What is personality?

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What is personality?

• Specifically how people differ in behavior,
  feelings, reactions to the environment and to
  other people

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Basic questions about personality

• How does one measure and describe personality
  differences
• For example what kind of person do you want to
  date?
• Can personality be measured objectively?

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Trait Perspective

• Take a piece of paper and write down a list of
  adjectives that describes the personality of
  someone you know well

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Contemporary Research-- The Trait Perspective

• Trait
• a characteristic pattern of behavior
• a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by
  self-report inventories and peer reports
• Personality Inventory
• a questionnaire (often with true-false or
  agree-disagree items) on which people respond to
  items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings
  and behaviors
• used to assess selected personality traits

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The Trait Perspective
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The Trait Perspective Clinical Perspective

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
  (MMPI)
• the most widely researched and clinically used of
  all personality tests
• originally developed to identify emotional
  disorders (still considered its most appropriate
  use)
• now used for many other screening purposes

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Example MMPI Questions

• I like mechanics magazines.
• I have a good appetite.
• I wake up fresh rested most mornings.
• I think I would like the work of a librarian.
• I am easily awakened by noise.
• I like to read newspaper articles on crime.
• My hands feet are usually warm enough.
• My daily life is full of things that keep me
  interested.
• I am about as able to work as I ever was.
• There seems to be a lump in my throat most of the
  time.

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The Trait Perspective

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
  (MMPI) test profile

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Core Theories

• Trait Perspective Is a practical approach but it
  doesnt explain Personality
• There are classic theories about personality
• Tend to be older
• Not discussed much in current Psychology
• But, can be used for both understanding
  individual and as a basis for therapy

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Your Theory of Personality

• 1. Human behavior results primarily from
  heredity, what has been genetically transmitted
  by parents, or from environment, the external
  circumstances and experiences that shape a person
  after conception has occurred.
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  heredity environment

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Your Theory of Personality

• 2. Personality is relatively unchanging, with
  each person showing the same behavior throughout
  a lifetime, or personality is relatively
  changing, with each person showing different
  behavior throughout a lifetime.
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• unchanging changing

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Your Theory of Personality

• 3. The most important influences on behavior are
  past events, what has previously occurred to a
  person, or in contrast, future events, what a
  person seeks to bring about by striving to meet
  certain goals.
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• past future

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Your Theory of Personality

• 4. People are motivated to cooperate with others
  mainly because they are self-centered, expecting
  to receive some personal gain, or mainly because
  they are altruistic, seeking to work with others
  only for the benefit of doing things with and for
  others.
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• self-centered altruistic

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What is Personality?

• Basic perspectives
• PsychoanalyticSigmund Freud
• Humanistic Carl Rogers

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Sigmund Freud

• Lived 1856 1939
• Was a Physician
• Theory based on clinical population
• Theory influenced by Victorian Times

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• Sigmund and Anna
• Freud (on right) with
• friends

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The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Freuds theory proposed that childhood sexuality
  and unconscious motivations influence personality

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The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Psychoanalysis
• Freuds theory of personality that attributes our
  thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and
  conflicts
• techniques used in treating psychological
  disorders by seeking to expose and interpret
  unconscious tensions

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The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• First Came up use of hypnosis influenced by
  work of Dr. Mesmer
• Free Association
• in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the
  unconscious
• person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind,
  no matter how trivial or embarrassing

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The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Unconscious
• according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly
  unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and
  memories
• contemporary viewpoint- information processing of
  which we are unaware

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Personality Structure

• Freuds idea of the minds structure

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Personality Structure

• Id
• contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic
  energy
• strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive
  drives
• operates on the pleasure principle, demanding
  immediate gratification

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Personality Structure

• Superego
• the part of personality that presents
  internalized ideals
• Represents rules of society
• provides standards for judgment (the conscience)
  and for future aspirations

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Id and Superego

• Id and Superego are in constant conflict
• This cause guilt and anxiety
• People need to learn how to cope with this
  conflict some do it successfully and others
  dont
• Conflicts most be resolved by ego

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Personality Structure

• Ego
• the largely conscious, executive part of
  personality
• mediates among the demands of the id, superego,
  and reality
• operates on the reality principle, satisfying the
  ids desires in ways that will realistically
  bring pleasure rather than pain

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Personality Structure

• Freuds idea of the minds structure

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Defense Mechanisms

• Defense Mechanisms
• the egos protective methods of reducing anxiety
  by unconsciously distorting reality (can be a
  normal process, but can also lead to disordered
  behavior)
• Repression
• the basic defense mechanism that banishes
  anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories
  from consciousness (e.g., memories of childhood
  or past marriage)

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Defense Mechanisms

• Regression
• defense mechanism in which an individual faced
  with anxiety retreats to a more infantile
  psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy
  remains fixated
• Example party behavior?

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Defense Mechanisms

• Reaction Formation
• defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously
  switches unacceptable impulses into their
  opposites
• people may express feelings that are the opposite
  of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings
  (e.g., express a disdain for pornography but
  really enjoy it)
• For example, someone who cant cope with anxiety
  becomes very religious, become celibate, etc.
• Or opposite, person from strict background
  becomes promiscuous

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Defense Mechanisms

• Projection
• defense mechanism by which people disguise their
  own threatening impulses by attributing them to
  others
• Prejudice against other ethnic groups or ages
  groups such as teens
• Rationalization
• defense mechanism that offers self-justifying
  explanations in place of the real, more
  threatening, unconscious reasons for ones
  actions
• I hit because she deserved it

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Defense Mechanisms

• Displacement
• defense mechanism that shifts sexual or
  aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or
  less threatening object or person
• as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet.,
  e.g., football for aggression art for sexual
  desire

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Assessing the Unconscious

• Projective Test
• a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT,
  that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to
  trigger projection of ones inner dynamics
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• a projective test in which people express their
  inner feelings and interests through the stories
  they make up about ambiguous scenes

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Assessing the Unconscious--TAT
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Assessing the Unconscious

• Rorschach Inkblot Test
• the most widely used projective test
• a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann
  Rorschach
• seeks to identify peoples inner feelings by
  analyzing their interpretations of the blots

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Assessing the Unconscious--Rorschach
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Personality Development

• Psychosexual Stages
• the childhood stages of development during which
  the ids pleasure-seeking energies focus on
  distinct erogenous zones

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Personality Development
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Personality Development

• Identification
• the process by which children incorporate their
  parents values into their developing superegos
• The reason our culture placed so much emphasis on
  traditional families
• Fixation
• a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at
  an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts
  were unresolved

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Humanistic Perspective

• Self-Actualization
• the ultimate psychological need that arises after
  basic physical and psychological needs are met
  and self-esteem is achieved
• the motivation to fulfill ones potential

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Humanistic Perspective Self Actualization
Theories

• Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
• studied self-actualization processes of
  productive and healthy people (e.g., Lincoln)

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Carl Rogers

• Everyone has a self concept and an ideal self
• Goal is to actualize or become ideal self
• Requires realistic idea of self
• Requires realistic ideal self
• Requires Positive Self Regard

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Heredity

• Nature
  Nurture
• 1-------------------------------------------------
  --7
• Freud Rogers, Skinner

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Personality Change

• Constant Changing
• 1-------------------------------------------------
  ---7
• Freud Skinner
  Rogers

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Influence of Past

• Past is Critical Focus on Future
• 1-------------------------------------------------
  --7
• Freud Skinner
  Rogers

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Selfishness

• Selfish
  Altruistic
• 1-------------------------------------------------
  ---7
• Freud Skinner Rogers