Personality Theory

1
Personality Theory Assessment

• Introductory Psychology
• Chapter 13
• Dr. Greg Cook

2
Outline

• Personality a persons characteristic patterns
  of behaving, thinking, and feeling.
• Psychoanalytic Theories
• Humanistic Theories
• Trait Theories
• Social-Cognitive Theories
• Personality Assessment

3
Sigmund Freud Psychoanalytic Theory

• Born Austria, 1856
• Died London, 1939
• Lived at the center of WWI, WWII.
• Witnessed unimaginable human horrors.
• Conclusion the role of society (and religion) is
  to help socialize humans, help them tame their
  inner evil.
• Freud often criticized for over-emphasizing
  aggression and sex as basic human motivations.

4
Freud a Short History

• Trained as a physician (neurologist)
• Worked in science lab comparing brains
• Later began his own clinical practice treating
  neurological disorders
• Case hysterical paralysis
• Demonstrated the power of the unconscious mind

5
3 Parts of Personality

• ID unconscious, biological
• Life instinct Libido
• Death instinct Thanatos
• EGO learned
• SUPEREGO learned, identification
• Perpetual state of inner conflict . . .
• ever argue with yourself?

6
The Iceberg Metaphor

• Click
• http//wilderdom.com/personality/L8-3TopographyMin
  dIceberg.html
• Click
• http//encarta.msn.com/media_461543697/The_Mind_as
  _an_Iceberg.html

7
Defense Mechanisms

• Mostly unconscious, distort reality
• See examples, p. 459
• Can be pathological if used to extremes

8
Stages of Psychosexual Development

• See p. 460