Personality

Collective Unconscious

A concept by Carl Jung referring to a shared, inherited reservoir of information and experiences within all human beings' unconscious minds.

Archetypes

Universal symbols and character types found across cultures, as identified by Carl Jung.

Horney's Main Proposals

Argued that personality develops from societal relationships and is influenced by how well a child’s needs are met by parents.

Factor Analysis

A statistical method used to identify associations among various personality traits, as utilized by Cattell and Eysenck.

16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF)

A tool developed by Cattell to assess personality traits based on factor analysis.

Extraversion

One of Eysenck's three dimensions of personality, relating to the degree of sociability, assertiveness, and activity.

Neuroticism

Eysenck's dimension encompassing emotional stability, reflecting both positive and negative emotional states.

Psychoticism

Eysenck's measure of reality distortion, including aggression and impulsivity.

Rorschach Test

A projective test involving inkblots to assess personality through interpretation.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test where individuals create stories based on a series of pictures to reveal underlying motives.

Personality

Personality refers to people’s typical way of thinking, feeling and behaving

• It is relatively consistent over time and ***across different situation (it has variability in different situations, for instance, at work vs at home)

• Involves features which distinguish us from each other

• Influences or causes of our typical patterns of behaviour

Evolutionary Theory for Personality

Twin Studies and Personality

3 Points of Genetics and Personality

1. No one specific gene to personality

2. Genes and environment are always linked, cannot be separated

3. Estimates of the influence of genes just apply to groups, not individuals

Freud Psychodynamic approach 

• Freud argued that our behaviour is motivated by our unconscious: the part of personality that contains the beliefs, memories, feelings, urges, drives, and instincts which an individual is not aware of 

  • To understand personality, requires the exposing of content from the unconscious

  • The content of unconscious cannot be observed directly as the meanings are disguised through symbols

  • The unconscious is also not tangible, we do not know if it exists, not scientifically testable

Freud’s model has 3 parts

1. Id: bulk of unconscious personality

2. Ego: Conscious

3. Super Ego: Conscious

Id

raw, in born part of personality whose purpose is to reduce tension derived from primitive desires (sexual, hunger, aggression)

Libido

• limitless energy source putting pressure on various parts of the personality 

Pleasure Principle

goal is the immediate reduction of tension (id) and the maximization of pleasure (libido)

Ego

Strives to balance the desires of the id and the realities of the objective, outside world

What is the reality principle

Done by the ego, instinctual energy is restrained, limited to maintained the safety of an individual and to integrate them into society 

Super Ego

An “angel” who represents the rights and the wrongs of society passed down by teachings, parents, etc.

Two parts: The conscience and the ego-ideal 

Freud’s psychosexual stages

5 stages: there is a conflict/challenge a child has to navigate in order to not be fixated in later life (adulthood). These conflicts they navigate are societal norms and their sexual urges and

Fixations are conflicts that persist 

5 Form of defensive mechansims

1. Repression

2. Projection

3. Displacement

4. Rationalization

Repression

primary defense mechanism where unacceptable/unpleasant Id impulses are pushed back into the unconsciousness

• A thought/desire being pushed out of conscious awareness because it is traumatic and threatening

Projection

People defend against recognition of their own negative thoughts, feelings, motivations by projecting them onto others.

• You absolve yourself by passing it onto others 

• e.g., I’m thinking about cheating on my partner, so I accuse them of cheating on me.

Displacement

When we unleash our emotions on a ‘safer’ or more socially acceptable target.

• Unleashing rage on another target (items)

• e.g., my boss yelled at me at work, so I come home and yell at my partner for not doing the dishes.

Rationalization

Generating reasonable explanations (essentially excuses) for unacceptable behavior or setbacks/personal failures 

• Something that we have done that we should not have done

  1. Ego constructs a rational motive to explain the unacceptable action caused by the impulses of the Id

• Rationalization means one can express the dangerous impulse (Id) while superseding (ignoring) the superego (most sane outcome/best outcome)

  1. E.g., I am tired so I am not going to study

  2. Explains some of the biggest atrocities like the holocaust (harming the jewish people)

Concept from Jung

The concept of collective unconscious

The concept of collective unconscious

Refers to a shared, inherited reservoir of information and experiences within all human beings' unconscious minds. According to Carl Jung, every person’s psyche is tied to the collective unconscious due to our shared heritage. We share a set of common symbols and archetypes which seemingly span cultures and eras.

Archetypes

Archetypes are universal symbols and character types found across cultures. Common Jungian archetypes include the hero and the mother.

Dreams

Jung believed dreams provide a window into the collective unconscious. He worked with his patients to examine the symbols and images in people’s dreams.

Karen Horney and Gender roles

• Rejected Freud’s psychoanalytic theory that women believed they are inferior due to a lack of a penis (penis envy)

• Argued that women are envious of men due to the liberty they get: success, independency, freedom “attached to the organ”

• Main proposals from Horney:

  • Argued that personality develops from societal relationships and depends on the relationship between a child and parent, specially how well the child’s needs are met 

  • One of the first to emphasize the importance of societal/gender roles in shaping personality 

    • For instance, role of women to be docile to men

    • Messaging for women in teaching is to be like men; be assertive to be taken seriously

Eysenck and Catell’s 3 dimensions of personality.

Used factor anaylsis to develop 3 traits which make up personality

Factor analysis

• Factor analysis: statistical method of identifying associations among many variables.

  • All traits are boiled down to less traits

  • Cattell suggested that 16 pairs of source traits represented the basic dimensions of personality.

Eysenck and Catell 3 personalities

1. Extraversion, Neuroticism, Psychoticism

Psychoticism

refers to the degree to which reality is distorted; includes aggression and impulsivity (crude, undesirable behaviours

Neuroticism

encompasses emotional stability, both positive and negative 

Extraversion

relates to the degree of sociability: sociable, active, assertive 

The Big Five Personality Traits

(McCrae and Costa): Most commonly used and influential trait approach, which argues that 5 traits or factors lie at the core of personality. This has a scale of degree

Big Five

determined through modern factor analytic statistical techniques, researchers have identified a similar set of five factors.

OCEAN

Openess, conscientious, extraversion, agreeable, neuroticism

Openness to experience:

Feelings, ideas, etc. E.g., practical Convention vs Curious

Conscientiousness

Competence. E.g.Impulsive vs Dependable

Agreeableness:

Cooperation: Critical/Suspicious vs Trusting  

Neuroticism

tendency towards unstable emotions: Calm vs Anxious 

Bandura’s observational learning theory

people can see the possible outcomes of certain behaviours in settings without having to carry them out. This is done through observation. 

Bandura’s Reciprocal determinism:

A feedback loop; the environment does affect personality, but people’s behaviour and personalities are also assumed to “feed back” and modify the environment. 

• Essentially two factors, environment and personalities which are not linear

Self-efficacy: Bandura

the belief in one’s personal capabilities or ability to produce a desired outcome. People with high self-efficacy have 

• Higher aspirations

• Show greater persistence in working to attain goals

• Achieve greater success than those with lower self-efficacy.

Direct reinforcement and encouragement from others also play a role in developing self-efficacy.

• Encourage failure and liberty to experience failure

or ability to produce a desired outcome. People with high self-efficacy have 

• Higher aspirations

• Show greater persistence in working to attain goals

• Achieve greater success than those with lower self-efficacy.

Direct reinforcement and encouragement from others also play a role in developing self-efficacy.

• Encourage failure and liberty to experience failure

Need for positive regard

From rogers: reflects the desire to be loved and respected, it is contingent on outsiders (society, family)

• We grow increasingly dependent on others for this regard.

• We see and judge ourselves through the eyes of other people, relying on their values, becoming preoccupied with what they think of us.
  

Self-concepts

Generalized sense of who we think we are. from rogers. There is a discrepancies between one own self concept and what others think which leads to stress.

Conditions of worth

Another way of describing discrepancies between ideal self (who we want to be) us true self (who we are)

Unconditional positive regard

an attitude of acceptance and respect on the part of an observer, no matter what a person says or does

Conditional positive regard

acceptance is contingent on others’ expectations.

Others withdraw their love and acceptance if you do something they don’t approve of, resulting in discrepancies, frustration, and anxiety.  For instance, confining in someone you trust of something wrong you did, but they do not approve of it

Conditional positive regard

Unconditional positive regard

• You get no judgement on who you are

• You may have experienced this when you confided in someone you trusted.

• Gives people the opportunity to evolve and grow cognitively and emotionally and to develop more realistic self-concepts.

Rorschach test (inkblot)

showing series of visual stimuli and asking them what the figures represent to them 

Thematic  Apperception Test (TAT):

• showing series of picture and asking them to write a story

• Not conclusive according to critics as it requires particular skill and care in their interpretation

Projective Test

Test in which a person is shown an ambiguous stimulus and asked to describe it or tell a story about it. Rorschach test and TAT

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) i

a self-report test that identifies people with psychological difficulties and is employed to predict some everyday behaviours. True, false, or cannot say statements and long (567 items)

Behavioural Assessment:

Looking at someone's personality can also be done by watching them: measuring an individual’s behaviour which is used to describe personality characteristics.

• Can be carried out naturalistically or in a laboratory setting.

• Behavioural assessment is carried out objectively, quantifying behaviour as much as possible.

• Particularly appropriate for observing (and modifying) specific behavioural difficulties like aggression.

• Allows assessment of the specific nature and frequency of a problem and allows researchers to determine scientifically whether interventions have been successful.