Introduction to Psychology - Chapter 12 PDF

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Detailed notes for chapter 12, covered in the 12th week of class. These were very useful on tests and I finished the class with an A....

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Fall 2018 – November 7th and 12th Textbook: Invitation to Psychology 7th Edition (2017) by Wade, C., Tavris, C., Sommers S., & Shin, L. Chapter 12: Theories of Personality Section 12.1 Psychodynamic Theories of Personality • Freud and Psychoanalysis: o Personality- a distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behavior, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterize an individual o Psychoanalysis- a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy developed by Sigmond Freud that emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts o It’s a psychodynamic theory- a theory that explains behavior and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual § All share an emphasis on unconscious processes of the mind and the assumption that adult personality and problems are formed primarily by experiences in early childhood that produce unconscious thoughts and feelings that form habits, conflicts, and often self-defeating behavior • The Structure of Personality: o In Freud's theory, personality consists of 3 major systems: 1. Id- the part of personality driven by unconscious drives, particularly those motivating the pursuit of pleasure a. The sexual instinct (libido) b. The death instinct (aggressive instinct) c. The id discharges tension in the form of reflex actions, physical symptoms, and uncensored mental images or thoughts 2. Ego- the part of personality that represents reason, good sense, and rational self-control; both conscious and unconscious a. Referees between instinctive needs and social demands b. Helps to rein in the impulses of the id 3. Superego- the part of personality that represents conscience, morality, and social standards; partly conscious, largely unconscious a. Judges the activities of the id and gives out either positive or negative feelings o According to Freud, the healthy personality must keep all 3 systems in balance o Someone controlled too much by id runs wild with impulse and selfish desires o Someone too controlled by superego is rigid, moralistic, and bossy

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o Someone with weak ego is unable to balance needs and wishes with social duties and realistic limitations Defense Mechanisms: o Defense mechanisms- methods used by the ego to prevent unconscious anxiety or threatening thoughts from entering consciousness o Repression- a threatening idea, memory, or emotion is blocked from consciousness o Projection- a person’s own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and attributed to someone else o Displacement- when people direct emotions that make them uncomfortable or conflicted toward others that aren’t the real object of their feelings § Sublimation- when displacement serves a higher cultural or socially useful purpose o Regression- when a person reverts to a previous phase of psychological development o Denial- when people refuse to admit something unpleasant is happening, that they have a problem, or that they are feeling a forbidden emotion The Development of Personality: o Psychosexual stages- in Freud’s theory, the idea that sexual energy takes different forms as the child matures: oral, anal, phallic (Oedipal), latency, and genital § Oral stage- 1st year of life, babies experience the world through their mouths; as adults they seek smoking, overeating, or nail biting § Anal stage- ages 2-3, toilet training and control of bodily wastes are the key issues; they become “anal retentive,” holding everything in, obsessive about neatness or cleanliness OR they become “anal explosive”—messy and disorganized § Phallic (Oedipal) stage- ages 3-5 or 6, “the child unconsciously wishes to possess the opposite-sex parent and get rid of the same-sex parent” • The most crucial stage • Oedipal complex- when a child in the phallic stage desires the parent of the other sex and sees the same-sex parent as a rival • When the complex is resolved, the child’s personality is fundamentally formed • Unconscious conflicts with parents, unresolved fixations and guilt, and attitudes toward the same and other sexes continue to replay themselves throughout life § Latency stage- a supposedly nonsexual stage the child settles into after the phallic stage, until puberty § Genital stage- puberty into adulthood

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Your adult personality is shaped by how you progressed through the early psychosexual stages, which defense mechanisms you developed to reduce anxiety, and whether your ego is strong enough to balance conflict between the id and the superego (what you want and your consciousness) Freud in Perspective: o Many ideas are untestable or failed to find support when tested o Bullied patients into accepting his diagnosis and had confirmation bias o However, he did welcome women into thee profession, wrote eloquently about the devastating results of society’s repression of female sexuality, and argued ahead of his times that homosexuality was neither sin nor perversion, but a “variation of the sexual function” and “nothing to be ashamed of” Other Psychodynamic Approaches: o Carl Jung was one of Freud’s closest friends, which ended with a quarrel about the nature of unconscious § Collective intelligence- in Jungian theory, the universal memories and experiences of humankind represented in the symbols, stories, and images (archetypes) that occur across all cultures • Archetypes- universal, symbolic images that appear in myths, art, and dreams, which Jung argued reflect the collective unconscious o Examples: mandala, hero, nurturing Earth mother and powerful father, the shadow § Jung had more confidence in the positive strengths of the ego than Freud § One of the first to identify extraversion and introversion as a basic dimension of personality

Evaluating Psychodynamic Theory: • Psychodynamic theories are lacking in 3 ways: 1. Violating the principle of falsification 2. Drawing universal principles from experiences of a few atypical patients 3. Basing theories of personality development on the retrospective accounts of adults

Section 12.2 The Modern Study of Personality: • Popular Personality Tests: o Myers-Briggs Type Indicator § Popular in businesses, motivational seminars, matchmaking services § 16 different types based on Jungian ideas: • Logical/intuitive • Introverted/extroverted § Low reliability o Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) § Several hundred true or false statements § Used for clinical assessments to measure anxiety, obsessiveness, conduct problems, social discomfort, paranoia o Trait- a characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual way of behaving, thinking, or feeling o Objective tests (inventories)- standardized questionnaires that typically include scales on which people are asked to rate themselves Core Personality Traits: • Gordon Allport recognized not all traits have equal significance in people’s lives • Most of us have 5-10 central traits that reflect a characteristic way of behaving, dealing with others, and reacting to new situations • Secondary traits are more changeable aspects of personality, i.e., music taste, habits, opinions (casual ones), etc. • Raymond B. Cattell advanced this study by applying factor analysis o Factor analysis- a statistical method for identifying clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated and assumed to assess the same underlying trait or ability (i.e., factor) • There are 5 central “robust factors”: 1. Extraversion vs introversion 2. Agreeableness vs antagonism 3. Conscientiousness vs impulsiveness 4. Emotional stability vs neuroticism 5. Openness vs resistance to experience

Section 12.3 Genetic Influences on Personality: • Heredity and Temperament: o Temperament- a physiological disposition to respond to the environment in certain ways, which is present in infancy and in many nonhuman species, and is assumed to be innate § Reactivity- how excitable, arousable, or responsive a baby is § Soothability- how easily the baby is calmed when upset § Temperaments are quite stable overtime and influence future traits • Heredity and Traits: o Heritability- a statistical estimate of how much of the variability in a given trait can be explained by genetic differences among individuals in a group o Heritability of personality traits is about 50% o Within a group of people, about 50% of the variation associated with a given trait is attributable to genetic difference among individuals in the group o Genetic predisposition is not genetic inevitability

Section 12.4 Environmental Influences on Personality: • Situations and Social Learning: o Reciprocal determinism- in social-cognitive learning theories, the 2-way interaction between aspects of the environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits § Aspects of the individual: temperament, learned habits, perceptions, and benefits § Aspects of the situation: opportunities, rewards, or punishments, chance events o Nonshared environment- unique aspects of a person’s environment and experience that are not shared with family members § Explains why siblings raised in the same household don’t have identical personalities § Experiences that affect each child differently, chance events that cannot be predicted, situations that children find themselves in, and peer groups they belong to • Parental Influence: o The shared environment of the home has relatively little influence on most personality traits o Few parents have a single childrearing style that’s consistent over time that they use with all their children o Even when parents try to be consistent, there may be little relation between what they do and how the children turn out o Parents influence children in ways unrelated to personality: § religious beliefs § intellectual and occupational interests § motivation to succeed § skills § adherence to traditional or modern gender roles § profoundly influence if children feel loved, secure, and valued

Section 12.5 Cultural Influences on Personality: • Culture, Values, and Traits: o Individualist cultures- cultures in which the self is more likely to be regarded as autonomous, with individual goals and wishes prized above duty and relations with others o Collectivist cultures- cultures in which the self is more likely to be regarded as embedded in relationships, with harmony with one’s group prized above individual goals and wishes o Culture and The Self: § Members of Individualist Cultures: • Define self as autonomous, independent of groups • Give priority to individual, personal goals • Value independence, leadership, achievement, and self-fulfillment • Give more weight to an individual’s attitudes and preferences than to group norms and expectations of behavior • Attend to the beliefs and costs of relationships; if costs exceed advantages, a person is likely to drop the relationship § Members of Collectivist Cultures: • Define the self as an independent part of groups • Give priority to the needs and goals of the group • Value group harmony, duty, obligation, and security • Give more weight to group norms than to individual attitudes as expectations of behavior • Attend to the needs of group members, if a relationship is beneficial to the group but costly to the individual, the individual is likely to stay in the relationship § Individualist and collectivist ways of defining the self-influence which personality traits we value, how or whether we express emotions, and how much we value having relationships and maintaining freedom o Culture and Traits: § When culture is not appropriately considered, people attribute “unusual” behavior to personality § Timeliness and tardiness • In some cultures, time is seen as a linear construct; being “on time” is considered conscientious and thoughtful • In other cultures, time is organized in a parallel fashion; the idea of being “on time” as being more important than a person is contradictory to the cultural norm

Evaluating Cultural Approaches: • Cultural psychologists face the problem of how to describe cultural influences on personality without oversimplifying or stereotyping • People vary according to their temperaments, beliefs, and learning histories, and this variation occurs within every culture • In spite of differences, cultures share many human concerns and needs for love, attachment, family, work, and communal tradition • The traits we value, sense of self vs community, and notions of how to behave begin with the culture in which we are raised

Section 12.6 The Inner Experience: • Humanist Approaches: o Humanist Psychology- a psychological approach that emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential o Abraham Maslow § “The trouble with psychology was that it had ignored many of the positive aspects of life, such as joy, laughter, love, and peak experience.” § Peak experience- rare moments of rapture caused by the attainment of excellence or the experience of beauty § Self-Achievement- striving for a life that is meaningful, challenging, and satisfying § Personality development could be viewed as a gradual progression to selfactualization o Carl Rogers § Interested in why some people can't function well and what he called “fully functioning individual” § “How you behave depends on your subjective reality, not the external reality around you.” § Fully functioning people experience congruence between the image they project to others and their true feelings and wishes, are trusting, warm, and open, and their beliefs about themselves are realistic § Unconditional positive regard- love or support given to another person with no conditions attached, according to Carol Rogers § Conditional positive regard- when the love and support we got from others comes with strings attached; to get these positive messages, we must satisfy certain conditions or “costs” o Rollo May § Shared with humanists the belief in free will and freedom of choice, but also emphasized loneliness, anxiety, and alienation, bringing existentialism to American psychology § Existentialism- a philosophical approach that emphasizes the inevitable dilemmas and challenges of human existence § “Free will carries a price in anxiety and despair, which is why so many people try to escape from freedom into narrow certainties and blame others for their misfortunes.” § Our personalities reflect the ways we cope with the struggles to find meaning in existence, use our freedom wisely, and face suffering and death bravely

Narrative Approaches: • Importance of the life narrative, the story that each of us develops over time to explain ourselves and make meaning of everything that has happened to us • Your distinctive personality rests of the story you tell to answer the question, “Who am I?” • Emphasizes how the stories we tell give us an identity, shape our behavior, and motivate us to pursue or abandon our goals • Your stories about how you see and explain yourself are the essence of your personality • “To tell a story about your life turns into history, one that can be left behind, and makes is easier for you to create a future of your own design.” -David Epston Evaluating Humanist and Narrative Approaches: • Hard to operationally define many of the concepts • Many of their assumptions are untestable • Added balance to the study of personality • Encouraged others to focus on “positive psychology” • Fostered new appreciation for resilience • All deliver one central message: We have the power to choose our own destinies, even when fate delivers us into tragedy...