Chapter 14 – Personality

Personality

·      Individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

·      Psychodynamic theories of personality (think the unconscious mind, and associated motives and conflicts) affect our behavior

·      Started by Sigmund Freud, a doctor specializing in nervous disorders in the late 1800

Psychoanalysis

·      Freud’s theory of personality

o   We are influenced by events in our childhood

o   We are ruled by unconscious forced

§  Can get insights into unconscious through free association (say whatever came to mind, no matter how embarrassing or trivial)

o   We resist painful self-insights

o   We often transfer our feelings for one thing onto another

·      Freud compared mind to an iceberg

·      Freud divided personality into 3 parts:

o   Id

§  Most primitive

§  Completely unconscious

§  Seeks immediate gratification

§  Operates on “Pleasure Principle” – obtains pleasure, avoid pain, regardless of consequences

§  Libido – sexual energy force that fuels our pleasure-seeking

o   Ego

§  Mediates between id and superego

§  Partly conscious perceptions, thoughts, judgments and memories

§  Operates according to “Reality Principle” – gratification must be delayed until situation is appropriate

o   Superego

§  Partly conscious

§  Motivates us to behave in ideal ways

§  Represents values and morals

§  Judges right from wrong

§  Leads us to feel pride or guilt

§  Strives for perfection

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

·      Personality forms during first few years

·      Children pass through series of stages

·      During these stages, id focused on distinct pleasure-sensitive areas of body called erogenous zones

·      Oral Stage

o   0-18 months

o   Pleasure from oral stimulation; put things in mouth

o   Weaning is major conflict

·      Anal Stage

o   Age 18-36 months

o   Pleasure focused on anus and elimination

o   Toilet training is conflict

·      Phallic Stage

o   Ages 3-6

o   Pleasure felt in genital area

o   Oedipus conflict

§  Sexually attracted to opposite sex parent and jealous of same-sex parent

o    Identification

§  Repress envy; superego causes them to identify with same-sex parent and adopt their values

·      Latency Period

o   Ages 6-Puberty

o   Sexual impulses are dormant

o   Spend time with friends of same sex

·      Genital Stage

o   Puberty on

o   Mature phase of adult sexuality and functioning

o   Conflict between drives and social prohibitions

·      Fixation

o   If receives too much or too little gratification in one of the stages, can become stuck at this stage and show various personality types:

§  Oral

§  Anal

Freud’s Defense Mechanism

·      Ego protects itself with these ways to minimize anxiety and reduce conflict

o   Repression

§  Push anxiety-provoking thoughts out of awareness

o   Denial

§  Primitive form of repression in which anxiety-provoking events never enter awareness

§  “See no evil; hear no evil”

o   Projection

§  Project unacceptable impulses onto others

§  Say “he is mad at me” when you are mad at him

o   Reaction Formation

§  Convert unacceptable feeling into its opposite

§  A man who is attracted to me but hates and disparages gay men

o   Rationalization

§  Make excuses for failure

§  “I don’t like that class/professor anyway” after receiving bad grade

o   Sublimation

§  Channel id’s urges into socially acceptable activities

§  Thought to be healthy

Freud

·      Freud thought repressed urges could appear as symbols in dreams or as slips of the tongue in speech

·      He said dreams are the royal road to the unconscious

o   Manifest content – what we remember

o   Latent content – what unconscious wishes are

·      Freudian slip

o   That mistakes in speech indicated our unconscious wishes

o   Calling your partner by your previous partner’s name

o   At a work meeting saying “let’s focus on the burden” instead of “let’s focus on the budget”

Freud’s Legacy

·      Neo-Freudian theorists

o   Carl Jung

§  Unconscious also contains inherited memories from our ancestral past – “Collective unconscious”

§  Personality development continues into adulthood

o   Alfred Adler

§  Personality formed from social (not sexual) conflicts; coined “inferiority complex”

§  Impact of birth order and “sibling rivalry”

·      Modern Psychodynamic Theory

o   Much of our mental life is unconscious

o   We often struggle with inner conflicts (among wishes, fears, and values)

o   Childhood shapes our personality and ways of becoming attached to others

·      Research has not supported many of Freud’s ideas

·      Projective Personality Test

o   Shortcut to the unconscious. People asked to respond to an ambiguous stimulus; they should project their fears, hopes, etc. onto it

o   Rorschach – set of 10 inkblots

o   Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) – shows characters in ambiguous situations and patient makes up a story about the picture

Humanistic Approach to Personality

·      Originally a reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviorism

·      Inspired by Carl Roger’s and Abraham Maslow

·      Humanistic approaches emphasize personal experience and propose that people seek to fulfill their human potential

·      This view is the basis for “Positive Psychology” subfield

Humanistic Approach – Abraham Maslow

·      Maslow studied healthy people instead of troubled people

·      People with meaningful, productive lives shared these characteristics:

o   Being self-aware

o   Self-accepting

o   Open and spontaneous

o   Loving and caring

o   Not paralyzed by others’ opinions

·      We are motivated by a hierarchy of needs, goin from the most basic to the most complex

·      In general, you cannot move to the next level without satisfying needs at the current level

·      A person who is self-actualized has attained their greatest potential. Not everyone reaches this

Humanistic Approach to Personality

·      Carl Rogers noticed that his clients often:

o   The individual should decide the course of their own therapy

o   Showed a will to improve and reach their full potential

Humanistic Approach – Carl Rogers

·      He developed client-centered therapy

o   The individual should decide the course of their own therapy

o   Therapist should exhibit:

§  “genuineness” (open with their feelings)

§  Empathic understanding (be able to put themselves in client’s shoes)

§  Acceptance and unconditional positive regard (respect them as a human being no matter their behavior)

·      Carl Rogers thought the “self-concept” was important

o   Ideas, perceptions, and values that characterize “me”

o   If self-concept is positive, we act and perceive the world positively

o   If negative, we are dissatisfied and unhappy

o   We need to help others know, accept, and be true to themselves

The Trait Approach to Personality

·      Tries to describe and measure basic units of personality – stable and enduring behavior patterns

·      Each person has unique combination of traits, scoring high on some and low on others

The Myers-Brigg Personality Inventory

·      Used for counseling, leadership training, and work-team development

·      It should be considered a tool and not a predictor of behavior

·      Dimensions are:

·      Extroversion/Introversion

·      Thinking/Feeling

·      Sensing/Intuition

·      Judging/Perceiving

Personality Inventories

·      Best known is the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

o   10 clinical scales assessing depressive tendencies, masculinity/femininity, introversion/extroversion

o   Can determine between “normals” and those with psychological disorders

o   Also contain validity scales (lie scales)

The “Big Five” Personality Traits

·      These are traits that consistently emerge, even across different cultures

·      These traits reliably predict important life outcomes

o   High scores on conscientiousness predicts better school performance and workplace success

o   High scores on agreeable predict how law-abiding you are

o   Extroverts spend less time at home

o   Those high on neuroticism were more stressed during Covid

·      This is the best tool we have to assess personality

Five Major Personality Factors that Consistently Emerge

·      Neuroticism

o   Prone to anxiety and negative affect (outward expression of feelings and emotions)

·      Extraversion

o   Desire stimulation, activity, social interaction

·      Openness

o   Receptive to new ideas and experiences

·      Agreeableness

o   Selfless concern for others

·      Conscientiousness

o   Tend to be reliable, disciplined, ambitious

Cognitive Social-Learning Approach to Personality

·      Locus of control – expectancy that reinforcements are controlled by internal or external factors

o   Internal – believe you are in charge of your destiny

o   External – believe you are at mercy of outside factors (fate, other people)

·      Self-Efficacy

o   Feeling of competence; you are capable of doing what is required to attain a desired outcome

o   May differ across situations

o   The more you have for a given task, more likely you are to try hard, persist, and succeed

Biological Roots of Personality

·      Identical twins raised apart are as similar as those raised in the same home

·      It is estimated that personality differences in the population are 40-50% genetically determined

·      Genetic contributions to personality can influence what experiences we have