personality 1

PERSONALITY

  • Definition of Personality: Unique and relatively stable ways in which people think, feel, and behave.

    • Includes character and temperament.

    • Character: Value judgments made about a person’s moral and ethical behavior.

    • Temperament: Enduring characteristics with which each person is born.

    • Etymology: Comes from the Latin word "persona" (a mask worn by an actor).

    • Ancient theatrical masks were used to represent/project a specific personality trait.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON PERSONALITY

Hippocrates' Theory

  • Proposed that personality traits and human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four bodily fluids, known as “humors.”

    • Choleric: Yellow bile from the liver.

    • Melancholic: Black bile from the kidneys.

    • Sanguine: Red blood from the heart.

    • Phlegmatic: White phlegm from the lungs.

  • Galen: Believed illnesses and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in the humors. Each person exhibits one of the four temperaments.

    • Historical descriptions of temperaments:

    • Choleric: Passionate, ambitious, bold.

    • Melancholic: Reserved, anxious, unhappy.

    • Sanguine: Joyful, eager, optimistic.

    • Phlegmatic: Calm, reliable, thoughtful.

Franz Gall's Phrenology

  • Developed a chart linking skull areas to specific personality traits (discredited for lack of empirical support).

    • An 1825 lithograph illustrates Gall examining a woman’s skull.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

  • Freud: Founder of the psychoanalytic movement; first comprehensive theory of personality, explaining normal and abnormal behaviors.

    • Emphasized that personality is shaped by experiences and the mind's structure.

Structure of the Mind

  • Divided into three levels: conscious, preconscious, unconscious.

    • Conscious mind: Aware of immediate surroundings and perceptions.

    • Preconscious: Accessible information not currently in conscious awareness.

    • Unconscious mind: Contains thoughts, feelings, and memories not easily accessible; crucial for human behavior.

Freud's Conception of Personality Structure

  • Divided into three parts:

    • ID: Operates on the pleasure principle; focused on immediate gratification and survival; completely unconscious.

    • Superego: Moral center, based on the morality principle; includes the ego ideal (standards for moral behavior) and conscience (produces feelings of guilt).

    • Ego: Develops to mediate between ID and reality; operates on the reality principle, working to satisfy ID's demands without negative consequences.

PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

  • Five stages linked to sexual development; conflicts at each stage can lead to fixation and resultant personality traits.

    1. Oral Stage:

    • Age: First 18 months.

    • Erogenous zone: Mouth.

    • Primary conflict: Weaning.

    • Fixation consequences: Oral fixation.

    1. Anal Stage:

    • Age: 18-36 months.

    • Erogenous zone: Anus.

    • Conflict: Toilet training.

    • Fixation consequences: Anal expulsive personality (messy, destructive) vs. anal retentive personality (neat, fussy).

    1. Phallic Stage:

    • Age: 3-6 years.

    • Erogenous zone: Genitals.

    • Conflicts: Castration anxiety (males) and penis envy (females).

    • Oedipus complex (males) and Electra complex (females).

    1. Latency Stage:

    • Age: 6 to puberty.

    • Conflict: Sexual feelings repressed; focus on intellectual, physical, and social development.

    1. Genital Stage:

    • Age: Puberty onwards.

    • Conflict: Reawakening of sexual feelings with appropriate societal targets.

DEFENSE MECHANISMS

  • Definition: Unconscious distortions of reality aimed at reducing stress and anxiety caused by conflicts among ID, ego, and superego.

  • Examples and Definitions:

    • Denial: Refusal to acknowledge a threatening situation (e.g., a smoker insists smoking is harmless).

    • Repression: Pushing threatening situations out of conscious memory (e.g., a person fearing dogs cannot remember being bitten by one).

    • Rationalization: Making excuses for unacceptable behavior (e.g., speeding reflected as trying to keep up with traffic).

    • Projection: Attributing one's unacceptable thoughts to another (e.g., someone unfaithful accuses their partner of faithlessness).

    • Reaction Formation: Exhibiting opposite emotional reactions (e.g., a prejudiced individual acts overly accepting).

    • Displacement: Redirecting feelings to a less threatening target (e.g., criticizing a restaurant after a bad performance review).

    • Regression: Reverting to childlike coping mechanisms (e.g., bedwetting after a new sibling).

    • Identification: Adopting traits of someone admired to cope with anxiety.

    • Compensation: Overachieving in one area to make up for perceived deficits in another (e.g., a poor athlete focusing on academics).

    • Sublimation: Channeling negative urges into socially acceptable behavior (e.g., aggression into sports).

MODERN PERSPECTIVES AND CRITICISM

  • Current research supports some of Freud's concepts, like defense mechanisms and unconscious influences.

  • Critique:

    • Some concepts cannot be scientifically tested (e.g., dream interpretation).

    • The applicability of Freud's theories is questioned due to his focus on a narrow demographic (wealthy Austrian women).

NEO-FREUDIAN THEORIES

  • Alfred Adler: Focus on seeking superiority and compensating for inferiority.

    • Developed the concept of the inferiority complex.

    • Emphasized social relationships and developed birth order theory (mixed evidence on its impact on personality).

  • Karen Horney: Proposed theories on basic anxiety and replaced penis envy with womb envy reflecting feminist psychology views.

    • Discussed neurotic personalities handled maladaptive relationships.

  • Walter Mischel: Suggested behavior varies across situations but is consistent within similar contexts, sparking the person-situation debate.