Personality & Individual Differences
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What it is not: popular meanings such as skill,
charm, or attractiveness (not public
impression)
What it is: Our essential nature as human
beings
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A pattern of enduring, distinctive thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors that characterize the way
an individual adapts to the world.
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Back (2010) showed the people’s online profiles
were match to their actual characteristics.
These profiles may be more indicative of
genuine personality, as they give people a
chance to express who they genuinely are.
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Identity is one the strongest force in human
personality
Whatever you believe you are, you will find a
way to get back there.
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You will suppose to remember you feel depressed is
to get back there – after you define yourself as a
depressed person
When did you come up with your current
identity?
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Even in contemporary psychology, there is a
tremendous variety of theories on human
personality.
Kelly (1963) view people as scientists. We attempt to
predict and control the events in the world around
us.
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In this sense, each of us has our own theory of human
personality, because people form a major part of the reality
that we attempt to control and understand.
In an attempt to understand personality, we will
examine it from the dominant perspectives that have
explored different aspects of the person
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Triangles: The smallest stable relationship system. Triangles usually have one side in conflict and
two sides in harmony, contributing to the development of clinical problems.
Differentiation of self: The variance in individuals in their susceptibility to depend on others for
acceptance and approval.
Nuclear family emotional system: The four relationship patterns that define where problems may
develop in a family.
- Marital conflict
- Dysfunction in one spouse
- Impairment of one or more children
- Emotional distance
Family projection process: The transmission of emotional problems from a parent to a child.
Multigenerational transmission process: The transmission of small differences in the levels of
differentiation between parents and their children.
Emotional cutoff: The act of reducing or cutting off emotional contact with family as a way
managing unresolved emotional issues.
Sibling position: The impact of sibling position on development and behavior.
Societal emotional process: The emotional system governs behavior on a societal level, promoting
both progressive and regressive periods in a society.
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Psychodynamic Perspective
Humanistic Perspectives
Learning
Social-Cognitive
Trait Perspectives
Personological and Life Story
Biological Perspectives
Psychodynamic Theories
Trait Theory
Cognitive Social
Learning Theories
Personality
*An individual’s unique pattern of
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that
persists over time and across situations.
Humanistic Theories
Personality Assessment
1. Free will or determinism?
2. Nature or nurture?
3. Past, present, or future?
4. Uniqueness or universality?
5. Equilibrium or growth?
6. Optimism or pessimism?
Psychodynamic
Theories
Behavior is the product of psychological
forces within the individual, often
outside of conscious awareness
Sigmund Freud
Central Tenets
1)
Much of mental life is unconscious. People may behave in ways
they themselves don’t understand.
2)
Mental processes act in parallel, leading to conflicting thoughts
and feelings.
3)
Personality patterns begin in childhood. Childhood experiences
strongly affect personality development.
4)
Mental representations of self, others, and relationships guide
interactions with others.
5)
The development of personality involves learning to regulate
aggressive and sexual feelings as well as becoming socially
independent rather than dependent.
Neo-Freudians
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Freud
Neo-Freudians
Carl Jung
 Alfred Adler
 Karen Horney
 Erik Erikson
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Sigmund Freud: the
founder of psychoanalysis
Trained in neurology
Initially believed mental
disorders were
physiologically based
After treating women with
“hysteria,” believed mental
disorders were
psychologically based
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Darwin – Man is not
special and can be studied
like any other part of the
natural order
Helmholtz – Law of the
Conservation
of Energy
Brucke – all living
organisms are ‘energy
systems’
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The human PERSONALITY is an energy system
It is the job of psychology to investigate the change,
transmission and conversion of this ‘psychic energy’
within the personality which shape and determine it.
These Drives are the ‘Energy
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Eros (Life Instinct)
 Covers all the self-preserving and erotic instincts
 Libido is the most important of all – seen as sexual energy
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Thanatos (Death Instinct)
 Covers all the instincts toward aggression, self-destruction,
and cruelty
Modern research shows the existence of nonconscious information processing.
1.
Schemas that automatically control perceptions and
interpretations
2.
Parallel processing during vision and thinking
3.
Implicit memories
4.
Emotions that activate instantly without
consciousness
1.
Psychic Determinism
All psychological events have a cause
 Freudian slips, dreams
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2.
Symbolic Meaning
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3.
All actions have meaning
Unconscious Motivation
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We rarely understand why we do
what we do
Sigmund Freud
Conscious
Preconscious
Unconscious
Information
in your
immediate
awareness
Information
easily made
conscious
Thoughts,
feelings,
urges, and
wishes
difficult to
bring to
conscious
awareness
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Three Agencies:
(tripartite)
Id
 Ego
 Superego
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Conscious
Preconscious
Unconscious
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Most primitive part of personality
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Our “baby-like self”
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Entirely unconscious & present at birth
Strives to satisfy sexual & aggressive drives
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Libido: sexual drive
Ruled by “pleasure principle” - Oriented toward
immediate unconditional gratification of desires and
avoidance of pain
Pleasure through
•Reflex action
•Wish fulfillment - (fantasy)
a mental image that satisfies
the instinct
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Deals with reality - “reality principle”
 Capacity to postpone gratification until
appropriate outlet exists
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Has to negotiate demands of the id with the
reality of living in society and with the
demands of the ego.
Rational
The decision maker
Interacts with real world
Moral center - “should”, “should not”
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How one should behave
We internalize the moral code of our society
Irrational striving for moral perfection
Ego Ideal – perfect standards of what one
would like to be
Represents internalized societal & familial
ideals
Underdeveloped superego: psychopathic
personality
Overdeveloped superego: guilt prone
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Usually act together well
If in conflict, psychological distress occurs
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The psychic energy has to go somewhere!
Id won’t let it go
Super-ego won’t let it happen
To protect itself the organism employs defense
mechanisms.
~Denial: refusal to acknowledge a painful or threatening reality.
~Repression: exclude painful thoughts or feelings w/o realizing
~Projection: attributing own feelings on others.
~Identification: taking on someone else’s characteristics
~Regression: revert to childlike behavior
~Intellectualization: detaching from feelings by thinking about
them intellectually.
~Reaction Formation: exaggeratedly opposite ideas and
emotions.
~ Displacement: redirection of repressed motives or feelings
onto substitute objects.
~Sublimation: transforming repressed motives or feelings into
more socially accepted forms.
Rationalization: the providing of socially acceptable reasons for
one's inappropriate behavior
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Sometimes our unconscious thoughts, etc slip
into the conscious.
How?
“Freudian slips”
 Dreams
 Humor
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Humans are driven by
the desire for bodily
sexual pleasure
(libido)– it gets
released from different
centers at different
times.
But the parents act as
the social coercion to
balance these desires. –
‘Super-ego givers’
Development is the
resolution of a series of
conflicts
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“Psychosexual” Stages of
development
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Oral: 0–18months
 Sucking (Weaning)
 Fixation – Gullible or Cynical
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Anal: 18months–3
 Defecation (Potty training)
 Fixation – Self Destructive vs. Anal
Retentive
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Phallic: 3-5/6
 Genitals (Oedipus Complex /
Castration Anxiety)
 Fixation Egotism (playa or ho) or low
self-esteem
The Official Portrait of the Danish
Royal Family by Newcastle
painter James Brennan.
Photo: Glen Mccurtayne
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Latency 5/6 – 12/13
 all libidinal activity is
suppressed.
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Genital Stage – To
puberty and beyond!
 genitals and orgasm.
 Focused on reproduction
Phase One
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Boy has a libidinal bond with the mother (breast
feeding and mother as primary caregiver)
Parallel to this, the boy begins to identify with his
father, the figure parallel to him in terms of
biological sex. (Identification with the father's role
as "lover" of mother.)
In this phase, these 2 relationship exist side-by-side
and in relative harmony.
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Boy’s feelings Intensify
Sees the father as an obstacle and a rival
who he desires to get rid of or to kill.
Worries the father will castrate him.
Boy is never 100% hostile. He keeps the
identification so he is torn – ambivalence
Boy hopefully turns his psychic energy
into full-on identification with the father.
“Can’t beat’em, join’em.”
Boy is masculinized, eventually seeks his
own sexual partner
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This fear or threat becomes real upon the
observation of the female genitalia, which
appear to be "castrated”
Sources of the castration complex:
 Punishment for affectionate feelings for Mother
 Punishment for masturbation
 Punishment for bed-wetting
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He identifies with the Mother so much that the
father becomes the focus of his libidinal
interests
The boy exhibits "girl-like" behavior
He assumes an affectionate, feminine attitude
toward the father (instead of feeling
ambivalence)
Develops jealousy or even hostility toward the
mother.
According to Freud, this can lead to . . . .
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Would not go outside for fear of being bitten by
a horse
Hans has said he wanted to sleep with his
mother, “coax with” or caress her, be married to
her, and have children “just like daddy.”
His parents warned that if he continued to play
with his “widdler” (penis), it would be cut off.
He noticed that his sister had no “widdler.”
Hans wanted his mother all to himself, was
jealous of his father, and feared his mother
would prefer his father’s bigger widdler.
Hans was most afraid of horses with black
muzzles,
The Phobia started after Hans had
“accidentally” knocked a statue of a horse from
its stand.
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But what about girls?
During the phallic stage the daughter
becomes attached to her father and more
hostile towards her mother.
Believes that mom is responsible for her not
having a penis.
This is due mostly to the idea that the girl is
"envious" of her father's penis thus the term
"penis-envy".
This leads to resentment towards her
mother, who the girl believes caused her
castration.
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Girls seek compensation for the "lost" penis;
They find this in the baby upon whom they can
heap affection.
The sense of "motherhood" results from the
castration complex, the sense of "loss" or
"inadequacy" based on an "inferior" physical
endowment in the genital region.
Psychodynamic Theory
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Shared Freud’s emphasis on unconscious processes
But libido is all life forces not just sexual ones
Jung suggested psyche was composed of three
components: the ego, the personal unconscious and
the collective unconscious.
Ego represents the conscious mind
Personal unconscious contains memories, thoughts,
feelings, including those that have been suppressed.
Collective unconscious is a unique component in that
Jung believed that this part of the psyche served as a
form of psychological inheritance. It contains all of the
knowledge and experiences we share as a species.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that archetypes
are models of people, behaviors or personalities.
Unconscious is positive source of strength
Development comes to fruition by middle age
“Analytic Psychology”
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Examples of archetypes
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Persona
 Our public self
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Anima
 Female archetype as expressed in male personality
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Animus
 Male archetype as expressed in female personality
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Extroverts
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Introverts
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Focus on external world and social life
Focus on internal thoughts and feelings
Jung felt that everyone had both qualities, but
one is usually dominant
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Rational individuals
People who regulate their actions through thinking
and feeling
 Rational and logical people who decide on facts
 Acts tactfully and has a balanced sense of values
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Irrational individuals
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People who base their actions on perceptions, either
through their senses or intuition
Relies on surface perceptions – little imagination
Beyond the obvious to consider future possibilities
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Didn’t see the conflict between the
id and superego
People have innate positive
motives that make them strive for
personal/social perfection
The unique mix of personal and
social perfection creates unique
directions and beliefs that become
our style of life
This emerges by 4 or 5
Builds upon psychodynamic work
to build “individual psychology”
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Compensation
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We try to overcome feelings of inferiority
Inferiority complex
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Our efforts to overcome real or perceived weaknesses
while we strive for that perfection.
Fixation on feelings of personal inferiority that can lead to
emotional and social paralysis
Would focus on our drive toward superiority and
perfection – leads to Humanistic Psychology
Became highly influential in late 20th century
counseling and psychiatry due to his holistic
approach.
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Environmental and social factors important,
especially those we experience as children
Viewed anxiety (reaction to real or imagined
dangers) as a powerful motivating force
Seen as being as important as unconscious
sexual conflict
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Neurotic trends
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Irrational strategies for coping with emotional problems
and thus minimizing anxiety
Submission (Moving toward people)
 Feels the need to give in to other and only feels safe when receiving
protection and guidance.
 Friendliness is superficial and masks true resentment
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Aggression (Moving against people)
 Hides inner feelings of insecurity while they lash out
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Detachment (Moving away from people)
 If I withdraw nothing can hurt me
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Eight stages of personality development
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Trust vs. mistrust
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
Initiative vs. guilt
Industry vs. inferiority
Identity vs. role confusion
Intimacy vs. isolation
Generativity vs. stagnation
Ego integrity vs. despair
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Culture-bound ideas
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Freud made no connection between
women’s subordinate status in society and
their sense of inferiority
Psychodynamic theories are largely
untestable in any scientific way
Most of its concepts arise out of
clinical practice, which are the afterthe-fact explanation.
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Personality develops throughout life and is
not fixed in childhood.
Freud underemphasized peer influence on
the individual, which may be as powerful as
parental influence.
Gender identity may develop before 5-6 years
of age.
There may be other reasons for dreams
besides wish fulfillment.
Verbal slips can be explained on the basis of
cognitive processing of verbal choices.
(capture effect)
If suppressed sexuality leads to psychological
disorders. Sexual inhibition has decreased,
but psychological disorders have not.
Modern
Research
Freud's psychoanalytic theory rests on the
repression of painful experiences into the
unconscious mind.
The majority of children, death camp survivors,
and battle-scarred veterans are unable to
repress painful experiences into their
unconscious mind.
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Interplay between agencies accounts for
personality
Differences in strength of agencies
account for individual differences in
personality