Quick Review – Defense Mechanism

• These mechanisms are used by ego for reducing anxiety by distorting reality

1. Repression: banishing thoughts2. Regression: you retreat to a psychosexual stage with fixated psychic

energy3. Reaction formation: you express feelings opposite to your anxiety

producing unconscious feelings4. Projection: disguising your impulses by projecting onto others5. Rationalization: offering self-justifying explanations so the real,

threatening ones aren’t exposed6. Displacement: shifting aggressive or sexual impulses toward a less

threatening object or person7. Denial: facts are rejected because they are too painful to accept

Trait and Social-Cognitive Personality

Trait Perspective

• Traits – Aspects of personality that are relatively consistent

• Example: Honest, Dependable, Moody, impulsive

• Concerned with describing behavior rather than explaining it.

• Assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

Personality Trait Perspective

Gordon AllportDescribed personality in terms of fundamental traits, or characteristic patterns of behavior to feel or act in a certain way.

★Individual personalities are unique

★Identified almost 18,000 words representing traits

Raymond Cattell• Wanted to know if some traits

predict others• Using statistics (factor

analysis) identified:•16 Personality Factors (16PF) that he believed made up the building blocks of each individual’s personality.

•Everyone has the same 16 characteristics - to varying degrees.

Hans and Sybil Eysenck• Hans and Sybil Eysenck

suggested that personality could be reduced down to two polar dimensions, extraversion-introversion and emotional stability-instability

• Extraversion vs. IntroversionExtraversion - sociable, outgoing, active, and lively personIntroversion - thoughtful, reserved, & quiet

• Emotional Stability vs. InstabilityStability - easy-going, relaxed, well-adjusted and even-temperedInstability - moody, anxious, and restless

Personality Test!

Big Five Traits

The Five-Factor Theory: A perspective suggesting that personality is composed of five fundamental personality dimensions: openness to experience, consciousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism

Openness

Conscientiousness

Extraversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism

Big Five Traits

1. Openness to experience: open-minded and willing to try intellectual experiences, new ideas, or creative experiences ---- Albert Einstein or Marshall Erickson

Opposite is resistance to new experience - being predictable, conforming and unimaginative.

Example: Matthew McConaughey (type casted in films)

2. Conscientiousness: dutiful, dedicated to completing tasks, organized, and responsible. --- Example: Lisa Simpson or Ted Mosby

Opposite is impulsiveness - carelessness, giving up easily and being irresponsible. ---- Example: Homer Simpson or Damon (Vampire Diaries)

3. Agreeableness: sympathetic, cooperative, kind, trusting, and good-natured. – Example: Forrest Gump or Lily Aldrin

Opposite is antagonism - being abrasive, irritable, suspicious & jealous – Tinker Bell

4. Extroversion: talkativeness, and being energetic - Jennifer Lawerence or Barney StinsonOpposite is introversion - being quiet, shy and cautious. – Yoda

5. Emotional Stability: individuals who experience things relatively easily without getting upset. --- James Bond or any superhero

Opposite is neuroticism - being constantly angry or worried or complaining all the time. --- C3PO or Robin Scherbatsky

Review

1. Describe the trait perspective on personality.2. Describe some of the ways psychologists

have attempted to compile a list of basic personality traits

3. What are the dimensions of the “Big Five” trait theory?

Answers1. Trait researchers have attempted to describe

personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns, or predispositions to feel and act

2. Gordon Allport – individuals are unique and described 18,000 ways to describe peopleCattell – created a 16 personality factorEysenck suggested that personality could be reduced down to two polar dimensions, extraversion-introversion and emotional stability-instability

3. OCEAN – Openness, Conscientious, Extravert, Agreeableness, Neuroticism

Testing for Traits

• Personality Inventories: questionnaires on which people respond o items designed to gauge a range of feelings and behaviors

Hysteria(uses symptoms to solve problems)

Masculinity/femininity(interests like those of other sex)

T-score

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

100 30 40 50 60 70 80

Hypochondriasis(concern with body symptoms)

Depression(pessimism, hopelessness)

Psychopathic deviancy(disregard for social standards)

Paranoia(delusions, suspiciousness)

Psychasthenia(anxious, guilt feelings)

Schizophrenia(withdrawn, bizarre thoughts)

Hypomania(overactive, excited, impulsive)

Social introversion(shy, inhibited)

Clinicallysignificant

range

After treatment(no scores

in the clinicallysignificant range)

Beforetreatment(anxious,

depressed,and

displayingdeviant

behaviors)

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) - Asses abnormal personality traits.

Evaluating Trait Theory

• Describe us well, but NOT why we behave a specific way

• How are traits related to thoughts and feelings that precede, accompany, and follow behavior?

• Traits vs. EnvironmentAre our traits consistent throughout all

environments?

SOCIAL-COGNITIVE THEORY

Social-Cognitive Theory

Albert Bandura: Emphasized the importance of social learning, or learning through observation.

Combines social behavior, cognition and learning

Mutual influence between personality and environmental factors - behavior, cognition,

and environment

Reciprocal Determinism

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Individuals & Environments

How we view and treat people influences how they treat us.

Our personalities shape situations.

Anxious people react to situations differently than calm people.

Our personalities shape how we react to events.

The school you attend and the music you listen to are partly based on your dispositions.

Different people choose different environments.

Specific ways in which individuals and environments interact

Locus of Control

Do we see ourselves as controlling the outcome of events, or is it factors outside ourselves?

There's no reason to vote in an election – your vote doesn’t count

When you try to get a job, it’s not what you know what matters but whom you know

One person can make a difference in a way elected representatives think

If you want to be a successful, it depends on your hard work, not luck

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External and Internal Locus of Control

External locus of control: chance or outside forces beyond our personal

control determine our fateInternal locus of control: that we can control our

own fate

Social-cognitive psychologists emphasize our sense of personal control, whether

we control the environment or the environment controls us.

Assessment/Evaluation

• Social-cognitive psychologists observe people in realistic and simulated situations because they find that it is the best way to predict the behavior of others in similar situations.

• Critics say that social-cognitive psychologists pay a lot of attention to the situation and pay less attention to the individual, his unconscious mind, his emotions, and his genetics.

Question

Describe the social-cognitive perspective, and explain how reciprocal determinism illustrates that perspective

What are the effects of external and internal locus of control?

AnswersReciprocal determinism is the interacting influences between

personality and environmental factors. This interaction is central to the social-cognitive perspective, which applies principles of learning and cognition to the study of personality. Interactions between individuals and environments occur, for example, when we choose an environment that then shapes us, when our personality shapes how we interpret and react to events, and when our personality helps create situations to which we react.

People with an internal locus of control tend to experience higher school achievement, better health, less depression, and greater self control than those with an external locus of control