Chapter 12 personality PDF

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Chapter 12: Personality Personality – individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits. ● Personality Trait – durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations. ● Factor Analysis – Raymond Cattell - correlations among many variables are analyzed to identify closely related clusters of variables 5-Factor Model of Personality Traits ● Robert McCrae & Paul Costa ○ Extraversion – outgoing, sociable, upbeat, friendly, assertive. (positive) ○ Neuroticism – anxious, hostile, self-conscious, insecure, vulnerable. (negative divorce) ○ Openness to Experience – curiosity, flexibility, imaginativeness, artistic, unconventional. ○ Agreeableness – sympathetic, trusting, cooperative, modest, straightforward. (negatively - income) ○ Conscientiousness – diligent, disciplined, organized, punctual, dependable. (positive) ● Dark Triad - specific combination of three traits leading to negative, antisocial behavioural tendencies ○ Machiavellianism - enjoys, and good at, manipulating others. ○ Psychopathy - control and hurt others, impulsive, often lives a parasitic lifestyle ○ Narcissism - focus exclusively on self and one’s self image, and maintain an inflated view of the self and demand attention. ○ Sadistic personality - unique among the dark tetrad in involving an

appetite for cruelty Psychodynamic Perspectives ● Sigmund Freud ● Psychodynamic Theories – all diverse theories descended from work of Sigmund Freud, which focus on unconscious mental forces. ○ First - arguing that people’s behaviour is governed by unconscious factors of which they are unaware (individuals are not masters of their own minds) ○ Second - adult personalities are shaped by childhood experiences and other factors beyond one’s control (people are not masters of their own destinies) ○ Third - the importance of how people cope with their sexual urges (offended those who held the conservative, Victorian values of his time) Structure of Personality ○ ID – primitive, instinctive component of personality that operates according to pleasure principle. (psychic energy)

■ Pleasure Principle – demands instant gratification of its urges. ■ Ego – decision-making component of personality that operates according to reality principle. ● mediates between the id, with forceful desires for immediate satisfaction, and external social world, with expectations and norms regarding suitable behaviour ● Reality Principle – seeks to delay gratification of the ID’s urges until appropriate outlets and situations can be found. ● to stay out of trouble, the ego often works to tame the

unbridled desires of the id. ● SuperEgo – moral component of personality that incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong. ○ Levels of Awareness ■ Conscious – whatever one is aware of at a particular point in time. ■ PreConscious – material just beneath the surface of awareness that can be easily retrieved. ■ Unconscious – thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behavior. ■ Freud believes conflicts in aggression and sexual impulses in the ID, Ego, and SuperEgo determine behavior. ■ Ex. your id might feel an urge to clobber a co-worker who constantly irritates you. However, society frowns on such behaviour, so your ego would try to hold this urge in check. (social norms dictates) ○ Anxiety & Defense Mechanisms ■ Anxiety - caused by unconscious conflicts between ego, ID, and SuperEgo. ■ Defense Mechanisms – largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt. ● mental manoeuvres that work through self-deception. ■ Rationalization – creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behavior. ● Ex. after cheating someone in a business transaction, you might reduce your guilt by rationalizing that “everyone does it. ■ Repression – keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious. ● Ex. traumatized soldier has no recollection of the details of a close brush with death. ■ Projection – attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another. ● Ex. woman who dislikes her boss thinks she likes her boss but feels that the boss doesn’t like her. ■ Displacement – diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target ● Ex. After parental scolding, a young girl takes her anger out on her little brother.

■ Reaction Formation – behaving in a way that is exactly the opposite of one’s true feelings. ● Ex. parent who unconsciously resents a child spoils the child with outlandish gifts. ■ Regression – reversion to immature patterns of behavior. ● Ex. An adult has a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his way. ■ Identification – bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group. ● Ex. insecure young man joins a fraternity to boost his self-esteem ■ Sublimation - when unconscious, unacceptable impulses are channelled into socially acceptable, perhaps even admirable, behaviours ● Ex. argued that Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of Madonna figures was a sublimation of his longing for intimacy with his mother ○ Psychosexual Stages ■ Psychosexual Stages – developmental periods with a characteristic sexual focus that leave their mark on adult personality. ■ Fixation – failure to move forward from one stage to another as expected. ● Oral Stage – 1st Year. (biting, chewing) ● Anal Stage – 2nd Year (retention of feces) ● Phallic Stage – Age 4 (masturbating) ○ Oedipal Complex – children manifest erotically tinged desires for their opposite sex parent, accompanied by feelings of hostility toward their same-sex parent. ○ Oedipus was separated from his parents at birth. Not knowing the identity of real parents, he grew up he inadvertently killed his father and married his mother. ○ Latency & Genital Stages – Age 6 to Puberty. Jung Analytical Psychology ● Carl Jung ● Personal Unconscious – houses material that is not within one’s conscious awareness because it has been repressed or forgotten ● Collective Unconscious – storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from people’s ancestral past ● Archetypes – emotionally charged images and thought forms that have universal meaning. (in dreams) ○ Ex. mandala, or “magic circle,” has served as a symbol of the unified wholeness of the self. ● Introverts – preoccupied with the internal world of their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. ● Extraverts – tend to be interested in the external world of people and things. Adler’s Individual Psychology ● Alfred Adler

● Striving for Superiority – universal drive to adapt, improve oneself, and master life’s challenges. ○ young children feel weak and helpless in comparison with more competent older children and adults - early inferiority feelings motivate them to acquire new skills and develop new talents. ● Compensation – efforts to overcome imagined or real inferiorities by developing one’s abilities. ○ inferiority complex—exaggerated feelings of weakness and inadequacy ○ overcompensation - to conceal, even from themselves, their feelings of inferioritywork to acquire status, power, and the trappings of success (fancy clothes, impressive cars) to cover up their underlying inferiority complex. ● Evaluating Psychodynamic Perspectives: ● (1) unconscious forces influence behaviour ● (2) internal conflict plays key role generating psychological distress, ● (3) early childhood experiences influences adult personality ● (4) people use defence mechanisms to reduce their experience of unpleasant emotions Behavioral Perspectives ● B.F. Skinner ideas adapted to personality ● Behaviorism – theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only observable behavior. ● Claimed there was no free will. ● He argued it’s useless to speculate about private, unobservable cognitive processes. Instead, he focused on how the external environment moulds overt behaviour ● Personality is a product of conditioning. ● People’s characteristic response tendencies - shaped by reinforcers and other consequences that follow behaviour. ○ Ex. if your joking leads to attention and compliments, your tendency to be witty and humorous will be strengthened. ● Your personality is shaped over a lifetime. Bandera’s Social Cognitive Theory ● Albert Bandera ● Social Cognitive Theory – people are shaped by their environments, and people shape their environments with goals, etc. ● Reciprocal Determinism – internal mental events, external environmental events, and overt behavior all influence one another. ● Observational Learning – an organism’s response is influenced by the observation of others, who is called Models. ○ Ex. watching your sister get cheated by someone, strengthen your tendency to be suspicious of others. Your sister would be the one actually experiencing the negative consequences, might influence you— through observational learning. ● Model – person whose behavior is observed by another. ● Self-Efficacy – one’s belief about one’s ability to perform behaviors that should lead to expected outcomes.

○ higher self-efficacy or higher self-confidence leads to better performance. Michel & Person-Situation Controversy ● Walter Michel ● Behavior is characterized by more situational specificity rather than consistency. ● Ex. if you believe hard work in your job will pay off by leading to raises and promotions, you’ll probably be diligent and industrious. if you think that hard work in your job is unlikely to be rewarded, you may behave in a lazy and irresponsible manner. ● NOTES: ○ ○ ○

Skinner’s ideas - how environmental consequences and conditioning mould people’s characteristic behaviour. Bandura’s social cognitive theory - how learning from others can mould personality. Mischel - how situational factors shape behaviour.

Humanist Perspectives ● Humanism – theoretical orientation that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially their potential for personal growth. ○ Humanistic psychologists - don’t believe animal research can reveal anything of any significance about the human condition. ● Phenomenological Approach – one has to appreciate individuals’ personal, subjective experiences to truly understand their behavior. Rogers’s Person Centered Theory ● Carl Rogers ● Self-Concept – collection of beliefs about one’s own nature, unique qualities, and typical behavior. ○ Ex. I’m easy going” or “I’m sly and crafty” or “I’m pretty” ● Incongruence – degree of disparity between one’s self-concept and one’s actual experience. ○ Ex. you may believe that you’re quite bright, but your grade transcript might suggest otherwise. ● Congruence - when self-concept is similar to actual experience, and has less anxiety. ● Incongruence is when self-concept is very different from actual experience, and has more anxiety. ● Some parents - affection conditional. depends on the child’s behaving well and living up to expectations. Parental love seems conditional, children often block out of their selfconcept those experiences that make them feel unworthy of love. They do so because they’re worried about parental acceptance, which appears precarious. (incongruence) ● Some parents - affection unconditional. Their children have less need to block out unworthy experiences because they’ve been assured that they’re worthy of affection, no matter what they do. (congruence) ● Higgins:

○ ideal self - refers to our beliefs about the kind of person we wish to be (e.g., a top student)—our hopes, goals, and aspirations for ourselves. ○ ought self - refers to our beliefs about the kind of person we have a duty or obligation to be (e.g., a faithful spouse). ○ Self-regulation - self’s ability to alter its actions and behaviours Maslow’s Theory of Self-Actualization ● Abraham Maslow ● Hierarchy of Needs – systematic arrangement of needs, according to priority, in which basic needs must be met before less basic needs are aroused. ○ higher levels in the pyramid represent progressively less-basic needs ● Need for Self-Actualization – need to fulfill one’s potential. ○ Highest need in maslow hierarchy “Pyramid.” ○ Ex. if you have great musical talent but must work as an accountant ● Self-Actualizing Persons – people with exceptionally healthy personalities, marked by continued personal growth. ○ At peace, opem, socialize, thrive on their work, not dependent Biological Perspective ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Eysenck’s Theory Hans Eysenck “Personality is determined in Large Part by a Person’s Genes.” Extraversion - sociable, assertive, active, and lively Neuroticism - anxious, tense, moody, and low in self-esteem. Psychoticism - egocentric, impulsive, cold, and antisocial. Proposed that introverts have higher levels of physiological arousal, or perhaps higher “arousability,” makes them more easily conditioned than extraverts. According to Eysenck, people who condition easily acquire more conditioned inhibitions than others. These inhibitions make them more bashful, tentative, and uneasy in social situations. Hence, they become introverted. ● Nature (hereditary and biological) than Nurture (learning and experiences) Terror Management Theory ● ● ● ●

Theory to explain why people need self-esteem. Culture gives people a sense of order. Self-Esteem works as an anxiety buffer. When people consider their own death, they become more defensive of their culture.

Culture & Personality ● Individualism – involves putting personal goals ahead of group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group membership. ● Collectivism – putting group goals before individual goals and defying one’s identity in terms of the groups one belongs to.

● The Big 5 Traits are Similar across Cultures. ● Self-Enhancement – focusing on positive feedback from others, exaggerating one’s strength, and seeing oneself as above Average. ● Western Cultures favor Individualism, Asian Cultures favor Collectivism....