Personality

“She felt that those who prepared for all the emergencies of life

beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.”

E.M. Forster

“Howards End”

Personality Unique, relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving

Preferences – for how you handle situations, your sense of humor, or your expectations of others

“You have a strong need for other people to like & admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity, which you have not turned to your advantage…disciplined & controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome & insecure inside…at times, you’re extraverted, affable, & sociable; at other times, you’re introverted, wary, & reserved”

Psychoanalytic Approach Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)

Josef Breuer’s “talking cure” Catharsis

Product of the Victorian era Repressed sexuality Rationality & self-control distinguish us

from the animals Eros and Thanatos

Inhibited sexuality & inhibited aggression The Iceberg Metaphor

Freud’s Structure of Personality

Conscious—Acuteawareness

Preconscious—Justunder awareness;easily known

Unconscious—Wellbelow awareness;Difficult to know but very influential

Sup

ere

go

Sup

ere

go

Consciousness

EgoEgo

IdId

How the iceberg works Id

Functions on ‘pleasure principle’ Immediate gratification of needs to reduce

tension & discomfort regardless of consequences

Superego Functions on ‘idealistic principle’ Our moral guide/conscience Influenced by internalizing our parents’ values

& the voice of society Works against the Id by inflicting guilt

How the iceberg works (cont.)

Ego Functions on ‘reality principle’ Serves to balance the demands the Id and

the Superego Assesses what is realistically possible in

satisfying the Id and/or Superego (i.e., what society will deem acceptable)

Ego uses defense mechanisms to protect itself

Personality is result of the battle for control between id, ego & superego

Defense Mechanisms Denial

Denying the anxiety outright Repression

Blocking out/prevention of anxiety – forcing anxiety back into unconscious

Rationalization Creating false reasons or explanations

for anxiety in the form of a shortcoming

Defense Mechanisms (cont.)

Projection Seeing in others unacceptable feelings

that reside in one’s own unconscious

Displacement Acting out your anxiety on an innocent

party Scapegoating

Defense Mechanisms (cont.)

Reaction formation Reversing the nature of the anxiety so

that it feels like its opposite nature Exaggerated love for someone you

unconsciously hate Sublimation

Channeling anxiety into socially-acceptable activities

Focusing sexual energy into art, music, etc.

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

Periods of development Sexual focus Implications for adult personality Fixation

Oral (Birth to 1½ yrs) Gratification is centered around the mouth

(e.g., breast-feeding, sucking, biting) Anal (1½ to 3 yrs)

Gratification is centered around the pleasure of defecation; toilet-training is issue for resolution and development

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Stages

Phallic (3 to 6) Gratification manifests itself through

masturbation; resolution for development lies in identification w/ same-sex parent

Oedipus Complex Boys have unconscious jealous love for mother and

desire to kill the father; fear of castration by father leads to resolution with acceptance of/identification with father and internalization of father’s values

Strong superego results in this resolution Electra Complex

Girls discover that they do not have a penis and desire one (“penis envy”); they direct their anger toward the mother for not providing a penis; jealous of mother forefather

Gradual realization that these desires are self-defeating; identification with mother results

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Stages

Latency (6 to puberty) Sexual urges are repressed and

transformed into socially acceptable activities, such as schoolwork and peer activities

Genital (puberty – adulthood) Successful resolution and development

into a mature sexual relationship

Criticisms of Freud Sexist

Freud’s theory was thought to be sexist against women (e.g., “penis envy”, underdeveloped superego)

Description rather than prediction Subjective description, solely by Freud, and “after the

fact” on a relatively small sample of patients, including himself!

His patients were mostly females from upper classes Unverifiable concepts

How the heck can you directly confirm, disconfirm, or even observe the Oedipus Complex?!

Feels more mythical than scientific Too many hypotheses for reactions to anxiety

But… Freud’s theory….

Was rich and comprehensive in description 1st comprehensive theory of personality: every

personality theory since can be seen as a reaction to Freud

Sparked psychoanalysis Many still believe that psychoanalysis is the best treatment

for mental illness Was controversial and stretched the boundaries for

creativity Freud: “I am actually not a man of science, not an

observer, not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador—an adventurer…with all the curiosity, daring, and tenacity characteristic of a man of this sort.”

Why do you think his theory is still popular today? What do you like about it and why?

Beyond Freud…Dispositional Approaches

Principles of dispositional approaches Personality is stable over time Personality is consistent across situations

Consequences of these principles We must have enduring personal

characteristics Traits Types

Allport’s Trait Theory Trait

Relatively enduring, consistent personality characteristics - inferred from behavior

3 types of traits Cardinal traits

Affect every area of the individual’s life Mother Theresa – altruistic

Central traits Influence many aspects of our lives, but not quite as

pervasive Someone you think of as “kind” or “funny”

Secondary traits Affect narrower aspects of our lives Preference for cowboy hats or always wearing

perfume

Type Theories 5-factor model of personality

Where we fall on 5 different dimensions determines personality type

Dimensions Openness to experience

Curiosity, flexibility, imagination, artistic sensibility Conscientiousness

Discipline, organization, dependable Extraversion

Outgoing, upbeat, friendly, assertive, gregarious Agreeableness

Sympathetic, trusting, cooperative, straightforward Neuroticsm

Anxious, hostile, self-conscious

Behavioral Perspectives Bandura

Self Efficacy Take his ideas of observational learning and add cognition

Knowing we can actually perform behaviors successfully, in the way we wish to behave, leads to self-praise

Mischel’s controversy Situational specificity Our behavior is mostly a function of a given

situation, not of stable, internal traits Interactionism: both traits and situations interact to

produce behavior, thoughts Bandura’s reciprocal determinism: behavior also influences

traits and situations – all 3 factors influence each other

Humanistic Psychology Focuses on the positive aspects of being

human (e.g., goodness, creativity, free will) Rejection of the scientific goal of predicting and

controlling human behavior The major aim should be to discover things that

expand and enrich human experience Should strive to seek info that will help solve

human problems Description of what it means to be a human being

in terms of meaningful experience, such as values, language, and emotions

Humanistic perspectives Rogers

Person-centered therapy Congruence vs. incongruence

Lots of overlapbetween self

and experience

Little overlapbetween self

and experience

Evolutionary perspective Evolutionary perspective

Disregards both conscious & unconscious determinants of personality

Personality is a function of your unique combination of genes

Good at: Explaining the Big Five

Bad at: Explaining individual differences

Assessing Personality

Provide a story here: What does this look like? What features make you think this? What does this remind you of?

Projective Tests Ask about meaningless, ambiguous

stimuli Theory behind it that we will give an answer

consistent with the inner workings of our minds

Rorschach Inkblots Best used to measure how people process

information Creativity, coping resources, emotional

processing, relationships with others, thought disorders, psychoses

TAT-like Card

Provide a story here: What is happening in this picture? What led up to it? What are the people here thinking and feeling? What will happen to these people here?

Thematic Apperception Test

Black & white pictures of people in vague/ambiguous situations Asked to make up a dramatic story

about the picture Best used to learn the motivation

behind people’s behavior Believed that person will identify with one of

the characters on each card In their stories, people are thought to

express their own circumstances, needs, environmental demands, emotions, and perceptions of reality