Study Notes on Personality

CHAPTER 10 PERSONALITY: THE UNIQUENESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Learning Objectives

  • At the end of this session, students should be able to:

    • Understand the nature and definitions of personality.

    • Explore different theories underlying personality and their contributions to a holistic understanding of humans.

    • Describe different types of personality.

    • Realize that personality is shaped by both heredity and environment.

    • Understand various personality disorders, their causes, and possible treatments.

Definition of Personality

  • Personality: Refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Guide Questions for Understanding Personality

  1. What makes people behave as they do?

  2. Are people ordinarily aware of what they are doing, or is their behavior a product of hidden, unconscious motives?

  3. Is human conduct largely a product of nature, or does it derive mainly from environmental influences?

  4. Can individuals freely choose to mold their personality, or are their lives shaped by forces beyond their control?

  5. Why do some individuals develop disordered personalities while others seem to grow toward psychological health?

Etymology of Personality

  • The term personality is derived from the Latin word "persona" which means a theatrical mask worn by Roman actors in Greek drama.

  • Personality is defined as a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that provide both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior.

Two Key Components of Personality

  1. Uniqueness: Personality distinguishes individuals from one another.

  2. Consistency: Personality exhibits a relative endurance or consistency across different situations and over time.

Perspectives on Personality
Psychoanalytic Perspective

  • Key Assumptions: Personality resides in the unconscious mind; early childhood experiences lay the foundation for adult personality.

    • Theorist: Sigmund Freud

    • Concepts: Unconscious, Preconscious, Conscious; components of personality such as Id, Ego, and Superego.

    • Id: Represents impulse and desire; pleasure principle.

    • Ego: The reality-based part of the mind; reality principle.

    • Superego: The moral component that monitors and controls behavior.

Key Theories in Psychoanalytic Perspective

  • The influence of childhood experiences and unconscious drives on personality, particularly focusing on drives related to sex and aggression, are emphasized as central to Freud's theory.

Defense Mechanisms in Psychoanalytic Theory

  1. Repression: The ego protects itself by repressing threatening impulses into the unconscious.

  2. Reaction Formation: Overemphasizing the opposite of threatening impulses in thoughts and actions.

    • Example: A child may express love for an abusive parent while harboring hate internally.

  3. Projection: Attributing one’s negative feelings to others.

    • Example: A spouse may accuse their partner of selfishness when they themselves are selfish.

  4. Sublimation: Transforming unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable motivations.

    • Example: An aggressive individual engages in competitive sports instead.

  5. Introjection: Incorporating positive qualities of another into one’s ego, such as adopting values from a role model.

  6. Denial: Refusing to accept unpleasant realities.

  7. Regression: Reverting to behaviors of an earlier developmental stage during times of stress.

  8. Fixation: A permanent attachment of libido to an earlier developmental stage, leading to personality traits related to that stage (e.g., adult behaviors stemming from oral fixation).

  9. Displacement: Redirecting feelings of anger or frustration to a different target.

Individual Theories from Major Psychoanalytic Theorists

  1. Alfred Adler:

    • Key Concept: Striving for Superiority; individuals strive to overcome feelings of inferiority.

    • Considerations: Compensation and Inferiority Complex influence personality.

    • Birth Order: His theories also suggest that birth order can impact personality traits.

  2. Carl Jung:

    • Concepts include the Personal Unconscious (individual unique experiences) and the Collective Unconscious (shared universal memories).

    • Archetypes: Includes Shadow, Anima, and Animus representing collective human experience and theoretical constructs in personality.

  3. Karen Horney:

    • Proposed concepts like Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety, focusing on fear originated in childhood.

    • Identified three neurotic trends: move toward others (compliance), against others (aggression), and away from others (detachment).

Humanistic-Positive Psychological Theories
Abraham Maslow

  • Hierarchy of Needs:

    • Describes a progression of human needs culminating in Self-Actualization which represents the full realization of one’s potential, characterized by spontaneity, simplicity, and creativity.

Carl Rogers

  • Emphasized two forms of self-evaluation: Real Self and Ideal Self.

  • Discussed Unconditional Positive Regard: an important aspect of personality development wherein acceptance is granted independently of behavior.

Positive Psychology

  • Focuses on positive experiences and states including hope, optimism, wisdom, creativity, and spirituality.

Social-Cognitive Learning Theories
Walter Mischel

  • Agreed that personality exhibits stable behaviors over time, yet disagreed that behavior is entirely stable across different contexts.

Trait Theories
Gordon Allport

  • Classified personality structure into traits:

    1. Cardinal Traits: Dominant traits defining the individual.

    2. Central Traits: General characteristics that form core aspects of one's personality.

    3. Secondary Traits: More variable; less important traits that may change in different situations.

McCrae and Costa

  • Employed factor analysis to ascertain key personality traits identified as the Big Five:

    • Openness to Experience

    • Conscientiousness

    • Extraversion

    • Agreeableness

    • Neuroticism

Evolutionary-Biological Theories
Buss and Eysenck

  • Discussed how biological mechanisms contribute to personality traits and how they reflect adaptive solutions to survival and reproductive challenges.

  • Eysenck’s theory includes dimensions of personality such as Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Psychoticism.

Measuring Personality

  • Personality can be assessed through various methods including:

    • Behavioral Observation

    • Interviewing

    • Projective Tests (e.g., Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test)

    • Personality Questionnaires (e.g., MMPI, CPI).

Conclusion

  • Personality encompasses the essence of who we are, merging our uniqueness with consistency in behavior.

  • Personality traits act as determinants, affecting behavioral thresholds that make certain actions more likely than others.

  • Theories of personality strive to organize observations and encourage testable hypotheses, significantly contributing to our understanding of personality through various perspectives: psychoanalytic, humanistic, social-cognitive, trait, and evolutionary-biological perspectives.