Personality

1
Personality

• Characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and
  acting.
• Personality is
• Distinctive Unique
• Enduring and consistent
• Organization of Individuality

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Issues in Personality Theories
Free will or determinism Master of our fate, or victim to destiny?
Nature or Nurture Inherited or shaped by environment
Past, present or future When is personality developed? What influences are there based on our past, present and future experiences?
Uniqueness or universality Are there patterns or are we all individually unique?
Equilibrium or growth? Is our goal to reduce tension or are we motivated by need to reach our potential?
Optimism or Pessimism Are humans basically good or evil?
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4 Perspectives of Personality

• Freuds psychoanalytic theory childhood
  sexuality and unconscious motivations influence
  personality.

• The Trait Perspective personality dimensions
  account for our consistent behavior pattens.

• The humanistic approach focuses on our inner
  capacities for growth and self-fulfillment.

• The social cognitive approach emphasizes how we
  shape and are shaped by our environment.

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Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Discovered the unconscious
• Used hypnosis and then free association to unlock
  the unconcious
• Three levels of the mind unconscious,
  preconscious, and conscious.
• Freud believed we are most influenced by our
  unconscious.
• Personality results from our efforts to resolve
  conflict between pleasure seeking impulses and
  internalized social restraints.

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Expressions of the Unconscious

• The work we choose
• The beliefs we hold
• Daily habits
• Troubling symptoms

• Jokes
• Dreams
• Slips of the tongue
• Accidents

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Elements of the Personality

• ID
• Unconcious energy Basic drives
• Immediate gratification Pleasure Principle
• Instinctual/biological Libidinal Energy
• EGO
• Partially conscious Cope with real world
• Gratifies ID in realistic ways Reality Principle
• Logical/Rational
• Struggles to reconcile ID Superego
• SUPEREGO
• Partially conscious Ideal behavior
• Moral Principle Conscience

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Stages of Development

• Freud believed that personality is formed during
  childhood.
• Our past childhood experiences are powerful
  influences on our present personalities
• The stages (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and
  Genital represent patterns of gratifying our
  basic needs and satisfying our drive for physical
  pleasure
• Insufficient or excess gratification during any
  stage could cause a person to reflect the stage
  throughout life.

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Stages
Oral (0-18 mo.) Pleasure center is mouth sucking, chewing, biting.
Anal (18 mo-36 mo) focus on gaining control, bowel and bladder elimination retention as form of control.
Phallic (3-6 yr) Pleasure zone is in the genitals, focus on coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Latency (6-puberty) Repressed sexual feelings
Genital (puberty on) Maturation of sexual interests
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Stage Issues

• During the Phallic Stage, The Oedipus complex
  occurs due to boys feelings of guilt for love of
  mother and fear of castration.
• During Oral Stage, deprivation or overindulgence
  may result in adult oral fixations or have
  dependence issues
• If Anal Stage is not resolved, may result in an
  anal expulsive (messy, unorganized) or anal
  retentive (controlled compulsively neat)
  personality

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Defense MechanismsWays the EGO protects itself
against anxiety

• Repression banish it (forget it)
• Regress retreat to safer time (comfort foods,
  thumb-sucking)
• Reaction Formation opposites (I cant love you
  so Ill just hate you)
• Rationalization justify it. (Im just a social
  drinker)

• Displacement divert feelings to another -(kick
  the dog syndrome)
• Sublimation transform it into good (get out
  frustrations in kickboxing class)
• Project attribute it to another person (if your
  husband thinks youre cheating, he probably is)

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Psychoanalytic Personality Tests

• Goal to tap into the unconscious.
• Projective Tests user tells a story or gives a
  description based on an ambiguous stimulus.
• Examples
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) share inner
  feelings through stories made up about ambiguous
  scenes.
• Rorschach inkblot descriptions of inkblots
  reflect inner feelings and conflicts.
• Criticisms
• Reliability? NO Validity? NO
• No universal scoring system or training system

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Neo - Freudians

• Accepted Freuds basic ideas
• Id, ego, superego.
• Importance of conscious.
• Shaping of personality during childhood.
• Dynamics of anxiety defense mechanisms.
• Differences
• More emphasis on conscious.
• Less emphasis on sexual motivations.
• More emphasis on noble motives social
  interactions.

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• Alder
• Childhood social conflicts influence personality
  development
• Inferiority complex
• Horney
• Dependent childs sense of helplessness creates
  anxiety
• Triggers desire for love security
• Criticized Freuds gender bias
• Jung
• More emphasis on unconscious than other neo
  Freudians
• Unconscious contains more than just negative, but
  unrealized talents, gifts, creativities
  passions.
• Believed in a Collective Unconscious Part of
  unconscious shared by all. Archetypes, the
  building blocks of the soul which are inherited
  and shared by all, live here.

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Criticism of Freud

• Is Repression a Myth? Most holocaust survivors,
  veterans of war, terrorist victims and trauma
  survivors report vivid memories.
• Others see Unconscious as an information
  processing unit, not just a dumping ground.
• Subjective, fails to predict behavior traits,
  provides no testable predictions
• Culturally Gender Biased.

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Trait Perspective

• Describes Personality based on
• Characteristic Behaviors
• Conscious Motives
• Describes, doesnt explain
• Basically a classification system

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Examples of Trait Tests
Sheldon classified personalities based on body
type
Plump Endomorph Relaxed, jolly Example__________
Masculine Mesomorph Bold/physically active Example__________
Thin Ectomorph High strung/solitary Example__________
Stereotypes people based on body type
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More Trait Tests

• Myers Briggs Test - Based on Jungs personality
  types
• Extravert vs. Intravert
• Thinking vs. Feeling
• Judging vs. Perceiving
• Sensing vs. Intuitive
• The Big 5 Five Personality Dimensions
• Emotional Stability
• Extraversion
• Openness
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness

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Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

• Objective, normed personality inventory with
  validity scales for faking lying.
• 10 scales
• 1. Hypochondriasis 6. Schizophrenia
• 2. Depression 7. Hypomania
• 3. Social Introversion 8. Hysteria
• 4. Psychopathic Deviancy 9. Paranoia
• 4. Masculinity/Femininity 10. Psychasthenia

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Biology Personality

• Low brain arousal results in more extraversion
• Overactive Autonomic Nervous System results in a
  more emotionally unstable personality
• Inactive frontal lobe area results in a more
  extraverted personality
• Genetics influence personality

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Trait Perspective Criticism

• Person-situation controversy Do traits persist
  over time and across situations?
• Are behaviors consistent from one situation to
  the next?
• Does trait perspective result in labeling
  pigeonholing?
• Trait Perspective actually attempts to predict
  AVERAGE behavior over many situations to
  determine personality.

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Humanistic Perspective

• Positive Approach
• Sense of Self is at center of personality
• Goal is to foster personal growth
• Emphasis is on human potential
• Self concept shapes personality

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Maslow

• The self actualized person
• Self aware self accepting
• Open spontaneous
• Loving caring
• Secure
• Creates deep relationships
• Is moved by personal peak experiences
• Has the courage to be unpopular

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Carl Rogers

• A growth promoting climate
• Genuineness openness
• Acceptance unconditional positive regard
• Empathy sharing our feelings and reflecting our
  meanings
• Positive self concept occurs when the IDEAL self
  equal the ACTUAL self

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Self-Esteem

• People with higher self-esteem typically
• have fewer sleepless nights, are less likely to
  conform under pressure or use drugs, are more
  persistent at difficult tasks and are less shy
  lonely
• People with low self-esteem typically
• Are excessively critical, judgmental and are
  generally more unhappy.
• Criticism Is low self esteem caused by problems
  failures or are problems failures caused by
  low self-esteem?

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Overcoming Adversity

• Many are able to maintain self-esteem when faced
  with discrimination or lower social status.
• Those who overcome adversity
• Value the things at which they excel.
• Attribute problems to prejudice.
• Compare self to those in their own group.

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Does your personality follow you when you move to
a foreign culture?

• Depends upon whether your culture gives greater
  priority to individualism or collectivism
• Rate the following cultures on their levels of
  individualism or collectivism
• US Japan China Mexico
• France India Afghanistan
• What are the advantages/disadvantages to
  collectivism and individualism?

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Criticisms of Humanistic Approach

• Concepts are vague and subjective
• Individualism can lead to self indulgence,
  selfishness, arrogance pride.
• Ignores our human capacity for evil.

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Social Cognitive Perspective

• Applies principles of learning thinking social
  influence
• Emphasizes the importance of external events and
  how we interpret them.
• Emphasizes our sense of personal control

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Reciprocal Determinism

• Bandura called the process of interacting with
  our environment reciprocal determinism with
  personal/cognitive, environmental behavioral
  factors all interplaying with each other.
• 1. Different people choose different
  environments
• 2. Different people interpret react
  differently to situations events.
• 3. Our personalities create situations to which
  we react. Ex self fulfilling prophesy,
  expectations.

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Who controls your world?

• Do you see yourself as controlling of, or
  controlled by your environment?
• External locus of control perception that
  outside factors determine ones fate.
• Internal locus of control perception that one
  has more control over own fate. Typically these
  people achieve more in schools, act more
  independently, are less depressed, in better
  health and cope with stress better.

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Learned Helplessness

• Those who feel helpless oppressed often view
  control as external. When traumatic events occur
  and people feel as if they have no control, they
  often learn helplessness, which can generalize to
  other situations.
• Can you think of any situations where learned
  helplessness may occur?
• Which is more important? ACTUAL control or
  PERCEIVED control?

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Assessment of Personality

• Correlation studies correlate feelings of
  control with behavior treatment
• Experiment increase or decrease a persons
  sense of control and observe results.
• SCs therapists typically follow the principle
  that past behavior is a good predictor of present
  and future behavior.

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Criticism

• Too much focus on situations, not enough focus on
  persons inner traits
• SCs argue that our traits emotions shine
  through in our reactions responses.