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Quiz Psychology: Personality – lecture 1&2
Definition of Personality
Personality: A distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behaviors, cognitions, and emotions.
Distinctive: What makes individuals different from one another.
Stable: While personality can change, it remains consistent across various contexts and situations throughout a person's life.
Components of Personality: Not just behaviors but also includes thoughts (cognitions) and emotional responses.
Understanding Personality
Key Points:
Nearly identical biological makeup in humans (99.999% similarity).
Personality represents the unique attributes that differentiate individuals.
Personality can evolve and adapt through life experiences but retains core aspects.
Expression of Personality
Universal characteristics are expressed differently based on context and individual development.
Example: A social person may behave differently at a party versus a funeral.
Origins of Personality
Sources of Personality Differences
Nature vs. Nurture Debate:
Biological View (Nature): Personality is genetic and innate, similar to physical traits.
Social Environmental View (Nurture): Personality is learned through experiences and upbringing.
Psychodynamic Perspective on Personality
Focuses on unconscious desires and urges that drive behavior.
Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory: Key theory within psychodynamic thought.
Freud's Conceptualization of the Mind
Iceberg Metaphor:
Conscious Mind: Small visible tip (awareness).
Unconscious Mind: Vast majority submerged below the surface (unaware urges and thoughts).
Structure of Personality (Freud)
Id:
Primitive part present from birth.
Driven by the pleasure principle seeking immediate gratification, primarily sexual & aggressive urges (eros and thanatos).
Ego:
Develops from the id to mediate reality.
Operates according to the reality principle;
Aware of the consequences of actions and can plan and reason.
Superego:
Emerges later in childhood through internalized moral standards based on societal values.
Analyses what is morally acceptable, functions as a moral compass.
Balance of the Personality Components
A healthy personality is characterized by a strong ego that balances the id's desires and the superego's moral restrictions.
Unbalanced personalities:
Id-dominant: Selfish behaviors, lack of awareness for consequences.
Superego-dominant: Rigid morals, often judgmental towards others.
Defense Mechanisms
Purpose: To assist the ego in managing conflicts between the id and superego, dealing with stress and regulating inner psyche.
Common Defense Mechanisms:
Repression: Pushing traumatic memories into the unconscious.
Projection: Attributing personal unacceptable urges onto others.
Displacement: Transferring negative emotions from a threatening target to a safer object.
Freud's Psychosexual Development Theory
Personality development is linked to stages of sexual development:
Oral Stage: Birth to 1 year; pleasure centers on mouth (feeding).
Anal Stage: 1 to 3 years; focuses on bowel and bladder control (potty training).
Phallic Stage: 3 to 6 years; sexual identity develops, conflict and identification with parents.
Oedipus complex (boys) : sex w mom! Death to dad! Castration anxiety ! repressed desire identify with father -> boom ! strong superhero
Electra complex (girls) : attached mom; penis envy!! Identify with dad??no identify with mom?okay -> weak superhero
Latency Stage: 6 years to puberty; sexual feelings are suppressed.
Genital Stage: Puberty onward; mature sexual relationships.
Fixation: Can occur if stages are not properly resolved, leading to specific personality traits in adulthood.
Criticism of Freud's Theories
Based heavily on case studies of his clinical patients, lacking diversity in sample population.
Retrospective reporting from adults regarding childhood experiences can be misleading and subjective.
Lack of scientific testability and falsifiability in his theories.
Contributions to Psychology
Raised awareness of the unconscious mind, early childhood experiences, and structured development.
Prompted psychology to adopt a more scientific approach due to the limitations in his theories.
Conclusion
This lecture covered foundational concepts of personality and introduced Freud's perspectives.
Part 2 will delve into modern approaches to personality and further explore the nature vs. nurture debate.
Introduction to Modern Personality Research
Focus on identifying and understanding personality traits.
Traits are individual differences that are stable and drive behavior.
Traits are concepts that describe general patterns of behavior.
Core Dimensions of Personality
Modern research seeks core dimensions that explain variations in personality, rather than just individual traits.
Factor Analysis: A statistical approach to identify hidden patterns among a large set of traits.
Historical Background
Allport and Odbert's 1936 study used a dictionary to list personality-descriptive words.
Started with all words, then eliminated physical characteristics and evaluative terms.
Resulted in a list of 4,504 personality trait words.
Need for further reduction due to synonymy and similarity among traits.
Process of Factor Analysis
Researchers reduced the extensive list through participant self-ratings.
Participants rate how well each personality word describes them (scale of 1 to 7).
Factor analysis reveals clusters of traits that exhibit similar patterns of use.
Outcome typically results in a smaller number of core dimensions explaining variations in the data.
The Big Five Model of Personality
Modern consensus points to Five Factors (OCEAN):
Openness to Experience: Imaginative ←→ conventional.
Conscientiousness: Organized ←→ carefree.
Extraversion: Outgoing ←→ reserved.
Agreeableness: Trusting ←→ suspicious.
Neuroticism: Anxious ←→ calm.
Mnemonic: OCEAN (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism).
Each factor gives insight into behavioral tendencies and interpersonal dynamics.
Nature vs Nurture Debate
Key question: Is personality due to genetics (nature) or experiences (nurture)?
Heritability Studies:
Assess genetic contribution to personality differences.
Scale from 0% (pure nurture) to 100% (pure nature).
Types of Heritability Studies
Adoption Studies
Examines adopted children, their biological mothers, and adoptive mothers.
Compare personality traits of the child to both mothers to assess influences.
Twin Studies
Comparison of identical (monozygotic) twins and fraternal (dizygotic) twins.
Identical twins share 100% of genetics; fraternal twins share 50%.
Measure personality similarity between types of twins to infer genetic vs. environmental contributions.
Twin Studies Raised Together vs. Apart
Identical twins raised together vs. apart provide insights into the influence of environment on personality.
Conclusions from Heritability Studies
Findings indicate a rough estimate: 50% nature, 50% nurture contributes to personality.
Some traits show varied heritability (e.g., Openness at 57%, Neuroticism closer to 50%).
Variability Within Families
Despite shared genetics and environment, siblings often display significant personality differences.
Introduced concept of Reciprocal Determinism:
Behavior influences environment and vice versa.
Causes of Divergence in Personality Among Siblings
Divergence: Siblings may choose different paths to stand out.
Differential Treatment: Parents may unconsciously treat siblings based on their individual personalities.
Unique Experiences: Different interpretations of the same family events based on age and maturity.
Exaggeration: Small differences in personality can become more pronounced within family contexts.
Summary of Lecture
Modern personality research emphasizes understanding the stable traits that differentiate individuals.
The interplay of genetics and environmental factors continues to shape personality, reinforcing the complexity of human behavior.
