Chapter 12 Personality: Theory, Research, and Assessment

1
Chapter 12Personality Theory, Research, and
Assessment
2
Defining Personality Consistency and
Distinctiveness

• Personality Traits
• Dispositions and dimensions
• The five-factor Model
• Extraversion
• Neuroticism
• Openness to experience
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness

3
(No Transcript)
4
Figure 12.1 The five-factor model of
personality. Trait models attempt to analyze
personality into its basic dimensions. McCrae and
Costa (1985, 1987) maintain that personality can
be described adequately with the five
higher-order traits identified here.
5
Psychodynamic Perspectives

• Freuds psychoanalytic theory
• Structure of personality
• Id - Pleasure principle
• Ego - Reality principle
• Superego - Morality
• Levels of awareness
• Conscious
• Unconscious
• Preconscious
• Conflict
• Sex and Aggression
• Anxiety
• Defense Mechanisms

6
Figure 12.2 Freuds model of personality
structure. Freud theorized that people have three
levels of awareness the conscious, the
preconscious, and the unconscious. The enormous
size of the unconscious is often dramatized by
comparing it to the portion of an iceberg that
lies beneath the waters surface. Freud also
divided personality structure into three
componentsid, ego, and superegowhich operate
according to different principles and exhibit
different modes of thinking. In Freuds model,
the id is entirely unconscious, but the ego and
superego operate at all three levels of awareness.
7
Figure 12.3 Freuds model of personality
dynamics. According to Freud, unconscious
conflicts between the id, ego, and superego
sometimes lead to anxiety. This discomfort may
lead to the use of defense mechanisms, which may
temporarily relieve anxiety.
8
(No Transcript)
9
Figure 12.4 Arousal in response to depiction of
male homosexual activity. This graph shows the
progression of participants sexual arousal over
time, as measured by a penile strain gauge, in
response to a video depicting male homosexual
activity. The homophobic men in the Adams et al.
(1996) study did not rate the video as arousing,
but the physiological measure showed that they
experienced substantial sexual arousal. (Adapted
from Adams et al., 1996)
10
Freud on Development Psychosexual Stages

• Sexual physical pleasure
• Psychosexual stages
• Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital
• Fixation Excessive gratification or frustration
• Overemphasis on psychosexual needs during
  fixated stage

11
(No Transcript)
12
Other Psychodynamic Theorists

• Carl Jung
• Analytical Psychology
• Personal and collective unconscious
• Archetypes
• Introversion/Extroversion
• Alfred Adler
• Individual Psychology
• Striving for superiority
• Compensation
• Inferiority complex/overcompensation
• Birth order

13
Figure 12.5 Jungs vision of the collective
unconscious. Much like Freud, Jung theorized that
each person has conscious and unconscious levels
of awareness. However, he also proposed that the
entire human race shares a collective
unconscious, which exists in the deepest reaches
of everyones awareness. He saw the collective
unconscious as a storehouse of hidden ancestral
memories, called archetypes. Jung believed that
important cultural symbols emerge from these
universal archetypes. Thus, he argued that
remarkable resemblances among symbols from
disparate cultures such as the mandalas shown
here are evidence of the existence of the
collective unconscious.
14
Evaluating Psychodynamic Perspectives

• Pros
• Insights regarding
• The unconscious
• The role of internal conflict
• The importance of early childhood experiences
• Cons
• Poor testability
• Inadequate empirical base
• Sexist views

15
Behavioral Perspectives

• Skinners views
• Conditioning
• Banduras views
• Social leaning theory
• Cognitive processes and reciprocal determinism
• Observational learning
• Models
• Self-efficacy
• Mischels views
• The person-situation controversy

16
Figure 12.6 A behavioral view of
personality. Staunch behaviorists devote little
attention to the structure of personality because
it is unobservable, but they implicitly view
personality as an individuals collection of
response tendencies. A possible hierarchy of
response tendencies for a specific stimulus
situation is shown here.
17
Figure 12.7 Personality development and operant
conditioning. According to Skinner, peoples
characteristic response tendencies are shaped by
reinforcers and other consequences that follow
behavior. Thus, if your joking at a party leads
to attention and compliments, your tendency to be
witty and humorous will be strengthened.
18
Figure 12.8 Banduras reciprocal
determinism. Bandura rejects Skinners highly
deterministic view that freedom is an illusion
and argues that internal mental events, external
environmental contingencies, and overt behavior
all influence one another.
19
(No Transcript)
20
Evaluating Behavioral Perspectives

• Pros
• Based on rigorous research
• Insights into effects of learning and
  environmental factors
• Cons
• Overdependence on animal research
• Fragmented view of personality
• Dehumanizing views

21
Humanistic Perspectives

• Carl Rogers
• Person Centered Theory
• Self-concept
• Conditional/unconditional positive regard
• Incongruence and anxiety
• Abraham Maslow
• Self-actualization theory
• Hierarchy of needs
• The healthy personality

22
Figure 12.9 Rogerss view of personality
structure. In Rogerss model, the self-concept is
the only important structural construct. However,
Rogers acknowledged that ones self-concept may
not be consistent with the realities of ones
actual experiencea condition called incongruence.
23
Figure 12.10 Rogerss view of personality
development and dynamics. Rogerss theory of
development posits that conditional love leads to
a need to distort experiences, which fosters an
incongruent self-concept. Incongruence makes one
prone to recurrent anxiety, which triggers
defensive behavior, which fuels more
incongruence.
24
Figure 12.11 Maslows hierarchy of
needs. According to Maslow, human needs are
arranged in a hierarchy, and people must satisfy
their basic needs before they can satisfy higher
needs. In the diagram, higher levels in the
pyramid represent progressively less basic needs.
Individuals progress upward in the hierarchy when
lower needs are satisfied reasonably well, but
they may regress back to lower levels if basic
needs are no longer satisfied.
25
Evaluating Humanistic Perspectives

• Pros
• Emphasizing subjective experience
• Study of the healthy personality
• Cons
• Lack of research base
• Difficult to test empirically
• Possibly overly optimistic about human nature

26
Biological Perspectives

• Eysenks theory
• 3 higher order traits
• Extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism
• Determined by genes
• Twin studies
• Novelty seeking and genetics
• The evolutionary approach
• Traits conducive to reproductive fitness

27
Figure 12.13 Eysencks model of personality
structure. Eysenck described personality
structure as a hierarchy of traits. In this
scheme, a few higher-order traits, such as
extraversion, determine a host of lower-order
traits, which determine a persons habitual
responses.
28
(No Transcript)
29
Figure 12.14 Twin studies of personality. Loehlin
(1992) has summarized the results of twin studies
that have examined the Big Five personality
traits. The N under each trait indicates the
number of twin studies that have examined that
trait. The chart plots the average correlations
obtained for identical and fraternal twins in
these studies. As you can see, identical twins
have shown greater resemblance in personality
than fraternal twins have, suggesting that
personality is partly inherited.
30
Figure 12.15 Heritability and environmental
variance for the Big Five traits. Based on the
twin study data of Riemann et al. (1997), Plomin
and Caspi (1999) estimated the heritability of
each of the Big Five traits. The data also
allowed them to estimate the amount of variance
on each trait attributable to shared environment
and nonshared environment. As you can see, the
heritability estimates hovered in the vicinity of
40, with two exceeding 50. As in other studies,
the influence of shared environment was very
modest. (Based on Plomin and Caspi, 1999)
31
Figure 12.17 Self-monitoring and dating. Snyder
and Simpson (1984) found that college students
who were high in self-monitoring had dated more
people in the preceding 12 months than had
students low in self-monitoring. Apparently, high
self-monitors commit themselves to romantic
relationships less readily than low self-monitors
do.
32
Evaluating Biological Perspectives

• Pros
• Convincing evidence for genetic influence
• Cons
• Conceptual problems with heritability estimates
• Artificial carving apart of nature and nurture
• No comprehensive biological theory

33
(No Transcript)
34
(No Transcript)
35
Contemporary Empirical Approaches to Personality
Traits

• Marvin Zuckerman
• Sensation Seeking
• Mark Snyder
• Self-monitoring
• Markus and Kitayama
• Independence vs. interdependence and culture

36
Figure 12.18 Culture and conceptions of
self. According to Markus and Kitayama (1991),
Western cultures foster an independent view of
the self as a unique individual who is separate
from others, as diagrammed on the left. In
contrast, Asian cultures encourage an
interdependent view of the self as part of an
interconnected social matrix, as diagrammed on
the right. The interdependent view leads people
to define themselves in terms of their social
relationships (for instance, as someones
daughter, employee, colleague, or neighbor).
37
Figure 12.20 MMPI profiles. Scores on the 10
clinical scales of the MMPI are often plotted as
shown here to create a profile for a client. The
normal range for scores on each subscale is 50 to
65. People with disorders frequently exhibit
elevated scores on several clinical scales rather
than just one.
38
(No Transcript)
39
(No Transcript)