Self and Personality Study Notes on Self and Personality Study Guide

Introduction to Self and Personality

• Definition and Core Concepts:
  • Self and Personality: These terms refer to the characteristic ways in which individuals define their own existence. They encompass how experiences are organized and subsequently manifested in behavior.
  • Self: Represents the ideas a person holds about themselves. It is the totality of an individual’s conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts, and feelings regarding themselves. These define an individual at both personal and social levels.
  • Personality: Refers to the relatively stable pattern of behavior that persists across different situations. It reflects the unique and stable qualities that characterize an individual over time.
  • Relation: Self is situated at the core of personality. Understanding both allows for insights into human uniqueness and similarities, as well as the ability to understand behavior in diverse settings.

Concept of Self

• Development of Self:

  • A newborn child possesses no sense of self. The idea of self emerges as the child grows older.
  • Formation is heavily influenced by "significant persons" including parents, friends, and teachers.
  • The basis of self is rooted in interaction with others, subjective experiences, and the meanings attributed to those experiences.
  • The structure of self is modifiable based on new personal experiences and observations of others.

• Self as Subject and Self as Object:

  • Self as Subject (Actor): The self is an entity that performs actions (e.g., "I am a dancer"). In this capacity, the self is the 'knower' actively engaging in the process of knowing itself.
  • Self as Object (Consequence): The self is an entity on which actions are performed or which gets affected (e.g., "I am one who easily gets hurt"). In this capacity, the self is something that can be 'known' and observed.

• Identity Types:

  • Personal Identity: Attributes that distinguish an individual from others, such as name (Sanjana or Karim), specific qualities (honest, hardworking), capabilities (singer, dancer), or personal beliefs (believer in God).
  • Social Identity: Aspects that link a person to a social or cultural group. Examples include identifying as Hindu, Muslim, Brahmin, adivasi, North Indian, or South Indian.

• Kinds of Self:

  • Biological Self: Emerges from biological needs (e.g., a newborn crying for milk out of hunger). This self-modifies within a socio-cultural context.
  • Personal Self: Focuses on concerns primarily related to the individual. It emphasizes personal freedom, responsibility, achievement, and comforts.
  • Social Self (Familial or Relational Self): Emerges in relation to others. It prioritizes cooperation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice, support, and sharing, valuing family and social relationships highly.

Cognitive and Behavioural Aspects of Self

• Self-concept:

  • The way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold regarding our competencies and attributes.
  • It can be positive or negative at general or specific levels (e.g., a positive view of athletic ability but a negative view of mathematical skills).

• Self-esteem:

  • The value judgment a person makes about their own worth.
  • Development: By age $6$ to $7$ years, children form self-esteem in four specific areas: academic competence, social competence, physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance.
  • Impact: High academic self-esteem correlates with better school performance; high social self-esteem correlates with peer popularity. Low self-esteem across all areas is linked to anxiety, depression, and antisocial behavior.
  • Influences: Warm and positive parenting fosters high self-esteem. Over-parenting (making decisions for children unnecessarily) leads to low self-esteem.

• Self-efficacy:

  • The extent to which people believe they can control their life outcomes versus outcomes being controlled by luck or fate.
  • Based on Bandura’s social learning theory. People’s convictions about their effectiveness determine the behaviors they engage in and the risks they take.
  • High self-efficacy leads to less fear and a greater ability to influence or construct life circumstances (e.g., stopping smoking immediately upon deciding).

• Self-regulation:

  • The ability to organize and monitor one's own behavior. High self-monitoring refers to changing behavior based on external environmental demands.
  • Self-control: Deferring or delaying gratification of needs to achieve long-term goals.
  • Techniques for Self-control:
    1. Observation of own behavior: Provides information to change or strengthen aspects of the self.
    2. Self-instruction: Instructing oneself to behave in a specific way.
    3. Self-reinforcement: Rewarding behaviors with pleasant outcomes (e.g., going to a movie after doing well on an exam).

Culture and Self

• Western Perspective:

  • The boundary between self and others is relatively fixed.
  • Self and the group exist as two distinct entities with defined boundaries.
  • Characterized as Individualistic.
  • Holds clear dichotomies: self vs. other, man vs. nature, subjective vs. objective.

• Indian Perspective:

  • The boundary between self and others is shifting.
  • The self can expand to fuse with the cosmos or include others, and then withdraw to focus on individual goals.
  • Characterized as Collectivistic, where the self and group exist in harmonious co-existence.

Concept of Personality

• Etymology: Derived from the Latin word persona, meaning the mask used by Roman actors. In common parlance, it often refers wrongly to external/physical appearance.

• Psychological Definition: Unique and relatively stable qualities that characterize an individual’s behavior across situations and time.

• Key Features:

  1. Contains both physical and psychological components.
  2. Behavioral expression is fairly unique to the individual.
  3. Main features do not change easily over time.
  4. It is dynamic and adaptive to situational demands.

• Box 2.1: Personality-related Terms:

  • Temperament: Biologically based characteristic way of reacting.
  • Trait: Stable, persistent, and specific way of behaving.
  • Disposition: Tendency to react to a situation in a particular way.
  • Character: Overall pattern of regularly occurring behavior.
  • Habit: Over-learned modes of behaving.
  • Values: Goals and ideals considered important to achieve.

Major Approaches to the Study of Personality

• Type Approaches: Focuses on broad patterns of behavior to categorize individuals into specific types.
• Trait Approaches: Focuses on specific psychological attributes (e.g., shyness, friendliness) along which individuals differ in stable ways.
• Interactional Approach: Asserts that behavior is determined by the interaction between internal traits and situational characteristics (rewards or threats).

Type Approaches

• Hippocrates: Classified people into four types based on fluids (humours): Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Melancholic, and Choleric.
• Charak Samhita (Ayurveda): Classifies people based on Tridosha (humoural elements): Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. This defines a person's Prakriti (basic nature).
• Trigunas Typology:
  1. Sattva: Cleanliness, truthfulness, dutifulness, discipline.
  2. Rajas: Intensive activity, desire for gratification, envy, materialism.
  3. Tamas: Anger, arrogance, depression, laziness, helplessness.
• Sheldon's Typology: Based on body build and temperament.
  1. Endomorphic: Fat, soft, round; relaxed and sociable.
  2. Mesomorphic: Strong musculature, rectangular; energetic and courageous.
  3. Ectomorphic: Thin, long, fragile; brainy, artistic, and introverted.
• Jung's Typology:
  • Introverts: Shy, prefer solitude, avoid conflicts, withdraw from stress.
  • Extraverts: Sociable, outgoing, drawn to people-oriented occupations, react to stress through social activity.
• Friedman and Rosenman:
  • Type-A: High motivation, impatient, hurried, always burdened with work. Prone to hypertension and Coronary Heart Disease (CHD).
  • Type-B: Absence of Type-A traits.
  • Type-C (Morris): Prone to cancer; cooperative, unassertive, patient, suppresses negative emotions.
  • Type-D: Characterized by proneness to depression.

Trait Approaches

• Allport’s Trait Theory:

  • Traits are dynamic and integrate stimuli and responses.
  • Cardinal Traits: Highly generalized; the goal around which a life revolves (e.g., Gandhian non-violence).
  • Central Traits: Less pervasive but generalized (e.g., warm, sincere); used in testimonials.
  • Secondary Traits: Least generalized (e.g., 'likes mangoes').

• Cattell’s Factor Theory:

  • Identified $16$ primary or source traits (stable building blocks).
  • Surface traits result from the interaction of source traits.
  • Developed the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF).

• Eysenck’s Theory: Dimensions are biologically/genetically based.

  1. Neuroticism vs. Emotional Stability: Control over feelings (anxious/moody vs. calm/reliable).
  2. Extraversion vs. Introversion: Degree of social outgoingness.
  3. Psychoticism vs. Sociability: Added later; high psychoticism relates to hostility, egocentrism, and antisocial behavior.

• Box 2.2: Five-Factor Model of Personality (Big Five) - Costa and McCrae:

  1. Openness to experience: Imaginative and curious vs. rigid.
  2. Extraversion: Socially active and talkative vs. shy.
  3. Agreeableness: Helpful and friendly vs. hostile and self-centered.
  4. Neuroticism: Emotionally unstable and anxious vs. well-adjusted.
  5. Conscientiousness: Achievement-oriented and responsible vs. impulsive.

Psychodynamic Approach (Sigmund Freud)

• Methods of Study: Free association, dream analysis, and analysis of errors.

• Levels of Consciousness:

  1. Conscious: Thoughts and feelings people are aware of.
  2. Preconscious: Mental activity one becomes aware of only if attending closely.
  3. Unconscious: A reservoir of instinctive animal drives and repressed sexual desires/conflicts.

• Structure of Personality:

  • Id: Source of instinctual energy; works on the pleasure principle (immediate gratification). Includes Libido (life instinct energy).
  • Ego: Works on the reality principle; patient and reasonable, directing id into appropriate behaviors.
  • Superego: The moral branch; internalizes parental authority to control the id and judge behavior as ethical.

• Ego Defence Mechanisms: Ways the ego distorts reality to reduce anxiety.

  • Repression: Anxiety-provoking thoughts are totally dismissed by the unconscious.
  • Projection: Attributing one's own traits to others.
  • Denial: Refusing to accept reality (e.g., denying an HIV diagnosis).
  • Reaction Formation: Adopting behavior opposite to true feelings (e.g., channeling sexual urge into religious fervor).
  • Rationalisation: Making unreasonable behavior seem acceptable (e.g., buying a pen to explain poor exam performance).

• Stages of Psychosexual Development:

  1. Oral Stage: Focus on mouth (feeding, thumb sucking). Bases feelings about the world.
  2. Anal Stage: Age $2-3$; focus on controlling urination and defecation. Conflict between id/ego and pleasure/control.
  3. Phallic Stage: Age $4-5$; focus on genitals. Development of Oedipus Complex (boys) and Electra Complex (girls) involving love for parent of opposite sex and rivalry with same-sex parent. Resolved through identification with same-sex parent.
  4. Latency Stage: Age $7$ to puberty; sexual urges are inactive, energy goes to social/achievement activities.
  5. Genital Stage: Maturity; learning to deal with the opposite sex. Failure leads to fixation or regression (returning to an earlier stage).

Post-Freudian Approaches

• Carl Jung (Analytical Psychology): Human beings guided by aims and aspirations. Introduced the Collective Unconscious containing Archetypes (primordial images like Mother Earth or God).
• Karen Horney: Emphasized human growth and challenged Freud's view of women. Argued psychological disorders result from basic anxiety caused by disturbed interpersonal relationships in childhood.
• Alfred Adler (Individual Psychology): Behavior is purposeful and goal-directed. Personality is influenced by the struggle to overcome the inferiority complex (feelings of inadequacy originating in childhood).
• Erich Fromm: Social orientation. Human beings understand themselves through relationships. Qualities like love and tenderness are crucial. Personality shaped by the desire for freedom and truth.
• Erik Erikson: Focus on rational ego processes and the Identity Crisis during adolescence. Development is a lifelong process.

Other Approaches to Personality

• Behavioural Approach: Focuses on learning S-R (stimulus-response) connections and reinforcement. Personality is the change in response characteristics over time. Includes classical conditioning (Pavlov), instrumental conditioning (Skinner), and observational learning (Bandura).
• Cultural Approach: Personality as adaptation to ecology and culture. Examples: Birhor (nomadic/hunting society) children are socialized to be independent and autonomous, while agricultural society children are socialized to be obedient and nurturant.
• Humanistic Approach:
  • Carl Rogers: Focus on the "fully functioning person." Personality structured around the concept of self. Unhappiness results from a discrepancy between the Real Self and Ideal Self. Emphasized Unconditional Positive Regard.
  • Abraham Maslow: Hierarchy of needs. Real human journey begins with Self-actualisation (reaching fullest potential). Healthy people are aware of themselves, accept responsibility, and live in the "here-and-now."

Assessment of Personality

• Self-report Measures:

  • MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory): $567$ statements (true/false) across $10$ subscales (e.g., depression, schizophrenia). Indian version: JMPI.
  • EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire): Assesses Introversion-Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism.
  • 16PF (Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire): Developed by Cattell; used for career guidance and vocational testing.
  • Limitations: Social desirability and acquiescence (agreeing regardless of content).

• Projective Techniques: Assess unconscious motives using unstructured stimuli.

  • Rorschach Inkblot Test: $10$ inkblots ($5$ B&W, $2$ Red/Black, $3$ Pastel). Phases: Performance proper and Inquiry.
  • TAT (Thematic Apperception Test): Developed by Morgan and Murray. $30$ B&W picture cards plus $1$ blank card. Subjects tell stories about what led to the scene, what is happening, and the outcome.
  • Rosenzweig’s P-F Study: Assesses aggression in frustrating situations using cartoons.
  • Sentence Completion Test: Endings reflect attitudes, motivations, and conflicts.
  • Draw-a-Person Test: Interpretation based on omissions (e.g., no face implies evasion of relationships) or graphic emphasis.

• Behavioural Analysis:

  • Interview: Structured or unstructured. Diagnostic interviewing seeks in-depth info.
  • Observation: Requires trained observers and detailed guidelines. Limitations include the observer's presence contaminating results.
  • Behavioural Ratings: Usually from people who know the assessee. Suffers from Halo Effect (one trait coloring all others) and middle/extreme category bias.
  • Nomination: Peer assessment where group members choose each other for activities.
  • Situational Tests: Situational stress tests involve role-playing under non-cooperative conditions.

Review Questions & Key Concepts

• Review Topics: Definition of self; Indian vs. Western self; Delay of gratification; Trait vs. Type approaches; Freudian personality structure; Horney vs. Adler on depression; Humanistic self-actualisation; Personality assessment constraints.
• Key Terms: Libido, Archetypes, Id/Ego/Superego, Oedipus complex, Self-efficacy, Self-regulation, Cardinal/Central traits, Projective techniques.