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Chapter 13 Personality Personality: Refers to the unique characteristics that account for our enduring patters of inner experience and outward behaviour. Personality involves a collection of stable states and characteristics and varies from one individual to another. In psychology, the study of pers...

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Chapter 13 Personality Personality:  Refers to the unique characteristics that account for our enduring patters of inner experience and outward behaviour.  Personality involves a collection of stable states and characteristics and varies from one individual to another.  In psychology, the study of personality is much more concerned with individual differences than are other areas in the discipline. ID:         Ego:    

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Basic instinctual drives Present at birth Represents basic instinctual needs and desires such as eating, sleeping sex and comfort. These impulses are governed by the pleasure principle (constantly striving for gratification) Freud believes that most of our basic impulses have sexual overtones and that libido fuels the ID. Often describes as immature and childlike as it is an urgent demand for satisfaction. Resides largely in the unconscious and is not readily available to consciousness THE DEVIL Works to help satisfy the drives of the ID while complying with the constraints placed on behaviour by the environment Develops as a result of learning Works under the reality principles- Awareness that is not always possible or acceptable to have all wants and desires met Like the ID, the ego is responsible for satisfying impulses but instead of demanding immediate and direct gratification, it assesses what is realistically possible and what the social consequences of gratification might be Rational, problem solving force that constantly strives to keep the ID based impulses from bursting forth in a destructive manner Ego is largely a product of the conscious mind, but Freud believed that it works both consciously and unconsciously The ANGEL

Super ego:  A personality element in charge of determining which impulses are acceptable to express openly and which are unacceptable  Develops as we observe and internalize the behaviours of others in our culture  Forms during childhood

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Develops as children observe the behaviours of those in their families and their culture As children we internalize or unconsciously adopt the values and norms embodied in those behaviours and begin to evaluate us with respect to them The super egos standards of right and wrong comprise our moral code and remain stable over the course of our lives Our superego might therefore be though of as our conscience An entity that leads us to feel guilt and sometimes-even anxiety Like the ego, the super ego resides in both the conscious and unconscious

Psychosexual stages      

Stages in development of personality- oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genitalare primarily influenced by sexuality and aggression Function as learning periods Children must successfully complete or resolve the issues of each stage to form healthy personality As children move into a new stage they must cope with new demands from social environment and conflicting internal feelings. If they do not successfully resolve the conflicts that arise, they may become fixated or mentally stuck at that stage of development If a child fails to resolve such conflicts, they may suffer from neuroses, Freud’s term for abnormal behaviour patterns characterized by anxiety, depression and other such symptoms.

ORAL (0-18mnts): Erogenous Zone: Mouth Key conflict or experience: Weaning Symptoms of fixation: dependency on pleasures of the mouth also general dependence on mother Anal (18mnths-3years) Erogenous zone: Anus Key Conflict or Experience: Toilet Training Symptoms of fixation: excessive neatness, orderliness, and stubbornness, stingy, controlling Phallic (3-6years) Erogenous Zone: Genitals Key Conflict or Experience: Attraction to opposite sex parent Symptoms of fixation: sexual role rigidity or confusion Latency (6-puberty) Erogenous Zone: None

Key Conflict or Experience: repression of sexual impulses; identification with same sex parent Symptoms of fixation: no fixations for this stage

Genital (puberty-adult) Erogenous Zone: genitals Key Conflict or Experience: establishing mature sexual relations and emotional intimacy Symptoms of fixation: sexual dysfunction and unsatisfactory relationships

Anxiety and defense mechanisms Defense Mechanisms:  Unconscious tactics employed by the ego to protect the individual from anxiety Repression:  Most basic defence mechanism  Process of keeping unpleasant memories or thoughts buried deep within the unconscious mind Denial:  Defence mechanism  Process of refusing to recognize an existing situation Rationalization:  Creating a socially acceptable excuse to justify unacceptable behaviour Reaction Formation:  Not acknowledging unacceptable impulses and over emphasising the opposite.

Psychodynamic Theories Alfred Adler (1870-1937):  Social needs and conscious thoughts are more important to human behaviour then sexual needs and other unconscious motivations.  Particularly interested in how feelings of inferiority motivate behaviour  Believed almost everyone has some feelings of inferiority stemming from childhood experiences of helplessness  People often make special efforts to compensate for or mask those painful feelings.

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Adler focused on how feelings of inferiority are channelled into a quest for superiority The need of power shapes human behaviour Individual psychology

Carl Jung (1875-1961):  Importance on unconscious  Collective unconscious: has two parts o Personal unconscious formed by individual experiences o Collective unconscious is not a private entity but instead a cumulative storehouse of inherited memories shared by all human kind  These shared memories are called archetypes  Archetypes are reflected in symbols and images that appear in the art, literature and religions of all cultures.  Analytical psychology  Acknowledged the importance of these forces (sexuality and aggression) but argued that the unconscious also includes drives toward joy, creativity and internal harmony  The search for harmony is a central theme in Jung’s theory  Believes that each of us seeks to integrate the minds various conscious an unconscious elements into a coherent whole, which her term the self

Humanistic Perspective Self-Actualization: Need of humans to fulfill their full and special potential; the highest level of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs      

Focus on consciousness, free will, and special human qualities Humans are basically good and have an urge to grow and fulfill their potential Personality arises from striving to meet these needs Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. Maslow believed that more could be learned from individuals who were healthy and well adjusted them from those who were experiencing psychological problems Characteristics that define self actualized people are the ability to recognize the needs and desires of others and the willingness to respond to the uniqueness of people and situations rather then responding in mechanical or fixed ways, an emotionally deep connection with a few people, spontaneity and creativity, and the ability to resist the urge to conform while still responding to reality

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Peak experiences: moments in which people experience intense clarity of perception, feelings of joy and excitement and a suspended sense of time and reality Maslow believed such moments usually occur when a person becomes totally engrossed in an activity such as when we hear a beautiful piece of music or experience the beauty of nature Peak experiences reflects growing interest in positive psychology: an area of psychology focusing on positive experiences and healthy mental functioning

Trait Perspective Personality traits:  Tendencies to behave a certain way that remain relatively constant across situations  Describe our general disposition and those dispositions lead to our behaviours Central Traits  Broader traits that explain and effect our behaviour across various situations and domains o People have innate tendencies to responded to situations in certain ways o These tendencies can be linked together to form broad habits o Such principles can be used to form the foundation of a scientifically testable theory o Ex. You may be cheerful in most situations, at work, home and school and from taking out the garbage to playing basketball which are your central traits, but lazy only when it comes to cleaning your house,

Super Factors 

A fundamental dimension of personality made up of a related cluster of personality traits

Extraversion:  Degree to which a person is outgoing and enjoys interacting with others  Have personality traits such as impulsiveness, sociability and assertiveness. At the other end of the spectrum an introvert displays traits such as thoughtfulness, reliability and passivity Neuroticism:  Degree to which a person tends to experience negative emotions also known as mental instability  Low levels: calm and even tempered  High levels: worrying and temperamental

Psychoticism:  Degree to which a person is vulnerable to developing the serious disorders known as psychoses in which contact with reality is lost in key ways

Interactionism Perspective Interactionism:  View emphasizing the relationship between a person underlying personality traits and the reinforcing aspects of the situations in which they choose to put themselves Reciprocal determinism:  Personality is determined by the interaction of the external environment, internal mental events (beliefs and expectations) and behaviour all react with one another. 

Banduras theory with special emphasizes on observable variables such as models, behaviours, goals and outcomes, is readily testable

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Vast amount of data linking both modelling and self-efficacy to personality development and change across life span.

Self-Efficacy:  Peoples personal beliefs about their ability to achieve the goals they pursue How much do genetic factors contribute to personality? 

Twin studies allow researchers to separate genetics and environment

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Genes are more important then shared environment in development of temperament and personality traits although a shared environment certainly does contribute

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Some behaviour tendencies, which are expressions of personality, may have an inherited component. Ex. Watching TV More complex behaviours such as tendency to get a divorce and to develop alcoholism have all been found to be partially heritable.

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No single gene is at work in traits or in behaviours such as these, but multiple genes interact and affect an individuals broad biological system and these systems contribute to the trait’s or behaviours in question.

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Environmental experiences play a critical role Environmental experiences help determine whether a person will become disabled by their genetic disposition or channel that disposition into more productive behaviours What happens in the brain?

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Phrenology: a method of assessing people’s mental and moral qualities by studying the shape of the person’s skull.

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Franz Gall believed he could pinpoint specific parts of the brain that were responsible for distinct personality qualities by feeling the bumps the raised on the skull. These practices were found to be inaccurate

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Chapter 14 Social Psychology Social Cognition:  The way people perceive and interpret themselves and others in their social world.  The attitudes people hold and the attributions people make. Attitudes:  Relatively stable and enduring evaluations of things and people ABC Model Of Attitudes  A model proposing that attitudes have three components. o The affective component: how we feel toward an object o The behavioural component: how we behave toward an object o The cognitive component: what we believe about an object Social Perception Theory:  We seem to form and change attitudes in the absence of internal discomfort  Ex. You may decide “I’m tired” not because of a need to reduce emotional tensions brought about by the discrepancy between the attitude (I’m alert) and the behaviour (a yawn) but simply because the yawn was informative  Social Perception Theory: a theory suggesting what when people are uncertain of their attitudes, they infer what the attitudes are by observing their own behaviour  Ex. I voted conservatives for 3 elections therefore I must be conservative Social Desirability Factor: We often state attitudes that are socially desirable

Implicit Attitude:  An attitude of which the person is unaware.  Measured using the IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST (IAT)  

Fear reduction and emotion focused interventions are best to reduce implicit prejudices Guided exposure to groups toward which prejudiced beliefs are held, work best to change explicit attitudes

Persuasion  3 elements are needed for persuasion o The message o The source o The receiver 2 routes are followed to make a message persuasive  Central route (focuses on content, factual information and logic to change attitude  Peripheral route (focuses on superficial information to change attitudes. Ex. Attractive spokesperson, catchy jingle) o Foot in the door persuasion is getting them to agree to something small so they will agree to something larger later o Door in the face persuasion is asking for something very big knowing you will get turned down but then ask for the smaller item you really want o Appeals to fear persuasion are ads making it seem like something bad will happen if you do not comply Barriers to persuasion  Forewarning an audience that you will be trying to persuade them of something will immediately raise their defences. They are unlikely to change their attitudes although may make subtle shifts towards your way of thinking 

Beginning with a week argument instead of a strong one can make subsequent arguments seem weaker.

Social cognition: Attributions Attributions:  Causal explanations of behaviours  Why people including ourselves do things Dispositional (internal) attribution:

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Behaviour was caused because of personal traits Ex. Failing an exam, you may not think you are smart enough

Situational (external) attribution:  Behaviour was caused by the environment or situation  Ex. You failed the exam because the neighbours music was too loud, so you couldn’t focus properly We tend to rely on situations attributions when explaining our own behaviour Fundamental attribution error:  Tendency to use dispositional attributions to explain the behaviour of other people

Norms:  Social rules about how members of a society are expected to act Descriptive norms:  Agreed on expectations about what members of a group do Injunctive norms:  Agreed on expectations about what members of a group “ought to do”.  People are more likely to follow injunctive norms if it is brought to their immediate attention Norms can be Explicit: openly stated Implicit: not openly stated Conformity:  Tendency to yield to real or imagined social pressure. The Asch Study:  Participants are asked which line was the same length as the standard line. Despite the obvious and correct choice, when the majority of people gave the wrong answer, almost 75% of the participants conformed and gave the wrong answer too.   

Results showed strong signs of social pressure Key factor is group unaminity Conformity effect is not strong when group size is less then 4

Milgrims Obedience Study  Subjects were given a teacher role while the experimenter was given the role of the learner.

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You then recite a list of words pairs. After going through the entire list you will recite only the first word of each pair, followed by four options. The learner will indicate which option is the correct match for the first word by pulling one of the four levers If the response is incorrect you will administer an electric shock Mr. Wallace mumbles that he has a heart condition but that comment is more or less ignored You are taken to another room unable to see the learner The shock generator has voltage ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts, labeled slight shock to danger, extreme shock to XXX which is the 450 volts Experiement explains that whenever you push down a switch, the learner will receive the shock and this shock will stop as soon as you push the switch back up You hear Mr. Wallace moaning as he continues to give the wrong answers and he also lets out agonizing screams and yells let me out of here I have a heart problem It was found that 65 percent of “teachers” continued to the 450 volts and no participants stopped at the 350 volts.

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The study showed a disturbing nature about humans, namely that we are inclined to obey authority even if it means behaving in ways that we never predict we would or bringing cruel punishment to others

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Critics attacked the experiement on the following grounds: All participants were male Speculation arises that women might be less inclined to obey commands to inflict pain on others The study was also conducted at Yale university, which people say if it was carried out at a less prestigious locale, participants might have been less likely to obey the experimenters commands

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Follow up studies showed Women were no more likely to defy and experiments commands then the male participants Since the second experiment was done somewhere not affiliated with Yale, 50 % of people still administered 450 volts Certain factors reduce a participants willingness to obey If a confederate served as a co teacher with the research participant and refused to continue, over 90 percent of the real participants followed suit and disobeyed as well The salience of a victims suffering, its obviousness, affected participants obedience. Participants in Milgrams studies were, for example less likely to obey when they could see the look on Mr. Wallace’s face with each successive shock

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Proximity to the victim affected obedience. When Milgrams participants were seated in the room with Mr. Wallace, only about 40 percent of the continued to obey through 450 volts. Still fewer (30%) were obedient in a condition that had them placing Mr. Wallace’s hand on a shock pallet to administer the shock

Social Facilitation:  Improvements in performance because others are present/  Operates for both physical and mental tasks (without realizing, joggers who run together probably run faster together then when their alone because of social facilitation)  Presence of others elevates our arousal level, which in turn facilitates performance on simple, well-learned tasks but interferes with performance on complicated tasks. In fact, research evidence supports this suggests. For some task, and for some people, performing in the presence of others can impair, rather then enhance performance

Social Relations Group polarization:  Initial attitudes become more intense with group interaction  Not simply conformity, attitudes and inclinations are already in place just more intense and more extreme Group think:  Faulty group decision making as a result of trying to hard to agree.  This goal overrides their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action o o o o

Illusion of invulnerability Unquestioned belief in the groups inherent morality Direct pressure against members who express disagreement Members protect the group from information contrary to shared beliefs and convictions

Conditions that set the stage for group think:  Similarities in background/ideologies  High group cohesiveness  High perceived threat  Elevated stress  Insulation from outside influence  Directive leader  Ex. 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum  Bush administration after 911

Helping behaviour:...