PERSONALITY THEORIES AND APPROACHES

• Personality can be defined as a person’s enduring general style of dealing with others and with the world around them.

• Personality theories can be divided into four broad categories: psychoanalytic, humanistic, social-cognitive, and trait theories.

Psychoanalytic Theories

• Sigmund Freud and those who followed his basic beliefs and practices typify psychoanalytic theories of personality.

  • The term psychodynamic means a psychological approach based on a marriage of Freudian concepts, such as the unconscious, with more modern ideas.

• In free association, a therapist actively listens, while the patient relaxes and reports anything that comes into his mind, no matter how absurd it might seem.

• The id is the source of mental energy and drive.

  • It encompasses all of the basic human needs and desires, including those for food and sex.

  • The id operates on the pleasure principle, which is the desire to maximize pleasure while minimizing pain.

• The superego is the internal representation of all of society’s rules, morals, and obligations.

  • The superego represents the polar opposite of the id.

• The ego, according to Freud, is the part of the mind that allows a person to function in the environment and to be logical.

  • It operates on the reality principle, which is that set of desires that can be satisfied only if the means to satisfy them exists and is available.

• Repression is the process by which memories or desires that provoke too much anxiety to deal with are pushed into the unconscious.

• Displacement is a defense mechanism that directs anger away from the source of the anger to a less threatening person or object.

• Reaction formation is another defense mechanism by which the ego reverses the direction of a disturbing desire to make that desire safer or more socially acceptable.

• Other defense mechanisms include the following:

  • Compensation—making up for failures in one area through success in others

  • Rationalization—creating logical excuses for emotional or irrational behavior

  • Regression—reverting to childish behaviors

  • Denial—the refusal to acknowledge or accept unwanted beliefs or actions

  • Sublimation—the channeling or redirecting of sexual or aggressive feelings into a more socially acceptable outlet

• According to Horney’s theory, basic anxiety, or the feeling of being alone in an unfamiliar or hostile world, is a central theme in childhood.

  • The interactions between the child and the parent, as the child deals with this anxiety, form the basis for adult personality.

• Carl Jung formulated another theory of personality that was, in part, a response to Freud’s theory.

  • Jung believed that the mind comprises pairs of opposing forces.

  • Jung believed that all of the opposing forces and desires of the mind were balanced by a force called the Self.

  • Jung proposed that each of us has a personal unconscious comprised of repressed memories and clusters of thought and a collective unconscious of behavior and memory common to all humans and passed down from our ancient and common ancestors.

• Archetypes are the behaviors and memories in the collective unconscious.

• Alfred Adler, like other psychoanalytic psychologists, believed that childhood is the crucial formative period.

  • He also thought, however, that all children develop feelings of inferiority because of their size and level of competence.

Humanistic Theories

• Humanistic theories of personality emphasize the uniqueness and richness of being human.

  • These theories arose partially in response to behaviorism

• Self-actualization is becoming, in a creative way, the person you are capable of being.

• According to humanistic theories, self-actualization is the ultimate purpose for existence.

• Two humanistic theorists whose work typifies this school of thought are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.

• Our self-concept is our mental representation of who we feel we truly are.

• Rogers believed that conditions of worth, or other people’s evaluations of our worth, distort our self-concept.

• Humanistic theories also address the distinction between collectivistic and individualistic cultures.

• A collectivist culture stresses the importance of community, while an individualistic culture prioritizes personal independence and autonomy.

Social-Cognitive Theories

• Social-cognitive theories of personality are based on the assumption that cognitive constructs are the basis for personality.

• A representative example of a social-cognitive theory of personality was developed by Albert Bandura.

  • Bandura focuses on the concept of self-efficacy as central to personality.

  • Self-efficacy refers to a person’s beliefs about his or her own abilities in a given situation.

• People have different explanatory styles, or ways in which people explain themselves or react in different situations.

  • Explanatory styles can be either positive or negative.

• Another important social-cognitive theory is the locus of control theory.

• Julian Rotter proposed that the extent to which people believe that their successes or failures are due to their own efforts plays a major role in personality.

• People who have an internal locus of control believe that successes or failures are a direct result of their efforts, whereas people with an external locus of control are more likely to attribute success or failure to luck or chance.

Trait Theories

• Trait theories of personality provide quantitative systems for describing and comparing traits or stable predispositions to behave in a certain way.

• A relatively recent and influential theory focuses on the Big Five personality traits, which are introversion-extroversion, neuroticism-stability, agreeableness-antagonism, conscientiousness-undirectedness, and openness-nonopenness.

• Two ways of researching traits are by nomothetic and idiographic analysis.

  • Nomothetic traits such as the Big Five are thought to be universal.

  • Idiographic traits are those that are unique to the individual, such as openness or curiosity.

• Gordon Allport, a trait theorist, identified three types of traits: cardinal (traits that override a person’s whole being), central (the primary characteristics of the person), and secondary (traits that constitute interests).

• Raymond Cattell saw traits differently because he believed that 16 source traits were the basis of personality.

• Walter Mischel recognized that traits are not necessarily consistent across various situations but often vary depending upon the circumstances.

ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES

• Techniques used for assessing personality vary.

• The psychoanalytic approach has traditionally involved the classic one-on-one therapist and patient relationship.

Trait Theory Assessments

• If there were a competition among the various kinds of theorists as to who had the most complete tools for assessment, the trait theorists would win hands down.

• Hans Eysenck developed the Eysenck Personality Inventory, a questionnaire designed to examine people’s personalities based on their traits.

• Cattell named his assessment tool the 16 PF (Personality Factor) Questionnaire, signifying the 16 traits or personality factors it measures.

SELF-CONCEPT, SELF-ESTEEM

• Self-concept refers to how we view ourselves, whereas self-esteem refers to how much we value ourselves.

• The me is comprised of the following:

  • The physical self—our bodies, names, and the like

  • The active self—how we behave

  • The social self—how we interact with others

  • The psychological self—our feelings and personalities

• Young children also make errors of self-evaluation due to the halo effect, which refers to the error by which we generalize a high self-evaluation from one domain to another.

• Self-esteem is also related to whom we compare ourselves to, which is posited by Leon Festinger in his social comparison theory.

TEMPERAMENT

• Temperament is the early appearing set of individual differences in reaction and regulation that form the “nucleus” of personality.

• According to developmental psychologist Mary Rothbart, temperament is generally assessed on three scales: surgency (amount of positive affect and activity level), negative affect (amount of frustration and sadness), and effortful control (ability of a child to self-regulate moods and behavior).

• Jerome Kagan’s work on the physiology of young children showed that children classified as low in effortful control were more likely to have higher baseline heart rates, more muscle tension, and greater pupil dilation.

Next Chapter: Chapter: 16: Clinical Psychology: Disorders