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Four Main Theories : Psychoanalytic Theory Humanistic Theory Trait Theory Social-Cognitive Theory. Personality. A person’s pattern of thinking, feeling and acting. Types of Personalities. Type A. Type B. Relaxed and easygoing. But some people fit in neither type.
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Four Main Theories: • Psychoanalytic Theory • Humanistic Theory • Trait Theory • Social-Cognitive Theory Personality A person’s pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.
Types of Personalities Type A Type B Relaxed and easygoing. But some people fit in neither type. • Feel time pressure. • Easily angered. • Competitive and ambitious. • Work hard and play hard. • More prone to heart disease than rest of population.
What is Personality? • Personality • an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting • basic perspectives • Psychoanalytic • Humanistic
This theory is based off Sigmund Freud’s ideas Psychoanalysis: attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts Freud says your personality is based off unconscious tensions you can’t control!! Psychoanalytic Theory
What’s in Our Unconscious? • Conscious- things we are aware of. • Preconscious- things we can be aware of if we think of them. • Unconscious-unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, desires, urges, memories • deep hidden reservoir that holds the true “us”. All of our desires and fears.
The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Free Association • in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious • person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing
The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Unconscious • according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories • contemporary viewpoint- information processing of which we are unaware
Freud’s Concept of Personality (Psyche) • Ego • Superego • Id
Personality Structure • Id • contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy • strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives • operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
Id • Exists entirely in the unconscious (so we are never aware of it). • Our hidden true animalistic wants and desires. • Works on the Pleasure Principle • Avoid Pain and receive Instant Gratification.
Personality Structure • Superego • the part of personality that presents internalized ideals • provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations
Superego • Develops last at about the age of 5 • It is our conscience (what we think the difference is between right and wrong) • The Ego often mediates between the superego and id.
Personality Structure • Ego • the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality • mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality • operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
Ego • Develops after the Id • Works on the Reality Principle • Negotiates between the Id and the environment. • In our conscious and unconscious minds. • It is what everyone sees as our personality.
Ego Conscious mind Unconscious mind Superego Id Personality Structure • Freud’s idea of the mind’s structure
Defense Mechanisms • The ego has a pretty important job…and that is to protect you from threatening thoughts in our unconscious. • One way it protects us is through defense mechanisms. • You are usually unaware that they are even occurring.
Scenario Quarterback of the high school football team, Brandon, is dating Jasmine. Jasmine dumps Brandon and starts dating Drew, president of the chess club. Brandon Jasmine Drew
Repression • Pushing thoughts into our unconscious. • When asked about Jasmine, Brandon may say “Who?, I have not thought about her for awhile.” • the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness
Denial • Not accepting the ego-threatening truth. • Brandon may act like he is still together with Jasmine. He may hang out by her locker and plan dates with her.
Displacement • Redirecting one’s feelings toward another person or object. • Often displaced on less threatening things. • Brandon may take his anger on another kid by bullying.
Projection • Believing that the feelings one has toward someone else are actually held by the other person and directed at oneself. • defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others • Brandon insists that Jasmine still cares for him.
Reaction Formation • Expressing the opposite of how one truly feels. • people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings • Cootie stage in Freud’s Latent Development. • Brandon claims he hates Jasmine.
Regression • Returning to an earlier, comforting form of behavior. • Brandon begins to sleep with his favorite childhood stiffed animal, Scruffy.
Rationalization • Coming up with a beneficial result of an undesirable outcome. • Brandon thinks he will find a better girlfriend. “Jasmine was not all that anyway!” • defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Intellectualization • Undertaking an academic, unemotional study of a topic. • Brandon starts doing a research paper on failed teenage romances.
Sublimation • Channeling one’s frustration toward a different goal. • Sometimes a healthy defense mechanism. • Brandon starts to learn how to play the guitar and writing songs (or maybe starts to body build).
Criticisms of Freud • He really only studied wealthy woman in Austria. • His results are not empirically verifiable (really hard to test). • No predictive power.
Neo-Freudians These individuals accepted Freud’s basic ideas: the id, ego, and superego; the importance of the unconscious; the shaping of personality in childhood; and the dynamics of anxiety and defense mechanisms BUT… they disagreed with Freud in other areas, especially the role sexual desires play (blamed socialissues instead) They changed thename to “Psychodynamic”
Alfred Adler Believed the driving force in creating personality is the desire to overcome inferiority Inferiority Complex: Children learning to overcome inadequacies from parents – the pattern they learn produces a lifestyle
KarenHorney Criticized Freud’s masculine view of psychology and the idea that the female was naturally inferior Said men had “womb envy” Childhood Anxiety – a child’s helplessness requires him/her to seek love and security. Therefore, personality is built on this early fight against rejection.
CarlJung Expanded concept of unconscious to include a collective unconscious – a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from the species’ history. Collective Unconscious contains archetypes – specific inherited ideas. Examples: supreme being, nurturing mother, wise man, hostile brother, rebirth, wicked witches…
How do we explore your unconscious? • Free Association: exploring the unconscious by relaxing and saying whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing • Freud also explored the unconscious through dream analysis Sigmund Freud
Getting into the Unconscious cont. • Hypnosis • Dream Interpretation • Projective Tests (and test that delves into the unconscious). • Examples are TAT and Inkblot Tests.
Assessing the Unconscious • 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
TAT TestThematic Apperception Test • Giving the subject a picture that is ambiguous (can have several meanings) and ask them what is occurring. • Their answers reveal the manifest content. • They can then discover the Latent Content.
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
Rorschach Inkblot Test • The most widely used projective test • A set of ten inkblots designed to identify people’s feelings when they are asked to interpret what they see in the inkblots.