Personality Chapter Summary

  • Personality is the consistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that characterize an individual.

  • Measured through self-report inventories (e.g., MMPI) and projective tests (e.g., Rorschach, TAT), which assess both conscious and unconscious aspects of personality.

II. Trait Approach

  • Focuses on identifying core dimensions of behavior.

  • The Big Five Traits:

    • Openness: Imagination and curiosity

    • Conscientiousness: Organization and dependability

    • Extraversion: Sociability and energy

    • Agreeableness: Compassion and cooperativeness

    • Neuroticism: Emotional instability

  • Traits are stable across time and influenced by biology, including genetics and brain structure.

III. Psychodynamic Approach

  • Rooted in Freud’s theory: personality arises from conflict among id (basic desires), ego (demands in life), and superego(cultural values).

  • Defense mechanisms manage anxiety from internal conflicts

    • Rationalization:Creating logical-sounding explanations to justify behavior and hide real motives.

    • Reaction Formation: Replacing uncomfortable thoughts or desires with their exaggerated opposite.

    • Projection: Attributing one’s own unacceptable feelings or desires to someone else.

    • Regression: Reverting to behaviors from an earlier developmental stage.

    • Displacement: Redirecting emotional impulses toward a safer, less threatening target.

    • Identification:
      Adopting the characteristics of someone perceived as more powerful or capable.

    • Sublimation: Channeling unacceptable urges into socially acceptable or productive behavior.

  • Personality shaped by psychosexual stages of development

    • Fixation occurs when issues at a particular stage remain unresolved

    • The Oedipus conflict describes a child’s unconscious rivalry with the same-sex parent for the affection of the opposite-sex parent.

IV. Humanistic–Existential Approach

  • Emphasizes personal growth, meaning, and choice.

  • Humanistic view (e.g., Maslow): Focuses on self-actualization (one’s full potential) after fulfilling basic needs.

  • Existential view: Acknowledges challenges of freedom and mortality; urges authentic living despite angst.

V. Social–Cognitive Approach

  • Personality shaped by how people interpret and respond to situations.

  • Emphasizes personal constructs, goals, and expectancies.

  • Locus of control:

    • Internal – belief in self-agency

    • External – belief that outside forces determine outcomes

VI. The Self

  • Self-concept: Knowledge of personal traits and experiences; organized into self-narratives, central to this -> self-schemas: core traits

  • Self-esteem: One’s value of self, influenced by social comparison and acceptance.

  • Tied to social belonging and survival; too much can lead to narcissism.

  • Implicit egotism: Unconscious preference for things related to the self (e.g., initials).