Personality

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Personality

• Chapter 12

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What is personality?

• Distinguishing pattern of psychological
  characteristics that differentiates individuals
  from others and leads them to act consistently
  across situations
• Consistent ways one persons behavior differs
  from anothers , especially in social situations

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Conceptualizing and measuring personality

• Trait theories formal systems for assessing how
  people differ, particularly their predispositions
  to respond in certain ways across situations
• Tend to employ a psychometric approach
• Identify stable differences by analyzing
  performance of groups on tests

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Factor analysis

• Analyze correlations in hopes of finding patterns
  of responses
• Find the common denominators of personality
• Catell 16 basic source traits

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Eysenck Superfactors

• Extroversion
• Sociability
• Neuroticism
• Anxiety, worry, moodiness
• Psychoticism
• Insensitivity or cruelty toward others

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The Big Five

• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness
• Neuroticism
• Openness
• Relatively consistent cross-culturally

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Gordon Allport trait theory

• Idiographic approach
• Focus on individuals
• Classified personality traits based on dominance

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Gordon Allport trait theory

• Cardinal traits
• Passions that dominate life
• Rare
• Central traits
• Dispositions or enduring qualities
• Level of description usually used to characterize
  someone
• Secondary traits
• Apparent only occasionally

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Personality tests

• Self-report inventories
• Personality characteristics are identified by
  answers to groups of questions
• 16 PF Cattell
• NEO-PI-R based on big five
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
  (MMPI)
• Most widely used for diagnosing psychological
  disorders

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Projective Tests

• Test-taker responds to ambiguous stimuli and
  their interpretation is thought to reflect
  personality characteristics
• Rorschach
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• Persons are less restricted in the range of
  answers they can give

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Validity of personality tests

• Projective tests particularly questionable

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The development of personality

• Psychodynamic approach
• Humanistic approach
• Social-cognitive approaches

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Freud and the psychodynamic approach

• His work with hysterics
• The structure of the mind
• Conscious
• Preconscious
• Unconscious

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Structure of the mind

• Conscious
• Things currently the focus of attention
• Preconscious
• -inactive but accessible thoughts and memories
• Unconscious
• Memories, urges and conflicts beyond awareness

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Dreams

• The royal road to the unconscious
• Manifest content
• Remembered dream elements
• - Latent Content
• the dreams true , unconscious meaning

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The structure of personality

• Behavior product of interaction between id, ego
  and superego
• Heavy emphasis on influence of biological forces
  and instinct (especially sex and aggression)
• Heavily deterministic

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Structure of personality

• Id governed by inborn drive the pleasure
  principle
• Ego induces people to act with reason and helps
  them cope with the world reality principle
• Supergo acts as conscience and follows the
  Idealistic principle

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Defense mechanisms

• Anxiety arises due to conflict
• Ego uses defense mechanisms to ward off anxiety

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Defense mechanisms

• Repression
• Denial
• Rationalization
• Projection
• Reaction Formation
• Sublimation

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Psychosexual Development

• Erogenous zones sensitive body areas capable of
  sexual pleasure
• Oral stage (0-1)
• Anal stage (2-3)
• Phallic (3-5)
• Fixation result of over stimulation or
  frustration
• Latent phase (around 50
• Genital stage (puberty)

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Freuds early critics

• Adler inferiority
• Jung collective unconscious
• Horney attacked Freuds male dominated view

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The legacy

• More so now in literature
• Lack of scientific rigor and testability
• Biased against women

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Humanistic approaches

• Individuals can control own destiny and
  instinctively seek personal growth and self
  actualization
• Humans are unique and world shaped by their
  experience

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Carl Rogers

• Self concept
• Organized set of perceptions about ones
  abilities and characteristics
• Incongruence between sense of self and
  experiences leads to anxiety
• Key is to understand self concept

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Abraham Maslow

• Need for self-actualization
• Hierarchy of needs

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The legacy

• Offer a balance to Freuds overly pessimistic
  view
• Criticized for being too optimistic
• Vague and difficult to test

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Social-Cognitive Approaches

• Experience largely determines personality
  development
• Personality shaped by conditioning
• Social learning

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The role of cognition

• Expectations and beliefs
• Locus of control
• external and internal
• Self Efficacy

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Bandura reciprocal determinism
Figure 12.8