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Personality Theory Paper

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Personality Theories Psych 504 November 3 2012 Dr. Claire Clifford Personality Theories A person’s personality says much about who he or she is. People define personality in different ways. Researcher after researcher has tried to come up with the best definition for what personality truly means. Case studies, correlational studies, and experimental designs are some of the most commonly used methods of research. These methods help better define personality. The advantages and disadvantages of each method differ and can be helpful or hurtful to the research of an individual’s personality. Defining Personality Personality …show more content…

Psychologists would use correlations to study personality by observing several people to see what affects their personalities. For example, most millionaires are not happy; therefore money does not make an individual happy. Thus, happiness does not make people millionaires. Some advantages to using a correlational study would be that individuals are easy to obtain to conduct the research needed. Another advantage would be that the subjects would be of a wide variety, which would add more to the results of the study (Martyn, 2008). However with advantages come disadvantages. For example, with correlational studies there is no background information obtained. Therefore, the reliability of the correlational studies is questioned. Experimental Designs (Advantage and Disadvantages) Experimental design research tends to use math and statistics to try to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Within an experimental design most of the research is controlled and leaves little room for error. One advantage of experimental design is that it is hard to disprove the results. However, a disadvantage is that because the conditions are controlled that makes the results too perfect. If the same experiment was conducted in an uncontrolled setting, such as the real world, the results would vary. Experimental designs make it easy for other

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