Theories of Personality: Personality Theories

Psychodynamic Approach

• Based on the work of Sigmund Freud
• Has made a major contribution to our thinking with his ideas of the unconscious, repression, ego, etc.
• Explains behavior and personality in terms of unconscious dynamics within the individual
  • Emphasizes internal conflicts, attachments, and motivations
• Adult personalities are formed by experiences in early childhood

Psychodynamic Theories

• Consists of a group of theories that view personality and behavior in terms of the dynamics of driving forces of personality and development such as desire, anxieties, and defenses
• All focus on unconscious mental forces that shape our personalities and the inevitable clash between conflicting forces (impulses/inhibition, individuals/society)
• Well-known Psychodynamic theorists include: Freud, Jung, Adler, Erikson

Projection:

• Blame it on others rather than admitting to it
• Meant to protect ego
• Emphasizes internal conflicts (id, ego, superego)
• Adult personalities -> experiences as a child
  • Modern theories added: social and cultural factors

Issues to Consider

• After-the-fact explanations: very difficult to find empirical support for many of Freud’s views
• Modern psychodynamic theories more likely to see conflict arising from social and cultural factors
• However, this is the only approach that offers a fully-fleshed-out view of personality structure, development, and processes

Humanistic Approach

• These views focus on healthy, human strivings and the uniqueness of each person’s experience
• An approach that emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential
• This perspective is based on the following ideas:
  • We have an innate drive toward personal growth.
  • We exercise free will to control our actions.
  • We are rational beings driven by conscious, not unconscious needs.
• Approach that focuses on human experience, problems, potential, and ideals
• Human nature: ability to choose that is not controlled by genetics, learning, or unconscious forces
• Subjective Experience: private perceptions of reality
• Self-Actualization (Maslow): process of fully developing personal potentials
• Peak Experiences: temporary moments of self-actualization

Humanistic Theories

• Flaws:
  • Not fully fleshed out theories, no structure of personality, mostly processes
  • No strong empirical link between child rearing practices
  • No self-concept
  • Self-actualization is not clearly defined and it is hard to see the qualities in those described as self-actualizers
  • Futuristic; human potential
  • Striving to be a better person
  • Not driven by unconscious needs
  • Focused on the person; no regards to the environment
  • Driven towards self-actualization (Maslow)
  • Positive psychology movement
  • Self-actualization is different for everyone
  • No structure, no core concept

Cognitive Social Theories

• Use learning theory to explain the development of personality
• Situation is considered an important component
• Personality characteristics and situations interact to produce behavior
• Goes beyond traditional learning theories to introduce learned cognitions, and such concepts as vicarious learning, internal/external locus of control, person, situation, interaction
  • More than just reaction to environment
  • Interaction between person and situation
  • Not just the person -> no past

Behavioral Perspectives

• Behaviorism
  • “A theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study observable behavior”
• Behavioral theorists view personality as “a collection of response tendencies that are tied to various stimulus situations.”
• They focus on personality development and how children’s response tendencies are shaped by classical conditioning, operant understanding, and observational learning
• How you respond in the reaction
• Trait/Type
  • Personality is a relatively enduring and consistent set of characteristics/traits
  • Trait theorists aim to describe personality with a small number of traits/factors
• Personality Trait
  • Stable quality a person chows across most situations
• Trait
  • More enduring
  • More consistent
  • Interaction with the situation
• Different types of trait theories:
  • Somatic theories
  • Theories focused on a taxonomy of traits
  • Taxonomy (OCEAN)

The Heritability of Personality Traits

• Heritability
  • A statistical estimate of how many variation in a trait can be attributed to genetics within a given population
  • 0 - 1.0
  • 0.5: 50% of the variation in a personality trait can be attributed to genetics
  • 1.0: 100% of the variation in a personality trait can be attributed to genetics
  • Heritability of personality traits is about 0.5.
  • Within a group of people, about 50% of the variation associated with a given trait is attributable to genetic differences among individuals in the group.
• Adoption Studies
  • Compare correlations between traits of children and their biological and adoptive parents
• Twin Studies
  • Identical twins: share 100% of genes
  • Fraternal twins: share about ½ genes, just like regular siblings
  • Compare same-sex groups of identical and fraternal twins
  • Look at personality traits in adopted identical and fraternal twins

Situational Influences

• Reciprocal Determinism
  • Two-way interaction between aspects of the environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits
  • Aspects of Individual
  • Ex. temperament, learned habits, perceptions, and beliefs
  • Aspects of Situation
  • Ex. opportunities, rewards, or punishments, chance events

Parental Influences

• Parental child-rearing practices have a strong influence on who we become, but research has shown that it is not the primary determinant:

1. The shared environment of the home has little influence on personality
   • The non-shared environment is a more important influence
     • Unique aspects of a person’s environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits
2. Few parents have a single child-rearing style that is consistent over time and that they use with all children
3. Even when parents try to be consistent there may be little relation between what they do and how their children turn out

• Nevertheless, parents still do influence their children in a number of ways:
  • Religious beliefs and values
  • Intellectual and occupational interests, skills
  • Feelings of self-esteem/inadequacy
  • Degree of helpfulness
• Influence on traits that are highly heritable:
  • Aggressiveness
  • Shyness

Social Influence

• Peer Pressure
  • Adolescent Culture
  • Different peer groups, organized by different interests, ethnicity and status
  • Peer acceptance is so important to children and adolescents that being bullied, victimized, or rejected by peers is far from traumatic than punitive treatment by parents
• Cultural Influences on Personality
  • Culture
  • A program of shared rules that govern the behavior of members of a community/society
  • A set of values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by most members of that community
  • Individualistic Cultures
  • The self is regarded as autonomous and individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and relations with others
  • Collectivistic Cultures
  • The self is regarded as embedded in relationships, and harmony with one’s group is prized above individual goals and wishes

Individualistic Cultures vs Collectivist Cultures

• Individualistic Cultures
  • Defined self as autonomous, independent of groups
  • Give priority to individual, personal goals
  • Value independence, leadership, achievement
  • Give more weight to individual’s attitudes and preferences, than to group norms to explain behavior
  • Attend to the benefits and costs of relationships; if costs exceed advantages, a person is likely to drop a relationship
• Collectivist Cultures
  • Defined self as an interdependent part of a group
  • Give priority to needs and goals of group
  • Value group harmony, duty, obligation, security
  • Give more weight to group norms than individual attitudes to explain behavior
  • Attend to needs of group members, if relationship is beneficial to group, but costly to individual, the individual is likely to stay in the relationship

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