Download (Personality and Learning)

Personality (5-7%)
PSYCHOANALYTICAL (aka Psychodynamic – neo-Freudians)
Freudian Theory states that personality is shaped during childhood and adolescence.
Psychosexual Stages – sexual urges are an important aspect of personality development
Oral – sucking, biting
Anal – Bowel elimination
Phallic – Oedipus/Electra Complex, penis envy, identification (boy cannot beat father for mother’s attention he uses defense
mechanism of attaching himself to father.)
Latency – Sexual feelings are out of conscious awareness
Fixation – under or over gratification of a stage means stuck in it.(Oral fixation – chewing gum, smoke, over eat)
Personality consists of three parts:
Id- pleasure principle, instincts, unconscious sexual and aggressive drives.
Ego- reality principle, mediator between id and superego. Freud says it is important to develop this.
Superego- conscious, morality
Defense Mechanisms- Freud’s believed it’s the ego’s job to protect the conscious mind from threatening thoughts buried in the unconscious.
They are:
Repression- pushing thoughts out of conscious awareness.
Denial- not accepting the truth. (Biff waits at the locker for Muffy)
Displacement- redirecting feelings toward another person/object. (Ex. Father yells at kids after a bad day at work).
Projection- believing thoughts you have about yourself are held by other people. (Ex. pointing out that somebody is a bad friend when you may
be a bad friend.)
Reaction Formation- expressing the opposite of how one truly feels (EX. Biff claims he loathes Muffy)
Regression- return to an earlier, comforting form of behavior.Rationalization- justifying or making excuses for an undesirable event or
occurrence. (Ex. “I don’t treat my girlfriend very well but my friends don’t treat theirs well, so it’s okay”).
Sublimation- channeling frustration toward a different goal. (Ex. working extra hours after getting a divorce).
Neo-Freudians (psychodynamic perspective) Criticism of Freud is that it’s difficult to prove theories (little empirical evidence), knowing the
unconscious is unobservable,
Horney’s criticism is that Freud’s theory has a male bias. Males have womb envy
Jung- neo-Freudian (believes in unconscious but conflicts are social not sexual) -personal unconscious and collective unconscious,
archetypes.
Adler- neo- Freudian – motivation by fear of failure (inferiority) and desire to achieve (superiority). Importance of birth order.
TRAIT THEORIES- characteristics of people that go unchanged throughout life and in all different situations. (EX. honesty, laziness). Nature
(biology) oriented theories. The criticism is that they underestimate the situation.
Nomothetic approaches – a basic set of traits can be used to describe all people’s personalities
Eysenck’s - introversion-extraversion, stability-instability scales can describe personalities. These are the main traits that
underlie all others.
Big 5 Personality Traits- extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, stability. These 5 scales are what are
needed to describe personalities.
Cattell – 16 PF
Idiographic Approach all humans have unique personalities and cannot be described in generalizations. – Gordon Allport. He
believed cardinal dispositions are the traits that have the greatest influence.
BIOLOGICAL THEORIES- personality determined by genes, chemistry. EX- temperament- emotional style of dealing with world/others such as
getting angry easily.
Heritability- measure of the percentage of a trait that is inherited.
Temperament – a personas emotional style and characteristic way of dealing with the world
Somatotype Theory (Sheldon) – three body types associated with personality traits (mesomorphs .etc)
BEHAVIORIST THEORY- personality determined by environment, reinforcers
SOCIAL – COGNITIVE THEORY- (Bandura) personality determined by the environment and patterns of thought (the way we interpret events)
Reciprocal determinism (aka triadic reciprocality) – interaction between traits, environment and person’s behavior. 3 factors
influence one another in a looplike fashion ]
Self-efficacy – if you are optimistic about your own ability to get things done, low self efficacy = powerless
Internal and External locus of control. The belief someone has as to how much control of their destiny they have.
Internals believe if they work hard they will succeed.
Learned Helplessness- the belief that some people get (because of bad uncontrollable events) that says they cannot help
themselves to create or get out of unpleasant circumstances.
HUMANISTIC THEORYPeople are innately good and have free will (people control own destiny).
Self- actualization Maslow (people are motivated to reach full potential and grow)
Unconditional positive regard by Rogers (accepting someone no matter what) creates an environment that allows someone to
develop a self-concept.
Individualistic cultures (United States- where the focus is on the self, making own decisions) vs. Collectivist cultures (Japan- where the
emphasis is on doing what the community wants).
ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES
Psychoanalytic Projective Tests- purpose is to reveal the unconscious
(TAT) Thematic Apperception Test- people given a picture and asked to say what is happening in the picture
Rorschach inkblot- people given a picture of an inkblot and asked to state everything they see in it.
Personality Inventories- MMPI- (self report inventory) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory- most widely used self-report.
Barnum effect- susceptibility of people to be deceived when reports show vague, general and usually positive assessments of individuals.
Astrologers, psychics exploit this.
Positive Psychology- Seligman’s idea that happy people need to be studied more because they have certain thought patterns, lifestyles that lead
to happiness. EX. Correlational studies showing how optimistic people live longer lives.
Learning (Behaviorism- observable responses to environmental stimuli) 7-9%
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING -(Pavlov, Watson) learning through associations. EX- the story of the women who was raped and she now gets anxieties
when she is alone with men. Stimulus (being alone with men) Involuntary Response (experiencing anxiety)
UCS-original stimulus eliciting a response (food)
UCR- natural response (salivation)
CS- conditioned or learned stimulus (bell)
CR-conditioned response (salivation). Associating food with bell elicits salivation.
Acquisition- acquired new associated behavior. (first learning to flinch to word can)
Delayed conditioning- the bell (CS) rings and while ringing the food is presented. This is the most effective order for conditioning.
Extinguish- losing behavior, no longer pairing food and bell. (no longer flinching to can)
Spontaneous recovery- after a conditioned response is extinguished; it will reappear quickly upon presence of conditioned stimulus.
This is NOT relearning.
Generalization- tendency to respond to similar CS’s (Ex. Dog salivating to doorbell).
Discrimination-ability to see difference between similar stimuli (Dog not salivating)
Watson/Raynor- conditioned Little Albert to cry when he saw a rat (he associated loud noises with rats)
Learned Taste Aversions (Garcia effect) – if you ingest food or drink and get nauseas then you are more likely to get nauseous just
thinking about the food.
OPERANT CONDITIONING – learning to associate behaviors (stimulus) with their consequences (Skinner, Thorndike)
Thorndike’s Law of Effect- behavior is more likely to continue if it has a positive consequence. Less likely with a negative
consequence.
Skinner Box- pigeons, rats, a bar/key, pellets, shaping of behavior using reinforcers or punishers.
Reinforcers- behavior is more likely to happen.
Positive (hint: think of adding not good) reinforcer- adds something positive. EX. Good grades = money
Negative (hint: think of subtracting not bad) reinforcer- takes away something negative. Ex. Good grades = no chores
Punisher- decreases the likelihood of behavior occurring. Best when given soon after behavior.
Negative punishment- subtracting something pleasant EX. Bad grades = no car for the week
Positive punishment- add something negative (EX. Bad grades = Spanking.)
Shaping - Ex. teaching a dog to roll over
Chaining – Teaching a dog to roll over, then bark and play dead – reward is given after all three are complete
Primary reinforcers- biological - food, water, escaping electric shock
Secondary reinforcers- need to be learned – money, grades.
Token economy- any system (such as the experiment with schools) in which all behaviors are reinforced with tokens or demerits. The
purpose is to shape behaviors
Overjustification effect – external rewards decrease a person’s intrinsic interst in doing something that he/she liked to do.
Reinforcement Schedules (continuous reinforcement (reinforced immediately after every behavior) is best schedule.
Fixed- constant
Variable- changing
Ratio- number of responses
Interval- passage of time.
Ex. Fixed Ratio (paid by how much work you do)
Fixed Interval (paid by hour)
Variable ratio (gambling, fishing)
Variable Interval (pop quiz)
(Fixed is usually acquired the fastest but also the fastest to become extinct.)
Instinctive drift – animals cannot be shaped to behaviors that go against natural inclinations (Ex. Rats will not walk backwards)
Rescorla’s Contingency Model of Classical Conditioning - A cognitive view of classical conditioning, Rocco and Sparky experiment. Rocco –
bell then food are always paired and presented. Sparky – bell then food, food with no bell, sometimes food and bell together. Sparky learns less
because the UCS and CS in unclear. – Sparky and Rocco’s expectations and thoughts influence their learning.
Observational Learning (aka social learning theory)- Bandura, Bo-Bo dolls Children imitate behavior of adults beating and kicking doll,
monkey see monkey do
Mirror Neurons- the same neurons that fire when you do something fire when you see someone else do that thing
Latent Learning and cognitive maps – Tolman showed how rats can learn their way around a maze without reinforcement by making a mental
representation (cognitive map). When given reward learning is apparent.
Insight Learning- Kohler studied apes that used crates to get to bananas. Apes show cognitive insight.