Personality Theories

Who are you?

What makes “you”?

Your behavior is common to other but it is also distinctive

Personality: Distinctive and relatively enduring ways to thinking, feeling, acting

That characterizes a person’s response to situations

Freud’s Bio

• Born in 1856
• Lived most of his life in Vienna
• Medical school, neurology, received a grant to study psychiatry
• Set up practice in neuropsy
• Psychnoanalysis
• Id, Ego ,Superego
• Freudian slip
• Psychosexual stages of Development
• Oedipal Complex
• Defence Mechanisms
• Interpretation of Dreams
• Penis Envy
• Influence on laer psychologists
• Cocaine

Psychic Energy: generated by instinctual drives

Mental Events: Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious

Psychoanalysis

• Hysterical women in Vienne
• The “talking cure”
• Anna O: the beginning of psychoanalysis
• Catharsis= explosive release of pent up emotions
• Hypnosis and free association

Id

• Unconscious
• No direct contact with reality
• Only structure present at birth
• Operates according to pleasure principle

Ego

• Conscious level (primarily)
• Operates according to ‘reality principle’ (meet id’s needs in realistic way)

Superego

• Morality aspects of personality  (right or wrong)

Defence Mechanisms

• Repression: placing uncomfortable thoughts & wishes in the unconscious mind
• Revealed in slips of the tongue, dreams (e.g childbirth pain, childhood abuses)
• Sublimation: unacceptable impulses are presented as socially desirable behavior (mask true feelings, wishes)
• Denial: Refusal to acknowledge situation; blocking external events from awareness (death, alcoholism, pregnancy during affairs)
• Displacement: Finding a ‘safe target’
• Projection: An unacceptable impulse is repressed and then projected onto another person
• Rationalization” You construct a false, but reasonable, explanation for an event that already occurred

Freund: Psychoseuxal Development

Series of stages

• Focuses on specific pleasure-sensitive areas of body
• Adult personality is a function of progressing through these stages

Fixation

• Arrested development where instincts focused on particular area
• Long term effects on our character

Oral Stage

• 0-2 years
• Focus of pleasure on the mouth
• Fixation= self-indulgence; dependency

Anal Stage

• 2-3 stages
• Fixation= compulsive, cleanliness, rigid rules

Phallic

• 4-6 years
• Focus of pleasure on genitalia
• Conflicts may result in homosexuality, authority problems
• Oedipal crisis for boy
• Penis Envy for women

Latency

• 7- puberty
• Period of dormant sexuality

Genital

• Puberty +
• Formation of social & sexual relationships

Praise for Freud

• most influential psychologist ever
• psychoanalysis has been very popular
• huge impact on pop culture recognized importance of
• unconscious influences on behaviour
• recognized importance of early development on adult behaviour

Neoanalysts

• Psychoanalysts who disagreed with Freud
• Felt Freud failed to recognize social & cultural factors
• Overemphasized infantile sexuality
• Personality develops throughout life span
• Childhood experiences were important but not sole determinants

Neoanalytic Approaches

Alfred Adler

• Humans are motivated by social interest
• Place social welfare above personal interests
• Striving for superiority compensate for real or imagined defects
• (inferiority complex) become more competent

Neoanalytic Approaches

Carl Jung

• Analytic psychology
• Personal unconscious (your life)
• + Collective unconscious (human race)

Archetypes

• reflect collective unconscious
• Numerous cultures
• Common: symbols, good, evil, gero
• Superiority complex
• Social Interest

Humanistic Approach

Reaction to Freud

• Positive view that emphasizes goodness of humankind
• Emphasis on role of (conscious/ self-actualization)
• Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs
• Become self-actualized when he gives back all the decoration and presents

Carl Rogers Self Theory

Self-concept: central concept

Organized, consistent set of perception & beliefs about oneself

Once established- tendency to maintain it

Congruence: consistency between self-perceptions & experiences

What happens when your experience does not “match” your self-concept?

Threat

• Arises when experience is inconsistent with selfconcept
• “Why is he making that face? I’m a good cook.”

Healthy Adjustment

• Individuals modify self-concept
• “Not all people find me a good cook.”

Maladjustment

• Individuals distort reality
• “They are just not clever enough to see that I am a good cook.”
• Can lead to ‘problems in living’/ Not flexible in their perception of themselves

Need for Positive Regard

• Innate need for acceptance, sympathy, love, essential for healthy development

Unconditional Positive Regard

• Independent of behaviour

Conditional Positive Regard

• Dependent upon behaviour
• Creates ‘conditions of worth’

Self-esteem

How positively or negatively we feel about ourselves

High self-esteem

• Less susceptible to social pressure
• Fewer interpersonal problems
• Achieve at higher level

Poor self-esteem

• Anxiety and depression
• Poor social relationships
• Underachievement

Self-verification

• Motivated to confirm self-concept
• Seek out self confirming relationships
• “Want people to see you like how you see yourself”

Roger’s Self Theory

• He experienced Unconditional Positive Regard when the “whos” accepted him even though he had tried to take away Christmas

Social Cognitive Theories: Rotter

• Locus of Control: How much control do you have in your life?

Internal (move successful in life)

• Events under personal control
• Sense of personal effectiveness

External

• Luck, chance, powerful others
• Give into ‘powerful’ others

Self-Efficacy (Bandura)

• Beliefs about your ability to perform a task
• High efficacy will do better, persist longer, seek out feedback

What influences self-efficacy?

Performance attainments

• Previous successes or failures

Observational learning

• Observing others

Verbal persuasion

• Positive or negative messages from others

Emotional arousal

• Arousal that can inhibit or enhance performance

Barnum Effect

• Simple Horoscope:
• Barum effect: statement taken from a newsstand astrology book
• On a scale of 0 (poor) to 5 (perfect) students rated a 4.5
• People accept very general or vague characterization of themselves and take them as accurate

Cattell’s trait Theory

• How can we decide what fundamental traits are?
• Dictionary identifies 18,000 personality descriptors
• Cattell narrowed this down to 170 descriptors
• Had subject rate themselves on each one and used factor analysis to group them
• Cattell derived 16 source traits

Traits approach

• Reflect a basic dimension or traits
• Each dimension reflect a “continuum’ of behavior (extrovert à introvert)
• Each of us can be placed at some point on the continuum

Extraversion- stability Model

• Both traits are present in every person, in different degrees

Extroverted- Introverted

• Eq. sociable, take risks, inhibited, cautious

Stable- Unstable

• Eg. Emotionally stable, poised excessive worry, moodiness

Ability to “ignore things” that extroverts are distracted by or reactive to is a strong characteristic for success in introversion

Eysenck’s Two Factors

Extroversion (+) vs. Introversion

• Do you like mixing with people? (+)
• Do you like plenty of bustle and excitement around you? (+)
• Are you rather lively? (+)

Stable vs. Unstable (+) (= Neuroticism)

• Do you often feel lonely? (+)
• Does your mood often go up and down? (+)

Extraversion- Stability Model

• Knowing how Extraverted a person is tells us nothing about his level of emotional stability
• 2 “super traits” combine to form more specific traits

5 Factor Model

Variation on these 5 factors create enormous diversity in personalities…adequate to describe important features of personality

Openness (O)

• Tolerance for new ideas and new ways of doing things

Conscientiousness (C)

• Degree of organization, preference for goaloriented activity

Extraversion (E)

• Preference for social interaction, activity for activity’s sake

Agreeableness (A)

• Orientation toward compassion and caring about others

Neuroticism (N)

• Tendency toward negative emotionality, instability, inability to cope

Effects of Age

• Less open to experience
• More conscientious
• Less extroverted
• More agreeable
• Less neurotic

Consistency Paradox

Walter Mischel

• Little consistency in traits such as honesty
• Little consistency across situations

How can this be?

• We behave differently in different situations
• Trait descriptions overemphasize consistency
• Our intuition expects to see consistency; empirical evidence does not support this

Stability of Personality Traits

Can you predict behaviour from personality traits?

Difficult because:

• Traits interact with other traits
• Importance’ of trait influences consistency
• Variation in ‘self-monitoring’

Self-monitors

• High = attentive to situational cues
• Low = attentive to internal beliefs

Are you a high self-monitor?

High Self-monitors

• People who modify their behavior based on the situation

Low Self-monitors

• People who behave in a consistent manner regardless of the situation

Four Temperaments

• Sanguine– Blood (cheerful, even tempered)
• Choleric– Yellow Bile (Quick tempered, easily initiated)
• Melancholic– Black Bile (sad, Resigned)
• Phlegmatic– Phlegm (Dull, indifferent)

Biological Perspective

Extraversion – Introversion

• Brains of extreme extroverts = under-aroused
• Seek to maximize stimulation
• Brains of extreme introverts = over-aroused (try to minimize stimulation)

Introverts (vs. Extroverts)

• Respond more strongly to stimuli
• More sensitive to pain of electric shocks
• Salivate more when tasting lemon juice
• Show more arousal to a sudden noise
• Perform worse in noisy settings are impaired by caffeine ( vs. extroverts who are enhanced)
• Have more activation in frontal lobes

Personality Assessment

Interviews

• Structured set of standardized questions
• note other behaviours – appearance,  speech patterns,  facial expressions etc.

Behavioural Assessment

• Need explicit coding system
• specific behavior, frequency, under what conditions
• Interjudge reliability

Personality Scales

Objective measures: use standard questions & agreed upon scoring key

2 Types

Rational:

• Based on theoretical conception of trait
• Item seems ‘relevant’ to the trait
• Big 5 personality traits

Empirical

• Items were answered differently by differing groups

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

• Based on responses by ‘normals’ and psychiatric patients
• M: 1,138 F: 1,462
• Ages 18-80
• Vulnerable to faking

MMPI-2

• 10 clinical scales
• 3 validity scales
• (L) lie
• (F) frequency (exaggerates complaints)
• (K) correction (denies problems)
• Configuration pattern of scales
• Measures severe personality deviations
• Screening device in industrial, military
• Settings

New occupation-specific mean profiles present targeted information to help provide strong support for hiring decisions.

Projective tests

• Presented with ambiguous stimulus
• Interpretation = projection of inner needs, feelings, ways of viewing the world

2 main tests

• Rorshach Inkblots
• Thematic Apperception Test

Rorschach Inkblots

• 10 inkblots
• Categorized according to ‘types’ of objects seen
• Different examiners – different interpretations?
• Test is always used in conjunction with other tests

Thematic Apperception Test

• Ambiguous illustrations/ photos

Who uses what tools?

• Psychodynamic = projective techniques
• Humanistic = self-report measures
• Social-cognitive = behavioural assessments
• Biological = physiological measurements
• Trait theorists = inventories (MMPI, NEO-PI)