PERSONALITY THEORYwink

  1. Introduction
    1. Personality = " an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting."
    2. Historical Perspectives of Personality
      1. "Personality" comes from the Greek word persona and Latin word per sonare, meaning to speak through.
      2. By the Renaissance the word meant the person behind the mask.
      3. The earliest record of personality is with Greek's Hippocrates who distinguished people and types from each other using the dominance of the humors (4) in the body. (Blood, black bile, phlegm, and yellow bile)
      4. Gall - Used phrenology to describe personality traits. He did this by feeling the shape of the skull looking for the bumps that were interpreted to represent personality characteristics!
      5. Sheldon - Believed your body type and shape determined your personality.
      6. Astrology - use of the heavenly bodies to predict personal traits.
  2. Psychodynamic or Psychoanalytic Theory, Freud (1856-1939)
    1. Driven by unconscious drives or instincts (divided into Life and Death Instincts)
      1. Conscious - Those things we are aware of, constantly changing.
      2. Preconscious - Things in long term memory that affect behavior but not yet in our consciousness.
      3. Unconscious - Consists of those things (drives, needs, instincts) we are not aware of but that influence our behavior.
    2. Freud divided the mind's structure into three components that affected personality and behavior
      1. Id - the source of all mental energy. Born with at birth. Instinctual seeks immediate satisfaction, The Pleasure Principle means the Id seeks pleasure and avoids pain.
      2. Ego - Attempts to find safe and acceptable ways to satisfy the Id's desires. Seems to begin to develop around age 6 months. By age 5 Freud believed we become socialized and have developed our personality.
      3. Superego - The place in the mind which contains the moral standards of parents and society. This is might be thought of as your conscience.
    3. Sources of energy
      1. Libido- Is the life force that runs throughout the Id, Ego, and Superego.
      2. Eros - Is the specific sex drive, one's way of expressing the libido, other outlandish behaviors are other attempts to release pent up energy.
    4. Infantile Sexuality
      1. Oral Stage: (0-18 mo.) 1st year of life, mouth is point of need satisfaction and pleasure seeking.
      2. Anal Stage: (18 mo.- 3.5 years), toilet training dominates, point of expression of needs and soon learns pleasurable.
      3. Phallic Stage: 3 - 5 years, Stage where the Oedipal Complex develops. It is a lust for parent for the parent of opposite sex. The Electra Complex is the similar developmental challenge for girls
        1. Freud believes these cause an increase in anxiety for the child and that in order to deal with the anxiety the child must identify with same sex parent to reduce this anxiety. This he believed is the key to gender identity development in children.
      4. Latency Stage: 5 - 13 years, little interest in opposite sex. Not much else happening here according to Freud.
      5. Genital Stage: Puberty, Sexual maturity.
    5. Freud believed there can be a fixation of libido at any age or stage, this results in pathology, this energy needs to be released for healthy personality.

  3. Ego Defense Mechanisms - Their purpose is to guard against anxiety. This anxiety may also result from conflict between id, ego or superego. The inability to reduce anxiety results in Neurosis, a mal-adaptive lifestyle or personality.
    1. Repression - repression of impulses from id. Banishes such thoughts and feelings from consciousness.
    2. Denial - failure to acknowledge anxiety is present at all or that event even happened.
    3. Regression- reverting to earlier stage to deal with anxiety, avoid responsibility which is what is causing the anxiety.
    4. Projection - projecting on to others those undesirable feelings and behaviors which cause anxiety in yourself and you cannot effective deal with.
    5. Rationalization - Lets the unconscious generate self-justifying explanations to protect us from anxiety.
    6. Reaction Formation - Hiding unacceptable impulses by having them manifest themselves as opposite behaviors.
    7. Displacement - Turning ones unacceptable impulses that cannot be carried out toward an object or person that they can be directed toward.
    8. Sublimation - The transformation of socially unacceptable impulses into behaviors that are socially acceptable.

  4. Changes in Psychoanalytical Theory after Freud
    1. Jung and Horney put less emphasis on Sexuality and on Biological drives and additional emphasis on social and cultural forces on personality development.

  5. Trait Approach
    1. Traits are a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports
    2. Allport - Traits innate to nervous system, 18000 words refer to traits, only 200 unique. Emphasized the describing these traits.
    3. Cattell - Used factor analysis to analyze the traits and discovered they clustered in groups. The list is shortened to 16 traits (later increased it to 23)

  6. Is behavior always consistent?
    1. Research suggests it is not, but tends to be consistent in the same situation, but different across different situations.
    2. Study effect with twin studies and adoption studies.
      1. Identical twins and children of their biological parents resemble the traits of their siblings and parents more than fraternal twins and adopted children.
      2. Effect appears to be part heredity and part environment.
      3. How stable are traits over time?
        1. Cultural traits such as friendliness, sociability are stable.
        2. Roles and fundamental traits will show less stability, such as political orientation, and attitudes.

  7. Bandura - Reciprocal Determinism
    1. The interaction of influences between personality and environmental factors.
    2. Interaction between person, situation and the feedback received from that behavior
    3. Feedback shapes future behavior and expectancies for the future.
    4. Self Efficacy - One of Bandura's personal/cognitive factors that influence personality, and outcome. How beliefs about ourselves reflect our effort and persistence toward goals.

  8. Rotter's Locus of Control
    1. An expectancy and an evaluation of situations.
    2. Internal Locus of Control - perception that one controls one's own fate.
    3. External Locus Of Control - perception that one does not control one's own fate.

  9. Carl Jung
    1. Emphasized role of unconscious as ego's source of strength.
    2. Two levels of unconscious influence
      1. Personal Unconscious - repressed thoughts, forgotten experiences may rise to consciousness if triggered
      2. Collective Unconscious- Memories and behavior patterns from past generations
    3. Thought forms called Archetypes, (symbols)
      1. Persona - Means mask, part of personality which is known to others. (a facade)
      2. Anima - Female side of male personality, nurturing behavior in males
      3. Animus - Male side of female personality, aggressiveness
    4. Attitude Types
      1. Extroverts - joiners, interested in others
      2. Introverts - Unsociable, interested in self
      3. Rational/Irrational Types
        1. Rational - Thinking - guided by thought
        2. Feeling - guided by emotions, irrational
        3. Senses - guided by sensation, perceptions
        4. Intuition - guided by unconscious process

  10. Adler's " Individual Psychology"
    1. Deviated from Freud's view of sex as basis of behavior, felt man was a social being.
    2. Man was motivated by social interest, a need to be involved and to help his fellow man.
    3. Neurosis was from not meeting these needs.
    4. The emphasis was on present and conscious behavior, the center of personality.
    5. Man was motivated by feelings of striving for power, to overcome feelings of inferiority - Striving for Superiority or Compensation
    6. Each of us develop unique "lifestyle", By age 5, has own goals called "Final Fictionalism", or goals that guide behavior.
    7. Neurosis was developed from poor compensation when dealing with inferiorities, or lack of successfully reaching goals, often we reach for unrealistic goals.
    8. Adler focuses much more in present, stresses responsibility, ordinal position (Birth Order), interaction of environment and family, dreams, and goals.
    9. Ordinal Position:
      1. Birth order important, especially first born because of precarious position of being dethroned by successive siblings.
      2. This could condition people to hate others, become defensive, and feeling insecure. Adler observed criminals, drunkards, etc to be 1st born.
      3. Research currently supports differences in birth order, 1st born are represented as more successful. Tend to be conscientious, responsible, and high achievers, also, more shy, conforming and anxious.
      4. Later born children are more social, at east with others, may learn these skills to deal with more powerful older siblings.

  11. Karen Horney
    1. Environment and social factors stressed
    2. The relationship a child grows up with is most important
    3. Anxiety is a motivating force for real or imaged threats, stronger drive than sex
    4. Neurotic Trends
      1. Submission-Moving toward people
      2. Compliant-Gives in to others. Safe only when getting their protection
      3. Aggression-Moving against people. Hostile and domineering.
      4. Detachment-Moving away from people
      5. Withdrawing

  12. Humanistic Theories - Rogers
    1. Goal is to self actualize. These with innate abilities and capabilities
    2. Self Concept essential to theory
    3. Fully Functioning Person - one who has achieved an openness to feelings and experiences and has learned to trust inner urges and intuitions. Self concept matches inner abilities. Experiences, thoughts, and feelings result in self concept. Their phenomenal field is their total subjective experience of reality.
    4. Positive regard - need for love, understanding, and acceptance
    5. Unconditional positive regard - Total acceptance regardless of person or situation.
    6. Congruency between real & ideal self is important for health personality
    7. The individual strives to reach their potential called "Self Actualization"

  13. Personality Assessment
    1. Projective Techniques- Unstructured task, focus on global personality, try to assess what is going on in the unconscious
      1. Based on psychoanalytical beliefs in unconscious drives or unawareness of roots of our behavior.
      2. Assumption that you are not aware of or do not know
      3. Rorshach Inkblots Test - series of ink blots patient that patient describes for therapist.
      4. TAT- Plates of vague pictures or scenes that patient creates a story about for therapist. 20 cards, 2 sessions of 10 cards each. tell a story, look for themes, content, hero identification etc.
      5. Free Association - Word association test, used by Wundt, Galton 1879. Words with analytic value are used, 60, associated with psychosocial conflicts. Adaptations of this use 100 words of neutral value to test normal cognitive associations.
      6. Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank - Attempt to get at real feelings by asking clients to complete sentences that are not finished.
      7. Draw a Person: Draw first a person, then told to draw one of opposite sex. Look at procedural details, notes verbalizations, sequencing. Then asked to make up a story about the figure. Scoring includes, size, relative position, centering, view drawn, clothing, grounding, parts, background, etc.
      8. Kinetic Family Drawing- Patient draws family doing something together.
    2. Self Report Measures
      1. Measure of characteristics such as emotions as emotional states, interpersonal relations, motivations, interests, and attitudes.
      2. Easy to give and score, and often reliable, they are subject to attitudes, faking or lying.
      3. MMPI-2 - 567 true or false items and scored on series of scales. The scores are plotted (normal distribution or normal curve) and the actual raw scores converted to achieve a normal score of 50 with the range being from 40-60 as the normal range. Above or below is considered a critical score.
      4. Other tests often used are the 16PF, CPI, EPPS.

Key Terms

Anal Stage The anal stage, lasting from 18 months to 3 years, shifts the source of gratification to bladder and bowel retention, elimination, and control.
Defense Mechanisms In Freud's theory, defense mechanisms are the Ego's methods of unconsciously protecting itself against anxiety by distorting or denying reality.
Displacement Displacement is the defense mechanism in which a sexual or aggressive impulse is shifted to a less threatening or powerless object or person.
Ego In psychoanalytic theory, the Ego is the conscious division of personality that attempts to mediate between the demands of the Id, the Superego, and reality.
External Locus of Control External locus of control is the belief that one's fate is determined by forces not under personal control.
Fixation In Freud's theory, fixation occurs when development becomes arrested in an immature psychosexual stage.
Free Association Free association is the Freudian technique in which the person is encouraged to say whatever comes to mind as a means of exploring the unconscious.
Gender Identity Gender identity is a person's sense of being male or female.
Genital Stage At puberty the repressed sexual feelings of the latency stage give way to the genital stage and the maturation of sexual interests.
Id In Freud's theory, the Id is the system of personality consisting of basic sexual and aggressive drives that supplies psychic energy to personality.
Identification In Freud's theory, identification is the process by which the child's superego develops and incorporates the parents' values. Freud saw identification as crucial, not only to resolution of the Oedipus complex, but also to the development of gender identity.
Internal Locus of Control Internal locus of control is the belief that to a great extent one controls one's own destiny.
Latency Stage At puberty the repressed sexual feelings of the latency stage give way to the genital stage and the maturation of sexual interests.
Learned Helplessness Learned helplessness is the passive resignation and perceived lack of control that a person or animal develops from repeated exposure to inescapable aversive events.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

(MMPI-2)		 Consisting of ten clinical scales, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) is the most widely used personality inventory.
Oedipus Complex According to Freud, boys in the phallic stage develop sexual feelings, known as the Oedipus complex, that center on sexual attraction to the mother and resentment of the father. Some psychoanalysts believe that girls have a parallel Electra complex.
Oral Stage During the oral stage, which lasts throughout the first 18 months of life, pleasure centers on activities of the mouth.
Personality Inventories Personality inventories, associated with the trait perspective, are questionnaires used to assess personality traits. (MMPI-2, 16PF, CPI)
Personality Personality is an individual's relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Phallic Stage During the phallic stage, from 3 to 6 years, the genitals become the pleasure zone.
Pleasure Principle In Freud's theory, the pleasure principle refers to the Id's demands for immediate gratification.
Projection In psychoanalytic theory, projection is the unconscious attribution of one's own threatening impulses to others.
Projective Tests Projective tests, such as the TAT and Rorschach, present ambiguous stimuli onto which people supposedly project their own inner feelings. Often used as a tool to assess unconscious factors not conscious to the client.
Psychoanalysis In Freud's theory, psychoanalysis refers to the treatment of psychological disorders by seeking to provide insight about the clients unconscious, using methods such as free association.
Psychosexual Stages Freud's psychosexual stages are developmental periods children pass through during which the Id's pleasure-seeking energies are focused on different erogenous zones.
Rationalization Rationalization is the defense mechanism in which one devises self-justifying but incorrect reasons for one's behavior.
Reaction Formation Reaction formation is the defense mechanism in which the ego converts unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
Reality Principle The reality principle refers to the ego's tendency to gratify the desires of the Id in ways that are realistic.
Reciprocal Determinism According to the social-cognitive perspective, personality is shaped through reciprocal determinism, or the interaction between personality and environmental factors.
Regression Regression is the defense mechanism in which the person reverts to a less mature pattern of behavior, often related to an earlier age or stage.
Repression The basis of all defense mechanisms, repression is the unconscious exclusion of painful impulses from the conscious mind. Repression is an example of motivated forgetting: One "forgets" what one really does not wish to remember.
Rorschach Inkblot Test The Rorschach Inkblot Test, the most widely used projective test, consists of ten inkblots that people are asked to interpret.
Self-concept Self-concept refers to one's personal awareness of "who I am." In the humanistic perspective, self-concept is a central feature of personality; life happiness is significantly affected by whether self-concept is positive or negative.
Self-actualization In Maslow's theory, self-actualization describes the process of fulfilling one's potential and becoming spontaneous, loving, creative, and self-accepting. Self-actualization is at the very top of Maslow's need hierarchy and therefore becomes active only after the more basic physical and psychological needs have been met.
Self-esteem In humanistic psychology, self-esteem refers to an individual's sense of self-worth.
Social-cognitive Perspective Derived from principles of learning, cognition, and social behavior, the social-cognitive perspective focuses on how our schemas, memories, and expectations interact with external events to shape our personalities.
Sublimation Sublimation is the defense mechanism in which an instinctual impulse is modified in a socially acceptable manner. Sublimate and sublime derive from the same Latin root, meaning "to raise, uplift, or ennoble; of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual value."
Superego In Freud's theory, the superego is the division of personality that contains the conscience and develops by incorporating the perceived moral standards of society.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective test that consists of ambiguous pictures about which people are asked to make up stories.
Traits Traits are people's characteristic patterns of behavior.
Unconditional Positive Regard Unconditional positive regard is, according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance and one of the three conditions essential to a "growth-promoting" climate.
Unconscious In Freud's theory, the unconscious is the repository of unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, it is a level of information processing of which we are unaware.