Chapter 14 Personality Personality Each persons unique and

Chapter 14 Personality

Personality • Each person’s unique and relatively enduring stable behavior patterns • Personality traits: stable qualities that a person shows in most situations – Leads to predictable behavior – Inferred from behavior – Stable at age 30

Theories • Trait theories: what traits make up personality and how they relate to behavior • Psychodynamic theories: focus on inner working of personality, especially internal conflicts and struggles • Behavioristic theories: importance of external environment and effect of conditioning and learning • Social Learning: attribute differences to socialization, expectation, and mental processes • Humanistic: stress private, subjective experience and personal growth

Traits Approach • Analyze, classify, inter-relate traits • Allport: individual traits (define unique qualities) • Cattell: trait profile (16 PF) • Trait-situation interactions: when external circumstances influence the expression of personality traits • Heredity accounts for 25 to 50% of variability in many personality traits

Psychodynamic Theory • Sigmund Freud • 3 parts of personality: – Id: innate, biological instincts; self-serving, irrational, operates on pleasure principle, unconscious – Ego: conscious control of personality; operates on reality principle – Superego: internalized parent; conscience

Psychosexual Development • Oral: feeding • Anal: toilet training • Phallic: attracted to opposite sex parent; Oedipus conflict in males • Latency: dormant period • Genital: puberty • First years of life shape personality • Not verified scientifically • Freud believed sexual abuse was a fantasy

Behavioral Theory of Personality • Personality is a collection of learned behavior patterns • Acquired through classical and operant conditioning, observational learning, reinforcement, extinction, generalization, and stimulus discrimination • Reject notion of personality traits • Situational determinants interact with prior learning history

Social Learning Theory • How person interprets a situation • Expectancy: anticipation that responding will lead to reinforcement • Attach different values to different reinforcers

Humanistic Theory • Rogers, Maslow • Focus on human experiences, problems, potentials • Human nature is inherently good • Person you are is product of choices you have made • Stressed private perceptions rather than prior learning

Maslow • Self-actualization: process of fully developing personal potential – Judge situations correctly – Comfortable acceptance of self, others – Resourceful, independent – Continued freshness for appreciation Steps to self-actualization: be willing to change, take responsibility, self-discovery, see yourself as others do

Carl Rogers • Self theory • Fully functioning person lives in harmony with deepest feelings and impulses • Trust intuition • Most likely to occur with love and acceptance from others • Behavior understood as attempt to maintain consistency between self-image and action • Unconditional positive regard: love and approval without qualification

Personality Theories • Trait theories: useful in describing and comparing personalities • Psychoanalytic: exaggerates sexuality and biological instincts, doesn’t predict behavior • Behavioristic and social learning: can study scientifically, understate importance of temperament, emotion • Humanistic: positive dimensions of personality

Personality Assessment • • • Interview Direct observation Rating scales Behavioral assessment Personality questionnaires (MMPI) Projective Tests: Rorschach, TAT