Week 9 - Personality

Personality Overview

• Definition of Personality:

  • Refers to long-standing traits and patterns that influence how individuals think, feel, and behave.

  • Unique to each individual; characterized by consistent and enduring traits.

  • Thought to be stable over time and resistant to change.

  • Derives from the Latin word persona, meaning the mask worn by actors in ancient times.

Historical Perspectives

Hippocrates (370 BCE)

• Proposed that personality traits are based on four temperaments associated with body fluids:

  1. Choleric: Passionate, ambitious, bold (yellow bile).

  2. Melancholic: Reserved, anxious, unhappy (black bile).

  3. Sanguine: Joyful, eager, optimistic (red blood).

  4. Phlegmatic: Calm, reliable, thoughtful (white phlegm).

• Emphasized the influence of these humors on personality and disease.

Franz Gall (1780)

• Proposed phrenology: distances between skull bumps indicate personality traits and abilities.

• Lacked empirical support; discredited as a scientific theory.

Immanuel Kant (18th Century)

• Agreed on four temperaments similar to Hippocrates.

• Developed lists of traits for each temperament.

Wilhelm Wundt (19th Century)

• Suggested personality could be described through two axes:

  1. Emotional/Non-emotional: Separated strong and weak emotions.

  2. Changeable/Unchangeable: Divided temperaments based on stability.

Psychodynamic Perspectives (20th Century)

• Sigmund Freud:

  • Introduced the first comprehensive personality theory focusing on unconscious drives influenced by sexuality and aggression.

  • Proposed the ID, Ego, and Superego model to explain personality structure.

• Neo-Freudians:

  • Supported the importance of childhood experiences but focused more on social and cultural factors than sexual drives.

Levels of Consciousness

• Unconscious Mind:

  • Contains thoughts, memories, and urges that are hidden from conscious awareness.

  • Most behaviors are influenced by this unconscious content, even if unrecognized.

  • Freudian Slip:

    • Errors in speech that reveal repressed thoughts.

ID, EGO & SUPEREGO

• ID:

  • Primitive part of personality, driven by the pleasure principle (instant gratification).

• EGO:

  • Rational part that mediates between ID and Superego; operates on the reality principle.

• SUPEREGO:

  • Moral compass developed through social interactions; judges behavior and instills feelings of pride or guilt.

• Balance Effects:

  • A well-balanced personality leads to health; imbalances can result in neuroses or negative traits (e.g., impulsivity, over-control).

Defense Mechanisms

• Unconscious strategies the ego employs to reduce anxiety from conflicts between ID and Superego:

  • Denial: Refusal to accept reality (e.g., addiction).

  • Displacement: Redirecting anger from a target to a less threatening one.

  • Projection: Attributing one’s unacceptable thoughts to others.

  • Rationalization: Justifying actions with excuses.

  • Reaction Formation: Behaving in a way opposite to one’s feelings.

  • Regression: Reverting to earlier developmental behaviors.

  • Repression: Pushing distressing thoughts into the unconscious.

  • Sublimation: Channeling unacceptable desires into socially acceptable actions.

Stages of Psychosexual Development

• Overview:

  • Personality forms during early childhood through a series of psychosexual stages, each characterized by the focus of pleasure-seeking urges.

Stages Include:

1. Oral Stage (0-1 year): Focus on mouth; conflicts around weaning lead to fixations (e.g., smoking).

2. Anal Stage (1-3 years): Focus on bowel control; conflicts involve toilet training.

3. Phallic Stage (3-6 years): Focus on genitalia, leading to the Oedipus and Electra complexes.

4. Latency Stage (6-12 years): Sexual feelings are dormant; focus on social interactions.

5. Genital Stage (12+ years): Mature sexual interests develop; well-adjusted individuals navigate resulting desires.

Neo-Freudians

• Altered Freudian concepts, emphasizing social aspects:

  • Alfred Adler: Focused on social motives and overcoming inferiority; highlighted the importance of birth order.

  • Erik Erikson: Developed psychosocial theory of development, outlining stages across the lifespan.

  • Carl Jung: Introduced concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes, emphasizing a balance between conscious and unconscious aspects.

  • Karen Horney: Proposed that cultural factors shape personality and introduced coping styles to handle anxiety.

Learning Approaches

• Contrast to psychodynamic theories, emphasizing observable behavior:

  • Behaviorists:

    • Focus on reinforcements and consequences in environments; personality shaped by experiences.

    • B.F. Skinner: Argued that behaviors develop over a lifetime, varying by circumstances.

Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Albert Bandura: Emphasized roles of thought processes and observational learning in personality development.

• Self-efficacy: Belief in one's ability to achieve goals increases motivation.

  • Individuals with high self-efficacy embrace challenges; those with low self-efficacy tend to avoid risks and doubt abilities.

Locus of Control (Julian Rotter)

• Centers on perceptions of control over life outcomes:

  • Internal Locus: Belief that outcomes depend on one’s actions leads to better academic and career success.

  • External Locus: Belief that outcomes are dictated by fate or others results in lower achievement and dependency.

Person-Situation Debate (Walter Mischel)

• Examined inconsistencies of behavior across different situations:

  • Results of the Marshmallow Study indicated self-control correlates with future success.

  • Personality assessed through cognitive processes in varying contexts.

Humanistic Approaches

• Emphasis on healthy, self-actualized individuals:

  • Abraham Maslow: Developed the hierarchy of needs, culminating in self-actualization as the ultimate goal.

  • Carl Rogers: Linked personality to self-concept and congruence between ideal and real self; emphasized self-worth.

Biological Approaches

• Examines genetics' impact on personality:

  • Twin studies indicate some traits are heritable; interplay between genetics and environment informs personality.

  • Temperament: Early emerging emotional dispositions suggest biological bases for varied personality traits.

Trait Theorists

• Focus on identifying and measuring individual traits:

  • Gordon Allport: Differentiated traits into cardinal, central, and secondary.

  • Cattell: Developed 16PF, assessing personality along various dimensions.

  • Five Factor Model: Most popular model depicting personality as determined by five key traits (OCEAN): Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism.

Cultural Understandings of Personality

• Culture notably influences personality traits and perceptions:

  • Differences between individualist cultures (e.g., U.S.) valuing independence vs. collectivist cultures (e.g., Asia) prioritizing group harmony.

  • Regional personality clusters noted within the U.S. correlate with demographic characteristics.

Personality Assessment

• Self-Report Inventories: Standardized tests assessing personality traits (e.g., MMPI).

• Projective Tests: Rely on projection of feelings onto ambiguous stimuli to explore unconscious processes (e.g., Rorschach, TAT).

• Challenges include cultural bias affecting the efficacy of assessments across diverse groups.