Personality

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Personality
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Goals of Understanding Personality

• To understand a depressed friend or troublesome
  child as developing, changing beings
• To get a snapshot of their personality in the
  current moment
• To understand the assumptions people make about
  one another

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Personality across the lifespan

• If you want to understand an individual as a
  developing, changing person (e.g., a depressed
  friend)
• Psychodynamic (Freud)
• Humanistic (Rogers)
• Cognitive (Bandura)

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Definition

• According to Psychodynamic, Humanistic, and
  Cognitive Theories, personality
• is a continuously changing process shaped by
• our internal needs and cognitions and by
• external pressures from the social environment

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Psychodynamic Theory

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• Theory designed to explain mental disorder
• Emphasized the unconscious mind
• impulses, motives, and instincts that were too
  anxiety provoking to deal with consciously would
  leak out and cause symptoms of mental disorder

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The Unconscious Mind

• Two main drives
• Eros ? lust and libidinal energy
• Pleasure Principal
• Thanatos ? death instinct

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Freuds Model of the Mind
Ego
Conscious
Preconscious
Superego
Unconscious
Id
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The ID

• Unconscious
• Primitive Mind
• Basic motives, drives, and instinctive desires
• Acts on Impulse, desires immediate gratification
• especially for sexual, emotional and physical
  pleasures
• Only part of personality present at birth

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The Superego

• Our conscience i.e., it is in charge of values
  and morals learned from parents and society
• Individuals view of the kind of person s/he
  should strive to become
• Frequently in conflict with the Id
• Id wants to do want feels good (e.g., drinking
  with friends) and the superego wants to do whats
  right (e.g., studying for your exam)

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The Ego

• Conscious, rational portion of the mind
• Resolves conflicts between the Id and the
  Superego
• Must balance gratifying the Id without violating
  the moral principals of the superego
• Pressures to satisfy the needs of the Id and
  superego can become increasingly difficult and
  thus lead to mental disorder

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Psychosexual Stages

• Oral Stage (1st year of life)
• Oral stimulation from sucking, babbling, crying,
  eating
• Anal Stage (years 1-3)
• Anal stimulation through learning control of
  bodily functions
• Phallic Stage (years 3-6)
• Focus on stimulation of the genitals (i.e.,
  self-stimulation and sex play)

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Psychosexual Stages

• Latency (years 6-puberty)
• Repression of sexual and aggressive desires
• Learning of modesty and shame
• Genital Stage (puberty ?)
• Mature sexual relationship

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Theory of Personality

• Fixation at particular stage ?
• Arrested psychological development
• Development of specific types of problems
• E.g., fixation at oral stage ? overeating,
  smoking
• E.g., fixation at anal stage ? compulsive
  behavior, excessive neatness, stubbornness

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Ego Defense Mechanisms

• Repression ? unacceptable impulses are manifested
  in dreams or fantasies
• Denial
• Rationalization ? providing socially acceptable
  explanation for unacceptable behavior
• Reaction Formation ? Act opposite to true feeling

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Ego Defense Mechanisms

• Displacement ? Shifting reaction from real source
  of distress to a safer source
• Regression ? adopt juvenile behavior
• Sublimation ? gratifying desires in ways that are
  acceptable in ones culture
• Projection ? attribute our desires to other people

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The Humanists

• Personality is driven by the need to adapt,
  learn, grow, and excel
• Mental disorders are caused by unhealthy
  situations rather than unhealthy people
• E.g., Abusive relationships

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The Humanists

• Maslow Hierarchy of Needs
• Strive for self-actualization
• Those whose base needs are not met, are
  maladjusted
• Rogers Fully Functioning Person
• When self-concept is congruent with reality ?
  fully functioning person
• Conditional love from parent ? low Self-esteem,
  mental problems, guilt
• Unconditional Positive Regard

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Social Learning Theory

• Bandura
• Modeling ? learn behaviors through observation
• Vicarious reinforcement ? learn what behaviors
  are rewarded or punished
• Mental problems arise when we observe poor role
  models or are rewarded in environments that are
  unhealthy
• E.g., drug abuse

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Personality in the current moment

• If you want a snapshot of a persons current
  personality characteristics
• A theory of their temperaments or traits (i.e.,
  the BIG Five)

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Temperaments and Traits

• Temperament inherited personality disposition
  (a single dominant theme e.g., moody depressed)
• E.g., Hippocrates and the four humours
• Sanguine (blood) cheerful
• Choleric (yellow bile) angry
• Melancholic (black bile) depressed
• Phlegmatic (mucous) cool, aloof, unemotional

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Traits

• Traits ? the building blocks or components of
  the personality
• E.g., The Big Five (OCEAN)
• Openness to Experience
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

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The Big Five

• Each scale varies along a continuum (i.e., from
  less to more of a trait)

Openness to Experience Curiosity Closed- Indep
endence Mindedness Conscientiousness Dependabi
lity Impulsivity Constraint Carelessness P
erseverance Irresponsibility
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The Big Five

• Extraversion
• Sociability Introversion
• Assertiveness Shyness
• Agreeableness
• Conforming Coldness
• Likeable Negativity
• Neuroticism
• Anxiety Emotional Stability
• Emotionality Control