Personality

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Personality
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Questions Addressed

• How did Freud develop psychoanalysis?
• What personality traits are most basic?
• Do we learn our personality?
• Is everyone basically good?
• How do psychologists measure personality?

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What Is Personality?

• Persons enduring psychological and behavioral
  characteristics

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Four Main Approachesto Personality

• Psychodynamic
• Trait
• Social-cognitive
• Phenomenological

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Freuds Psychodynamic Approach
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Sigmund Freud

• physician in Vienna, 1890s, treating neurotic
  disorders.
• dysfunctions tell us about normal development
• psychic determinism
• later behavior determined by earlier
  psychological development
• emphasized unconscious aspects of personality

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Method

• Case Studies
• free association (Freudian slip)
• dream analysis
• transference

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Some Defense Mechanisms

• Repression
• Rationalization
• Projection
• Reaction Formation
• Regression

• Sublimation
• Displacement
• Denial
• Compensation

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Structure of Personality

• Id (Pleasure Principle)
• Eros (life instinct), Libido
• Thanatos (death instinct)
• Ego (Reality Principle)
• defense mechanisms
• Superego (Moralistic Principle)
• cultural prescriptions, taboos

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Egos Tyrannical Masters

• Outside World
• Id
• Superego

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Freuds Conception of the Personality Structure
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Psychosexual Stages

• Oral Stage Mouth object of pleasure.
• cant be neglected or overindulged.
• Anal Stage Anus object of pleasure. Ego develops
  to cope with socially appropriate behavior.
• Toilet training

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Psychosexual Stages

• Phallic Stage Genitals region object of
  pleasure.
• Boys experience Oedipus complex
• Little Hans
• Girls experience Penis Envy
• Seduction Theory
• Latency Period Sexual impulses stay in
  background.

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Psychosexual Stages

• Genital Stage Sexual impulses reappear at
  conscious level genitals again focus of sexual
  pleasure.

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Neo-Freudians

• Alfred Adler
• importance of childhood social tension
• Karen Horney
• sought to balance Freuds masculine biases
• Carl Jung
• emphasized the collective unconscious
• shared, inherited reservoir of our species
  history
• introversion/extraversion

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Positives

• Freuds contributions
• first comprehensive theory
• talk therapies
• defensive mechanisms
• new methods (projective tests)

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Assessing the Unconscious

• Projective Tests
• Ambiguous stimuli
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• personality revealed through stories created
• Rorschach Inkblot
• see meaning in pictures
• Reliable, not just junk science

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TAT
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Rorschach Inkblot Test
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Freud Negatives

• Based almost entirely on a cases studies
• Victorian cultural values (seduction theory)
• distorted by personal biases
• too sexualized
• Untestable

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The Trait Approach
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Assumptions of Trait Approach

• relatively stable over time
• relatively stable across situations
• individual differences
• biologically based

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Two Personality Profiles
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Eysencks Personality Dimensions
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Are There Basic Traits?
What trait dimensions describe personality?
Eysencks (1965) genetically determined dimensions
Expanded set of factors The Big 5
Extraversion/Introversion Emotional
Stability/Instability
1980s
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The Big Five

• Imaginative/Practical
• Independent/Conforming

Openness

• Organized/Disorganized
• Careful/Careless

Conscientiousness
Extraversion

• Sociable/Retiring
• Fun Loving/Sober

Agreeableness

• Soft-Hearted/Ruthless
• Trusting/Suspicious

• Anxious/Calm
• Insecure/Secure

Neuroticism
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How Big 5 Discovered?

• Adjective Checklist
• Cattells 16 PF
• Step 1 Give people long list of adjectives
  (loner, bright, dominant , shrewd, open, tense,
  cool)
• Step 2 See if certain personality
  characteristics cluster together
• Step 3 Check for agreement (friends rating,
  behavior)
• Step 4 Crosscultural?

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Martin Luther King (16 PF)
High
Average

• Dominant
• Aggressive
• Assertive
• Stubborn competitive
• Bossy

• Apprehensive
• Self-blaming
• Guilt Prone
• Insecure
• Worrying

Dominant vs. Deferential
Apprehensive vs. Self-assured
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Big 5 (1980s)

• studies repeated with more powerful clustering
  methods and more adjectives
• identified Big 5
• cross-cultural relevance high

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Are Personality Traits Inherited?

• personality is partly biologically determined.
• biological factors interact with environmental
  factors to produce specific personality features.

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Heritability

• Openness 57
• Extraversion 54
• Conscientiousness 49
• Neuroticism 48
• Agreeableness 42

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Evaluating the Trait Approach

• better at describing than explaining
• how trigger behavior?
• how do traits combine to form a complex and
  dynamic individual?
• how about other traits?
• authoritarianism
• perfectionism
• etc.