Chapter 11 Overview

1. Chapter 11 Overview • Psychoanalytic theories • Humanistic theories • Trait theories • Social-cognitive theories • Nature, nurture, and personality • Personality assessment

2. Psychoanalytic Theories • Psychoanalysis is Freud’s theory of personality and his therapy for treating psychological disorders; focuses on unconscious processes • Personality is a person’s characteristic pattern of behaving, thinking, and feeling

3. What are the three levels of awareness in consciousness? • The conscious • All thoughts, feelings, memories of which we are aware at a given moment • The preconscious • Thoughts, feelings, memories that we are not consciously aware of but can easily bring to mind • The unconscious • The primary motivating force of human behavior • Contains repressed memories and instincts, wishes, and desires that have never been conscious

4. What are the roles of the id, the ego, and the superego? • Id • Contains life and death instincts • Operates according to the pleasure principle • Ego • The logical, rational part of personality • Operates according to the reality principle • Superego • The moral system of the personality • Consists of the conscience and the ego ideal

5. Freud’s Conception of Personality • Ego is largely conscious, but partly unconscious • Superego operates at both the conscious and unconscious levels • Id is completely unconscious

6. What is the purpose of defense mechanisms? • The ego uses defense mechanisms to maintain self-esteem and protect itself from anxiety created by conflict between the id and superego • The id’s demands for pleasure often conflict with the superego’s desires for moral perfection • e.g., ego protects itself from unacceptable thoughts and memories through repression • Removing painful thoughts, memories, desires from consciousness and keeping them in the unconscious

7. What are the psychosexual stages, and why did Freud consider them important in personality development? • According to Freud, the sex instinct is the most important factor influencing personality • It is present at birth, and then develops through a series of psychosexual stages • Each stage involves an erogenous zone and a conflict • If the conflict is not resolved, the child develops a fixation, and a portion of the libido remains invested at that stage

8. What are the psychosexual stages, and why did Freud consider them important in personality development? • Oral stage: Birth to 1 year • Conflict: Weaning • Fixation can lead to dependency and passivity or sarcasm and hostility • Anal stage: 1 to 3 years • Conflict: Toilet training • Fixation can lead to excessive cleanliness and stinginess or messiness and rebelliousness

9. What are the psychosexual stages, and why did Freud consider them important in personality development? • Phallic stage: 3 to 5 or 6 years • Conflict: Oedipus complex • Fixation can lead to flirtatiousness and promiscuity or excessive pride and chastity • Latency: 5 or 6 years to puberty • Period of sexual calm • Genital stage: Puberty on • Revival of sexual interests

10. How do the views of the neo-Freudians differ from those of Freud? • In Carl Jung’s theory, the personality has three parts • Ego • Personal unconscious • Collective unconscious • Jung rejected Freud’s ideas • that the sexual instinct is the most important determinant of personality • that personality is mostly formed in childhood

11. How do the views of the neo-Freudians differ from those of Freud? • Alfred Adler’s theory • The predominant force of the personality is not sexual in nature • The drive to overcome feelings of inferiority motivates most human behavior • When feelings of inferiority prevent personal development, they constitute an inferiority complex

12. How do the views of the neo-Freudians differ from those of Freud? • Karen Horney believed that Freud overemphasized the role of sexual instinct • She rejected his psychosexual stages and ideas such as the Oedipus complex and penis envy • She argued that women’s psychological difficulties arise from failure to live up to idealized versions of themselves • To be psychologically healthy, women and men must overcome irrational beliefs about the need for perfection • These ideas can be seen in modern cognitive-behavioral therapy

13. Humanistic Theories • In humanistic psychology, people are assumed to have a natural tendency toward growth and the realization of their fullest potential • These theories are more optimistic about human nature than Freud’s theory • But, like Freud’s theory, humanistic theories are difficult to test scientifically

14. What are some of the traits of self-actualizers? • Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) proposed a hierarchy of needs that motivates human behavior • The highest need is self-actualization • Self actualizers • Accurately perceive reality and quickly spot dishonesty • Tend not to depend on external authority, but are internally driven, autonomous, and independent • Frequently have peak experiences • Experiences of deep meaning, insight, and harmony within themselves and with the universe

15. Why is unconditional positive regard critical to personality? • According to Carl Rogers (1902-1987), our parents set up conditions of worth • Conditions on which their positive regard depends • These conditions force us to live according to someone else’s values • A goal of person-centered therapy is to enable people to live by their own values • And not live by the values of others to gain positive regard • To achieve this, the therapist must give the client unconditional positive regard

16. Trait Theories • Attempts to explain personality and differences among people in terms of personal characteristics that are stable across situations

17. What were some of the ideas proposed by early trait theorists? • Allport (1897-1967) proposed two kinds of traits • Cardinal traits • Which are so pervasive that almost every act can be traced to their influences • Central traits • The kinds of traits that one would mention in a recommendation letter • Cattell’s(1950) theory • Surface traits are the observable qualities of personality • Source traits underlie surface traits, and cause certain surface traits to cluster together • Cattell identified 23 source traits

18. What were some of the ideas proposed by early trait theorists? • Eysenck (1916-1997) proposed that there are three personality factors • Psychoticism • An individual’s link to reality • Extraversion • A dimension ranging from outgoing to shy • Neuroticism • A dimension of emotional stability, from stable to anxious and irritable • These personality factors are rooted in neurological functioning • An idea that has been supported by modern brain-imaging studies

19. What do five-factor theorists consider to be the most important dimensions of personality? • The five-factor model is a trait theory that attempts to explain personality using five broad dimensions, each of which is composed of a constellation of personality traits • Openness • Conscientiousness • Extraversion • Agreeableness • Neuroticism

20. What do five-factor theorists consider to be the most important dimensions of personality? • Openness • Open to new experiences, curious, and broad minded versus having narrow interests and preferring the familiar • Conscientiousness • Reliable, orderly, and industrious versus undependable and lazy • Extraversion • Outgoing with a preference to be around other people versus shy with a preference to be alone • Agreeableness • Easygoing and friendly versus unfriendly and cold • Neuroticism • Pessimistic and irritable versus optimistic and able to take things in stride

21. Social-Cognitive Theories • The view that personality can be defined as a collection of learned behaviors acquired through social interactions

22. What are the components of Bandura’s reciprocal determinism model? • Bandura proposed that internal, environmental, and behavioral variables interact to influence personality • An important cognitive factor in Bandura’s theory is self-efficacy • A person’s perception of his or her ability to perform competently whatever is attempted

23. What does locus of control contribute to personality? • Julian Rotter proposed a personality factor called locus of control • People with an internal locus of control • See themselves as primarily in control of their behavior and its consequences • People with an external locus of control • Perceive that what happens to them is in the hands of fate, luck, or chance

24. Nature, Nurture, and Personality • Although all psychologists agree that our genes play at least some roles in personality, most also acknowledge that environmental factors influence how our traits change over time

25. What have twin and adoption studies revealed about the influence of genes on personality?

26. How does personality differ across cultures? • Advocates of the five-factor model assert that the factors are universal • But other theorists argue that cultures differ in individualism/collectivism, a dimension of personality • In individualist cultures more emphasis is placed on independence and individual achievement • In collectivist cultures, people emphasize social connectedness and tend to define themselves in terms of group membership

27. Personality Assessment • Personality assessment is commonly used in business and industry to aid in hiring decisions • Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors use various ways of measuring personality in the diagnosis of patients and in the assessment of progress in therapy

28. How do psychologists use observations, interviews, and rating scales? • Assessment methods include • Behavioral assessment • In which behavior is observed and recorded • Structured interviews • In which an interview follows a prescribed procedure • Rating scales provide a standardized format for recording behaviors or interview responses

29. What is an inventory, and what are the MMPI-2 and CPI designed to reveal? • An inventory is a paper and pencil test with questions about a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors • Scored according to a standard procedure • Used to measure several dimensions of personality

30. What is an inventory, and what are the MMPI-2 and CPI designed to reveal? • The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) is the most widely used personality inventory • Used to screen for and diagnose psychiatric problems and disorders • Includes 550 items that differentiate specific groups of psychiatric patients from people considered to be normal • Also includes validity scales, such as a social desirability scale

31. What is an inventory, and what are the MMPI-2 and CPI designed to reveal? • California Personality Inventory (CPI) • Developed to assess personality in normal individuals • Is useful for predicting school achievement, leadership and executive success, and effectiveness of police and military personnel • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) • Based on Jung’s theory of personality • Measures normal individual differences on four personality dimensions

32. How do projective tests provide insight into personality, and what are some of the most commonly used projective tests? • A projective test is a personality test consisting of inkblots, drawings of ambiguous human situations, or incomplete sentences for which there are no correct or incorrect responses • People respond by projecting their inner thoughts, feelings, fears, or conflicts onto the test materials

33. How do projective tests provide insight into personality, and what are some of the most commonly used projective tests? • In the Rorschach Inkblot Method the test taker is asked to describe 10 inkblots • According to Rorschach, responses can be used to diagnose disorders • Critics argue that results are too dependent on the judgment of the examiner • In response, Exner (1993) developed the Comprehensive System for scoring

34. How do projective tests provide insight into personality, and what are some of the most commonly used projective tests?

35. How do projective tests provide insight into personality, and what are some of the most commonly used projective tests? • The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was developed by Henry Murray • Test taker describes a series of drawings of ambiguous human situations • Descriptions are thought to reveal inner feelings, conflicts, and motives • Critics argue that • It relies too heavily on interpretation of the examiner • Responses may reflect temporary states and may not indicate more permanent aspects of personality