Personality Theories and Assessment

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Personality Theories and Assessment
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Personality
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Definition
• Sum total of all typical ways of acting, feeling,
  and thinking that makes a person different from
  all others

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Personality
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Trait theories
• Traits are characteristics, aspects of
  personality
• Allport traits can be ranked
• Motivational traits related to ones values
• Cardinal traits dominate ones life (ie desire
  for social justice)
• Central/secondary traits are more common (ie
  obtaining sexual gratification)

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Personality
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Trait theories
• Five-factor model of personality traits
• Five dimensions measured in personality tests
• Neuroticism (anxious, worrisome)
• Extraversion (outgoing, social)
• Openness (creative, daring)
• Agreeableness (selfless, forgiving)
• Conscientiousness (reliable, hardworking)

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Personality
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Validating personality traits
• Eysencks introverts and extraverts
• Brains neural systems may work different
• Tests
• Classical conditioning
• Functional MRI

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Human Diversity
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Personality and culture
• Personality influenced by culture
• Individualistic culture (ie U.S.) emphasize
  individual rights and characteristics
• Feeling of pride, superiority
• Seek own goals over those of others
• More willing to use embarrassment and aggression
  to prove oneself right
• Free time often spent in solitary pursuits

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Human Diversity
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Personality and culture
• Collective cultures (ie Japan, China, India)
  emphasize individual in terms of rights, duties,
  and expectations as member of a group
• Leisure time more often spent with family
• Less aggressive in conflict say things to avoid
  embarrassment of others
• Characterized as having close ties, respectful,
  and friendly

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Human Diversity
Personality Theories and Assessment

• All personality theories must consider effects of
  culture
• People of different cultures tend to differ in
  some important ways
• There is tremendous variation within cultures
• Collective and individualistic traits are found
  among members of all cultures

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Psychoanalytic Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Freuds theory and views
• Original interest in conversion disorder
• Case of Anna O.
• Three levels of consciousness
• Mind is iceberg conscious, preconscious, and
  unconscious mind are levels
• Repression pushes thoughts into unconscious

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Psychoanalytic Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Freuds theory and views
• Personality has 3 parts
• Displacement
• Sometimes, ego must substitute a goal of the id
• Sublimation best kind of displacement
• Identification
• Superficial act of imitation

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Freud Personality has 3 parts
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Freud Psychosexual Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Fixation stuck in one stage
• Five stages of developmental theory
• Oral stage (birth to 1 year)
• Erogenous zones
• Oral dependent oral personality
• oral aggressive personality
• Anal stage (1 to 3 years)
• Anal retentive personality
• Anal expulsive personality

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Freud Psychosexual Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Phallic stage (3 to 6 years)
• Oedipus complex
• Castration anxiety
• Electra complex
• Phallic personality
• Latency stage (6 to 11 years)
• Genital stage (11 years on)

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Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Carl Jung
• Questioned Freuds sexual motivation emphasis
• Opposites in all elements of mind (ie selfish
  and generous, good and evil)
• Known for introversion and extraversion
• Personal unconscious motives, conflicts,
  information repressed as threatening
• Collective unconscious all humans born with it

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Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Alfred Adler
• Struggle with sexual and hostile impulses not
  primary factor in personality development
• Primary struggle overcome inferiority feelings,
  develop superiority feelings in social
  relationships (later seen as unhealthy)
• Outgrow childhood inferiority, become competent
  adult
• All born with positive motive, social interest
• Peoples lives governed by their goals

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Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Karen Horney
• Unconscious conflicts source of most human
  misery and maladjustment
• Freud overemphasized sexual conflicts, penis
  envy, and criticized his views of women
• Conflicts result from inadequate child-rearing
  experiences (love and security produce no
  conflicts, positive personality results)

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Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Others
• Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, Erikson
• Revised Freuds image of women
• De-emphasized importance of sexual and aggressive
  motivation
• Emphasized positive aspects of personality
• Asserted importance of adequate social
  relationships

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Social Learning Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Social learning sum total of all ways one to
  act, think, and feel as s/he does
• Albert Bandura
• People play active role in selecting behavior
• Cognition is important in personality
• Reciprocal determination (ie social learning)
• Personality is learned behavior
• Behavior influences future learning experiences

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Role of Cognition in Personality
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Helping others makes one more reliable and less
  stingy?
• Self-efficacy subjective perception of what one
  is capable of
• High self-efficacy accepts more challenges
• Bandura emphasizes learning of personal
  standards (self-regulation) of reward and
  punishment from experience and watching others

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Percentage of subjects stopping to help after
finding a dime
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Situationism and Interactionism
Personality Theories and Assessment

• B.F. Skinner
• argued against idea of traits behavior
  determined by situations one is in (situationism)
• People behave in ways to suit their situations
• Behavior cannot be consistent enough to be traits
  because situations change
• Solution behavior influenced by both person and
  situation (person X situation interactionism)
• One situation influences people in different ways

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Percentage of pedestrians stopping to help man in
high and low noise conditions
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Humanistic Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Third force in psychology historically deep
  roots in philosophy (lack of unity)
• Inner-directedness (innate internal force pushing
  for growth) positive view of humans
• Personality develops from this and can only be
  understood by the individual (subjective reality)
  everyones views are different
• Self-concept (subjective perception) is central
  to Rogers personality theory

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Rogers Self-Concept
Congruence consistencies between the two
The larger the discrepancies between the two, the
more psychological problems one experiences
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Humanistic Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Feelings and information are mentally symbolized
• Reactions of others create ones conditions of
  worth
• Self-actualization
• Maslows ultimate level of growth
• High level of moral development
• Open, honest, have courage
• Accurate and positive view of life
• Maslows peak experiences

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Comparing the Theories
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality Psychoanalytic Humanistic Social Learning
unconscious yes yes no
Learn what is good yes yes yes
Innate knowledge of good and bad yes yes yes
Innate selfishness yes
Innate goodness yes
Innate neither good or bad yes yes
Society influences yes yes yes yes
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Psychological Methods
Personality Theories and Assessment

• Interviews and observations
• Projective personality tests
• Thematic Apperception test (TAT)
• Rorschach Inkblot Test
• Objective Personality Tests
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI
  and MMPI-2)
• Evaluation of personality tests

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Relationship between types of physical aggression
and the month of the year
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The End
Personality Theories and Assessment
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