Personality and the Self

Personality is our characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving

Freudian Personality Structure

Info in the unconscious impact our behavior without our awareness

Freud: Defense Mechanism

• Regression: the return of behavior that is typical of earlier stages of development

  • Ex. Child being bullied, super ID and ID stat to conflict on to fight back or tell a teacher, he starts to suck his thumb to sooth his anxiety

• Displacement: the transfer of unacceptable impulses away from their original objects onto safer or less threatening impulses

  • Ex. Getting mad at professor but not addressing them, deciding to take it out on roommate for dirty dishes

• Denial: refusal to recognize a threatening impulse or desire

  • Ex. Deny feelings or obvious feelings

• Reaction Formation: behaving in a way that is the opposite of one’s true wishes or desires in order to keep these repressed

  • Ex. The US Senator very against lgbtq, married to a woman but got caught in a bathroom trying to solicit sex from men and got arrested

• Rationalization: the use of self-justifications to explain away unacceptable behavior

  • Ex. Being rejected by a school and saying it sucks and you never wanted to go anyway

• Projection: imposing one‘s own impulses or wishes onto another person

  • Ex. Parents living through children like toddlers and tiaras, child doesn’t want to but mom loves pageants

• Sublimation: the channeling of unacceptable impulses into socially constructive pursuits - the healthiest according to Freud

  • Professor upsets you instead of hitting them or going off on them you go to the gym and work out

Neo-Freudians (Psychodynamic)

Alfred Adler

• Inferiority complex (Feeling insecure about something so you overcompensate in that area)

• Birth Order (Personality based on what order you were born)

Carl Jung (Student of Freud)

• Personal v. Collective Unconscious (We as a society collectively and unconsciously make assumptions about certain things

• Introversion vs. Extraversion

Karen Horney (Hated Freud)

• Impact of male-dominated society (Theory: men are jealous of women so they push us down. They are jealous that we can bring life into the world and men don’t realize it)

Humanistic Psychologists Approach to Personality

View of human beings: Human nature is basically good

Self Actualization:

• Abraham Maslow: Motivation (believed we get actualization through motivation from around us; starting at the bottom and working our way up - based off of needs being met)

  • Biological needs (food, water, sleep, sex, etc.)

  • Safety & Security needs (environment, shelter, good community)

  • Love and Belonging (Does someone love you? Care about you? Feel alone?)

  • Self Esteem & Achievement (How do you feel about yourself? - Most tough

  • Self Actualization! (All needs are met, so you can find meaning and help others rise up)

• Carl Rogers: Congruence (Believed we get self-actualization through Congruence)

  • 2 Life Pathways:

    • Event → Conditional Positive Regard → ideal self → ☹

    • Event → Unconditional Positive Regard → true self → self actualization → 🙂 (Congruence)

Trait Theories of Personality

Our personality never changes

More scientifically based

Gordon Allport: Described traits as 3 levels

• Cardinal: means your personality is so strong it defies synonym for personalities (not everyone has this)

• Central: dominate who you are

• Secondary: Don’t define who you are but when up in certain situations the traits appear based on the situation

The Big Five Theory

Paul Costa and Robert McCrae

5 core traits: derived from factor analysis

• Openness

  • High - Thoughtful or rational to new ideas, people, experiences

  • Low - like routine, opposite of high

• Conscientiousness

  • High - taking other feelings into account when you make decisions, reliable, self-controlled

  • Low - more spontaneous, flakey

• Extraversion

  • High — feel fulfilled by time with other people

  • Low - introvert, needing alone time to recharge

• Agreeableness

  • High - more trusting of others and more easy going

  • Low - unfriendly and suspicious of other

• Neuroticism

  • High - more anxious and worrisome pessimistic

  • Low - more even tempered and go with the flow

Each trait is measured by degree - continuum of high and low

• Not at all or nothing

Personality Inventories

Measurement

Are we measuring what we think we are measuring? Are we measuring it consistently

Characteristics:

• Self-report

• Scales or multiple choice

Examples: MMPI, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Enneagram

Pro - You are the best person to ask about your own personality

Con - Not as reliable

Observer - Report Data

Access to information not attainable through other sources

Selecting observers:

• Professional personality assessors

• Someone who knows the target personally

Pros -

Cons - Bias (especially for those who know you personally)

Projective Tests

Based on Frued’s concept of projection

Premise: access unconscious mind by displaying an ambiguous stimuli

Rorschach Inkblot Test:

• Validity and reliability issues

• Most widely used (outside of the MMPI)

Other types: No validity or reliability in these

• Incomplete words

• Drawing tasks (HTP)

  • Tree, Person, House Task

• Word Association

• Thematic Apperception Test

  • Picture

The Self

Doesn’t exist in a vacuum

• Sharps and is shaped by environment

Self Concept

People’s description of their own characteristics

• Demographic features

• Personality features

• relationships with others

• Physical attributes

• Other various roles

Self Awareness

Knowledge about your internal trait, feelings, roles, memories

Heightened Self-Awareness

• Can be unpleasant

Self Consciousness

Awareness of our own characteristics and the way the self is perceived by others

Spotlight effect: Overestimating how much attention others pay to our behaviors

Causes us to behave more ethically

Self Esteem

A judgement of the value of the self

• Global self-esteem

• Specific self-esteem

Self Regulation

Conscious efforts to control our thoughts, motives, feelings, and behaviors

Limited supply

• Questionable source of depletion

Ex. The Marshmallow Test