Exploring Personality: Perspectives, Structure, and Development

1. Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY (7th Ed) Chapter 15 Personality Cerepak 2015 Adapted from Worth Publishers

2. What is Personality? • Personality • an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting • basic perspectives covering how personality develops and is assessed • Psychoanalytic • Humanistic • Social-Cognitive Theory • The Trait Perspective

3. The Psychoanalytic Perspective • From Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) theory which proposes that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality

4. The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Psychoanalysis • Freud’s theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts • techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious conflicts & motives, by providing insight into one’s thoughts & actions

5. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis grew from his early observation that some patients who consulted him seemed to have no physical cause. • Freud experimented with hypnosis, but found that some patients could not be hypnotized and thus developed the technique of:

6. The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Free Association • in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious mind • person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

7. Ego Conscious mind Unconscious mind Superego Id Personality Structure • Freud’s compared the human mind’s structure to a iceberg

8. The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Unconscious • according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, desires, & memories. If he could patients open the door to the unconscious mind, they could recover from painful childhood memories and heal. • contemporary viewpoint- information processing of which we are unaware

9. The conscious mind are the thoughts and feelings that we are aware of. • The preconscious mind consists of thoughts & memories not in our current awareness but easily retrieved. • Freud believed that our personality grows out of a basic human conflict. Each of us is born with aggressive, pleasure seeking biological impulses.

10. But we live in a society that restrains these impulses. The way that each of us resolves the conflict between social restraints and pleasure seeking impulses shapes our individual personality. • Three forces interact during this conflict:

11. Personality Structure • Id • contains a reservoir of unconscious energy • strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives • operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

12. Personality Structure • Superego • the part of personality that presents internalized ideals and standards for judgement. It is the voice of conscience that focuses on what we should do.

13. Personality Structure • Ego • the largely conscious part of personality • mediates among the demands of the id, superego, • operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. Represents good sense & reason.

14. Freud concluded that our personality is formed during the first 5 to 6 years of life. He believed that his patient’s problems originated in conflicts that had not been resolved during childhood years. • Freud believed the patient had become “FIXATED” or stuck on one of the psychosexual stages of development. Each stage is marked by the id’s pleasure seeking focus on a different part of the body.

15. Personality Development • Identification • the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos • Fixation • a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved

16. Personality Development • Psychosexual Stages • the childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones • Oedipus Complex • a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father during the phallic stage

17. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages Stage Focus Oral Pleasure centers on the mouth-- (0-18 months) sucking, biting, chewing Anal Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder (18-36 months) elimination; coping with demands for control Phallic Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with (3-6 years) incestuous sexual feelings Latency Dormant sexual feelings (6 to puberty) Genital Maturation of sexual interests (puberty on) Personality Development

18. DEFENSE MECHANISMS • Anxiety is the price that we pay for living in a civilized society. The conflict between the id’s wishes and the superego’s rules produces this anxiety. • However the ego has an arsenal of unconscious defense mechanisms to help us get rid of anxiety & tension.

19. Defense Mechanisms • Defense Mechanisms • the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

20. Defense Mechanisms • Repression the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness

21. Defense Mechanisms • Regression • defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage

22. Defense Mechanisms • DENIAL refusal to accept reality, the truth. SUBLIMATION- Channeling one’s frustrations towards another, more positive goal.

23. Defense Mechanisms • Reaction Formation • defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites • people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings

24. Defense Mechanisms • Projection • defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others • Rationalization • defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions

25. Defense Mechanisms • Displacement • defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person • as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet

26. Neo-Freudians • Those people that agreed with Freud’s basic idea of psychoanalysis, but disagreed with specific parts.

27. Neo-Freudians • Alfred Adler (1870-1937) • importance of childhood social tension were crucial in the development of personality. Adler believed that psychological problems in personalities were based on feeling of inferiority (fear of failure) and superiority (the desire to achieve) • Researched the importance of birth order in shaping personality.

28. Neo-Freudians • Karen Horney (1885-1952) • sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases. Social expectations, not biological variables, were the foundation of personality development. • Anxiety is the helplessness & isolation that people feel in a hostile world as a result of the competitiveness of today’s society. • She began the psychodynamic movement that is primarily used today.

29. Neo-Freudians Carl Jung (1875-1961) Believed that we have an individual unconsciousness as well as a: • the collective unconscious • concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history • Contemporary psychologists reject the idea of inherited memory.

30. Criticisms of Freud • Little empirical evidence • Psychoanalytic Theory can explain any type of behavior (ex: accepting or denying Oedipus Complex) • Overestimating the importance of childhood and sex • Little predictive power • Objective (assumes male superiority)

31. PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT • Projective Test • a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) • a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

32. Assessing the Unconscious--TAT

33. Assessing the Unconscious • Rorschach Inkblot Test • the 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

34. Assessing the Unconscious--Rorschach

35. Humanistic Perspective • In contrast to Freud’s “sick” people, humanistic psychologists focus on ways that “healthy people strive for self-determination and self-realization • Studied people through their own self-reported experiences and feelings • Aimed to see the world through the person’s eyes and not the researchers.

36. Humanistic Perspective • Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) • studied self-actualization processes of productive and healthy people

37. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Fulfilling our Potential! When our most basic needs are met we are able to focus on a higher level of needs.

38. Humanistic Perspective • Self-Actualization • the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved • the motivation to fulfill one’s potential

39. Abraham Maslow • Studied healthy, creative people • Based his descriptions of self-actualization on a study of those who seemed notable for their rich and productive lives (Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt). Shared characteristics of these people • Self-aware, self-accepting, open and spontaneous, loving, and caring, not paralyzed by others’ opinions, problem-centered interests, focused energy on mission in life. They enjoyed few deep relationships rather than many superficial ones.

40. Person-Centered Perspective • Carl Rogers (1902-1987) • focused on growth and fulfillment of individuals • Growth-promoting environ- ment required: • genuineness • acceptance • empathy

41. Humanistic Perspective • Unconditional Positive Regard • an attitude of total acceptance toward another person • Self-Concept • all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in an answer to the question, “Who am I?” If our self-concept is positive, we tend to act and perceive the world positively.

42. Assessment from the Humanistic Perspective • Questionnaires about self-concepts • Asking clients to describe their ideal self and their actual self. Then as therapy continued, the success would be attained as the ideal and actual self become closer. • Intimate conversations between therapist and client

43. Impacts of Humanistic Perspective • Ideas have influenced education, counseling, child-rearing and management • 1992 Gallup Poll: 89% of people rated self-esteem as very important to success and motivation to work hard • We value the self in individualistic society and Western Culture

44. Criticisms of Humanistic Perspective • Open, spontaneous, loving, self-accepting… • Are these actually scientific descriptions? • Aren’t these successful people just Maslow’s personal heroes? • “Trusting ones own feelings” and “being true to oneself” can lead to selfishness and self-destruction • The happiest people are those that focus on others (Crandall, 1984)

45. Contemporary Research-- The Trait Perspective • Trait • a characteristic pattern of behavior • a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports • Personality Inventory • a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors • used to assess selected personality traits

46. UNSTABLE Moody Touchy Anxious Restless Rigid Aggressive Sober Excitable Pessimistic Changeable Reserved Impulsive Unsociable Optimistic Quiet Active choleric melancholic INTROVERTED EXTRAVERTED Passive phlegmatic sanguine Sociable Careful Outgoing Thoughtful Talkative Peaceful Responsive Controlled Easygoing Reliable Lively Even-tempered Carefree Calm Leadership STABLE The Trait Perspective • Hans and Sybil Eysenck use two primary personality factors as axes for describing personality variation

47. The Trait Perspective • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) • the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests • originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use) • now used for many other screening purposes

48. The Trait Perspective • Empirically Derived Test • a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups • such as the MMPI

49. 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 The Trait Perspective • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test profile

50. The Big Five • Researchers liked Eysencks’ introverted-extraverted, stable-unstable dimensions', but they wanted something more. • They slightly expanded the personality factors to include: • Conscientiousness • Agreeableness • Neuroticism • Openness • Extraversion CANOE