Ch 11: Personality

Personality

long standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to think, feel, and behave certain ways

Hippocrates

theorized personality traits and behaviors are based on 4 separate temperaments accosted with fluids: choleric, melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic

Choleric

(bile from liver) passionate, ambitious, bold

Melancholic

(bile from kidneys) reserved, anxious, unhappy

Sanguine

(red blood from heart) joyful, eager, optimistic

Phlegmatic

(white phlegm from lungs) calm, reliable, thoughtful

Franz Gall

believed the distance between bumps revealed personality traits, character, and mental abilities

Immanuel Kant

developed a list of traits to describe each personality of the 4 temperaments

Wilhelm Wundt

believed the description of personality could be achieved using two major axels, emotional/non-emotional and changeable/non-changeable

Emotional/Non-Emotional

strong vs weak emotions

Changeable/Non-Changeable

unchangeable temperament from changeable ones

Sigmund Freud

believed unacceptable ergs and desires are kept in our unconscious

Sigmund Freud

believed slips of the tongue are

Sigmund Freud and The Psychodynamic Perspective

personality develops between our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives vs our internal control over these drives

Id

contains the most primitive drives or urges

Super Ego

develops as a child interacts with people learning social right from wrong

Ego

rational part of our personality

Imbalance of Id and Super Ego leads to Neurosis, anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors.

True

Defense Mechanisms

unconscious protective behaviors that aim to reduce anxiety

Repression

anxiety causing memories are blocked

Reaction Formation

someone expressing feeling, thoughts, and behaviors opposite to their inclinations

Regression

a person acting younger than their age

Projection

a person that refuses to acknowledge their own feelings and sees them in someone else

Denial

refusing to accept real events because they are unpleasant

Displacement

transferring inappropriate urges or behaviors onto a more acceptable less threating target

Rationalization

justifying behaviors by subbing acceptable reasons for less acceptable ones

Sublimination

redirecting unacceptable desires through socially acceptable channels

Stages of Psychosexual Development

child’s pleasure-seeking urges focused on the erogenous zone

Since it was taboo, Freud thought negative emotional states come from suppressing sexual and aggressive ergs

True

Oral Stage

(birth to 1) eating and the pleasure from sucking

Annal Stage

(1-3 years) pleasure in bowel and bladder movements

Anal-Retentive Personality

stingy, stubborn, compulsive need for order and neatness, perfectionist

Anal-Expulsive Personality

messy, careless, and prone to emotional outbursts

Phallic Stage

(3-6 years) when children become aware of their body’s and recognize differences between boy and girls

Oedipus Complex

boy’s desire for his mother and urge to replace his father

Electra Complex

girl’s desires attention of her father and wishes to take her mother’s place

Latency Period

(6 go puberty) sexual feelings are dormant, focus is on school, fiends, hobbies, and sports

Genital Stage

(Puberty on) sexual re-awakening, has mature sexual interests

Individual Psychology

focuses our drive to compensate for feelings of inferiority

Inferiority Complex

person feeling that they lack worth and don’t measure up to society’s standards

Alfred Alder

believed childhood development emerges through social development

Erik Erickson’s Psychosocial Theory

social relationships are important in every stage of life, has 8 stages

Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology

we work to balance opposing forces of conscious and unconscious thoughts and experiences within one’s personality

Collective Unconsious

universal version of unconscious, holding mental patterns or memory traces, common to all

Archetypes

universal themes in various cultures the reflect common experience of facing death, becoming independent, and striving for mastery

Extroversion

a person who is energized by being outgoing and socially oriented

Introvert

a person who is quiet and reserved, may be social, but their energy comes from their inner psychic activities

Persona

a compromise between who we really are and what society expects us to be, a mask we adopt

Karen Horney

believed each individual has potential for self-realization, and the goal of psychoanalysis should move toward a healthy self

Karen Horney’s Coping Styles

Moving toward people, moving against people, and moving away from people

Behavioral Perspective

personality is shaped by reinforcements and consequences outside the organism, environment is soley responsible for behavior

Social-Cognitive Perspective

both learning and cognition as sources of differences in personality

Reciprocal Determinism

cognitive processes, behavior, and context all interact with each factor influencing and being influenced by others

Observational Learning

we learn by observing other people’s behavior and its consequences

Self-Efficacy

our level of confidence in our own abilities

People with high self-efficacy…

believe their goals are within reach, have a positive view of challenges, have strong commitment to activities they are involved in, and recover quickly from setbacks

People with low self-efficacy

avoid challenges because they doubt, they’ll be successful, focus on failure and negative outcomes, and lose confidence in abilities when experiencing setbacks

Julian Rotter and Locus of Control

beliefs about power we have over our life’s, internal and external

Internal Power

a person believes most outcomes are direct results of their efforts

External Power

a person believes outcomes are outside of their control, and their lives are controlled by other people, luck, or chance

Carl Rogers Self-Concepts

our own thoughts and feelings of ourselves

Ideal Self

the person you would like to be

Real Self

the person you actively are

Congruences

when our thoughts about our real selves and ideal selves are very similar

High Congruence

leads to greater sense of self-worth and a healthy productive life

Incongruence

when there is discrepancy between ideal and actual self, leads to maladjustment

Evolutionary Psychology

looks at personality traits that are universal as well as different across individuals

Life History Theory

how people expend their time and energy

Costly Signaling Theory

examines the honesty and deception in signals people send one another about their quality as a mate or friend

Heritability

proportion of differences among people that’s attributed to genetics

Reactivity

how we respond to new or environmental stimulus

Trait Theories

personality can be understood via the approach all people have traits

Gordan Allport

Cardinal Traits, Central Traits, and Secondary Traits

Cardinal Traits

on trait dominates a person’s entire personality

Central Traits

those that make up personalities

Secondary Traits

present under specific circumstances and include preferences and attitudes

Rayman Cattell

the 16 factors of personality: warmth, reasoning, emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, rule-consciousness, social boldness, sensitivity, vigilance, abstractedness, privateness, apprehension, openness to change, self-reliance, perfectionism, and tension

Hans and Sybil Eysenck

focused on 2 dimensions of temperament: extroversion/introversion and neuroticism/stability and believed personality is largely governed by biology

People high on neurotism

anxious, overactive sympathetic nervous system, constantly in fight or flight

People high on stability…

need more stimulation to activate fight or flight, is more emotionally stable

People high on psychoticism…

are independent thinkers, cold, non-conformists, impulsive, antisocial, and hostile

People high on super ego…

high impulse control, more altruistic, empathetic, cooperative, and conventional

Five Factor Model

Represents a range between 2 extremes: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism

Culture

all beliefs, customs, art, and traditions of a particular society

Selective Migration

people choosing to move to places that are compatible with their personalites and needs

Individualists

independence, competition, and personal achievement are important, personally oriented personality traits

Collectivitsts

value social harmony, respectfulness, and group need over individual needs, socially oriented personality traits

Cultural-Comparative Approach

seeks to test western ideas about personality in other cultures to determine if they can be generalized and if they have cultural validity

Indigenous Approach

reaction to the dominance of western approaches to the study of personality in non-white settings

Cross-Cultural Studies

combine approach, bridge between western and indigenous psychology as a way of understanding both universal and cultural variations in personality

Self-Report Inventories

multiple choice personality test

Validy Scales

used to tell if the respondent is facking good

Reliability Scales Test

tests a instruments consistency

Projective Testing

relies on defense mechanisms to assess unconscious processes, a series of cards are shown, and the person projects their feelings, impulses, and desires onto the car

Inkblot Test

what a person sees uncovers unconscious desires, effective in measuring depression, psychosis, and anxiety

Thematic Apperception Test

a person is shown 8-12 pictures and have to tell a story about them, gives incites to social world, revealing hopes, feats, interests, and goals

Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank

people fill in sentences, it reveals their desires, fears, and struggles

Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks Test

20 color images are show of black lifestyles, leads to increased story telling length, higher degrees of positive feelings, and stronger identification with the C-TCB

Multicultural Thematic Apperception Test

uses images and storytelling cues that relate to minority culture