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Chapter 14: Problem 3

Why do you think people have different personalities? How would behaviorists explain the differences?

Short Answer

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People have different personalities because of various factors such as genetics, environment, culture, and personal experience. According to behaviorists, personality differences can be explained by variations in experiences and different histories of reinforcement and punishment.

Step by step solution

01

Defining personality

Personality can be defined as the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a person unique. It arises from within each individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. This can be due to a variety of factors such as genetics, environment, culture, and personal experiences.
02

Introduction to Behaviorism

Behaviorism, in psychology, is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behaviors are either reflexes produced by a response to certain stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment.
03

Behaviorist explanation of personality differences

According to behaviorists, variations in personality are a result of differences in conditioning and reinforcement. In other words, our experiences and how we react to them (rewards, punishments, etc.) shape our behaviors and thus our personalities. People have different personalities because they have different experiences and histories of reinforcement and punishment, and they have interpreted and responded to those histories in unique ways.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

What part of a personality-id, ego, or superego-do you think is the most important? Explain your answer.

Choose a character in a movie or television show you have recently seen. Describe the character in terms of the personality dimensions proposed by one of the trait theorists discussed in this section.

What is self actualization? How does one achieve it?

According to behaviorism, what is the proper subject matter of psychology? How does this relate to the study of personality?

What is the difference between personal unconscious and collective unconscious? How does the unconscious affect our personalities?
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