Personality

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Chapter 13 Personality
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Historical Personality Assessment

• Phrenology As the skull takes its shape from
  the brain, the surface of the skull can be read
  as an accurate index of psychological aptitudes
  and tendencies. Gall (1758 -1828)

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Personality

• Personality refers to a persons unique and
  relatively stable pattern of thoughts, feelings,
  and actions
• Personality is an interaction between biology and
  environment

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Measuring Personality

• A projective test presents a series of ambiguous
  stimuli and asks that a subject describe each
  stimulus
• Reliability and validity questioned
• Objective Tests are paper pencil type tests
• More reliable and valid

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3 Revolutions in Human Thought

• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
• the earth is not the centre of the universe

• Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
• humans are not special, they are just a species
  like any other animals

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• humans are not motivated only by their conscious
  thoughts but largely by unconscious (and often
  unpleasant) motives

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Freuds Conception of the Personalitys
Organization

• Freud conceived of the human personality as
  organized through three major systems
• 1. The Id
• 2. The Ego
• 3. The Superego

• Freuds Psychoanalytic Theory personality
  influenced by unconscious motivations.

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The Id

• The sole function of the id
  is to provide for the immediate
  discharge of quantities of excitation
  that are released in the
  organism by internal or
  external stimulation
• The id focuses on the pleasure principle--relief
  from tension

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The Superego

• The Superego is the moral or judicial branch of
  personality
• The id focuses upon the pleasure principle, the
  ego on the reality principle, and the superego on
  what is ideal the morality principle

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The Ego
your personalitys manager

• The ego focuses upon the transactions between the
  person and the world at large
• The ego balances the id with the superego

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Defense Mechanisms

• Sublimation channel negative energy into more
  positive avenues of expression
• Denial person refuses to recognize reality
• Projection person attributes their own
  unacceptable impulses to others
• Repression anxiety-evoking thoughts are pushed
  into the unconscious

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Defense Mechanisms 1

• denial
• unacceptable thoughts are ignored
• e.g., alcoholics ignore their problems
• repression
• unacceptable thoughts are kept away from
  consciousness
• e.g., forgetting an upsetting childhood event
  such as a death
• reaction formation
• behaving in the opposite way to how you really
  feel because the true feelings produce anxiety
• e.g., pretending you like somebody that you cant
  stand
• projection
• denying your faults but finding them in others
• e.g., an unemployed father yells at his son for
  being lazy

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Defense Mechanisms 2

• displacement
• redirection of an impulse away from the person
  who caused it and towards another
• e.g., a boy who is angry with his father beats on
  his little brother
• sublimation
• channeling psychic energy from an unacceptable
  drive to an acceptable outlet
• e.g., directing ones sex drive into creative
  efforts
• rationalization
• creating an acceptable justification for an
  unacceptable behavior
• e.g., a gambler says he lost a lot of money
  because he was trying to win some for his family
• conversion
• manifestation of a psychic conflict as a physical
  symptom
• e.g., hysteria, Anna O.

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Specific Projective Tests

• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• TAT also consists of a series of ambiguous
  figures
• Was devised to measure achievement motivation by
  Henry Murray in 1938

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Psychosexual Stages of Devp.
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Neo Freudian Theorist Carl Jung

• Analytical psychology emphasized the
  unconsciousness mind and its influence on dream
  processes
• Personal unconscious unique for each person
• Collective unconscious consists of primitive
  images and ideas that are universal for humans

Archetypesgt
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Personality Traits

• Traits are relatively stable and consistent
  personality characteristics
• Allport identified some 4,500 traits
• Factor analysis techniques identified 30-35 basic
  traits
• Eysenck argued there are 3 distinct traits in
  personality

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Overview of the Big 5

• 5 basic personality traits (OCEAN)

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Locus of Control
Social Cognitive Theory

• internal locus of control
• attribute outcomes to their own behavior
• external locus of control
• attribute outcomes to external factors

Self Efficacy (Bandura) ones belief that
they can or cannot master new skills and achieve
personal goals
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• Humanistic personality theories reject
• psychoanalytic notions
• each person is basically good
• people are striving for self-fulfillment
• argues that people carry a perception of
  themselves and of the world
• goal for a humanist is to develop/promote a
  positive self-concept

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Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow 1908 - 1970

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

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 an
  individuals beliefs and information about their
  own nature, qualities and behavior
• unconditional positive regard being loved and
  accepted regardless of what you say or do

Carl Rogers 1902 - 1987
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Twin Studies

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

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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
• After age 30, people are more consistent

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Interactionism