personality and its assessment

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Personality and Its Assessment

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What is Personality?– A pattern of relatively permanent traits,

dispositions or characteristics

– Give consistency to an individual’s behavior

The Psychodynamic Approach to Personality

Focuses on unconscious process

The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud

– Early childhood experiences and fantasies

– Oedipus Complex

– Psychoanalysis

Levels of Mental Life

a. Conscious

b. Preconscious

c. Unconscious• Freudian slip

The Structure of the Minda. Id

• Pleasure principle

b. Ego• Reality Principle

c. Superego

Development of Personality– 5 psychosexual stages of personality

development• Erogenous zones

Development of Personality

a. Oral Stage– Birth to age 2

b. Anal Stage– Ages 2–3

c. Phallic Stage– Ages 4–7– Boys: Oedipus complex

– Castration anxiety– Girls: Penis envy

– Controversial– Insulting to women– Disputed by researchers

d. Latency Stage– Ages 7 to puberty

e. Genital Stage– Onset of puberty through adulthood

Sex and Aggression: The Two Great Drives• Drive toward life

– Expressed through sex– Libido

• Drive toward death– Expressed through aggression

• Inner conflict from socially unacceptable behaviors or feelings

Defense Mechanisms– Unconscious– Protect ego against anxiety– Have some element of repression

Defense Mechanisms

a. Rationalization

b. Regression

Defense Mechanisms

c. Projection

d. Reaction formation

e. Displacement

Defense Mechanismsf. Denial

– Refusing to recognize the true source of anxiety

• Sublimation

-- channeling unacceptable impulses into what is socially more acceptable

– Only defense mechanism that tends to benefit society

Freud Today– Some elements of truth:

– Some behavior motivated by the unconscious

• Children’s identification with parents• Defense mechanisms

– However, theory is sharply criticized today• Overemphasis on sexual urges• Psychosexual stages rejected by many• Does not account for context and culture

Adler and Individual Psychology– Striving for Superiority or Success

• Natural feelings of inferiority motivate striving for:– Superiority

• Overcompensation

Adler and Individual Psychology

• Family Constellations - Birth Order– Affect important personality characteristics

• Early recollections– Style of life influences how we interpret early

experiences

• Adler’s theory less influential than Freud’s

Jung and Analytical Psychology• Analytical psychology

• Self-realization or perfection• Collective unconscious – a shared

collection or storehouse of archetypes• Archetypes – emotionally charged

ideas and images inherited from one’s ancestors

Jung and Analytical Psychology

• Quest for self-realization involves accepting specific archetypes– Shadow– Men must recognize their anima– Women must recognize their

animus

Jung and Analytical Psychology

Jung’s ideas widely known, but not widely accepted

The Theory of Karen Horneya) Basic Anxiety – fear of abandonment in a

potentially hostile world

b) The powerful role of culture in shaping personality

c) Described the “neurotic” personality

Can Personality Be Learned?

The Power of Learning– Operant conditioning explains personality for

the behaviorists• Past experiences

Skinner

Trait and Type Theories

• A trait is any readily identifiable, stable quality that characterizes how an individual differs from others– Related to disposition (biological)– Exist on a continuum

• A type is a category or collection of related traits

Trait and Type Theories

The Five-Factor Model1. Neuroticism–Stability2. Extraversion–Introversion3. Openness to experience4. Agreeableness–Antagonism5. Conscientiousness–Undirectedness

Humanistic Approach

• Focuses on well-adjusted people• Phenomenological approach

– Focus on individuals’ unique experiences and how they interpret them

– Emphasizes current, not past, experience– Focus on self-determination– Free will and responsibility

Humanistic Approach

Maslow and Self-Actualization– Hierarchy of needs– Studied psychologically healthy people– Very few become self-actualized

Maslow and Self-Actualization

• Characteristics of self-actualized people– Accept themselves, others, and nature– Spontaneous, simple, and natural– Problem- not person-centered– Childlike appreciation of the world– High levels of social interest– Creative– Non-conformist

• Everyone has the potential to be self-actualized

• Theory is virtually untestable

Humanistic Approach

Rogers and Self TheoryBasics of Carl Rogers’s (1902 – 1987) theory

• Three basic assumptions about behavior– People have potential for growth– Perceptions of the self and the world

determine behavior• Personality development motivated by

fulfillment

Basics of Rogers’s Theory

• Three conditions necessary for fulfillment– Empathy– Unconditional positive regard– Congruent relationship

Rogers and Self Theory

The Self-Concept and the Ideal Self– Self-concept– Ideal self– Incongruence

– Leads to anxiety– May motivate change

Humanistic Approach

Positive Psychology– Focuses on well-being, contentment, hope,

optimism, and happiness

Cognitive Approaches

– How we think affects how we feel and affects our behavior

– Emphasis on personal construction of reality is similar to the humanistic approaches

– Emphasis on cognition makes it dissimilar

Rotter and Locus of Control– Types

• External locus of control• Internal locus of control

– Influences how people identify causes of success and failure

– Influences achievement

Bandura and Self-Efficacy– Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about

whether she or he can successfully perform a specific behavior

– Those with higher self-efficacy attribute success to internal factors

Bandura and Self-Efficacy• Observation of positive role models or

receiving reinforcement increases self-efficacy• Self-efficacy determines and flows from feelings

of self-worth

Personality Assessment• Process of evaluating individual differences

– Goals of personality assessment– Explaining behavior– Diagnosing and classifying behavioral

problems

Personality AssessmentProjective Tests

– Use standard sets of ambiguous stimuli– Assumed that unconscious feelings and

motives are projected onto the stimuli– Example: What is this?

• Someone with high aggression might see a rocket

• Someone else might see an angel

– Related to psychodynamic approaches to personality

Projective Tests

1. The Rorschach Inkblot Test

• New scoring system • Little usefulness for diagnosing psychological

problems

• The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)• Lack of standardized scoring system• Create stories from ambiguous pictures

Personality Assessment

Personality Inventories– Most widely used psychological tests, next to

intelligence tests– Well-constructed inventories are valid

predictors of behavior

Personality Inventories

Myers–Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI)– Based on Jung’s theory

• Modalities define personality type• Four dimensions

– Extraversion–Introversion– Sensing–Intuition– Thinking–Feeling– Judging–Perceiving

personality and its assessment

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adulthoodcopyright allyn

feelingscopyright allyn

culturecopyright allyn

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superegocopyright allyn

early experiencesadlers

psychodynamic approach

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