Psychology Chapter 14

Personality

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Psychodynamic theories

View personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

Unconscious

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

Free association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

id

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification. Those who would rather party now than sacrifice today's pleasure for future success and happiness.
- Lee from True West is the id

Ego

The largely conscious, "executive" part of the personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. (long-term pleasure)
- Austin from True West

Superego

The voice of our moral compass (conscience) that forces the ego to consider not only the real but the ideal. The superego focuses on how we ought to behave. It strives for perfection, judging actions and producing positive feelings of pride or negative feelings of guilt.
Someone with an exceptionally strong superego may be virtuous yet guilt ridden; another with a weak superego may be outrageous self-indulgent and remorseless

Psychosexual stages

The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.
Oral (0-18 monts): Pleasure centers on the mouth - sucking, biting chewing
Anal (18-36 months): Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Phallic (3-6 years): Pleasure zone is the genitals; for example, boys seek genital stimulation. They also develop both unconscious sexual desires for their mother and jealousy and hatred for their father, whom they consider a rival (Oedipus complex)
Latency (6 to puberty): A phase of dormant sexual feelings
Genital (puberty on): Maturation of sexual interests

Oedipus [ED-uh-puss] complex

According to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father. Greek legend of Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Some psychoanalysts in Freud's era believed that girls experiences a parallel Electra complex.

Identification

The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos. Freud believed that identification with the same-sex parent provided what psychologists now call our gender identity - our sense of being male, female, or a combination of the two. Freud presumed that our early childhood relations - especially with our parents and caregivers - influence our developing identity, personality, and frailties.

Fixation

In Freud's view, conflicts unresolved during earlier psychosexual stages could surface as maladaptive behavior in the adult years. At any point in the oral, anal, or phallic stages, strong conflict could lock, or fixate, the person's pleasure-seeking energies in that stage. A person who had been either orally overindulged or derived (perhaps by abrupt, early weaning) might fixate at the oral stage. This person might continue to seek oral gratification by smoking or excessive eating. In such ways, Freud suggested, the twig of personality is bent at an early stage.

Defense mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. For Freud, all defense mechanisms function indirectly and unconsciously.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. However because repression is often incomplete, repressed urges may appear as symbols in dreams or as slips of the tongue in casual conversation.

Repression enables other defense mechanisms

Regression - Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated
Example - A little boy reverts to the oral comfort of thumb sucking in the car on the way to his first day of school

Reaction formation - Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites
Example - Repressing angry feelings, a person displays exaggerated friendliness

Projection - Disguising one's own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Example - "The thief thinks everyone else is a thief"

Rationalization - Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one's actions
Example - A habitual drinker says she drinks with her friends "just to be sociable"

Displacement - Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person
Example - A little girl kicks the family dog after her mother sends her to her room

Denial - Refusing to believe to even perceive painful realities
Example - A partner denies evidence of his loved one's affair

Collective unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' universal experiences or history. The collective unconsciousness explains why, for many people, spiritual concerns are deeply rooted and why people in different cultures share certain myths and images.

Projective test

A personality test, such as the Rorschach, which aim to provide a "psychological X-ray," by asking test-takers to describe an ambiguous stimulus or tell a story about it. The clinician may presume that any hopes, desires, and fears that people see in the ambiguous images are projections of their own inner feelings or conflicts.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. Achievement motivation - shown a daydreaming boy, those who imagine he is fantasizing about an achievement are presumed to be projecting their own goals. "As a rule," said Henry Murray, "the subject leaves the test happily unaware that he has presented the psychologist with what amounts to an x-ray of his inner self".

Rorschach inkblot test

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. Do you see predatory animals or weapons? Perhaps you have aggressive tendencies.

Terror-management theory

A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death. Shows that thinking about one's mortality - for example, by writing a short essay on dying and its associated emotions - provokes various terror-managenent defenses. For example, death anxiety increases aggression toward rivals and esteem for oneself.

Humanistic theories

View personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth. Focused on the ways people strive for self-determination and self-realization

Self-actualization

According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential.
self-transcendence - meaningful, purpose, and communion beyond the self

Carl Rogers' Person Centered Perspective

Genuineness: When people are genuine, they are open with their own feelings, drop their facades, and are transparent and self-disclosing
Acceptance: When people are accepting, they offer unconditional positive regard. In a good marriage, a close family, or an intimate friendship, we are free to be spontaneous without fearing the loss of others' esteem
Empathy: When people are empathetic, they share and mirror other's feelings and reflect their meanings

Unconditional positive regard

According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Self-concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" If our self-concept is positive, we tend to act and perceive the world positively. If it is negative - if in our own eyes we fall far short of our ideal self - said Rogers, we feel dissatisfied and unhappy.

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports. People's characteristic behaviors and conscious motives (such as curiosity).

Personality inventory

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits - assess several traits at once.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes like assessing people's personality traits.

Empirically derived test

A test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between the groups.

The "Big Five" Personality Factors

Disorganized, careless, impulsive - Conscientiousness - Organized, careful, disciplined

Ruthless, suspicious, uncooperative - Agreeableness - Soft-hearted, trusting, helpful

Calm, secure, self satisfied - Neuroticism (emotional stability vs. instability) - Anxious, insecure, self-pitying

Practical, prefers routine, conforming - Openness - Imaginative, prefers variety, independent

Retiring, sober, reserved - Extraversion -
Sociable, fun-loving, affectionate

CANOE - Consciousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, Extraversion

Personality stability

With age, personality traits become more stable, as reflected in the stronger correlation of trait scores with follow-up scores seven years later.

Social-cognitive perspective

Albert Bandura - Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Reciprocal determinism

The interacting of behavior, internal cognition, and environment. We can see this interaction in the habits people develop relationships in. For example, Romena's history of romantic relationships (past behavior) influences her attitudes toward relationships in general (internal factor), which changes how she now responds to Ryan (environmental factor).
1. Different people choose different environments: The schools we attend, the reading we do, the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the friends we associate with - all are part of an environment we have chosen, based partly on our disposition. We choose our environment and it then shapes us.
2. Our personalities shape how we interpret and react to events: Anxious people tend to attend and react strongly to relationship threats. If we perceive the world as threatening, we will watch for threats and be prepared to defend ourselves.
3. Our personalities help create situations to which we react: How we view and treat people influences how they treat us. If we expect that others will not like us, our desperate attempts to seek their approval might cause them to reject us. Depressed people often engage in this excessive reassurance seeking, which confirms their negative self-views.
- You act in ways that reflect your past experiences

Gene-enviornemnt interaction

In addition to the interaction of internal personal factors, the environment, and our behaviors, we also experience gene-environment interaction. Our genetically influenced traits evoke certain responses from others, which may nudge us in one direction or another. In one classic study, those with the interacting factors of (1) having a specific gene associated with aggression and (2) being raised in a difficult environment were most likely to demonstrate adult antisocial behavior. In such ways, we are both the products and the architects of our environments: Behavior emerges from the interplay of external and internal influences. Boiling water turns an egg hard and a potato soft. A threatening environment turns one person into a hero, another into a scoundrel. At every moment, our behavior is influenced by our biology, our social and cultural experiences, and our cognition and dispositions.

Comparing the Major Personality Theories

Freud - Psychoanalytic theories
Adler, Horney, Jung - Psychodynamic theories
Roger, Maslow - Humanistic theories
Allport, Eysenck, McCrae, Costa - Trait theories
Bandura - Social-Cognitive theories
Page 597 of textbook

Self

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Spotlight effect

Overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us). Leads to feelings of self-consciousness

Self-esteem

One's feelings of high or low self-worth. People who feel good about themselves have fewer sleepless night. They succumb less easily to pressure to conform. They make more positive Facebook posts, causing others to like them more. They are more persistent at difficult tasks; they are less shy, anxious, and lonely. And they are just plain happier. If feeling bad, they think they deserve better and thus make more effort to repair their mood. (high self-esteem)

Self-efficiency

One's sense of competence and effectiveness (on a task) People who feel good about themselves have fewer sleepless night. They succumb less easily to pressure to conform. They make more positive Facebook posts, causing others to like them more. They are more persistent at difficult tasks; they are less shy, anxious, and lonely. And they are just plain happier. If feeling bad, they think they deserve better and thus make more effort to repair their mood. (self-efficient person)

Self-serving bias

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably -
People accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, and for success than for failures: Athletes often privately credit their victories to their own prowess, and their losses to bad breaks, lousy officiating, or the other team's exceptional performance
Most people see themselves as better than average: Compared with most other people, how nice are you? How easy to get along with? How appealing are you as a friend or romantic partner? Where would you rank yourself from the 1st to the 99th percentile? Most people put themselves well above the 50th percentile

Narcissism

Excessive self-love and self-absorption. Narcissistic people forgive others less, take a game-playing approach to their romantic relationships, and make more leaders.

Defensive self-esteem

Jennifer Crocker - Fragile, it focuses on sustaining itself, which makes failure and criticism feel threatening. Such egotism exposes one to perceive threats, which feed anger and feelings of vulnerability.

Secure self-esteem

less fragile, because it is less contingeten on external evaluations. To feel accepted for who we are, and for for our looks, wealth, acclaim, relieves pressures to succeed and enables us to focus beyond ourselves. By losing ourselves in relationships and purposes larger than self, Jennifer Crocker adds, we achieve a more secure self-esteem, satisfying relationships, and greater quality of life.