Personality and Social Psychology

Psychodynamic Approach

Personality made of 3 interacting structures:

Id: Unconscious component seeks gratification and avoidance of pain, pleasure principle

Ego: Concious part, tries to balance pleasure and rules of society, operates on reality principle

SuperEgo: Reflect ones moral conscience and imposes standards of right and wrong on our behaviors

Freuds Iceberg Analogy

Consciousness made of 3 levels

-Concious mind

-Preconcious mind

-Unconcious mind

Neurotic Psyche

Often occurs when there is a misbalance between the Id and SuperEgo

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Repression

Unconciously pushing threatening memories from conscious awareness, may experience loss of memory for unpleasent events

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Rationalization

Attempting to justify certain actions or mistakes, sound rational but they may not be real reasonsa for behavior

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Projection

Unconciously attributing ones own unacceptable thoughts or impulses to another person.

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Reaction forrmation

Defending against unacceptable impulses by acting opposite to them

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Sublimation

Converting unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable actions and perhaps symbolically expressing them

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Displacement

Deflecting an impulse from its original target to a less threatening one

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Denial

Simply Discounting the existence of threatening impulses

Psychodynamic defense mechanism: Compensation

Striving to make up for unconscious impulses or fears

Carl Jung

Neo-Freudian, believed that we grow into our personalites as we explore inborn drives.

Alfred Adler

Noted that the personality may involve people coming to terms with their own sense of inferiority

Object Relations Theory

Examine how early life relationships between children and their caregivers determine how their personalities develop

Attachment Theories

Examines how we move from dependent attachments to seperating from others and developing independent sense of self

The Trait Approach

Each person as a unique collection of personality traits

Gordon Allport

Identified different types of traits:

1. Central Traits: typify our unsual behaviors, are the foundation of our personality

2. Secondary Traits: Apprear more situationally, less consistent and predictable

Raymond Cattell's six factor trait theory

Used factor analysis and distinguished 16 clusters of traits

Five Factor Personality Model

OCEAN

Openness

Conscientiousness

Extraversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism

Biological Trait Theory

Identified 3 personality dimensions

Psychoticism vs. superego control

Extraversion vs. Introversion

Neuroticism vs. Emotional Stability

Social Cognitive Theories: Reciprocal Determinism

Examines the interactive influences of the folling in shaping personality:

Ones thought processes and their social experiences

Loop between Behavior, Environment, and Personal Factors

Social Cognitive Theories: Locus of Control

Internal Locus of Control: Believe that one is in control of their owen lives and situations

External Locus of Control: Believe things happen to them outside of their own control

Social Cognitive Theories: Cognitive/Affective Theory

Identified several cognitive person variables that are the basis upon which people differ, encoding, affects, values, competencies

Behavior is result of individuals perception of themselves

Humanistic Theories

Focuses on the individual, free will, personal choice, as well as the basic individual drive to self actualization and achievement

Carl Rogers

Basic human drive to reach fulfillment and enhancement, which he called the actualizing tendency

Abraham Maslow

Personality develops as we explore our natural tendencies for growth and self-actualization

Tests that measure the five-factor model's

dimensions of personality are based on the

__________ approach to personality.

Trait

The role of learning is most prominent in the

_______ approach to personality

Social Cognitive

___________ approach to personality focuses on

growth and individual perception of reality.

Humanistic

Projective Personality Measures

The Rorshach Inkblot Test

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test (MMPI)

11 Function vs. Dysfunctional Personality Domains

Big Five Personality Inventory

Represent a range between 2 extremes, most tend to score midway, relatively stable over life spans

Projective personality measures are based on the

______ approach to personality.

Psychodynamic

The BFI, NEO-PI-3, & the MMPI-2 are examples of

_______ tests

Personality Tests

Most personality researchers use _______ tests in

their work.

Personality

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how our thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by actual, imagined, and implied presence of others

Social Thinking

Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social influences

Attribution Theory

Tendency to gived a causal explanation for someones behavior often by crediting either the situation or the persons disposition

tend to attribute the behavior of others to internal causes, while our own to external causes

Fundamental Attribution Error

Tendency for observers when analyzing anothers behavior to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the impact of personal disposition

Roles

Set expectations about a social position, which defines how those in the position ought to behave, work role, boyfriend role, student role etc.

Cognitive Dissonance

When our attitudes and behavior do not match

Power of the Situation

Stanford Prison Study experiment shows that situational factors are more important in shaping behaviors, capable of acting out of character when placed in certain situations

Bystander Effect: Pluralistic Ignorance

We decide whether a situation requires action by seeing how others react, others are doing same thing so no action is taken

Bystander Effect: Arousal: Cost-Reward

Assistance provided when the unpleasent feeling of seeing someone suffering outweighs the cost of helping

Bystander Effect

Chances that someone will help decreases as the number of people present increases

Bystander Effect: Diffusion of Responsibility

Assuming someone else will assume responsibility

Bystander Effect: Familiary with others

strangers vs friends, vs relatives

Compliance

Change in behavior due to a direct request from another person

Mindless Conformity

Operating on automatic pilot, obeying internalized social norms without deliberationg about their actions

Informational Social Influence

See ppl as a source of information to guide behavior

Normative Social Influence

to gain social approval, social norms

Mass Psychogenic Illness

Exhibit similar physical symptoms

Social Impact theory

Conforming to normative pressures depends on

Strength: How important is the group

Immediacy: close in space and time

Number of people in the group

Social Relations: Ingroup

Us- people whom one shares a common identity

Social Relations: Outgroup

Them- those perceived as different or apart from ones ingroup

Social Relations: Ingroup Bias

Tendency to favor ones own group

Stereotype

Contains beliefs about the personal attributes of members of the outgroup that may not be true. Sometimes a kernel of truth to some stereotypes, they save cognitive effort.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

When our beliefs and expectations create reality, Beliefs and expectations influence our behavior and others.

Prejudice

An attitude(usually negative) toward members of some group based solely on their membership in that group. used when group members are percieved as threatening, personal contact with stigmatized group member, etc

Discrimination

The act of treating people differently based on their group membership

Discrimination: Interpersonal

When one individual treats another unfairly

Discrimination: Institutional

Occurs at group level, when institutions sanction beliefs about one groups superiority over others

Discrimination: Cultural

Occurs when one group retains the powe to define cultural values

Outgroup Homogeneity

Perception that individuals in the out group are more similar to each other than they really are, as well as the belief that those in ones ingroup are very different from each other.

Scapegoating

The process of blaming members of other groups for ones owen frustrations and failures

Ingroup Favortism

We favor our own groups in the attributions that we make, the untimate attribution error, actively discriminate against others in order to favor our own group