Personality Theory, Research, and Assessment

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PersonalityTheory, Research, and Assessment
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Personality

• Consistent
• tendency to respond in the same manner in a
  variety of circumstances
• Distinctive
• tendency for one person to respond to a
  particular situation in a different manner than
  others
• PERSONALITY refers to ones unique constellation
  of consistent behavioral traits

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Personality Theories

• Psychodynamic Theories
• Freuds Psychoanalytic Theory
• Jungs Analytical Psychology
• Adlers Individual Psychology
• Behavioral Perspectives
• Skinners Operant Conditioning Theory
• Banduras Social Learning Theory
• Humanistic Perspectives
• Rogers Person-Centered Theory
• Maslows Theory of Self-Actualization

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Psychodynamic Theoriesof Personality

• Include all the diverse theories descended from
  the work of Sigmund Freud that focus on
  unconscious mental forces
• Freuds psychoanalytic theory
• Jungs analytical psychology
• Adlers individual psychology

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Sigmund Freud

• Born 1856, Vienna, Austria
• Raised in middle-class Jewish family
• Climate of era was marked by
• sexual repression
• aggressive hostilities (WWI, anti-Semitism)
• Physician specializing in neurology
• often treated nervous problems such as
  irrational fears, obsessions, anxieties

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Freuds Psychoanalytic Theory

• Attempts to explain personality, motivation, and
  psychological disorders by focusing on influence
  of
• early childhood experiences
• unconscious motives and conflicts
• methods used to cope with sexual and aggressive
  urges
• Theory offended many because
• it emphasized childhood sexual urges
• implied we are not masters of our destinies

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Structure of Personality

• Freud conceptualized personality as interaction
  of three components
• ID
• EGO
• SUPEREGO
• Behavior is governed by outcome of interactions
  between these components

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ID

• The primitive, instinctive component of
  personality that operates according to the
  pleasure principle
• pleasure principle means it demands immediate
  gratification of its urges
• Houses raw biological urges
• to eat, sleep, defecate, copulate
• Engages in primary process thinking
• primitive, illogical, irrational,
  fantasy-oriented

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EGO

• The decision-making component of personality that
  operates according to the
• reality principle
• seeks to delay gratification of the ids urges
  until appropriate outlets and situations are
  found
• Mediates b/t the desires of the id and the
  expectations of the social world
• Engages in secondary-process thinking
• relatively rational, realistic, oriented toward
  problem-solving
• allows for achievement of long-range goals

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SUPEREGO

• Moral component of personality that incorporates
  social standards about what represents right and
  wrong
• Develops by internalizing what is learned during
  childhood about what constitutes good and bad
  behavior
• Emerges around ages 3-5
• May become irrationally demanding in striving for
  moral perfection (guilt)

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Discovering the Unconscious

• Freud inferred the existence of the unconscious
  based on observations
• slips of the tongue
• dreams that expressed hidden desires
• insights uncovered through psychoanalysis that
  helped patients discover feelings and conflicts
  they were previously unaware of

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Levels of Awareness The Iceberg

• Conscious
• whatever one is aware of at a particular point in
  time
• Preconscious
• contains material just beneath the surface of
  awareness that can easily be retrieved
• Unconscious
• thoughts, memories, and desires that are well
  below the surface of consciousness, but that,
  nonetheless, exert great influence on behavior

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Internal Conflict Sex and Aggresssion

• Behavior is the outcome of an ongoing series of
  internal conflicts between the id, ego, and
  superego
• Emphasized sex and aggression b/c
• social norms governing sex and aggression tend to
  be subtle and inconsistent
• they tend to be thwarted or inhibited more
  regularly than other urges (thirst/hunger)

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Anxiety

• Most internal conflicts b/t id, ego, and superego
  are quickly resolved
• Some linger for days to years unresolved in the
  unconscious
• Lingering conflicts may produce anxiety that
  slips into conscious awareness
• Arousal of anxiety is crucial component to
  Freuds theory of personality functioning

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Anxiety and Defense Mechanisms

• Because anxiety is distressing, people try to rid
  themselves of it
• According to Freud, this is done through the use
  of defense mechanisms
• Defense Mechanisms
• largely unconscious reactions that protect a
  person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety
  and guilt
• work through self-deception

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Defense Mechanisms

• Rationalization
• creating false but plausible excuses to justify
  unacceptable behavior (everybody does it)
• Repression
• most common and basic
• keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried
  in unconscious
• Projection
• attributing ones own thoughts, feelings, and
  motives to another
• Displacement
• diverting emotional feelings (anger) from their
  original source to a substitute target (kick the
  dog phenomenon)

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Defense Mechanisms

• Reaction formation
• behaving in a way thats exactly opposite of
  ones true feelings
• Regression
• a reversion to immature patterns of behavior
  (boastful exaggerated bragging)
• Identification
• bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or
  real alliance with some person or group

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Psychosexual Stages of Development

• Foundation of personality established by age 5
• Stage theory emphasizes how children deal with
  their immature sexual urges
• term sexual refers to many urges for physical
  pleasure
• Psychosexual stages
• developmental periods with a characteristic
  sexual focus that leave their mark on adult
  personality

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Psychosexual Stages

• Each stage has its own challenge/task
• Manner in which each challenge/task is handled
  shapes personality
• Fixation
• a failure to move forward from one stage to
  another as expected
• may be caused by
• excessive gratification
• excessive frustration
• leads to an overemphasis on needs prominent
  during the fixated stage

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Psychosexual Stages

• Oral (0-1)
• Anal (2-3)
• Phallic (4-5)
• Latency (6-12)
• Genital (puberty onward)

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Oral Stage

• Age
• First year of life
• Erotic Focus
• Stimulation of mouth (sucking, biting)
• Key Tasks and Experiences
• Feeding and weaning
• Result of fixation
• obsessive eating, smoking, nailbiting

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Anal Stage

• Age
• 2-3
• Erotic Focus
• Anal (expulsion or retention of feces)
• Key Tasks and Experiences
• Toilet training
• Result of fixation
• anal retentive personality
• generalized hostility toward images of trainer

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Phallic Stage

• Age (4-5)
• Erotic Focus
• Genitals (masturbation self-stimulation)
• Key Tasks and Experiences
• Coping with Oedipal complex
• children manifest erotically tinged desires for
  their opposite-sex parent, w/ feelings of
  hostility toward their same-sex parent
• Result of fixation
• poor identify formation b/c of lingering
  identification with same-sex parent

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Latency

• Age
• 6-12
• Erotic Focus
• None (sexually repressed)
• Key Tasks and Experiences
• Expanding social contacts beyond family
• Impact of prior fixations may hinder healthy
  socialization in this stage

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Genital Stage

• Age
• Puberty onward
• Erotic Focus
• Genitals (interpersonal sexual intimacy)
• Key Tasks and Experiences
• Establishing intimate relationships
• Contributing to society through working
• Impact of prior fixations may hinder healthy
  functioning in this stage

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Psychosexual Stages

• Foundation for adult personality is solidly
  defined by during childhood
• Future developments are rooted in these early
  formative experiences
• Theoretical disputes led to emergence of other
  theories that deemphasized Freuds focus on
  sexuality

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Jungs Analytical Psychology

• Like Freud, Jung emphasized unconscious
• Theorized that the unconscious consists of two
  layers
• Personal unconscious
• houses material not within ones awareness
• Collective unconscious
• deeper layer that is the storehouse of latent
  memory traces inherited from peoples ancestral
  past
• each person shares the collective unconscious
  with the entire human race

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Collective Unconscious and Archetypes

• Collective unconscious contains the whole
  spiritual heritage of mankinds evolution, born
  anew in the brain structure of every individual
• Archetypes
• emotionally charged images and thought forms that
  have universal meaning
• magic circle symbol shows up across cultures as
  representation of wholeness
• Notion of a collective unconscious influenced
  anthropology, philosophy, art, and religious
  studies more than psychology

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Jungs Impact on Psychology

• First to describe a major facet of personality
• Introverts (inner-directed)
• tend to be preoccupied with the internal world of
  their thoughts, feelings, and experiences
• contemplative, aloof, reclusive
• Extraverts (outer-directed)
• tend to be interested in the external world of
  people and things
• outgoing, talkative, friendly

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Adlers Individual Psychology

• Foremost source of human motivation is a striving
  for superiority
• Striving for superiority
• a universal drive to adapt, improve oneself, and
  master lifes challenges
• All young children feel weak and helpless in
  comparison to more competent older children and
  adults
• Early feelings of inferiority motivate one to
  acquire new skills and develop new talents

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The Inferiority Complex

• Compensation
• process of striving to overcome imagined or real
  inferiorities by developing ones own abilities
• this process is normal
• Inferiority complex
• exaggerated feelings of weakness and inadequacy
  that may develop when feelings of inferiority
  become excessive
• Overcompensation
• perversion of normal compensation where ones
  masks inferiority through attempts to achieve
  status, gain power over others, and acquire
  markers of success (clothes, cars, etc.)

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Role of Sibling Order
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Behavioral Perspectives of Personality

• Behaviorism
• theoretical orientation based on the premise that
  scientific psychology should study only
  observable behavior
• initially focused on learning with little
  attention to personality
• Skinners theory
• Banduras social learning theory
• Mischels person-situation controversy

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B.F. Skinner

• American psychologist
• 1904-1990
• Spent most of career at Harvard
• Renowned for research on learning in rats and
  pigeons
• Principles of operant conditioning not intended
  as explanation of personality

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Personality According to Skinner

• Determinism
• Behavior and personality are fully determined by
  environmental stimuli
• Personality is conglomeration of ones response
  tendencies acquired through prior experiences
• These tendencies may change with new experiences,
  but tend to be enduring enough to create
  consistent personality

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Development of Personality as a Product of
Conditioning

• Personality develops through repeated responses
  to operant conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• environmental consequences like reinforcement,
  punishment, and extinction determine peoples
  pattern of responding
• If behavior leads to positive consequences it is
  more likely to occur
• negative consequences, less likely to occur
• Because responses are constantly being
  strengthened or weakened with new experiences,
  Skinner views personality development as a
  continuous lifelong journey

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Banduras Social Learning Theory

• Bandura
• early work explored causes of aggression
• added a cognitive flavor to behaviorism
• emphasized notion that humans are conscious,
  thinking, and feelings beings
• Social Learning Theory
• personality is largely shaped through learning
• people seek out and process information about
  their environment to maximize favorable outcomes

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Social Learning Theory

• Observational learning
• occurs when an organisms responding is
  influenced by the observation of others
• Model
• person whose behavior is observed by the
  learner
• many behaviors are the product of imitating
  others
• children learn to be assertive, conscientious,
  self-sufficient, dependable by observing parents,
  teachers, relatives, peers

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Social Learning Theory

• Aspects of personality govern behavior
• Self-efficacy
• refers to ones belief about ones own ability to
  perform behaviors that should lead to expected
  outcomes
• high self-efficacy leads to confidence
• low self-efficacy leads to self-doubt
• perceptions about self-efficacy can influence
  which challenges people tackle and how well they
  perform

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Humanistic Perspectives

• Emerged in the 1950s as a backlash against
  behavioral and psychodynamic theories
• Humanism
• emphasizes the unique qualities of humans,
  especially their freedom and their potential for
  personal growth
• people can rise above primitive animal heritage
  and control biological urges
• people are largely rational beings who are not
  dominated by irrational needs/conflicts
• ones subjective view is more important than
  objective reality

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Rogers Person-Centered Theory

• Self-Concept
• collection of beliefs about ones own nature,
  unique qualities, and typical behavior
• your own mental picture of yourself
• Incongruence
• the degree of disparity between ones
  self-concept and ones actual experience
• too much incongruence weakens psychological
  well-being

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Rogers Person-Centered Theory

• Development of the Self
• Childhood experiences promote congruence or
  incongruence
• Conditional affection
• affection from parents depends on childs
  behavior and ability to live up to parental
  expectations
• Unconditional affection
• parents assure children that they are worth of
  affection, no matter what they do
• Unconditional love from parents fosters
  congruence conditional love from parents fosters
  incongruence

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Rogers Person-Centered Theory

• As individuals grow up, they become more loyal
  or committed to their self-concept
• Becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
• one tends to behave in ways that match his/her
  self-concept
• Person becomes resistant to information that
  contradicts the self-concept

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Rogers Person-Centered Theory

• Anxiety and Defense
• Experiences that threaten peoples self-concept
  result in anxiety
• the more inaccurate ones self-concept, the more
  likely one is to have experiences that clash with
  self-concept
• To ward off anxiety, one will respond defensively
  to reinterpret experience so that it matches
  self-concept

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Maslows Theory of Self-Actualization

• Hierarchy of Needs
• a systematic arrangement of needs, according to
  priority, in which basic needs must be met before
  less basic needs are aroused
• needs at base of pyramid are most basic
• physiological - hunger, thirst
• safety/security - long-term survival and
  stability
• when basic needs are satisfied, this satisfaction
  activates needs at the next level

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Maslows Theory of Self-Actualization

• Hierarchy of needs
• needs at higher levels are growth needs
• Need for self-actualization
• the need to fulfill ones potential
• Self-actualizing persons
• people with exceptionally healthy personalities,
  marked by continued personal growth
• accurately tuned in to reality
• at peace with themselves
• sensitive to others