Personality

Personality is… an individual’s characteristic pattern of:

→Thinking

→Feeling

→Acting

Psychodynamic Theory

Psychodynamic theories

• Theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences

Psychoanalysis

• Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts

• Techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Freud’s psychoanalytic view

View personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences

Derived from Freud’s psychoanalysis

Freud’s Theory:

The mind contains a large unconscious region (mostly hidden) where feelings and ideas are repressed.

The unconscious seeps in disguised forms.

'Use of free association helps patients find and release forbidden thoughts.

Defense Mechanisms

The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

Operate indirectly and unconsciously

• Regression

• Reaction formation

• Projection

• Rationalization

• Displacement

• Denial

New-Freudians differed from Freud

Emphasized the role of the conscious mind

• Collective unconscious (archetypes); Jung

Doubted that sex and aggression were all- consuming motivations

• Social interactions and other motives emphasis

Today’s psychologists don’t speak of a collective unconscious, but assume shared evolutionary history shaped some universal disposition

Assessing the Unconscious Processes

Projective tests

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Rorschach inkblot test

• Not reliable, but a good conversation starter

Humanistic Theory

Shifted the focus from disorders born out of conflict to focus on ways healthy people strive for self-determination and self-realization

Asked people to report their experiences and feelings

• What positive psychology was born out of

Abraham Maslow’s self- actualizing person

Maslow proposed that human motivations form a pyramid-shaped hierarchy of needs.

1. Self transcendence (top of the pyramid)

2. Self-actualization

3. Self-esteem

4. Love and belonging

5. Safety needs

6. Physiological needs (bottom of the pyramid)

Characteristics of Self-Actualization Scale (CSAS)

Carl Rogers’ person-centered perspective

Humans are primed to reach their potential in a growth-promoting environment.

• Nature + Nurture

Qualities that nurture growth:

• Acceptance (unconditional positive regard)

• Genuineness

• Empathy

An individual’s self-concept (Who we think we are) is the central feature of personality.

Trait Theories

Characteristic patterns of behavior or tendency to feel and act in a certain ways, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

• More concerned with describing rather than defining traits

Trait theories define personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior.

Basic factors: Clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together; reflect a basic factor

Assessing Traits

Personality inventory

• Questionnaire that covers a wide range of feelings and behaviors

• Scoring is objective; does not guarantee validity

Self-report

• Method of recording participants’ descriptions of their personality traits, often using surveys, questionnaires, or tests

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

• Most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests

The “Big 5” Personality Traits

Social-Cognitive Theories

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social contexts

Focuses on how our individual traits and thoughts interact with our social situations

Suggests the outside influences on behavior are the focus of social psychology, and the inner influences are the focus of personality psychology

Reciprocal determinism

Albert Bandura

Interacting influences of behavior, internal personal factors, and environment

All operate as interlocking determinants of each other

When people enter a social situation, they bring their:

• Past learning

• Self-efficacy

• Ways of thinking about specific situations

Reciprocal Influences

Individuals and environments interact in a variety of ways.

• Different people choose different environments.

• People’s personalities shape how they interpret and react to events.

• People’s personalities help create situations to which they react.

People also experience gene–environment interaction.

Exploring the Self

Self: In modern psychology, viewed as the center of personality and organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions

• The self is the center of personality.

• It is the organizer of one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Possible selves: Includes vision of the self you dream of becoming and the self you fear becoming

• Motivates us to lay out specific goals that direct our energy effectively and efficiently

• Allows change in personality

Spotlight effect: Overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us)

• Can be minimized by:

  • Being aware of the effect

  • Taking the audience’s perspective

Benefits of Self-Esteem

People with high self-esteem

• Tend to be outgoing, responsible, and open to new experiences

• Communicate positively, causing others to like and include them more online and in-person

• Feel less shy, anxious, and lonely, and, in the future, more successful and just plain happier

Effects of Low Self-Esteem

People with low self-esteem

• Tend to behave negatively toward others

Inflated Self-Esteem

Narcissistic People

Tend to be less forgiving of others

Use a game-playing, sexually forceful approach to romantic relationships

Are often charismatic and ambitious and popular, until others tire of their arrogance

Become defensive or enraged when criticized

Self-Serving Bias

Readiness to perceive oneself favorably

Research findings:

• People accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad acts, and for successes than for failures; this discrepancy underlies conflicts.

• Most people see themselves as better than average compared to most other people.

• Self-service bias underlies, such as blaming

Separating Self-Esteem into 2 categories

Individualism Vs Collectivism

Culture and Self

Meaning of self varies from culture to culture by where priority given to the independent self or to the interdependent self

• Most Western countries, including the United States and Canada, lean toward individualism

• In some collectivist cultures, disrespecting family elders violates the law.