Quick Review – Defense Mechanism

1. Quick Review – Defense Mechanism • These mechanisms areused by ego for reducing anxiety by distorting reality • Repression: banishing thoughts • Regression: you retreat to a psychosexual stage with fixated psychic energy • Reaction formation: you express feelings opposite to your anxiety producing unconscious feelings • Projection: disguising your impulses by projecting onto others • Rationalization: offering self-justifying explanations so the real, threatening ones aren’t exposed • Displacement: shifting aggressive or sexual impulses toward a less threatening object or person • Denial: facts are rejected because they are too painful to accept

2. Trait and Social-Cognitive Personality

3. Trait Perspective • Traits – Aspects of personality that are relatively consistent • Example: Honest, Dependable, Moody, impulsive • Concerned with describing behavior rather than explaining it. • Assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

4. Personality Trait Perspective Gordon Allport Described personality in terms of fundamental traits, or characteristic patterns of behavior to feel or act in a certain way. • Individual personalities are unique • Identified almost 18,000 words representing traits

5. Raymond Cattell • Wanted to know if some traits predict others • Using statistics (factor analysis) identified: • 16 Personality Factors (16PF) that he believed made up the building blocks of each individual’s personality. • Everyone has the same 16 characteristics - to varying degrees.

6. Hans and Sybil Eysenck • Hans and Sybil Eysenck suggested that personality could be reduced down to two polar dimensions, extraversion-introversion and emotional stability-instability • Extraversionvs. Introversion Extraversion - sociable, outgoing, active, and lively person Introversion - thoughtful, reserved, & quiet • Emotional Stabilityvs. Instability Stability - easy-going, relaxed, well-adjusted and even-tempered Instability - moody, anxious, and restless

7. Personality Test!

8. Big Five Traits The Five-Factor Theory: A perspective suggesting that personality is composed of five fundamental personality dimensions: openness to experience, consciousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism

9. Big Five Traits

10. 1. Openness to experience: open-minded and willing to try intellectual experiences, new ideas, or creative experiences ---- Albert Einstein or Marshall Erickson Opposite is resistance to new experience - being predictable, conforming and unimaginative. Example: Matthew McConaughey (type casted in films) 2. Conscientiousness: dutiful, dedicated to completing tasks, organized, and responsible. --- Example: Lisa Simpson or Ted Mosby Opposite is impulsiveness - carelessness, giving up easily and being irresponsible. ---- Example: Homer Simpson or Damon (Vampire Diaries) 3. Agreeableness: sympathetic, cooperative, kind, trusting, and good-natured. – Example: Forrest Gump or Lily Aldrin Opposite is antagonism - being abrasive, irritable, suspicious & jealous – Tinker Bell 4. Extroversion: talkativeness, and being energetic - Jennifer Lawerence or Barney Stinson Opposite is introversion - being quiet, shy and cautious. – Yoda 5. Emotional Stability: individuals who experience things relatively easily without getting upset. --- James Bond or any superhero Opposite is neuroticism - being constantly angry or worried or complaining all the time. --- C3PO or Robin Scherbatsky

11. Review • Describe the trait perspective on personality. • Describe some of the ways psychologists have attempted to compile a list of basic personality traits • What are the dimensions of the “Big Five” trait theory?

12. Answers • Trait researchers have attempted to describe personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns, or predispositions to feel and act • Gordon Allport – individuals are unique and described 18,000 ways to describe people Cattell – created a 16 personality factor Eysenck suggested that personality could be reduced down to two polar dimensions, extraversion-introversion and emotional stability-instability 3. OCEAN – Openness, Conscientious, Extravert, Agreeableness, Neuroticism

13. Clinically significant range 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Hypochondriasis (concern with body symptoms) Depression (pessimism, hopelessness) After treatment (no scores in the clinically significant range) Hysteria (uses symptoms to solve problems) Before treatment (anxious, depressed, and displaying deviant behaviors) Psychopathic deviancy (disregard for social standards) Masculinity/femininity (interests like those of other sex) Paranoia (delusions, suspiciousness) Psychasthenia (anxious, guilt feelings) Schizophrenia (withdrawn, bizarre thoughts) Hypomania (overactive, excited, impulsive) Social introversion (shy, inhibited) 0 30 40 50 60 70 80 T-score Testing for Traits Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) - Asses abnormal personality traits. • Personality Inventories: questionnaires on which people respond o items designed to gauge a range of feelings and behaviors

14. Evaluating Trait Theory • Describe us well, but NOT why we behave a specific way • How are traits related to thoughts and feelings that precede, accompany, and follow behavior? • Traits vs. Environment • Are our traits consistent throughout all environments?

15. Social-Cognitive Theory

16. Social-CognitiveTheory Combines social behavior, cognition and learning • Albert Bandura: Emphasized the importance of social learning, or learning through observation. Reciprocal Determinism Mutual influence between personality and environmental factors - behavior, cognition, and environment

17. Individuals & Environments Specific ways in which individuals and environments interact Different people choose different environments. The school you attend and the music you listen to are partly based on your dispositions. Our personalities shape how we react to events. Anxious people react to situations differently than calm people. Our personalities shape situations. How we view and treat people influences how they treat us.

18. Locus of Control Do we see ourselves as controlling the outcome of events, or is it factors outside ourselves? There's no reason to vote in an election – your vote doesn’t count When you try to get a job, it’s not what you know what matters but whom you know One person can make a difference in a way elected representatives think If you want to be a successful, it depends on your hard work, not luck

19. External and Internal Locus of Control Social-cognitive psychologists emphasize our sense of personal control, whether we control the environment or the environment controls us. External locus of control: chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate Internal locus of control: that we can control our own fate

21. Assessment/Evaluation • Social-cognitive psychologists observe people in realistic and simulated situations because they find that it is the best way to predict the behavior of others in similar situations. • Critics say that social-cognitive psychologists pay a lot of attention to the situation and pay less attention to the individual, his unconscious mind, his emotions, and his genetics.

22. Question Describe the social-cognitive perspective, and explain how reciprocal determinism illustrates that perspective What are the effects of external and internal locus of control?

23. Answers Reciprocal determinism is the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors. This interaction is central to the social-cognitive perspective, which applies principles of learning and cognition to the study of personality. Interactions between individuals and environments occur, for example, when we choose an environment that then shapes us, when our personality shapes how we interpret and react to events, and when our personality helps create situations to which we react. People with an internal locus of control tend to experience higher school achievement, better health, less depression, and greater self control than those with an external locus of control