Chapter 15: Personality

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Chapter 15 Personality
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Personality An individuals unique,
consistent, patterned methods of behaving in
relation to the environment

• What words are important in that definition?
• Unique
• Consistent
• Pattern

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Background
• Victorian Era
• Prim and Proper
• Position
• View on sex

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Free Association
• In Psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the
  unconscious in which the person relaxes and says
  whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or
  embarrassing. Freud began to use Free
  Association to unlock the unconscious when he
  realized that not all his patients were capable
  of being hypnotized.

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

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

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Three Levels of the Mind

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The Psychoanalytic Approach
Conscious All our thoughts and perceptions of
which we are currently aware
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The Psychoanalytic Approach
Preconscious A level of mental activity that is
not currently conscious but of which we can
easily become conscious Examples memories,
stored knowledge
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The Psychoanalytic Approach
Unconscious Region of the mind that is a
reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts,
desires, feelings, and painful memories Examples
immoral urges, violent motives, shameful
experiences, selfish needs, fears, drives, etc.
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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Unconscious
• Freudian Slips
• an unconscious error or oversight in writing,
  speech, or action that is held to be caused by
  unacceptable impulses breaking through the egos
  defenses and
• exposing the individuals
• true wishes or feelings.

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Freuds Dream Theory
• Why do we dream? We dream to fulfill
  unconscious, socially unacceptable urges
• Whats the problem with dreaming openly? If we
  dreamed openly we would have the same anxiety and
  embarrassment as we would if we consciously
  thought about it

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Two types of dream content
• Manifest Content The part of the dream we can
  recall. The plot line of the dream. The
  surface/literal meaning of the dream
• Latent Content The true hidden meaning of the
  dream, which can only be discovered through dream
  interpretation and by analyzing the symbols and
  stripping away the displacement

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• How do we disguise our dreams?
• Symbols Something that stands for something
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  ng_modules/psychology/02.TU.04/?section13
• Displacement When we shift our attention away
  from the true meaning of the dream onto a
  seemingly insignificant part

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Id, Ego, Superego (three parts of the personality)

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The Psychoanalytic Approach
Freud believed that the 3 parts of the
personality overlapped and should not be
separated and analyzed separately. He believed
one was an outgrowth of the other.
ID
Ego
Superego
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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Id The part of the personality that emerges
  first. When we are an infant we are almost all
  Id
• Pleasure Principle the Id is hedonistic. It
  seeks pleasure and avoids pain
• Energy Source the Id is the major source for
  all psychological energy

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Id
• Drives and Instincts basic inborn needs
• Libido the sex drive
• Aggression
• Thanatos the death instinct
• Eros love for life

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Id
• Primary Process the need for immediate and
  instant gratification

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Ego the second part of the personality to
  emerge. It is more logical and practical than
  the id
• Reality Principle
• the egos awareness of
• the external world
• Secondary Process
• the ability to delay
• gratification

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Super Ego The sense of morality
• Ego Ideal the childs
• perception of what
• they think their parents
• think is morally good
• Conscience the childs
• perception of what they
• think their parents think
• is morally bad

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Superego
• Identification the process of associating the
  self closely with other individuals and their
  characteristics or views. Identification
  operates largely on the unconscious level.

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Stages of Development Freud believed that an
  individual develops through a series of five
  Psychosexual Stages. Each of these stages was
  associated with the part of the body that gave
  the individual the most pleasure at that time.

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Oral Stage (Birth 18 months)
• Pleasure comes from the
• mouthsucking, biting,
• chewing

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Anal Stage (18 months-3 years old)
• Pleasure focuses on bowel
• and bladder function
• the child must cope with
• demands for control

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Fixation Being stuck in a psychosexual stages.
• Fixation can occur because of either too much or
  too little pleasure in a stage.

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Anal Retentive The anal retentive person is
  neat, orderly, organized, and overly concerned
  with CONTROL
• This is caused by too strict of toilet
  training
• resulting in a lack of pleasure
• Anal Expulsive The anal expulsive person is
  messy, disorganized,
• It is caused by too lax toilet training
• resulting in too much pleasure

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Phallic Stage (3-6 years)
• The pleasure zone is
• the genitals the
• child must cope with
• incestuous feelings

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Oedipus Complex
• A pattern described by Freud
• in which a boy has sexual
• desire for his mother and
• wants to eliminate his
• fathers competition for
• her attention
• What does a child learn from this stage?

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Latency Stage (6 years old-puberty)
• During this stage sexual impulses stay in the
  background as the child focuses on education,
  same-sex
• peer play, and the
• development of social
• skills

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Genital Stage (Puberty- )
• It is during this stages that sexual impulses
  appear at the conscious level

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Defense Mechanisms

• See Handout

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Defense Mechanisms

• Definitions
• The Egos way of satisfying the id without
  overstepping the bounds of the superego
• The Egos unconscious attempt to defend against
  our anxiety

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Defense Mechanisms

• Four aspects of all defense mechanisms
• They are all unconscious
• They all involve self-deception
• They all give us time to get over anxiety
  producing events in our life
• They are all normal methods of dealing with our
  anxiety if

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NAME OF DEFENSE MECHANISM DEFINITION EXAMPLE
RATIONALIZATION Sweet Lemons Sour Grapes We give ourselves false reassurances about an anxiety producing experience in order to reduce our anxiety. What we have we love and think is great What we cant have we tell ourselves we didnt want anyway.
REACTION FORMATION We act in a manner that is completely opposite of how we are truly feeling.
REPRESSION Unconsciously blocking unpleasant or anxiety producing thoughts from consciousness.
SUPPRESSION When we consciously avoid thinking about something.
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NAME OF DEFENSE MECHANISM DEFINITION EXAMPLE
PROJECTION The tendency to see in others the undesirable traits and qualities that we possess.
IDENTIFICATION Identifying with a group by taking on some of their behaviors.
DISPLACEMENT Taking our anxiety out on other, safer objects.
SUBLIMATION We find socially acceptable ways to fulfill socially unacceptable urges.
REGRESSION Returning to earlier modes of dealing with anxiety.
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FANTASY/ DREAMS/ ESCAPE Avoiding anxiety by escaping into a fantasy/dream world
UNDOING Reducing anxiety by making amends for unethical thoughts or deeds.
COMPENSATION We pursue success in one area to reduce our anxiety about our failure in another.
DENIAL Defending against anxiety-producing realities by failing to perceive or recognize them.
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Identifying Defense Mechanisms

• My girlfriend recently broke up with me after we
  had dated seriously
• for several years. At first, I cried a great
  deal and locked myself in my
• room, where I pouted endlessly. I was sure that
  my former girlfriend
• felt as miserable as I did. I told several
  friends that she was probably
• lonely and depressed. Later, I decided that I
  hated her. I was happy
• about the breakup and talked about how much I was
  going to enjoy my
• newfound freedom. I went to parties and
  socialized a great deal and
• just forgot about her. Its funnyat one point I
  couldnt even
• remember her phone number! Then I started pining
  for her again. But
• eventually I began to look at the situation more
  objectively. I realized
• that she had many faults and that we were bound
  to break up sooner or
• later, so I was better off without her.

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Neo-Freudians Followers of Freud who kept the
  main points of his theory but proposed changes.
  Some noted Neo-Freudians are
• Carl Jung
• Alfred Adler
• Karen Horney
• Erik Erikson

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Neo-Freudians
• Points of agreement
• Thee personality structure of the id, ego
  superego
• The importance of the unconscious
• The shaping of personality in childhood

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The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Neo-Freudians
• Points of disagreement
• The overemphasis of the importance of sex
• The underemphasis of the conscious mind

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Alfred Adler (Individual Psychology)
• Believed that social tensions are more important
  than sexual tensions. He said we are motivated
  by a striving for superiority which is triggered
  by feelings of inferiority

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Alfred Adler (Individual Psychology)
• Feelings of Inferiority Normal feelings of
  inadequacy that are brought on by childhood
  dependence
• Inferiority Complex
• The inability to overcome
• feelings of inadequacy

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Karen Horney
• She believed that we are driven
• by feelings of basic anxiety
• (Feelings of being isolated and
• helpless in a potentially hostile world).
  These feelings of basic anxiety arise out of
  parental indifference and inconsistency

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Karen Horney
• Horney also objected to Freuds chauvinistic view
  of psychology. She objected to his assumption of
  penis envy and countered that instead, men have
  womb envy

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Carl Jung (Analytical Psychology)
• Like Freud he believed in the importance of the
  unconscious. He termed the unconscious that
  Freud described the personal unconscious

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Carl Jung (Analytical Psychology)
• Collective Unconscious The part of the
  unconscious that, according to Jung, is common to
  all humankind and contains the inherited
  accumulation of primitive human experiences in
  the form of ideas and images called archetypes

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Carl Jung
• Introvert
• An introvert is a person whose thoughts and
  feelings are directed inward. He/she withdraws
  interest from external world and typically spends
  little time interacting with others
• Extrovert
• An extrovert is an outgoing individual who
  wants to interact with others and stay in touch
  with events in the outside world. They are
  out-going, sociable, and excitement-seeking

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Psychodynamic Theorists

• Erik Erikson vs. Freud

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Assessing Unconscious Processes

• Projective Tests Methods of studying the
  personality by confronting the subject with a
  situation to which he will respond according to
  what the situation means to him. A projective
  test evokes from the subject what is in various
  ways expressive of his private world and
  personality process. The techniques are
  response-free in the sense that there is no
  right or wrong responses. The techniques present
  relatively ambiguous stimuli to the examinee.

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Assessing Unconscious Processes

• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

One of the most popular projective tests, it is
a picture-story test consisting of 20 pictures
with alternative for some of them (for women,
men, girls and boys). Most of the pictures are
of clearly recognizable people of different ages
and both sexes in some form of interaction or
relationship. It is believed that in the telling
of these stories participants reveal their
attitudes, feelings, conflicts, motivation for
achievement, power, and personality
characteristics. The participant is told that
the narrative should have a beginning, a middle,
and ending.
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Assessing Unconscious Processes

• Rorschach Test

• The test was first introduced in 1921 when Herman
  Rorschach presented his 10 inkblots. The
  reliability of this test as an assessment tool
  has been questioned.

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Assessing Unconscious Processes

• Word Association
• This test was the first adopted projective
  technique. It was first used clinically by Carl
  Jung. The subject is presented with a standard
  series of words and is asked to respond to each
  word with the first association (word) that comes
  to mind. Both content and style are interpreted
  clinically

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v7EeEWuz_zds
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Assessing Unconscious Processes

• Sentence Completion
• This test is a relatively structured verbal
  method where incomplete sentences are presented
  to the examinee who is instructed to finish them
  as quickly as possible. This partial sentence
  limits the degrees of freedom of the respondent
  much more than the other methods such as the TAT
  or Rorschach do.
• e.g., I feel upset when . . .
• What burns me up is . . .

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Assessing Unconscious Processes

• Expression
• The subject is given the instruction to draw a
  picture. Often times they are asked to draw a
  picture of him/herself and a person of the
  opposite sex.

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Dear Ms. Davis,I want to be very clear on my
child's illustration. It is NOT of me on a dance
pole on a stage in a strip joint. I work at Home
Depot and had commented to my daughter how much
money we made in the recent snowstorm. This
drawing is of me.... selling a shovel.Mrs.
Harrington
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Assessing Unconscious Processes

• Criticism of Projective Tests
• The subjects responses must be interpreted.
  This interpretation varies with the examiner who
  must be careful not to project his/her own
  attitudes and expectations onto the responses.
  Therefore, it has poor interjudge reliability

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Humanistic Perspective

• Humanism vs. Psychoanalysis
• Optimistic
• Non-mechanistic
• Here-and-now

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Humanistic Perspective

• Maslows Humanistic
• Psychology

If you want a healthy psychology, study healthy
people. If you want a sick psychology, study
sick people
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Humanistic Perspective
Examples of self-actualized people according to
Maslow Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson,
Eleanor Roosevelt
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
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Humanistic Perspective

• Characteristics of a Self-Actualized Person
• Accepting of self reality
• Spontaneous
• Creative
• Has quality relationships
• Lives in the moment
• Takes calculated risks

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Humanistic Perspective

• Abraham Maslow
• Self-Actualization the full use and
  exploitation of talent, capacities,
  potentialities, such that the individual develops
  to maximum self-realization, ideally integrating
  physical, social, intellectual, and emotional
  needs.
• Peak Experiences Individuals who are
  self-actualized often have what Maslow termed
  peak experiences, or moments of intense joy,
  wonder, awe and ecstasy. After these experiences,
  people feel inspired, strengthened, renewed or
  transformed.

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Humanistic Perspective

• Deficiency Orientation
• A preoccupation with a perceived need for
  material things.
• People coming to perceive life as
  disappointing and boring

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Humanistic Perspective

• Growth Orientation
• People with a growth
• orientation do not focus
• on what is missing,
• instead they are satisfied
• with what they have, are,
• and can do

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Humanistic Perspective

• Rogers Person Centered Perspective
• Fully Functioning Person
• (FFP) A person has an
• innate tendency toward
• realizing his/her
• potentialities

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Humanistic Perspective

• Unconditional Love/ Positive Regard a child
  will develop a positive self-concept if parents
  and authority figures provide an attitude of
  total acceptance of the child regardless of
  his/her actions (faults and failings)
• Conditions of Worth judgments about the kinds
  of behaviors that will bring approval from others
  (this is a universal need and a prerequisite for
  healthy development)

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Humanistic Perspective

• Self-Concept
• all our thoughts and
• feelings about ourselves,
• in answer to the question,
• Who am I?

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Humanistic Perspective

• Assessing the Self
• Humanistic psychologists assess personality
  through questionnaires (Q-sort) on which people
  report their self-concept. One questionnaire
  asks people to compare their actual self with
  their ideal self. Other humanistic psychologists
  maintain that we can only understand each
  persons unique experience through interviews and
  intimate conversations

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Humanistic Perspective

• Evaluating the Humanistic Perspective
• It is vague For example, the description of
  self-actualizing people seems more a reflection
  of Maslows personal values that a scientific
  description.
• It can lead to self-indulgence and selfishness
• It fails to appreciate the reality of the human
  capacity for evil It is naively optimistic and
  may lead to apathy about major social problems

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The Trait Perspective

• Trait
• an enduring personality characteristic that
  describes or determines an individuals behavior
  across a range of situations
• Type
• discrete categories (a person is one type or
  another)

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The Trait Perspective

• Types
• Hippocrates was the first person who described
  personality types during the time of the
• ancient Greeks. The four types he describes
  were related to bodily fluids (humors)
• Sanguine (optimistic)
• Phlegmatic (slow, lethargic)
• Melancholic (sad, depressive)
• Choleric (angry, irritable)

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The Trait Perspective

• Types
• William Sheldon and physiognomy he studied the
  link between personality and physique
• Endomorph heavy, round, lack of anxiety,
  pursuit of pleasure, eager to please
• Ectomorph light, delicate physique, inhibited,
  nervous, intellectual
• Mesomorph muscular, extraversion, aggressiveness

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The Trait Perspective
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The Trait Perspective

• Factor Analysis (Eysenck)
• This is a statistical procedure that identifies
  clusters of behaviors that tend to appear
  together. For instance, Hans and Sybil Eysenck
  reduced normal variations to three genetically
  influenced dimensions

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The Trait Perspective
Introversion Extraversion Introversion a
person whose thoughts and feelings are directed
inward. He/she withdraws interest from the
external world and typically spends little time
interacting with others.
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The Trait Perspective

• Introversion Characteristics feeling hurt
  easily, daydreaming frequently, blushing often,
  keeping in the background on social occasions,
  worrying over possible misfortune, showing great
  concern over what others think of you, being
  extremely careful of personal property

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The Trait Perspective
Extroverts an outgoing individual who wants to
interact with others and stay in touch with
events in the outside world. They are outgoing,
sociable, and excitement seeking
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The Trait Perspective

• Extroverts
• Characteristics not feeling hurt easily, making
  friends easily, being the life of the party,
  not worrying a great deal, laughing frequently
  and easily, preferring oral reports rather than
  written reports, being a good loser

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The Trait Perspective
Emotionally unstable (neurotic)-emotionally
stable Emotionally unstable (neurotic)
Unstable moodiness, restlessness, worry,
anxiety Emotionally stable Calm,
even-tempered, relaxed,
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The Trait Perspective

• Criminals are high on instability and high on
  extraversion
• Anxiety disorders high on instability and high
  on introversion

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The Trait Perspective
Zeon knows all of the answers in class. He
confidently raises his hand. However, when the
teacher does not call on him immediately, Zeon
shouts out the answer before his classmates can.
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The Trait Perspective
Chuck loves to play Call of Duty. He sits in
his room hour after hour playing his game. When
Chucks parents ask him to stop, he saves the
game and shuts down.
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The Trait Perspective
Suzy is a junior on the varsity basketball team.
Her teammates chose her as a co-captain. On
senior night, Suzy graciously offers to sit on
the bench so her senior teammates may play in
front of their parents.
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The Trait Perspective
Zelda spends hours documenting her angst in her
diary. She records every slight, real and
imagined, that has occurred throughout the day.
When her parents call her to dinner, she eats
without interacting with any family members.
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The Trait Perspective

• Biology and Personality (the brain activity scans
  suggest that introverts and extroverts differ in
  their level of arousal)
• Extraverts seek stimulation because their
  normal brain arousal level is relatively low
• Autonomic Nervous System if a person has a
  reactive autonomic nervous system they will
  respond to stress with greater anxiety and
  inhibition

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Assessing Traits

• Personality Inventories
• questionnaires (often with true-false or
  agree-disagree items) designed to gage a wide
  range of feelings and behaviors they are often
  used to assess selected personality traits.

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Assessing Traits

• MMPI
• (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
• This inventory was first published in 1940 and is
  now one of the most widely used self-report tools
  for assessing personality. The version currently
  in used (MMPI-2 1989), features 567 true-false
  questions that assess symptoms, attitudes, and
  beliefs that relate to emotional and behavioral
  problems. This inventory includes scales for
  assessing hypochondria, depression, hysteria,
  psychopathic deviate, anxiety, to name a few

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Assessing Traits

• Empirically derived test
• a test that is developed by testing a pool of
  items and then selecting those that discriminate
  between groups

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OPENNESS CONSCIENTIOUS-NESS EXTRA-VERSION AGREEABLE-NESS NEUROTICISM
Rich fantasy life Competent Outgoing Trusting Anxious
Rich emotional life Orderly Positive Emotions Straightforward Self-conscious
Action-oriented Dutiful Assertive Compliant Depressed
Novel Ideas Self-disciplined Full of Energy Modest Hostile
Eccentric Deliberate Excitement Seeking Tender-minded Impulsive
Idiosyncratic Achievement- Oriented Warm Altruistic Vulnerable
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The Trait Perspective

• The Big Five Factors
• The Big Five does a more thorough job of
  describing personality.
• Openness imaginative, prefers variety,
  independent
• Conscientiousness organized, careful,
  disciplined
• Extraversion sociable, fun-loving,
  affectionate
• Agreeableness soft-hearted, trusting, helpful
• Neuroticism (on the instability end)
  anxious, insecure, self-pitying

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The Trait Perspective

• The Big Five Factors
• How stable are these traits?
• For the most part they are stable in adulthood,
  with a bit variance. For instance,
  conscientiousness increases during the
  twenties, while emotional instability decreases
• How heritable are they?
• They are largely heritable (50 of variance
  can be attributed to genes)

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The Trait Perspective

• The Big Five Factors
• How well do they apply to various cultures?
• They are common to all cultures
• Do the Big Five traits predict other personal
  attributes?
• They are good predictors of other personalities
  a attributes (ex highly conscientious people are
  likely to be morning types, extraverted slightly
  more likely to be night owls)

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The Trait Perspective

• Evaluating the Trait Perspective
• Critics say that human behavior varies widely
  from situation to situation (so traits are not
  always good predictors of behavior).
• Defenders say that overall, behavior is
  consistent. They also suggest that our traits
  influence our thinking, health, and our job
  performance.

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Social-Cognitive Perspective
• (advanced by Alfred Bandura and Walter
  Mischel)
• Views behavior as influenced by the interaction
  between persons (and their thinking) and their
  social context
• Reciprocal determinism Personality is shaped by
  the interaction of 3 forces
• Environment
• Behavior
• Cognition (thoughts)

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Three ways in which individuals and environments
  interact
• Different people choose different environments
• Our personalities shape how we interpret and
  react to events
• Our personalities help create situations to which
  we react

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Personal Control our sense of controlling our
  environment rather than feeling helpless
• Self-Efficacy is our conviction that we can
  perform the actions necessary to produce an
  intended behavior)

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Learned Helplessness Versus Personal Control
• One would expect people suffering from learned
  helplessness to have an external locus of
  control.
• When people feel like they have more control
  (workers believing that they have a say in
  decision making) they have better health and
  better morale.

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Internal vs. External Locus of Control
• (Julian Rotter)
• External Locus of Control
• the perception that chance or outside forces
  beyond ones personal control determine ones
  fate

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Internal vs. External Locus of Control
• Internal Locus of Control
• the perception that one controls ones own
  life
• Those with an internal locus achieve more in
  school, are more independent, enjoy better
  health, and feel less depressed than those with
  an external locus of control

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Learned Helplessness Versus Personal Control
• Lack of motivation and failure to act after
  exposure to unpleasant events or stimuli over
  which the individual has no control. Individuals
  learn that they cannot control their environment,
  and this may lead them to fail to make use of any
  control options that are available. (Learned
  helplessness is a risk factor for depression)

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Optimism Versus Pessimism
• Our attributional style (that is our way of
  explaining positive and negative events) can
  reveal how effective or helpless we feel. For
  example, those who optimistically see setbacks as
  flukes rather than as signs of incompetence are
  likely to be more persistent and successful.
• Optimists have been found to outlive pessimists,
  as well as to have fewer illnesses.
• Excessive optimism, however, can lead to
  complacency and can blind us to real risks.

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The Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Assessing Behavior in Situations
• Social-cognitive researchers observe how peoples
  behaviors and beliefs both affect and are
  affected by their situations. They have found
  that the best way to predict someones behavior
  in a given situation is to observe that persons
  behavior pattern in similar situations.

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Other vocabulary words from this chapter

• Spotlight Effect
• overestimating others noticing and evaluating
  our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if
  we presume a spotlight shines on us)
• Example giving speeches in class

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Other vocabulary words from this chapter

• Self-esteem
• ones feelings of high or low self-worth

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Other vocabulary words from this chapter

• Self-serving bias
• a readiness to perceive oneself favorably
• People accept more responsibility for good deeds
  than for bad, and for successes than for
  failures. Also, most people see themselves as
  better than average on nearly all socially
  desirable dimensions.

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Signal Cards to Check for Understanding

• Charles is 19 years old. He is the first
  person in his family to go to college. His
  grades last semester were very poor. He decides
  that rather than go back to college, he will join
  his familys carpentry business.

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Signal Cards to Check for Understanding

• Charles has learned that he is not a good
  college student. It seems that no matter how
  hard he studies he doesnt earn good grades.
  Consequently he has learned to be helpless.
  Since he doesnt succeed no matter how hard he
  tries he has stopped trying and dropped out.

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Signal Cards to Check for Understanding

• Charles is aware that he is not doing well in
  college. He has the free will to drop out of
  college if he wants. He believes that to realize
  his potentiality he needs to be the best he can
  be. He has come to realize that he is more
  suited for carpentry where he will experience
  success and have the chance to be the best
  carpenter he can be.

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Signal Cards to Check for Understanding

• Unconsciously Charles has felt rejected by his
  parents since childhood. He feels the need for
  their love and approval but has a conflict
  between what he really wants to do (go to
  college) and what his parents want him to do
  (join the family carpentry business). He
  unconsciously sabotages his college career by
  getting bad grades so that he has no choice but
  to drop out and join the family carpentry
  business.

113
Signal Cards to Check for Understanding

• Charles has always been a bright,
  conscientious student. So college seemed like the
  logical step after high school. However, Charles
  lacks self-confidence, is introverted, and is not
  very open to new experiences. Additionally, he
  has always been one to submit to other peoples
  demands. These personality characteristics make
  it difficult for him to experience success in
  college. Dropping out of college will fit with
  the pattern of behavior shown in his childhood.

114
Signal Cards to Check for Understanding

• Charles does not enjoy being a poor college
  student. He sees his friends who work full time
  buying nice cars, expensive electronics and
  fashionable clothes. Charles is emphasizing the
  material goods he is lacking as opposed to the
  knowledge he is gaining. Charles also feels that
  college is boring because he doesnt perceive any
  of his classes as being meaningful to his
  personal growth.