Chapter 14
Personality
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Chapter 14 - Personality
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Approaches To Personality
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Trait Approach.
Psychobiological Approach.
Social Learning Approach.
Psychodynamic Approach.
Humanistic Approach.
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Trait Approach
The trait approach makes two important assumptions:
– Personality consists of traits that are unique to each
individual.
– Traits are stable and enduring dispositions.
We know that humans have five senses. But how many traits do
they have?
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The Big Five
The English vocabulary contains nearly 20,000 trait terms. But
there is a lot of redundancy among them (sociable, outgoing).
Decades of research on similarities between traits have yielded
five clusters:
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Neuroticism
Extroversion
Openness
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
These tendencies mix in different proportions to create different
personalities.
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Psychobiological Approach
Focuses on the role of biology in determining personality.
There are a number of ways to look at the role of biology in
personality. One way is to look at the heritability of
personality traits.
Another way is to look at the effect of brain damage on
personality.
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Let’s look at the famous case of Phineas Gage, a railroad
worker, who suffered a terrible accident (page 435-436 in
textbook).
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Video on The Story of Phineas Gage
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Optimum-Level Theory
Some personality traits like extroversion and thrill seeking,
produce behaviour that increases arousal.
Could it be that such people are trying to raise their natural low
level of arousal to an optimal level?
Optimal Level Theory states that:
• There is an optimal level of arousal for motivated action.
• When arousal is low, we feel bored and unmotivated.
• When arousal is very high, we feel tense and fearful.
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Do thrill seekers start out with a low level of arousal?
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Video on Brain Chemistry and Sensation Seeking
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Social Learning Approach
States that our personality is shaped by what we learn from our
experiences.
We develop expectations about the outcome of our behaviour in
certain situations.
One particularly interesting effect of such expectations is
reflected in what is known as self-handicapping.
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Self-Handicapping
Making excuses for one’s performance before the fact.
Sometimes this is done by saying things that suggest that one is
not at one’s best (I have a headache, I slept terribly, etc.)
At the extreme one may actually engage in behaviour that will
handicap one’s performance (getting drunk the night before a
competition).
Self-handicapping is an attempt to protect one’s self-esteem.
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Research shows that people who self-handicap do not cope well
with stress.
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Psychodynamic Approach
According to this approach, diverse sources of psychic energy
interact dynamically in each of us.
Sigmund Freud is the most famous proponent of this view.
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory begins with the idea that the mind
exists on two basic levels: conscious and unconscious.
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Freud believed that the mind has three basic structures:
– Id: unconscious irrational source of primitive impulses.
– Ego: conscious and realistic (respects “reality principle”)
– Superego: both conscious and unconscious. Based on
rules and prohibitions we have internalized.
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Defense Mechanisms
The conflicts created by the id’s strong impulses and the
inhibitions imposed by the ego and superego can be very upsetting.
Defense mechanism:
– Repression
– Reaction Formation
– Projection
– Sublimation
– Rationalization
– Conversion
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Personality Development in Psychodynamic Theory...
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Personality Development
Psychodynamic theories of personality stress the importance of
personality development in producing healthy adults.
Have you ever wondered where the “Anal Personality” comes
from?
The following video describes:
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– Freud’s stages of psychosexual development.
– Object-Relations Theory, that stresses people’s investment
in other people or “objects.”
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Video on Personality Development
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Personality Disorders
According to Psychodynamic theory, problems during early
personality development can result in personality disorders
in later life.
The “anal” personality reflects fixation at the anal stage:
•Anal Retentive: Excessively neat, meticulous, obsessive.
•Anal Expulsive: Sarcastic, hostile, untidy.
Other disorders reflect preoccupation with other things.
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Narcissism is a sense that others are there to serve the self.
Narcissists love attention and praise, but respond to criticism
with extreme anger.
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Video on Narcissistic Personality Disorder
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Humanistic Approach
Humanism emphasizes the individual’s potential for growth
and change.
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Abraham Maslow proposed that personality is shaped by
motivation to satisfy a hierarchy of needs:
•Self Actualization
•Aesthetic needs
•Cognitive needs
•Esteem needs
•Attachment needs
•Safety needs
•Physiological needs
Carl Rogers proposed that people seek to be fully functioning.
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