Personality

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Chapter 14

• Personality

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Personality

• The psychologists definition of personality is
  that is it the particular pattern of behaviour
  and thinking that prevails across time and
  contexts and differentiates one person from
  another.
• Most psychologists measure personality using
  tests that hypothetically measure important
  personality dimensions
• e.g. type A versus B personalities
• The goal of such psychologists is to understand
  the causes
• of individual differences in behaviour.
• In order to do this one must (a) identify
  personality characteristics and (b) determine
  the variables that produce and control them.

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Trait Theories
A trait of a person is assumed to be some
enduring characteristic that is relatively
constant. In this sense it is differentiated
from the state of that individual which refers
to the present temperament of that person which
is not necessarily a stable characteristic. Thus
trait theories are specifically focused on
explaining the more permanent personality
characteristics that differentiate one individual
from another. Things like being friendly
caring nasty insensitive dependable
offish etc.
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Earliest Known Trait Theory
Perhaps one of the first trait theories came
about in ancient Greece at the time of a famous
physician named Galen. Galen thought our
personality was a reflection of the four humors
(fluids) that make up our bodies. Yellow Bile -
bad temper irritability (Choleric) Black Bile -
gloomy pessimistic (Melancholic) Phlegm -
sluggish non-excitable (Phlegmatic) Blood -
cheerful passionate (Sanguine) If one of these
fluids was dominated the personality associated
with that fluid would be observed.
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Types versus Traits
The kind of strict categorization suggested by
theories like Galens suggests that there very
different types of personalities. More
recently personality theories have leaned more
towards the notion that we all have similar
personality traits but we differ in terms of the
extent to which we have that trait. For example
we often classify people as short or tall but we
do not really think that people are either
short OR tall we realize the height is a trait
the some of us have more of that others but we
all have it to some extent.
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The Search for Basic Personality Traits
OK so if there are some basic personality traits
that we all have to varying extents what are
those traits and what techniques do we use to
identify them Allport (1897-1967) thought that
a good place to start would be to look in a
dictionary and identify all the words that
described what could be seen as personality
traits. There turned out to be approximately
18000 such words. When he eliminated words that
referred more to states than to traits he was
still left with 4000 or so. Many of these words
were synonyms that had subtly different
connotations. Most present researchers believe
there is about 3 to 16 basic personality traits.
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A 16 Factor Theory

• Cattell started with Allports list of
  adjectives created questions related to them
  then using a procedure called factor analysis
  eventually identified 16 core personality factors
  (Steve will explain factor analysis here)
• Cattell these 16 traits as the cornerstones upon
  which personality is built the factors are
• Figure 14-3
• Some of these Cattell called surface traits
  which were traits that people could directly
  observe like friendliness.
• These arise from source traits which lie deeper
  within the individual.

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A 3 Factor Theory
At the other extreme Eysenck also used factor
analysis but came up with only 3 basic
personality factors which he termed
Extroversion Neuroticism Psychotocism.
Extroversion refers to an outgoing nature and the
liking of a high level of activity (opposite is
introversion). Neuroticism refers to worry
guilt and anxiety (with the opposite being
emotional stability which is characterized by a
relaxed person at peace with themselves)
Psychoticism refers to an aggressive egocentric
and anti- social nature (the opposite being
self-control which is characterized by kindness
and obeying rules)
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From 3 to many a la Eysenck
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Genetics Determinants of Personality
To what extent is your personality the result of
your genetic heritage Genetics definitely plays
a large role as exemplified by findings such as
the fact that identical twins appear to have more
similar personalities than fraternal twins
do. In an analysis of such findings Zuckerman
concluded that when thinking about personality in
Eysencks framework 70 of the variance in
extroversion is due to heredity as is approx 59
percent of the variance in psychoticism and 48
of the variance in neuroticism. Clearly the
personality of your predecessors is a major
determinant of your personality.
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Environmental Contributions
If genetic heritage accounts for 50-70 of your
personality what accounts for the rest One
obvious answer would be the environment in which
you were raised. In fact it seems as though
pure environmental factors do not account for
much variance in personality as suggested by
findings such as the fact that the similarity in
personality of identical twins does not seem to
depend on whether they were raised together or
not. Studies examining the extent to which a
adoptive parents personality accounts for the
childs personality suggest that it accounts for
about 0-7 of the childs personality.
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What About the Rest

• That still leaves a good chunk of a persons
  personality unaccounted for what else plays a
  role
• A big contribution appears to come from the
  interaction between genetics and environment.
• Specifically although members of a family are
  raised in roughly the same environment the exact
  environment for a given member is often partially
  determined by that members personality.
• a more outgoing child will often receive more
  social interaction than an introverted child

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Does the Debate Really Make Any Sense
Some psychologists get very upset when anyone
raises the Genetic versus Environment debate at
all. Such a psychologist would point to the fact
that both genetics and the environment interact
to produce virtually all our behaviours and
traits. A classic example of this is PKU
syndrome a disease that is perfectly predicted
by a genetic marker but perfectly controllable
via an environmental manipulation (i.e. dietary
change).
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Freuds Mechanisms of the MindThe Id
Freud believed that the mind was composed of
three components the Id the Superego and the
Ego. The Id is the most primitive of the three
basically the Id is thought to channel basic
instincts into strong drives. It obeys the
pleasure principle which basically means it
wants immediate gratification for its desires
and can be very insistent in this regard. These
basic desires are thought to mostly center on
sexual and aggressive drives but others (e.g.
hunger) as well.
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Freuds Mechanisms of the MindThe Superego
In contrast to the Id the superego is thought to
be the part of the mind that houses the rules of
the society we live in (the conscience) and our
own goals concerning where we want to be and how
we want to behave (the ego-ideal). If our
behaviour does not conform to either the
conscience or our ego-ideal the superego
punishes that behaviour via feelings of guilt or
remorse.
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Freuds Mechanisms of the MindThe Ego

• Obviously the desires of the Id are not always
  in concert with the rules of the superego.
• The ego is thought to be that part of the mind
  that tries to find behaviours that are
  satisfactory to both.
• Often this might involve some sort of compromise
  that can come in two forms
• The rules of the superego can be broken and the
  guilt must then be endured.
• The desires of the Id can be denied or
  re-channeled via certain defense mechanisms ...

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Relation to Conscious and Unconscious
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Showtime
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Conflict - Achieving Compromise
Conflicts of the mind begin when one of the two
most basic drives the sexual drive or the
aggression drive are aroused. The id demands
immediate gratification for these drives but is
then held in check by superego as allowing the
drives to be fulfilled in a straightforward
manner would often involve violating the rules of
society or the ego-ideal. This leads to a
situation Freud termed compromise formation in
which safe vents for the desires of the id must
be found. It is these vents that are
responsible for both mental disorder but also
for other interesting and more positive aspects
of mental life (e.g. dreams and creativity).
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Defense Mechanisms

• Freud actually believed there were a number of
  ways that
• compromise could be reached and termed these
  defense
• mechanisms. These include such things as
• Repression. The purpose of the repression
  mechanism is to
• actually keep unwanted thoughts or images from
  entering
• the conscious parts of the mind perhaps related
  to denial.
• false memories denial of alcoholism
• Reaction Formation. This involves replacing an
  anxiety-
• provoking idea with its opposite in order to
  satisfy both the
• desires of the id and the rules of the superego.
• anti-pornography crusaders pedophile doctors

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More Defense Mechanisms

• Projection. The involves denial of some unwanted
  trait in
• oneself then the projection of some other trait
  on others
• that justifies the individuals behaviour.
• Road rage sexual promiscuity
• Sublimation. Involves the diversion of sexual
  and aggressive
• energies towards permissible activities. This is
  often seen
• as the positive way to divert energies.
• dreams creativity intellectualism

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And Yet More Defense Mechanisms

• Rationalization. The process of inventing an
  acceptable
• reason for a behaviour that actually reflected
  unacceptable
• motivations.
• I cheated on the exam because others were
• I look at those X-rated websites because they
  use the latest web-technology and I want to
  learn it
• Conversion. The re-channeling of a psychic
  conflict into a
• physical symptom one that may often be
  associated with the
• source of the conflict (may be linked to
  repression).
• becoming deaf (or having a coughing spell) when
  youre around someone you hate listening to

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Freuds Therapeutic Technique
The basic therapeutic technique Freud espoused
was one meant to establish what the conflict was
and to bring that conflict to the patients
consciousness so that they could gain release
from the psychic energy (or learn positive ways
to do so). Techniques for finding the conflict
included such things as the analysis of dreams
free associations hypnosis and consideration of
the symptoms themselves. Such a release was
termed catharsis a term we still use
quite frequently. Modern psychoanalysts often
focus on using hypnosis which may have dangerous
consequences.
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More Positive Ideas
While Freud focussed on sexual and aggressive
tendencies others Psychologists termed humanists
have a more positive view of the development of
personality and have therapies based on
it. Maslow for example thought that humans
attempted to progress through a hierarchy of
needs and their personality reflected how far
along they were nextplease Rogers
thinks we are all striving to gain
self-actualization (a positive opinion of
oneself) and in order to do so one must might
a continual battle of properly weighting
others opinions of them.
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Hierarchy of Needs
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Why Experimental Psychologists dislike this
If you mention the ideas of Freud Maslow or
Rogers to some experimental psychologists they
may roll their eyes and try hard to convince you
that what they do is nothing like that. The
primary reason for this reaction is that although
all these notions are interesting and while they
may even be true to some extent they are very
hard to test empirically. How does one measure
self-actualization How do we show that
repression exists Is there any evidence that
psychic conflict leads to any form conversion
disorder or creativity Theories that cannot be
tested are simply not very useful beyond the
ideas they convey irrespective of their veracity.
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Measuring Personality
Whether one is an experimental psychologist
interested in personality or a therapist often
the first necessary step is to come up with tools
that measure it. The tools used by psychologists
tend to fall into two general categories Object
ive tests are paper and pencil type tests that
directly ask a person to answer various
questions about their personality - see section
on MMPI Projective tests exam personality in a
much more indirect way by assessing a patients
reaction to certain stimuli.
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Projective Tests of Personality
As discussed psychoanalytic theories of
personality assume that personality is primarily
governed by unconscious sources not conscious
ones. Thus they see the notion of asking a
person about their personality to be inadequate
as it only taps conscious notions which are not
critical to behaviour at all. Instead they
devised and promoted tests that examine
personality in a much more indirect
manner. These tests were thought to reflect both
the conscious and the unconscious aspects of
personality.
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Examples of Projective Tests
The Rorschach (or inkplot) test in which patients
are asked to describe what they see when
presented with an ambiguous pattern of ink. The
Thematic Apperception Test. People are shown
ambiguous pictures and are asked to construct a
story about the events that lead up to the
picture including detailed discussion about what
the characters in the story are doing and
thinking. The notion is that the person will
project themselves into the story and the things
they tell you about the characters are really
about themselves.
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Relevant Links
For a discussion of research methods in the study
of personality http//fas.psych.nwu.edu/personal
ity.html For more on Freud check out the Freud
museum at http//freud.t0.or.at/freud/index-e.ht
m For more about Rogers http//oldsci.eiu.edu/p
sychology/Spencer/Rogers.html