Notetaker: Heather Lobenstein Advanced Placement Psychology Chapter 14: Personality ( http://www.ApPsychology.net ) • Personality • An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and actin g • Four basic perspectives • Psychoanalytic • Trait • Humanistic • Social-cognitive • From Freud’s theor y which proposes that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Psychoanalysis • Technique of treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions • Freud’s psychoanalytic theor y of personality sought to explain what he observed during psychoanalysis • Free Association • Method of exploring the unconscious • Person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing • Unconscious • Freud-a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes. Feelings and memories • Contemporary-information processing of which we are unaware • Preconscious- information that is not conscious, but is retriev able into conscious awareness Personality Structure • ID • A reservoir of unconscious psychic en ergy • Strives to satisfy basic sex ual and aggressive driv es • Operates on the pleasure principle. Demanding immediate gratification • SUPEREGO • The part of personality that presents internalized ideals • Provides standards for judgement and for future aspirations • EGO • The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality • Mediates among the demands of the id, superego and ego • Operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain Personality Development • Psychosexual Stages- the childhood stages of d evelopment during which the pleasur e-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones • Oedipus Complex- a boy’s sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
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
Phallic (3-6 years) Pleasure zone in genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feeling
Latency ( 6 to puberty) Dormant sexual feelings
Genital (puberty on) Maturation of sexual interests
Personality Development
• Identification- the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing
superegos
• Gender Identity- one’s sense of being male or female
• Fixation- a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts
were unresolved
Defense Mechanisms
• Defense Mechanisms- the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
• Repression- the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, f eelings, and memories
from consciousness
• Regression- defense mechanism in which an individual retreats, when faced with anxiety, to a more
infantile psychosexual stage where some psychic energy remains fixated
• Reaction Formation- defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses
into their opposites. People may express feelin gs that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious
feelings.
• Projection- defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing
them to others
• Rationalization- defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more
threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions
• Displacement- defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a mor e acceptable or
less threatening object or person…as when redirecting anger towards a safer outlet
Neo-Freudians
• Alfred Adler- importance of childhood social tension
• Karen Horney- sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases
• Carl Jung- emphasizes collective unconscious…concept of a shared, inherited r eservoir of memory tr aces
from our species’ histor y
Assessing The Unconscious
• Projective Test- a personality rest, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provided 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 th e stories they make up about ambiguous scen es
• Rorschach Inkblot Test- the most widely used projective test, uses a set of 10 inkblots designed by
Hermann Rorschach to identify people’s inner feelings b y analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
The Trait Perspective
• Trait- a characteristic pattern of behavior; a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-rep ort
inventories and peer reports
• Personality Inventory- a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people
respond to items design ed to gau ge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected
personality traits
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 pref erence for routine
Independent versus conforming
Extraversion Soft-hearted versus ruthless
Trusting versus suspicious
Helpful versus uncoop erative
Conscientiousness Organized versus disor ganized
Careful versus careless
Disciplined versus impulsive
• 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
• Empirically Derived Test- a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that
discriminate between groups…similar to MMPI
Evaulating The Trait Perspective
• Situational influences on behavior are important to consider
• People can fake desirable responses on self-report measures of personality
• Averaging behavior across situations seems to indicate that people do have distinct personality traits
Humanistic Perspective
• Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)- studied self-actualization processes of productive and healthy people
• Self-Actualization- the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs
are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential
• Carl Rogers (1902-1987)- focused on growth and fulfillment of individuals
• Requires three conditions
1. Genuineness
2. Acceptance- unconditional positive regard
3. Empathy
• Unconditional Positive Regard- an attitude of total acceptance toward another person
• Self-Concept- all of our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in an answer to the question “Who am I”?”
• Self-Esteem- one’s feelings of high or low self-worth
• Self-Serving Bias- a readiness to perceive oneself favorably
• Individualism- giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining on e’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 o r work group) and
defining one’s identity accordingly
Value Contrasts Between Individualism and Collectivism
Concept Individualism
Collectivism
Self
Independent
(identity from individual traits)
Interdependent (identity from belongin g)
Life task Discover and express one’s uniqueness Maintain connections, fit it
What matters Me—personal achievement and
We—group goals and solidarity; social
responsibilities and relationships
fulfillment; rights and liberties
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;
Few, close and enduring; harmony valued
confrontation acceptable
Attributing behavior Behavior reflects one’s personality and
Behavior reflects social norm and roles
attitudes
Evaluating The Humanistic Perspective
• Concepts like self-actualization are vague
• Emphasis on self may p romote self-indulgence and lack of concern for others
• Theory does not address reality of human capacity for evil
• Theory has impacted popular ideas on child rearing, education, management, etc.
Social-Cognitive Perspecitve
• Reciprocal Determinism- the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors
• 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
• Internal Locus of Control- the perception that one controls one’s own fate
• Learned Helplessness- the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to
avoid repeated aversive events
• Built from research on learning and cognition
• Fails to consider unconscious motives and individual disposition
• Today, cognitive-behavioral theory is perhaps predominant psychological approach to explaining human
behavior
Bibliography
Myers, David G., Psychology Fifth Edition. Worth Publishers, Inc. New York, NY ©1998
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