Download Personality traits

PSYCHOLOGY:
What does it mean to have “personality”?
Researchers have developed many ways
of assessing personality, but even if we do
gain an understanding of how we are,
the question of why we are that way
remains.
Personality Traits
Personality is the collection of characteristic thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors that are associated with a person
Personality traits are characteristic behaviors and feelings
that are consistent
and long lasting
Personality States are temporary
patterns of
behavior and feelings that may arise in a specific situation
The Big Five Traits
Current belief; all personality traits derive from five basic
personality traits
O
C
E
A
N
Criticisms of Big Five
Some believe that more than five basic traits are needed to
account for the wide personality differences among people
Some believe that five traits is too much. Openness
correlates with extraversion and can be combined.
Regardless of how many traits you believe exist, traits
are always fairly consistent throughout life and states are
just temporary patterns of behavior
Psychodynamic Theories
Many exist; they all emphasize unconscious motives and
desires, as well as the importance of childhood experiences
in shaping personality.
Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis
Freud based his theory off of observing patients.
Theory is based on impulses and needs of the
unconscious and the conflict with societal demands to
restrain those impulses.
The Conscious, The Preconscious, and the Unconscious
Conscious contains all the information that a person
is paying attention to at any given time.
Preconscious contains all information outside of a
person’s attention but readily available if needed.
Unconscious contains thoughts, feelings, desires,
and memories of which people have no awareness
but can influence their day-to-day lives.
Freud believed that information in the unconscious emerges
in slips of the tongue, jokes, dreams, illness symptoms, etc.
These are called Freudian Slips.
The Id, Ego, and Superego (3 components of personality)
Id
Responsible for survival
Unconscious and operates according to the pleasure
principle, the drive to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.
Seeks immediate gratification of impulses (what feels
good)
Superego
Responsible for society’s rules of behavior (moral
standards)
Operates on all three levels of awareness, and is based on
morality principle, must follow moral standards and
rules and breaking them causes guilt.
Ego
Manages the conflict between the id and superego.
Balances our desires with the demands of reality.
Operates on all three levels of awareness, and is based on
the reality principle, the awareness that gratification of
impulses has to be delayed in order to accommodate the
demands of the real world.
Defense Mechanisms
Conflict – Freud believed Id, Ego, Superego are in constant
conflict
Anxiety – arises when ego cannot balance id & superego
Rather than face conflict and anxiety, people deceive
themselves into believing nothing is wrong by using
defense mechanisms, behaviors that protect people from
anxiety
Types of defense mechanisms
Repression – keeping unpleasant thoughts, memories,
and feelings shut up in the unconscious
Reaction Formation - replacing an unacceptable feeling
or urge with its opposite
Projection – attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts
or feelings to someone else
Displacement – transferring feelings about a person or
event onto someone or something else.
Denial – refusing to acknowledge something that is
obvious to others
Regression – reverting to a more immature state of
psychological development
Freud’s Psychosexual stages of development
Freud believed that personality was fixed by about age 5.
Freud believed adult’s psychological problems have their
roots in early childhood and can be traced to unresolved
conflicts then. When a conflict is not adequately
resolved, an individual becomes fixated at that stage of
development.
Oedipus complex – a male child’s sexual desire for his
mother and hostility toward his father, whom he considers
to be a rival for his mother’s love.
A male child who sees a naked female for the first time
believes that her penis has been cut off. The child fears that
his father will do the same to him for desiring his mother – a
fear called castration anxiety. Because of this fear, the
child represses his desires for his mother and begins to
identify with his father. This illustrates the emergence of the
superego.
Freud drew criticism for his focus on children’s sexuality.
Some his followers broke away. These theorists are called
neo-Freudians.
Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology
Jung was a neo-Freudian.
Believed unconscious has two layers. The personal
conscious, which resembled Freud’s idea (pleasure
principle), and the collective unconscious, which
contains universal inherited (handed down from
generation to generation) memories.
Jung called these universal (common) memories
archetypes. Archetypes are images or thoughts that have
the same meaning for all human beings. Jung believed
these archetypes controlled our behavior rather than a
pleasure seeking unconscious (Freud’s idea).
In trying to fit to these archetypes we develop a
persona, or a mask that we wear to hide our true
feelings and try to fit what it is we believe we are to be.
Alfred Adler’s Theory on Personality
All people, especially children, have feelings of
inferiority. Children are driven by these inner feelings
of inferiority to adapt and develop skills.
However, some people suffer from an exaggerated sense
of inferiority, or an inferiority complex.
These people may try to make themselves look better and
dominate and control others to avoid their own feelings
of inferiority. Ex. school bully
Criticisms of Psychodynamic Theories
There is no proof that there is an unconscious that
controls us against our will (it is a construct)
Jung’s theory isn’t discussed much in psychology
anymore, but we do know that animals do inherit
certain broad rules of behavior
Behaviorist Theories
Behaviorists study only observable behavior. Their
explanations of personality focus on learning.
B.F. Skinner’s Ideas
Personality arises from Operant conditioning
You make decisions based on reinforcement and
punishment. Behaviors that have positive consequences
increase, while behaviors with negatives consequences
decrease
Environment determines behavior
Albert Bandura’s Ideas
Social learning/Observational learning – people learn
behaviors (and therefore personality) by watching
others
Bandura criticized Skinner for not acknowledging
people’s ability to think
Criticisms of Behavioral Approaches
Theories shortchange humans ability to think
Early theories in this area focused on our acts of
behaviors as if we were robots
Humanistic Theories
Focus on human’s ability to think consciously and
rationally, to control impulses, and to achieve full
potential
People are responsible for actions and have free will to
change them
Optimistic perspective of human nature
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
All of us have inherited something unique, and if the
environment will allow it, we have the opportunity
to become great. To be great it to realize your full
potential (self-actualization).
We satisfy basic needs moving up the hierarchy to
reach the top (self-actualization)
Carl Roger’s Person-Centered Theory
Believed that the biggest problem that a person faced
was living up to the ideal self (as close to
perfection as we will come). Believed this shapes
a persons personality
When we have united what we should be with what
we are, we have become a fully functioning
individual
Criticisms of Humanistic Theories
Too naively optimistic and fail to provide insight into
the evil side of human nature
Too simple and vague to account very well for the
great variety of human personality
Measuring Personality
Doctors, researchers, and employers use personality
assessments for a variety of reasons
Clinical psychologists use assessments for diagnosing
psychological disorders
Mental health providers use tests to decide how best
to counsel people about normal problems of daily
living
Some organizations use tests to select personnel to
hire (not so much anymore)
Researchers use them to study personality traits
3 ways of assessing personality – Objective tests,
projective tests, assessment centers
Objective Tests
paper-and-pen tests that require people to answer
questions about their typical behaviors
MMPI-2 – Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI) – 567 questions divided into
groups. People answer true, false, cannot say.
Originally developed to help clinical
psychologists diagnose psychological
disorders
Projective Tests
Require subjects to respond to pictures and phrases
that can be interpreted in many different ways.
Rorschach Test – series of ten inkblots that subjects
look at and determine what they see
(TAT) Thematic Apperception Test – series of
pictures containing a variety of characters and
scenes. Subjects make up stories about each
picture.
Assessment Centers
Allow psychologists to assess personality in specific
situations.