personality unit x. personality the units leading up to this one have discussed our similarities how...

PersonalityUnit X

Personality

• the units leading up to this one have discussed our similarities

• how we all develop, perceive, learn, remember, think, and feel

• this unit will look at how we are individuals• Personality- your characteristic pattern of thinking,

feeling, and acting– if your personality is distinctive and

consistent, you are often said to have a strong personality

Psychoanalytic perspective and personality

• Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality

• Freud's current influence in psychological science has diminished but he is still one of the most well known psychologists in history

• he became interested in psychology after seeing patients whose disorders made no neurological sense

• Freud "discovered" something he called the unconscious


• the unconscious mind– by looking at someone's life, he started to think that

blindness or deafness, with no obvious physiological cause, may be caused by not wanting to see or hear something that aroused intense anxiety

– Freud first believed that hypnosis may be the key to entering someone's unconscious, but he found his patients to contain an uneven capacity for hypnosis

– free association- a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing


• The Unconscious Mind– Freud believed that free association allowed him to

trace a line back into someone's memory, producing a chain of thought leading into the patient's unconscious

– once he could get into someone's unconscious he could retrieve and release painful unconscious memories often from childhood

– he called this method psychoanalysis• attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives

and conflicts


• The Unconscious Mind– Freud believed the mind was like an iceberg with

most of it hidden– our conscious awareness is the part of the iceberg

that floats above the surface– below the surface is the unconscious• a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes,

feelings, and memories• information processing of which we are unaware• some of the unconscious thoughts we store temporarily

in a preconscious area, from which we can retrieve them into conscious awareness


• The Unconscious Mind– Freud focused much of his research on the things we

repress– repress- forcibly block from our consciousness because

they would be too unsettling to acknowledge– Freud believed these feelings and ideas influence us– Freud did not believe anything was accidental in our

behaviors– he believed free association was a way into the

unconscious along with looking at someone's dreams and slips of the tongue


• The Unconscious mind– Freud believed the manifest content of a dream

was a censored expression of the dreamer's unconscious wishes

– manifest content- remembered content of the dream

– by analyzing dreams, Freud felt he could reveal the nature of their inner conflicts and release their inner tensions


• Freud believed our personality comes from a conflict between our aggressive, pleasure-seeking biological impulses and the internalized social restraints against them

• personality is the result of our efforts to resolve this conflict

• people figure out ways to express these impulses in ways that bring satisfaction without bringing guilt or punishment


• Freud believed there were three interacting systems that worked to resolve this conflict

• Id- located in the unconscious mind that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives– operates on the pleasure principle, demanding

immediate gratification– newborn baby acts mainly on the urges of the Id– people that would rather party that think about

their future


• Ego- largely found in the conscious mind and it is the executive part of personality that mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality– operates on the reality principle– tries to satisfy the id's desires in ways that will

realistically bring pleasure rather than pain– around 4 or 5 a child's ego recognizes the

demands of the newly emerging superego


• Superego- represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment and for future aspirations– the voice of the conscience– forces the ego to consider the real and the ideal– focuses on how we ought to act– strives for perfection– someone with a strong superego may be virtuous

but guilt-ridden


• the ego struggles to mediate between the id and superego

• a student that is sexually attracted to someone may satisfy both id and superego by joining a volunteer organization to which the desired person belongs


• Freud believed that personality forms during life's first few years

• Freud's patients seemed to have problems rooted from early childhood

• children pass through a series of psychosexual stages during which the id's pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct pleasure-sensitive areas of the body called erogenous zones


• during the phallic stage boys develop both unconscious sexual desires for their mother and jealousy and hatred for their father whom they consider to be a rival

• because of these feelings boys feel guilt and a fear of punishment possibly by castration from their fathers

• these feelings are called the Oedipus Complex• some psychoanalysts believed that girls experience

something called the Electra Complex


• Freud believed that children cope with these feelings by repressing them and identifying with the rival parent

• he believed this was an identification process– children incorporate their parents' values into their

developing superegos– gives us a sense of our gender identity as either a male or

female• maladaptive behavior in the adult results from conflicts

unresolved during earlier psychosexual stages


• if an earlier stage is not resolved a person can become fixated on something

• fixation- a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved

• people who were either orally overindulged or deprived by early weaning might fixate at the oral stage

• a oral fixation my show in the form of passive dependence like a nursing infant or by using excessive sarcasm

• smoking or constantly eating may occur as well


• those that never resolve the anal conflict between the desire to eliminate at will and potty training may be messy and disorganize which is anal expulsive or they my be controlling and compulsively neat which is anal retentive


• sometimes our ego fears losing control of the inner war between the id and the superego

• this fear leads to anxiety and a lack of understanding of why we are feeling anxious

• the ego will protect itself using defense mechanisms– the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety

by unconsciously distorting reality


• Repression- the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness– underlies all other defense mechanisms– this why we do not remember our childhood lust

for our opposite sex parent– repression is incomplete as repressed thoughts

can seep out during our dreams or slips of the tongue


• Regression- an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated– on the first day of school, a child may go back to sucking

their thumb– homesick college students long for home

• Reaction formation- the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites– I hate him becomes I love him– timidity becomes daring


• Projection- people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others– "He doesnt trust me" may be a projection of "I don’t

trust him“– the thief thinks everyone else is a thief

• Rationalization- offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one's actions– drinkers say they drink with friends to be social– students who fail may say "All work and no play makes a

person dull"


• Displacement- shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person– students that are upset over an exam may snap at

a roommate• defense mechanisms work by reducing anxiety

by disguising out threatening impulses• the defends itself against disease and the ego

defends itself against anxiety


• Denial is often seen as a defense mechanism as well– refusing to admit that something unpleasant is

happening


• in order to evaluate personality according to Freud's perspective, the researcher needs to find a path to the person's unconscious

• psychoanalysts dismiss objective assessment tools– agree-disagree or true-false tests– only look at the conscious mind

• Projective tests- a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics


• Projective tests– provide an ambiguous stimulus then ask the test

taker to describe it or tell a story about it– the stimulus has no real meaning so any

description is a projection of the person's interests or conflicts


• Thematic Apperception Test(TAT)- a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes– developed by Henry Murray– can assess achievement motivation


• Rorschach inkblot test- a set of 10 inkblots that seek to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots– most widely used projective test– developed by Hermann Rorschach– if you see predatory animals in the inkblot, the

examiner may infer you have aggressive tendencies


• many scientists believe the Rorschach test is not reliable or valid– no universally accepted system for scoring or

interpreting the test– two raters may not agree at all on their

interpretations for the same test taker– not very good at predicting behavior or at

discriminating between groups• who is suicidal and who is not?


• even with all the critics, the Rorschach is said to be used at least occasionally by 82 percent of clinicians

• the biggest complaint of the test is that the test can diagnose many normal adults as pathological

• TAT and draw a person test are respected a little more


• Freud's writings were controversial but very popular

• Neo-Freudians- psychoanalysts that accepted Freud's basic ideas of the id, ego, superego, unconscious, personality being shaped in childhood, and the use of defense mechanisms– placed more emphasis on the conscious mind– doubted that sex and and agression were all-

consuming motivations


• Alfred Adler and Karen Horney– Neo-Freudians– agreed that childhood was important– believed childhood social, not sexual, tensions were

crucial for personality formation– Adler studied feelings of inferiority during childhood– Horney studied childhood anxiety– Horney challenged Freud's belief that women have

weak superegos and suffer from penis envy


• Carl Jung– Neo-Freudian– Freud's disciple turned dissenter– believed the unconscious contained more than

our repressed thoughts and feelings– Collective unconscious- concept of a shared,

inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history


• Psychodynamic Theory– emerged after Freud's death– do not talk about ids and egos and do not talk

about the psychosexual stages– do agree with Freud that much of our mental life

is unconscious, that childhood shapes our personality, and that we do struggle with inner conflicts between our wishes, fears, and values

Humanistic Perspective

• by 1960 people were getting tired of Freud's negativity of people

• Freud studied mostly "sick" people to develop his theories

• Humanistic Psychologists wanted to look at ways "healthy" people strive for self-determination and self-realization

• Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were two humanistic psychologists that studied a person's potential


• Maslow says we are motivated by our hierarchy of needs that has a goal of self-actualization

• Maslow studied healthy, creative people • studied people like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas

Jefferson, and Eleanor Roosevelt to develop his idea of self-actualization– each shared certain characteristics


• Carl Rogers agreed with most of Maslow's ideas• Rogers believed that people are basically good• unless thwarted by an environment that inhibits

growth, we are like an acorn that is primed for growth and fulfillment

• a growth promoting environment requires three things:– genuineness, acceptance, and empathy

• genuine- being open with your own feelings, dropping your facades, and being transparent and self-disclosing


• Acceptance- offering unconditional positive regard to other people– an attitude of total acceptance toward another

person– you accept someone even with their faults

• Empathy- sharing and mirroring our feelings and reflecting our meanings– he believed we rarely listen and understand others

• these three things nurture proper growth


• Rogers and Maslow believed a central feature of a person's personality is their self-concept– all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in

answer to the question, "Who am I?"– positive self-concept leads to a positive view of

the world– the goal of therapists, parents, and teachers

should be to help others develop a positive self-concept


• humanistic psychologists would often use questionnaires to evaluate a person's self-concept

• Carl Rogers believed that when someone's ideal for themselves and the actual self are nearly alike, the self-concept is positive

• believed that any standardized assessment of personality is depersonalizing

• believed that interviews and personal conversation provide a good understanding of a person's unique experiences


• humanistic psychologists are like Freud in that their impact is waning but has been pervasive

• their ideas have influenced counseling, education, child-rearing, and management

• many people believe in Rogers and Maslow's that self-concept is the key to happiness and success, acceptance and empathy help nurture positive feelings about oneself, and that people are basically good and capable of self-improvement


• Critics have the following problems with Humanism– concepts are vague and subjective– does not use scientific descriptions– use's Maslow's personal values and ideals– the ideas promoted by Humanism can lead to self-

indulgence, selfishness, and an erosion of moral restraints

– fails to appreciate the reality of our human capacity for evil


• Humanists defend Humanism by saying:– a secure, nondefensive self-acceptance is actually

the first step toward loving others and does not cause self-indulgence


• humanistic psychologists debate among themselves about whether people are basically good

• action requires enough realism to fuel concern and enough optimism to provide hope– humanism provides the hope but not the realism

• Rogers did not find that this evil is inherent in human nature– evil springs not from human nature but from toxic

cultural influences

The Trait Perspective

• Gordon Allport developed this perspective after interviewing Freud

• he would try to describe personality in terms of fundamental traits– traits- people's characteristic behaviors and

conscious motives• he was not concerned with explaining individual

traits but was interested in describing the traits• he would classify the traits into different types


• Business and career counselors try to classify people according to Carl Jung's personality types

• in order to assess these types the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can be used– 126 questions– choices are offered and the choices chosen are

grouped into certain types


• How can psychologists condense the number of traits and group them more efficiently?

• Factor analysis- the statistical procedure to identify clusters of test items that tap basic components of intelligence

• Hans and Sybil Eysenck developed to a few dimensions or types– Extraversion-Introversion and Emotional stability-

instability


• assessment techniques that come from trait concepts try to profile a person's behavior patterns

• some trait scales only look at one trait at a time• multiple traits can be studied using personality

inventories– a questionnaire on which people respond to items

designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors used to assess selected personality traits


• the most researched and widely used personality inventory is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory(MMPI)

• the MMPI items were empirically derived– a test developed by testing a pool of items and then

selecting those that discriminate between groups• the MMPI-2 is the modern day version– includes a lie scale to try and detect if someone is

lying in their responses to try and impress someone


• personality inventories are scored objectively– a computer can administer and score the test

• even though it is objective it does not mean it is valid– often times people use it for other reasons than what it

has been found to be valid for• self-report personality tests are the most widely

used method of assessing traits• David Funder believes peer reports are more

trustworthy


• the Big Five- personality factors that are studied by using personality inventories– it specifies where you are in the dimensions

• the dimensions are on the next slide


• the Big Five traits are considered to be pretty stable with a possible slight change during the years right after college

• the Big Five describe different personality traits in different cultures pretty well

• person-situation controversy- when you look for genuine personality traits that persist over time and across situations– in order to consider someone friendly they must show

it over time and in different situations


• some people argue against the consistency of the Big Five and say that some behaviors are not consistent enough

• the critics believe the scores on the tests can only mildly predict someone's behavior

Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Social-Cognitive Perspective- views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons and their social context– proposed by Albert Bandura

• social-cognitive theorists believe we learn many of our behaviors either through conditioning or by observing others and modeling our behaviors after theirs

• they focus on how we and our environment interact with each other


• Bandura called the process of interacting with our environment, reciprocal determinism– this is the interacting influences between

personality and environmental factors– example- children's TV-viewing habits influence

their viewing preferences, which influence how TV affects their current behavior


• Social-cognitive theorists emphasize our sense of personal control– our sense of controlling our environment rather

than feeling helpless• External locus of control- the perception that

chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate

• Internal locus of control- the perception that one controls one's own fate


• Self-control- the ability to control impulses and delay gratification– predicts adjustment, better grades, and social success

according to some psychologists• self-control takes energy and must have a chance to

replenish• people who feel helpless perceive control as external• dogs strapped to a harness and that receive repeated

shocks, with no opportunity to avoid them, learn a sense of helplessness


• even when that dog is given a chance to escape by jumping over a hurdle, the dogs cower as if without hope

• learned helplessness- the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events


• Spotlight effect- overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders

• Self-esteem- one's feelings of high or low self-worth

• Self-serving bias- a readiness to perceive oneself favorably– accept good deeds more than bad ones– consider yourself better than average


• Individualism- giving priority to one's own goals over group goals, and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications

• Collectivism- giving priority to the goals of one's group and defining one's identity accordingly

• terror management theory- proposes that faith in one's worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem provide protection against a deeply rooted fear of death

Other Terms

• False Consensus Effect- the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and our behaviors– People who cheat on their taxes or break speed

limits tend to think many others do it as well– People who are happy, kind, and trustworthy tend

to see others as the same– This is the term used by today’s researchers for

Freud’s idea of projection

Other Terms

• Behavioral approach- in personality theory, this perspective focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development– We are conditioned to repeat certain behaviors,

and we learn by observing and imitating others– A child with a very controlling parent may learn to

follow orders rather than think independently, and may exhibit a more timid personality

Other Terms

• Positive psychology- the scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive– Shares with humanistic psychology an interest in

advancing human fulfillment– Its more scientific than humanism– Positive psychology is an umbrella term for the

study of positive emotions, positive character traits, and enabling institutions

Other Terms

• Self-efficacy- one’s sense of competence and effectiveness– People who feel good about themselves have

fewer sleepless nights– They succumb less easily to pressures to conform– They are more persistent at difficult tasks– Less shy, anxious, and lonely

Other Terms

• Narcissism- excessive self-love and self-absorption– Generation Me(born in the 1980s and 1990s) is

expressing more narcissism by agreeing more often with statements such as, “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place”

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