Chapter Ten PERSONALITY Personality Refers to an individuals

Chapter Ten PERSONALITY

Personality: Refers to an individual’s unique and relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving Personality theory: Describes and explains how people are similar, how they are different, and why every individual is unique

What Is Personality? • Four major theoretical perspectives on personality – – Psychoanalytic perspective Humanistic perspective Social cognitive perspective Trait perspective

Psychoanalytic Perspective on Personality Freud • Influenced by Joseph Breuer; used hypnosis; treated patients with psychological symptoms; used free association • Asserted sexuality was fundamental human motive and aggression was second powerful human instinct • Created important works

Freud’s Dynamic Theory of Personality: Psychoanalytic Approach • Psychoanalysis is both an approach to therapy and a theory of personality. • Emphasized unconscious motivation: main causes of behavior lie buried in the unconscious mind • Saw personality and behavior as the result of a constant interplay among conflicting psychological forces • Psychological forces operate at three different levels of awareness: • Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious

Levels of Awareness and the Structure of Personality

Techniques to Reveal the Unconscious • Free association • A psychoanalytical technique in which the patient spontaneously reports all thoughts, feelings, and mental images as they come to mind • Dream analysis – Content of dreams – Manifest content (surface meaning) – Latent content (true, unconscious meaning)

The Structure of Personality Id • Instinctual drives present at birth • Does not distinguish reality from fantasy • Operates according to pleasure principle – Motive is to obtain pleasure and avoid tension or discomfort; this is the most fundamental human motive and guiding principle of id – Immune to logic Energy comes from • Eros: Self-preservation or life instinct • Libido: Psychological and emotional energy associated with expressions of sexuality; sex drive • Thanatos: Death instinct – Reflected in aggressive, destructive, and selfdestructive actions

The Structure of Personality Ego • Is partly conscious rational component of personality that develops out of the id in infancy • Understands reality and logic • Is most in touch with the demands of the external world • Acts as mediator between id and superego Reality principle • Is ability to postpone gratification in accordance with demands of external world • Can repress desires that cannot be met in an acceptable manner

The Structure of Personality Superego • At age 5 or 6, child develops an internal, parental voice that is partly conscious • Internalization of parental and society’s moral standards • Responsible for guilt; it praises and admonishes Establishing the Superego

The Ego Defense Mechanisms: Unconscious Self-Deceptions • If a realistic solution or compromise is not possible, the ego may temporarily reduce anxiety by distorting thoughts or perceptions of reality through defense mechanisms. – – – – – Repression Displacement Sublimation Rationalization Projection Reaction formation Denial Undoing Regression

Personality Development • Freud’s psychosexual stages – People progress through five psychosexual stages of development. • Oral, and phallic, latency, and genital stages – Each psychosexual stage represents a different focus of the id’s sexual energies; and each is age-related and focused on different bodily zones.

Personality Development • Fixation – At each psychosexual stage, the child is faced with a developmental conflict that must be successfully resolved. – Child may be frustrated or overindulged in that stage’s expression of pleasurable feelings. – In either case, the result of an unresolved developmental conflict is fixation.

The Oedipus Complex: A Psychosexual Drama Child’s unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent; usually accompanied by hostile feelings toward the same-sex parent. Boys Girls • Confrontation with father for the affections of mother • Boy feels hostility and jealousy toward his father • Realizes that father is more physically powerful • Boy experiences castration anxiety, or fear that father will castrate him • To resolve, boy uses identification — imitates and internalizes father’s values, attitudes, mannerisms • Little girl discovers that little boys have a penis and that she does not • Feels a sense of deprivation and loss — penis envy • Attempts to take her mother’s place with her father, she also identifies with her mother • One of the most critiqued of Freud’s ideas • Freud admitted “the sexual life of adult women is a ‘dark continent’ for psychology. ”

Latency and Genital Stages • Latency (5 years–puberty) • • Because the Oedipus complex causes anxiety, the sexual urges of boys and girls become repressed Children desire to associate with same-sex peers, a preference that strengthens the child’s sexual identity – Genital Stage (puberty and older) – Final resolution of the Oedipus complex in adolescence – Incestuous urges start to resurface; they are prohibited by superego and societal restriction – Person directs sexual urges toward socially acceptable substitutes, who often resemble the person’s opposite-sex parent

The Humanistic Perspective on Personality • Humanism – Emphasizes free will, self-awareness, and psychological growth – Emphasizes inherent goodness of people, human potential, self-actualization, self-concept, and healthy personality development

Unconditional Positive Regard • Rogers contended that healthy personality development is the result of being unconditionally valued and loved as a person. • He advised parents and teachers to control a child’s inappropriate behavior without rejecting the child himself. • Such a style of discipline teaches acceptable behaviors without diminishing the child’s sense of self-worth.

The Social Cognitive Perspective on Personality • Social cognitive perspective – Emphasizes conscious, self-regulated behavior rather than unconscious mental influences and instinctual drives – Stresses conscious thought processes, self-regulation, and the importance of situational influences – Proposes that sense of self can vary, depending on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a given situation • Social cognitive personality theorists – Rely on experimental findings

Trait Perspective on Personality • Trait: Formally defined as relatively stable, enduring predisposition to behave in a certain way • Trait theorists: Focus on identifying, describing, and measuring individual differences in behavioral predispositions • Trait theorists view the person as being a unique combination of personality characteristics or attributes, called traits

Surface Traits and Source Traits • Surface trait – Characteristics or attributes that can be inferred from observable behavior – 4, 000 English words describe specific personality traits (Allport and Odbert) • Source trait – Most fundamental dimensions of personality; broad, basic traits that are hypothesized to be universal and relatively few in number

Neuroscience of Personality: Brain Structure and the Big Five Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness • Medial orbitofrontal cortex • Being sensitive to rewarding stimuli • Posterior cingulate cortex • Understanding beliefs of others • Fusiform gyrus • Perceiving faces • Middle frontal gyrus • Involved in planning, working memory, and self-regulation Neuroticism Openness to experience • Mixed pattern of brain structure • No significant pattern of brain differences

Assessing Personality • Psychological tests: Assess a person’s abilities, aptitudes, interests, or personality on the basis of a systematically obtained sample of behavior • Any psychological test is useful insofar as it achieves two basic goals: – It accurately and consistently reflects a person’s characteristics on some dimension. – It predicts a person’s future psychological functioning or behavior.

Projective Tests • Rorschach Inkblot Test: Projective test using inkblots, developed by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in 1921 What Do You See in the Inkblot?

Projective Tests • Thematic apperception test (TAT): A projective personality test, developed by Henry Murray and colleagues, that involves creating stories about ambiguous scenes • The person is thought to project his own motives, conflicts, and other personality characteristics into the story he creates. Thematic Apperception Test Involves creating a story about a highly evocative, ambiguous scene, like the ones shown in the cards in the photograph above.

Self-Report Inventories • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): A self-report inventory that assesses personality characteristics and psychological disorders; used to assess both normal and disturbed populations • California Psychological Inventory (CPI): A self-report inventory that assesses personality characteristics in normal populations • Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF): A self-report inventory developed by Raymond Cattell that generates a personality profile with ratings on 16 trait dimensions

Strengths and Limitations of Self-Report Inventories • Most important strengths of self-report inventories – Are standardized – Use established norms – Reliability and validity greater than those of projective tests • Self-inventory weaknesses – – Takers may “fake” responses to look better (or worse) High number of items leads to loss of interest Takers not always accurate in self-judgments No personality test, by itself, is likely to provide a definitive description of any given individual

Self-Report Inventories • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Selfreport personality test that involves categorizing personality types • Test measures person’s preferred way of dealing with information, making decisions, and interacting with others. • Psychologists urge caution in using and interpreting findings.

Final work: Psychological characteristic • • Psychological study (of your-self) Use psychological tests to examine personality The general parameters are outlined Term: April, 26 - May, 3