Chapter 14: Theories of Personality

1
Chapter 14 Theories of Personality
2
Personality defined

• The consistent, enduring, and unique
  characteristics of a person.

3
Purposes of Personality Theories

• To organize the many characteristics you know
  about yourself
• To explain differences among individuals.
• To explore how people conduct their lives.
• To determine how life can be improved.
• Theories of personality are used to guide
  research.

4
Sigmund Freuds Theory of Personality

• Freud developed the first theory of personality
  called the psychodynamic theory of personality.
• He believed that personality is shaped by
  underlying conflicts between opposing forces
  within the mind.

5

• Freuds beliefs were controversial in his own
  time and remain so today.

6
Freud believed the mind consists of 3 levels of
consciousness

• (1) The conscious Present awareness what we are
  thinking or feeling at any given moment.
• (2) The preconscious Holds information from past
  experience or learning. This info can be
  retrieved from memory and brought into awareness
  at any time.
• (3) The unconscious Contains primitive sexual
  and aggressive impulses, wishes and ideas
  memories of troubling emotional experiences

7
Unconscious mind continued

• The contents of the unconscious cannot be brought
  directly into consciousness simply by focusing on
  them.
• They may never come to the surface and so we
  remain unaware of our deepest wishes, ideas, and
  urges.

8
How does one tap into the unconscious mind?

• Projective personality test Unstructured test in
  which a person is asked to respond freely, giving
  his or her own interpretation of various
  ambiguous stimuli.
• Rorschach Inkblot Test
• TAT Test

9
Freud believed that personality consists of 3
mental entities

• (1) The id (literally it) operates only in the
  unconscious
• Contains our animal drives including sex and
  aggression
• Its the only psychological structure we have at
  birth
• Follows the pleasure principle it wants what
  it wants when it wants it.

10

• (2) The ego The second part of the mind which
  forms during the first year of life.
• Responsible for organizing ways to handle delays
  of gratification
• Represents reason and good sense
• Operates according to the reality principle
  taking into account what is practical and
  acceptable.

11

• (3)The superego Is our internal moral guardian
  or conscience.
• By age 3-5 it splits off from the ego
• Forms through internalizing moral teachings of
  parents our other significant people.
• Part of the superego may be available to
  consciousness, the part that corresponds to our
  moral convictions.
• Much of it is unconscious- creating guilt or shame

12

• The ego is the great compromiser standing between
  the id and superego.

13
Freuds was the first psychodynamic theory of
personality

• It was based on the belief that our behavior is
  influenced by the on-going dynamic conflicts
  within the mind.
• Conflicts between the id, ego and superego take
  place in the unconscious mind.

14
The ego uses defense mechanisms

• These are used to prevent anxiety that would
  result if troubling desires and memories residing
  in the unconscious were fully realized in
  conscious awareness.
• In other words, Freud believed we cant handle
  our unconscious thoughts and feelings so we
  avoid them.

15
How do we avoid dealing with whatever is in our
unconscious?

• (1) Repression Is a defense mechanism involving
  motivated forgetting of anxiety causing
  material.
• You push memories down into the unconscious.
• This is a controversial belief today, in modern
  psychology.

16

• A Freudian Slip or Slip of the Tongue
• May reveal (according to Freud) underlying
  motives or feelings kept hidden by repression.

17
Other Defense Mechanisms

• (2) Denial Failure to recognize a threatening
  impulse or urge.
• Rather than just pushing the urge down into the
  unconscious, with denial you dont even
  acknowledge the urge.

18

• (3) Rationalization The use of self-
  justification to explain away unacceptable
  behavior, impulses, or ideas.
• Its taking something that you may in reality
  find unacceptable, and making it acceptable.

19

• (4) Projection The putting of ones own
  unacceptable impulses, wishes, or urges on other
  people.
• When you find someones personality difficult to
  deal with, it may be your own negative
  personality characteristics that you are
  projecting onto them.

20

• (5) Sublimation Channeling unacceptable
  impulses into socially sanctioned behaviors or
  interests.
• Becoming a boxer, punching people with gloves on
  in a ring can be a socially acceptable way to
  express hostility and anger.

21

• (6) Displacement An unacceptable urge or
  aggressive impulse is transferred to an object or
  person that is safer or less threatening that the
  original object or impulse.
• Your parent makes you angry but its safer to
  take out your anger and frustration on your
  younger sibling instead of your parent.

22

• (7) Reaction formation Behavior that stands in
  opposition to ones true motives and desires so
  as to prevent conscious awareness of them.
• This is acting the opposite to how you really
  feel, like being overly nice to someone you dont
  like or acting aloof and distant towards someone
  you really do like.

23

• (8) Regression Going back to an earlier and less
  mature pattern of behavior.
• Throwing a temper tantrum, crying loudly, or
  making faces would be expected from a young
  child, but not a teenager.