Personality Theory
and Assessment
 Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis
 Neo-Freudians
 Learning Theories and Personality
 Humanistic Personality Theories
 Trait Theories
 Nature vs. Nurture, and Personality
 Personality Assessment
Psychoanalytic Theory
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Psychoanalysis
Levels of Consciousness
Parts of the personality
Defense mechanisms
Psychosexual stages
Freud’s Levels of Consciousness
and Personality
 Id
Ego
Ego
 Superego
Superego
Conscious mind
Preconscious mind
(outside awareness,
but accessible)
Id
Unconscious mind
Defense Mechanisms
•Denial: claiming/believing that what is true to be actually false.
•Displacement: redirecting emotions to a substitute target.
•Intellectualization: taking an objective viewpoint.
•Projection: attributing uncomfortable feelings to others.
•Rationalization: creating false but credible justifications.
•Reaction Formation: overacting in the opposite way to the fear.
•Regression: going back to acting as a child.
•Repression: pushing uncomfortable thoughts into the
subconscious.
•Sublimation: redirecting 'wrong' urges into socially acceptable
actions.
http://www.coldbacon.com/defenses.html
Freud’s
Psychosexual
Stages of
Development
Carl Jung
 Personality types
 Introvert
 Extrovert
 Personality parts
 Ego
 Personal Unconscious
 Collective Unconscious
 Archetypes
 More terms…
Alfred Adler
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Organ inferiority
Inferiority complex
Compensation
Superiority complex
Individual develops own “Style of Life”
Creative Self
The Women…
 Karen Horney
 Neurotic personality
 Feminine psychology.
 Overcome the need for perfection.
 Nancy Chodorow
 Ellyn Kaschak
Learning Theories and
Personality
 B. F. Skinner
 Albert Bandura
Behavior
Environment
 Reciprocal determinism
 Self-efficacy
 Julian Rotter
 Internal locus of control
 External locus of control
Personal/cognitive factors
(expectations, beliefs, self-efficacy)
Humanistic Personality Theories
 Abraham Maslow
 Self Actualization
(developing one’s fullest
potential)
 Peak experiences
 Carl Rogers
 Person-centered therapy
 Unconditional positive
regard
Schematic Summary
of Trait
Theories of Personality
Trait
Theories
Cardinal
Central
Secondary
Three kinds of traits:
Allport
Proprium – sense of self,
unifying core of personality
Used factor analysis
Cattell
Eysenck
McCrae
and Costa
Identified 16 source traits – the
basic elements of personality
Personality
Basic dimensions that underlie traits
Broad general categories
Two basic dimensions
Neuroticism
Introversion-Extroversion
Identified 5 traits – the
basic elements of personality
Self-Image
Ideal self
Self-image
True self
Incongruence
Ideal self
Self-image
True self
Congruence
Incongruence occurs when there is a mismatch between any of these three entities: the ideal
self (the person you would like to be), your self-image (the person you think you are), and the
true self (the person you actually are). Self-esteem suffers when there is a large difference
between one’s ideal self and self-image. Anxiety and defensiveness are common when the
self-image does not match the true self.
Personality Assessment
 Structured interview
 Personality Inventories
 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
 California Psychological Inventory (CPI)
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
 Projective Tests
 Rorschach Inkblot Method
 Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)