Personality

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• Chapter 12
• Personality

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Chapter Preview

• Psychodynamic Perspectives
• Humanistic Perspectives
• Trait Perspectives
• Personological and Life Story Perspectives
• Social Cognitive Perspectives
• Biological Perspectives
• Personality Assessment
• Personality and Health and Wellness

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Personality

• a pattern of enduring distinctive thoughts,
• emotions, and behaviors that characterize the
• way an individual adapts to the world

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Psychodynamic Perspectives

• personality is primarily unconscious
• understanding personality involves exploring the
  symbolic meanings of behavior and the unconscious
  mind
• early childhood experiences sculpt the
  individuals personality

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Freuds Psychoanalytic Theory

• Freud and Psychoanalysis
• sex drive main determinant of personality
  development
• Hysteria
• physical symptoms without physical cause
• overdetermined multiple unconscious causes
• Iceberg Analogy of Human Personality

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Personality Structure

• Id
• instincts and reservoir of psychic energy
• pleasure principle
• Ego
• deals with the demands of reality
• reality principle
• Superego
• moral branch of personality conscience

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Personality Structure
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Defense Mechanisms

• conflict between the id, ego, and superego
  results in anxiety
• defense mechanisms reduce anxiety by
  unconsciously distorting reality not
  necessarily unhealthy
• repression
• foundation for all defense mechanisms
• push unacceptable impulses out of awareness

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Defense Mechanisms

• repression
• rationalization
• displacement
• sublimation
• projection
• reaction formation
• denial
• regression

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Defense Mechanisms
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Defense Mechanisms
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Psychosexual Stages

• Oral Stage 0-18 Months
• infants pleasure centers on the mouth
• Anal Stage 18-36 Months
• childs pleasure involves eliminative functions
• Phallic Stage 3-6 Years
• childs pleasure focuses on the genitals
• Oedipal complex
• castration anxiety

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Phallic Stage

• Pleasure focuses on genitals
• discovery that self-stimulation is enjoyable
• Oedipus Complex
• boys intense desire to replace father and enjoy
  affections of mother
• castration Anxiety
• boys intense fear of being mutilated by father
• identifying with father and adopting male gender
  role to reduce conflict, as foundation for
  superego
• without experience of castration anxiety, girls
  cannot develop superego like boys

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Psychosexual Stages (contd)

• Latency Stage 6 Years - Puberty
• psychic time-out
• interest in sexuality is repressed
• Genital Stage Adolescence and Adulthood
• sexual reawakening
• source of sexual pleasure is someone else
• Fixation - remain locked in particular
  developmental
• stage (e.g., anal retentive)

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Psychosexual Stages
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Dissenters and Revisionists

• sexuality not pervasive force behind
  personality
• early experience not as powerful as Freud
  thought
• importance of conscious thought
• sociocultural influences

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Dissenters and Revisionists

• Horneys Sociocultural Approach
• both sexes envy the attributes of the other
• need for security, not sex, is primary motivator
• Jungs Analytical Theory
• collective unconscious and archetypes
• Adlers Individual Psychology
• perfection, not pleasure, is key motivator

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Evaluating Psychodynamic Theory

• Criticisms
• too much emphasis on early experiences
• too much faith in unconscious minds control
• too much emphasis on sexual instincts
• theory can not be tested
• Contributions
• importance of childhood experiences
• development proceeds in stages
• role of unconscious processes

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Humanistic Perspectives

• emphasis on a persons capacity for
• personal growth and positive human
• qualities

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Humanistic Perspectives

• Abraham Maslow
• third force psychology
• self-actualization
• peak experiences
• biased since focus was on highly successful
  individuals

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Humanistic Perspectives

• Carl Rogers
• personal growth and self-determination
• unconditional positive regard
• - conditions of worth
• - self-concept
• empathy
• genuineness

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Evaluating Humanistic Perspectives

• Contributions
• self-perception is key to personality
• consider the positive aspects of human nature
• emphasize conscious experience
• Criticisms
• too optimistic about human nature
• promotes self-love and narcissism

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Trait Perspectives

• Trait
• an enduring disposition that leads to
  characteristic responses
• traits are the building blocks of personality
• Trait Theories
• people can be described by their typical behavior
• strong versus weak tendencies

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Trait Perspectives

• Gordon Allport
• personality understood through traits
• behavior consistent across situations
• lexical approach ? 4500 traits
• W. T. Norman
• five factor model
• broad traits main dimensions of personality

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Five Factor Model of Personality
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Evaluating Trait Perspectives

• Contributions
• traits influence health, cognitions, career
  success, and interpersonal relations
• Criticisms
• ignores the role of the situation in behavior
• ignores nuances of an individuals personality

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Personological Perspectives

• focusing on an individuals
• life history or life story
• Henry Murray
• personology the study of the whole person
• motives are largely unconscious
• thematic apperception test (TAT)
• - need for achievement, affiliation, and power

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Life Story Approach

• Dan McAdams
• our life story is our identity
• intimacy motivation
• Psychobiography
• applying personality theory to one persons life

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Evaluating Life Story Approach

• Contributions
• rich record of an individuals experience
• Criticisms
• difficult and time-consuming
• - extensive coding and content analysis
• prone to bias
• not easily generalized

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Social Cognitive Perspectives

• emphasize conscious awareness, beliefs,
  expectations, and goals
• incorporates principles from behaviorism when
  exploring
• - reasoning
• - beliefs
• - self reflection
• - interpretation of situation

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Social Cognitive Perspectives

• Albert Bandura
• reciprocal determinism
• - behavior, environment, and cognitive
• factors interact to create personality
• Key Processes and Variables
• observational learning
• personal control
• self-efficacy

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Reciprocal Determinism
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Social Cognitive Perspectives

• Walter Mischel
• Situationalism
• - behavior and personality vary
  considerably across context
• CAPS Model of Personality
• - stability over time rather than across
  situations
• - interconnections among cognitions and
  emotions affect our behavior

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Evaluating Social Cognitive Theory

• Contributions
• focuses on interactions of individuals with their
  environments
• suggests people can control their environment
• Criticisms
• too concerned with change and the situation
• ignores the role of biology
• very specific predictions hinder generalization

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Biological Perspectives

• Personality and the Brain
• brain damage alters personality
• brain responses correlate with personality
• Eysenks Reticular Activation System Theory
• extraverts and introverts have different
  base-line levels of arousal
• Grays Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory
• behavioral activation system and behavioral
  inhibition system

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Eysencks RAS Theory

• Reticular Activating System (RAS)
• Located in brain stem
• Plays role in wakefulness or arousal
• Eysencks Theory
• All share optimal arousal level
• RAS of extraverts and introverts may differ in
  baseline levels of arousal, with behaviors aimed
  at regulating arousal around these baselines
• But introverts may just be more sensitive to
  stimuli

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Grays Reinforcement Sensitivity

• Behavioral approach system (BAS) and behavioral
  inhibition system (BIS) underlie personality
• Differences in sensitivity to rewards and
  punishers
• BAS
• Sensitive to rewards
• Predisposition to positive emotion
• Underlies extraversion
• BIS
• Sensitive to punishers
• Predisposition to fear
• Underlies neuroticism

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Biological Perspectives

• Role of Neurotransmitters
• growth of dopamine receptors stimulated by warm
  care-givers
• disposes person to reward-sensitivity
  (extraversion)
• less serotonin in circulation leads to negative
  mood (neuroticism)

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Biological Perspectives

• Behavioral Genetics
• twin studies reveal substantial genetic influence
  on Big Five traits
• most traits influenced by multiple genes
• Evaluating the Biological Perspective
• ties personality to animal learning, brain
  imaging, and evolutionary theory
• criticisms (e.g., biology may be the effect, not
  the cause, of personality)

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Personality Assessment

• Self-Report Tests
• beware social desirability
• empirically-keyed tests used to get around social
  desirability problem
• - test takers do not know what is being measured
• - test items not related to purpose of test
• - MMPI is an example

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Personality Assessment

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
• 567 items
• controls for social desirability
• assesses mental health and used to make hiring
  decisions and to determine criminal risk
• Neuroticism Extraversion Openness
• Personality Inventory-Revised
• assesses the big five factors and 6 subdimensions

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Personality Assessment

• Myers Briggs Type Indicator
• four dimensions used to make personnel decisions
• - extraversion-introversion
• - sensing-intuiting
• - thinking-feeling
• - judgment-perception
• not empirically supported
• Barnum effect

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Personality Assessment

• Projective Tests
• psychodynamic approach
• project own meaning on ambiguous stimuli
• Rorschach inkblot test
• personality score based on description of
  inkblots
• questionable reliability and validity
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• series of ambiguous pictures viewed one at a time
• elicited stories reveal an individuals
  personality

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Rorschach Inkblot Test
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Thematic Apperception Test
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Other Assessment Methods

• direct behavioral observation
• cognitive assessment of attention and memory
• peer ratings
• psychophysiological measures (e.g., polygraph)
• brain imaging