Unit 1 Psych

Self-concept

• Humanistic personality assessment

• All thoughts and feelings about ourselves

• Describe actual self and ideal self

• Compare the two to identify discrepancies and build a growth path

Person-centered perspective

• Developed by Carl Rogers

• Growth requires 3 things (AGE)

  • Accepting (offering unconditional positive regard)

  • Genuine (open, transparent, honest)

  • Empathetic (reflecting on feelings)

Hans and Sybil Eysenk

• Identified three dimensions of personality and claimed they were genetically determined (1960s)

• PEN (psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism)

Gordon Allport

• Was the first trait theorist (1920s)

  • Cardinal (best define you), central (consistently displayed), secondary (sometimes displayed) traits

Nomothetic theories

Seek to quantify a given set of specific traits in each person

Idiographic theories

Identify different unique traits for each person

Sublimation

Transferring unacceptable impulses to socially valued motives

Oral

• Ages 0-1

• Gains pleasure from sucking, biting, or chewing

• May be anxious about weaning

• Signs of fixation: gullibility, dependency, passivity

Anal

• Ages 1-3

• Gains pleasure from bathroom activity

• May be anxious about toilet training

• Signs of fixation: cleanliness, messiness, destructive tendencies

Phallic

• Ages 3-6

• Develops sexual curiosity and awareness of gender

• Theoried Oedipal (mom vs. son)/Electra (dad vs. daughter) complex

• Signs of Fixation: flirtatiousness or promiscuity, vanity, or pride

Latency

• Age 6, puberty

• Sexual feelings are dormant as the id (pleasure principle) is repressed

• Focuses on further developing the ego

• Sign of fixation: unfulfilled sexuality

Genital

• Ages: puberty and onward

• Gains pleasure from intimate (sexual) relationships

• Signs of fixation: unsatisfactory relationships

Psychosexual stages

Fives stages of human development by Sigmund Freud

Albert Bandura’s Theory of Reciprocal Determinism

Behavior, internal cognitive factors, and environmental influences all operate as interlocking determinants of each other

Sociocognitive personality assessment: Observational

Studying how people react in different situations/environments

Sociocognitive personality assessments: Behavior Patterns

Spotlight effect

We assume others pay more attention to us than they actually do

Self-serving bias

• We tend to perceive ourselves favorably

• We credit our successes to our own efforts and abilities but blame our failure on external circumstances

• We view ourselves as better than average

Fixation

A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved

Psychodynamic

• How unconscious thoughts and feelings drive our behavior

• Defence mechanism/fixation/id, ego, superego/psychosexual stages/unconscious/childhood trauma

• Represented by thumb

Cognitive

• How we think, remember, analyze, and interpret the world

• Perception/problem solving/thinking

• Represented by point finger

Behavioral

• How we learn to respond to stimuli in our environment

• Observable behavior/rewards/punishment/stimulus/response

• Represented by middle finger

Humanistic

• How to meet human needs so that we may reach our full potential

• Free will/potential for growth/self-actualization/unconditional positive regard

• Represented by ring finger

Biological

• How genetic and biological processes influence our experiences and behaviors

• Brain structure/heritability/hormones/neurotransmission

• Represented by pinky finger

Part of personality: Superego

• The parent

• The part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement and for future aspirations

Part of personality: Ego

• Reality principle (the adult)

• Largely conscious, executive part of personality that meditates among the demand of the id, superego, and reality

Part of personality: id

• Pleasure principle (the child)

• Unconscious psychic energy whose sole goal is pleasure: it wants instant gratification for any basic physical drives

Part of mind: Conscious

Thoughts and feelings we are aware of

Part of mind: Preconscious

Information that we are not aware of but which we can retreive into consciousness

Part of mind: Unconscious

A reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories locked deep in the mind

Evolutionary

• How natural selection has caused certain traits to emerge in a population

• Adaptation/heritability/survival of the fittest

Sociocultural

• How situations, environments, and cultures shape thinking and behavior

• Family influence/group interaction/impact of society/media influence/religion/values

Self-actualization

• Developed by Abraham Maslow

• The complete realization of one’s potential, and the full development of one’s abilities and appreciation for life

Hierarchy of needs

• Developed by Abraham Maslow

1. Physiological (food, water, rest)

2. Safety (security)

3. Love/belonging (intimate relationships, friends)

4. Esteem (feeling of accomplishment)

5. Self-actualization (achieving one’s full potential)

6. Self-trenscendence (sense of meaning)

Evolutionary perspectives on personality

Focus mostly on similarities in people’s personalities

Biological perspectives on personality

Try to explain differences in people’s personalities through the lens of heritability

Heritability

• How much of the variation among a population’s traits can be attributed to genetics

• Cannot explain how much of a single person’s traits are genetic vs. learned

• Can only be used at a population-wide level

Narcissism

Excessive self-love and self-absorption

Self-esteem

General feelings of self-worth

Self-efficacy

Sense of competence on a particular work

Biological vs. Trait theories

• Trait theories DESCRIBE personality differences

• Biological theories EXPLAIN personality differences

Personality Inventories

• Trait-based personality assessments

• Consist mostly of true/false and multiple choice questions

• Most commonly used inventory is MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

The Big Five

• Developed by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae

• Conscientiousness (carefull, organized, disciplined)

• Agreeableness (gentle, trusting)

• Neuroticism (anxious, vulnerable)

• Openness (spontaneous, imaginative)

• Extraversion (sociable, outgoing)

• Traits are mostly stable and ~50% heritable

Defense mechanism

• Reduces the anxiety, caused by the conflict between the id and superego, with the ego

Repression

Banishing unpleasant thoughts

Regression

• Retreating to a more comfortable life stage (psychosexual stage)

Displacement

Rerouting feelings to less threatening people

Reaction formation

Thinking the opposite of the unpleasant feeling

Projection

Attributing your own feelings/issues to other people

Projection tests

• Psychodynamic personality assessments

• Seek to stir up the test-takers unconscious thoughts/feelings/motives

Rationalization

Offering excuses that feel more comfortable

Denial

Refusing to acknowledge an unpleasant external event

Excessive Optimism

• Realistic anxiety over possible future failures can fuel energetic efforts to avoid the dreaded fate (ex. failing an exam, study extra hard)

• However, excessive optimism can build us to real risks

Excessive Pessimism

Can negatively affect emotional and physical health

Internal Locus

You feel that you have the power to change yourself and events in your life

External Locus

You feel that outside factors are responsible for the ups and downs of your life

Individualist cultures

• The self is defined as a free agent

• Defined and motivated by personal traits and individual goals

• ex. American, European

Collectivist cultures

• The self is defined as part of a group

• Defined and motivated by relationships and communal success

• ex. Asian, African, Latin American

Learned Helplessness

• Martin Seligman (1965)

• Subjects stop trying after repeated failures

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Projective test

• Ask them to make up a story about an ambiguous picture

Rorschach inkblot test

• Projective test

• Ask what they see in a given inkblot

Trait theories

Seek to describe personality based on broad fundamental traits (ex. extraversion)

Strengths of trait/biological theories and assessments

• Helps to explain why personality traits run in families

• Inventories are quick, easy, and objective to take

Limitations of trait/biological theories and assessments

• Doesn’t consider how personality changes situationally

• Inventories rely on the test-taker to give accurate and honest self-report

• Deterministic: ignores free will in personality development

Strengths of humanistic theories and assessments

• Paved the way for positive psychology

• Feels good: people like humanism

Limitations of humanistic theories and assessments

• Vague and subjective

• Self-indulgent

• Naive: fails to consider illness or evil

Strengths of psychodynamic theories and assessments

Considers the importance of unconscious thoughts and childhood experiences in shaping personality

Limitations of psychodynamic theories and assessments

• Cannot be supported or disproved with empirical evidence

• Assessments are highly subjective and open to interpretation

• Not predictive

Sociocognitive theories of personality (social-cognitive)

The theories claim that our social, cultural context and thought processes determine our personality

Strengths of sociocognitive theories and assessments

Recognizes that personality is dynamic and responsive to the situation/environment a person is in

Limitations of sociocognitive theories and assessments

Difficult to make predictions about personality since it constantly varies

• Due to environment, thought, patterns, mood, ect

Carl Jung

• Neo-Freudian (psychodynamic) theorist

• Agreed with Freud: Power of the unconscious

• Changed: COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS, filled with archetypes from universal experiences

Karen Horney

• Neo-Freudian (psychodynamic) theorist

• Agreed with Freud: Focus on unresolved childhood issues and their effect on the unconscious

• Changed: driven by SOCIAL ANXIETY

  • Criticized Freud’s male bias

• Key terms: BASIC ANXIETY, neurotic needs

Alfred Adler

• Neo-Freudian (psychodynamic) theorist

• Agreed with Freud: Focus on unresolved childhood issues and their effect on the unconscious

• Changed: Driven by social, not sexual tensions

• Key terms: INFERIORITY COMPLEX, fictional finalism

Raymond Cattell

• Developed factor analysis (1950s)

  • Statistical analysis that identifies traits based on behaviors that tend to coincide

  • To describe variability among observed variables in terms of fewer unobserved variables called factors