Personality

1. Personality Unit X

2. Psychoanalysis Freud & Co.

3. Exploring the Unconscious: Techniques Freud believed unexplained physical problems stemmed from unconscious fears/desires that were socially inappropriate He used free association – patient says whatever word comes to mind in response to a stimulus word

4. Try it: Free Association (from Carl Jung, student of Freud) 1. head 2. green 3. water 4. to sing 5. dead 6. long 7. ship 8. to play 9. window 10. friendly 11. to cook 12. to ask

5. Do any of these words seem to reveal hidden feelings you might have about something or someone in your life? Why or why not? Would you want anyone to read meaning into this list of freely associated words? Why or why not?

6. Freudian Slips (parapraxis) Freud believed nothing said or done accidentally was truly accidental – everything revealed the unconscious mind at work Ex: “MARRIAGE = ONE MAN & ONE MAN” – TX Republican Dan Patrick on Twitter

7. Projective Tests • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) shows people ambiguous pictures and asks them to make up a story • Rorschach inkblot test asks people to describe what they see in inkblots • Only valid for revealing hostility and anxiety, if that

8. Freud’s Personality Structures Id : unconscious, preoccupied with reducing basic drives like reproduction and aggression, self-centered Infants and people focused on enjoying the present are good examples Devil on shoulder

9. Freud’s Personality Structures Superego: Moral conscience that focuses on how we should behave, perfectionist Develops around age 4-5 Angel on shoulder

10. Freud’s Personality Structures Ego: Uses reality principle to satisfy id in ways that maximize long-term pleasure while also seeking to satisfy superego, partly conscious Person between devil and angel making the decision about what to do

11. What would a person look like who had a strong superego? What about a person with a weak superego?

12. Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development Freud believed adult personality forms in childhood Id focuses on taking pleasure in different areas of the body in stages Unresolved conflict could cause a person to fixate, or get stuck in a stage

13. Stage 1: Oral 0 – 18 months, pleasure centers on mouth (biting, sucking, chewing) Oral fixation could result from being abruptly weaned Person with fixation might exhibit passive dependence (like infant), deny that dependence by acting tough, or have an oral habit such as overeating or smoking

14. Stage 2: Anal • 18-36 months, pleasure focuses on bowel/bladder elimination, desire for control • 2 possibilities for fixation: • Anal-retentive: overly neat and passive-aggressive • Anal-expulsive: overly messy and defiant

15. Stage 3: Phallic 3-6 years, pleasure focuses on genitals, struggle to deal with incestuous sexual feelings Boys develop unconscious sexual feelings for their mothers and become jealous/fear/hate their fathers : Oedipus complex

16. Phallic Stage Cont. Boys know that girls have no penises and develop castration anxiety, which causes them to repress their desire for their mothers Girls know that they have no penises and develop penis envy, blaming their mothers for castrating them and becoming in love with/jealous of their fathers Fixation: Person may become reckless, narcissistic, and/or incapable of close relationships

17. Stage 4 : Latency 6-puberty Children go through identification process, when they try to become like their same-sex parent Sexual feelings are dormant

18. Stage 5: Genital Puberty and older Mature sexual interests expressed in heterosexual relationships

19. Defense Mechanisms Ways to protect the ego from anxiety about losing control over id/superego All involve unconsciously distorting reality

20. Defense Mechanism Mnemonic Rapid Racers Run Past Really Stinky Dangerous Dogs Repression, Regression, Reaction Formation, Projection, Rationalization, Displacement, Denial

21. Repression Underlies all other defense mechanisms Removes anxiety-causing thoughts from consciousness Urges slip out in dreams and Freudian slips

22. Regression Returning to a more infantile stage of development for comfort Ex: Calling mom when something bad happens

23. Reaction Formation Ego turns inappropriate urges into their opposites Ex: Boys who have a crush on girls and pull their hair instead of talking to them

24. Projection Sees threatening urges in others instead of one’s self Ex: Aggressive person perceives everyone else as insulting them

25. Rationalization Attempt to justify actions with socially acceptable reasons Ex: Buying a convertible “to teach my kids to drive stick shift”

26. Displacement Moves inappropriate impulses towards a more acceptable object Ex: Someone who is mad at their parents but takes it out on their sibling

27. Sublimation Turning unacceptable impulses into a socially valuable product Ex: Dentist in Little Shop of Horrors who tortured animals as a child

28. Denial Person rejects facts or how serious those facts are Ex: Someone ignores a growing mole (sign of skin cancer), dismissing it as “nothing”

29. Neo-Freudians Generally de-emphasized sex and aggression, believed in conscious interpretation of events, conflicts can be solved Alfred Adler – described inferiority complex, birth order theory of personality Karen Horney – wrote Feminine Psychology, a much kinder take on women’s psychological development

30. Carl Jung Personal unconscious (similar to Freud) Collective unconscious – collection of inherited experiences; archetypes shared will all humans, explains cultural similarities Archetypes include: the Hero, the Shadow, the Quest, the Good Mother, the Soul-Mate

31. The Humanistic Perspective The Third Force

32. The Third Force in Psychology Humanistic psychology focuses on healthy people (unlike Freud) and used self-reported feelings/experiences (unlike behaviorists)

33. Abraham Maslow Studied creative, successful people Healthy people are self-actualized: accept themselves and others, have a mission in life

34. Carl Rogers • People are naturally good • In order to grow in a healthy way, we need others to be • 1. genuine – honest and unpretentious • 2. accepting – unconditional positive regard – love others despite knowing the worst about them • 3. empathetic – share and reflect our feelings; really listen

35. Humanists and the Self Write down a few thoughts about who you are Now write down a few thoughts about who you would ideally like to be If these things are similar, you probably have a positive self-concept This is the goal of humanists

36. Criticism of Humanistic Perspective It’s unrealistic – people are not all good It’s subjective – Maslow and Rogers choose traits that they liked as the most important It promotes selfish individualism as everyone seeks their own self-fulfillment

37. Social-Cognitive Perspective

38. Reciprocal Determinism Focus is on how people interact with their environment in their thoughts and actions Albert Bandura – We learn behaviors by watching, but we also think about situations to decide how to act ABC – Affect (thoughts/emotions) influences Behavior which causes Consequences

39. Locus of Control External – people perceive their destiny to be controlled by outside forces (luck, stars, bad parenting, poverty) Internal – people perceive that they have control over their own destiny (mostly through hard work) Those with internal locus of control are healthier, more independent, and deal better with stress

40. Self-Control • Self-control, like muscle, is weakest after use but recovers with time • Practice and discipline in one area can improve overall self-control • Self-control positively correlates with grades and social achievement

41. Personal Control Giving people choices and control over their activities and environment improves morale, health and motivation (“engagement”) Having too many options can cause depression or anxiety – information overload, greater fear of regret

42. Optimism Optimists tend to be healthier and happier than pessimists Too much optimism is unrealistic and can cause overconfidence Most people fail to recognize their own incompetence – they don’t know what they don’t know Other people can probably be more accurate in describing your performance than you can

43. Social-cognitive psychologists assess people’s behavior by putting them in actual or mock situations (ie, student teaching, simulation of fire for firefighters) This is the best way to predict someone’s future job performance: looking at their past/current prefomance

44. Criticism of Social-Cognitive Perspective They ignore the importance of personality traits by focusing so much on situations

45. Individualism Vs. Collectivism See pages 516-518, especially chart on page 518