Chapter 11: Personality

keep much of the important info and summarize using headers and bullet points; explain concepts that were vaguely mentioned in the words of an eighth grader, and keep the tables already made in the text while explaining concepts made in said tables as well in the same format

Personality

• Definition: Personality refers to the long-term traits and patterns that determine how individuals think, feel, and behave. It's what makes each person unique.

• Stability: Personalities are stable over time and not easily changed.

• Origin of the word: The word "personality" comes from the Latin word persona, which means "mask". In ancient times, actors wore masks that represented different personality traits.

Historical Perspectives on Personality

1. Hippocrates (370 BCE):

   • Proposed four temperaments based on body fluids ("humors"):

     • Choleric: Passionate and ambitious.

     • Melancholic: Anxious and serious.

     • Sanguine: Joyful and optimistic.

     • Phlegmatic: Calm and reliable.

2. Galen:

   • Expanded on Hippocrates, linking personality differences to imbalances in the humors. His theory lasted over 1,000 years.

3. Franz Gall (1780):

   • Introduced phrenology - the idea that bumps on the skull could indicate personality traits. It was popular but later discredited as pseudoscience.

4. Immanuel Kant and Wilhelm Wundt:

   • Kant agreed that people fit into one of the four temperaments without overlap.

   • Wundt proposed better ways to categorize personalities using two axes: emotional/non-emotional and changeable/unchangeable.

Axes of Personality

1. Sigmund Freud:

   • Proposed that unconscious motives, particularly around sex and aggression, shape personality. This led to the psychodynamic perspective.

   • Neo-Freudians followed him but focused more on social influences and culture rather than sexuality.

Other Theories of Personality

• Over time, additional theories arose, including learning, humanistic, biological, evolutionary, trait, and cultural perspectives. These offer different ways to understand and describe personality.

Sigmund Freud

• Background: Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was a medical doctor who is often considered the father of modern psychology, although many of his ideas are controversial. He is best known for developing theories about the unconscious mind and personality.

• Anna O. Case: Freud was influenced by a patient of Josef Breuer, Anna O., who suffered from symptoms like paralysis and headaches after caring for her dying father. Breuer's "talking cure" helped Anna O., and Freud concluded that many psychological issues stem from repressed childhood traumas.

Levels of Consciousness

• Iceberg Analogy: Freud likened the mind to an iceberg, where only a small part is conscious and the vast majority is unconscious, where our hidden desires and feelings reside. These hidden elements influence our behavior, often without us knowing.

  • Repression: A key concept where unwelcome thoughts and memories are pushed from consciousness. An example is a "Freudian slip" where one accidentally says something reflecting unconscious desires.

Id, Ego, and Superego

• Freud described three parts of the mind:

  • Id: The part present at birth, it seeks instant pleasure and operates on the "pleasure principle" for basic needs (hunger, sex).

  • Ego: Develops to mediate between the id and superego, working on the "reality principle" to satisfy desires in socially acceptable ways.

  • Superego: A moral guide that educates us on right and wrong, aiming for perfection.

  • These three parts often conflict, influencing personality and behavior. A balanced ego leads to a healthy personality, while imbalances can result in neurosis or unhealthy behaviors.

Defense Mechanisms

• Freud believed that anxiety arises from the conflicts between the id and superego, and to handle this, the ego employs defense mechanisms to alleviate anxiety. Examples include:

  • Denial: Refusing to accept unpleasant facts.

  • Displacement: Redirecting emotions to a safer target.

  • Projection: Attributing one's unacceptable desires to others.

  • Rationalization: Creating excuses for behaviors.

  • Reaction Formation: Adopting the opposite stance to one's true feelings.

  • Regression: Reverting to an earlier developmental stage.

  • Repression: Blocking painful memories from awareness.

  • Sublimation: Channelling unacceptable urges into acceptable actions.

Stages of Psychosexual Development

• Freud proposed that personality develops through a series of stages during childhood, where each stage focuses on pleasure from different body areas (erogenous zones). The stages are:

  1. Oral Stage (birth to 1 year): Pleasure centers on the mouth; fixation can lead to habits like smoking or overeating.

  2. Anal Stage (1–3 years): Pleasure focuses on bowel control; fixation may result in anal-retentive (overly neat) or anal-expulsive (disorganized) personalities.

  3. Phallic Stage (3–6 years): Recognition of gender differences; boys have the Oedipus complex, while girls have the Electra complex. These conflicts shape identity with parental figures.

  4. Latency Period (6 years to puberty): Sexual feelings are suppressed as children focus on social development and learning.

  5. Genital Stage (puberty onward): Sexual urges return, directing towards socially acceptable relationships.

Freud's theories, while often debated and refined, laid the groundwork for understanding psychological development and the complexity of human behavior, emphasizing the impact of early childhood experiences on adult personality.

Neo-Freudians

• Definition: Neo-Freudians are thinkers who adapted Freud's ideas and created new theories about personality. They agree that childhood experiences are crucial but emphasize social influences and culture over sexual motivations.

Alfred Adler

• Background: Adler was a colleague of Freud and became the first president of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society.

• Individual Psychology: He founded a psychological approach that focuses on overcoming feelings of inferiority.

• Inferiority Complex: This term describes feelings of low self-worth and the drive to succeed. Unlike Freud, who focused on sexual urges, Adler believed that feelings of inferiority motivate people to strive for success.

• Social Connections: Adler emphasized that social relationships shape personality development instead of focusing on sexual stages. He believed in working together for the greater good of humanity and that psychology should recognize everyone’s rights and equality.

• Three Fundamental Social Tasks: Adler identified:

  1. Occupational Tasks: Relating to jobs and careers.

  2. Societal Tasks: Involving friendships and community connections.

  3. Love Tasks: Finding intimate partners.

• Birth Order Theory: Adler suggested that a person’s position in their family (birth order) can influence their personality, where older siblings may strive to be overachievers and younger siblings can become spoiled.

Erik Erikson

• Background: Erikson was encouraged by Anna Freud to study psychoanalysis and later left Europe due to Nazi threats, settling in the United States. He proposed a theory about personality development throughout life.

• Psychosocial Theory: Erikson believed that people go through eight stages, each presenting a challenge that must be successfully resolved to develop a healthy personality.

Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development

Carl Jung

• Background: Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who left Freud’s teachings to create his own approach called analytical psychology. He believed in merging conscious and unconscious thoughts.

• Collective Unconscious: This is a shared part of our unconscious that holds common memories and symbols (called archetypes). These archetypes appear in culture, art, and literature.
  

• Attitudes Toward Life: Jung proposed two major attitudes:

  • Extroversion: Gaining energy from social interactions.

  • Introversion: Gaining energy from internal thoughts and feelings.

Introverts and Extroverts

• Persona: This is the 'mask' we wear, designed to fit in with society’s expectations while hiding our true selves.

Karen Horney

• Background: Horney was one of the first women to train as a Freudian psychoanalyst and eventually moved away from Freud’s ideas.

• Cultural vs. Biological Differences: She argued that differences between men and women stem from social and cultural factors rather than biological reasons, suggesting that men may have 'womb envy' for not being able to give birth.

• Unconscious Anxiety: Horney believed that unmet needs in childhood can lead to anxiety, affecting personal growth.

Horney’s Coping Styles

Horney noted these coping styles can become problematic if used rigidly, causing alienation from others.

The Learning Approaches to Personality

• Learning approaches focus on observable behaviors rather than inner processes, which can be scientifically tested.

The Behavioral Perspective

• Key Idea: Behaviorists believe personality is not something you're born with, but rather shaped by experiences, rewards, and punishments in your environment.

• B.F. Skinner's View:

  • Skinner, a major behaviorist, argued that our environment influences all behaviors.

  • Instead of seeing personality as fixed from childhood, he suggested it evolves throughout our lives. For instance, a person may change their behavior when circumstances change; like how a risk-taker named Greta might stop being adventurous after having kids and become more cautious as her environment influences her actions.

The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Albert Bandura’s Theory: Bandura agreed with Skinner that we learn through experiences but emphasized that thinking also plays a key role in personality.

• Social-Cognitive Theory: This explains how both learning experiences and thoughts shape who we are. Three important concepts are:

  • Reciprocal Determinism: The idea that our thoughts, actions, and the situations we are in influence each other.

  • For example, if you're at a fair and see people bungee jump, your decision may depend on your beliefs and past experiences as well as the environment around you (like whether others are cheering or not).

• 

  Observational Learning: This is another important part of Bandura's theory, suggesting we learn by watching others and seeing what happens to them.

  • If you see someone get rewarded for a behavior, you may copy it, while you’d avoid behaviors seen as punished.

Self-Efficacy

• What is Self-Efficacy?: This refers to how confident you feel about your ability to achieve goals based on your past experiences.

  • People who believe in themselves are more likely to try harder and bounce back after failures.

  • Conversely, those who doubt their abilities might shy away from challenges, focusing on potential failures instead.

Julian Rotter and Locus of Control

• Key Concept: Locus of control refers to how much control you believe you have over the outcomes in your life.

  • Internal Locus of Control: Believing that your actions directly affect the outcomes. For example, if you fail a test, you think it’s because you didn’t study enough.

  • External Locus of Control: Believing that outside forces like luck or other people control outcomes.

Walter Mischel and the Person-Situation Debate

• Mischel’s Research: He found that people's behaviors can change depending on the situation, which contradicts the idea that personality traits are consistent.

  • He concluded that while individuals may behave similarly in similar situations, their responses can vary greatly in different situations.

• Self-Regulation: This is the ability to control oneself and wait for a bigger reward later, also known as willpower.

  • The Marshmallow Test: Mischel studied children’s ability to wait for a second marshmallow instead of eating the first one right away. This helped him learn about self-control and how it can affect future success.

• Findings: Children who were able to wait generally had better life outcomes, including higher SAT scores and healthier relationships later on.

Today, most psychologists agree that both personal factors and the situation at hand play important roles in shaping behavior. Mischel emphasized that how we interpret a situation affects how we behave in it.

Humanism in Psychology

• Definition: Humanism is considered the "third force" in psychology, reacting against both psychoanalysis, which emphasizes psychological problems, and behaviorism, which views people as robots responding to their environment. It suggests that existing theories overlook the depth and meaning of human experience and our ability to change positively.

Abraham Maslow

• Focus: Maslow studied people he viewed as healthy, creative, and productive, like Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt. He identified common traits among them, such as being open, loving, and accepting of themselves.

• Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow proposed that humans have specific needs that must be met in order, ultimately leading to self-actualization, or reaching our full potential.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Need Types:

  • Deficiency Needs: These are needs that arise from a lack, motivating us to fulfill missing things.

  • Growth Needs: These are needs that encourage us to grow and improve.

  • Maslow believed unmet needs can lead to emotional issues.

Carl Rogers

• Self-Concept: Rogers focused on how we perceive ourselves. When asked, “Who am I?”, your response reveals how you see yourself. If it’s positive, you likely feel good and see the world positively. If negative, you may feel unhappy.

• Ideal Self vs. Real Self: Rogers divided self-perception into:

  • Ideal Self: The person you aspire to be.

  • Real Self: Who you truly are.

• Congruence: When your ideal self and real self are similar, you experience congruence, leading to self-worth and a fulfilling life.

• Unconditional Positive Regard: Rogers believed that parents can help children feel valued by showing them unconditional love, which promotes caring attitudes toward themselves.

• Incongruence: When there’s a big gap between the ideal and real selves, this can lead to feelings of distress or maladjustment.

How Much of Our Personality is In-Born or Influenced by Environment?

• Psychologists consider whether our personality comes from our genes (biological) or from the environment and culture we grow up in.

Biological Approach to Personality

• People who support the biological approach think that both inherited traits and bodily processes can explain why we are different from one another.

Evolutionary Psychology

• This viewpoint studies personality traits that are common across all humans and also looks at differences that make us unique. People have developed traits that help them survive and reproduce better.

• Key Theories by David Buss:

  • Life-History Theory: Examines how people use their time and energy, like focusing on growth, having kids, or parenting.

  • Costly Signaling Theory: Investigates how honest or deceptive the signals people give about themselves as friends or partners are.

Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart

• This famous study researched twins from 1979 to 1999 to understand the genetic basis of personality. It looked at 350 pairs of twins—both identical and fraternal—who were raised together or apart.

• Findings: Identical twins often have very similar personalities, regardless of whether they grew up together. This suggests that genetics play a big role in personality.

• Heritability: This term means how much of the difference in people’s characteristics can be explained by their genes.

  • Traits with high heritability (over 0.50) include leadership qualities, obedience, happiness, and how we cope with stress.

  • Keep in mind that genetics is complicated; many genes work together, along with other factors that can influence how genes show up.

Personality Types

• Research also looks at Type A and Type B personalities, which relate to stress and health, and this will be further explained in later chapters.

Temperament

• Most psychologists today believe that our temperament, or natural reactions, has a biological foundation because it can be seen early in life.

• Types of Temperaments (Thomas and Chess, 1977):

  1. Easy: Babies who are generally happy and adaptable.

  2. Difficult: Babies who may be fussy and have strong reactions.

  3. Slow to Warm Up: Babies who are cautious but can adapt with time.

• Temperament can also change based on our surroundings and as we grow up.

Key Dimensions of Temperament

• Two important parts of our temperament that lead to who we are as adults include:

  • Reactivity: How quickly we respond to new or challenging situations.

  • Self-Regulation: How well we can control our responses to those situations.

  • For example, one person might get very anxious in a new situation, while another person may stay calm and hardly notice any change.

Trait Theories of Personality

• Trait theorists believe that our personalities can be understood through different traits, which are the characteristic ways people behave.

• Traits can determine whether you are sociable or shy, optimistic or pessimistic, and more.

Types of Traits

• Cardinal Traits:

  • These are the most dominant traits that shape a person's entire personality.

  • Examples: Ebenezer Scrooge is known for his greed, while Mother Teresa is known for her kindness.

• Central Traits:

  • These are the key traits that together form a person's overall personality.

  • Examples: Someone may be loyal, kind, or grouchy, showcasing a mix of behaviors.

• Secondary Traits:

  • These traits are more situational and less consistent.

  • Examples: A person might get angry when tickled, have specific bedtime routines, or have unusual preferences.

Gordon Allport's Research

• Allport and his colleague found about 4,500 words in English to describe personality traits.

• He categorized these traits into cardinal, central, and secondary traits, emphasizing that we all have a mix of these traits but in different amounts.

Raymond Cattell's 16PF

• Cattell narrowed the list to around 171 traits and developed the 16PF questionnaire (Personality Factor questionnaire).

  • Instead of thinking of traits as either present or absent, he described them on a scale from high to low.

  • Traits measured include: warmth, reasoning, emotional stability, and more.

Personality Factors Measured by the 16PF Questionnaire

Eysenck's Personality Dimensions

• Psychologists Hans and Sybil Eysenck focused on two key dimensions of personality: extroversion/introversion and neuroticism/stability.

  • Extroversion:

  • Extroverts are outgoing and enjoy being around people.

  • Introverts prefer being alone and may get tired from socializing.

  • Neuroticism:

  • High neuroticism means a person is often anxious and emotional.

  • High stability means a person is more calm and can handle stress better.

The Five Factor Model

• The Five Factor Model (often called the Big Five) is another important personality theory widely used today.

• The five factors are:

  • Openness:

  • Being curious, imaginative, and willing to try new things.

  • Conscientiousness:

  • How reliable, organized, and hardworking a person is.

  • Extroversion:

  • Refers to how sociable and outgoing a person is.

  • Agreeableness:

  • Shows how nice, cooperative, and friendly a person is.

  • Neuroticism:

  • The tendency to feel negative emotions like anxiety and sadness.

Big Five Summary

• Each person falls on a spectrum for each factor.

  • For example, a person might be really high in openness and low in neuroticism.

• The Big Five factors tend to remain stable as people age, although conscientiousness can improve over time.

The HEXACO Traits

This breakdown gives a clearer understanding of how personality traits work and how they can vary from person to person.

Personality in Cultural Context

• Personality is influenced by both your genes and the environment you grow up in, including culture.

• Culture refers to the beliefs, customs, art, and traditions of a society. It's passed down through language and by showing behaviors that get rewarded or punished.

Importance of Cultural Influences

• Understanding how culture shapes personality helps psychologists see if personality traits are the same in different cultures or if they vary.

• For example, people from Asian cultures often value group harmony and may be less extroverted, while those in Central and South America might be more open to new experiences.

Regional Differences in the U.S.

• A study found three personality clusters across the U.S.:

  • Cluster 1: In the Upper Midwest and Deep South, people are more friendly and conventional.

  • Cluster 2: In the West, people tend to be relaxed, emotionally stable, and creative.

  • Cluster 3: In the Northeast, people are often stressed, irritable, and depressed.

Figure: This map shows regional personality differences, indicating that personality traits can vary by location.

Selective Migration

• Selective Migration is when people move to places that fit well with their personality. For example, someone who is very social might move to be near family and friends, while a more open person might choose a diverse and innovative place like California.

Individualist and Collectivist Cultures

• Different cultures prioritize different values.

  • Individualist Cultures: Emphasize independence, competition, and personal achievements. Countries like the U.S., England, and Australia reflect this.

  • Collectivist Cultures: Value group needs over individual desires, common in many Asian, African, and South American countries.

Assessing Personality Across Cultures

• To study personality in different cultures, there are three main approaches:

  1. Cultural-Comparative Approach: Tests if Western personality concepts apply globally.

  2. Indigenous Approach: Focuses on personality concepts specific to particular cultures.

  3. Combined Approach: Merges the two to understand both universal traits and culturally specific ones.

This highlights how personality isn't one-size-fits-all and is influenced by many different factors, including culture.

Personality Testing for Police Officers

• Police agencies want to hire the right people because their job is high-stress. Personality tests help them screen applicants for this purpose.

Self-Report Inventories

• Definition: Self-report inventories are tests that people take to assess their personality. They typically ask questions using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

• Likert Scales: Named after Rensis Likert, these are common in self-report inventories. They are easy to administer but can lead to biased answers since applicants might want to seem more favorable than they are.

• Example Questions:

  • "I am easygoing"

  • "I enjoy time alone"

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

• This is one of the most popular personality tests. It originally had 504 true/false questions, now updated to 567 in the MMPI-2.

• Clinical Profile: People’s answers are scored to create a profile based on 10 areas, like:

  • Hypochondriasis

  • Depression

  • Paranoia

• Revisions: The MMPI was updated for modern use and is used in police screenings, as well as for psychological issues.

Validity and Reliability

• Validity: Measures if the test accurately checks what it’s supposed to (like personality).

• Reliability: Ensures consistency; if you take the test now and again in the future, your results should be similar.

Projective Tests

• Definition: Projective tests show pictures or cards to people so they can express what they see. This helps reveal hidden feelings and thoughts without direct questions.

• Example Tests:

  • Rorschach Inkblot Test: A series of inkblots presented to a person, where they describe what they see.

  • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): Participants tell stories about pictures shown to them.

Cultural Specificity in Testing

• Tests may be biased towards certain cultures. Research showed that methods developed for one culture may not work well for others, such as the TAT not producing reliable results for African-American test takers.

• Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks Test (C-TCB): A culturally specific test for African Americans featuring their everyday lives, results in better understanding and connection during testing.

• TEMAS: A test for Hispanic youth, which uses stories and images related to their culture.

This underscores the importance of appropriate personality testing in real-world contexts, especially in fields like law enforcement, where understanding an applicant's unique cultural background is vital.