Unit 10: Personality

2 - freedom

4 - enviornment

3- uniqness v universality

4 - reactive

2 - optimistic

What is Personality

• Term frequently used; hard to define

  • typically refers to one’s public image

• such usage reflects origins

  • Lain “persona” = masks Greeks wore in plays

    • often more roles than actors

    • actors would change “personae” to let audience know of different roles

Sigmund Freud

• it is largely unconscious, hidden, and unknown

Carl Rogers

• It is an organized, consistent pattern of perception of the “I” or “me” that lies at the heart of an idividuals experiences

B.F.Skinner

• Did not beleive it was necessary or desirable to use a concept such as “self” or “personality” to understand human behavior

Gordon Allport

• It is something real within an individual that leads to characterisitic behavior and thought

Freud

• Contribution to Psychology:

  • before = mental illness =demonis possession/evil spirits

  • Freud = rational, reason, science

Personality

• a person’s typical way of thinking, feeling, and acting

  • its what makes each person unique

• two main approaches of personality psychology

  • humanistic

  • psychoanalytic

    • proposed mostly by Sigmund Freid

    • this approach suggests that people dot hings because of unconscious struggles started in childhood, often sexual in natire

    • personality made up of three parts:

      • ID - present at birth, contains all your innaate desires

      • Superego- the result of social strictire, laws, and moral development

      • Ego - develops due to the striggle between the Id and Superego

• How do we meausre?

  • since psychologists mostly cannot agree on a definition for personality, not shockingly, ther are different tests

    • Projective Tests

      • mostly used by psychoanalyts

        • incolce asking people to interpret ambiguos stimuli

          • Rorschach Inkblot Tests

          • Thematic Apperception Tests (TATs)

    • Self-Report Inventories

      • Questionnaires that ask people information about themselves

        • Humanistic, trait theorists, and cognitive behavioral therapists

          • Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory (MMPI)

            • T/F

            • scale 1 - Hypochondriasis: designed to assess a neurotic concern over bodily functioning/ a tendency to beleive that one has an undiagnosed medial problem

            • scale 2 - depression

            • scale 3 - Hysteria: desogned to identify who displayed hysteria or physical complaints in stressful situations

            • scale 4 - Psychopathic Deviate: psychotic and personality disorders

            • scale 5- Masculinity-Femininity

            • scale 6- Paranoia

            • scale 7- Psychasthenia

            • scale 8- Schizophrenia

Freudian defense mechanisms

• “Psychological Weapons”

  • Freuds Defense Mechanisms

  • Ego used to protect you from self-created anxiety

  • Prevent id’s impulses from entering consciousness

    • use self-deception or distortion of reality

    • e.g., repression, regression, projection, reaction formation, sublimation, etc

• Why defense mechanisms?

  • Remember Freud’s theory of personality

    • ID, Ego, Superego

  • part of the Ego’s job is to protect the conscious mind from threating thoughts from the unconscious mind

  • the ego uses defense mechanisms to aid in that endeavor

• Defense mechanisms:

  • Denial → not accepting the ego-threatening truth

    • biff continues to act as if he and Muffy are still together. He waits by her locker, calls her every night, plans future dates

  • Repression → blocking the thoughts from conscious awarness

    • when asked about how he feels about the break-up, Biff replies, “Who? Oh, yeah, I haven’t thought about her in a while”

  • Regression → returning to an earlier, more comforting form of behavior

    • after a breakup, Biff begins to sleep with his favorite childhood stuffed animal

  • Displacement → redirecting one’s feelings towards another person or object

    • Biff begins to take his anger out on others on the football field and his little brother

  • Rationalization → coming up with a perceived positive result from the unlikeable occurence

    • Biff beleives that he will not find a better girlfriend. Muffy wasn’t at all pretty, smart, or interesting

  • Reaction-formation → expressing the opposite of how one trult feels

    • Biff claims that he actually hates Muffy

  • Projection → believing that the feelings one has toward someone else are actuallly held by the other person and directed at oneself

    • Biff insists that Muffy still loves him and wants to be with him

  • Intellectualization → taking an objective viewpoint for the situation. Trying to remove all emotions

    • perhaps Biff embarks on a 20-page research paper analyzing the statistics of failed teen romances

  • Sublimation → satisfying an impulse with a substitute object, in a socially acceptable way

    • Biff channels his emotions from the break up into a series of poetry albums that eventually get published

The Big Five Project - Personality Test

• Costa & McCrae’s contributions

  • why 5?

    • factor analysis

      • Conscientiousness → having an organized, efficient, and disciplined approach to life

        • if you agree with ‘I see myself as someone who does things efficiently”, you are conscientious

      • Agreeableness → trusting and easygoing approach to others

        • if you agree with ‘ I see myself as someone who is generally trusting’, you are agreeable

      • Neuroticism → prone to negative emotions

        • if you agree with “i see myself as someone who is depressed”, you are neurotic

      • Openness → unconventionality, intellectual curiosity, interest in new ideas, foods, & activities

        • if you agree ith “ i see myself as someone who is curious about many different things”, you are open

      • Extraversion →

        • if you agree with “ I see myself as someone who is outgoing, sociable”, you are extravert

    • or O.C.E.A.N or C.A.N.O.E