Chapter 13 Personality

Personality

“the unique and relatively stable ways in which people think, feel, and behave.”

Character 

value judgments of a person’s moral and ethical behavior.

Temperament 

the enduring characteristics with which each person is born.

Perspectives theories

• Psychoanalytic,

• Behaviorist (including social cognitive theory)

• Humanistic

• Trait perspectives

Psychoanalytic (Perspectives theories)

a personality theory that emphasizes the influence of the unconscious mind, childhood experiences, and interpersonal relationships on behavior.

Behaviorist (Perspectives theories)

a personality theory that focuses on observable behaviors and the ways they're learned through interactions with the environment.

Humanistic (Perspectives theories)

a personality theory that emphasizes personal growth, self-actualization, and the concept of free will, focusing on the individual's subjective experience.

Trait perspectives

a personality theory that identifies and measures individual personality characteristics, often using trait models like the Big Five to describe and predict behaviors. It focuses on quantifying traits such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Trait theories

theories that endeavor to describe the characteristics that make up human personality in an effort to predict future behavior.

Trait

a consistent, enduring way of thinking, feeling, or behaving.

Allport first developed a list of about…

200 traits and believed that these traits were part of the nervous system.

Cattell reduced the number of traits to…

between 16 and 23 with a computer method called factor analysis.

Surface traits

aspects of personality that can easily be seen by other people.

Source traits

the more basic traits that underlie the surface traits, forming the core of personality.

Examples of source traits include:

emotional stability, introversion, and openness to experience.

examples of surface traits include:

sociability, friendliness, and conscientiousness.

Five-factor model (Big Five)

model of personality traits that describes five basic trait dimensions.

Big Five factor model describes five basic trait dimensions

• Openness

• Conscientiousness

• Extraversion 

• Agreeableness

• Neuroticism

Openness (Big Five)

willingness to try new things and be open to new experiences.

Conscientiousness (Big Five)

the care a person gives to organization and thoughtfulness of others; dependability.

Extraversion (Big Five)

dimension of personality referring to one’s need to be with other people.

Agreeableness (Big Five)

the emotional style of a person that may range from easygoing, friendly, and likeable to grumpy, crabby, and unpleasant.

Neuroticism (Big Five)

degree of emotional instability or stability.

Cross-cultural research has found support for the five-factor model of…

personality across cultures.

Trait–situation interaction

the assumption that the particular circumstances of any given situation will influence the way in which a trait is expressed.

Sigmund Freud is the founder of the…

psychoanalytic movement in psychology.

Europe during the victorian age (Sigmund Freud)

• Men were understood to be unable to control their “animal” desires at times, and a good Victorian husband would father several children with his wife and then turn to a mistress for sexual comfort, leaving his virtuous wife untouched.

• Women, especially those of the upper classes, were not supposed to have sexual urges.

• Backdrop for this theory.

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s term for both the theory of personality and the therapy based on it.

Divisions of consciousness

• Preconscious mind

• Conscious mind

• Unconscious mind

Preconscious mind (Divisions of consciousness)

level of the mind in which information is available but not currently conscious.

Conscious mind (Divisions of consciousness)

level of the mind that is aware of immediate surroundings and perceptions.

Unconscious mind (Divisions of consciousness)

level of the mind in which thoughts, feelings, memories, and other information are kept that are not easily or voluntarily brought into consciousness.

Freud’s Theory: Parts of Personality

• Id

• Ego

• Superego 

Id

part of the personality present at birth and completely unconscious. (INSTINCTS)

Ego

part of the personality that develops out of a need to deal with reality, mostly conscious, rational, and logical. (REALITY)

Superego

part of the personality that acts as a moral center.

(MORALITY)

Pleasure principle

the immediate satisfaction of needs without regard for the consequences. (relates to Id)

Reality principle

the satisfaction of the demands of the id only when negative consequences will not result. (relates to Ego)

Ego ideal

contains the standards for moral behavior.

(relates to the Superego)

Conscience (relating to superego)

produces pride or guilt, depending on how well behavior matches or does not match the ego ideal.

Psychosexual stages

five stages of personality development proposed by Freud and tied to the sexual development of the child.

Fixation (Psychosexual stages)

“disorder in which the person does not fully resolve the conflict in a particular psychosexual stage, resulting in personality traits and behavior associated with that earlier stage.”

Oral stage (Psychosexual stages)

first stage occurring in the first year of life in which the mouth is the erogenous zone and weaning is the primary conflict. Id dominated.

Anal stage (Psychosexual stages)

second stage occurring from about 1 to 3 years of age, in which the anus is the erogenous zone and toilet training is the source of conflict. Ego develops.

Anal retentive personality (Anal stage (Psychosexual stages))

a person fixated in the … stage who is neat, fussy, stingy, and stubborn.

Anal expulsive personality (Anal stage (Psychosexual stages))

a person fixated in the anal stage who is messy, destructive, and hostile. 

Phallic stage (Psychosexual stages)

third stage occurring from about 3 to 6 years of age, in which the child discovers sexual feelings. Superego develops.

Oedipus complex (Phallic stage (Psychosexual stages))

a child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent and jealousy of the same-sex parent.

Identification (Phallic stage (Psychosexual stages))

defense mechanism in which a person tries to become like someone else to deal with anxiety.

Latency

fourth stage occurring during the school years, in which the sexual feelings of the child are repressed while the child develops in other ways.

Genital

sexual feelings reawaken with appropriate targets.

Neo-Freudians are…

followers of Freud who developed their own competing theories of psychoanalysis.

Jung

developed a theory of a collective unconscious.

(Neo-Freudian)

Personal unconscious

Jung’s name for the unconscious mind as described by Freud.

Collective unconscious

Jung’s name for the memories shared by all members of the human species.

Archetypes

Jung’s collective, universal human memories.

Adler

proposed feelings of inferiority as the driving force behind personality and developed birth order theory.

Horney

developed a theory based on basic anxiety and rejected the concept of penis envy.

Basic anxiety

anxiety created when a child is born into the bigger and more powerful world of older children and adults. (Horney)

Neurotic personalities

maladaptive ways of dealing with relationships in Horney’s theory. 

Erikson (Neo-Freudian) developed a theory based on social rather than…

sexual relationships, covering the entire life span.

Modern Psychoanalytic Theory

• Current research has found support for:

  • Defense mechanisms 

  • Concept of an unconscious mind that can influence conscious behavior

• Other concepts cannot be scientifically researched.

Behaviorists define personality as a…

set of learned responses or habits.

Social cognitive view

learning theory that includes cognitive processes such as anticipating, judging, memory, and imitation of models.

Reciprocal determinism

Bandura’s explanation of how the factors of environment, beliefs, and behavior can interact to determine future behavior.

Self-efficacy

“individual’s perception of how effective a behavior will be in any particular circumstance” (NOT the same as self-esteem).

Humanistic perspective

the “third force” in psychology that focuses on those aspects of personality that make people uniquely human, such as subjective feelings and freedom of choice. (positive psychology).

Self-actualizing tendency (Roger’s theory of personality)

the striving to fulfill one’s innate capacities and capabilities.

Self-concept (Roger’s theory of personality)

the image of oneself that develops from interactions with important, significant people in one’s life.

Real self (Roger’s theory of personality)

one’s perception of actual characteristics, traits, and abilities.

Ideal self

one’s perception of whom one should be or would like to be.

Roger’s view of self

Real and Ideal self match = Harmony

Real and Ideal self mismatch = Anxiety

Positive regard (Roger’s Theory of Personality)

warmth, affection, love, and respect that come from significant others in one’s life.

Unconditional positive regard (Roger’s Theory of Personality)

positive regard that is given without conditions or strings attached.

Conditional positive regard (Roger’s Theory of Personality)

positive regard that is given only when the person is doing what the providers of positive regard wish.

Fully functioning person (Roger’s Theory of Personality)

a person who is in touch with and trusting of the deepest, innermost urges and feelings.

Behavior genetics

a field of study of the relationship between heredity and personality.

Twin and adoption studies have found support for a genetic influence on

…many personality traits.

Measuring Personality: Interviews

method of personality assessment in which the professional asks questions of the client and allows the client to answer, either in a structured or unstructured fashion.

Halo effect (Interview context)

tendency of an interviewer to allow positive characteristics of a client to influence their assessments.

Measuring Personality: Projective Tests

personality assessments that present ambiguous visual stimuli to the client and ask the client to respond with whatever comes to mind.

Projection

defense mechanism involving placing, or “projecting,” one’s own unacceptable thoughts onto others, as if the thoughts actually belonged to those others and not to oneself.