Personality Psychology Notes

Introduction to Personality Psychology

  • Definition of personality: An individual's relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that make them different from others.
  • Personality theories:
    • Some focus on negative patterns and "disorder" (e.g., Freud).
    • Others focus on positive patterns (e.g., Rogers).
    • Still others focus on being more descriptive (e.g., Trait theories).

Overview of Approaches

  • Psychodynamic Theories:
    • Focus on unconscious forces and conflicts within the individual.
    • Examples: Freud, Horney, Jung, Adler (though he could be seen as making the most significant break from Freud).
  • Humanistic Psychology:
    • Stresses conscious decision-making, personal growth, and the search for meaning in life.
    • Examples: Rogers, Maslow.
  • Trait Theories:
    • Describe personality in terms of enduring characteristics and patterns of behavior.
  • Learning Approach (Cognitive Social Learning Theory):
    • Emphasizes the role of learning and situational influences in shaping behavior patterns.
    • Example: Walter Mischel.
    • Note: Will not be a main focus.

Sigmund Freud and the Psychodynamic Approach

  • Overview:
    • Focuses on unconscious forces that influence behavior.
    • Sees personality as interplay of conflicting forces.
  • The Unconscious Mind:
    • A repository of memories, emotions, and thoughts, many of them illogical, that affect our behavior even though we are not aware of them.
  • Psychoanalysis:
    • Method of exploring unconscious through talking.
  • Trauma and Unresolved Conflicts:
    • Freud believed people deal with trauma and unresolved conflicts by pushing thoughts and emotions into the unconscious.
  • Catharsis:
    • The release of pent-up emotions, which Freud believed could relieve psychological distress.
    • However, ruminating/focusing on painful emotions can often lead to depression.
  • Three Components of Personality:
    • Id: Primitive desires demanding immediate gratification (pleasure principle).
    • Ego: Rational mediator balancing desires and reality (reality principle).
    • Superego: Internalized societal norms and moral values.

Freud: Defense Mechanisms to Protect the Ego

  • Defense mechanisms are methods used by the ego to defend itself against anxiety.
  • Repression:
    • Definition: The motivated removal of something to the unconscious.
    • Research suggests that suppression leads to better adjustment, and there is little evidence for the validity of repression.
    • Example: A student who had an embarrassing moment in class genuinely does not remember it later, even though others clearly recall it.
  • Denial:
    • Definition: The refusal to believe unpleasant information.
    • Example: You loudly proclaim, "I'm not addicted to coffee!" while holding your third iced latte of the morning and visibly shaking.
  • Rationalization:
    • Definition: Attempt to demonstrate that one’s actions are justifiable.
    • Example: Your roommate gets a box of chocolates delivered to them on Friday afternoon. They went home for the weekend. You eat them, telling yourself that your roommate wouldn’t want them to “go bad” while she is gone.
  • Displacement:
    • Definition: Diversion of a behavior or thought away from its natural target toward a less-threatening target.
    • Example: After being criticized harshly by her supervisor at work, a woman goes home and angrily yells at her roommate over minor chores.
  • Regression:
    • Definition: Return to a more immature level of functioning.
    • Example: When facing a tough assignment, you retreat to your childhood blanket fort, sucking your thumb, eating dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and watching cartoons.
  • Projection:
    • Definition: Attributing one’s own undesirable characteristics to other people.
    • Research suggests this doesn’t lead to lower anxiety.
    • Example: A person who is cheating on their partner might regularly accuse and be suspicious of their partner being unfaithful.
  • Reaction formation:
    • Definition: Presenting oneself as the opposite of what one really is in an effort to reduce anxiety.
    • Example: A student who strongly dislikes another student may overly act friendly and supportive toward that person in public to mask their true feelings and reduce anxiety.
  • Sublimation:
    • Definition: The transformation of sexual or aggressive energies into culturally acceptable, even admirable, behaviors.
    • Example: Frustrated by your boss, you spend all weekend passionately writing a screenplay about a ridiculous, villainous manager who gets comically defeated by interns.

Freud: Psychosexual Stages

  • Libido: Freud's term for psychosexual energy. Freud believed that libido is focused on different parts of the body during childhood, leading to five psychosexual stages:
  • Fixation: When libido becomes stuck at a particular stage due to unresolved conflicts. Freud believed fixation could lead to specific behavior patterns in adulthood.
  • Psychosexual Stages (Note: WILL NOT BE ON TEST):
    • Oral (0-1.5 years): Pleasure from sucking/biting; fixation may lead to concern with dependence/independence, pleasure from eating, drinking, and other oral activities.
    • Anal (1.5-3 years): Focus on expelling or retaining bowels; fixation may result in orderliness or messiness, stinginess or wastefulness, stubbornness.
    • Phallic (3-6 years): Awareness of/focus on genitals; Oedipus/Electra complex may arise. Difficulty feeling closeness, penis envy, fear of castration.
    • Latency (6-puberty): Suppression of sexual interests.
    • Genital (puberty onward): Mature sexual relationships.

Psychosexual Theory and Psychological Problems

  • Freud's views on the causes of psychological problems shifted over time.
    • Initially focused on recent traumatic experiences.
    • Then focused on damage from childhood sexual abuse. Note: there was a history of sexual abuse in his own family.
    • Finally settled on childhood sexual fantasies as the root of personality issues.
  • Oedipus complex: The period when a boy develops a sexual interest in his mother and competitive aggression toward his father (Elektra complex is the female version).
  • Freud’s Evidence:
    • Subjective interpretation of patient’s symptoms, dreams, and “slips of the tongue” (often called Freudian Slips).

Evaluating Freud's Theories

  • Strengths:
    • Highlighted the idea of unconscious processes influencing behavior (though not original to him).
    • Recognized the importance of early childhood experiences.
    • Popularized psychotherapy/”talk therapy” that is still in use by some today.
    • Identified Transference – tendency to react to someone (therapist, partner, etc.) in a particular way because they remind you of someone else, especially your parents – which therapists often find useful.
  • Weaknesses:
    • Lack of empirical support for many of his ideas.
    • Overemphasis on sexual drives.
    • Limited generalizability to diverse populations.
    • There is difficulty of testing most aspects of Freud's theory scientifically – Much is not falsifiable.

Theorists Heavily Influenced by Freud

  • Karen Horney:
    • Kept Freud’s concept of repression.
    • Emphasized detrimental effects a child might feel when neglected.
    • Focused on contrast between ideal self and real self.
    • Challenged Freud's views on female psychology.
    • Emphasized cultural and social influences on personality.
  • Carl Jung:
    • Collective unconscious comprises of the inborn thoughts and images related to cumulative experience of preceding generations.
    • Archetypes are vague images that have always been part of the human experience (e.g., myths, art, etc.).
    • Psychological Types.
    • Like Freud, found dreams significant.

Alfred Adler and Individual Psychology

  • Individual psychology: Psychology of the person as a whole rather than parts.
  • Striving for superiority is a natural motivation to overcome feelings of inferiority and achieve one's full potential.
  • Focused on conscious motivation, goal-directed behavior.
  • Inferiority Complex: Exaggerated feelings of inadequacy and helplessness.
  • Adler believed that mental health is characterized by:
    • A strong social interest - A sense of solidarity and identification with other people that leads to constructive action.
    • The ability to cooperate and contribute to society.
    • He viewed mental health as a positive state, not just the absence of illness.

Humanistic Psychology

  • Humanistic psychology: Deals with consciousness, values, and abstract beliefs, including spiritual experiences and the beliefs that people live and die for.
  • Focuses on:
    • Conscious experience.
    • Personal growth/potential.
    • The search for meaning and purpose.
    • Views humans as inherently good and capable of self-actualization.
    • Rejects the deterministic and reductionistic perspectives of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
    • See people as free to make deliberate, conscious decisions.

Carl Rogers and Unconditional Positive Regard

  • Regards human nature as basically good. It is natural for people to strive for excellence.
  • Self-concept: Our understanding of ourselves.
  • Ideal self: The person we strive to/would like to become.
  • Unconditional positive regard is the complete, unqualified acceptance of another person as he or she is.

Abraham Maslow and the Self-Actualized Personality

  • Self-actualization is the achievement of one’s full potential.
  • Maslow identified a series of characteristics that people with a self-actualized personality would have:
    • Accurate perception of reality
    • Independence and creativity
    • Acceptance of self and others
    • Problem-centered focus
    • Enjoyment of life and peak experiences
    • Good sense of humor
  • Critics claimed Maslow's description of self-actualization is based on his own choice of examples, which is circular reasoning.
  • Maslow emphasized the idea of a healthy personality as something more than the absence of disorder.
  • Maslow's hierarchy of needs: A model of human motivation, with self-actualization at the top.
    • Note: You will not need to know details about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs unless we cover again later in the semester.

Personality Traits & Personality Measurement

Personality Traits

  • Trait approach to personality focuses on identifying and measuring stable personality traits that individuals differ on.
  • Traits vs States:
    • A trait is a consistent tendency in behavior. “A relatively stable predisposition to behave in a certain way. ” (Kassin, 2022)
      • Stable over time
      • Consistent across situations/contexts
      • Focus on individual differences
      • Example: Being outgoing or talkative
    • A state is a temporary activation of a certain behavior.
      • Examples: Being nervous when you go on a blind date, being quiet in the library.
  • Development of trait theories
    • Started by analyzing words (adjectives) used to describe personality.
    • Identified groupings (called factors) of related traits using statistical analysis of large sample of responses (typically in a “checklist” type format).
    • Allport & Odbert (35 trait factors); Cattel (16 trait factors); Costa & McCrae (Big 5 factors)

The Big Five

  • The Big Five Model: A framework for understanding personality based on five core trait dimensions. Note, these are dimensions NOT types – so people score somewhere along a continuous dimension.
    1. Openness to Experience (high vs low)
      • Someone high in openness to experience is likely to have a love of learning, enjoys the arts, engages in a creative career or hobby, and likes meeting unusual people.
      • Someone low in openness to experience probably prefers routine over variety, sticks to what he or she knows, and prefers less abstract arts and entertainment.
    2. Conscientiousness (high vs low)
      • People high in Conscientiousness tend to exhibit higher self-discipline, to be dutiful, and to strive for achievement and competence. Correlates with job success.
      • People low in conscientiousness are much more likely to procrastinate and to be flighty, impetuous, and impulsive.

The Big Five (Continued)

3.  Extraversion vs Introversion
    *   High extroversion is related to seeking excitement/stimulation, being outgoing, talkative, assertive. They are more likely to engage in risky behaviors and abuse alcohol, also tend to report being happier/more satisfied with life.
    *   Introversion is related with being more shy, quiet, introspective, reserved, and thoughtful.
4.  Agreeableness (high vs low)
    *   Those high in agreeableness are compassionate, warm, concerned for others, trusting. Tend to have more stable marriages, better social support, more stable jobs, less likely to be prejudiced.
5.  Neuroticism vs Emotional Stability
    *   Those high in neuroticism are generally prone to anxiety, sadness, worry, and low self-esteem. They may be temperamental or easily angered.
    *   Those high in emotional stability tend to be less impacted by negative emotions, more “even-keeled”, related to better self-control, healthier relationships and better mental health

The Big Five (Continued)

  • Strengths:
    • Predictive power: Useful for understanding behavior in various contexts (e.g., job performance, relationships).
    • Replicable research findings: Studies relating Big Five traits to outcomes have been replicated.
    • Has been validated in multiple countries/languages
  • Limitations:
    • Debate about additional factors: Some argue for factors like selfishness or integrity.
    • Cultural considerations: Better fit in educated, industrial societies with some other society types having fewer stable factors

The Challenge of Measuring Personality

  • Problems with measuring traits – trait definition and trait indicator issues
    • Definition of a trait can be difficult as some seemingly unidimensional traits (e.g., belief in a just world) could actually be multiple distinct traits (multidimensional)
    • People with different trait profiles might have the same propensity to answer a given survey item (indicator) the same way (e.g., self-esteem vs high standards vs humility)
  • Psychologists rely on questionnaires, not direct observation:
    • Behavior fluctuates, observation over time isn't practical.
    • Questionnaires can ask about typical behavior.
  • Problems with Self-Reports:
    • Response styles: Some people tend to agree with/check everything, choose extremes, or always pick the middle option.
    • Who is the most accurate source? You or people who know you (e.g., friends/family)? Typically, these ratings are similar.
    • Cultural and other demographic differences in survey item (indicator) interpretation

Where Does Personality Come From?

  • Nature and Nurture: Both heredity and environment influence personality.
  • Evidence for Heredity:
    • Twin studies: Monozygotic twins are more similar in personality than dizygotic twins.
    • Adoption studies: Adopted children's personalities are more similar to their biological parents than their adoptive parents.
  • The Role of Environment
    • Shared environment: Aspects of the environment shared by family members (e.g., parenting style, socioeconomic status).
    • Unshared environment: Experiences unique to each individual (e.g., peer groups, specific events).
  • Research suggests:
    • Shared environment has a smaller influence on personality.
    • Unshared environment plays a larger role.
    • Schooling can have a significant impact on personality development.

Influences of Age, Culture, and Cohort

  • Personality is moderately stable, but it can change. Stability increases with age. (environment tends to stabilize as age increases also so that a confounding variable as stable environment may lead to more ingrained behavior patterns)
  • Age-Related Trends:
    • Conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, and social dominance increase with age.
    • Openness to experience and social vitality tend to have a slight/gradual decrease.
  • Cross-cultural comparisons are difficult:
    • Response styles often differ by culture – making comparisons difficult
    • Stereotypes about national character may not be accurate and/OR self-reports may be influenced by cultural norms
    • Behavioral observations are more reliable for cross-cultural comparisons.
  • Cohort (generation) effects occur. Increased anxiety and perfectionism in recent generations, possibly due to increased competition.

More Measurement Considerations

  • The Barnum Effect: The tendency to accept vague, generally applicable personality descriptions as accurate. E.g., horoscopes, fortune tellers, mind-readers and some personality tests
  • Why it works:
    • General statements are often true for most people.
    • We want to believe what we are being told about ourselves.
  • Implication: We can't just ask people if a personality test is accurate; we need rigorous scientific methods.
  • Importance of Standardization:
    • Allows for meaningful comparison of scores.
    • Requires establishing norms (average scores, score ranges) based on a representative sample.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

  • The MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory): A widely used standardized test for assessing personality dimensions and clinical conditions.
  • Format: True-false questions;
  • Purpose: Primarily used to identify potential psychological problems. Empirically developed
  • Items were selected based on how well they discriminated between people with and without specific disorders.
  • Not theory-driven: Some items seem counterintuitive, but they were included because they predict well.
  • Example: Items about religious attendance and teasing animals on the depression scale.
  • The MMPI-2's 10 Clinical Scales: See Table 14.3 from the book for the scales and sample items.
  • Detecting Deception:
    • The MMPI includes "lie scales" to catch people trying to present themselves in a more positive light.
    • How it works: Items about improbable virtues or the denial of common flaws.
    • Other tests use similar strategies: For example, asking about experience with illicit skills.

The NEO PI-R: Measuring the Big Five

  • NEO PI-R (NEO Personality Inventory – Revised) is a personality test that measures neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
  • Format: Not an adjective checklist like some other Big-5 measures. Consists of 240 items using a 5 point Likert rating scale (e.g., very inaccurate to very accurate).
  • Strengths: Good reliability and validity; correlates with observable behaviors.
  • Purpose: Primarily to assess normal personality variations.

The Myers-Briggs: Popular, But Flawed

  • The MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator): Categorizes people into 16 personality types based on four dimensions (extraversion-introversion, thinking-feeling, sensing-intuition, judging- perceiving).
  • Origins: Developed by Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, who had no formal training in psychology.
  • Criticisms:
    • Suggests “types” or “categories” of people rather than dimensions whereas empirical research suggests more normally distributed dimensions
    • Poor reliability - retesting often leads to different classifications.
  • Despite limitations, it remains popular: Perhaps because it offers positive, flattering descriptions, sufficiently vague descriptions. MBTI is very popular with businesses, organizations, and job counselors, but not well-regarded by psychological researchers.

Projective Techniques

  • Projective Techniques: Methods designed to encourage people to project their personality characteristics onto ambiguous stimuli. The idea is that people reveal hidden aspects of themselves when interpreting open-ended material.
  • The Rorschach Inkblot Test: Consists of 10 inkblot cards.
    • Administration: Psychologists ask, "What might this be?" and encourage free association.
    • Evaluation: Highly controversial.
      • Interpretations are subjective, lack standardization, and may be influenced by clinician biases. It seldom gives information we couldn’t get in other ways.
      • Defenders claim it can be useful for detecting thought disorders and some personality characteristics when interpreted using standardized methods.
  • The TAT (Thematic Apperception Test): Uses a series of pictures depicting ambiguous scenes.
    • Administration: People create stories about the pictures, including the events leading up to the scene, what's happening now, and what will happen.
    • Assumption: Stories reflect the individual's own needs, conflicts, and motivations.
    • Evaluation: Difficult to assess reliability and validity.

Difficulty of Using a Personality Test Alone to Diagnose

  • Personality tests can help assess personality, but the results should be interpreted cautiously when it comes to diagnosis. A score that seems characteristic of a psychological disorder that is rare may occur in many people without that disorder.

Personality Tests in Action: Offender Profiling

  • Some psychologists try to aid police investigations by constructing personality profiles of the kind of person who would commit a certain crime.
  • Research suggests low accuracy of personality profiles from profilers, though they are consistently better than non-profilers.