Psych 11C Quiz 2

Limits on the Power of Situations

• social psychology clearly demonstrates the power of situational influence

• but not everyone responds the same to a given situation

• some is just “noise” - complexity of human behavior

Personality

people’s characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors

Spaces in the Mind (Iceberg)

• Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

• mind splits into 3 parts

  • conscious - direct access

  • preconscious - can come into consciousness

  • unconscious - thought that we are unaware of, but can affect feelings behavior

• some thoughts actively kept out of consciousness by repression

Id (Immoral)

• our animal mind

• desires for gratification of biological needs - food, water, sex, etc

• libido - sensual v. sexual

• pleasure principle - I want what I want and I want it now

• primary process thinking - no distinction between fantasy and reality, irrational, no consequences, no inhibitions

Ego (Medium)

• emerges with first frustration

• wants gratification but considers consequences

• reality principle - I want what I want - but how can I actually get it given the world the way it is?

• secondary process thinking - understands difference between fantasy and reality, rational, practical, considers consequences, compromises

Superego (Amoral)

• ego is practical, amoral

• as child ages, internalizes rules of society, develops moral sense (right v. wrong)

• superego = conscience

• in some ways opposite of id - id is immoral and superego is amoral

• in other ways very similar to id - both are inflexible and demanding, want different things but want it now, no concern with practical consequences

Psychodynamics

• structural model is dynamic

  • 3 forces in conflict, behavior results from ego finding compromise to satisfy id and superego

• id impulses are like a pressure cooker (anxiety as signal)

• energy must be released somehow

  • either slips out - particularly under pressure

  • or is transformed to hide unacceptable content

Parapraxes

Freudian slips of tongue

Mechanisms of Defense

• strategies ego uses to keep unacceptable id impulses out of consciousness (and the watchful eye of the superego)

• extended by Anna Freud

  • repression

  • denial

  • displacement

  • rationalization

  • projection

  • reaction formation

  • sublimation

Oral Stage (Birth - 18 Months)

• erogenous zone

  • mouth (sucking)

• typical conflicts

  • weening

  • under and overfeeding

• typical outcomes

  • oral habits like thumb sucking, fingernail biting, eating, smoking

  • biting sarcasm, public speaking

Personality Trait

pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior that is relatively consistent over time and across situations

Temperaments

general tendencies to feel or act in certain ways

Trait Approach

focuses on how individuals differ in personality dispositions, such as sociability, cheerfulness, and aggressiveness

Five-Factor Theory

identifies five basic personality traits that have emerged from factor analyses performed by personality researchers

1) openness to experience

2) conscientiousness

3) extraversion

4) agreeableness

5) neuroticism

Revised Reinforcement Sensitivity (rRST) Theory of Personality

• behavioral approach system (BAS) - consists of brain structures that lead organisms to approach stimuli in pursuit of awards (g0)

• behavioral inhibition system (BIS) - because of sensitivity to punishment, BIS cautiously inhibits or slows behavior when there are signs of danger, threats, or pain (stop)

• fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS) - protects organism from harm, such as remaining motionless or escaping

Humanistic Approaches

emphasize personal experience, belief systems, uniqueness of the narrative of each human life and the inherent goodness of each person

Locus of Control

how much control people believe they have over what happens in their lives

Reciprocal Determinism

expression of personality can be explained by the interaction of environment, person factors, and behavior itself

Need for Cognition

reflects how much a person enjoys and tends to engage in complex thought

Situationism

behavior is determined more by situations than by personality traits

Interactionism

behavior is determined by jointly situations and underlying dispositions

Idiographic Approaches

focus on individual lives and how various characteristics are integrated into unique persons

Nomothetic Approaches

focus on characteristics that are common among all people but that vary from person to person

Projective Measures

map out some of these response patterns by having people describe or tell stories about ambiguous stimuli items

Self-Schema

consists of an integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about the self that helps us efficiently perceive, organize, interpret, and use information related to ourselves

Self-Esteem

evaluative aspect of the self-concept in which people feel worthy or unworthy

Sociometer

internal monitor of social acceptance or rejection

Social Comparison

people evaluate their own actions, abilities, and beliefs by contrasting them with other people’s

Self-Serving Bias

people with high self-esteem tend to take credit for success but blame failure on external factors

Where Does Personality Come From?

• twin studies: how much of personality is genetics responsible for?

  • about 40-60% of the variability in personality traits among individuals can be attributed genetics

• adoption studies: how influential is the family environment?

  • adopted siblings are no more alike than 2 strangers on the street

  • parenting style has little impact

• differences in siblings may be attributed to:

  • peers

  • change in family environment with more siblings born/added

Temperaments Are Evident in Infancy

• types

  • activity level: overall amount of energy and behavior

  • emotionality: intensity of emotional reactions

  • sociability: general tendency to affiliate with others

Personality Theories

• traits exist on a continuum (e.g., extraversion)

• five-factor theory - 5 major traits

Traits Have Biological Basis

• biological trait theory: personality traits are based on biological processes that produce behaviors, thoughts, and emotions (e.g., arousal)

• 3 dimensions

  • introversion/extraversion

  • emotional stability/neuroticism

  • psychoticism/constraint: aggression, poor impulse control, self-centeredness, and lack of empathy

Humanistic Approach

• self-actualization: people seek to fulfill their potential for personal growth through greater self-understanding - Maslow’s Theory of Motivation

• person-considered approach (Carl Rogers): personality is influenced by how we understand ourselves and how others, evaluate us, which leads to conditions

Cognitive Approach

• characterizes people based on how they think about themselves

  • personal constructs: personal theories about how the world works; develop through experiences and reflect how people make sense of the social world

• internal locus: you create your fate

• external locus: forces beyond control

• reciprocal determinism: expression of personality can be explained by the interaction of 3 factors

  • person factors

  • environment factors

  • ???

How Stable is Personality?

• supporting studies for situationism: people who are dishonest in one situation are completely honest in others

• self-monitoring: people are sensitive to situational cues of appropriate behavior

• interactionism: underlying dispositions

  • favored by most trait theorists

  • people react in predictable ways

  • strong v. weak situations

Anal Stage (18 Months - 4 Years)

• erogenous zone

  • anus (production)

• typical conflicts

  • toilet training

  • control issues

• typical outcomes

  • retentive traits like orderly, thrifty, stubborn, controlling

  • expulsive traits like messy, generous, scatological humor

Phallic Stage (4-6 Years)

• erogenous zone

  • genitals (masturbation)

• typical conflicts

  • parents flip out

• typical outcomes

  • crucial stage in development of superego, and sex roles

  • different paths for boys and girls

The Oedipus Complex

• for both sexes, conflicts begins with attraction to mom

• boy begins to hate father as rival

• and fears him - castration anxiety

• what’s a boy to do?

  • identification with the aggressor

  • internalizes father as disciplinarian - creates superego

  • represses the whole conflict

The Electra Complex

• very controversial

• begins same as boys - mother as source of pleasure, attraction

• girl realizes she is missing something - penis envy

• what’s a girl to do?

  • becomes attracted to dad - he has penis?

  • identification with mom as she is penis-less too

  • no intense conflict - weak superego

Latency and Genital Stages

• latency stage (6 years - puberty)

  • little libidinal activity or conflict

• genital stage (puberty - on)

  • mature sexual interests

    • no longer autoerotic

    • conflicts - shame and guilt about sexuality

• summary of stage theory

  • children leave energy behind at almost every stage

  • timing of childhood conflicts and fixations shapes adult personality

Analysis of Psychoanalysis

• strengths

  • comprehensive and parsimonious

  • notion of unconscious well-accepted

  • captures important conflicts between desires, reality, morality

  • influential in psychology, art, anthropology, literature

• criticisms

  • overemphasis on instinctual sex and gratification

  • culturally bound

  • anti-feminist

  • unfalsifiable

  • data don’t support it - especially theory of development, repression, dreams

Ego Psychology

• emphasis on ego drives rather than id drives

  • differing views of anxiety

• Alfred Adler

  • striving for superiority

  • inferiority complex

• Karen Horney

  • striving for security

  • moving toward, moving against, moving away

• Erik Erikson

  • striving for identity

Neo-Freudians

followers who broke with Freud in significant ways, but maintained basic psychodynamic orientation

Humanistic Psychology

• Freud’s view of human nature was essentially negative - selfish and pessimistic

  • if unrestrained by consequences and society, people would pursue pure gratification

  • psychopathology almost inevitable

• humanistic psychologists’ view of human nature is essentially positive - selfless and optimistic

  • human beings have an innate tendency to move toward growth and maturity, to fulfill their potential

  • called this tendency toward self-actualization

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

• hierarchy of needs

  • go from basic and biological (on bottom) to complex and (social on top)

  • can’t meet higher level needs unless lower level needs are met

Carl Rogers (1902=1987)

• born in Illinois to devout Christian family

• called his approach person-centered or client-centered

• called his theory of personality the phenomenological theory

• key concepts

  • self-actualization (turn real self into ideal self)

  • the self - organized patterns and beliefs and perceptions about oneself

Real v. Ideal Self

• real self - beliefs and perceptions of what you really are like

• ideal self - beliefs and perceptions of what you would ideally want to be like

• organismic experience - how we really feel (objective, unconscious)

• phenomenal experience - how we say we feel (subjective, conscious)

• congruent - when phenomenal and organismic experience agree

• incongruent - when phenomenal and organismic experience disagree

  • use defense mechanisms (no self-actualization possible)

Positive Regard

• liking, loving, or respecting another person or yourself

  • unconditional positive regard

    • not dependent on a person’s behavior

  • conditional positive regard

    • dependent on a person’s behavior

Psychoanalytic v. Humanistic

• differences

  • negative v. positive view of human nature

  • emphasis on id and instinct v. ego and social needs and relationships

  • psychopathology likely v. unlikely

  • therapies very different in approach

• similarities

  • comprehensive theories

  • post fundamental motivations

  • unconscious conflict, defense mechanisms

  • therapies similar in style - long, talking

  • neither based on much data

Classic v. Contemporary Views of Personality

• classic views (psychoanalysis and humanistic)

  • emerged from clinical work with patients

  • broad explanatory theories

  • historical, dynamic

• contemporary view (trait and social cognitive)

  • emerged from experimental psychological research and statistical analysis

  • more focused and specific

  • ahistorical, descriptive, predictive

Trait Approach

• commonsense view of personality

• thousands of terms in language to describe personality traits

  • outgoing, aggressive, passive, thoughtful

  • must mean something

• states v. traits

  • traits are dispositions to act in certain ways across time and situation - stable, enduring - not temporary feelings

• traits v. types

  • traits are specific dimensions along which personality differs not “kinds” of people

Famous Personality Typologies

• 4 humors of the Greeks

  • sanguine → blood → happy, optimistic

  • choleric → yellow bile → aggressive, ambitious

  • phlegmatic → phlegm → sluggish, cowardly

  • melancholic → black bile → introspective, sentimental

• Sheldon’s somatotypes

  • endomorph → plump → tolerant, sociable, likeable

  • mesomorph → muscular → assertive, adventurous, competitive

  • ectomorph → slight → introverted, anxious, artistic

Temperament

• characteristic behavioral/emotional style evident from a young age

• “an individual’s emotional nature, including susceptibility to emotional stimulation… prevailing mood…fluctuation and intensity of mood”

• activity, emotion, social

• biologically/genetically determined

Inhibited v. Uninhibited Temperament

• inhibited - shy, anxious, fearful in novel situations

• uninhibited - outgoing, claim approach novel stimuli

• Kagan studied samples of inhibited and uninhibited kids from infancy to adolescence

• stable patterns of responses

Temperament and Social Constructs

• Eysenck’s extraversion/introversion dimension

  • introverts - higher central nervous system reactivity

  • lower pain tolerance, prefer, less noise when studying

• Zuckerman’s sensation-seeking dimension

  • SS - tendency to seek novelty excitement, low tolerance for boredom

  • chronically underaroused, linked to neurotransmitters in brain

Traits: Personality as Prediction

• why does a person act extroverted?

  • Freud, Neo-Freudians, Rogers would all give complicated answers

  • trait theorists - “because she is high on extraversion”

• “personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation” (Cattell 1950)

How Are Traits Identified?

• Cattell began with 4500 trait terms

• used factor analysis to “distill” this list down to 16 dimensions

  • factor analysis statistical technique which identifies underlying dimensions

The Big 5 Personality Dimensions

• Costa and McCrae 1992

• openness to experience

• conscientiousness

• extraversion

• agreeableness

• neuroticism

• traits not types

• 5 primary dimensions along which human (and animal) personality differs

• dimensions found cross-culturally

Openness to Experience

• “I have a vivid imagination”

• fantasy - vivid imagination and fantasy life

• aesthetics - appreciate art and music

• feelings - receptive to emotional states and experience

• actions - tries new things

• ideas - intellectually curious and open

• values - reexamine traditional values

Conscientiousness

• “I get chores done right away”

• control/self-discipline

• organization

• thoroughness

• carefulness

• direct impulses

Extraversion

• “I start conversations”

• sociable

• lively

• active

• assertive

• sensation-seeking

Agreeableness

• “I have a soft heart”

• accommodating

• empathetic

• friendly

• generous

• seeks social harmony

• sees the good in things

Neuroticism

• “I get stressed out easily”

• emotional instability

• moody

• nervous

• worrisome

• self-conscious

Stability of Big 5

• evidence for change in personality from experience

• college students who travel abroad had positive personality change

  • more openness

  • more agreeableness

  • less neuroticism

Age-Related Personality Change

• with age, people become

  • less open to experiences

  • more conscientious

  • less extraverted

  • more agreeable

  • less neurotic

• changes unrelated to environmental influence and hold across cultures

  • biological?

The Social-Cognitive Approach

• began with situationist critique of trait view

  • Mischel (1968) reviewed empirical research showing low cross-situational consistency in behavior

• replaced traits with ideas like skills, competencies, cognitive skills, expectancies

  • learned through conditioning and observation

Resolving the Situationist Challenge

• interactionist view - behavior’s a function of the interaction of personality and situation

  • learning history alters how people pick and perceive situations

• is the situation a “strong” one or a “weak” one

Bandura’s Reciprocal Determinism

• how personality is experienced can be explained by the continuous interaction of person factors, environmental factors, and behavior itself

Self-Regulation

• one key skill we learn is how to control our impulses

  • willpower, self-control, dealing with temptation

• delay of gratification

  • Mischel (1974; 1984)

  • can child resist small reward right now for larger reward later on?

Delay of Gratification

• situational determinants

  • development

  • visceral proximity

  • distraction

• individual differences

  • DOG predicts future academic and social competence at 16

  • children able to wait for marshmallows at age 4 scored 210 points higher on SAT

Attributional Style

• talked about causal attributions

• individual differences in use of 3 dimensions

  • internal/external

    • internal: own characteristic

    • external: some situation I was in

  • stable-unstable

    • stable: will persist

    • unstable: may change

  • global-specific

    • global: generally true for me

    • specific: true only for specific instance

Attribution and Depression

• optimistic attributional style

  • negative events are viewed as external, unstable, specific

• pessimistic attributional style

  • negative events are viewed as internal, stable, global

• learned helplessness

  • exposure to uncontrollable negative outcomes

• attributional style risk factor for depression

• general optimism associated with a host of positive life outcomes such as happiness, productive, satisfying, social relationships

Sadder but Wiser?

• Taylor and Brown (1988)

• are pessimists or optimists closer to being accurate?

• evidence for “depressive realism”

  • depressed people have more accurate prescriptions of how they are viewed by others, actual control over outcomes

• but optimism associated with happiness, productivity, good relationships

  • challenges Rogerian view of mental health

  • power of positive illusions