Chapter 15: Personality

1. Chapter 15: Personality AP Psychology

2. Personality Personality - an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting Major personality theories • Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory • Humanistic Approach • Trait Theory • Social-Cognitive Perspective

3. Psychoanalytic Perspective of Personality • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) • Austrian physician - treated patients with “neurotic” disorders (no physical cause) • Psychodynamic (psychoanalytic) theory – Theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts • Expose and interpret unconscious tension through: • Free association • Dream analysis • “Freudian slips,”

4. Free Association • Used by Freud to explore the unconscious mind • Person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing • Trace thoughts to a patient’s unconscious, painful memories (repressed memories?)

5. Free Association • Hate • Alone • Time • Grandma • Life • Heart • Good • Love • Influence • Impossible

6. Freudian Slip • A Freudian slip, AKA parapraxis, “slip of the tongue” • Error in speech because of interference of unconscious, repressed, or hidden desire or conflict guided by the super-ego and the rules of correct behavior. • Modern psychoanalytic theory might explain this as simple misreadings or mishearings

7. Freudian Slips “Good Morning Beheaded – Uh, I mean Beloved!”

8. Psychoanalytic Theory • Freud believed that the mind is mostly hidden • Unconscious – Beneath our conscious mind is a larger mind with mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories that we are unaware of • Freud believed nothing was accidental • Dreams and free associations were windows to the unconscious

9. Freud’s Model of the Mind The mind is like an iceberg. It is mostly hidden, and below the surface lies the unconscious mind. The preconscious stores temporary memories.

10. Personality develops as a result of our efforts to resolve conflicts between our biological impulses and social restraints.

11. Freud’s Personality Structure - Id • Unconscious portion of personality • The Id unconsciously strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives • Operates on the pleasure principle • Demands immediate gratification – (infants, impulsive people)

12. Freud’s Personality Structure - Ego • The ego functions as the “executive” and mediates the demands of the id and superego. • Develops from id as parents, teachers, etc. place restrictions on id behavior • Operates on “reality principle”- Seeks to gratify demands of the id in realistic ways • Voice of conscience

13. Freud’s Personality Structure - Superego • Thesuperego provides standards for judgment and for future aspirations. • Internalized rules and values of parents and society (develops ages 4-5) • Voice of conscience that forces ego to consider not only the real but the ideal (How you ought to behave) • As relentless, unreasonable in demands as id

15. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Personality develops during early childhood • Psychosexual stages – stages of development during which the id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on erogenous zones • Failure to resolve conflict at a stage results in fixation – unconscious preoccupation with area of pleasure associated with stage • Affects adult personality characteristics

16. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Oral Stage (1st year) • Mouth is center of pleasure at this stage • Fixation can come from weaning too early or late • Can result in adult characteristics like overeating, thumb sucking, smoking, childlike dependence (late weaning), “biting” sarcasm (early weaning)

17. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Anal Stage (2nd year) • Child’s ego develops to cope with parental/societal demands (toilet training clashes with freedom to “go” at will) • Fixation from toilet training too early or harsh → “anal retentiveness” or stinginess/excessive neatness (symbolically withholding feces) • Fixation from training too late/lax → “anal-expulsive” or disorganized, impulsive behavior (symbolically expelling feces)

18. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Phallic Stage (ages 3-5 years) • Focus shifts to genital area • Oedipus Complex - Boy has sexual desire for mother and wants to eliminate father’s competition for her attention • Fear of castration from father leads ego to repress desires and identify” with father (superego begins to develop) • Girls are believed to experience a similar Electra complex

19. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Latency Period (childhood to puberty) • Peaceful interval where sexual impulses remain in background • Focus on education, same-sex peer play, develop social skills • Genital Stage (adolescence on) • Sexual impulses reappear at conscious level with genitals as focus

20. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Identification– Children eventually cope with threatening feelings, identify with, and try to become like the rival parent • “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” • Superego gains strength - gain parents’ values • Identify with same-sex parent - part of gender identity • Fixation – the person’s pleasure-seeking energies are locked in a given stage • Can lead to difficulty dealing with authority figures and an inability to maintain stable love relationships

22. Defense Mechanisms • Defense Mechanisms - Unconscious tactics used by the ego to protect against anxiety & guilt (from id & superego) by preventing material from surfacing or disguising it when it does, or distorting reality

23. Defense Mechanisms • Repression– banishing anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings, repressed urges slip out in dreams or slip-ups • Regression– an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated (thumb sucking, clinging to mommy)

24. Defense Mechanisms • Projection– People disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others (“He doesn’t trust me” really means “I don’t trust him”) • Rationalization– offers self-justification explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions. (“I drink with my friends” not “I’m an alcoholic.” “I’m a social smoker”) • Sublimation – People channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities (paint or play a sport to channel your unconscious desires)

25. Defense Mechanisms • Displacement – Shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person; redirecting anger toward a safer outlet. (Kick the dog instead of yelling at your wife or child)

26. Defense Mechanisms • Denial– People refuse to believe or even perceive painful realities. (Deny your wife is cheating on you) • Reaction Formation – the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses to their opposite. People may express feelings that are opposite of their unconscious feelings. (”I love dad” instead of “I hate dad”) All of these defense mechanisms function independently and unconsciously.

27. Neo-Freudian & Psychodynamic Theorists • Followers of Freud who eventually moved away from some of his theories and ideas • Accept Freud’s basic ideas of: • Personality • Unconscious • Importance of childhood • Defense mechanisms. • Placed more emphasis on: • Conscious mind • Doubted sex & aggression were that big

28. Neo-Freudians – Alfred Adler • Social, not sexual tensions, crucial for personality development • Most fundamental motive is striving for superiority • Can’t get rid of feelings of inferiority = Inferiority Complex & Compensation • People may hide feelings of inferiority by flaunting superficial indicators of superiority such as wealth, status, good looks

29. Neo-Freudians – Carl Jung • Disagree with social tensions or Freud’s role of the unconscious • Collective unconscious – shared sense of universal experiences common to all human beings (unaware of these) • Organized into archetypes – universal concepts that influence our expectations, perceptions, & behavior (Ex. Mother as a symbol for nurturing) • Introduced personality types (no stages) – • Introversion – tendency to reflect on one’s own ability • Extraversion – tendency to focus on the social world

30. Neo-Freudians – Karen Horney • Disagreed with Freud’s male-dominated theory • Culture (social factors) was the main force in the formation of personality, not biological factors • Women envy men’s superior status, not their anatomy • Childhood anxiety leads to need for love & security (necessary for the formation of a healthy personality)

31. Assessing the Unconscious Mind Projective Tests – provide ambiguous stimuli designed to reveal the hidden unconscious mind • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)– subjects express inner feelings & interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. • Rorschach Inkblot Test - uses a set of 10 inkblots to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots (most widely used)

32. Explain the following: 1. What has led up to the event shown 2. What is happening at the moment 3. What the characters are feeling and thinking 4. What the outcome of the story was

33. Explain the following: 1. What has led up to the event shown 2. What is happening at the moment 3. What the characters are feeling and thinking 4. What the outcome of the story was

36. Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective • No empirical way to study the origins and the effects of the unconscious • Doubt gender identity comes from overcoming the Oedipus complex at 5 or 6 • Freud overestimated parental influence & underestimated peer influence • Freud typically used case studies, which aren’t as reliable as experimentation • High stress enhances memory – powerful negative emotional events are remembered well • Freudian slips are just language mistakes – competition between similar verbal choices in our memory network

37. Humanistic Perspective • Explains personality by describing how people differ in terms of self-awareness, creativity, decision-making & responsibility • Believe that people have an innate drive that promotes & directs growth and achieving their potential • Focused on “healthy people” rather than troubled clinical cases like Freud.

38. Abraham Maslow – Self-Actualization • Believed that we are motivated by a hierarchy of needs • We ultimately seek self-actualization – the process of fulfilling our potential

39. Abraham Maslow – Self-Actualization Studied people who were • Healthy, creative • Notable for their rich and productive lives (Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt) These people shared certain characteristics: • Self-aware • Self-accepting • Loving & caring • Open & spontaneous • Problem-centered • Not worried about what others think • Few deep relationships • Uneasy about cruelty and meanness

40. Carl Rogers – Person-Centered Perspective • People are basically good and can reach self-actualization unless in environment that inhibits growth. • Growth is promoted by having an environment with the following three qualities: • Genuineness • Acceptance • Empathy

41. Carl Rogers – Person-Centered Perspective • Genuineness -Being open with one’s feelings & being transparent and self-disclosing. • Accepting - Unconditional Positive Regard = total acceptance toward another person. • Empathic -Sharing and mirroring our feelings • We are able to grow if surrounded by people with these qualities

42. Humanistic Perspective • Central feature of personality is one’s self-concept – all the thoughts and feeling we have in response to the question, “Who am I?” • If our self-concept is positive, we tend to perceive the world as positive. • If it is negative, in our own eyes, we fall short of our ideal self. • Assessing a person’s sense of self(questionnaire) – Who do you ideally want to be vs. who you actually are? • If ideal and actual are nearly alike = positive self-concept

43. Evaluating the Humanistic Perspective Proponents: • Key to happiness and success: positive self-concept • Acceptance and empathy nurture positive feelings • People are basically good and can improve Critics: • Research is vague & subjective (Others might not share the values that Maslow & Rogers find to be positive). • Can lead to self-indulgence, selfishness, & erosion of moral restraints • Fails to consider the capacity for evil.

44. Trait Perspective – Gordon Allport • Ever taken an online personality test? That is the trait perspective! • Allport – one of the 1st trait researchers • Describe personality rather than explain it. • Sought to describe personality in terms of fundamental traits or identifiable behavior patterns • Traits = Internal characteristics that are stable, consistent over time, and displayed through mulutiple situations

45. Exploring Traits • There are over 18,000 words in a dictionary to describe people, so how do we cerate a list of manageable traits we can use to describe personality? (Allport counted them!)

46. Trait Perspective – • Individual Traits • Cardinal Trait – traits that define someone’s personality so well that the person exemplifies that trait in everything they do • Very rare – Ex. Mother Theresa – kindness & compassion • Central traits (source traits) – most people have – are easily recognized & have a strong influence on personality (caring) • Secondary (surface traits) –more specific to certain situations and change over time, not consistent (competitive)

47. Factor Analysis – Raymond Cattell • Based his research on Allport’s work • Factor Analysis – statistical method that analyzed multiple variables that are correlated and identifies how those correlations connect with each other • Allowed Cattell to find overarching qualities that connect numerous traits into clusters, reducing the number of traits.

48. Raymond Cattell’s 16 Source Traits • Came up with 2 overarching types of traits: • Surface Traits - observable behaviors • 16 Source Traits – fundamental characteristics that drive personality & result in the observable surface traits • Organized the source traits into 16 pairs, each pair forming a continuum & developed a test called the 16 Personality Factor (PF) Psychometric Questionnaire to measure them

50. Hans & Sybil Eysenk • Also used Factor Analysis to analyze traits • Arrived at 3 genetically-influenced dimensions of personality (temperaments) • Introversion vs Extroversion – needing either more external stimuli or less • Neuroticism vs Stability – degree of emotional stability • Psychoticism vs Socialism – the degree of aggression or noncomformity