Psychology Chapter 11 - Personality

Based on the slideshows "Chapter 11: Personality" and "Personality Disorders" provided by Ms. Isley

Personality

The consistent, enduring, and unique characteristics of a person

Plaster Hypothesis

Suggests that personality develops until people hit maturity at about age 30. Personality then firms up and sets, similar to plaster, throughout middle age, and begins to crack and crumble as cognitive declines with old age.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Unconscious forces act as determinants of personality. Is a theory by Freud.

Unconscious

Part of the personality that contains the memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, urges, drives, and instincts of which the individual is not aware.

Unconscious consists of…

Preconscious and Drives

Preconscious

Non-threatening material that is easily brought to mind

Drives

Instinctual wishes, desires, demands, and needs hidden from awareness because of the conflict and pain they would cause.

ID

Instinctual, unorganised, inborn part of personality. Sole purpose is to reduce tension created by primitive drives related to hunger, sex, aggression, and irrational impulses. Pleasure Principle. The Villain in a Story.

Ego

Part of personality that provides a buffer between the is and the realities of the objective, outside world. Reality principle. Executive of personality. Balance between the angel and devil.

Superego

Personality structure that harshly judges the morality of our behaviour. Includes the conscience, which prevents us from behaving in a morally improper way. Makes us feel guilty if we do wrong. The superhero.

Defence Mechanisms

Unconscious strategies that people use to reduce anxiety by distorting reality and concealing the source of the anxiety from themselves.

Repression

Primary defence mechanism. (Ego pushed unacceptable or unpleasant impulses out of awareness and back into the unconscious.

Repression

Unacceptable or unpleasant impulses are pushed out of awareness and back into the unconscious

Regression

People behave as if they were at an earlier stage of development

Displacement

The expression of unwanted feeling or thought is redirected from a more threatening powerful person to a weaker one.

Rationalisation

People provide self-justifying explanations in place of the actual, but threatening, reason for their behaviour.

Denial

People refuse to accept or acknowledge an anxiety-producing piece of information.

Projection

People attribute unwanted impulses or feeling to someone else.

Sublimation

People divert unwanted impulses into socially approved thoughts, feelings, or behaviours

Reaction Formation

Unconscious impulses are expressed as their opposite in consciousness.

Jung’s Collective Unconscious

Inherited set of ideas, feelings, images, and symbols that are shared with all humans because of our common ancestral past. Contains Archetypes.

Archetypes

Universal symbolic representations of particular types of people, objects, ideas, or experiences

Horney’s Neo-Freudian Perspective

Suggested that personality develops in the context of social relationships. Depends on the relationship between parents and child. Rejected Freud’s notions of penis envy in women. Stressed the importance of cultural factors in the determination of personality.

Alfred Alder

Proposed that the primary human motivation is striving for superiority in a quest for self-improvement and perfection

Inferiority Complex

Describes adults who have not been able to overcome the feelings in adequacy they developed as children

What did Erik Erikson and Anna Freud focus on?

The social and cultural factors behind personality

Trait Theory

Model of personality that seeks to identify the basic traits necessary to describe personality

Traits

Consistent, habitual personality characteristics and behaviours displayed across different situations

O in OCEAN

Openness to Experience

C in OCEAN

Conscientiousness

E in OCEAN

Extraversion

A in OCEAN

Agreeableness

N in OCEAN

Neuroticism

Self-actualisation

State of self-fulfilment in which people realise their highest potential, each in a unique way

Self-Concepts

Set of beliefs and perceptions people hold about their own abilities, behaviour, and personality

What is the order of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Bottom to Top.

Physiological, Safety, Belongingness, Esteem, Cognitive, Aesthetic, Self-actualisation, Transcendence

Unconditional Positive Regard

Attitude of acceptance and respect on the part of an observer, no matter what a person says or does.

Reliability

Test’s measurement consistency, yields the same result each time

Validity

When a test measures what it is designed to measure

Norms

Standards of test performance

Self-Report Personality Tests

Method of gathering data about people by asking them questions about their own behaviour and traits.

Test Standardisation

Technique used to validate questions in personality tests by studying the responses of people with known diagnoses

One example of a Self-Report Test…

Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory

MMPI-2-FP (Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form)

Identifies people with psychological difficulties and employed to predict some everyday behaviours.

Projective Personality test

A test in which a person is shown an ambiguous, vague stimulus and asked to describe it or tell a story about it

Rorschach Test

Involves showing a series of symmetrical visual stimulus to people who then are asked what the figures represent to them

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Consists of a series of pictures about which a person is asked to write a story

One example of a Projective Personality Test…

TAT, Thematic Apperception Test

Extremely Rigid Maladaptive Behaviour Patterns

\n A class of mental disorders characterised by rigid, \n long-term patterns of inflexible and maladaptive \n Behaviour that keep a person from functioning \n appropriately in society.

Antisocial

A disregard for social rules, norms, and cultural codes, characterised by impulsive behaviour, indifference to the rights and feelings of others, beginning in childhood and continuing past age 18

Histrionic

Excessive, dramatic, emotional reactions and attention seeking. Often sexually provocative, highly impressionable and suggestible, & out of touch with negative feelings.

Narcissistic

Grandiose fantasies or behaviour, lack of empathy, and \n oversensitivity to evaluation; constant need for admiration from others; proud self-display.

Borderline

A pattern of severe instability of self-image, interpersonal \n relationships, and emotions. Often expressing alternating extremes of love and hatred toward the same person. High frequency of manipulative suicidal behaviour.

Avoidant

Extreme social discomfort and timidity. Have feelings of inadequacy and fearfulness of being negatively evaluated

Dependent

Extreme submissive and dependent behaviour. Fears of separation from those who satisfy dependency needs

Obsessive-Compulsive

Extreme perfectionism, orderliness, and inflexibility. Preoccupied with mental and interpersonal control

Schizoid

Indifference to social relationships and experience; displays a restricted range of expressed emotions.

Schizotypal

Odd thoughts, appearance, and behaviour; extreme discomfort in social situations

Paranoid

An unwarranted tendency to interpret the behaviour of other people as threatening, exploiting, or harmful.

Most other psychoanalytic theorists agree that Freud placed too much focus on sexual topics when it came to personality discussions, true or false?

True

Archetypes were developed by what Neo-Freudian?

Carl Jung

What is not part of the Humanistic approach to personality?

Defence mechanisms

What analogy was used by Freud to represent the 3 levels of consciousness?

Iceberg

What type of personality test would Freud use?

Projective

Jung's name for the memories shared by all members of the human species is…

Collective Unconscious

What two factors are important in a personality test?

validity and reliability

The MMPI is to ________ as the Rorschack Inkblot test is to _____.

self-report personality inventory; projective test

Three differences between Projective tests(1) and Self-Report Tests(2)…

open-ended(1), closed questions(2)

Freud would use(1), Freud would not use(2)

Unconscious mind(1), conscious mind(2)

Similarity between Projective tests and Self-Report Tests

Both are personality tests