PSY chapter 10; personality PDF

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Psy 2000

Chapter 10: Personality

4 major approaches of personality 1. 2. 3. 4.

Trait Psychodynamic Phenomenological Social learning

Psychodynamic approach - Common core that gives way for ones personality to emerge. o Life o Sex o Death - Gratification and frustration mold personality - Instincts guides the actions we do - Actions are reflections of internal instinctual processes, operating below our awareness in our unconscious. - Struggles with unconscious to determine which force will be expressed in our behavior. Freud called this Psychoanalysis. Phenomenological - our experiences are unique to us, we choose them because we have the freedom to do so, this brings about a possibility to to make wrong choices in the sense that it wasn’t really us. - Self-actualiziation, ones approval leads them to further explore choices - This approach is reffered to as humanistic approach, emphasizes free will - Immediate experience, movement toward identity or self (self actualization) - rogers Social learning - How people think about their behavior - Social cognitive approach - Can trace root to behaviorism, but is in some ways a reaction to it. - Behavior follows from persons thoughts - Theorists focus on how thoughts and actions shape their environments. Definition of Personality - Salvatore Maddi, “personality is a stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine those commonalities and differences in the psychological behavior (thoughts, feelings, actions, of people that have continuity in time and that may or may not be easily understood in terms of the social and biological pressures of immediate situation alone.”

The Trait Approach - The common sense approach - We use when we talk about other people - Describing person in terms of their trait. - Differences in term of degree, we all posses the qualities but the diff. is how much of each we posses. - Theoretical constructs: inferred concepts used to explain behavior. They do not exist in a physical, tangible sense. But are summaries for describing behavior. - Areas of brain can be linked to specific traits - Left hemisphere plays more of a role in positive emotions, right side is negative.

G.W Allport Idiographic approach: Studying individuals intensely rather than trying to find the universal traits possessed by everyone. - Deeper understanding of individual. Ex. Studying their gestures during speech Nomothetic approach: Measuring large numbers of people to see where they are different and where they are similar. - Assumes all individuals possess the same trait but to diff. degrees. - However Allport realized that some traits aren’t universal. - Found 18,000 words to describe people o Created a system to categorize traits based on its influence on personality. Cardinal trait: Almost everything a person does is tied to this trait. - Very few people possess this trait Central traits: highly characteristic of the person. - 5-10 traits - You might see this in a letter of recommendation - Backbone traits to individuals personality Secondary trait: show up in specific instances - When person is tired

Cattell and factor analysis - Unlike allport, he emphasized nomothetic method. - Discovered universal traits apart of everyones personality - Source trait: Basic traits inherent in everyones personality. o L data: subjects life record o Q-data: sunjects self-ratings on various questionaires o T-Data: subjects response to created/contrived situations o Cattell would analyze these forms alone and sometimes with other data.

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o This was called Factor analysis: Allows researcher to see if variables share enough in common that they could be summarized together. Allowed him to discover 16 underlying source traits, which he then used to develop the 16PF

Eysenck’s three-factor solution 1967, belived 3 major factors 1. Introversion-extroversion, diff. arousal in the brain, introverts= more stimulated therefore they do not want extra stimulation. 2. Emotionality-stability 3. Psychoticism (cruelty)

The big five - Many trait theorist identify 5 traits linked to personality - Carver & scheier discovered that 5 factors have emerged in the following situations 1. Diff. measures of personality have been used 2. Diverse study sample 3. Diff. cultures have been tested The big 5 consists of 1. Openness 2. Conscientiousness 3. Extroversion 4. Agreeableness 5. Neuroticsm

Heredity & traits - Long history linking personalty to biological characteristics - Hippocrates said body fluids determined temperament, believe that excess blood was related to cheerfulness. - Gall believed that diff. bump patterns on skull were indicitave of diff. personalities - Sheldon reported strong correlations netween body type and personality

Walter Mischel, 1968 - Correlation between measure of personality and behavior was between .20 and .30 - He reffered to the low correlation as the personality coefficient o Personality coefficient: the low correlation between a measure of personality and behavior

Psychodynamic approach - Origins of Freuds Theory - He was a neurologist who dealth with nervous system disorders, paralysis of libs and loss of the senses. - Learned hypnosis from Jean, but this was only a temporary solution to the disorder. - Unconscious conflicts - Decision paralysis: wanting and not wanting something at the same time. These decisions or undecisions can begin to develop into physical actions. Instincts - We get hungry, we take action by eating, the behavior develops within. - Freud described 2 different instincts 1. Life 2. death o Libido: sexual and life preservation instincts (hunger, thirst, sex) o Thanatos: Death instinct. When turned outward cruel things can happen.

Structure of personality ID -

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Instincts It attempts to relieve the tension felt o Pleasure principle: the reduction of tension. Motivation behind why people do almost everything they do according to Freud. o Primary process: Thinking confusing fantasy for reality. Cant detect the subjective experience o Wish fulfillment: Reducing tension by imagining you have what you need Type of primary process. Imagining food when your hungry

Ego -

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System that deals with the real world, external world Searches for real food, companionship, not imagined ones. o Reality principle: The ability to distinguish reality from fantasy Operates on basis of secondary principle. If your hungry you will think of plan to get it o Secondary process: Rational skills that enable us to get rhough our daily lives and survive. Without these we would not know how to navigate or where our fridge is. Gains all its energy from the ID and operates to serve it

Superego - Keeps the ego in check, conforms to societal rules and law - Two subparts 1. Conscience: knowing and feeling guilt when a person has done wrong - Scolding and punishment lead to this 2. Ego-ideal: knowing and feeling pride when a person has done right - Praise and insctruction about what is right

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o Introjection: The process of accepting and identifying with the value system taught by the parents When we do well we feel the ego ideal, when we disappoint or feel guilty we feel the conscience o Psychodynamic theory: The competition and waxing and wanning of the id, ego, and super ego.

Freuds model of the mind 1. Conscious mind is whatever we are thinking about. 2. Preconscious mind, anything that we know and can bring into conscious. 3. Unconscious mind, holds thoughts, feelings, desires, dirves that can be brough to conscious through psychoanalysis. - Much of our personality is influenced by unconscious.

Personality development Psychosexual stages of development, you must progress through the stages, if not one may remain stuck at a specific phase. Oral stage - Newborn must eat - Enjoys putting new things in mouth - Sucking on titty can lead to trust and optimism o Oral incorporative stage: person who desperately needs to feel loved because he or she didn’t get enough as a child, symbolically achieved through oral stimulation. (comfort food) o Oral sadistic stage: a person who uses his or her mouth (words) to hurt others. When child develops teeth it can bite. - Average ending is 18 months Anal stage - Toilet training - Erogoneous zone, focuses on certain time and place, not wherever the child so chooses. o Anal expulsive fixation: an adult who is rebellious toward authority, irresponsible, disorderly, and wasteful

o Anal retentive fixation: An adult who is, meticoulos, orderly, rigid, frugal Phallic stage - Children become fascinated with genitals - Masturbation and touching those of opposite sex - Start beginning to question how it all works o Opedius complex: male childs love for the mother takes on sexual ovetones - Starts to view father as threat to mothers affection o Castration anxiety: The fear of a male child that his father would like to do away with him - Electra complex 1. Develop sexual attraction for father, wanting to be daddys little girl, sitting in his lap and being the center of attention 2. The realize they have no penis but their dad does 3. They blame mom for castration condition 4. They envy father for having protruding organ they do not have o Penis envy: A girls desire to have a penis and the societal benefits that accompany it. - This stage ends around 5-6

Latency stage - Child is less influenced by sexual desires and agressive instincts mainly because the development of the superego. - Attention is focused on forming friendships, attending school, learning about the world. - 6-13 years of age Genital stage - During adolescence - Sexual gratification of another person - Capacity to love someone other then themselves, emotionally and sexually. 1. Being able to love someone else 2. Do constructive work in tyour society Late teens till senility

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o Displacement: any object or activity that is a symbolic substitute for what is really desired. The substitution occurs unconsciously Smoking to satisfy oral stimulation o Sublimation: when the displacement is approved of and valued by the culture the substitution occurs unconsciously Positive things, like focusing energy towards being a Dr.

Defense mechanisms o Repression: blocking urges or thoughts from getting into consciousness o Denial: ignoring, or not recognizing what is unpleasant o Projection placing an unacceptable thought, feeling, or desire onto someone else o Reaction formation: expressing the opposite of what you feel o Rationalization: Finding a reason or excuse to justify your actions

Roger and the Phenomenological approach Carl Rogers (1965). Developed personality through interacting with clients. However he focused on the immediate experience, the subjective reality occurring at the present moment. Two people can experience same situation comepletely differently. - Belived that people have free will, not everything is confined to the ID instincts of unconscious conflicts. - Natural tendency to express ourselves, to become our true self o Unconditional positive regard: accepting a person for who he or she is o Conditional positive regard: the conditions others place on a person for acceptance and approval. - Self cecept is made up of traits that a person believes he or she has. There are 2 kinds of discrepancies that can happen 1. Diff. between how you view yourself and the experiences. 2. Diff. between the actual self and the ideal self

The behavioral approach - Personality is learned - Focus should be on reinforcers, and punishers in the external environment - We are conditioned in ways explained by our environment. Ex. Little Albert o Stimulus control: certain behaviors are likely to follow when an individual’s o behavior is triggered by cues in the environment

Social learning theory - humans play a great role in determining their own personality. - How people think and interpret their outcomes. - People have impact on environment and environment has impact on them. Locus of control - Experiences of the world teach us what we like/don’t like - Teaches us what we can expect with something that’s been dealt with in the past.

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Rotter says that from experiences we get expectations about what will happen if we behave in a particular way. Behavior will not be perfrommed unless seem beneficial. o Internals: people who generally thik they are able to determine their outcome o Externals: people who don’t see connection between their actions and what happens.

Reciprocal Determinism - Bandura 1986, we are shaped and do the shaping of our environment - The way you think of someone, affects the way you behave around that person, and the way you behave around them affects the way you think of them. - People spend time where they like, environment is acting against and for them. o Self efficacy: Believing you can do what is required to achieve a successful outcome. (Bandura) Personality tests o Projective tests: Ambiguous stimuli that require interpretation and thus reveal elements of the unconscious. - Reveals, wishes, motives, conflicts. - These are beyond the persons awareness Herman Rorschach 1921, asked people what they saw in blots of ink. People would project what they saw, therefore subjects projected their unconscious wishes onto the ink. Failed to predict what it was intended to measure, and that is if someone will become depressed, violent…

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o Thematic Apperception test (TAT): Real world picture in which unconscious motivation is revealed in the persons story about the picture. Developed by Henry Murray & Christina Moran in the 1930’s. Has higher reliability and validity Rather than projecting this through blots of ink, people are using real life scenarios to identify the persons unconscious thouhgts.

Objective personality tests - Describe yourself, scoring system of tallys - Many of these tests have Face or content validity o Face or content validity: The content of the item is taken at face value and means what it says - However sometimes people want to appear better than they are. o Social desirability response bias: Responding in a way that makes a person appear better than he or she really is o Empirically keyed tests: Tests that use items consistently answered differently by 2 groups so as to distinguish between them

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This is how MMPI was developed This test would reduce chance of bias from the subject....