Psych Honors Personality

Psych Honors Personality - Psychoanalysis Notes for quiz

Personality

Unique and relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving

Personality Theory - Three Topics

explain how people are different and similar, and why every individual is unique

• Psychoanalytic

• Humanistic

• Trait

Sigmund Freud - Founder of Psychoanalysis

Believed individuals thoughts and behaviors emerge from tension from UNCONSCIOUS motives and CHILDHOOD CONFLICTS

Freud Therapy Method

Tried to provide insight into thought and actions by trying to expose and interpret underlying UNCONSCIOUS motives and conflicts

Free Association

having a person relax and say whatever comes to mind no matter how trivial or emberassing. Say words and have the person say the first word they associate with it to uncover what's in the unsonscious mind.

Levels of Mind - Conscious Mind

all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations, that one is aware of in this particular moment

Levels of Mind - Preconscious Mind

holds information that is not conscious but is easily retrievable into consciousness. (simple things such as phone number, childhood memories)

Levels of Mind - Unconscious Mind

unacceptable thoughts, urges, wishes, feelings and memories (one is not aware of them)

Divisions of the Mind - ID

Part of personality that consists of unconscious energy from basic aggressive and sexual urges - present from birth.

Operates on the pleasure principle the drive towards immediate gratification

the WANT

ID - Eros

the type of energy which is the life instinct, or life force perpetuates life. Leads to people taking care of themselves.

ID - Thantanos

the energy that deals with the death instinct, why people engage in risky behaviors

ID - Libido

sexual energy, driving force behind human sexual motivation and behavior

Divisions of the Mind - SUPEREGO

internalization of societal and parental rules, standards, and guidelines

develops age 5 - 6 and is partially unconscious (guilt develops here)

one’s conscience

can be harshly punitive (feelings of guilt)

what someone SHOULD do

Divisions of the Mind - EGO

part of personality that mediates between demands of the ID (WANT) and the constraints of the SUPEREGO (SHOULD)

Reality Principle - postpone gratification in accordance with the demands of reality

• rational, organized, logical

• may repress desires that cannot be met acceptebally

Creates defense mechanisms for feelings produced when weighing the ID and SUPEREGO

what one WILL do

Defense Mechanisms

unconscious mental processes employed by the ego to reduce anxiety

Repression

the forgetting of anxiety producing thoughts, feelings, and memories

• “I don’t remember that happening…”

Denial

the refusal to admit that something unpleasant happened or is happening

“Nope, that did not happen”

Regression

acting immature and retreating to a more infantile stage of one’s life through their behavior

• throwing a temper tantrum

Reaction Formation

• acting in a way that is the complete opposite of unacceptable urges

• being hypocritical

• ex. boys will tease the girls that they actually like

Projection

• attributing unacceptable impulses one has to someone else

• “No, I’m not a cheater. You are!”

Rationalization

• trying to reason away anxiety-producing thoughts

• finding justification for something bad happening

• “It’s Ok - I didn’t want that anyway”

Undoing

• unconsciously neutralizing anxiety causing action by doing a second action that “undoes” the first (such as a good deed)

• trying to make up for something bad or a bad impulse by doing a good thing

Displacement

• shifts an unacceptable impulse towards a more acceptable person or object

• if mad at your boss, take it out on your little sister

  • the little sister would be a safer target to take out your anger in order to not lose your job but still express the impulse

Sublimation

• Unacceptable urges are channeled into more acceptable activities

• taking unacceptable aggressive urges and channeling them into playing football

• like dealing with angry energy by working out

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

• childhood stages of development according to Freudian theory

• in each stage the ID’s pleasure seeking energies are focused on different parts of the body (called erogenous zones)

• a person may become fixated or stuck on a stage and attempt to achieve this pleasure as an adult in a way that is equivalent to how it was achieved in that stage

Oral Stage (Birth - 1 year)

• the Mouth

• associated with pleasure (chewing, biting, sucking)

• fixation may lead to nail biting or thumb sucking

Anal Stage (1 - 3 years)

• gratification comes from bowel and bladder function

  • such as by having control over when to use the bathroom

• Fixation may lead to anal retentive (having a short fuse) or anal expulsive (rebelliousness and emotional instability) behaviors

  • this results from the sense of having a lack of control later in life (if not properly allowed to develop in this stage)

Phallic Stage (3 - 5 years)

• focus of pleasure shifts to the genitals

• freud believed young children develop sexual attraction to their opposite sex parent

• child identifies with and tries to mimic the same sex parent - Freud says this is how one learns gender identity

• Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity (males) and excessive need for attention (females)

Latency Stage (5 - puberty)

• Sexuality is repressed due to intense anxiety caused by the Oedipus/Electra Complex

• children instead focus on hobbies, school, friendships

Genital Stage (Puberty - onward)

• sexual feelings re-emerge and are redirected toward others who resemble the person’s opposite sex parent

Oedipus Complex

• Freud believed young Boys have have sexual feelings for their mother

• Boys tend to feel hostility and jealousy to their fathers because they have more power (“greater masculine power”)

• only the father being with the mother becomes internalized as taboo in the boy as the SUPEREGO develops

Castration Anxiety

• boys afraid that their fathers with punish them for having feelings for their mother by castrating them, therefore losing their masculinity

Electra Complex

• Freud believed young girls have incestuous feelings for their father and compete with their mothers

• for their father's affection, leading to feelings of rivalry and jealousy.

  • counterpart to the Oedipus Complex in boys

• Girls resent their mother and suffer from deprivation and loss without masculinity

  • they blame the mother for “sending her into the world insufficiently equipped”

• eventually the girl learns to attempt to take the mothers place she identifies with the mother

NeoFreudians

• followers of Freud theories but developed their own

• disagreed with Freud on:

  • Behavior motivated by sexual urges

  • personality formed in early childhood experiences

  • Human nature and society inherently driven by sex and destruction

Carl Jung - What did he believe?

• rejected Freud theory with sex and aggression

• believed in general psychic energy that pushes people to grow psychologically

• Believe in collective unconscious

• developed idea of introvert and extravert

Introvert and Extravert

• Introvert pushes psychic energy to live onto themselves

• Extravert pushes psychic life energy onto others

Collective Unconscious

• Jung theory of information everyone knows from birth, experiences/memories passed down from ancestors

Archetypes

• universal symbols found in stories, myths, art

• about the human lifestyle

Ex. Powerful father, nurturing mother, wise old man, joker, innocent child, death & rebirth

Animus

“Masculine side” every woman has

• psychological harmony with acceptance of this this side

Anima

“Feminine side” every man has

• psychological harmony with acceptance of this this side

Shadow

• portion of our personality that is our unconscious dark side (prompts us to do bad things)

Karen Horney

• believed social tensions were crucial for personality formation

Childhood Anxiety

• caused by dependency on parents

• sense of helplessness triggers desire for love and security

• causes anxiety

Womb Envy

• believed men were in fact jealous of women for being able to create life

• Men envy the womb and compensate by being creative

  • engineering, art, building

Basic Anxiety

• anxiety caused by “the feeling of being isolated and helpless in a hostile world”

Anxiety Coping - Moving Toward Other People

having an excessive need for approval and affection

Anxiety Coping - Moving Against Other People

having an excessive need for power over other people

Anxiety Coping - Moving Away From Other People

having an excessive need for independence causing them to be aloof and detached from others

Psychologically Healthy vs Unhealthy

Healthy:

• personalities are flexible in balancing needs

Unhealthy:

• personalities are stuck in a specific way of Anxiety Coping

Alfred Adler - Inferiority

• inferiority cause psychological problems

• Inferiority Complex - a condition that comes from being unable to compensate for normal inferiority feelings (someone will always be better than you)

Alfred Adler - Superiority

• feelings from childhood drive us to strive to be superior

• can also result in superiority complex

Birth Order Theory

• children’s birth order affects the types of personality traits they will have and how it relates to inferiority and superiority

Evaluation of Psychoanalysis

Against Freud Ideas:

• Evidence is inadequate - data was developed on a small sample of upper class patients

• Theory is not testable - no way to measure the results

• Sexism - Freud believed that women were weak and inferior

Psychologists Agree On

Agree with Freud:

• Much of our mind is unconscious

• Childhood experiences are what shape us

• People struggle with conflicts and regulating impulses toward what is acceptable

• defense mechanisms

Humanistic Theory

• individuals self awareness and freedom to choose

• people responsible for their lives and free to make choices

• people are innately good

• fulfilled healthy people rather than troubled

Carl Rogers

• acceptance, genuineness, and empathy emphasized

  • in fostering human growth

• Believed people must know their genuine feelings and act upon them

Self - Concept

• impression you have of yourself as an individual

  • formed by values and through relationships with others

Congruence

• key to happiness

  • when the view of yourself aligns with what you experience from others

Incongruence

• when personal view and others view of you don’t match —> leads to anxiety and being upset

Unconditional Positive Regard

• attitude of total acceptance towards another person regardless of faults and failings

Used in Rogers client - centered therapy

Conditional Positive Regard

• person is valued and loved only when they behave in a way that is acceptable for to others

Not what Rogers wanted

Critiques of Humanistic Theory

• It focuses on consciousness —> can never be a science

  • about what someone thinks and feels cannot be scientifically studied

• Does not explain development of traits and personality types

Trait Theory

• Trait: Characteristic pattern or a disposition to feel and act, assessed by self-report and peer reports

Focuses on individual differences rather than similarities

seek to identify, describe and measure these differences

Ancient Greek Traits

Four personality traits, believed to be caused by an excess type of body fluid

Sanguine

Cheerful - blood

Melancholic

Depressed - black bile

Choleric

Irritable - yellow bile

Phlegmatic

Unemotional - phlegm

Gordon Allport

• Study English dictionary and found more than 4,000 words describing specific personality traits

Cardinal Traits

Traits that dominate our lives so that we are known for them - are rare

Central Traits

Form basic foundation of personality (intelligent, honest, shy)

Secondary Traits

Traits that depend on the situation (impatient when in traffic)

Raymond Cattell

• used factor analysis to come up with 16 key personality factors

• proposed each one was measured on a continuum

• Generally considered too many traits

Hans Eysenck

Had 3 different trait dimensions

1. Introversion - Extraversion

   • Degree to how outgoing a person is

2. Emotionally stable - unstable

   • Degree to how emotionally upset someone gets

3. Psychoticism

   • How cold and hostile someone is

Generally considered too few

William Sheldon

Thought body type determined ones personality, had three different types

Endomorph

a larger body shape —> made them sociable, good-humored, relaxed, tolerant

Etomorph

Skinny body shape —> private, introverted, intense, artistic

Mesomorph

muscular body shape —> dominant, adventurous, courageous, risk-taker

Big Five Theory

More commonly accepted personality trait theory - says five basic personality dimensions

• shows they are stable over time and consistent across different situations

• Human behavior is the result of interaction between traits and situations

1. Conscientiousness

2. Agreeableness

3. Neuroticism

4. Openness

5. Extroversion

CANOE

Evaluation of Trait Theory

Generally accept that people can be describes & compared in terms of basic personality traits

• does not explain personality, just describes the behavior

• does not explain the development of personalities

• fails to address how issues such as motives, unconscious, or beliefs about self affect personality

Psychological Testing

Assess a person’s abilities, aptitudes, interests or personality based on systematically obtained sample of behavior

2 Basic Goals of Psychological Testing

1. Accurately and consistently reflect a person’s characteristics on some dimension

2. Predict a person’s future psychological functioning

Projective Tests

Interpretation of something ambiguous to trigger projection of one’s inner thoughts and feelings

Detrermine unconscious motives and conflicts

• Rorschach Inkblot Test

• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Drawbacks of Projective Tests

• examiner or tests situation might inf influence results of individual response

• scoring is highly subjective

• Tests fail to produce consistent results

• poor predictors of future behavior

Self Reports - Personality Inventories

Questionnaires on which people respond to items focused on gauging a wide range of feelings and behaviors

• used to assess selected personality traits

• T/F, agree/disagree, ect. types of questions

• Standardized questions that are compared to established norms

Validity

• does the test measure what it actually says it measures?

Reliability

Does the test give the same results every time?

• Personal inventories score higher in validity and reliability than Projective tests

Evaluating Personality Inventories

Strengths:

• Standardized - each person receives same instructions and questions

• Greater reliability and validity than projective tests

Weaknesses:

• People can fake responses

• test container hundreds of items that can become tedious

• people may not be good judges of their own behavior