apsych c14--personality

psychodynamic theories of personality (pg 136)

• rooted in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Freud believed much of people’s behavior is controlled by unconcious processes

• personality consists of three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego

  • id:

    • id is in the unconscious and contains instincts and psychic energy

    • wants immediate gratification

    • babies are controlled solely by ids

  • ego:

    • partly in conscious and partly in unconscious and negotiates between desires of the id and limitations of the environment

    • mediates between id and superego

    • protects conscious mind from unconscious using different defense mechanisms

  • superego:

    • sense of right and wrong

• defense mechanisms used by EGO:

  • repression—block thoughts from conscious awareness

  • denial

  • displacement—redirecting one’s feelings toward another person or object. ex: emily is upset about her mom’s negative attitude so she cusses at her friend

  • projection—belief that feelings one has toward someone else are reciprocated. ex: emily believes her ex is in love with her

  • reaction formation—expressing the opposite of how one feels. “i hate my ex”

  • regression—returning to earlier, comforting form of behavior. ex: watching TV the whole day

  • rationalization—coming up with a positive to the negative situation. ex: emily gets excited because now she can find a new bf

  • intellectualization—undertaking an academic study of a topic

  • sublimation—challenging frustration towards a different goal. healthy defense mechanism!

• we can use projective tests, which ask people to interpret ambiguous stimuli, so we can look at what their unconscious is experiencing

• personal unconscious vs. collective unconscious: personal contains threatening memories, collective is passed down through the species and explains certain similarities we see among cultures

humanistic theories of personality

• humanistic theories focus on the importance of self-concept (develops through a person’s involvement with others, and is a person’s global feeling about himself or herself) and self-esteem

• humans want to self-actualize

• people benefit from unconditional positive regard—i will love you no matter what

trait theories

• some people think that we can describe people’s personalities based on main characteristics

• most popular test is the “big five” personality traits: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and emotional stability

• idiographic theories assert that using the same set of terms to describe everyone is impossible. rather, each person needs to be seen in terms of what few traits best characterize his or her unique self

social cognitive theories

• reciprocal determinism: the idea that personality is created by an interaction among the person (and the person’s traits), the environment, and the person’s behavior

• self-efficacy: low self-efficacy means that you feel powerless, while high self-efficacy means that you are optimistic about getting things done

• internal vs. external locus of control

  • internal: you feel responsible for what happens to you

  • external: you feel that luck and other forces outside your own control determine your life

• explanatory style:

  • optimistic ES: internal, global, and table attributions for good things that happen to you. external, specific, and unstable attributions for bad experiences

  • pessimistic: the reverse

• personality inventories are questionnaires that ask people to provide information about themselves