Unit 8: Theories of Personality

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis

Developed theories of the unconscious mind and psychosexual development

Psychoanalytic Theory

Perspective of psychology that claims behavior is due to unconscious motives and conflicts

Unconscious Mind

Freud's proposed mechanism for where we contain our repressed memories, thoughts, and basic desires and urges

Id

our unconscious primary energy we have from birth ruled by the "Pleasure Principle" and has no values, morality, or logic

Ego

The structure of our personality

that we develop ruled by the "Reality Principle" and balances the id and superego by being organized, rational, and postponing gratification

SuperEgo

The component of our personality we develop ruled by the "Morality Principle" and is the opposite of the Id because it is the internal, parental voice with rules and values

Free Association

A technique used to access the unconscious where patient freely exposes his/her ideas, impressions, etc.

Freudian Slips

Slips of the tongue that expose the unconscious mind

Psychosexual Development

- sequential and discontinuous stages with changing erogenous zone and conflict in each stage (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital)

Oral stage

Freud's first stage of psychosexual development during which pleasure is centered in the mouth

Anal stage

the psychosexual stage corresponding roughly to the period of toilet training

Latency stage

Psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses are submerged into the unconscious

Phallic stage

Third stage occurring from about 3 to 6 years of age in which the child discovers sexual feelings

Genital stage

during and after puberty, sexual feelings reawaken with appropriate targets, fixations from previous stages take shape

Penis Envy

Freudian theory that females are resentful from the lack of physical anatomy and suffer from moral inequality as a result

Electra Complex

The unconscious desire of girls to rival their mother and win their father's romantic love.

Oedipus Complex

a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

Defense mechanisms

the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

Neo-Freudians

followers of Freud who developed their own competing theories of psychoanalysis with reduced emphasis on psychosexual theories

Collective unconscious

A warehouse of "instinctive memories" passed down to each generation and all humans share

and is made up of archetypes

Archetypes

Defined: Inherited universal concepts that create the Collective Unconscious

Womb envy

Men are envious of a women's ability to have children and therefore, they compensate with other forms of achievement.

Inferiority Complex

people who compensate for feelings of inferiority by acting ways that make them appear superior.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

seeks to identify people's inner feelings and conflicts by analyzing their interpretations of 10 ambiguous black and white inkblots

Projective Tests

Description: Provide ambiguous stimuli in order to trigger the projection of one's inner dynamics

Thematic Apperception Test

projective test that uses 20 pictures of people in ambiguous situations as the visual stimuli

Humanistic Theory

Description: People develop their personality by trying to reach their full potential and may be hindered by a lack of filling their needs

Self-Concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"

Incongruence

When a person's Real Self and Ideal self do not match, causing anxiety.

Unconditional positive regard

according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

Empathy

Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives-important to receive from others according to Rogers to form positive self-concept

Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's ranked list of those needs essential to human growth and development

Trait Theories

an approach to the study of human personality that assumes personality traits are biologically motivated (nature)

Factor analysis

A statistical technique for sorting test items or behaviors into conceptually similar groupings, used in personality inventories to help identify common traits

MMPI

widely used structured personality test designed to assess symptoms of mental disorders

Big Five Factor Personality Test

Defines personality in 5 Traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism)

Openess

characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests

Conscientiousness

include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors.

Extraversion

characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness

Agreeableness

includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection and other pro-social behaviors.

Neuroticism

characterized by anxiety and emotional instability

Social Cognitive Approach to Personality

Theory of Albert Bandura that proposes the personality is influenced by the factors of the environment, our cognitive interpretation of events, and the behaviors that we display as a result

Reciprocal determinism

The process in which cognitions, behavior, and the environment mutually influence each other.

External Locus of Control

The perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate

Internal Locus of Control

The perception that you control your own fate

Self- efficacy

the belief in your own ability to deal with different situations and accomplish specific goals

Attributional style

cognitive process in which someone explains why something happens (how they attribute an event or circumstance)

Optimistic

Tendency to take a favorable view of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome as an attributional style

Pessimistic

a tendency to stress the negative or unfavorable as an attributional style

Martin Seligman

Psychologist who performed studies with dogs demonstrating the effects of learned helplessness

locus of control

a personality attribute that measures the degree to which people believe they control their own fate

learned helplessness

pattern of responding to situations by giving up because of repeated failure in the past

Ideal self

In Roger's theory of personality, the self a person would ideally like to be (also called the possible self)

Real self

one's perception of our actual characteristics, traits, and abilities in Roger's theory of personality

Abraham Maslow

Main humanist who proposed the Hierarchy of Needs as a theory to explain human personality

Carl Rogers

Humanist who studied the concept of the self and proposed three forces-Genuineness, Unconditional Positive Regard, and Empathy-as crucial for healthy personality development

Genuineness

Being open with one's feelings and emotions

Self-actualization

Highest level of Maslow's Heirarchy where one attains morality, problem-solving skills, creativity, lack of prejudice, and other aspects of personality

possible self

a collection of thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and images concerning the person one could become

spotlight effect

overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders

self esteem

one's feelings of high or low self-worth

Myers Briggs Test

Personality Inventory that assesses 4 dimensions of traits: extraversion (E) vs. introversion (I), sensing (S) vs. intuition (N), thinking (T) vs. feeling (F), judgment (J) vs. perception (P)

Gordon Allport

psychologist credited with founding the trait perspective in personality theory

Paul Costa and Robert McCrae

proposed that personality can be described using the big five personality traits (OCEAN)

Raymond Cattell

Creator of the 16PF test

16 Personality Factor Test (16PF)

Inventory that describes 16 personality trait dimensions

Hans Eysenck

created an inventory based on 3 different source traits: introversion/extroversion, neuroticism/emotionally stable, psychoticism

Walter Mischel

Proponent of "the situation" in the "person-situation" debate in personality theory, performed the Marshmallow Test with children

Delayed gratification

Ability to put off being rewarded instead of needing instant reinforcement (gratification)

Person-Situation Controversy

the question of whether behavior is caused more by personality or by situational factors

Eysenck Personality Inventory

inventory based on 3 different source traits: introversion/extroversion, neuroticism/emotionally stable, psychoticism

denial

refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities

displacement

defense mechanism in which unwanted feelings are directed towards a different object

projection

unconscious attribution of our negative characteristics to others

rationalization

ego defense mechanism in which a person confronted with anxiety makes excuses to justify behavior

intellectualization

defense mechanism in which the person analyzes a situation from an emotionally detached viewpoint using only facts and logic, becomes an "expert" on the topic

reaction-formation

defense mechanism in which our thinking, feeling or behaving in a manner which is opposite to how we really feel motivated in the unconscious mind

regression

reverting back to a previous stage of development to avoid dealing with emotionally painful feelings or anxiety

Sublimation

Channeling unacceptable unconscious urges into more acceptable behaviors

latent content

According to Freud, the content of of dreams that contains hidden meaning or symbolism that should be psychoanalyzed

manifest content

According to Freud, the straightforward content of our dreams

Alfred Adler

Neo-Freudian who claims unconscious holds motivations for personality including inferiority complexes and influence from birth order

Karen Horney

Neo-Freudian who claimed general anxiety from childhood must be resolved and that men may feel loss from the inability to bear children (womb envy)

Carl Jung

neo-Freudian who created concept of "collective unconscious"

sibling rivalry

the spirit of competition, jealousy, and resentment that may arise between two or more siblings due to birth order (Adler)

personality

an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting