PERSONALITY THEORY RESEARCH AND ASSESSMENT DEFINING PERSONALITY Personality

PERSONALITY: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND ASSESSMENT

DEFINING PERSONALITY � Personality: refers to an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits � Used to explain 1)consistency in behavior and 2)distinctiveness of behavior

PERSONALITY TRAITS: DISPOSITIONS AND DIMENSIONS � Personality trait: a durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations � Cattell concluded that personality can be described completely by measuring just 16 traits

5 -FACTOR MODEL OF PERSONALITY TRAITS � Mc. Rae and Costa � 1) Openness to experience � 2) Conscientiousness � 3) Extraversion � 4) Agreeableness � 5) Neuroticism

OTHER THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES � Def: include all the diverse theories descended from the work of Sigmund Freud, which focus on unconscious mental forces

FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY � Attempts to explain personality, motivation, and psychological disorders by focusing on childhood experiences, on unconscious motives, and methods used to cope w/sexual and aggressive urges

FREUD’S STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY � 3 parts: � 1) Id: primitive, instinctive component; operates according to pleasure principle � 2) Ego: decision-making component; operates according to the reality principle � 3) Superego: moral component; incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong

FREUD’S ICEBERG

FREUD’S LEVELS OF AWARENESS � Conscious: whatever one is aware of at a particular point in time � Preconscious: material just beneath the surface of awareness that can be easily retrieved � Unconscious: thoughts, memories, and desires that are well beneath the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behavior

CONFLICT AND TYRANNY OF SEX AND AGGRESSION � Freud: people’s lives are dominated by conflicts that center on sexual and aggressive impulses � Sexual and aggressive desires are thwarted more often

ANXIETY � Lingering conflicts can produce anxiety � Worry about: 1) id going out of control and creating negative consequences or 2)superego out of control creating guilt about a real or imagined transgression

DEFENSE MECHANISMS � Def: largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety or guilt

DEFENSE MECHANISMS � Rationalization: creating false but plausible causes to justify unacceptable behavior � Repression: keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious � Projection: attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another � Displacement: diverting emotional feelings (anger) from original source to a substitute � Reaction Formation: behaving opposite of what you feel � Regression: reverting to immature behavior � Identification: bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group

DEVELOPMENT: PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES � Def: developmental periods w/a characteristic sexual focus that leave their mark on adult personality � Fixation: failure to move forward from one stage to another as expected

STAGES � Oral stage: 1 st year; erotic focus is the mouth � Anal stage: 2 nd year; erotic pleasure from bowel movements � Phallic stage: c. age 4; erotic focus on the genital; selfstimulation

STAGES � Latency stage: expanding social contacts beyond the immediate family � Genital stage: refocus on genitals, channeled toward peers

JUNG’S ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY � Unconscious layers � 1) Personal unconscious: has 2 repressed or forgotten material � 2) Collective unconscious: a storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from people’s ancestral past

JUNG CONTINUED � People share an unconscious � Archetypes: emotionally charged images and thought forms that have universal meaning

JUNG CONTINUED � 1 st to describe � Introverts: preoccupied w/the internal world of their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences � Extraverts: interested in external world of people and things

ADLER’S INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY � Striving for superiority: a universal drive to adapt, improve oneself, and master life’s challenges � Compensation: involves efforts to overcome imagined or real inferiorities by developing one’s abilities

ADLER CONTINUED � Excessive feelings of inferiority leads to an inferiority complex � People overcompensate and pursue status and power over others

EVALUATING PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVES � Unconscious forces can influence behavior � Internal conflict often plays a key role in generating psychological distress � Early childhood experiences can have powerful influences on adult personality � People do use defense mechanisms to reduce unpleasant emotions

EVALUATING CONTINUED � Criticisms: � Poor testability—ideas too vague to test � Inadequate evidence � Sexism—a bias against women exists