people to dedicate themselves to a SINGLE game, at the sacrifice of all the other things you could become, if you don’t decide one thing, then you risk ageing chaotically, so you might as well age into something than becoming an old child, especially when they hit 40 it is almost irreparable at that point to become something as you have no decades of opportunity left and are people are less forgiving

  • 06:00 - there are two expectations/obligations as a scientist (1) to use the scientific method (2) to come up with a measurement that is reliable and valid

  • 10:25 - slide of personality - traits [frames of reference (modes of perception, patterns of behaviours, stable motivations, systems of values), sub-personalities]

  • 11:00 - factor analysis and covariance, to find patterns of grouping in questions and answer results, to find covarying structures - big 5 is then 5 groups of covariance in the answers

  • 11:00 - 16:00 - IQ

  • 16:00 - does being around groups of people make you energetic or does it exhaust you? - introverts are exhausted by social interactions, extroverts are energised, you can be in the middle too

  • 17:00 - your capacity to expand your ability past its initial constraints of your biological temperaments is something of the development of character/wisdom - if you are extroverted and learn to be introverted, it expands your domain of competence, and vice versa << perhaps, but it can also make you more unhappy and unfulfilled >> extroverts look at a field of people as interactions of possibilities, whereas introverts hope they are left alone - open people look at a field of people as opportunities to engage in interesting conversations (ideas and aesthetics) - neuroticism looks at the world as a place of threats that could hurt them

  • 20:00 - personality traits set your goals - extroverts love parties and to tell jokes

  • 21:30 - agreeable people define/segment the story of their life by the relationships they have

  • 22:00 - the higher you value a particular trait, the more you value opportunities in that particular trait

  • 24:00 - if you want a stable partner, one of the things you don’t want in a relationship, is too much mismatch on the five fundamental dimensions

  • 27:00 - industrious people cannot stand doing nothing, so they fill their time with action << perhaps why certain people cannot stand meditation, meditation doesn’t seem a fit all be all >> - if you want to relax in your relationship, a conscientious person may not be a good choice

  • 31:00 - slide

  • 32:00 - if different personalities exist, then descriptive terms will get created to reflect the differences

  • 36:00 - construct validation (how do you determine something exists) - a construct is a representation of something psychological that hypothetically exists objectively - how do you establish its existence objectively? does surprise exist? does joy exist? does guilt and shame exist? how do they all relate to each other? are they distinguishable? how do you measure them?

  • 37:00 - politics is a place where self serving bias can enter the scientific arena

  • 40:00 - founders institute

  • 43:00 - IQ is required for anything complex - the thing about creative people, is they continuously step outside evaluation structures - the Lott of creative people is that they are always stepping outside evaluation structures, so can never feel or get the feedback they need to continue within structures

  • 45:00 - science is powerful because it allows non-geniuses to figure out what the next question should be - however geniuses (super intelligent yet creative people) can blow the questions out of the water

  • 46:00 - bureaucracies stultify because they get filled with conscientious people (and a few psychopaths), and the landscape shifts, even though they are going very productively (but now in the wrong direction) - which is why you always a need a few creative crazy people in your company because some of their ideas may just become true, and keep you relevant

  • 47:00 - there is huge probability that your ideas and execution are valuable, but there is also extraordinary probability that it is not the right time and place for them - to be successful in the creative marketplace, you need great ideas, great people with skills you don’t have, and then production of the product that is in demand by the marketplace that someone else hasn’t done better - a creative person who isn’t being creative, withers and dies, it is a jail sentence for them - if you want to have a creative career, you should have something stable on the side that earns money, and do your creative stuff on the side