Psych 240 Exam 1

Personality Conveys…

• Personal distinctiveness

• Continuity → consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, behaviors

• Allows us to predict and understand others behaviors

Personality is…

An individual’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, together with the psychological mechanisms underlying those patterns

Simple experiment vs factorial experiment

Simple: 1 IV

Factorial: 2+ IVs

Steps in the research process

• Real world

• Study development

• conduct study

• Data reduction and analysis

• Research conclusions 

Internal validity 

• Accuracy 

• Did we determine cause? 

External validity

• Generalizability 

Selected IVs

• Can’t be manipulated

• Gender or age

Operational definitions

How you define variables in the way you will manipulate them in the study

Psychological triad

How we think, feel, and behave 

Trait approach

Focuses on the ways that people differ psychologically and how these differences might be conceptualized, measured, and followed 

Biological approach

Understanding biological differences in terms of the body, concentrating on the biological mechanisms like anatomy, physiology, genetics, and even evolution 

Psychoanalytic approach 

Try to investigate the unconscious mind and the nature and resolution of internal mental conflict 

Phenomenological approaches

Examine behavior/behaviorism

Learning and cognitive approaches

examine behavior/behaviorism

S-Data

• Self-report

• Limitations:

  • Bias

  • Error

  • Too easy

• Benefits: 

  • Lots of info 

  • Access to thoughts and feelings that we wouldn’t otherwise know 

I-Data

• Informants’ reports

• Benefits 

  • Real world basis

  • Lots of info

  • Causal force

• Limitations

  • Limited behavioral info 

  • Lack of access to private experience

  • Distorted memory 

  • Deception 

L-Data

• Life Outcomes

• Benefits

  • Objective

  • Verifiable 

  • Intrinsic importance

  • School records, digital footprint 

• Limitations

  • Multidetermination

  • Possible lack of psychological relevance 

B-Data

• Behavioral observations

  • Benefits:

    • Wide range of contexts

    • Appearance of objectivity

  • Limitations:

    • Difficult

    • Expensive

    • Uncertain interpretation 

Vazire & Mehl (2008)

• Used an Electronically Activated Recorder

• Novel features of the study:

  • combines objectivity and external validity (combines self-ratings w ratings from close friends and family)

• Takeaways

  • Informants can be just as good as the self 

  • BUT, self is better at predicting solo activity, thoughts, contexts

  • others are better at predicting socializing with others

Reliability

• extent to which scores on (personality) tests are consistent

• types: 

  • Interrater 

  • Test-Retest

  • Internal consistency 

Test-Retest Reliability

Degree of consistency in overall scores tested at different times 

• correlate R time 1 score & time 2 score

Internal consistency reliability

• Degree of consistency across responses to individual items, subparts, or item-totals 

  • split-half correlation ( r ) 

  • cronbach’s coefficient alpha 

  • Kuder-Richardson 20 

Interrater reliability

Degree of consistency in how 2+ raters score personality

• correlate rater 1s score and rater 2s score

Construct validity

the extent to which a (personality) inventory accurately assesses the theoretical construct it is meant to measure

Face validity

the extent to which a test or measure appears to measure what it is intended to measure based on a subjective, superficial examination

Convergent validity

refers to how closely a test is related to other tests that measure the same (or similar) constructs.

Discriminant Validity

a type of construct validity that demonstrates a measure is unrelated to other measures of different, unrelated constructs, showing it accurately targets its intended concept without accidentally measuring something else

Predictive validity

the ability of a psychological test or assessment to accurately predict future outcomes or behaviors

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis, a theory explaining human behavior through unconscious motives and conflicts. He believed the mind is divided into the Id (instincts), Ego (reality), and Superego (morality). Freud also proposed the psychosexual stages of development, suggesting early childhood experiences shape personality. To manage inner conflict, the Ego uses defense mechanisms like denial and projection. Overall, Freud emphasized that much of human behavior is driven by unconscious desires and repressed emotions.

Psychic energy 

• Mental & emotional force that powers thoughts, feelings, behaviors

• Driven by instincts: Libido (life) & Thanatos (death)

•  Fixed and Finite Amount

• Unexpressed impulses build up over time

• Never measured

Psychic Determinism

• Everything we do, say, think, feel
  has a specific cause

• It’s an expression of our mind –
  conscious, preconscious or
  unconscious

•  To fully understand personality,
  the unconscious cause must be
  discovered

Internal Structures of Personality

1. Id: pleasure

2. Ego: Reality

3. Superego: Morality 

Psychic Conflict & Compromise

• When one part is at cross-purposes with another part

• Compromise Formation → Ego’s main job

Fixation 

• Occurs when conflict NOT fully resolved OR overly indulged so don’t want to move on

• RESULT: Some psychic energy REMAINS invested
  in that stage

  • STUGGLE w/ issues from that stage

  • REGRESS to that stage when under stress

• Also means LESS energy for later stages
  

Anxiety

• Unpleasant physiological state (fear) without an obvious cause

  • Neurotic Anxiety

  • Moral Anxiety

  • Realistic Anxiety

Defense Mechanisms

• Techniques ego uses to protect itself from/minimize guilt and anxiety 

• Projection

• Displacement

• Denial *

• Reaction formation *

• Sublimation

Displacement

When a person redirects the target of their anger/impulse onto something less threatening 

• ex: frustrating phone call w parents and taking it out on ur roommate 

Projection

When one person sees their own undesirable traits/impulses in other people 

• ex: a person who gets a bad grade on an exam will predict that others will fail as well to release the feelings of incompetence 

Reaction formation

• When one behaves in an exaggerated way that is the opposite of their true feelings, especially when those feelings are socially unacceptable 

  • told a trusted friend u had a crush on someone and then your friend starts dating them. You may support it externally when in reality you feel betrayed

Sublimation

Channeling an “inappropriate” or socially unacceptable desire into a socially acceptable activity, in which they must reach self-actualization 

• ex: feeling extremely violent or aggressive and taking it out via sports like boxing rather than harming others

Who were the Neo Freudians? 

• Carl Jung

• Alfred Adler 

• Karen Horney 

• Erik Erikson 

Neo-Freudian Perspectives 

• Decreased importance of sexual urges

• More emphasis on Conscious

• Lessen role of instincts

• Extends beyond childhood

Alfred Adler 

Adler founded Individual Psychology, emphasizing that humans are social, not sexual creatures. He believed people are motivated by an innate desire to relate positively and productively with others, a concept he called social interest.

• Core motive: Striving for superiority — the drive to improve oneself, overcome challenges, and reach one’s full potential.

• Inferiority & compensation: Feelings of inferiority are universal and motivate growth; however, overcompensation can lead to an inferiority complex or superiority complex.

• Future-oriented: Behavior is purposeful and goal-directed, focusing on achieving significance rather than being driven by past instincts.

• Birth order: Adler proposed that family position (first-born, middle, youngest, or only child) influences personality traits and life outlook.

Adler’s Styles of Life

• Ruling: Dominating

• Getting: Too much reliance on people

• Avoiding

• Socially useful: healthy  

Birth Order

• First Born: Power & Order vs Insecure & Hostile 

• Second Born: Competitive and ambitious vs underachiever 

• Youngest: Charming overachiever vs pampered and dependent

• Only child: Mature Early & Get Attention vs Disappointment 

How did Jung split from Freud? 

• Criticized Sexual
  Focus

• Spirituality &
  Mysticism

• Content of unconscious structures

Jung’s structures of personality

• Ego: consciously aware

• Personal unconscious: 

  • Forgotten Info and Repressed thoughts 

  • “Complexes” 

• Collective Unconscious:  

  • “Archetypes” 

Archetypes 

• Powerful images (symbols)

• Persona: social mask presented to others

• Mother: embodies nurturance a d fertility 

• Anima: feminine prototype held in a man’s mind

• Animus: Masculine prototype held in a woman’s mind 

Jung’s theory of the self

Integration & wholeness of one’s personality

Jung - Attitudes

• Extraversion: Direct energy toward external world and other people 

• Introversion: Direct energy towards inner world of thoughts and feelings 

Jung - Functions

• How you acquire info

  • Sensing: immediate and real facts

  • Intuition: possibilities and insights

• How you make decisions

  • Thinking: logic, analysis, meaning 

  • Feeling: subjective and values 

Jung = personality ______, not _______

types, traits

What did the MBTI add to Jung’s theory?

How one orients towards the outer world:

• Perceptive

• Judging

Horney Self-protective mechanisms

• secure affection

• become submissive

• withdraw

• attain power

Neurotic Needs

Maladaptive patterns of interaction composed of excessive, irrational, and unrealistic demands 

3 Neurotic Trends

• Moving toward

  • Need for affection and approval 

• Moving against 

  • Crave power, domineering, no regard for others

• Moving away from

  • Withdrawn, self-sufficient

Horney theory of self 

1. Real self: inner core of personality we perceive about others (acceptance = healthy) 

2. Ideal self: what one views as perfection and hopes to achieve (should) 

3. Despised self: perceptions of inferiority and shortcomings 

Erikson PsychoSOCIAL Stages 

• Infancy (trust vs mistrust) 

• Early childhood (autonomy vs shame and doubt) 

• Preschool (initiative vs. guilt)

• School age (industry vs. inferiority)

• Adolescence (identity vs role confusion) 

• Young adulthood (intimacy vs isolation)

• Middle adulthood (generativity vs stagnation)

• Maturity (ego integrity vs despair)

Humanistic Perspective 

• Focus solely on conscious experience 

• Assert people are fundamentally good

• Help people fulfill their full potential 

• Phenomenology: one’s conscious experience of the world 

• Free will: behavior is determined by a person’s independent choices and decisions 

• Self-awareness

Abraham Maslow Two motivations

1) Deficiency Needs (D-needs) 

• Result from lack of needed object

• motivation decreases as needs are met (satisfied)

2) Being (“Growth”) Needs (B-needs) 

• arise out of desire to grow and fulfill potential 

• motivation increases as needs are met;  metamotivatio

D NEEDS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER B NEEDS 

Carl Rodgers positive regards

• Positive regard: inborn need to be loved and accepted by significant others 

  • Unconditional: affection and acceptance not contingent on any specific behaviors 

  • Condition: necessary requirements “conditions of worth” to receive love and acceptance

Rogers theory of self

• Perceived self: how a person views self and others view them 

• Real self: How the person really is 

• Ideal self: How person would like to be 

Incongruence

discrepancies between the real and ideal and perceived self

Defense processes

Help deal with anxiety

• subception 

  • denial

  • distortion

Subception 

awareness of incongruence before it becomes conscious 

Rogers said a fully functioning person: 

• was in a state of congruence

• was not a type of person, but a way of functioning