Modules 44 - 46
Personality
What is the Purpose of
Having Theories?
 Part or all of a theory might be
correct
 Provides a framework for study
and research
Personality Introduction
What is Personality?
 Personality
 an individual’s characteristic pattern
of thinking, feeling, and acting
 a person’s broad, long-lasting
patterns of behavior
Major Personality Theories
 Psychoanalytic Theory
 Neo-Freudian—Social Psychoanalytic
Theory
 Behaviorism
 Humanistic Theories
 Trait Theories
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Freud’s theory
proposes that
childhood sexuality
and unconscious
impulses and needs
influence personality
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Unconscious
 according to Freud, a reservoir of
mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes,
feelings and memories
 contemporary viewpoint- information
processing of which we are unaware
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Psychoanalysis; theory & therapy
 Freud’s theory that personality is based
on our thoughts and actions to
unconscious impulses and needs
 technique used in treating psychological
disorders by exposing the unconscious.
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Free Association
 in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring
the unconscious
 person relaxes and says whatever comes
to mind, no matter how trivial or
embarrassing
Free Association
Freud Video
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Libido
 Freud’s theory emphasizes interaction
between conscious and unconscious
 Freudian term for internal energy forces
that continuously seek discharge
 Sexual drive and biological urges
Personality Structure
 Id
 contains a reservoir of unconscious
psychic energy (libido)
 strives to satisfy basic sexual and
aggressive drives
 operates on the pleasure principle,
demanding immediate gratification
Personality Structure
 Superego
 the part of personality that presents
internalized ideals—right & wrong
 provides standards for judgment (the
conscience) and for future aspirations
Personality Structure
 Ego
 the largely conscious, “executive” part
of personality
 mediates among the demands of the id,
superego, and reality
 operates on the reality principle,
satisfying the id’s desires in ways that
will realistically bring pleasure rather
than pain
Psychoanalytic Approach
Rational,
planful,
mediating
dimension
of personality
Conscious
Ego
Superego
Moralistic,
judgmental,
perfectionist
dimension of
personality
Irrational,
illogical,
impulsive
dimension of
personality
Preconscious
Unconscious
Id
Information
in your
immediate
awareness
Information
which can
easily be
made
conscious
Thoughts,
feelings,
urges, and other
information
that is difficult
to bring to
conscious
awareness
Ego: The Great Balancer of
Personality
Personality Conflicts
Neurotic Anxiety
Id/ego conflict
Frustration
Moral Anxiety
Id/SuperEgo conflict
guilt and shame
Objective Anxiety
Realistic/External Threat
Fire or mugger
Personality
Development
 Psychosexual Stages
 5 childhood stages of personality
development go from birth to
adolescence
 Freud believed personality formed by
age 5 or 6
Psychosexual Stages
 Oral Stage (Birth-1 ½)
 Feeding is main source of pleasure—
centers on mouth; sucking, biting,
chewing
 Weaning is task to accomplish
 Weaned too early or too late—
personality problems develop
 Smoking
 Overeating or self-starvation
 Depending too much on other people
 Rejecting of others and sarcastic
Psychosexual Stages
 Anal Stage (1 ½ - 2 ½ )
 Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
elimination; coping with demands for
control
 Task is toilet training
 Toilet training too lenient or too harshpersonality problems develop
 Excessively stingy or overly generous
 Stick rigidly to rules or irresponsible and rebellious
 Messiness or excessive cleanliness
Psychosexual Stages
 Phallic Stage (2 ½ - 5 or 6)
 Oedipus Complex; romantic interest in the
opposite-sex parent and hostility toward the
same-sex parent (Electra Complex for girls)
 To cope with these romantic, jealous, aggressive,
and guilty feelings, child must “identify” with samesex parent by taking on characteristics and values
 Failure to “identify” can lead to:
 Anxiety
 Extreme guilt
 Phobias and depression
Overcoming the Oedipus
Complex
Fear of Castration
Identify with father
Vicariously love mother through father
Freud believed that women never fully
overcame the Electra Complex
Women suffer from penis envy
Phallic Fixation
Reckless, resolute, self-assure and narcissistic,
(excessive vanity and pride)
Star Wars
Oedipus Complex
Luke wants to kill his father
Luke fears castration
Loses arm and light saber (phallic symbol)
Identifies with father
Princess Leia has an Electra complex with
penis envy
Personality
Development
 Identification
 process when children take on their parents’
values—particularly relating to same-sex
parent
 Store values in their developing superegos
 Fixation
 When conflicts are unresolved at a
psychosexual stage, pleasure-seeking energy
(libido) get’s “stuck” in that stage
Psychosexual Stages
 Latency Stage (5 – Preadolescence)
 Child’s earlier conflicts are hidden or
latent
 Developing ego & superego cause this
period of calm
 No new conflicts arrive during this stage
Latency Stage
(5 - preadolescence)
 Sexuality is repressed
 Children participate in hobbies,
school and same-sex friendships
 Girls/Boys have cooties
 Some believe that since there is no
sexual expression in this stage
then it is not really a psychosexual
stage
Psychosexual Stages
 Genital Stage (Adolescence and up)
 Seek an appropriate marriage partner
and prepare for adult life (maturation of
sexual interests)
 If previous stages successful, now wellbalanced, warm, & caring
 No new conflicts but earlier conflicts
reappear
Personality
Development
 Psychosexual Stages
 Adults’ psychological problems have
roots in unresolved conflicts in first 3
stages
 When conflict is not resolved, libido
(internal) energy becomes fixated
(stuck) at that stage.
 These energy fixations will cause later
psychological problems
Personality
Development
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Stage
Focus
Oral
(0-18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth-sucking, biting, chewing
Anal
(18-36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
elimination; coping with demands for
control
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with
incestuous sexual feelings
Phallic
(3-6 years)
Latency
(6 to puberty)
Dormant sexual feelings
Genital
(puberty on)
Maturation of sexual interests
Defense Mechanisms
Unconscious mental processes
employed by the ego to reduce
anxiety
Defense Mechanisms
Repression - keeping anxietyproducing thoughts out of the
conscious mind
Reaction formation - replacing
an unacceptable wish with its
opposite
Defense Mechanisms
Displacement - when a drive
directed to one activity by the id
is redirected to a more
acceptable activity by the ego
Sublimation - displacement to
activities that are valued by
society
Defense Mechanisms
Projection - reducing anxiety by
attributing unacceptable impulses to
someone else
Rationalization - reasoning away anxietyproducing thoughts
Regression - retreating to a mode of
behavior characteristic of an earlier stage
of development
Class Exercise
Defense Mechanisms
Freudian Slip: verbal or
memory mistake believed to be
linked to the unconscious mind
Freudian Slip
Criticisms of Freud
z He really only studied
wealthy woman in
Austria.
z His results are not
empirically verifiable
(really hard to test).
z No predictive power.
z Karen Horney said he
was sexist with the
“penis envy” and there
is an actual “womb
envy”.
Neo-Freudians
 Neo-Freudians or New Freudians
 Accepted Freud’s basic ideas:
 Id, ego, & superego
 Importance of unconscious
 Shaping personality in childhood
Neo-Freudians
 Neo-Freudians or New Freudians
 Moved away from Freud’s ideas:
 Placed more importance on
conscious mind’s role in interpreting
experience
 Doubted that sex & aggression were
all-consuming motivations
 Looked for other motives & social
interactions
Karen Horney
 First feminist voice in psychoanalitical theory
 Stronger relationship with mother
 Basic anxiety
 Anything that disturbs the security of the child in
relation to its parents produce anxiety
 Mother creates neurotic tendency in children
 They find ways of coping with their insecurities
feelings of isolation and helplessness
 Womb Envy
 Mothers have a stronger connection with their
children and fathers are envious
Neo-Freudians
 Karen Horney
 Strongly disagreed with Freud’s focus on
biological drives
 Felt coping with stress of social needs was
more important than dealing with impulses
from id
Neo-Freudians
Karen Horney
 Personality is most influenced by social
concerns
 Childhood anxiety, caused by sense of
helplessness  desire for love and security
 Person without love is often anxious and
afraid
Neo-Freudians
 Alfred Adler
 Also agreed Freud put too much emphasis on
biological needs
 Biggest problem people face is trying to feel
important and worthwhile
 Insecure people struggle to make themselves
look better
 Spend lives trying to dominate and control
 Example: School bullies
Neo-Freudians
 Inferiority Complex
 feeling like they're less than other people
 not as good as others
 worthless
Neo-Freudian
z Carl Jung
y Division of Personality
x Conscious Ego
• Perceptions, thoughts and feelings
x Personal Unconscious
• Threatening thoughts similar to Freud’s
unconscious
Neo-Freudian
 Carl Jung
 Emphasized the collective unconscious
 Contains all of the knowledge and experiences we
share as a species
 This part of the psyche contained a psychological
inheritance.
 Ancestral memories
 Archetypes
 Term for inherited universal human concepts
Neo-Freudian
 Archetypes
 4 major Archetypes
 Self—represents unification of consciousness
& unconsciousness
 Shadow—contains sex and life instincts
 Anima (female image of male psyche) or
Animus (male image of female psyche)
 Persona—”Mask” people wear to hide what
they really are & feel
Carl Jung
Other Archetypes:
•
•
•
•
•
•
The father: Authority figure; stern; powerful.
The mother: Nurturing; comforting.
The child: Longing for innocence; rebirth; salvation.
The wise old man: Guidance; knowledge; wisdom.
The hero: Champion; defender; rescuer.
The maiden: Innocence; desire; purity.
• The trickster: Deceiver; liar; trouble-maker.
Behavioristic Models of
Personality
Derived from learning theory
 Personality is assumed to be predictable from
the
individual's
particular
history
of
reinforcement and punishment
 Inconsistencies in behavior reflect situational
specificity
Stimulus-Response Theory
Remember Pavlov, Watson and Thorndike
Dominated the study of personality from the
1930’s – 1950’s
Emphasis placed on observable scientific study
Classical conditioning
Personality is developed early on with basic
responses such as adaptive reflexes connected
with specific stimuli
These responses become generalized to
different stimuli through association
Operant behaviorism of B.F. Skinner
viewed personality in terms of observable
behavior and is heavily situational
 Behaviors are under the control of particular
contingencies of reinforcement and
punishment
 Behavior therapy is an attempt to modify
behavior through the systematic alteration of
undesired patterns of behavior to produce
desired patterns
Getting into the Unconscious
Hypnosis
Dream Interpretation
Free Association (having
them just randomly talk
to themselves…and then
interpreting the
conversation).
Projective Tests (and
test that delve into the
unconscious).
Examples are TAT and
Inkblot Tests.
TAT Test
Thematic Apperception Test
Giving the subject a picture that is
ambiguous (can have several meanings)
and ask them what is occurring.
Their answers reveal the Manifest
Content.
They can then discover the Latent
Content.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
The most widely used projective test
A set of ten inkblots designed to
identify people’s feelings when they are
asked to interpret what they see in the
inkblots.
Humanistic Perspective
 Some considered Freud’s idea of the
unconscious filled with id impulses,
unacceptable
 Some found the behaviorists’ failure to
recognize personal experience,
unworkable
 Developed Humanism
 Focus on human qualities
 Positive potential of the person
Humanistic Perspective
 Abraham
Maslow (19081970)
 studied selfactualization
processes of
productive and
healthy people
(e.g., Albert
Einstein)
Please copy this chart in your composition notebook
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Humanistic Perspective
 Self-Actualization
 the motivation to fulfill one’s potential
 A truly self-actualized person might be
a student, who comes from a terrible
environment, but who drives himself or
herself to a level of outstanding
achievement.
Humanistic Perspective
 Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
 focused on growth and fulfillment of
individuals
 genuineness
 acceptance
 empathy
Humanistic Perspective
 Unconditional Positive Regard
 an attitude of total acceptance toward
another person
 Self-Concept
 Person’s perceptions & beliefs about
themselves
 Self worth
 Self image
 Ideal self
http://educationportal.com/academy/lesson/humanisticpsychology.html