Social Cognition Practice Test Revision
PERSONALITY
Key Ideas
Knowledge and understanding should be relevant to the following key ideas:
• Personality is a socially and culturally constructed concept.
• Many different descriptions of the structure of personality have been proposed.
• Ways of measuring personality are linked to particular beliefs about its structure.
Areas of Learning
• Psychodynamic, humanistic, and trait conceptions of personality; the main forms of personality assessment used today, including standardised self-report inventories, clinical interviews, and behavioural observations.
• Psychological principles concerning personality in everyday experiences and events (e.g. character depictions in the popular media) and in psychological interventions, including assertiveness training.
• Application of these psychological principles to social issues (e.g. personality disorders, the relationship between personality and learning styles, the relationship between culture and personality) and personal growth (e.g. gaining greater insight into one’s own personality and the factors that have shaped it).
• Investigation designs and methods of assessing psychological responses used to study personality, including validity and reliability.
• Ethical issues associated with research and applications in the area of personality.
Personality
• Psychodynamic, humanistic, and trait conceptions of personality:
Psychodynamic perspective (Freud)
o Theory of structure of the mind: (pg 114-115)
▪ Conscious – thoughts we are aware of
▪ Preconscious - not conscious, but can be made conscious through a cue
▪ Unconscious – inaccessible to our consciousness, cannot become aware of these thoughts, feelings
o Theory of personality:
▪ Id – unconscious instincts – born with our id, gets basic needs met
▪ Ego – deals with the demands of reality and uses reasoning to make decisions, takes reality into consideration
▪ Superego – the moral branch, develops by the age of 5 “conscience”
• In a healthy person the ego is the strongest so that it can satisfy the needs of the id, not upset the superego and still take into consideration the reality of the situation
o Defence mechanisms (pg 116)
▪ the ego resolves the conflict among id, ego and superego through defence mechanisms
• Repression – scary thoughts are kept from awareness
• Denial – refusal to acknowledge reality
• Intellectualisation – not focusing on personal aspects of a problem, (eg organising funeral arrangements, no emotion)
• Projection – unacknowledged feelings are attributed to others
• Reaction formation – turn unacceptable feelings into their opposite
• Sublimation – unacceptable feelings are turned into socially acceptable actions
• Rationalisation – actions or feelings are explained away
• Displacement – unacceptable feelings are directed towards another target
• Passive aggression – socially unacceptable angers expressed via a lack of cooperation
o Theory of personality development (Psychosexual development)
▪ Oral stage – birth – 18 months child is fixed on oral pleasures
• too much or too little can results in oral fixation
▪ Anal stage – 18 months – 3 years the child is fixed on bowel movements
• Anal fixation can result in obsession with cleanliness and control
▪ Phallic stage – 3-6 child is fixed on the genitals
▪ Latency stage – 6-puberty – sexual urges remain repressed, interact with same sex peers
▪ Genital phase – begins at puberty – resurgence of sex drive in adolescence
NB – Freudian theories have little relevance in clinical psychology since his death.
o Object relations theory – a more relevant theory
▪ Focuses on interpersonal relationships in the family situation especially between mother and child
▪ Past relationships are thought to shape and influence emotions and behaviour
▪ A persons problems might be traced to maladaptive interpersonal relationships in early childhood
FREUD’S DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
Freud proposed that the development of an individual’s personality is derived from the dynamics of the unconscious mind where one’s past experiences is the major determinants of future behaviour. He saw people’s personality as based on desire [id] rather than on reason [ego & supereo] stemming from his theory of the Pyschosexual Stages of Behaviour, developed in childhood.
Freud proprosed the theory of Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development. These five stages [oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital] must be developed. Interruption, or incompletion of each of these stages during childhood would result in ‘fixation’ [that is a preoccupation with a particular stage throughout life] or ‘neurosis’ resulting from repression. These repressions result in defence mechanisms, such as regression, sublimation, displacement, projection, etc. Coping or defence mechanisms begin to develop as children attempt to avoid failure or rejection in the face of life’s growing expectations and demands.
The Id, operates mainly, during the first 3 Psychosexual stages. These instincts, or irrational needs, require immediate gratification. Development, therefore, is partially dependent on the transformation of the so-called animal desires into socially acceptable rational behaviour and this is achieved through the maturity of the ego and superego. It contains the basic motivation derives for our physiological needs such as food , water, sex and warmth. All emotions are housed in the Id as well as all unconscious forces. The Id also operates on the pleasure principal. This drives the person toward instant gratification and is seen in infants who have not yet developed their ego and superego. It operates on the ‘gimme, gimme’ level, wanting everything immediately. Freud believed that sex and aggression are the two most predominant instinctive drives of the id.
The ego is the servant of the id. The ego’s purpose is to satisfy the desires or demands of the id but restrains the id’s demands until they can be met according to the norms of society. The ego is equivalent to the self - the ‘you’ within you.
The superego appears when the child is approximately 5 years old. It operates on the perfection principle. The superego consists of the morals taught by society. It exercises control over the ego and id’s urges. It makes the individual feel good for having behaved according to societies morals.
Behaviour, according to Freud, then, can be defined as the result of the interaction of these three personality components. For example, when the Id signals the ego that the body is in need of fluids, the ego, evaluating reality, attempts to choose an appropriate form of behaviour to satisfy the id. This would be accomplished by conforming to acceptable social behaviours. [such as not drinking from a puddle or stealing soda] meeting the standards of the superego.
If there is struggle between the id, ego and superego Freud proposes that the ego tries to resolve this conflict. Often it resolves the conflict via defence mechanisms, which are repressions that prevent disturbing anxiety provoking thoughts to come into the conscious whilst the conflict occurs. Although repressed they are usually channelled into our behaviours which we cannot see [they are unconscious]. If the Id, ego and superego are out of balance neurosis may result.
Humanistic conceptions of personality
The focus is on the healthy personality rather than abnormalities.
• Abraham Maslow believed:
o We should aim for peak experiences where we feel at one with the universe – go beyond the limitations of ourselves
o Hierarchy of human needs based on two areas
• Deficiency needs and growth needs
• Needs at the bottom of the hierarchy must be met before higher needs can be fulfilled
1. physiological needs – hunger, thirst, comfort, health
2. safety and security – shelter, no fear, protection
3. belonging and love – affiliating with others, family friends
4. esteem needs – achieving, being competent, gaining approval
5. self actualisation – personal fulfilment and growth
a. need to know and understand
b. need for aesthetic beauty
c. realising own potential and
d. transcendence – helping others reach their potential (these later levels were added after the original theory)
Maslow has set up a hierarchy of five levels of basic needs. Beyond these needs, higher levels of needs exist. These include needs for understanding, aesthetic appreciation and purely spiritual needs. In the levels of the five basic needs, the person does not feel the second need until the demands of the first have been satisfied, nor the third until the second has been satisfied, and so on. Maslow's basic needs are as follows:
Physiological Needs
These are biological needs. They consist of needs for oxygen, food, water, and a relatively constant body temperature. They are the strongest needs because if a person were deprived of all needs, the physiological ones would come first in the person's search for satisfaction.
Safety Needs
When all physiological needs are satisfied and are no longer controlling thoughts and behaviors, the needs for security can become active. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency or periods of disorganization in the social structure (such as widespread rioting). Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe.
Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness
When the needs for safety and for physiological well-being are satisfied, the next class of needs for love, affection and belongingness can emerge. Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging.
Needs for Esteem
When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the needs for esteem can become dominant. These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others. Humans have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect, and respect from others. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable as a person in the world. When these needs are frustrated, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless and worthless.
Needs for Self-Actualization
When all of the foregoing needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self-actualization activated. Maslow describes self-actualization as a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless. If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization.
Trait conceptions of personality
A trait is an enduring psychological characteristic of a person that influences their behaviour.
Trait theories are the most influential approach to describing types of personalities
Identifying traits has two functions
1. to describe a persons behaviour
2. to be able to predict future behaviour
Eysenck
• Claimed there were 3 major personality dimensions
1. Extraversion – Introversion
• Sociability, liveliness, activity, assertiveness, dominance
2. Neuroticism – Stability
• Anxiety prone, depression prone, guilt, low self esteem
3. Psychoticism – Impulse Control
• Aggressiveness, coldness, lack of empathy, unconventional thinking
Eysenck attempted to find a link between brain function and traits – eg suggesting that extraverts have under-aroused brains therefore sought out activities which would enhance arousal.
Neuroticism - Stability
Neuroticism is the name Eysenck gave to a dimension that ranges from normal, fairly calm and collected people to one’s that tend to be quite “nervous.” His research showed that these nervous people tended to suffer more frequently from a variety of “nervous disorders” we call neuroses, hence the name of the dimension. But understand that he was not saying that people who score high on the neuroticism scale are necessarily neurotics -- only that they are more susceptible to neurotic problems.
Eysenck was convinced that, since everyone in his data-pool fit somewhere on this dimension of normality-to-neuroticism, this was a true temperament, i.e. that this was a genetically-based, physiologically-supported dimension of personality. He therefore went to the physiological research to find possible explanations.
Extraversion-introversion
His second dimension is extraversion-introversion. By this he means something very similar to what Jung meant by the same terms, and something very similar to our common-sense understanding of them: Shy, quiet people “versus” out-going, even loud people. This dimension, too, is found in everyone, but the physiological explanation is a bit more complex.
Eysenck hypothesized that extraversion-introversion is a matter of the balance of “inhibition” and “excitation” in the brain itself. These are ideas that Pavlov came up with to explain some of the differences he found in the reactions of his various dogs to stress. Excitation is the brain waking itself up, getting into an alert, learning state. Inhibition is the brain calming itself down, either in the usual sense of relaxing and going to sleep, or in the sense of protecting itself in the case of overwhelming stimulation.
Psychoticism – Impulse Control
Eysenck came to recognize that, although he was using large populations for his research, there were some populations he was not tapping. He began to take his studies into the mental institutions of England. When these masses of data were factor analyzed, a third significant factor began to emerge, which he labeled psychoticism.
Like neuroticism, high psychoticism does not mean you are psychotic or doomed to become so -- only that you exhibit some qualities commonly found among psychotics, and that you may be more susceptible, given certain environments, to becoming psychotic.
As you might imagine, the kinds of qualities found in high psychoticistic people include a certain recklessness, a disregard for common sense or conventions, and a degree of inappropriate emotional expression. It is the dimension that separates those people who end up institutions from the rest of humanity!
| |Psychodynamic |Humanistic |Trait |
|Criticisms of: |Small sample size |Small sample size |Too fixed |
| |Out dated |Too positive, doesn’t take into |Doesn’t explain why personalities |
| |Age stages too restrictive |consideration bad behaviour |change |
| | |Doesn’t explain why some who are |Suggests personality set a birth |
| | |missing lower levels achieve |3 dimensions is too limiting |
| | |excellence | |
• The main forms of personality assessment used today, including standardised self-report inventories, clinical interviews and behavioural observations
Standardised Self Reports
1. Myers-Briggs Type Inventory
▪ Makes judgements about roles and work environments
o Extroversion – introversion
o Sensing – intuition
o Thinking – feeling
o Judging - perception
2. 16PF designed by Cattell
▪ Factor analysis method – used for personnel selection
▪ Divided into 5 areas – self control, anxiety, extroversion, independence, tough mindedness
3. MMPI-2
▪ Used in clinical psychology (psychopathology)
▪ Used to diagnose mental health disorders and decide on treatment methods
▪ Scales include depression, hysteria, paranoia, schizophrenia
4. Big Five – NEO PI R
▪ Best current model for identifying personality traits
▪ Extroversion – introversion
▪ Neuroticism – emotional stability
▪ Agreeableness
▪ Conscientiousness
▪ Intellect – openness (to new experiences)
5. Projective Tests
• Rorschach inkblot tests
• TAT (Thematic Apperception Test)
• Not used in Australia – too subjective, difficult to interpret
Clinical Interviews
• Person asked to give a history of their problems over the course of their lives
• Patterns or themes would assist the psychologist to make a diagnosis
• Use of open ended to encourage people to talk about themselves
Behavioural Observations
• Use of behavioural checklists – observing how many times particular behaviours are exhibited (eg aggression)
• Measuring the frequency of behaviours to determine whether they are in excess or not occurring often enough
▪ Psychological principles concerning personality in everyday experiences and events (eg character depictions in the popular media) and in psychological interventions, including assertiveness training
▪ Personality is an essential part of writing TV and film media
• Sitcoms use the same 4-6 personalities reacting in family relationships
• Films with heroes and villains – Indiana Jones, star wars, superman are a tested successful formula – the underdog succeeding
• Freudian concepts appear in Hitchcock movies – Psycho
• Personality disorders are depicted in Me myself and Irene, Sybil
• Many horror movies play to our Freudian unconscious,
Psychological Interventions
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)
▪ Combination of cognitive therapy
o which is aimed at reducing negative, harmful thoughts through journals, breathing exercises, becoming aware of thoughts
▪ Behaviour therapy
o Aimed at changing behaviour in small steps, analysing behaviours, creating a plan to overcome the inappropriate behaviours
▪ Used for treating Anger management issues
o Very effective in teaching people to recognise when they are angry, or getting aggressive and providing alternative paths of action
Assertiveness Training
▪ Know your rights
▪ Be aware of techniques others use to avoid your requests
▪ Don’t back down
▪ Defusing – lets take a minute to think about this
▪ Practice non-verbal assertiveness – eye contact, posture etc
▪ Use I statements
• Application of these psychological principles to social issues , (eg personality disorders, the relationship between personality and learning styles, the relationship between culture and personality)
Personality Disorders
• DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychological Association) identifies 10 personality disorders
1. Paranoid personality disorder – distrust of others
2. Schizoid personality disorder – detachment from relationships
3. Schizotypal personality disorder – odd beliefs, social deficiencies
4. Antisocial personality disorder – fails to conform, aggressive, deceitful
5. Borderline personality disorder – instability of relationships, self image, suicidal
6. Histrionic personality disorder – excessively emotional, attention seeking, inappropriate sexually seductive
7. Narcissistic personality disorder – need for admiration, self important
8. Avoidant personality disorder – feelings of inadequacy, avoids social situations
9. Dependent personality disorder – need to be taken care of, clinging, fear of separation, need others to take responsibility
10. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder – preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, need for control
Most of us are classified as ‘normal’, meaning that we have a range of feelings thoughts and behaviours that fluctuate from day to day or moment to moment. We have moods. Sometimes we are ecstatically happy and at other times, angry, jealous, resentful or sad. We feel good about ourselves and then feel we’re not good enough at other times. We go through periods of sadness after a broken relationship where someone has rejected us and we can feel energised when we feel we can attain a dream. We adjust to life’s difficulties and grow and mature adapting new perceptions and behaviours along the way.
The individual with a Personality Disorder can not adapt smoothly to the normal give-and- take of everyday life. They are INFLEXIBLE and fixed in their behaviours. They expect the world and people to change for them rather than being able to adjust to changing environments. They don’t mature or grow within themselves. They have social and relationship problems as a consequence displaying the same rigid behaviours over and over again, never understanding why people are always in the wrong.
People with Personality Disorders can only see their point of view, their reality and are usually self-serving. They are self-absorbed.
The core of the problem is that they usually have never developed a sense of ‘real self’; that is they have an impaired sense of normal personality development.
Personality and Learning styles
o Everyone has their own preferred learning style
o Personality traits such as extrovert / introvert, thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving, sensing/intuitive will impact on which learning style suits people best
▪ Group v individual work
▪ Visual v verbal material
▪ Motivation and persistence will depend on personality
o Less likely to be successful in learning when teaching is limited to activities that are incompatible with personality and individual learning preferences
Culture and personality
o Personality tests in the past may have contained culture bias, also contain, gender bias, class bias, racial bias etc.
o Research has been done to identify links between culture and personality – do people from different cultures have different personality traits
▪ Recent research to suggest that American and Asian conception of the self is different
• Americans brought up to be independent, and define themselves in terms of their personal attributes, abilities, accomplishments, possessions
• Asians brought up interdependent, don’t stand out from the crowd, define themselves in terms of groups they belong to, be modest about achievements, don’t put others down
Criminals
▪ Little evidence to suggest that all criminals have similar personality types
▪ Eysenck identified that criminals tended to score highly on extraversion, neuroticism and psychotocism, extensive research has failed to support this idea
▪ 10-15% of criminals have personality disorders, tend to be antisocial, borderline and histrionic
Anger and Aggression
▪ An individual may have higher or lower trait anger, more likely to get annoyed, physically tensed up, impulse to retaliate than others
▪ Relationship between high levels of anger and disease – high blood pressure, heart attacks
▪ Some genetic connection in temperament may be partly the cause and childhood experiences are also likely to contribute to anger
▪ Cognitive causes – the way people think about the world contribute also to aggression
▪ Anger management can be effectively treated through CBT.
• Application of these psychological principles to personal growth (eg gaining greater insight into one’s own personality and the factors that have shaped it)
Personal growth from a psychodynamic point of view can best be understood
▪ People’s problems can be understood in terms of early failures in relationships (usually between child and parents)
▪ Health and happiness depends of maintenance of successful personal relationships
Interesting to note – defining features of personality disorders are ability to relate to others
Healthy personalities are creative, confident and relaxed, not aggressive, antisocial or isolated.
• Investigation designs and methods of assessing psychological responses used to study social personality including validity and reliability.
| |Experimental |Quantitative Observational |Qualitative |
|Objective Quantitative |Numerical data gathered from an |Numerical data gathered from |- |
| |experiment |behavioural observations – counting | |
| |-eg showing graphic film and |number of people with traits | |
| |measuring responses to emotions | | |
|Subjective Quantitative |Self report inventories measuring |Self Report Inventories |- |
| |effect of one variable on the |Myers Briggs | |
| |measure (eg fear) |16PF | |
| | |MMPI-2 | |
| | |NEO PI R | |
|Qualitative |- |- |Delphi Technique or Data Collection |
| | | |from focus group |
| | | |Clinical Interview with a |
| | | |psychologist |
| | | |Projective Tests – Rorschach and TAT|
Validity
▪ Face Validity – the extent to which a test appears to measure what it claims to measure
▪ Internal Validity – undesirable variables are eliminated – test conditions are valid
▪ External Validity – to what extent can the test be generalised outside the test situation
▪ Predictive Validity – the extent to which test scores can predict future performance
Reliability
• Scoring consistently each time you take the test
▪ Ways to ensure reliability
• Test – retest
• Alternate form test
• Ethical issues associated with research and applications in the area of personality.
Ethical issues in the area of personality are generally involved in personality testing.
▪ Tests must be conducted by professional psychologist and not released to the general public (they lose validity)
▪ Results must be disclosed to the subject, and not used for further research without the persons permission (Informed Consent and Confidentiality)
▪ Personality test items may be potentially offensive (questions on sex or religion)
▪ Test questions may contain gender and culture bias
▪ Tests are generally self report therefore lead to social desirability (lack validity therefore not ethical to base decisions on test results)
▪ Validity and Reliability of tests is questionable, therefore decisions made on the basis of a personality test may not be ethical (eg getting a job or not, goes to prison, or receives treatment - misdiagnosis)
Use any of the links below (or any of your own) to locate and hence summarise information/answers about the following theories of personality
A general site, covering many of the theories on personality.
Psychodynamic Perspective of personality
Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis:
1. What is the psychodynamic approach to personality?
2. What is psychoanalysis?
3. Freud’s description of the 3 levels of consciousness.
4. Find out about the “ID” “EGO” and the “SUPER EGO”
5. Freud’s psychosexual stages of development
6. Defence mechanisms in psychodynamic theory.
Humanistic Perspective of personality
Carl Rogers’ Self Concept Theory
1. Humanist Theory
2. Self Actualisation
3. Client Centred Therapy
4. Self Concept
5. Positive Self Regard
6. Incongruence
Abraham Maslow’s Theory
1. Hierarchy of needs
Trait Perspective of personality
Hans Eysenck’s Categorisation of traits
1. The trait perspective
2. Dimensions of personality
a. Extraversion-Introversion
b. Neuroticism
c. Psychoticism
1. The Five Factor Model
3 Personalities
Melissa is 19 and grew up in a close family network. She loves seeing plays and enjoys reading autobiographies. She has a pleasant personality but hates crowds, preferring to socialise on a one to one basis or in a small group. She enjoys meeting up with friends for lunch. She likes all types of music from classical to rock and has over 250 CD’s. She would like to travel one day but does not feel it’s a priority. She reads widely and loves debates and in-depth discussions. She has a reserved and sincere personality. She feels most happy and secure with her family and friends around, they mean a lot to her.
Jane is also 19 she also grew in a close family network. She has an outgoing and social personality and loves seeing live bands with her friends on a regular basis. She hates being alone, needing the company of other people. She does not own a CD although she occasionally listens to SAFM when driving. She has a quick temper and works only as a means to an end and to save so she can travel regularly. She is willing to travel alone as she knows she will meet new friends. She reads magazines but does not own a book – she would rather experience life first hand.
Josh is 20 she grew up in a normal family environment. He is very individualistic and unconservative. He loves to work on projects that take up quite a lot of his time such as Game-Making on the computer. He also writes a lot particularly stories and one day hopes to write a novel as a best seller. He is achievement orientated and forward thinking. He has a strong sense of ambition He has one or two like minded friends he describes as real friends. He is happy living on his own as he says he gets a lot of work done. He enjoys music and particular likes music that have meaning and philosophy in the lyrics. He thinks parties are a waste of time. He finds them noisy and superficial.
How would you describe these people’s personalities according to :
1. Freud
2. Eysenck
3. Rogers or Maslow
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