Psychology 3 - Theories of personality

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

1. Oral
2. Anal
3. Phallic
4. 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?

1. Pioneered that early life shapes adulthood
2. Identified feeding, toilet training, and early sexual experiences as critical events.
3. 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