Personality

1
Personality
2
Personality

• What is personality?
• Personality
• the relatively enduring characteristics that
  differentiate people-those behaviors that makes
  each individual unique

3
Psychoanalytic Approaches

• Psychoanalytic theory
• Freuds theory that unconscious forces act as
  determinants of personality
• Unconscious
• a part of the personality of which a person is
  not aware, and which is a potential determinant
  of behavior

4
(No Transcript)
5
Structuring Personality

• Id
• the raw, unorganized, inborn part of personality,
  whose sole purpose is to reduce tension created
  by primitive drives related to hunger, sex,
  aggression, and irrational impulses
• Libido
• the psychic energy that fuels the primary
  drives
• Pleasure Principle
• immediate reduction of tension, maximization of
  satisfaction

6
Structuring Personality

• Ego
• the part of the personality that provides a
  buffer between the id and the outside world
• Reality Principle
• instinctual energy is restrained in order to
  maintain the safety of the individual and help
  integrate the person into society

7
Structuring Personality

• Superego
• the final personality structure to develop that
  represents the rights and wrongs of society as
  handed down by a personas parents, teachers, and
  other important figures

8
Developing Personality A Stage Approach

• Oral Stage
• a stage from birth to 12-18 months, in which an
  infants center of pleasure is the mouth
• interested in oral gratification from sucking,
  eating, mouthing, biting

9
Developing Personality A Stage Approach

• Anal Stage
• a stage from 12-18 months to 3 years of age, in
  which a childs pleasure is centered on the anus
• gratification from expelling and withholding
  feces coming to terms with societys controls
  relating to toilet training

10
Developing Personality A Stage Approach

• Phallic Stage
• a period beginning around age 3 during which a
  childs interest focuses on the genitals
• Oedipal conflict
• a childs sexual interest in his or her
  opposite-sex parent, typically resolved through
  identification with the same-sex parent

11
Developing Personality A Stage Approach

• Latency Period
• the period between the phallic stage and puberty
  during which childrens sexual concerns are
  temporarily put aside
• 5-6 years to adolescence

12
Developing Personality A Stage Approach

• Genital Stage
• the period from puberty until death, marked by
  mature sexual behavior
• reemergence of sexual interests and establishment
  of mature sexual relationships

13
Developing Personality A Stage Approach

• Fixation
• personality traits characteristic of an earlier
  stage of development due to an unresolved
  conflict stemming from the earlier period

14
Defense Mechanisms

• Defense mechanisms
• unconscious strategies that people use to reduce
  anxiety by concealing the source from themselves
  and others

15
Defense Mechanisms

• Repression
• unacceptable or unpleasant impulses are pushed
  back into the unconscious
• Regression
• people behave as if they were at an earlier stage
  of development

16
Defense Mechanisms

• Displacement
• the expression of an unwanted feeling or thought
  is redirected from a more threatening, powerful
  person to a weaker one
• Rationalization
• a distortion of reality in which a person
  justifies what happens

17
Defense Mechanisms

• Denial
• refusal to acknowledge an anxiety-producing piece
  of information
• Projection
• attributing unwanted impulses to someone
• else
• Sublimation
• diversion of unwanted impulses into socially
  approved thoughts, feelings, or behaviors

18
The Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysts

• Jungs collective unconscious
• a set of influences we inherit from our own
  particular ancestors, the whole human race, and
  even animal ancestors from the distant past
• Adlers inferiority complex
• a situation in which adults have not been able to
  overcome the feelings of inferiority that they
  developed as children

19
Trait Approaches

• Trait theory
• a model of personality that seeks to identify the
  basic traits necessary to describe personality
• Traits
• enduring dimensions of personality
  characteristics along which people differ

20
Trait Approaches

• Allports trait theory
• cardinal traits
• a single characteristic that directs most of a
  persons activities
• central trait
• the major characteristics of the individual
• secondary traits
• characteristics that affect behavior in fewer
  situations

21
Trait Approaches

• Cattell
• factor analysis
• a method of summarizing the relationships among a
  large number of variables
• surface traits
• clusters of related behaviors
• source traits
• represent the basic dimensions of personality

22
Trait Approaches

• Eysenck
• extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism
• The Big Five
• extraversion
• agreeableness
• conscientiousness
• neuroticism (emotional stability)
• openness to experience

23
Learning Approaches

• Cognitive-Social approaches to personality
• emphasizes the influence of a persons cognitions
  in determining personality
• Reciprocal determinism
• the way in which the interaction of environment,
  behavior, and individual ultimately causes people
  to behave as they do

24
Biological and Evolutionary Approaches

• Biological and evolutionary approaches to
  personality
• the theory that suggests that important
  components of personality are inherited
• Temperament
• a basic, innate disposition that emerges early in
  life

25
Humanistic Approaches

• Humanistic approaches to personality
• the theory that emphasizes peoples basic
  goodness and their tendency to grow to higher
  levels of functioning
• Self-actualization
• a state of self-fulfillment in which people
  realize their highest potential

26
Assessing Personality

• Psychological Tests
• standard measures devised to assess behavior
  objectively and used by psychologists to help
  people make decisions about their lives and
  understand more about themselves

27
Self-Report Measures of Personality

• Self-Report measures
• a method of gathering data about people by asking
  them questions about a sample of their behavior
• MMPI-2
• a test used to identify people with psychological
  difficulties as well as predicting a variety of
  other behaviors

28
Projective Methods

• Projective personality test
• a test in which a person is shown an ambiguous
  stimulus and asked to describe it or tell a
  story about it
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• a test consisting of a series of pictures about
  which a person is asked to write a story

29
(No Transcript)
30
Behavioral Assessment

• Behavioral assessment
• direct measures of an individuals behavior used
  to describe characteristics indicative of
  personality