Download AP_Psychology_files/AP Chapter 15

Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY
(7th Ed)
Chapter 15
Personality
James A. McCubbin, PhD
Clemson University
Worth Publishers
What is Personality?
 Personality
 an individual’s characteristic pattern
of thinking, feeling, and acting
 basic perspectives covering how
personality develops and is assessed
 Psychoanalytic
 Humanistic
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 From Sigmund
Freud’s (1856-1939)
theory which
proposes that
childhood sexuality
and unconscious
motivations
influence personality
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Psychoanalysis
 Freud’s theory of personality that
attributes our thoughts and actions to
unconscious motives and conflicts
 techniques used in treating
psychological disorders by seeking to
expose and interpret unconscious
conflicts & motives, by providing insight
into one’s thoughts & actions
Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis grew
from his early observation that some
patients who consulted him seemed to
have no physical cause.
Freud experimented with hypnosis, but
found that some patients could not be
hypnotized and thus developed the
technique of:
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Free Association
 in psychoanalysis, a method of
exploring the unconscious mind
 person relaxes and says whatever
comes to mind, no matter how trivial
or embarrassing
Personality Structure
Ego
Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind
Superego
Id
 Freud’s
compared
the human
mind’s
structure to
a iceberg
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Unconscious
 according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly
unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings,
desires, & memories. If he could patients
open the door to the unconscious mind, they
could recover from painful childhood
memories and heal.
 contemporary viewpoint- information
processing of which we are unaware
The conscious mind are the thoughts and
feelings that we are aware of.
The preconscious mind consists of thoughts &
memories not in our current awareness but
easily retrieved.
Freud believed that our personality grows out of
a basic human conflict. Each of us is born with
aggressive, pleasure seeking biological impulses.
But we live in a society that restrains
these impulses. The way that each of us
resolves the conflict between social
restraints and pleasure seeking impulses
shapes our individual personality.
Three forces interact during this conflict:
Personality Structure
 Id
 contains a reservoir of unconscious
energy
 strives to satisfy basic sexual and
aggressive drives
 operates on the pleasure principle,
demanding immediate gratification
Personality Structure
 Superego
 the part of personality that presents
internalized ideals and standards for
judgement. It is the voice of
conscience that focuses on what we
should do.
Personality Structure
 Ego
 the largely conscious part of personality
 mediates among the demands of the id,
superego,
 operates on the reality principle,
satisfying the id’s desires in ways that
will realistically bring pleasure rather
than pain. Represents good sense &
reason.
Freud concluded that our personality is formed
during the first 5 to 6 years of life. He believed
that his patient’s problems originated in
conflicts that had not been resolved during
childhood years.
Freud believed the patient had become
“FIXATED” or stuck on one of the psychosexual
stages of development. Each stage is marked
by the id’s pleasure seeking focus on a different
part of the body.
Personality
Development
 Identification
 the process by which children
incorporate their parents’ values into
their developing superegos
 Fixation
 a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking
energies at an earlier psychosexual
stage, where conflicts were unresolved
Personality
Development
 Psychosexual Stages
 the childhood stages of development
during which the id’s pleasure-seeking
energies focus on distinct erogenous
zones
 Oedipus Complex
 a boy’s sexual desires toward his
mother and feelings of jealousy and
hatred for the rival father during the
phallic stage
Personality
Development
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Stage
Focus
Oral
(0-18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth-sucking, biting, chewing
Anal
(18-36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
elimination; coping with demands for
control
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with
incestuous sexual feelings
Phallic
(3-6 years)
Latency
(6 to puberty)
Dormant sexual feelings
Genital
(puberty on)
Maturation of sexual interests
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Anxiety is the price that we pay for living
in a civilized society. The conflict
between the id’s wishes and the
superego’s rules produces this anxiety.
However the ego has an arsenal of
unconscious defense mechanisms to help
us get rid of anxiety & tension.
Defense Mechanisms
 Defense Mechanisms
 the ego’s protective methods of
reducing anxiety by unconsciously
distorting reality
Defense Mechanisms
Repression
the basic defense mechanism that
banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts,
feelings, and memories from
consciousness
Defense Mechanisms
 Regression
 defense mechanism in which an
individual faced with anxiety
retreats to a more infantile
psychosexual stage
Defense Mechanisms
DENIAL
refusal to accept reality, the truth.
SUBLIMATIONChanneling one’s frustrations towards
another, more positive goal.
Defense Mechanisms
 Reaction Formation
 defense mechanism by which the ego
unconsciously switches unacceptable
impulses into their opposites
 people may express feelings that are
the opposite of their anxiety-arousing
unconscious feelings
Defense Mechanisms
 Projection
 defense mechanism by which people
disguise their own threatening impulses
by attributing them to others
 Rationalization
 defense mechanism that offers selfjustifying explanations in place of the
real, more threatening, unconscious
reasons for one’s actions
Defense Mechanisms
 Displacement
 defense mechanism that shifts sexual
or aggressive impulses toward a more
acceptable or less threatening object
or person
 as when redirecting anger toward a
safer outlet
Neo-Freudians
 Those people that agreed with Freud’s
basic idea of psychoanalysis, but
disagreed with specific parts.
 Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
 importance of childhood social tension were
crucial in the development of personality.
Believed that psychological problems in
personalities were based on feeling of
inferiority (complex).
 Karen Horney (1885-1952)
 sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases. Social
expectations, not biological variables were the
foundation of personality development.
 Anxiety is the helplessness & isolation that people
feel in a hostile world as a result of the
competitiveness of today’s society.
 She began the psychodynamic movement that is
primarily used today.
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Believed that we have an individual
unconsciousness as well as a:
 the collective unconscious
 concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory
traces from our species’ history
 Contemporary psychologists reject the idea of
inherited memory.
PERSONALITY
ASSESSMENT
 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
Assessing the
Unconscious--TAT
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
Assessing the
Unconscious--Rorschach
BEHAVIORAL
• Key ideas
• Observable Behavior
• Conditioning/Learning
• Prior experience (reward and punishment)
• John Watson (1878 – 1958)
• Behavior the result of conditioning – “We are what we
learn to be”
• Little Albert experiments with Rosalie Raynor
• B.F. Skinner (1904 – 1990)
• Psychology must be tangible and scientific
• Operant Conditioning - Reinforcement
Behaviorism Continued
Pavlov
Classical Conditioning
Bandura
Social Learning Theory
Modeling
Humanistic Perspective
 Abraham
Maslow (19081970)
 studied selfactualization
processes of
productive
and healthy
people
Humanistic Perspective
 Self-Actualization
 the ultimate psychological need that
arises after basic physical and
psychological needs are met and selfesteem is achieved
 the motivation to fulfill one’s potential
Humanistic Perspective
 Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
 focused on growth and fulfillment of
individuals
 genuineness
 acceptance
 empathy
Humanistic Perspective
 Unconditional Positive Regard
 an attitude of total acceptance toward
another person
 Self-Concept
 all our thoughts and feelings about
ourselves, in an answer to the
question, “Who am I?”
Humanism continued…
Abraham Maslow
Hierarchy of needs
COGNITIVE
• Key ideas
• How we ….. Process, Store, Retrieve information
• Thought patterns
• Problem solving
• Behavior results from memories, expectations
• Modern approach is to join this with Behaviorism
BIOLOGICAL
• A.k.a. Behavioral neuroscience
• Key ideas
• How the brain, nervous system, hormones, genetics
influence behavior
SOCIOCULTURAL
Key ideas
• Cultural influence on behavior
• Gender
• Socioeconomic status
• Traditions
Evolutionary Psychology
Stemmed from Darwin
Survival of the fittest
How does our behavior adapt to our
environment and help ensure our survival?
Contemporary Research-The Trait Perspective
 Trait
 a characteristic pattern of behavior
 a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by
self-report inventories and peer reports
 Personality Inventory
 a questionnaire (often with true-false or
agree-disagree items) on which people
respond to items designed to gauge a wide
range of feelings and behaviors
 used to assess selected personality traits
The Trait Perspective
Moody
Anxious
Rigid
Sober
Pessimistic
Reserved
Unsociable
Quiet
UNSTABLE
 Hans and Sybil
Eysenck use two
primary personality
factors as axes for
EXTRAVERTED describing personality
sanguine
variation
Sociable
Touchy
Restless
Aggressive
Excitable
Changeable
Impulsive
Optimistic
Active
melancholic choleric
INTROVERTED
phlegmatic
Passive
Careful
Thoughtful
Peaceful
Controlled
Reliable
Even-tempered
Calm
Outgoing
Talkative
Responsive
Easygoing
Lively
Carefree
Leadership
STABLE
The Trait Perspective
 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI)
 the most widely researched and clinically
used of all personality tests
 originally developed to identify emotional
disorders (still considered its most
appropriate use)
 now used for many other screening purposes
The Trait Perspective
 Empirically Derived Test
 a test developed by testing a pool of
items and then selecting those that
discriminate between groups
 such as the MMPI
The Trait Perspective
Clinically
significant
range
Hypochondriasis 1
(concern with body symptoms)
Depression2
(pessimism, hopelessness)
After
treatment
(no scores
in the clinically
significant range)
Hysteria 3
(uses symptoms to solve problems)
Psychopathic deviancy 4
(disregard for social standards)
Before
treatment
(anxious,
depressed,
and
displaying
deviant
behaviors)
Masculinity/femininity 5
(interests like those of other sex)
Paranoia 6
(delusions, suspiciousness)
Psychasthenia 7
(anxious, guilt feelings)
Schizophrenia 8
(withdrawn, bizarre thoughts)
Hypomania 9
(overactive, excited, impulsive)
Social introversion 10
(shy, inhibited)
0
30
40
50
60
T-score
70
80
 Minnesota
Multiphasic
Personality
Inventory
(MMPI) test
profile
The Trait Perspective
The “Big Five” Personality Factors
Trait Dimension
Description
Emotional Stability
Calm versus anxious
Secure versus insecure
Self-satisfied versus self-pitying
Extraversion
Sociable versus retiring
Fun-loving versus sober
Affectionate versus reserved
Openness
Imaginative versus practical
Preference for variety versus
preference for routine
Independent versus conforming
Extraversion
Soft-hearted versus ruthless
Trusting versus suspicious
Helpful versus uncooperative
Organized versus disorganized
Careful versus careless
Disciplined versus impulsive
Conscientiousness
Social-Cognitive
Perspective
 Social-Cognitive Perspective
 views behavior as influenced by
the interaction between persons
and their social context
 Reciprocal Determinism
 the interacting influences between
personality and environmental
factors
Social-Cognitive
Perspective
Julian Rotter- Locus of
Control
 Personal Control
 our sense of controlling our
environments rather than feeling
helpless
 External Locus of Control
 the perception that chance or outside
forces beyond one’s personal control
determine one’s fate
Social-Cognitive
Perspective
 Internal Locus of Control
 the perception that one controls one’s
own fate
Martin Seligman
 Learned Helplessness
 the hopelessness and passive
resignation an animal or human learns
when unable to avoid repeated aversive
events
Social-Cognitive
Perspective
 Learned Helplessness
Uncontrollable
bad events
Perceived
lack of control
Generalized
helpless behavior
Social-Cognitive
Perspective
 Positive Psychology
 the scientific study of optimal human
functioning
 aims to discover and promote conditions
that enable individuals and communities
to thrive
Exploring the Self
 Spotlight Effect
 overestimating others noticing and
evaluating our appearance, performance,
and blunders
 Self Esteem
 one’s feelings of high or low self-worth
 Self-Serving Bias
 readiness to perceive oneself favorably
Exploring the Self
 Individualism
 giving priority to one’s own goals over group
goals and defining one’s identity in terms of
personal attributes rather than group
identifications
 Collectivism
 giving priority to the goals of one’s group
(often one’s extended family or work group)
and defining one’s identity accordingly
Exploring the Self
Value Contrasts Between Individualism and Collectivism
Concept
Individualism
Collectivism
Self
Independent
(identity from individual traits)
Interdependent
identity from belonging)
Life task
Discover and express one’s
uniqueness
Me--personal achievement and
fullfillment; rights and liberties
Maintain connections, fit in
Coping method
Change reality
Accommodate to reality
Morality
Defined by individuals
(self-based)
Defined by social networks
(duty-based)
Relationships
Many, often temporary or casual;
confrontation acceptable
Few, close and enduring;
harmony valued
Attributing
behaviors
Behavior reflects one’s personality
and attitudes
Behavior reflects social
and roles
What matters
We-group goals and solidarity;
social responsibilities and
relationships
The Modern Unconscious
Mind
 Terror-Management Theory
 Faith in one’s worldview and the
pursuit of self-esteem provide
protection against a deeply rooted fear
of death