Theories of Personality

1. Theories of Personality Chapter 13

2. Measuring Personality • Genetic influences on personality • Environmental influences on personality • Cultural influences on personality • Psychodynamic influences on personality • The inner experience

3. Defining Personality and Traits. • Personality • Distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behaviours, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterizes an individual throughout life. • Trait • A characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual way of behaving, thinking, and feeling.

4. Projective Tests • Projective tests • Based on the assumption that the test taker will transfer (“project”) unconscious conflicts and motives onto an ambiguous stimulus. • Examples include the Thematic Apperception Test and the Rorschach

5. Thematic Apperception Test • Person is asked to tell a story about the “hero” in the picture • Another projective test • Based on Murray’s personality theory • People are distinguished by the needs that motivate their behaviour

6. The Rorschach Inkblot Test • Ambiguous stimuli • Person is asked to report what they see • This type of test is called projective • No clear image, so the things you see must be “projected” from inside yourself Sample Rorschach Card

7. Objective Tests • Standardized questionnaires requiring written responses; typically include scales on which people rate themselves: • ‘I am easily embarrassed’ T or F • ‘I like to go to parties’ T or F • More reliability and validity than projective tests. • Better at predicting behaviour.

8. Factor analysis: • A statistical method for analysing the intercorrelations among various measures or test scores; clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated are assumed to measure the same underlying trait or ability (factor). • Example: Cattel’s 16 Personality Factors (PF) Questionnaire.

9. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory • Most widely used personality instrument • Now the MMPI - 2 • Clinical & Employment settings • Measures aspects of personality that, if extreme, suggest a problem • e.g., extreme suspiciousness • Long test ‑ 567 questions

10. Characteristics of the MMPI‑2 • Has several different scales (multiphasic) • Scales thought to measure different kinds of psychological disorders • e.g., depression • Scale scores indicate how you compare with others • Overall assessment is interpretive • From inspecting profile of different scales

11. MMPI Score Profile

12. MMPI Validity Scales • Four scales designed to determine whether respondent is presenting self accurately. • Example: L scale (‘Fake Good’) - Trying too hard to present self in a positive light. • “I smile at everyone I meet” (T) • “I read every editorial every day” (T)

13. MMPI Sample Items • I usually feel that life is worthwhile and interesting • Depression • Evil people are trying to influence my mind • Paranoia • I seem to hear things that other people can’t hear • Schizophrenia

14. “Big Five” Personality Dimensions • Extroversion • Neuroticism • Agreeableness • Conscientiousness • Openness to experience

15. “Big Five” Personality Dimensions • The Big Five have emerged as distinct, central personality dimensions in many countries around the world. • Are stable over a lifetime. • Some argue it is incomplete; other important dimensions (e.g., religiosity) are missing • Others (Eysenck) argue for only 3 factors.

16. Genetic Influences on Personality • Heredity and temperament • Heredity and traits

17. Genetic Influences on Personality • 123 pairs of identical twins and 127 pairs of fraternal twins • Measured on “Big Five” personality dimensions • Results suggest that personality differences in the population are 40 - 50% genetically determined.

18. Heredity and Temperament • Temperaments • Physiological dispositions to respond to the environment in certain ways. • Present in infancy and assumed to be innate. • Includes: • Reactivity • Soothability • Positive and Negative Emotionality • Temperaments are relatively stable over time.

19. Heredity and Traits • Heritability • A statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals within a group. • Heritability of personality traits is about 50%. • Within a group of people, about 50% of the variation associated with a given trait is attributable to genetic differences among individuals in the group. • Genetic predisposition is not genetic inevitability.

20. Environmental Influences on Personality • The power of parents • The power of peers • Situations and circumstances

21. The Power of Parents • The shared environment of the home has little influence on personality. • The nonshared environment is a more important influence. • Few parents have a single child-rearing style that is consistent over time and that they use with all children. • Even when parents try to be consistent in the way they treat their children, there may be little relation between what they do and how their children turn out.

22. The Power of Peers • Adolescent culture includes different peer groups organized by different interests. • Peer acceptance is so important to children and adolescents that being bullied, victimized or rejected by peers is far more traumatic that punitive treatment by parents.

23. Situations and Circumstances • People routinely reveal all of the big five traits in their everyday behaviour. • Why are there variations in individual expressions of traits? • Depending on context, some behaviours are rewarded and others are not. • Reciprocal determinism • In social-cognitive theories, the two way interaction between aspects of the environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits.

24. Reciprocal determinism

25. Cultural Influences on Personality • Culture, values and traits • Customs in context • Aggressiveness and altruism

26. Culture, Values, and Traits • Culture • A program of shared rules that govern the behaviour of members of a community or society, and • a set of values, beliefs and attitudes shared by most members of that community.

27. Culture, Values, and Traits • Individualist cultures • Cultures in which the self is regarded as autonomous, and individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and relations with others. • Collectivist cultures • Cultures in which the self is regarded as embedded in relationships, and harmony with one’s group is prized above individual goals and wishes.

28. Customs in Context • When culture isn’t appropriately considered, people attribute unusual behaviour to personality. • Examples include bathing and tardiness. • Monochronic cultures • Time is ordered sequentially, schedules and deadlines valued over people. • Polychronic cultures • Time is ordered horizontally, people valued over schedules and deadline.

29. Aggressiveness • Considerable cross-cultural evidence suggests that male aggression results more from cultural factors than biological ones. • In cultures in which competition for resources is fierce and survival is difficult, men are “toughened up” and pushed to take risks.

30. Altruism • Culture also strong influence on moral behaviour. American children were less likely to be altruistic when compared with children from Kenya, India, Mexico, the Phillipines and Okinawa.

31. Psychodynamic Influences on Personality • Defining key terms • Freud and psychoanalysis • Other psychodynamic approaches

32. Key terms • Psychodynamic theories • Explain behaviour and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual. • Psychoanalysis • A theory of personality and method of psychotherapy developed by Sigmund Freud. • Emphasize unconscious motives and conflicts.

33. The Structure of Personality • Id: Operates according to the pleasure principle • Primitive and unconscious part of personality • Ego: Operates according to the reality principle • Mediates between id and superego • Superego: Moral ideals and conscience

35. Defense Mechanisms • Repression • Projection • Displacement • Reaction formation • Regression • Denial

36. The Development of Personality • Freud’s stages • Oral • Anal • Phallic • Latency period • Genital • Fixation occurs when stages aren’t resolved successfully.

37. Other Psychodynamic Approaches • Jungian Theory • Collective unconscious • The universal memories, symbols, and experiences of humankind, • represented in the archetypes or universal symbolic images that appear in myths, art, stories, and dreams. • 2 important archetypes are maleness and femaleness which he believed existed in both sexes.

38. Other Psychodynamic Approaches • The Object-Relations School • Emphasizes the importance of the infants first two years of life and the baby’s formative relationships, especially with the mother. • Emphasized children’s needs for a powerful mother and to be in relationships.

39. Evaluating Psychodynamic Theories • Three scientific failings • Violating the principle of falsifiability. • Drawing universal principles from the experiences of a few atypical patients. • Basing theories of personality development on retrospective accounts and the fallible memories of patients.

40. The Humanistic Approach • Abraham Maslow • Carl Rogers • Rollo May • Evaluating Humanists

41. Abraham Maslow • Humanist psychology • An approach that emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential. • For Maslow, personality development can be viewed as a gradual progression toward self-actualization - achieving one’s full potential.

42. Self-Actualization Esteem Belongingness Safety Physiological Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

43. Carl Rogers • Unconditional Positive Regard • Love or support given to another person with no conditions attached. • Conditional Positive Regard • A situation in which the acceptance and love one receives from significant others is contingent upon one’s behaviour.

44. Carl Rogers’ Personality Theory • The needs for self-actualization and positive regard create a potential for conflict.

45. Rollo May • Shared with humanists the belief in free will and freedom of choice but also emphasized loneliness, anxiety and alienation. • Extistentialism • Free will confers on us responsibility for our actions.

46. Evaluating Humanists • Hard to operationally define many of the concepts. • Have added balance to the study of personality. • The approach has encouraged others to focus on “positive psychology.” • The argument that we have the power to choose our own destiny has fostered a new appreciation for resilience.