Personality

A person’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.

Psychodynamic Perspective

Sigmund Freud

Psychodynamic Perspective• Psychoanalysis – technique

which attempts to expose and interpret underlying unconscious motives and conflicts.

• Psychodynamic Perspective -evolved out of Freud’s original theory.

Freud's Early Exploration into the Unconscious

• Freud used hypnosis and free association (relax and say whatever comes to mind) to delve into unconscious.

Levels of Consciousness in the Mind

• Conscious - things we are aware of right at this moment.

• Preconscious - things we can be aware of if we think of them (like memories).

• Unconscious - hidden reservoir of all our desires, fears and unacceptable thoughts.

Levels of Consciousness• Freudian Slip –

unintentional statements that may reveal our repressed feelings.

• (i.e. “I loathe you… I mean, I love you dear.”)

• Freud believed they come from your unconscious.

Understanding Resilience

• Resilience - The ability to grow and thrive in the face of challenges and to bounce back from adversity.

Pg.498

Freud's Personality Structure

• Ego

• Superego

• Id

Id• Unconscious energy

that drives us to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives.

• Id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

• Hedonistic!!!

Ego

• Develops after the Id.• Works on the Reality

Principle.• Negotiates between

the Id and Superego.• It is what everyone

sees as our “self”.

If you want to be with someone. Your id says just take them, but your ego does not want to end up in jail. So you ask her out and see what happens.

Superego• Develops last at

about the age of 5.• It is our conscience

(what we think the difference is between right and wrong).

• The Ego often mediates between the superego and id.

Defense Mechanisms

• The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

• One way it protects us is through defense mechanisms.

• You are usually unaware that they are even occurring.

ScenarioQuarterback of the high school football team,

Brandon, is dating Jasmine. Jasmine dumps Brandon and starts dating

Drew, president of the chess club.

DrewBrandon

Jasmine

Repression• Pushing anxiety

causing thoughts into our unconscious.

• When asked about Jasmine, Brandon may say “Who?, I have not thought about her for awhile.”

• The Mac Daddy defense mechanism.

Regression• Returning to an earlier

stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way.

• Brandon begins to sleep with his favorite childhood stuffed animal, Rudy.

Denial• Not accepting the ego-

threatening truth.• Brandon may act like

he is still together with Jasmine. He may hang out by her locker and plan dates with her.

Reaction Formation• Expressing the

opposite of how one truly feels.

• Brandon claims he hates Jasmine when he actually doesn’t.

Projection• Believing that others

share the same or similar thoughts, beliefs, values, or positions on any given subject.

• Brandon insists that Jasmine still cares for him.

Rationalization• Coming up with self-

justifying explanations or excuses.

• “Jasmine was not that hot anyway. I’ll find a better girlfriend.”

Displacement• Redirecting one’s

feelings toward another person or object.

• Often displaced on less threatening things.

• Brandon may take out his anger on another kid by bullying.

Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development

• Freud believed that your personality developed in your childhood.

• Mostly from unresolved problems in the early childhood.

• Believed that children pass through a series of 5 psychosexual stages.

• The id focuses it’s libido (sexual energy) on a different erogenous zone.

Oral Stage• 0-18 months.• Pleasure center is on

the mouth.• Sucking, biting and

chewing.• Weaning is the task

that needs to be dealt with.

Anal Stage• 18-36 months.• Pleasure focuses

on bladder and bowel control.

• Controlling ones life and independence.

• Toilet training.

Phallic Stage• 3-6 years.• Pleasure zone is the

genitals.• Coping with

incestuous feelings.• Oedipus and Electra

complexes.

Latency Stage• 6 to puberty.• Dormant sexual

feelings.• Cooties stage.• Identification process –

girls doing girl things and boys… boy things.

Genital Stage• Puberty to

death.• Maturation of

sexual interests towards others.

Fixation• A lingering focus on

pleasure-seeking energies from earlier psychosexual stages.

• Where conflicts were unresolved.

Orally fixated people may need to chain smoke or chew gum.Or deny the dependence by acting tough or acting very sarcastic.Anally fixated people can either be anal expulsive (sloppy) or anal retentive (neat freaks).

Criticisms of Freud• He really only studied

wealthy woman in Austria.• His results are NOT

empirically verifiable (can’t be tested scientifically).

• No predictive power.• Karen Horney said he was

sexist with the whole “penis envy” thing and that there is an actual “womb envy”.

Neo-Freudians• Psychologists that took some premises from

Freud and built upon them.

Alfred Adler Karen Horney Carl Jung

Alfred Adler• Childhood is important to

personality.• But focus should be on

social factors - not sexual ones.

• Our behavior is driven by our efforts to conquer inferiority and feel superior.

• Inferiority Complex.• Believed that birth order

influenced personality.

Karen Horney• Felt psychoanalysis was

negatively biased toward women.

• Believed cultural variations are the foundation of personality development.

• Anxiety is the helplessness and isolation people feel in a potentially hostile world.

Carl Jung• Less emphasis on social factors.• Focused on the unconscious, but as a

species.• We all have a collective

unconscious: a shared/inherited well of memory traces from our species’ history.

• Jung called them archetypes (some examples include the mother, hero, and spiritual archetypes).

Assessing the Unconscious• Hypnosis.• Dream

Interpretation.• Free Association

(having them just randomly talk to themselves…and then interpreting the conversation).

• Projective Tests (tests that delve into the unconscious).

• Examples are the…

TATThematic Apperception Test:• A projective test which people

express their inner feelings through stories they make about ambiguous scenes.

TAT

Rorschach Inkblot Test• The most widely used

projective test.• A set of 10 inkblots

designed to identify people’s inner feelings when they are asked to interpret what they see in the inkblots.

• Take out a piece of paper.

Plate 1

Plate 1• This is a black and white card, often

described as looking like a mask or the face of a fox or wolf.

Plate 2

Plate 2• This is a card with black and red ink,

often described as people dancing or touching hands with each other.

Plate 3

Plate 3• This is a card with black and red ink,

frequently visualized as two people facing each other or sometimes a butterfly or moth.

Plate 4

Plate 4• A card with only black ink formed in a triangle-

shaped blot. The two lower corners are often described as shoes or boots. This card may also be seen as viewing a person from below.

Plate 5

Plate 5

• Another card with only black ink. The vast majority of test subjects will see a bat or bird-like figure. This is by far the most common response.

Plate 6

Plate 6• A card with black ink showing an

amorphorous "splat" shape. This one can be hard to see anything in. Occasionally described as a foreshortened view of a person with their arms outstretched.

Plate 7

Plate 7• A card with only black ink. This card

has a rough "V" shape sometimes described as faces pointing towards one another, "bunny ears", or similar visualizations.

Plate 8

Plate 8• A very colorful card with blue, orange,

pink, and gray ink. A roughly diamond-shaped image with lots of places to see things - a mask, animals climbing up the outsides, a moth or butterfly, a person with their arms akimbo, etc.

Plate 9

Plate 9• Another colorful card, this time with

orange, pink, and green inks. This one is tough to visualize anything specific in; most test subjects struggle to find something to "see" in it.

Plate 10

Plate 10• This is the last Rorschach card and

certainly the most colorful, consisting of blue, gray, pink, green, orange and yellow inks. It's a very complex mish-mash of shapes with lots of "activity" and plenty of places to "see" things.

Taking And Scoring The Test• During the test the psychologist or psychiatrist

will record everything you say.• What is a "good" answer versus a "bad" answer?

This is a tricky question.• “Seeing" healthy, friendly images is typically seen

in a more positive light.• Dark or violent answers ("I see Satan eating a

baby's brain!“) probably aren’t seen too positively.

• Overly-sexualized answers or imagery will be noticed and generally scored against you as well.

Humanistic Theory of Personality

• Focus on conscious experiences and personal growth.

• They believe that humans have free will (our ability to choose your own destiny).

• Believed we should study “healthy” people.

• Humanistic Psychology laid the foundation for Positive Psychology.

Abraham Maslow’s Self-Actualizing Person

• Hierarchy of Needs.• Ultimately seek self-

actualization (the process of fulfilling our potential).

Who did Maslow study?

Self-Actualized People• They share certain characteristics:• They are self aware and self accepting.• Open and spontaneous.• Loving and caring.• Not paralyzed by others’ opinions.• They are secure in who they are.

Self-Actualized People• Problem centered rather than self-centered.

Focused their energies on a particular task.

Few deep relationships, rather than many superficial ones.

Carl Rogers’s Person-Centered Perspective

• People are basically GOOD.

• We are like Acorns

Need Water, Sun and Nutrients to Grow into a big Oak Tree.

We need genuineness, acceptance and empathy for us to grow.

Genuineness• Being open with your

own feelings.• Dropping your façade.• Being transparent and

self-disclosing.

Acceptance• Unconditional

Positive Regard:• An attitude of

acceptance regardless of circumstances.

• Accepting yourself or others completely.

Empathy

• Listening, sharing, understanding and mirroring feelings of others.

Self-Concept• Both Rogers and Maslow believed that your

self-concept (all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in the question “Who Am I?”) is at the center of your personality.

• If our self-concept is positive….

We tend to act and perceive the world positively.

• If our self-concept is negative….

We fall short of our “ideal self” and feel dissatisfied and unhappy.

Assessing Your Self-Concept

Perceived Self Ideal Self

Trait Theories of Personality• The belief is that there

are aspects (traits) of personality that are relatively consistent.

• Traits like honesty, laziness, ambition, and outgoingness are thought to be stable over the course of your life.

Somatotype Theory• An early biological theory

by William Sheldon.• Endomorphs (Fat) tend

to be friendly and jolly.• Mesomorphs (Muscular)

tend to be more aggressive.

• Ectomorphs (Thin) tend to be more shy, secretive and high strung.

• Study has not been replicated.

Gordon Allport

• Allport felt that using a “personality law” that would apply to everyone is impossible.

• He identified several kind of traits (cardinal, central, & secondary).

• Listed more than 18,000 ways to describe people!

Raymond Cattell’s ModelDivided traits into 16 core personality dimensions or factors.

He used a statistical technique called factor analysis (grouping questions into clusters).

Hans Eysenck’s Biological Dimensions

Believed there are only 2 major biological dimensions:

Extraversion/Introversion – how outgoing or reserved one is.

Emotional Stability/Instability – how much a person is affected by his or her feelings.

Eysenck’s Model of Personality

The “Big Five” Traits• Most current and popular

theory.

• BIG FIVE personality theory:1. Extraversion2. Agreeableness3. Conscientiousness4. Openness to experience5. Neuroticism (Emotional

Stability or Instability)

Genetic predispositions influence personality traits and traits tend to remain stable in adulthood.

Vinnie and The Situation from the Jersey Shore provide some nice, introvert/extrovert examples.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Be careful of the Barnum Effect!!!

“There’s a sucker born every minute!”• People have the tendency to see themselves in vague, stock descriptions of personality.

• Horoscopes, astrologers and psychics all use this concept.

• Aries (March 21-April 19): Do some detective work so that you can better understand those you love. Figure out what the other person is going through. Only then will you find out how you can help.

Taurus (April 20-May 20): In your midst, there's a person intent on the worst-case scenario. He or she is a valuable ally today. You'll find humor in the exaggeration, and your laughter is healing.

Gemini (May 21-June 21): Go out of your way to add elements of absurdity to your day. Your quality of life will be increased immeasurably.

Cancer (June 22-July 22): A strength exaggerated becomes a weakness. But does a weakness exaggerated become a strength? Highlight a limitation and you'll find you're better off for having this flaw.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22): People pay attention when you walk into the room today. Make your exit with equal grace. Leave before they want you to and they'll want more.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Show up in person. You have more than your fair share of charisma today. Noting your winning presence, others will want to help you succeed.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 23): You have a talent for making relationships work. You're full of solutions, but it's important to know which problem is the most pressing. Pump the other person for information.

Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21): There is a fine line between sharing and over-sharing. Give others the sense of who you are. But do it briefly.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Relating to others has very little to do with what or who you know. Most people are thinking about themselves and what you can do for them. If you make them feel good about themselves, they'll like you.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You're in danger of being too thrifty. Show some disregard for the rules of frugal finance. As you spend, you'll widen the channel for greater earning.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): It would benefit you to get involved in a group effort. There is much you could contribute, and you have much to gain. You'll ask excellent questions and learn all you need to know to fit in nicely.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20): You will be certain of your course. But that alone will not be enough to make it go the way you want. Whatever happens, don't complain or explain.

Assessing Our Traits• Most common way is with

“objective” personality inventories (questionnaires designed to gauge a range of feelings and behaviors).

• MMPI-II: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (most widely used personality test).

• Originally used to identify emotional disorders.

MMPI put to the Test

Evaluating the Trait Perspective• Theories don’t take into

account the importance of the situation.

Social-Cognitive Theories on Personality

• Focus on how we interact with our culture and environment.

• Albert Bandura is back!!!

• Reciprocal Determinism -(cognition, environment and behavior all interact and influence our personality.)

Personal Control• Our sense of controlling our environment

rather than the environment controlling us.

Personal Control

• Internal Locus of Control (control their own fate).

• External Locus of Control (outside forces determine what happens to you).

• External Locus of Control can lead to a state of learned helplessness…

Learned Helplessness• The hopeless feeling an animal or human gets

when unable to avoid repeated bad events.

Optimism vs. Pessimism

• The best indicator of a person’s optimism or pessimism is their explanatory style.

• With an optimistic explanatory style people generally tend to blame others for negative events.

• With a pessimistic explanatory style people it’s just the opposite.

Assessing the Social Cognitive Perspective

• Emphasized the importance of the situation when assessing personality.

• Used experiments to study how different situations affect people’s behavior.

• But they do not consider how emotions may affect behavior.