AP Psych - 20. Personality & Motivation

Personality

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

• expressed though traits and cultural situations

Trait

• stable characteristic

• causes a person to behave a certain way

• adjectives used to describe someone

Trait Theory

personalities are made up of traits

Trait Theorists

look to identify what traits are

Personality Inventories

• aka surveys

• traits identified through self-reported questionnaires

• standardized assessments

• psychometrics (reliable, valid, repetitive)

Big 5

• most widely used personality theory

• openness

• conscientiousness

• extroversion

• agreeableness

• neuroticism (emotional stability)

Openness

• high: creative, open to new things, likes challenge, think abstractly

• low: dislike challenge, avoids new things/ideas, unimaginative, dislike abstract ideas

Conscientiousness

• high: organized, prepared, finish tasks quickly, attention to detail, likes a schedule

• low: unorganized, messy, dislikes schedules, procrastinates, doesn't complete work

Extroversion

• high: conversation starter, center of attention, wide friend circle, makes friends easily impulsive speaking

• low: preferably alone, difficult to start conversations, dislikes small talk, thinks before speaking, small friend circle

Agreeableness

• high: interested in others, caring, empathetic, likes helping

• low: disinterested in others, uncaring, insulting, manipulative

Neuroticism (Emotional Stability)

• high: stressed, worried, upset easily, moody

• low: relaxed, rarely sad/depressed, deals well with stress

Social Cognitive Theory - Bandura

• focused on how personality is learned

• through reciprocal determinism

Reciprocal Determinism

• influenced by:

• environment

• cognition perception - (person factors) of it

• behavior - results from it explains our personality

Unconscious Motives

• believed personality was shaped by unconscious drives

• formed based on conflict between ld, superego, and ego

Id

unconscious, pleasure orientated and selfish

Superego

last part of personality to develop through socialization, concerned with morality

Ego

conscious, rational, driven by reality principle, balances conflicting demands of id and superego

Defense Mechanisms

• develop so the ego can handle conflict between id and superego

• still used to protect ourself from emotional harm

• denial, displacement, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, sublimation

Denial

claiming/believing what is true to actually be false

Displacement

redirecting emotions to a substitute target

Projection

attributing uncomfortable feelings about yourself onto others

Rationalization

create logical, socially acceptable reasons to justify unacceptable behaviors emotions or failures

Reaction Formation

overreacting in the opposite way to an emotion/belief

Regression

going back to acting as a child

Repression

pushing uncomfortable thoughts into the unconscious

Sublimation

redirecting wrong ‘urges’ into socially acceptable actions

Assessing the Unconscious

today non-freudians use projective tests

Projective Tests

• very subjective

• personality measure

• provides ambiguous stimuli

• designed to trigger projection of one's inner thoughts (preconscious and unconscious mind)

Humanistic Approach

goal: self actualization

Self Actualization

• the process of realizing one's full potential, striving for personal growth, and achieving self-fulfillment congruence or incongruence