Methodology in Language Learning: Temperament

 

Personality is the most individual characteristic of a human being and therefore it is appropriate to start the summary of individual differences with a description of the various personality factors. The study of personality is one of the main themes in psychology and the subdiscipline specialized in this area is called—not surprisingly—personality psychology. This very active field has its roots in classic psychoanalytic theory at the beginning of the 20th century and its history bears the marks of all the major psychological paradigms, from the behaviorist and humanist to the social-cognitive. In addition, we also find in the literature numerous isolated personality measures of varying levels of breadth, often with no linkage to any specific personality theory. ’ Personal experience suggests that that there is a certain constancy about the way in which an individual behaves, regardless of the actual situation. Indeed, every language contains a wide array of adjectives to describe these patterns, ranging from aggressive to kind or from lazy to sociable, and there seems to be a fair deal of agreement among people about such categorizations—this suggests that these adjectives represent underlying personality traits. Personality theories, then, attempt to identify these traits and organize them into broad personality dimensions.

 

As a first step, therefore, it is useful to distinguish ‘temperament’ and ‘mood’ from ‘personality.’ Although there are no unequivocal definitions, temperament is typically used to refer to individual differences that are heavily rooted in the biological substrate of behavior and that are highly heritable.

 

The Classic Greek temperamental taxonomy proposed over 2,000 years ago by Hippocrates and Galen is still seen as one of the most valid and stable models in many countries today. The model describes four personality types:

Ø phlegmatic (unflappable and slow to take action),

Ø sanguine (easily but not strongly excited and having short-lived interests),

Ø choleric (impetuous and impulsive, often ambitious and perfectionist),

Ø melancholic (inclined to reflection).

If moods are ‘states’ rather than ‘traits,’ why? After all, ID variables have been conceptualized as enduring personal characteristics that are stable and systematic deviations from a normative blueprint. Mood states obviously do not fall into this category, as the whole point about distinguishing between ‘states’ (highly volatile, frequently changing features) from ‘traits’ (stable and constant properties) is to highlight the different degree of transience of the disposition in question. While this is true, mood states have a place among ID variables because individuals differ consistently in the mood states they seem to adopt, display, or submit to in given types of situations. There exist only three separate dimensions of mood states: energy–fatigue, tension–relaxation, and pleasure–displeasure. moods can interfere with task processing and can impair performance; on the other hand, moods can also energize and mobilize processing. Because of insufficient research findings in the literature and the space limitations of this book, the rest of the chapter does not elaborate on temperament and moods any further but focuses on factors associated with personality proper.

 

Personality is such a crucial aspect of psychology that every main branch of psychological research has attempted to contribute to the existing knowledge in this area. Thus, the scope of theorizing can be as broad as the differences among the various paradigms in psychology. Three principal personality dimensions are:

Ø extraversion with introversion,

Ø neuroticism and emotionality with emotional stability, and

Ø psychoticism and toughmindedness with tender-mindedness

 

Although personality psychology has, by intention, concentrated on stable and distinctive personality properties since its beginnings, it has become increasingly clear that by assuming absolute cross-situational consistency of most traits we can understand only part of the picture because there is evidence for cross-situational variability.

 

It is evident that the potential determinants of an adult’s personality include both environmental factors related to the nature of the home in which the person was raised as a child, and biological factors related to hereditary factors associated with the genetic make-up. Here again, however, we find an unfortunate separation of research directions between scholars studying these aspects, highlighting the need for future integration. In conclusion, although the study of human personality has generated a great amount of knowledge, personality psychology has still a long way to go before a comprehensive account of the interrelationship of all the relevant facets and factors can be achieved. Therefore, it is likely to remain an active and developing field in psychology for the foreseeable future

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