Personality 2

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Personality 2
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Prefinal Grades

• check the web to verify your grades were
  registered accurately
• Remember the research participation requirement
• must be completed by April 16
• all or none
• Dont ask me about your credits
• Check the web
• http//psyclone.psych.uwo.ca/intropsy/
• Contact Helen Harris about any issues
• hmharris_at_uwo.ca
• Contact Jon Cant to do alternative credit
  assignments (journal article QA)
• jcant_at_uwo.ca

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Three Minute Review

• SIGMUND FREUD
• defense mechanisms
• denial
• repression
• reaction formation
• projection
• displacement
• rationalization
• conversion
• psychopathology of everyday life
• Freudian slips
• suppressed intentions
• dreams

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• psychosexual stages of development
• oral
• oral fixation
• anal
• anal expressive
• anal retentive
• phallic
• Oedipus complex
• Electra complex
• penis envy
• latent
• genital
• Neo-Freudians
• Carl Jung
• collective unconscious
• archetypes (e.g., God, mother, earth, birth,
  gender)
• criticisms of Freudian theory

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• PERSONALITY
• distinctive patterns of behavior that
  characterize an individual
• Barnum effect
• watch out for generalities, even if they are
  accurate
• Trait theories
• assume that traits are consistent over situations
  and time
• Non-psychological
• Hippocrates four humors (5th century B.C.)
• personality due to overabundance of one of the
  four humors
• sanguine vs. melancholic (optimistic vs.
  pessimistic), phlegmatic vs. choleric (mellow vs.
  angry)
• Astrology
• Psychological
• Sheldons body types
• personality related to physique
• ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph

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• Stress reactivity
• Type A driven, urgent, angry
• Type B laid-back
• Type C bottled-up
• Optimists are healthier
• Sensation Seekers
• Factor Analytic Techniques
• Cattells 16 Trait Model
• Eysencks 3 Factors
• Extroversion (vs. Introversion)
• Neuroticism (vs. stability)
• Psychoticism (vs. non-psychoticism)
• The Big 5
• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

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Test Yourself

• A man who sometimes has homosexual fantasies
  makes many derogatory comments about gay men and
  frequently tells homophobic jokes. Freud would
  say this is an instance of
• denial
• repression
• reaction formation
• projection
• conversion

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7 14 21 28 35 42 - Up

• Give me a child until he is seven and I will
  show you the man.
• -- Jesuit maxim
• Documentary series (Michael Apted)
• follows British children through interviews at
  ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 (1998)
• peoples personalities are quite consistent

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Does the situation matter?

• Trait theories assume that traits are consistent
  over situations and time -- but are they really?
• Experiment (Hartshorne May, 1928)
• Are children who are dishonest in one situation
  dishonest in others?
• Not necessarily. Children who cheat in one
  situation (e.g., class test) may not cheat in
  another (e.g., athletic competition)
• Average correlation .30
• Do personality psychologists make the Fundamental
  Attribution Error ?!
• personality situation

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Situationism

• Situationism
• theory that situation personality
• Consistency over time may be better than
  originally thought
• If experiments take multiple measures within each
  of several situations, responses across
  situations are well-correlated (.80)
• If we know how someone behaved for a single
  hour, we have little basis for predicting how he
  will behave during any other hour. But if we
  know how someone behaved for a whole week, then
  we can, with reasonable accuracy, predict what
  hell do in a subsequent week. -- Gleitman, 1999
• Interactionism
• theory that situation x personality determines
  behavior

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Is Consistency a Trait?

• Self monitoring (Snyder, 1974)
• Gray, p. 544
• 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

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Effects of Age

• For most of us, by age 30, the character has set
  in plaster and will never soften again.
• -- William James, 1890
• As people age between the teens and age 30, they
  become
• less neurotic
• less extroverted
• less open to experience
• more conscientious
• more agreeable
• After age 30, people are more consistent

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Where Do Traits Come From?

• The usual nature/nurture debate
• Genes
• dog breeds have very different personalities
• no people breeders but can genetics account for
  personality traits?
• twin studies
• Environment
• effects of birth order

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Twins

• Case study
• two identical twins separated at 4 weeks of age
• coincidentally, both named Jim by their adoptive
  families
• met in adulthood
• were the inspiration for the Minnesota Study of
  Twins Reared Apart
• both clerical workers
• both enjoyed woodworking
• both volunteered for police agencies
• both liked vacationing in Florida
• both had married and divorced women named Linda
• both owned dogs named Toy
• both drove Chevrolets
• both liked math and hated spelling
• both had migraines and shared identical pulse
  rates and blood pressure
• both gained weight at same time
• both had built benches around trees in yard

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Twin Studies

• Identical twins are much more alike on Big Five
  than are fraternal twins

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Birth Order

• Firstborns
• more conscientious, extroverted neurotic
• less agreeable and open to experience
• assertive, dominant, responsible,
  achievement-oriented, anxious, jealous
• Later-borns
• more prone to rebellion, more liberal
• more open to novelty, new ideas
• Middle-borns
• less connected to family than others

(Frank Sulloway)
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Temperaments

• biologically-based tendencies to feel or act in
  certain ways
• broader than traits

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Extroverts vs. Introverts
QUALITY OF PERFORMANCE
Low
Medium
High
LEVEL OF AROUSAL
(Hans Eysenck, 1967)
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Brain basis?

• 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 (inhibition
  of impulses?) and amygdala (emotional responses)

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Shyness

• chronically shy people 40 of population
• suffer impairments in pursuing life goals, making
  friends or entering relationships
• low self esteem, blame selves for failures,
  pessimistic
• strong evidence for heritability
• evidence of inhibition (aversion to new
  situations) at 2 mos. predicts shyness in teen
  years
• temperament at age 3 predicts psychopathy,
  criminality, alcoholism, and depression
• shy children are more reactive to stress
• ¼ of shy children are not shy adults
• supportive environment?
• much cultural variability (many shy Japanese, few
  shy Israelis)
• drug treatment (SSRIs) and cognitive behavioral
  therapies seem to help

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Is there a Woody Allen Gene?

• genes for dopamine receptors may be related to
  sensation-seeking (controversial)
• neuroticism may be related to genes for serotonin
  and GABA
• a genetic impairment of GABA receptors in mice
  led them to avoid threats (unfamiliar, elevated
  or brightly lit areas) and to treat ambiguous
  cues as threats
• there even relationships between genes and TV
  watching, getting divorced, feelings about
  capital punishment and appreciation of jazz music

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Investment Strategies
Nortel
Air Canada
Canadian stocks
bonds
Martha Stewart Inc.
tech stocks
global stocks
Smart Strategy Diversified Portfolio
Dumb Strategy Single Investment
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Evolutionary Explanations for Trait Variability

• Why is there so much variability in traits and
  temperaments?
• groups with high variability are more adaptable
• Example Sensation-seeking
• different individuals, different niches
• would you want an unconscientious extrovert as
  your accountant?
• would a disagreeable, neurotic introvert succeed
  as a car salesman?

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Theories of Personality

• Psychodynamic theories (Freud and others)
• personality arises from unconscious drives and
  early experiences
• sex aggression
• id, ego, superego
• defense mechanisms
• early experiences
• Behaviorist theories (Skinner and others)
• personality arises from reinforcement history
• Social-Cognitive theories (Bandura and others)
• personality is determined by both the
  consequences of our behavior and our perception
  of them
• Humanistic theories (Maslow, Rogers and others)
• humans have a drive toward self-improvement that
  affects personality

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Social-Cognitive Theories

• personality is determined by both the
  consequences of our behavior and our perception
  of them

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Locus of Control

• internal locus of control
• attribute outcomes to their own behavior
• external locus of control
• attribute outcomes to external factors
• relative to externals, internals
• get better grades
• are more likely to suceed
• are more likely to engage in healthy activities
  (exercising, eating well, wearing seatbelts, not
  smoking)
• are more likely to deal with problems
• are less likely to become depressed

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Humanistic Theories

• 1950s backlash against behaviorism and
  psychodynamic theories which were considered
  dehumanizing
• Freudians see people as conflict-ridden
  emotional cripples
• Skinnerians put too much emphasis on animal
  research and see people as dumb animals or
  unthinking automatons
• Trait theorists see people as no more than grab
  bags of descriptors to file in sterile pigeon
  holes (quotes from Gleitman)
• emphasizes the unique qualities of humans,
  especially their free will and their potential
  for personal growth
• positive, optimistic view of human nature

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Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow 1908 - 1970

• Once basic needs have been satisfied, people seek
  psychological needs and growth

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Self-actualization

• finding and fulfilling ones potential
• Maslow evaluated people who he considered to be
  the most fulfilled
• A self-actualized person (partial list)
• perceives reality accurately
• is spontaneous and natural
• has a sense of humor
• is capable of childlike delight at the ordinary
• needs privacy, but feels connected to others
• has a few good friends
• is autonomous and independent in thought and
  action
• knows right from wrong
• is absorbed in a cause (and perhaps a different
  one tomorrow)
• has mystical experiences and seeks peak
  experiences

Im quite fulfilled. I always wanted to be a
chicken.
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Carl Rogers

• applied humanistic principles to psychotherapy
• personality depends on self-concept
• self-concept may not be consistent with actual
  experiences
• incongruence undermines personal well-being
• unconditional love fosters congruence
• people go to great lengths to protect self-concept

Carl Rogers 1902 - 1987