Studied by 48 people
Personality
A person's unique long-term patter of thinking, emotions, and behavior. (Consistency on who you are, have been and will become)
Character
The person has been evaluated not described
Temperament
Hereditary aspects of your personality (Sensitivity, Irritability, etc.)
Personality Traits
Stable qualities thst a person shows in most situations.
Behavioral genetics
Study of inherited behavioral traits
Personality Type
People who have several traits in common
Who proposed people were Either introverts or extroverts?
Carl Jung
Self-concept
The mental "picture" you have of your own personality
Self-esteem
Self-evaluation
Genuine self-esteem
Based on an accurate appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses (Positive self-evaluation that is bestowed too easily may not be healthy)
Personality theory
System of concepts, assumptions, ideas, and principles proposed to explain personality
Trait theories
Attempt to learn what traits makeup for personality and how they relate to actual behavior.
Psychodynamic theories
Focus on the inner workings of personality, especially internal conflicts and struggles
Behavioristic and social learning theories
Place importance on the external environment and on the effects of conditioning and learning.
Humanistic theories
Stress private, subjective experience, and personal growth
Current dominant method for studying personality
Trait approach
Objectives of trait theory
Predicting behavior, describing people
Predicting behavior
Knowing how you rate on a single dimension would allow us to predict behavior in a variety of settings
Describing people
Analyze, classify, and interrelate traits
Common traits
Characteristics shared by most members of a culture
Individual traits
Describe a person's unique qualities
Cardinal traits
Basic traits that all of a person's activities can be traced to the trait
Central traits
Basic building blocks of personality
Secondary traits
Superficial personal qualities
Surface traits
Visible features of personality
Source traits
Traits clustered together, deeper characteristics. The core of each individual's personality.
(Cattell) Factor analysis
A statistical technique used to correlate multiple measurements and identify general underlying factors
Source traits are measured by
the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF)
Five-factor model
System that identifies the five most basic dimensions of personality.
Trait-situation interaction
External circumstances influence the expression of a personality trait
Psychodynamic theory
Actions are based on hidden, or unconscious, thoughts, needs, and emotions
Freud's personality model is composed by
The id, the ego, and the superego
Id
Innate biological instincts and urges, operates on the pleasure principle
Eros
Life instincts
Libido
Energy for the entire psyche, or personality
Thanatos
Death instinct
Ego
System of thinking, planning, problem solving, and deciding. Conscious control of the persionality and often delays action.
Superego
Judge or censor for the thoughts and actions of the ego.
Conscience
Reflects actions for which a person has been punished
Ego ideal
Reflects all behavior one's parents approved of or rewarded. Source of goals and aspirations.
Neurotic anxiety
Impulses from the id when the ego can barely keep them under control
Moral anxiety
Threats of punishment from the superego
Defense mechanisms
Mental processes that deny, distort, or otherwise block out sources of threat and anxiety
Unconscious
Holds repressed memories and emotions, plus the instinctual drives of the id
Preconscious
Contains material that can be easily brought to awareness
Conscious
Everything you are aware of at a given moment including thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and memories
According to Freud the core of personality is formed
before age 6 in a series of psychosexual stages
Psychosexual stages
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Genital
Erogenous zone
Area capable of producing pleasure
Oral Stage
First year of life
Oral-dependent personality
Gullible and passive and need lots of attention
Oral-aggressive
Cynical adults who exploit others
Anal Stage
Ages 1 and 3, shifts the process of elimination
Anal-retentive (Holding on)
Obstinate, stingy, orderly, and compulsively clean
Anal-expulsive (letting-go)
Disorderly, destructive, cruel, or messy
Phallic stage
Ages 3 and 6
Phallic Personality
Vanity, exhibitionism, sensitive pride, and narcissism
Oedipus conflict
Son attraction to his Mother
Electra conflict
Daugther attraction to her father
Latency
Age 6 to puberty. Quiet time during which psychosexual development is dormant.
Genital Stage (Puberty)
Upswing in sexual energies activates all the unresolved conflicts of earlier years.
Genital stage (Adolescence)
Growing capacity for responsible social-sexual relationships
Why was Freud's theory influential?
Pioneered that early life shapes adulthood
Identified feeding, toilet training, and early sexual experiences as critical events.
Proposed development proceeds through series of stages.
Known Neo-Freudians
Karen Horney, Anna Freud, Otto Rank, and Erich Fromm
Adler believed that
We are social creatures governed by social urges, not by biological instincts. The main driving force is a striving for superiority. We try to compensate for limitations. this creates a unique style of life, and our core style is formed by age 5.
(Adler) Creative self
Humans create their personalities through choices and experiences.
(Horney) Basic anxiety
When people feel isolated and helpless in a hostile world
Move towards others
Depending on them for love, support, or friendship
Move away from others
Withdrawing, acting like a "loner", or being "strong" and independent
Move against others
Attacking, competing with, or seeking power over them
Horney believed that
emotional health, reflects a blance in moving toward, away from, and against others
Persona
"Public self" presented to others
(Jung) Ego may reflect attitudes of
introversion or of extroversion
Personal unconscious
Mental storehouse for a single individual's experiences, feelings, and memories
Collective unconscious
Mental storehouse for unconscious ideas and images shared by all humans
Anima
Female Principle. Unconscious idealized image of women
Animus
Male principle
Self archetype
Regarded as the most important of all by Jung, represents unity
Self-actualization
A striving for completion and unity.
Behavioral personality theories
Emphasize that personality is no more than a collection of learned behavior patterns
Situational determinants
External causes of our actions
Situational determinants
Situations that have effects on our behavior
John Dollard and Neal Miller (1950) habits...
Make up the structure of personality
Drive
Any stimulus strong enough to goad a person to action
Cues
Signals from the environment
Responses
Actions
Reward
Positive reinforcement
Social learning theory
Explaining personality through the combination of learning principles, modeling, thought patterns, perceptions, expectations, beliefs, goals, emotions, and social relationships
Psychological Situation
How the person interprets or defines the situation
Expectancy
Concept our actions are affected by and that making a response will lead to reinforcement
Reinforcement value
We attach different subjective values to various activities or rewards
Self-efficacy
Capacity for producing a desired result
Self-reinforcement
Praising or rewarding yourself for having made a particular response
Social reinforcement
Praise, attention, or approval from others
Dollard and Miller childhood critical situations
Feeding
Toilet or cleanliness training
Sex training
Learning to express anger or agression
If fed when they cry
Child is encouraged to actively manipulate their parents
If the child's allowed to cry without being fed
the child learns to be passive
Permissiveness for sexual and aggressive behavior in childhood is linked to
adult needs for power
Imitation
A desire to act like the admired person
Humanistic theories
They pay special attention to the fuller use of human potentials and they help bring balance to our overall views of personality
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