Personality

1
Personality

• All of the consistent ways in which the behavior
  of one person differs from that of others.
• Contrast this to mood states
• Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) Believed that
  personality was determined by the proportion of
  the 4 humors in ones body
• Yellow Bile hot tempered
• Black Bile depressed
• Phlegm sluggish and apathetic
• Blood courageous, hopeful, and amorous

2
Machiavellian Personality

• Characterized by deceit, indifference to
  morality, a tendency to flatter others, and a
  cynical view of human nature
• Traits and tendencies include
• Dont subscribe to higher ethical principles
• No deep relationships
• Not psychologically pathological
• Do not feel guilt

3
Sigmund Freud

• Relates personality to the interplay of
  conflicting forces within the unconscious of the
  individual
• Structure of the unconscious
• Id childlike, constantly desires gratification
• Superego internalization of parental rules
• Ego rational decision maker

4
Psychosexual Development

• Not purely sexual, more concerned with zones of
  pleasure
• Libido flows through different parts of the body
  as we develop
• If normal development is blocked or frustrated we
  become fixated (pre-occupied with the pleasure
  area)

5
Stages

• Oral (1st year) Sucking, swallowing, biting.
  Oral pleasure
• Anal (1-3 years) Bowel movements. Anal
  retentive vs. anal explosive
• Phallic (3-4 years) Genitals.
• Oedipus Complex castration anxiety
• Elektra Complex
• Latent (5 to adolescence) Libido is suppressed
• Genital Strong sexual interest in others

6
Defense Mechanisms

• Used by normal people to protect themselves from
  anxiety
• Repression motivated forgetting of unpleasant
  events
• Denial refusal to believe accuracy of
  information
• Rationalization attempt to prove that actions
  are rational and justifiable
• Displacement take out frustration on a safer
  target

7
Defense Mechanisms, Cont.

• Regression
• Projection the attribution of ones own
  undesirable characteristics to other people
• Reaction Formation the strong presentation of a
  certain belief or role in order to mask strong
  doubts
• Sublimation the transformation of an
  unacceptable impulse into an admirable behavior

8
Carl Jung

• Contemporary and, for a time, a colleague of
  Freud
• Focused on humanities search for spiritual
  meaning
• Collective unconscious cumulative experience of
  preceding generations
• Archetypes the vague symbolic images that we all
  inherit as part of our collective unconscious

9
Humanistic Psychologists

• Personality is a reflection of our conscious
  goals, desires, and hopes.
• Carl Rogers unconditional positive regard
• Abraham Maslow people are good and seek
  self-actualization

10
Trait Theorists

• Describe personality in terms of enduring
  behavioral tendencies
• The Big Five Traits that can describe most of
  the variation in human personality
• Neuroticism self-defeating, anxious, dont cope
  well with stress (opposite is emotional
  stability)
• Extraversion talkative, expressive
• Agreeableness trusting, tolerant, compassionate
• Conscientiousness competence, self-discipline
• Openness to experience intellectual, creative,
  seek new experiences

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Aspects of the Big 5