PSY 101 Final

Personality: Unique and enduring set of behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and motives that characterize an individual

relatively consistent across situations

Individual differences distinguish us from one another and make us unique.

Trait: disposition to behave consistently

Aspects of personality, also includes: Motives, thoughts, feelings, self concepts
Traits lower behavioral thresholds

Behavioral thresholds: the points at which a person moves from not having a particular response to having one.

Sigmud Freud: Developed three layers of consciousness: unconscious, preconscious, and conscious.

Conscious: What we are aware of at any time
Unconscious: Contains drives, urges, instincts that motivate speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions

Three distinct provinces:

Id: Impulse, desire: Owns/Controls us
Ego: Only part with direct contact to outside world, “reality principle”
Super ego: part of self that monitors and controls behavior, conscious

Defense mechanisms: unconscious strategies the mind uses to protect itself from anxiety by denying and distorting reality

Repression: Keeps threatening thoughts and feelings out of consciousness
Reaction Formation: An unpleasant thought, feeling, impulse turned into it’s opposite
Projection: Denying ideas, feelings, or thoughts and projecting them onto others

Alfred Adler: disagreed with freud on major motives underlying behavior

Striving for superiority: Major drive behind all behavior, we naturally strive to overcome inherent inferiorities or deficiencies
Compensation: (Unconscious reaction) cover up weaknesses and sense of inferiority by striving for superiority.
Inferiority complex: Unhealthy need to upstage others as a way of compensating

Carl Jung: Unconscious has two forms: Personal and collective

Personal: consists of all our repressed and hidden thoughts, feelings, and motives.
Collective: the shared universal experiences our ancestors have passed down.
Archetypes: ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences.

Psychoanalytic social theory

Neurosis: Originates in two emotions

Basic hostility: Anger originates from childhood
Basic Anxiety: Converted from BH

Seven core assumptions made by freud are supported:

Dreams as wish fulfillment
Unconscious motivation
Repression and defense mechanisms
Pleasure principle
Primitive drives
Influence of early childhood

Humanistic Approach: Optimistic about human nature

We need to study people at BEST and WORST

Positive psychology

FOCUS ON positive states/experiences, such as: hope, wisdom, creativity, spirituality, and positive emotions.

Characteristics common in self actualizing individuals: (MASLOW)

Spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness.
Problem-centered (have a “calling”).
Creativity (self-actualizing rather than specialized).
Deep interpersonal relations.
Resistance to enculturation.

People naturally strive toward growth and fulfillment (ROGERS)

Need unconditional positive regard: Acceptance of another person regardless of behavior

We evaluate ourselves in two ways:

How we are - real self

How we would like to be - Ideal self

(MISCHEL)

People respond differently to different situations, producing unique personality–situation profiles.

Trait approach: Traits/dispositions are the major force of personality

Allport tried to figure out how many personality traits existed. (4000 words = personally descriptive)

We can mainly be described with 10

Big five/Five factor model:

Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

(OCEAN)

Mechanisms: Adaptive solutions to survival and reproduction

Physical mechanisms: Bodily organs and systems

Psychological mechanisms: Internal and specific cognitive , motivational, or personality systems

These can sometimes breakdown and use maladaptive traits

Eysenck three personality dimensions:

Neuroticism;
Extraversion;
Psychoticism—a set of dispositions toward lack of impulse control, lack of interpersonal warmth, aggressiveness, and creative thought and behavior.

This model suggests differences in individual personality

Cortical arousal: Brains level of activity at rest AND it’s sensitivity to stimulation

Sensory threshold: How much stimulus is required for it to be perceived

Optimal levels of arousal for extraverts and introverts

E: High levels of arousal

I: Low levels of arousal

Gene studies of personality: differences in structure in particular gene locations

Quantitative traits loci: location on genes associated with behavior

Genome-wide association study (GWAS):

a genetic marker method that searches the genome for small variations in different frequencies in different people.

50% of the differences in personality are explained by nongenetic sources.

Shared environment: living conditions individuals have in common—for example, the same parents.

Non-shared environment: living conditions individuals do not have in common, such as
birth order.

Percentage of genetic and environmental influence on personality traits.

Twin studies indicate that heredity (genetics) accounts for 50% to 60% of most traits.

Temperament and personality differences are manifest before birth.

Fetal activity and heart rate reveal something about temperament differences over the first year of life.

Maternal stress during pregnancy can affect an infant’s stress response style.

People all over the world display varying levels of the same personality traits.

Extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and psychoticism.

In general, personality changes occur over the life span in similar ways throughout the world.

people in different cultures differ in certain dimensions of personality.

interpersonal relatedness: mostly seen in asian cultures

Collectivism: cultures more concerned about the impact of their behavior on their family, friends, and social groups.

Individualism: cultures that are more concerned with how their behavior will affect their own personal goals.

of 19 studies shows at least
14 nonhuman species have personality traits that can be categorized along the same dimensions as human personality.

most direct and objective method of obtaining data is observation

costly and time-consuming; and not all personality traits can be observed by other people.

inter-rater reliability: measure of how much agreement there is in ratings between two or more raters or coders.

Interviewing: ideal way to gather important information about a person’s life.

Disadvantages: what to do with the information and how to make sense of it. What does a response mean? How are the responses scored, and by whom? What criteria are used?

Projective tests: participant is presented with a vague stimulus and asked to interpret it or tell a story about what he or she sees.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Personality questionnaires: Self-report instruments on which respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements.

Two approaches:

Rational (face valid) method: using reason or theory to come up with a question.
Empirical method: focuses on questions that characterize the group the questionnaire is intended to distinguish.

Use of social media reflects the kind of personality we have.

our social media footprint may even be better than traditional measures such as self-completed questionnaires.

Social facilitation: a phenomenon in which the presence of others improves one’s performance.

Social loafing: a phenomenon in which the presence of others causes one to relax one’s standards and slack off.

Social norms: rules about acceptable behavior imposed by the cultural context in which one lives.

Conformity: the tendency of people to adjust their behavior to what others are doing or to adhere to the norms of their culture.

Solomon Asch demonstrated the power of conformity in a classic study.

Line length

Informational social influence: conformity because one views others as a source of knowledge about what one is supposed to do.

Normative social influence: conformity in order to be accepted by others.

Groupthink: a situation in which the thinking of the group takes over.

Members forgo logic or critical analysis in the service of reaching a decision.
Decision must be a consensus
Can lead to detrimental, even disastrous, outcomes.
Groupthink is evident daily in social media.

one person or a small number of individuals within a group can influence the entire group.

Minority: a single person or small group within a larger group.
- Minority influence: a small number of individuals shifts majority opinion by presenting a consistent, unwavering message.
Majority: the larger group.

Obedience: social influence in which a person yields to the will of another person in a position of authority, complying with that person’s demands.

Milgram study: Electric shock

Attributions: the inferences about the causes of other people’s behavior.

Dispositional (internal) attributions.

Situational (external) attributions.

Self-serving bias: the tendency to make situational attributions for our failures but dispositional attributions for our successes.

Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to explain others’ behavior in terms of dispositional attributions rather than situational ones.

Schemas: models about the world that act like filters for our perceptions.

Stereotypes: schemas of how people are likely to behave based simply on the groups to which they belong.

Dehumanization: a tendency to portray a group of people as unworthy of human rights and traits—intended to make them feel unworthy.

In this case its is easier to treat them as less than human

In-group/out-group bias: a tendency to show positive feelings toward people who belong to the same group as we do, and negative feelings toward those in other groups.

Out-group homogeneity: a tendency to see all members of an out-group as the same.

Social connections are as important to us as our physical safety.

Brain areas activated by social pain: increase in activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and in the right front section of the prefrontal cortex

Prejudice: a biased attitude toward a group or individual based on unfair generalizations about what members of that group are like.

Discrimination: preferential behavior towards certain people, usually driven by prejudicial attitudes.

Both racism and sexism involve stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.

Racism: when one views and treats others as inferior based on the color of their skin or their ethnicity.

Sexism: when people are treated unfairly based on their biological sex or perceived gender.

Systemic racism is institutionalized or expressed in how societies are structured, laws written and enacted, creating deep economic, social, and educational disadvantages.

Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure latent attitudes.

Their results show clear indications of implicit racial and gender biases

Attitudes: an individual’s favorable or unfavorable beliefs, feelings, or actions
toward an object, an idea, or a person.

Affective component: feelings or emotions.

Cognitive component: thoughts or beliefs.

Behavioral component: particular actions

our most basic attitudes may be instinctive, while others are learned

Evolutionary pressures to preserve group membership favor in-group bias.

Sometimes we like ideas or objects simply because they are familiar—the mere exposure effect.

Cognitive dissonance: discomfort caused by information that differs from a person’s conception of himself or herself as a reasonable and sensible person.

Three options for easing the discomfort:

Change our behavior to make it consistent.

Attempt to justify our behavior by changing a cognition.

Add new cognitions.

Persuasion: the act of attempting to change the opinions, beliefs, or choices of others by explanation or argument.

success of persuasion depends on:

Who: the persuader (source);
What: content of the message
How: in what context the message is conveyed
To Whom: the receiver or target of the message (audience).

Aggression: violent behavior that is intended to cause psychological or physical harm, or both, to another being.

Hostile aggression stems from feelings of anger.

Instrumental aggression is a means to achieve
some goal.

Some people are more prone to violence—likely due to the combined influences of genetics, experience, and various biological factors.

Aggression components:

hypothalamus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex, testosterone, serotonin

Frustration-Aggression hypothesis: Situations that prevent us from reaching our goals are likely to make us aggressive.

Situations that lead to anger may stimulate aggression.

Albert Bandura’s social learning theory suggests that observing aggression can also make us more aggressive.

Prosocial behavior: action that is beneficial to others.

Bystander effect: more people in emergency the less likely anyone is to help

Diffusion of responsibility: an individual’s perceived responsibility decreases with many others around.

People also often do a cost–benefit analysis.

Altruism: the selfless concern for and giving of aid to others.

Kin selection: the evolutionary favoring of genes that prompt individuals to help their relatives, or kin.

Reciprocal altruism: the act of helping others in the hope that they will help us in the future.

Social exchange theory: we help others when we understand that the benefits to ourselves are likely to outweigh the costs.

Empathy: the ability to share the feelings of others and understand their situations.

Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis: the idea that people help others selflessly only when they feel empathy for them.

Egoistic motivation: to relieve one’s own distress.

Empathetic motivation: to relive the distress of the person in need.

Compassion: feeling kindness toward another who is suffering, and feeling motivated to help.

Close Relationship Researchers have shown that:

Being exposed to an object, idea, or person causes you to like it more. (mere exposure)
Similarity in attitudes/beliefs/personalities promotes attraction.
Assortative mating: partnering with people with similar characteristics to ourselves (such as attractiveness).

People rate “average” and symmetrical faces as attractive.

“Average” means that the size, location, and shape of each feature of the face are mathematically average.

Symmetrical faces and bodies are signs of fewer adverse genetic mutations.

Sexual strategies theory: an evolutionary perspective that men and women often approach relationships in very different ways.

Men devote more mating effort to short-term relations than do women.
Men prefer fertile-looking partners; women prefer good providers.
Sex differences arise because parental investment is greater for women than for men.

Sexual strategies theory: men and women often approach relationships in very different ways.

Men devote more mating effort to short-term relations than do women.
Men prefer fertile-looking partners; women prefer good providers.
Sex differences arise because parental investment is greater for women than for men.
Online dating behavior is just as governed by personality, socioeconomic factors, and race.

Sternberg’s triangular theory of love:
- three components (intimacy, passion, and commitment)

Love closely connected to a well-known psychological phenomenon:

An affection-based bond between infants and their primary caregivers that protects infants from threats.

The attachment system is established when we are infants forms a template for our adult relationships with others.

Including our intimate partners.

Attachment Theory: Strange situation and three attachment styles

Secure
Anxious/ambivalent
Avoidant

Implications for adult romantic relationships

Infant attachment styles seem to lay a foundation for future relationships

Secure attachment: rooted in trust and marked by intimacy

Avoidant attachment: marked by discomfort over, or resistant to, being close to others

Resists commitment
an insecure attachment style

Anxious attachment: marked by anxiety or ambivalence

May be clinging, seeking reassurance
an insecure attachment style

Cult: an extremist group led by a charismatic, totalitarian leader in which coercive methods are used to prevent members from leaving the group.