Personality Theories

1. Personality Theories Psychology

2. Personality Theory • After Freud’s theories are popularized • Debate between pro-Freud and anti-Freud psychologists • Various theories to fit your own insights about causes of human behavior • To explain human complexity

3. Behaviorism • All behavior is reaction to stimuli from the world around you • Control the stimuli = Control the behavior • John Watson: Psychologists frustrated with making assumptions about unknown mental functions • Focus only on verifiable observable behavior • Based on Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning research: Pavlov’s dogs

4. John Watson: Behaviorism • System of stimulus-response units: cause and effects between environment and behavior • Rewarded or pleasurable responses encourage repetition of behavior • Punishment deters behavior • Example: Baby responds to mother, expects care • Food, warmth, love • Responds with cooing and waving arms • Cry when mom goes away • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI

5. B.f. skinner (1904-1990) • Watson’s successor as leading American behaviorist • Dismisses Freud’s psychoanalytic approach • Believes development of personality is too important to leave to parents/environment • Infants born with 3 instinctive responses: love, rage, and fear • All others developed through learning/training

6. Skinner’s Books • Walden Two: Invents self-sufficient community run on behaviorist principles • Trained nurses raise children • Shape personalities to maintain stable productive society • Applied theory to all of society in Beyond Freedom and Dignity • Critics accuse him of trying to solve problems by sacrificing free will and individual responsibility

7. Skinner’s Theory • Classifies all behavior as respondent or operant: • Respondent: When stimulus causes reflexive automatic involuntary response • Operant: Behaviors that act on environment to gain reward • Most human behavior falls into this category • Can be conditioned through reinforcement

8. Skinner’s personality Theory • To display: Skinner trains pigeons • Teach behaviors in small steps and reward with food pellets • Bowling, play ping pong, piano, and drop bombs • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGazyH6fQQ4 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhvaSEJtOV8&feature=related

9. Shaping Behavior • Broken down into small steps • Desirable behavior is rewarded • Undesirable behavior is ignored • Example: Teaching a child to swim • Applied to personality: Early life experiences can condition later life behavior • Underlying cause for neurotic behavior

10. Behaviorist personality Theory • Neurotic behavior is poorly chosen response to stimuli • Causes general anxiety that makes it impossible to cope with symptoms • Behavioral Therapy: Teaches you to form the correct response • Common Technique: Systematic Desensitization process • Example: Get over fear of heights

11. Skinner’s Baby box • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYEZdA0qzNA&list=PL4BE7952349FBA7CA

12. Skinner’s “baby tender” • 1940s: Wanted her to have the best possible environment to produce healthy, happy baby • Temperature control: less restrictive clothing • Keep out noise and light so she sleeps well • Clean: Bath her less often • She grew up normal and successful • He was criticized: Why didn’t it catch on?

14. Neo-Freudians • New research shows humans are highly adaptable to change in environment • Psychoanalysts modify Freud’s ideas: Believe social influences play a major role in shaping personality • Think less about influence of heredity and childhood experiences

15. Freudians vs. Neo-Freudians • Agree: • Unconscious has important influence • Repression used to cope with anxiety • Defense mechanisms protect ego • Early childhood is when you form basic personality • Disagree: • Sex Drive vs. Social influence=more important • Childhood Sexuality vs. Learned relationship skills • Woman=inferior vs. Neither superior • Id/Ego/Superego vs. They don’t exist

16. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs Basic needs must be met; then other needs can become the focus (love, support, etc.) http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=I2P401

17. Erik Erikson (1902-1994) • Austrian psychologist who studied with Anna Freud • Theory of Psychosocial Development: • Same age as Freud’s psychosexual development • In each stage: Achieve new way of seeing yourself in relation to society • Personality develops throughout your whole life • In each stage: Conflict develops between positive and negative ego qualities • You must resolve each crisis to move successfully through stages • If one is not resolved, it CAN be resolved later in life

18. Stages of Psychosocial development • Trust vs. Mistrust: Birth to one year • Babies learn to trust or fear the world depending on experiences with other people/parents • Need to feel world is orderly and predictable • Lack of trust causes anxiety/fear in later stages • Trust vs. Mistrust: Birth to one year • Babies learn to trust of fear the world depending on experiences with other people/parents • Need to feel world is orderly and predictable • Lack of trust causes anxiety/fear in later stages

19. Stages of Psychosocial development • Autonomy vs. Doubt: Early childhood age 2-3 • Children must develop self confidence and independence • Learn to feed and dress themselves and become toilet trained • Kids not given the opportunity to explore new skills will be full of shame and self doubt

20. Stages of Psychosocial development • Initiative vs. Guilt: Play age, ages 4-5 • Children are curious and should be encouraged to develop their intellectual resources and interests • Free to run, play, and question everything • Guilt results from overly strict parenting that hinder self-motivation

21. Stages of Psychosocial development • Industry vs. Inferiority: School age, 6-11 • Most kids enter school eager to learn and show off skills • Curious and love trying new things • Explore interpersonal relationships • Teachers/parents who push too hard can cause feelings of inferiority and lack of initiative

22. Stages of Psychosocial development • Identity vs. Role Confusion: Adolescence, ages 12-18 • Critical period where you find your own identity • Made more difficult by challenges of adolescent tasks: sex, career choices, relationships with peers and parents, etc. • Must resolve identity crisis in order to have clear goals for a happy productive adulthood • Identity vs. Role Confusion: Adolescence, ages 12-18 • Critical period where you find your own identity • Made more difficult by challenges of adolescent tasks: sex, career choices, relationships with peers and parents, etc. • Must resolve identity crisis in order to have clear goals for a happy productive adulthood

23. Stages of Psychosocial development • Intimacy vs. Isolation: young adulthood, ages 19-35 • People are looking for a partner • Find your values while your identity will be challenged by friends and lovers • Must develop strength to stick to commitments even if there is sacrifice or deferred gratification

24. Stages of Psychosocial development • Generativity vs. Stagnation: Adulthood, ages 36-60 • Mature adults begin to plan for future generations, through children or community contribution • Volunteer work, coaching, or helping your own kids succeed adds to quality of life • Stagnant adults are concerned only with themselves and try to deny aging process and concentrate on material pleasures

25. Stages of Psychosocial development • Ego Integrity vs. Despair: old age, 60+ • Well-integrated elderly people can cherish their successes, learn from their failures, and accept death • Remain active and involved • Those who did not achieve ego integrity are full of anger, fear, despair and regret

26. Carl Jung (1875-1961) • Swiss Psychoanalyst, friend of Freud • Doesn‘t agree with Freud’s focus on sex drives • Instead, places emphasis on spiritual and moral aspects of life • So influential and original that he has his own school of psychology; Analytic Psychology • Calls the human personality the psyche

27. The Jungian Unconscious • Two parts: Personal and Collective Unconscious • The Personal Unconscious: contains experiences that were once conscious but have been forgotten/repressed • Unconscious can influence conscious behavior • Complex: organized group of feelings/thoughts in the unconscious • Fixation on aspect that dominates your life that you may or may not be aware of • Examples: money complex, power complex, mother complex, etc.

28. Carl Jung’s unconscious • The Collective Unconscious: • Universal instincts, drives, and memories shared by the human race • Cross boundaries of time, skin color, and geography • “Memories” of history are unseen forces influencing your thoughts/feelings/perceptions • 2 million years of evolutionary experience left a mark on the human brain • Example: People still like to hunt/fish, universal behaviors across separated cultures, etc.

29. Archetypes • Universal thought patterns, themes, and symbols • Appear across time in literature, religion, music, art, etc. • Create images on which you base your perception of the world • Creates your sense of wholeness, completeness, and interconnectivity • Examples: Hero archetype, mother earth archetype, the wise old man, the devil/villain

32. Jung’s Archetypes • Four become systems within personality: • 1. Persona: The “mask” you wear to hide your true self in public (your image) • In response to social pressure, traditions, and need for acceptance • Healthy if it is a choice, but can’t allow it to dominate your life • Example: the good girl, the bad boy

33. Jung’s Archetypes • Anima and Animus: • All people carry elements of the opposite sex within their personalities • Anima: Feminine image men carry • Animus: Male image women carry • Provide balance to the personality • Enable sexes to understand each other • Forms your perception/expectations of the opposite sex • Example: Ideal woman

34. Jung’s Archetypes • Shadow: Represents the primitive side of personality • Socially unacceptable thoughts/desires are repressed by personal unconscious • Most people hide the shadow behind their persona • Deep secrets, guilty pleasures, skeletons in the closet, selfish needs, etc.

35. Jung’s Archetypes • Self: Analytic psychology places great emphasis on concept of the self • Life goal, striving for unity and completeness • Few reach this because all other elements of personality must fully develop first • Example: Religious leaders or philosophers who join conscious and unconscious mind see emergence of completed self

36. Jung’s Other contributions • Introversion: look inward, find pleasure in pursuing own thoughts, shy, happiest alone • Extroversion: invest psychic energy in the outside world, need company, excitement, activity, outgoing • Everyone has both aspects, one usually dominates

37. Jung’s Word association tests • As the subject responds to a list of prepared words, repressed/concealed thoughts will slip past the mind’s censors into speech • Responses to key words admit guilt/connect them to a crime, etc. • Similar to polygraph test

38. existential Psychology • Human beings are free agents, they determine their behavior by choice • Not controlled by unconscious forces • No one is bound to the past • Rollo May: Encourages people to take responsibility for their own lives • “I learned along the way to tune in on my being, my existence in the now, because that was all there was—that and my tubular body. It was a valuable experience to face death, for in the experience I learned to face life”

39. Existentialist’s approach to personality • Created after WWII to aid people who felt life was empty of meaning • It is the belief in the nobility of the human spirit that gives meaning and purpose to life • Central concept of life is being: all you can know of the world is what you perceive • “You are part of the world, and the world is part of you”

40. Key Existential Beliefs • Being is becoming: Humans have potential to grow and change things • Alternative is to give in to frustration and sense of futility • To realize your potential requires that you explore your own being/consciousness/identity • Happiness found in freedom and commitment

41. Key Existential Beliefs • Humans must take responsibility of their own life, completely free will • Make choices, take action, take risks, learn from mistakes • Everyone can change for the better and has a responsibility to do so • Don’t make excuses for your problems/issues: • “My parents hit me when I was little, so it’s their fault that this is the way I am. I can’t change.”

42. Key Existential Beliefs • Happiness is a by-product of committing yourself to the choices you have made • Make each choice in your life as if you are making it for all humanity • Anxiety and despair result when you refuse to take responsibility of your own life • Life is not fair, bad things will happen, but live your life to the fullest and make the best of it

43. Existential view of neurotic behavior • Anxiety/despair are inescapable parts of the human condition • Making choices means taking chances • Each choice brings new anxiety • If you give in to this anxiety it causes neurotic behavior • Examples: Withdrawal from society, seeking pleasure by any means, conforming to the views/desires of others so they don’t have to make their own choices, etc.

44. Existential view of neurotic behavior • Existential vacuum: Feeling that everything is meaningless, feeling helpless to change anything successfully, give up instead • Viktor Frankl: Studied concentration camp inmates • Many were in an existential vacuum=died • Those who lived were those who had a task to complete in life: someone/something depended on them=gives them meaning and purpose

45. The future of personality theory • Psychologists still hope for an all-encompassing theory to explain personality • Family Systems Theory: Therapists should focus on the family not individuals • Family interactions can cause anxiety or happiness • Psychologists are exploring ethnic and cultural forces that shape personality • Gender theory is gaining ground in comparing roles each sex takes on which form their personalities

46. Bell Ringer • How do you think personality is formed? What contributed most to the formation of your own personality?

47. Bell Ringer • How do Behaviorists like Skinner and Watson feel that your personality is formed? What contributes to it and how can it be changed?

48. Bell Ringer • How do you feel about Skinner’s theory of raising children? Should they be raised systematically or by properly trained nurses? What about the baby box?

49. Bell Ringer • What are some areas where Freudians and Neo-Freudians disagree with each other?

50. Bell Ringer • How do you feel about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory of Personality development? Do physical needs and safety needs have to be met before developing your personality further?