CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Personality

Consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within the indiviual

Personality needs to show consistency overtime

Interpersonal processess

happens/ occurs between two people

Intrapersonal processes

includes all the emotional, motivational, and cognitive processes that go on within us

Psychoanalytic Approach

• Assessment of personality

• More inclined to treatment

• A very unconscious and past-oriented type of approach

• The unconscious mind is responsible for important differences in behavior styles

What is the psychoanalytic apporaches take on depression?

A result of holding feeling of anger and hostility

What is the psychoanalytic apporaches take on aggression?

A result of the unconscious death instinct desire to self-destruct

• emotions are directed outwardly towards others

Trait Approach

• An individual lies along a continuum of various personality characteristics 

• The most common approach

What is the trait approaches take on depression?

• Focuses on identifiying depression prone indiviuals 

• The assumption that depression won’t ever completely leave (that emotions at the present level can indicate a person’s emotion in the future)

What is the trait approaches take on aggression?

Focuses on indiviual differences in stability of aggressive behavior

Biological Approach

Inherited predispositions and psychological processes contribute to differences in personality

What is the biological approaches take on depression?

• Certain people inherit genetic susceptibility to depression

  • A baby can stimulate and show emotion at a very young age based on the environment around them

What is the biological approaches take on aggression?

• points to genetic disposition

• Caused by aggressive upbringing

• Caused by evolutionary theory

  • male’s inheritied need to exercise control

  • hormones and neurological transmitters

Humanistic Approach

• Personal responsibility and a feeling of self-acceptance cause differences in personality 

• Each person is the most important being you can study 

• Much more positive approach

What is the humanistic approaches take on depression?

• People who frequently suffer from depression are those who have low self-worth

• Conditional positive regard can result in low self-worth

What is the humanistic approaches take on aggression?

Many people are inherently good but when that cycle of growing is interrupted, frustration arises and indiviuals choose to strike back and take it out onto others

Behavioral/Social Approach

Consistent behavior patterns are the result of conditioning and expectations 

What is the behavioral/social approaches take on depression?

Depression results from a lack of positive reinforcers in a person’s life 

What is the behavioral/social approaches take on aggression?

• aggression is a learned behavior

• aggression can be learned from people and role models surrounding an individual

Cognitive Approach

• People process information to explain differences in behavior 

• Everything is internal (facial expression, interactions with each other, etc.)

• Much more prone to depression and can always assume the negative

What is the cognitive approaches take on depression?

• Certain individuals use a depressive filter to interpret and process information 

• Depression depends on how people interpret their inability to control events

What is the cognitive approaches take on aggression?

• aggressive people process information differently which can trigger aggressive behavior

• environmental/situational cues produce aggressive thoughts and emotions

What effects does culture have on personality?

• Cultural context does influence an individual's personality 

• Cultural context also allows you to perceive and interpret an individual’s behavior 

• Individualistic vs. collectivistic 

Individualistic vs. collectivistic 

• Can influence your drive 

• Can influence your dependency and trust when it comes to other people

Individualistic cultures

Most Northern European cultures and Unitied States

Collectivistic cultures

Most Asian, African, Central American, and South American

Conscious v.s Unconscious 

To what extent are people aware or unaware of their behavior and personality? 

Free Will v. Determinism 

How much do factors within or outside of us decide our personality?

Genetics v.s Enviorment

How much do genes v. our environment influence our personality?

Subjectivity v.s Objectivity

• Human experience v. human behavior 

• Clinically, we are interested in the individual, whereas many psychoanalysts are interested in research toward the population as a whole

Past v.s Present

• Childhood v. here and now

• Psychoanalysts are much more focused on the past (Freud) 

Why Study Personality?

• Understand how the brain works

• Helps us predict human behavior —> MAIN GOAL AS PSYCHOLOGIST

• Helps us to interact with others on a deeper level

• The understanding of differences among individuals