Personality

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Personality

• A persons general style of interacting with the
  world
• People differ from one another in ways that are
  relatively consistent over time and place

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Personality

• Psychoanalytic Approach Freudian Psychoanalysis
  and Post-Freudian Theories

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Psychoanalytic Approach

• Developed by Sigmund Freud
• Psychoanalysis is both an approach to therapy and
  a theory of personality
• Emphasizes unconscious motivation - the main
  causes of behavior lie buried in the unconscious
  mind

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Psychoanalytic Approach
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Psychoanalytic Approach

• Conscious - all things we are aware of at any
  given moment

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Psychoanalytic Approach

• Preconscious - everything that can, with a little
  effort, be brought into consciousness

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Psychoanalytic Approach

• Unconscious - inaccessible warehouse of
  anxiety-producing thoughts and drives

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Psychoanalytic Divisions of the Mind

• Id - instinctual drives present at birth
• does not distinguish between reality and fantasy
• operates according to the pleasure principle
• Ego - develops out of the id in infancy
• understands reality and logic
• mediator between id and superego
• Superego
• internalization of societys moral standards
• responsible for guilt

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Defense Mechanisms

• Unconscious mental processes employed by the ego
  to reduce anxiety

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Defense Mechanisms

• Repression - keeping anxiety-producing thoughts
  out of the conscious mind
• Reaction formation - replacing an unacceptable
  wish with its opposite

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Defense Mechanisms

• Displacement - when a drive directed to one
  activity by the id is redirected to a more
  acceptable activity by the ego
• Sublimation - displacement to activities that are
  valued by society

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Defense Mechanisms

• Projection - reducing anxiety by attributing
  unacceptable impulses to someone else
• Rationalization - reasoning away
  anxiety-producing thoughts
• Regression - retreating to a mode of behavior
  characteristic of an earlier stage of development

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Psychosexual Stages

• Freuds five stages of personality development,
  each associated with a particular erogenous zone
• Fixation - an attempt to achieve pleasure as an
  adult in ways that are equivalent to how it way
  achieved in these stages

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Oral Stage (birth - 1 year)

• Mouth is associated with sexual pleasure
• Weaning a child can lead to fixation if not
  handled correctly
• Fixation can lead to oral activities in adulthood

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Anal Stage (1 - 3 years)

• Anus is associated with pleasure
• Toilet training can lead to fixation if not
  handled correctly
• Fixation can lead to anal retentive or expulsive
  behaviors in adulthood

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Phallic Stage (3 - 5 years)

• Focus of pleasure shifts to the genitals
• Oedipus or Electra complex can occur
• Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity in
  males and the need for attention or domination in
  females

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Latency Stage (5 - puberty)

• Sexuality is repressed
• Children participate in hobbies, school and
  same-sex friendships

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Genital Stage (puberty on)

• Sexual feelings re-emerge and are oriented toward
  others
• Healthy adults find pleasure in love and work,
  fixated adults have their energy tied up in
  earlier stages

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Post-Freudian Psychodynamic Theories

• Karen Horneys focus on security
• Object relations theories
• Alfred Adlers individual psychology
• Erik Eriksons psychosocial development
• Carl Jungs collective unconscious

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Personality

• Trait Theories
• Social/Cognitive Approach
• Humanistic Approach

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Trait Theories

• Trait consistent predisposition to behave in a
  certain way
• specify a set of traits to recognize a
  personality or differentiate between indivduals

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Trait Theories

• Specific behaviors
• Surface traits - linked directly to a set of
  related behaviors
• Central traits - fundamental dimensions of
  personality
• Original Allport) was too confusing 4500 traits

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Early Trait Theories

• Cattells sixteen source traits
• Eysencks three dimensional theory

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Big-Five Theory or Five Factor Model

• Openness to experience-nonopenness
• Conscientiousness-undirectedness
• Extroversion-introversion
• Agreeableness-antagonism
• Neuroticism-stability

Criticism doesnt account for situational
differences Describes but doesnt explain
personality
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Predictive Value of Traits

• Stability of personality
• Relationship to actual behaviors
• Situation-specific traits
• Has some biological evidence, like inherited
  traits seen from parent to child

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Personality as Adaptation

• Advantages of being different
• diversity of offspring
• occupying alternative niches
• Family environment
• sibling contrast
• birth order differences (Adler)
• Gender differences (Freud, Horney)

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Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Based on research on learning, cognition, and
  social influence
• Focuses on beliefs and habits that increase or
  decrease peoples ability to take control of
  their lives and accomplish goals

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Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Locus of Control
• proposed by Julian Rotter
• belief that rewards either are or are not
  controllable by ones own efforts
• Way we approach a problem
• may be internal (self-responsibility) or external
  (chance/luck)
• Internal control less stress

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Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Self-Efficacy
• proposed by Albert Bandura
• belief about ones ability to perform specific
  tasks
• can be high or low (confidence/doubt)
• situational

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Humanistic Perspective

• Personal responsibility fre will and do not be
  a victim of fate
• The here and now (do not be a victim of the past)
• Phenomenological reality - ones conscious
  understanding of his/her world no one can know
  you like you know you
• Personal growth seek being a better you

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Humanistic Perspective

• Carl Rogerss person-centered approach
• self-concept is central to personality
• conditional positive regard - love and praise is
  withheld unless one conforms to others
  expectations
• unconditional positive regard - accepting a
  person regardless of who they are or what they do

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Humanistic Perspective

• Abraham Maslow
• hierarchy of needs
• self-actualization - the realization of ones
  dreams and capabilities