Unit 4: Personality (Part 2)

Personality

Our unique and persistent patterns of thinking and feeling

Psychoanalytic Theory

Childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence out personality

Humanistic Theories

Focused on our inner capacities for growth and self-fulfilment

Trait Theories

Examine characteristic patterns of behavior (Traits)

Social-Cognitive Theories

Explore interactions between people’s traits (including their thinking) and social context

Psychodynamic Theory

• View personalities with a focus on unconscious mind and the importance of childhood experience

• Interactions between the conscious and unconscious mind

Psychoanalysis

• Proposed by Sigmund Freud

• Focus on the understanding and resolving conflicts and desires that influence a person’s thoughts, emotions, and behavior

Free Association

• Method in psychoanalysis where a person says whatever comes to their mind

• Through this method, Freud thought he would be able to explore patient’s unconscious, usually childhood memories

Id

• Operates on the Pleasure Principle (Seeks immediate gratification)

• ex. people with addictions would rather part now than sacrifice temporary pleasures for future success

Ego

• Satisfy Id’s impulses in realistic ways that bring long-term benefits

• Mediates between impulsive Id and restraining demands of Superego

Superego

Represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement

Defense Mechanism

• How the ego protects itself

• Reduces / Redirect anxiety by distorting reality

Repression

• Basic defense mechanism

• Banishes anxiety causing feelings from conscious

Neo-Freudians

• Adopted his basic ideas of personality being structured by Id, Ego, and Superego

• Importance of unconscious anxiety . defense mechanisms

Collective Unconscious

Shared / inherited revivor of memory that traces from history

Reaction Formation

Trading unacceptable impulses for their opposite

Projection

Attributing our own threating impulses to others

False Consensus Theory

Tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our behavior & beliefs

Terror Management Theory

Thinking about death can lead to terror management defenses

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up

• Shows reliable map of a person’s Implicit Motivations

• ex. Participant has to explain what’s happening in the photo

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Identifies people’s inner feelings by analyzing how they interpret the ink blots

Third-Force Perspective

• Discovered by Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers

• Emphasize our potential for healthy personal growth

Humanistic Theories

• Emphasize the ways people strive for self-determinism / self-actualization

• Use questionnaires (Self-Concept) where people describe their ideals and actual selves

Person-Centered Perspective

People are already good and have self-actualizational tendencies already

Self-Concept

• Understanding of who you are

• If positive, you will perceive the world as positive ; vice versa