Personality

1. Chapter 14 Personality PSYCHOLOGY David G. Myers C. Nathan DeWall Twelfth Edition

2. Chapter Overview • Introduction to Personality and Psychodynamic Theories • Humanistic Theories and Trait Theories • Social-Cognitive Theories and the Self

3. Introduction to Personality and Psychodynamic Theories • Personality • An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting • Psychodynamic theories • Posit that behavior is the dynamic interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind

4. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective: Perspective Exploring the Unconscious • Observed patients whose disorders had no clear physical explanations • Concluded their problems reflected unacceptable thoughts and feelings, hidden away in the unconscious mind Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

5. Terms to Learn • Psychoanalysis • Conscious, preconscious, unconscious mind • Free association • Ego, superego, id • Pleasure principle • Reality principle Let’s take a few minutes to review each of these.

6. Freud’s Idea of the Mind’s Structure • Psychologists have used an iceberg image to illustrate Freud’s idea that the mind is mostly hidden beneath the conscious surface. • The id is totally unconscious, but the ego and the superego operate both consciously and unconsciously. • Unlike the parts of a frozen iceberg, the id, ego, and superego interact.

7. Freud’s Personality Structure • Freud believed that personality results from the mind’s three systems. • Id: Operates on the pleasure principle; unconsciously strives to satisfy basic drives to survive, reproduce, and aggress • Ego: Operates on the reality principle; seeks to realistically gratify the id’s impulses to bring long-term pleasure; contains perceptions, thoughts, judgments, and memories • Superego: Focuses on ideal behavior; strives for perfection; acts as moral conscience

8. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

9. Defense Mechanisms • The ego protects itself with tactics that reduce and redirect anxiety by reality distortion (defense mechanisms). • Defense mechanisms function indirectly and unconsciously. • Repression underlies all other defense mechanisms. It is sometimes incomplete and may be manifested as symbols in dreams or slips of the tongue.

10. REGRESSION • Faced with a mild stressor, children and young orangutans seek from their caregivers. • Freud might have interpreted these behaviors as regression, a retreat to an earlier developmental stage.

11. Six Defense Mechanisms

12. The Neo-Freudian and Later Psychodynamic Theorists (part 1) • Neo-Freudians • Accepted many of Freud’s ideas • Placed more emphasis on the conscious mind and on social motives than sexual- or aggression-related ones • Contemporary psychodynamic theorists • Reject Freud’s emphasis on sexual motivation • View mental life as primarily unconscious • Contend childhood social experiences influence adult personality and attachment patterns • Many believe species’ shared evolutionary history is shaped some universal predispositions (archetypes)

13. The Neo-Freudian and Later Psychodynamic Theorists (part 2) • Alfred Adler: “The individual feels at home in life and feels his existence to be worthwhile just so far as he is useful to others and is overcoming feelings of inferiority” (Problems of Neurosis, 1964). • Karen Horney: “The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine tendency to lower women’s self-respect” (Feminine Psychology, 1932). • Carl Jung: “From the living fountain of instinct flows everything that is creative; hence the unconscious is the very source of the creative impulse” (The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960).

14. Assessing Unconscious Processes (part 1) • Projective test • Personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli • Designed to trigger the projection of one’s inner dynamics and reveal unconscious motives • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) • Projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

15. Assessing Unconscious Processes (part 2) • Rorschach inkblot test • Most widely used projective test • A set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach • Seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots • Attempts to address low reliability and validity in most areas addressed with a research-based, computer-aided tool

16. Evaluating Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective and Modern Views of the Unconscious (part 1) • Modern research contradicts many of Freud’s ideas. • Development is lifelong, not fixed in childhood • Parental influence is overestimated and peer influence is underestimated • Oedipus complex questioned • Gender identity develops earlier than Freud theorized and is possible without the influence of a same-sex parent in home • Belief that dreams disguise and fulfill wishes is disputed, as is idea that suppressed sexuality causes psychological disorders • Freud’s scientific methodology is criticized • After-the-fact explanations of characteristics fail to predict behaviors and traits

17. Evaluating Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective and Modern Views of the Unconscious (part 2) • Freud’s major contributions: • Drew attention to the vast unconscious • Struggled to cope with sexuality • Addressed conflict between biological impulses and social restraints • Identified forms of defense mechanisms and unconscious terror-management defenses

18. Modern Research Challenges the Idea of Repression • Research does not support many of Freud’s specific ideas. • Modern research challenges: • Freud’s concept of repression • View of the unconscious as a collection of repressed and unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories • Difficulty of scientifically testing Freud’s concepts

19. The Modern Unconscious Mind • Many research psychologists now think of the unconscious as information processing that occurs without awareness. • Unconsciousness involves schemas, priming, right-hemisphere activity, implicit memories, emotions, and stereotypes. • Research supports two of Freud’s defense mechanisms: reaction formation and projection.

20. Humanistic Theories and Trait Theories • Abraham Maslow’s self-actualizing person • Maslow focused on the potential for healthy personal growth and people’s striving for self-determination and self-realization. • People are motivated by hierarchy of needs and strive for self-actualization and self-transcendence. • Carl Rogers’ person-centered perspective • Roger posited that characteristics of growth-promoting environment include genuineness, acceptance, and empathy. • Unconditional positive regard and self-concept are key components of Rogers’ theory.

21. Assessing the Self • Humanistic psychologists sometimes assessed personality using questionnaires to evaluate their self-concept. • Some rejected any standardized assessments and relied on interviews and conversations. • Rogers sometimes used questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves, which was later used to judge progress during therapy.

22. Evaluating Humanistic Theories • Influences • Influenced counseling, education, child-raising, and management • Laid the groundwork for positive psychology • Renewed interest in the concept of the self • Criticisms • Present vague and subjective concepts • Advance individualism and self-centered values • Offer naively optimistic assumptions

23. Trait Theories: Describing Personality • Trait theorists • See personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior • Describe differences rather than trying to explain them • Use factor analysis to identify clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together • Suggest genetic predispositions influence many traits

24. Exploring Traits (part 1) • Factor analysis • Statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test items to tap basic components of intelligence • Eysenck Personality Questionnaire: Extraversion and emotionality factors inevitably emerged as basic personality dimensions

25. Two Personality Dimensions

27. Exploring Traits (part 2) • Biology and personality • Brain-activity scans of extraverts indicate they seek stimulation because normal brain arousal is relatively low. • Dopamine and dopamine-related neural activity tend to be higher in extraverts. • Stigma of introversion • Introversion is often misunderstood as shyness, but introverted people often simply seek low levels of stimulation from their environment.

28. Assessing Traits • Personality inventory • Questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors • Used to assess selected personality traits • Test items empirically derived; tests objectively scored • Example: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI/Hathaway), which has been translated into 100+ languages

29. The “Big Five” Personality Factors (part 1) • The Big Five factors (Costa et al., 2011): most widely accepted picture of personality • CANOE: • Conscientiousness • Agreeableness • Neuroticism • Openness • Extraversion

30. The “Big Five” Personality Factors (part 2)

31. Big Five Research Questions • How stable are these traits? • How heritable are they? • Do traits reflect differing brain structure? • Have these traits changed over time? • How well do these traits apply to various cultures? • Do the Big Five traits predict our actual behaviors?

32. The Person-Situation Controversy • Behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner disposition with our environment. • In general, personality traits are stable and socially significant. • Personality traits are predictors of mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment. • Consistency of specific behaviors from one situation to another is weak; average behaviors are predictable. • At any moment, the immediate situation powerfully influences a person’s behavior.

33. Personality Stability

34. Social-Cognitive Theories and the Self • Social-cognitive perspective (Bandura) • Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context • Emphasizes interaction of our traits with our situations • Applies principles of learning, cognition, and social behavior to personality

35. Reciprocal Influences • Reciprocal determinism • Describes the interaction and mutual influence of behavior, internal personal factors, and environmental factors • Interaction of individuals and environments: internal personal factors • Different people choose different environments. • Personalities shape how people interpret and react to events. • Personalities help create situations to which people react.

36. Reciprocal Determinism

37. The Biopsychosocial Approach to the Study of Personality

38. Assessing Behavior in Situations • Social-cognitive theorists • Build on concepts of learning and cognition • Contend the best way to predict behavior in a given situation is to observe that behavior in similar situations • Downplay the importance of unconscious motives, emotions, and biologically influenced traits

39. Exploring the Self (part 1) • Exploration of the self in psychology has a long history. • William James (1890) • Gordon Allport (1943) • Humanistic psychology • Psychology today • Self is one of most studied topics and viewed as the center of personality • Consideration of possible selves motivates toward positive development; too intense focusing may lead to spotlight effect

40. Exploring the Self (part 2) • Self-esteem: Our feeling of self-worth • Self-efficacy: Our sense of competence on a task • High self-esteem correlates with less pressure to conform, with persistence at difficult tasks, and with happiness. But the direction of the correlation is not clear.

41. Costs of Self-Esteem (part 1) • Excessive optimism • May lead to complacency • May prevent recognition of real risks • May be self-defeating when dealing with temptations • May be directed toward a group (illusionary optimism)

42. Costs of Self-Esteem (part 2) • Blindness to one’s own incompetence • People are most overconfident when most incompetent; it takes competence to recognize competence. • Self-serving bias • Involves a readiness to perceive the self favorably • Suggests people accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, and for successes rather than for failure • Often creates a better-than-average effect • May underlie a range of conflicts

43. Self-Esteem • Two types of self-esteem • Defensive self-esteem is fragile, threatened by failure and criticism, and more vulnerable to perceived threats that feed anger and feelings of vulnerability. • Secure self-esteem is less fragile, less contingent on external evaluations, and more likely to achieve a greater quality of life.