PSYC 1000Lecture 49

Gender and 5-Factor Model•Consistent gender differences reported across many cultures (right)•Women higher on Neuroticism (low Stability) and Agreeableness•Men higher on Excitement seeking

Evaluating Trait Perspective

•People can fake desirable responses on self-report measures

–Many measures have Validity scales to catch over- or under-reporting

•Culture-Specific?–Elements of 5 Factors observed in different cultures, sometimes with indigenous traits

•Person-Situation Controversy

• Mischel: Situational influences on behavior important, weak evidence for consistent traits across situations– rs of .2 to .3 between personality traits and behaviors

• Defense of Traits– Problems with some of studies: e.g., measures not valid– Funder and Ozer (1983): rs for situations just slightly larger

(.36-.42) than criticized personality effects (.20-.30)– Negative studies often used assessments based on single “item”

(e.g., one observation), not aggregated measures• Are we trying to predict behavior in individual situations, or trends in

behavior across many times/situations?• Reliability increases with number of measures: Averaging behavior

across situations reveals distinct personality traits• Traits more stable with age

Person-Situation Controversy

•Epstein (1983): diary study of student mood: day to day correlations low, but averaged over days much higher•Similar study of Extraversion: hour to hour low correlation, but aggregate much higher (below)

Pseudo-Personality Assessment• Many people claim to have special abilities to

detect personality and related traits– Astrology, Palm-reading, Psychics, Handwriting, …– No evidence that such methods work, yet widely

believed by people and used by institutions

• Number of factors mislead naïve participants– Use statements generally true of people (Barnum

Effect - “You can fool …”): e.g., You have strong need for other people to like you.

– Cold reading techniques: Manner, Clothes, …; Clever Hans

– Hind-sight: People look for and remember matches rather than mismatches

Chinese Astrology• “Wood Rabbit” or “Fire Dragon”?

• Wood Rabbit– Gracious, kind, sensitive, soft-spoken, amiable,

elegant, reserved, cautious, artistic, thorough, tender, self-assured, astute, compassionate, flexible. Can be moody, detached, superficial, self-indulgent, opportunistic, lazy.

• Fire Dragon– Magnanimous, stately, vigorous, strong, self-

assured, proud, noble, direct, dignified, zealous, fiery, passionate, decisive, pioneering, ambitious, generous, loyal. Can be arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, demanding, eccentric, grandiloquent and extremely bombastic, prejudiced, dogmatic, over-bearing, violent, impetuous, brash.

The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Freud’s theory that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality

• Components– Psychic Structures: Id,

Ego, Superego– Personality

Development– Defense Mechanisms– Assessing Unconscious

Exploring Unconscious

•Preconscious–Information that is not conscious, but is retrievable into conscious awareness

•Unconscious–Freud: Reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories–Contemporary view: Information processing of which we are unaware

Personality Structure

•Id–Reservoir of unconscious psychic energy–Strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives–Operates on pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification– Basic instincts

• Self preservation• Eros – preservation of the species (e.g. sexual urges)•Thanatos – death instinct, desire to return to rest

•Superego–Part that represents internalized ideals–Provides standards for judgment and for future aspirations–Often in conflict with desires of Id

• Conscience – punishments, warnings• Ego ideal – model behaviour

•Ego–Largely conscious, “executive” part of personality–Mediates among competing demands of Id, Superego, and Reality–Operates on Reality principle: Satisfy id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain

Personality Development

•Id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones at different stages

Personality Development

• Oedipus Complex– Boy’s sexual desires toward mother and

feelings of jealousy and hatred for rival father

• Identification– Process by which children incorporate

parents’ values into developing superegos

• Fixation – Lingering focus of pleasure-seeking

energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved

Fixations• Oral Stage

– Oral-passive personality - tends to be rather dependent on others. They often retain an interest in "oral gratifications" such as eating, drinking, and smoking. It is as if they were seeking the pleasures they missed in infancy.

– Oral-aggressive personality – People who retain a life-long desire to bite on things, such as pencils, gum, and other people. They have a tendency to be verbally aggressive, argumentative, sarcastic, and so on.

• Anal Stage– Anal expulsive (a.k.a. anal aggressive) personality - These

people tend to be sloppy, disorganized, generous to a fault. They may be cruel, destructive, and given to vandalism and graffiti.

– Anal retentive personality – People who tend to be especially clean, perfectionistic, dictatorial, very stubborn, and stingy. In other words, the anal retentive is tight in all ways.

Defense Mechanisms

–Ego’s protective methods to reduce anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

•Repression–Most basic defense mechanism –Banish anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness

•Regression –Individual retreats, when faced with anxiety, to more infantile psychosexual stage where some psychic energy remains fixated

•Reaction Formation –Ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites–People may express feelings opposite to their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings

•Projection –People disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

•Rationalization –Self-justifying explanations in place of real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions

•Displacement–Sexual or aggressive impulses shifted toward more acceptable or less threatening object or person–E.g., redirecting anger toward safer outlet

•Sublimation–People rechannel unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities

1. Executive’s desire to run amok and attack boss and colleagues at meeting is denied access to awareness2. Not prepared for exam tomorrow, you tell yourself that it is not important and you can go to movie tonight3. Aggressive driver cuts in front of you into last parking spot and you later fantasize about beating person in front of admiring onlookers4. Executive who repressed destructive desires claims that boss is hostile5. Student explains away poor grades stating that “total experience” of university is what really matters6. Man with homosexual feelings takes a strong antihomosexual stance

RegressionDenialFantasySublimationRationalizationRepressionReaction

FormationIntellectualization

(isolation)ProjectionUndoingOvercompensationDisplacement

7. After parking spot taken, you started a fight with your roommate8. Woman beaten and raped gives detached, methodical description of effects of such attacks on victims9. Woman with aggressive feelings toward husband straightens wedding photograph every time thoughts occur10. Boy who cannot cope with anger he feels toward rejecting mother displays infantile behavior, soiling clothes and no longer taking care of basic needs11. Very shy woman spends many hours in gym to perfect physical condition12. Athletes, surgeons, and other skilled people direct potentially harmful energies into their work

RegressionDenialFantasySublimationRationalizationRepressionReaction

FormationIntellectualization

(isolation)ProjectionUndoingOvercompensationDisplacement

Neo-Freudians• Many of Freud’s followers

identified weaknesses in model and suggested changes– Alfred Adler: Importance of

childhood social tension– Karen Horney: Sought to

balance Freud’s masculine biases

– Carl Jung: Emphasized collective unconscious

• Shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history