Personality/ Social Cognitive Perspective and Personality/ Humanistic Perspective and Humanistic

personality

an individual’s unique relatively consistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

The psychoanalytic theory

• stated that human behavior and experience are determined by forces by which we have very little control over and we are generally unaware of

Freud’s three levels of mind

• Freud said personality was largely unconscious 

  • Conscious: immediate awareness of current events  - What's happening 

  • Preconscious: available for awareness - retrieval information 

  • Unconscious: unavailable for awareness - everything else 

    • Serves as a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories 

Id (Animalistic - devil on shoulder)

• part of our personality that comes from natural urges and instincts

• it want what it wants right away without thinking about consequences

Ego (Balance)

• The ego is the middle man or referee in your mind

• it helps balance your instincts id and superego

Superego (Moral conscious - angel on shoulder)

• Its the part of your mind that remind you of right and wrong based on the values you’ve learned

• helps you make good choices and think about your future goals

Repression

• Banishing anxiety arouses thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness

• Example: Witness the murder and when called who did it you cant recall or sexual abuse

Regression

• When someone feels anxious or stressed, they might act in a more childish way, going back to behaviors from when they were younger because it feels comforting.

• Examples 

  • Anxious on the first day of school, a child may result in a “thumb sucking” phase to help him/her get through 

Reaction Formation

• The ego unconsciously wishes unacceptable impulses to their opposite

• people may express feelings that are opposite of their unconscious feelings

• Example: “i hate him” may really mean “i like him”

Projection

• People avoid facing their own uncomfortable thoughts or feelings by accusing others of having them instead.

• Example: “you dont trust him” may really mean “i dont trust him”

Rationalize

• when someone makes excuses for their actions to avoid facing the real, deeper reason behind them

• Example: “i only drink in social situations” “i cheated because it was unfair”

Displacement

• when someone takes their feelings like anger or frustration on a safer or less threatening person or thing instead of the actual cause

• “Bullying” or “Frustrated with work, kick the dog at home” 

Denial

• people refuse to believe or even perceive painful realities

• Example: saw your significant other cheating but you dont believe it

Sublimation

• replace unacceptable impulses with socially acceptable one

• for example: playing foot ball to take out aggression

Free association

• A method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

• “Freudian Slip”

Transference

• when someone starts to feel emotions from past relationships and unintentionally directs those feelings toward their therapist.

• For example, if someone had a strict parent, they might start feeling angry at their therapist, even though the therapist didn’t do anything wrong.

Dream Interpretation

• is when you look at both the obvious part of a dream (manifest) and the hidden meaning (latent) to understand it better.

• For example, if you dream about losing your keys, the manifest part is that you lost your keys. The latent meaning might be that you feel like you're losing control or missing something important in your life.

Projective test (these suck)

• These tests show unclear pictures to help people express hidden thoughts or feelings. The idea is that how you see the picture reveals things about your unconscious mind.

Thematic Apperception test 

Tell a story about a picture

Rorschach Inkblot

Shown an inkblot and asked to say what you see 

whats good/ wrong with freud theory

• 1st theory about personality, sparked field of psychoanalysis

• Unverifiable, descriptive, not predictive 

Locus of control 

• This is how you see the causes of things that happen in your life.

• If you think things are mainly due to your actions (internal) or outside forces like luck or other people (external).

Internal locus of control

• Believing success and failures results from individual efforts 

External locus of control

Believe successes and failures result from chance/outside forces  

Reciprocal determinism

Reciprocal Determinism is the idea that a person’s traits, behavior, and environment all affect one another in a two-way causal relationship.

What does Albert Bandura say influences behavior?

• Behavior is influenced by the interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

• He emphasizes conscious awareness, beliefs, expectations, and goals.

whats good and whats wrong with locus control

Weakness

• too specific, cant be generalized

• not all social learning can be directly observed

Strengths

• highlights situations and cognitive explanations or personality

Humanistic Perspective

• Emphasizes personal growth and free will. 

  • You don’t like yourself? So change! 

• Holistic and views people as innately good and capable of free will

Determinism

• Belief that what happens is dictated by what has happened in the past

Abraham maslow

• Created the hierarchy of needs, with self-actualization at the top

• Basic needs must be met first to develop personality

• After meeting these needs, a person reaches self-actualization and becomes their best self

• Critics say the theory doesn’t explain what happens after self-actualization

• Focused on how healthy people work toward becoming their best and most independent selve

Carol roger

• Person-centered approach to personality development

• He believed that how we see ourselves (self-concept) is key to our personality.

• His approach focuses on helping people understand and develop who they truly are.

real self/ ideal self

• who you actually are

• who you want to be

congruence

• who your real and ideal selves are balanced

positive and negative self concept

• positive view of the world (optimist)

• dissatisfaction and unhappiness (pessimist)

self actualizing drive

an innate push to reach your full potential

Unconditional positive regard

valuing people regardless of their success or failure

• For personal growth, people need acceptance, genuineness, and empathy

weakness and strengths of humanistic perspective

• Weaknesses 

  • Too optimistic about human nature, abstract concepts are difficult to test 

• Strengths 

  • Emphasizes conscious experiences and change 

Cultural impact of humanistic perspective

• individualistic cultures 

  • Give priority to your own goals over group goals. Define your identity in terms of you (American) 

    • Self defined by personal values, goals and attitudes 

• Collectivist Cultures 

  • Give priority to the goals of the group, your identity is part of that group (China) 

    • Self defined by connection to family and friends 

Trait

• a tendency to respond in a certain way in many different kinds of situations 

• Trait theorists believe that every trait applies to all people AND that the trait can be measured 

Factor analysis

• A statistical techniques that allowed researchers to cluster and isolate specific traits 

• The traits are rated on a continuum scale 

Emotional stability

• Identifies individuals who experience things relatively easily and without getting upset

• Opposite is neuroticism, being constantly angry or worried or complaining all the time. Tend to look for the bad rather than the good 

The big five/ five factor model

• Set of slightly expanded factors and currently the best approximation of basic trait dimensions 

Extroversion

• Associated with talkativeness, and being energetic 

  • Opposite is introversion, being quiet, shy and cautious

Agreeableness

• Involves being sympathetic, cooperative, kind, trusting and good-natured 

• Opposite is antagonism, being abrasive, irritable, suspicious and jealous

Openness to experience

• Describes people who are open-minded and willing to try intellectual experiences, new ideas or creative experiences 

  • Opposite is resistance to new experience, being more reserved and unimaginative, hates being spontaneous 

Conscientiousness 

• Identifies individuals who are dutiful, dedicated to completing tasks, organized and responsible 

  • Opposite is impulsiveness, includes tendencies such as carelessness, giving up easily, and being irresponsible 

Seld report methods

• Most common personality assessment techniques, involves a person answering a series of questions, such as a personality questionnaire, or supplying information about themselves 

Personality Inventory 

• a set of questions that helps figure out your feelings and behaviors

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) 

• The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders, this test is now used for many other screening purposes 

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• Carl Jung’s theory of personality, one of the most popular personality inventories used with non clinical populations, measures individual across four bipolar dimensions 

• It helps measure your personality using four pairs of opposite traits, like being outgoing vs. reserved, to show what type of person you are.

Projective Test

• personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli and test-takers tell a story about it 

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) 

• Projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes 

Rorschach Inkblot Test

• The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots 

• Strength of PTs? 

  • Reduce “deception” because of quick nature of testing 

• Weakness of PTs? 

  • subjective grading 

  • not quantifiably 

Barnum Effect

• the tendency of individuals to accept vague personality descriptions as accurate