In this video, we’ll attempt to answer the question of what causes our personality—that is, why we are the way we are. We’ll discuss several different psychological approaches to answering this question, and we’ll specifically address the extent to which our genetics vs. environments influence our personality.

Monozygotic (MZ) Twins: Twins who share 100% of their genetic material; identical twins.

Dizygotic (DZ) Twins: Twins who share 50% of their genetic material; fraternal twins.

Biological Determinism: The belief that personality traits are inborn.

Social-Cognitive Theory of Personality: Posits that both learning (the focus of behaviorists) as well as cognitive factors are sources of individual differences in personality.

Reciprocal Determinism: The idea that behavior and thought both influence and are influenced by the social environment; the Social-Cognitive Theory of Personality proposes that all of these factors influence each other.

Observational Learning: A vicarious form of learning that is driven by observing someone else’s behavior and its consequences; Social-Cognitive theorists believe that observational learning plays a role in forming personality in that we develop behavior patterns based on our observations of others.

Self-efficacy: The level of confidence we have in our own abilities; influenced by our social experiences (e.g., the feedback we get from others) and affects how we approach future challenges.

Freudian Slip: A slip of the tongue in which we say something we didn’t intend to, presumably because the statement was associated with some thought or urge lingering in the unconscious.

Id: An aspect of personality that consists of our most primitive drives or urges, including impulses for hunger, thirst, and sex.

Superego: An aspect of the personality that serves as one’s moral compass, or conscience.

Ego: An aspect of personality that represents the self, or the part of one’s personality that is visible to others.
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