Personality- the patterns of feelings, motives, and behaviors that set people apart from one another.

Trait- an aspect of personality that is considered to be reasonably stable.

Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician, believed that traits were the result of different combinations of bodily fluids called humors.

Yellow bile, which was connected with a choleric, or quick-tempered, disposition.

Blood, which was connected with a sanguine, or warm and cheerful temperament.

Phlegm, which was linked with a phlegmatic, or sluggish and cool, disposition.

Black bile, which was associated with a melancholic, thoughtful temperament.

Gordon Allport believed that traits are the building blocks of personality and a person’s behavior is a product of his or her particular combination of traits.

Hans Eysenck focused on relationships between two personality dimensions: introversion-extroversion and emotional stability-instability. This is similar to the one suggested by Hippocrates.

Five-Factor Model- refers to recent research that suggests that there may be five basic personality factors.

The psychoanalytic approach to personality teaches that all people, even the most well-adjusted, undergo inner struggles.

People are born with certain biological drives such as aggression, sex, and the need for superiority. These drives, however, may come into conflict with laws, social norms, and moral codes. Its an inner contest between the opposing forces of drives and rules.

Sigmund Freud- created the “inner conflict” approach to personality theory.

Freud believed that many of people’s deepest thoughts, fears, and urges remain out of their awareness pushed into their unconsciousness.

In psychoanalysis Freud explored the unconscious by encouraging people to talk about what's on their mind.

Freud believed that the mind has three basic psychological structures: the id, the ego, and the superego.

The id represents basic drives such as hunger. It demands pleasure through instant gratification and pays no attention to laws, social customs, or the needs of others.

It follows the pleasure principle, the urge for an immediate release of energy or emotion that will bring personal gratification , relief, or pleasure.

Freud says that the id is present at birth. The ego, however, develops because a child’s demands for instant gratification cannot be met or because meeting these demands may be harmful.

The ego stands for reason and good sense. It tries to satisfy the id in realistic ways.

It is guided by the reality principle, the understanding that in the real world we can’t always get what we want.

The superego develops throughout early childhood. It functions according to the moral principle. It provides us with our moral sense by incorporating the standards and values of our family and community.

The superego acts as the conscience and floods the ego with feelings of guilt and shame when we think or do something that is wrong.

According to Freud, people with healthy egos, and therefore healthy personalities, find ways to balance the id’s demands and the superego’s warnings.

Defense mechanisms are methods the ego uses to avoid recognizing ideas or emotions that may cause personal anxiety. These defenses operate unconsciously.

Repression removes anxiety-causing ideas from conscious awareness by pushing them into the unconscious.

This is not always successful as it results in outbursts of anger and the development of other psychological and emotional problems.

Rationalization- the use of self-deception to justify unacceptable behaviors or ideas.

Displacement is the transfer of an idea or impulse from a threatening or unsuitable object to a less threatening object.

Regression- when a person is under a great deal of stress he or she will return to behavior characteristic of an earlier stage of development.

Projection is when people see their faults and unacceptable thoughts in others.

People who use the defense of reaction formation act contrary to their genuine feelings in order to keep their true feelings hidden.

Denial- a person refuses to accept the reality of anything that is bad or upsetting

Sublimation- channeling basic impulses into socially acceptable behavior.

Freud believed that personality developed through five stages.

Children encounter conflicts during each stage.

If the conflict is not resolved, Freud believed that the child might become fixated or stuck at an early stage of development.

Freud believed that an adult’s psychological problems might actually stem from unresolved childhood conflicts.

During the oral stage- infants are continuously exploring their world by picking up objects and putting them in their mouth.

Infants are dependent upon adults for survival. If caretakers are not meeting needs the child may become fixated at the oral stage.

As an adult this might lead to smoking, overeating, excessive talking, nail biting, and might be inclined to have clinging, dependent interpersonal relationships.

According to Freud, the anal stage occurs between one and a half and two and a half.

During this stage, children learn that they can control their own bodily functions.

Conflict during this stage can lead to anal-retentive traits such as excessive use of self control, perfectionism, and excessive needs for order and cleanliness.

At three years old the phallic stage begins. Boys and girls begin to notice physical differences between them and often become very attached to the opposite sex parent.

Freud argued that complex emotions during this stage could lead to depression, excessive guilt, and anxiety later in life.

By age 5 or 6 Freud believed that children would retreat from conflict and repress all aggressive urges which would cause them to enter the latency stage.

Latent means hidden.

The final stage is the genital stage, which is entered at puberty. The adolescent becomes more aware of their gender identity.

Conflict from earlier development stages resurface.

Oedipus Complex- the emotions and ideas during the phallic stage that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via repression, that concentrates upon a child's desire to sexually possess the parent of the opposite sex (e.g. males attracted to their mothers, whereas females are attracted to their fathers).

FYI- Oedipus refers to an ancient Greek mythological character Oedipus, who unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother. A play based on the myth, Oedipus Rex, was written by Sophocles, ca. 429 BC.

Freud argued that girls desire a penis, and the power that it represents. This is described as penis envy. She sees the solution as obtaining her father's penis.

She develops a sexual desire for her father which leads to the desire to replace and eliminate her mother.

The girl employs the defense mechanism of displacement to shift the object of her sexual desires from her father to men in general.

Carl Jung- a Swiss psychologist who had been a colleague of Freud’s. He dramatically altered Freud’s theories and placed a greater emphasis on mysticism and religion.

Jung believed that people not only have a personal unconscious that stores material that has been forgotten or repressed but also an inherited collective unconscious. This is a storage of the human concepts shared by all people across all cultures.

The structural components of the collective unconscious are basic, primitive concepts called archetypes. Archetypes are ideas and images of the accumulated experience of all humans. Examples include: the hero the maiden, the wise old man, and the nurturing mother.

Jung argued that archetypes influence our thoughts and feelings and they help form a foundation on which our personality develops.

Alfred Adler was another follower of Freud.

Inferiority Complex- people are basically motivated by a need to overcome feelings of inferiority.

Erik Erickson- believed that social relationships are the most important factors in personality development.

Erickson expanded on Freud’s five stages of development and formulated a theory of psychosocial development consisting of eight stages.

Behaviorism- founded by John Watson who claimed that external forces or influences, not internal influences such as traits or inner conflict, largely shape people’s preferences and behavior.

B.F. Skinner agreed that we pay attention to how people behave and avoid trying to see within their minds.

Watson and Skinner discarded ideas of personal freedom, choice and self-direction.

Skinner suggested that environmental influences, such as parental approval and social custom, condition or shape us into wanting some things and not wanting others.

Humanists believe that self-awareness is the very core of humanity.

They focus on people’s pursuits of self-fulfillment and ethical conduct.

They believe that people are truly free to do as they choose with their lives and are, therefore, responsible for the choices that they make.

Abraham Maslow believed that humans are separated from lower animals because they recognize their desire to achieve self-actualization; to reach their full potential.

People must take their own paths to self-actualization because they are unique.

Accomplishing this requires taking risks.

Carl Rogers believed that people shape their own personalities through free choice and action. This is called self theory.

He placed great emphasis on the human ability to derive a self-concept, a view of one’s self as an individual.

The self is the center of each person’s experience, an ongoing sense of who and what one is and is the guiding principle behind both personality and behavior.

Rogers believed that the key to happiness and healthy adjustment is congruence, or consistency between one’s self-concept and one’s experience.

Rogers assumed that we all develop a need for self-esteem which is a belief in one’s self, or self-respect.

The sociocultural perspective focuses on the roles of gender, ethnicity, and culture in the formation of personality.

One aspect of culture that is focused on is the level of individualism or collectivism in a society. An individualist see the self as separate from other people, while a collectivist sees the self as complete only in terms of their relationships to others.

Personalities are influenced not only by traits and learning but also by cultural settings.

Acculturation is the process of adapting to a new or different culture.

Some immigrants become assimilated, or completely absorbed into the new culture.

Others choose to maintain separation.

Others become bicultural and successfully integrate both sets of customs and values.

People who are bicultural have the highest sense of self-esteem.

Adopting the ways of the new society without giving up a supportive cultural tradition and sense of ethnic identity apparently help people function most effectively.