Chapter 12: Personality
Chapter 12: Personality
What is Personality?
Personality
an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
basic perspectives
Approaches to study of Personality
Psychoanalytic
Humanistic
Trait perspective
Social Cognitive
The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Freud’s theory proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality
Psychoanalysis
techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions
Free Association
in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious
person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing
Unconscious
a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories
Personality Structure
Id
strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives
operates on the pleasure principle
Superego
presents internalized ideals; provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations
Ego
the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality
mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality
operates on the reality principle,
Personality Development
Psychosexual Stages
the childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Oedipus Complex
a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
electra complex
Identification
the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
Fixation
a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved
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
Regression
defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated
Reaction Formation
ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites
Projection
people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Rationalization
offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Displacement
shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person
Denial: Refusal to accept or acknowledge an anxiety producing piece of information
Extra: Sublimation
Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts: Psychoanalysts who were trained in traditional Freudian theory but who later rejected some of its major points
Agreed with Freud”
The importance of the unconscious and childhood relationships in shaping personality
The id/ego/superego structure of personality
The role of defense mechanisms in reducing anxiety about uncomfortable ideas
Disagreed in specific areas
Alfred Adler
importance of childhood social tension
Adler’s Individual Psychology: goal is to obtain security and overcome feelings of inferiority
inferiority complex:, a situation in which adults have not been able to overcome the feelings of insecurity they developed as children
Karen Horney
Horney disputed Freud’s assumption that women have weak superegos and suffer from “penis envy.” Attempted to balance Freud’s masculine biases—term of “womb envy”
Criticized the Freudian portrayal of women as weak and subordinate to men.
She highlighted the need to feel secure in relationships.
Carl Jung’s Analytic Psychology
emphasis on unconscious processes which include positive and spiritual motives as well as sexual and aggressive forces
collective unconscious: concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history
personal unconscious: created from individual experiences
archetypes: primitive images and patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior found in the collective unconscious that cause us to perceive and react in predictable ways.
Assessing the Unconscious
Evaluating personality from an unconscious mind’s perspective would require a psychological instrument (projective tests) that would reveal the hidden unconscious mind.
Projective Test
a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics
Rorschach Inkblot Test
a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach
seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots
Thematic Apperception test : TAT
Developed by Henry Murray, a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
Humanistic Psychology: The theory that emphasizes people’s basic goodness and their natural tendency to grow to higher levels of functioning.
Humanistic Perspective
In the 1960’s, psychologists began to reject:
the dehumanizing ideas in Behaviorism, and
the dysfunctional view of people in Psychodynamic thought.
Maslow and Rogers offer a “third force” in psychology: The Humanistic Perspective.
studied healthy people rather than people with mental health problems.
Humanism: focusing on the conditions that support healthy personal growth.
Theories emphasizes people’s basic goodness and their natural tendency to grow to higher levels of functioning
Focus on internal experiences—feelings, thoughts, and sense of basic worth;
Abraham Maslow
studied self-actualization processes of productive and healthy people (e.g., Lincoln)
Maslow’s self-actualization: A state of self-fulfillment in which people realize their highest potential
Self-Actualization
the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved
the motivation to fulfill one’s potential
Self-transcendece-self-actualization: meaning, purpose and communion beyond self
Carl Rogers: we all progress toward a state of fulfillment and happiness unless derailed by life's obstacles.
Rogers agreed that people have natural tendencies to grow, become healthy, and move toward self-actualization.
Fully Functioning person: a psychologically healthy individual who is able to enjoy life as completely as possible
Open to experience, not very defensive, aware and sensitive to self and external world, and for most, harmonious relationships with others.
Unconditional Positive Regard
an attitude of total acceptance toward another person
Conditional positive regard: The belief that others will withdraw their love and acceptance if a person does something of which they do not approve; i.e., the others’ view of you is dependent upon your behavior conditional love
Growth promoting climate requires 3 conditions:
Empathy, genuineness, and acceptance
Carl Rogers’ self-concept theory
In the humanistic perspective, the core of personality is the self-concept, our sense of our nature and identity.
self-concept: all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in an answer to the question, “Who am I?”.
People are happiest with a self-concept that matches their ideal self.
it is important to ask people to describe themselves as they are and as they ideally would like to be.
real self vs ideal self
The Trait Perspective
Trait theorists attempt to describe personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns, or dispositions to feel and act.
Trait theory of personality: That we are made up of a collection of traits, behavioral predispositions that can be identified and measured, traits that differ from person to person
Trait: An enduring quality that makes a person tend to act a certain way.
Examples: “honest.” “shy.” “hard-working.”
MBTI traits come in pairs: “Judging” vs. “Perceiving.” “Thinking” vs. “Feeling.”
Some theorists use dominant traits and their associated characteristics to describe personality “types.”
Examples of Traits
Honest
Dependable
Moody
Impulsive
Personality Inventory
a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors
used to assess selected personality traits
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. It was originally developed to identify emotional disorders.
Costa and MacRae Five-factor model: a trait theory that explains personality in terms of the following five traits:
Openness: high scores ( original, imaginative, curious, open to new ideas, artistic, interested in cultural pursuits; low scores ( conventional, down to earth, narrower interests, not artistic
Conscientiousness: high scores ( responsible, self-disciplined, organized, achieving; low scores ( irresponsible, careless, impulsive, lazy, undependable
Extroversion: high scores ( sociable, outgoing, talkative, fun loving, affectionate; low scores ( withdrawn, quiet, passive, reserved
Agreeableness: high scores ( good-natured, warm, gentle, cooperative, trusting, helpful; low scores ( irritable, argumentative, ruthless, suspicious, uncooperative, vindictive
Neuroticism (emotional stability): high scores ( emotional instability, prone to insecurity, anxiety, guilt, worry, moodiness; low scores ( emotional stability, calm, even-tempered, easygoing, relaxed
Social-Cognitive Perspective
views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons and their social context
Albert Bandura
Reciprocal Determinism
the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors
Personal Control
our sense of controlling our environments 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
Learned Helplessness
the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events
Optimism versus Pessimism
Positive Psychology
the scientific study of optimal human functioning
discover and promote conditions that enable individuals and communities to thrive
Exploring the Self
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
readiness to perceive oneself favorably
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