Personality

1. Personality What makes you who you are?

2. Warm Up • On a ½ sheet of paper- write a list of words/characteristics that describe your personality (tear off the empty half)

3. Get a partner that knows you- give them the empty half sheet with your name on it • Your partner should now describe you

4. Give the list back to the person • Compare the list you wrote, with the list your partner wrote • Are there similarities & differences? Why?

5. How are people similar? • How are people different? • What makes you unique?

6. Personality An individual’s unique and relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

7. Personality Theory A theory that attempts to describe and explain how people are similar, how they are different, and why every individual is unique

8. Four Major Personality Perspectives • Psychoanalytic—emphasis on unconscious processes and childhood experiences • Humanistic—emphasis on self and fulfillment of potential • Social cognitive—emphasis on beliefs about self • Trait—emphasis on description and measurement of personality differences

9. Psychoanalytic Approach • Developed by Sigmund Freud • Psychoanalysis is both an approach to therapy and a theory of personality. • Emphasizes unconscious motivation – the main causes of behavior lie buried in the unconscious mind

10. Sigmund Freud • Developed technique of free association in therapy—he let the patient spontaneously report their uncensored thoughts, feelings, and mental images as they come to mind • Freudian slip • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS_L8efaJ-E

11. Dynamic Theory of Personality • Freud saw personality and behavior as the result of a constant interplay between conflicting psychological forces • Conscious, preconscious, unconscious

13. Psychoanalytic Approach Conscious – all things we are aware of at any moment

14. Psychoanalytic Approach Preconscious – everything that can, with a little effort, be brought into consciousness

15. Psychoanalytic Approach Unconscious –inaccessible warehouse of anxiety-producing thoughts and drives

16. Psychoanalytic Divisions of the Mind • Id—instinctual drives present at birth • does not distinguish between reality and fantasy • operates according to the pleasure principle • Ego—develops out of the id in infancy • understands reality and logic • mediator between id and superego • Superego----develops at young childhood • internalization of society’s moral standards • responsible for guilt

18. Id: The Pleasure Principle • Pleasure principle—drive toward immediate gratification, most fundamental human motive • Sources of energy • Eros—life instinct, perpetuates life • Thanatos—death instinct, aggression, self-destructive actions • Libido—sexual energy or motivation

19. Ego: The Reality Principle • Reality principle—ability to postpone gratification in accordance with demands of reality • Rational, organized, logical, mediator to demands of reality • Can repress desires that cannot be met in an acceptable manner

20. Superego: Conscience • Internalization of societal and parental values • Partially unconscious • Can be harshly punitive using feelings of guilt

21. Quick Draw! • Grab a quick draw sheet • Draw Freud’s Iceberg and label all the parts to it—make sure to include a little about what happens at each level!

22. Warm Up • What are defense mechanisms? • Define and give me two examples.

23. Defense Mechanisms Unconscious mental processes employed by the ego to reduce anxiety

24. Defense Mechanisms • The ego is responsible for mediating conflicts between the among the instinctual demands of the ID and the moral authority of the SUPEREGO, and external restrictions • When the the ego is on the verge of being overwhelmed, the ego will try to distort thoughts and reality

27. Repression Excluding from consciousness all anxiety producing thoughts, feelings, impulses

28. You can’t remember anything about a car accident you had two weeks ago • The accident produces too much anxiety- so it “goes away”

29. Regression • Behaving in a way that is characteristic of earlier development (childlike).

30. Georgia is a 40 year old sucking her thumb all of a sudden, she stopped at age 2. • After a divorce (she can’t handle the idea) she reverts back to a “safer” time

31. Sublimation • The transfer of unwanted behaviors into something less harmful. • Freud considered it the only healthy defense mechanism

32. A person who is angry may work out and get in shape as a result • A person that is sexually frustrated may become an artist and release the pent up energy and emotion into great works of art.

33. Identification • When a person changes some aspect of their personality to be more like others – thus reducing anxiety. • Occurs on a subconscious level – not just mimicking

34. Reaction formation • Thinking or behaving in a way that is the extreme opposite of unacceptable urges or impulses

35. Girls have cooties and boys are gross • Pre-puberty will often be frightened of their sexual awakenings so they express the opposite feelings

36. Undoing • Unconscious repentance that involves atoning for an unacceptable thought or action with a second thought or action

37. You steal from the grocery store. You give a lot money to the salvation army • You cheat on a test, you buy Ms. Buckley flowers 

38. Displacement • Redirection of impulse toward a “safe” alternative

39. I go home and kick my cat. • I was really upset because my seniors miss too many days of class, I can’t hurt them, so I pick something I can hurt

40. Rationalization • Justifying your actions/ feelings with another explanation- not your true feelings

41. I’m glad I didn’t get into that college- the drive would have been too far. • You were really upset about not getting in, but can’t face that anxiety

42. Projection • Giving your own unacceptable urges or qualities to others.

43. I don’t understand how he doesn’t get a detention- he is always late to class! • You have been late 23 times, but you don’t talk about YOU.

44. A married woman who is sexually attracted to a co-worker accuses him of flirting with her

45. Denial • Failing to recognize or acknowledge the existence of information that causes anxiety.

46. No, I don’t have a drinking problem, I can stop anytime I want. • You are an alcoholic- your friends and family all know it, but you won’t admit it.

47. Defense Mechanisms • Give examples from personal experience of each of the defense mechanisms (see table 10.1, 403). Why do people use defense mechanisms?

48. Defense Mechanisms • Repression—keeping anxiety-producing thoughts out of the conscious mind • Reaction formation—replacing an unacceptable wish with its opposite

49. Defense Mechanisms • Displacement—when a drive directed to one activity by the id is redirected to a more acceptable activity by the ego • Sublimation—displacement to activities that are valued by society

50. Defense Mechanisms • Projection—reducing anxiety by attributing unacceptable impulses to someone else • Rationalization—reasoning away anxiety-producing thoughts • Regression—retreating to a mode of behavior characteristic of an earlier stage of development