Personality Questions about personality Is personality innate or

Personality

Questions about personality: • Is personality innate or learned? • Is personality conscious or unconscious? • Is personality influenced by internal or external factors?

• Defined as the pattern of enduring, distinctive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize the way an individual adapts to the world • Personality theorists and researchers ask why individuals react to the same situation in different ways.

Perspectives on Personality

1. Psychodynamic Perspectives: • Views personality as being primarily unconscious (or beyond awareness) and as developing in stages. Many psychodynamic perspectives emphasize that early experiences with parents play an important role in shaping personality.

1. Psychodynamic Perspectives: • Psychodynamic theorists also believe that behavior is merely a surface characteristic and to truly understand someone’s personality, we have to explore the symbolic meanings of behavior and the deep inner mechanism of the mind.

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory: • The key to understanding behavior is the unconscious mind. • Believed that trivial behaviors have special significance (eg. Twitch, doodle, joke, smile, Freudian slips) • Also believed that dreams hold important clues to our behavior. He said that dreams are our unconscious representations of the conflict and tension in our everyday lives that are too painful to handle consciously.

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory: • Compared Personality with an iceberg. • Believed that personality is divide into three parts:

Freud believed that personality is divided into three parts: Id • consists of instincts and reservoir of psychic energy • The Id is unconscious, meaning it has no contact with reality. • The Id works according to the pleasure principle – a concept of Freud’s that the id always seeks pleasure and avoids pain

Ego • a structure of personality that deals with the demands of reality • Abides by the reality principle – a concept that means it tries to bring the individual pleasure within the norms of society • The Ego is partly conscious. • Contains our higher mental functions – reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. • It is considered the executive branch of personality

Superego • Since the id and ego doesn’t consider what is right or wrong, the superego is the moral branch of personality. • Often called the conscience • Like the id, the superego does not consider reality; it only considers whether the id’s impulses can be satisfied in moral terms.

Freud’s Psychoanalytical Theory • Defense Mechanism • The ego uses different strategies to resolve the conflict among the demands of reality. The wishes of the Id versus of the restriction of the superego. • Defense mechanism reduces anxiety unconsciously distorting reality.

Freud’s Psychoanalytical theory Defense Mechanism How it Works Example Repression The most powerful defense mechanism, the ego pushes an unacceptable impulses out of awareness, back to the unconscious mind. Rationalization The ego replaces a less A student does not well acceptable motive with more in the exam he says he acceptable one. could have passed it if he tried harder. Displacement The ego shifts feelings toward an unacceptable object to another more acceptable object. A rape victim may not remember anything about the traumatic experience. A teacher can let her anger out to her boss so she brings it out to her student.

Freud’s Psychoanalytical theory Defense Mechanism How it Works Example Sublimation The ego replaces an unacceptable impulse with a socially acceptable one. A man with strong sexual urged becomes a painter of nudes. Projection The ego attributes personal shortcomings, problems and faults to others. A boyfriend who wants to break up accuses her girlfriend fooling around with other men. Reaction Formation The ego transforms an acceptable motive into its opposite. A love woman who fears falling in becomes a man hater. Denial The ego refuses to acknowledge anxiety- producing realities. A student won’t acknowledge that he has been busted by a girl. Regression The ego seeks the security of an earlier developmental period in the face of stress. A woman goes back home to her mother each time she and her husband has a big arguments.

Freud’s Psychoanalytical theory • Personality Development: Freud believe that we go trough five stages of personality development and that each stage of development brings pleasure coming from one part of our body. § Oral Stage ( first 18 months of age) § Anal Stage ( 18 -36 months) § Phallic Stage ( 3 -6 yrs, old) – triggers the Oedipus Complex/Electra Complex § Latency Stage ( 6 yrs. – age of puberty) § Genital Stage ( adolescence to adulthood) Fixation: term used when a person gets locked in an earlier stage because of over- or undergratified needs

Psychodynamic Dissenters and Revisionists: Freud’s critics claim that: 1. Sexuality is not the allencompassing force behind personality 2. The first five years are not as powerful, later experiences deserve more attention 3. The ego and the conscious play more important roles in personality than the unconscious, not all activities are related to sexual impulses 4. Socio-cultural factors are more important rather than biological.

Karen Horney (1885 -1952) • The prime motive is security and not sex and aggression • Believe that to cope with anxiety, people use three strategies (move toward people, move away from people, move against people)

Carl Gustav Jung (18751961) • Believe that roots to personality comes from the early history of men – collective unconscious, archetypes (anima and animus, mandala, shadow)

Alfred Adler (1870 -1937) • Believed in individual psychology - People are motivated by purposes and goals. People have the ability to consciously monitor and control their lives.

Alfred Adler (1870 -1937) • He also believed in the motivation to strive for superiority. People used compensation to overcome imagined or real inferiorities which is normal. • Over compensation is the term used by Adler when people deny rather acknowledge weaknesses – inferiority complex (exaggerated feeling of inadequacy) and superiority complex exaggerated of self importance to mask feelings of inferiority).

2. Behavioral and Social Cognitive Perspectives: Emphasis on the importance of environmental experiences and people’s observable behavior to understand personalities

Skinners Behaviorism: • concluded that personality is the individual’s observed, overt, behavior which is determined by external environment and excludes internal traits and thoughts & we do not have to understand our biological and cognitive processes to explain personality. • Behaviorists believes that personality can be learned through rewards, punishments, etc.

Skinners Behaviorism: • They also stress that behavior always has the capacity for change if new experiences are encountered, thus Behaviorists believe that the personality can be changed, shaped and modified since the environment is also inconsistent and malleable.

Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory – His theories state that behavior, environment and person/cognitive factors are important in understanding personality. – Reciprocal Determinism: interaction of behavior environment and cognitive factors. – Also acknowledges that people form their personalities through observational learning.

Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory – Believed also on personal control or the capacity to exercise some control over their own functioning and over environmental events. Delay of Gratification Self Efficacy (belief that one can master a situation and produce positive outcomes) and Locus of Control (refers to the individuals’ belief about whether the outcomes of their actions depend on what they do [internal control] or on events outside of their personal control [external control]).

3. Humanistic Perspectives: Emphasis that the key to understanding personality is the person’s capacity for personal growth, freedom to choose ones own destiny and positive human qualities.

Carl Rogers (1902 -1987) • Believed that most people have considerable difficulty accepting their own true, innately positive feelings. As we grow up, central people in our lives condition us to move away from positive feelings (“Don’t do that!, That’s not right!, Are you stupid? !) • As we struggle to live up to society’s standards, we distort and devalue our true selves.

The SELF: Rogers did not believe that all aspects of the self are conscious, but rather believed that they are all accessible to consciousness. • Self-concept: A person’s over-all perceptions and assessments of their abilities, behavior and personalities. • REAL SELF: Self resulting from our experiences vs • the IDEAL SELF: Self we would like to be. The farther the real and ideal self are, the greater the discrepancy.

Methods in Developing a more Positive Self Concept: Unconditional Positive regard (valuing, accepting, and being positive towards another person regardless of that person’s behavior), Empathic (being a sensitive listener and understanding another’s true feelings), Genuine (being open with our feelings and dropping our pretenses and facades).

Abraham Maslow (19081970) • 3 rd force in psychology (alternative to psychodynamic and behaviorism) • Self-Actualization is the highest form of motivation and an important factor in personality. • Mallow's hierarchy of needs

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs Self Actualization Esteem Love and Belongingness Safety Physiological

• Self actualization – need to develop one’s full potential as a human being • Esteem – need of acceptance and approval of oneself and of others • Love and belongingness – need to have external relationship • Safety – need for protection and security • Physiological – need for basic and innate requirements like food, nutrients, and sex.

4. Trait Perspectives: • Trait is an enduring personality characteristic that tends to lead to certain behaviors. • Trait theories state that personality consists of broad, enduring dispositions that tend to lead to characteristic responses. Meaning, people can be described in terms of the basic ways they behave (e. g. Are they outgoing and friendly or dominant and aggressive? ).

Hippocrates (400 BC) Four basic personalities determined by physical makeup: • 1. Choleric (quick-tempered) • • • 2. Phlegmatic (placid) 3. Sanguine (optimistic) 4. Melancholic (pessimistic)

Gordon Allport (1897 -1967) • Believed that each individual has a unique set of personality traits.

Gordon Allport (1897 -1967) Identified more than 4, 500 personality traits and grouped them into 3 categories: 1. Cardinal Traits (dominant) 2. Central Traits (6 -12 are sufficient to described a person) 3. Secondary Traits (limited and least important)

Hans Eysenck (1967) • Three dimensions are needed to explain personality: 1. Introversion. Extraversion 2. Stability-Instability 3. Psychoticism (being in touch with reality

Instability Moody Anxious Rigid Sober Pessimistic Reserved Unsociable Quiet Introversion Passive Careful Thoughtful Peaceful Controlled Reliable Even tempered Calm Touchy Restless Aggressive Stability Excitable Changeable Impulsive Optimistic Active Extraversion Sociable Outgoing Talkative Responsive Easygoing Lively Carefree Leadership

Big 5 Personality Traits • The main dimensions of personality are: OCEAN OPENNESS CONSCIENTIOU S-NESS EXTRAVERSION Imaginative or practical Organized or disorganize d Sociable or Softhearted retiring or ruthless Calm or anxious Intereste d in variety or routine Careful or careless Fun-loving or somber Trusting or suspicious Secure or insecure Helpful or uncooperative Selfsatisfied or selfpitying Indepen- Disciplined Affectiondent or or impulsive ate or conformin reserved g AGREEABLENESS NEUROTICIS M (EMOTIONAL STABILITY)

Trait-Situation Interaction Some psychologists believe that personality is determined by a combination of traits or person factors and the situation or environmental factors.

Main methods of Personality Assessment 1. Projective test Designed to assess the unconscious aspect of personality. They are based on the assumption that the ambiguity of stimuli allows individuals to project their personalities onto them. Eg: Rorschach inkblot test, Thematic Apperception test (TAT) 2. Self report test Assesses personality traits by asking test takers about their preferences and behaviors. . Eg. MMPI (Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Inventory