Chapter 13 - Self and Personality

Personality

a person’s typical thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors that are relatively stable over time and across circumstances

Self-concept

everything individuals think, believe, and feel about themselves including their physical body and conscious awareness of being unique and separate from others

Self-schema

an integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about the self (frontal lobe activity)

Working self-concept

the immediate experience of self in here and now

Self-esteem

How you feel about your sense of self

Reflected appraisal

many theories propose that self-esteem is based on how we believe others perceive us

Self-compassion

refers to treating oneself with care, acceptance, and kindness during difficult times

Narcissim

when a perosn has a high opinion of themselves and hold things about themselves over others

Dark triad

three negative personality traits including narcissim, psychopathy, and machiavellianism

Psychopathy

a general lack of caring for the welfare of others

Machiavellianism

describing traits of those who manipulate others for their own gain and who lack conventional morality

Better-than-average effect

people with a high self-esteem are likely to exhibit it

Downward comparisons

comparing oneself with another person who is seen as less competent or in a worse situation, which tends to protect a person’s high self-esteem; makes a person feel good with increased self-esteem

Temporal comparison

people view their current selves as better than their former selves

Upward comparisons

comparing oneself with another person who is seen as more competent or in a better situation, which tends to confirm a person’s low self-esteem and thus feel bad about self

Self-serving bias

the tendency for people to take personal credit for success but blame failure on external factors

Collectvist Cultures

emphasize connections to family, social groups, and ethnic groups, and conformity to societal norms

Indiviualist Cultures

emphasize rights and freedoms, self-expression, and diversity

conscious level

the thoughts that we are aware of

preconscious level

content that is not currently in our awareness but that could be brought to awareness

unconscious level

contains material that the mind cannot easily retrieve

Id (psychodynamic theory)

the component of personality that is completely submerged in the unconscious and operates according to the pleasure principle

Freud called the force that drives the pleasure principle

libido

Superego (psychodynamic theory)

the component of personality that reflects the internalization of societal and parental standards of conduct

Ego (psychodynamic theory)

the component of personality that tries to satisfy the wishes of the id while being responsive to the superego

The ego operates according to the

reality principle

Defense mechanisms (psychodynamic theory)

unconscious mental strategies that the mind uses to protect itself from distress; for instance, rationalize your behavior by blaming the situation

Object Relations Theory

our mind and sense of self develop in relation to others (“objects”) in our environment, and how we relate to these others shapes our personality

Humanistic approaches

ways of studying personality that emphasize self-actualization, where people seek to fulfill their potential through greater self-understanding

Social Cognitive approaches

ways of studying personality that recognize the influence of how people think

Rotter’s expectancy theory

our behaviors are part of our personality, they result from how we think about two things external and internal locus of control

Rotter proposed that personalities are based on

locus of control

Locus of control

people’s perception of whether they control the rewards and punishments and they experience

Reciprocal determinism

Explains personality (how a person acts) based on three factors 

1. Person’s environment

2. Person factors, include a person’s characteristics, self-confidence, and expectations

3. Behavior itself 

Trait approaches

ways of studying personality based on people’s characteristics, their tendencies to act in certain way over time and across most situations

Eysneck’s (bioloical) trait theory

proposal that personality traits had two major dimensions: 1. How outgoing people were and 2. Whether their emotions tended to be stable or unstable

Introversion

refers to how shy, reserved, and quiet a person is

Extroversion

refers to how sociable, outgoing, and bold a person is

Psychotisim

a mix of agression, poor impulse control, self-centerdness, and/or a lack of empathy is called constraint

The Five-factor trait theory

identifies the five basic personality traits

Reticular Activating System (RAS)

part of the brain (level of functioning)

Temperament

bioloigcally based tendency to feel or act in certain ways

Three Aspects of Temperament

1. Activity level, 2. Emotionality, 3. Sociability

Long-term effects of temperament

early childhood tempernmant influences behavior and personality throughout a person’s development

Basic tendencies

personality traits that are largely determined by biology and are stable over time

Characteristic adaptations

changes in behavioral expression of basic tendencies based on the demands of specific situations

Projective measures

personality tests that examine unconcious processes by having people interpret ambiguous stimuli ( Rorschach inkblot test and Thematic Apperception (TAT))

Self-report measures

personality tests that use questionnaires to let people respond to items that reveal traits and behaviors (NEO Personality Inventory)

Electronically Activated Record (EAR)

people wear a device that unostrusively tracks their real-world moment-to-moment interactions, picking up snippets of conversation and other auditory information

Person/situation debate

behaviors are determined more by situations than by personality traits

Situationism

the theory that behavior is determined more by situations than by personality traits

Strong situations

tend to mask differences in personality, thanks to the power of the social environment (elevators, religious services, job interviews)

Weak situations

tend to reveal differences in personality (parks, bars, one’s house)

Interactionism

the idea that behavior is determined jointly by situations and underlying traits