Personality
What is your personality?
What are the ideas about
personality?
Psychoanalytic
 Humanistic
 Trait
 Social cognitive
 The self

What is the Psychoanalytic
perspective?

Sigmund Freud
◦ The mind is like an
iceberg
◦ Conscious
 (Above the water)
◦ Unconscious





Largely unaware
(Below the water)
Thoughts
Feelings
Memories
What happened?
How do we evaluate the
unconscious?

Projective tests
◦ Ambiguous stimuli that people “project”
information onto
 E.g. describe or tell a story

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
◦ Patient makes up a story based on ambiguous pictures
What do you see?
Rorschach Test
10 inkblots - people discuss
what they see in the inkblots
 Designed to identify people’s
inner unconscious feelings
 Not successful in predicting
behavior or diagnosis

What is Freud’s personality theory?

Id = Pleasure principle
◦ Sex & violence
◦ Hedonistic

Ego = Reality principle
◦ Mediates between Id and Superego

Superego = conscience
◦ Pride and guilt
◦ Right & wrong
◦ Ideal standards
What are ego defense mechanisms?

Repression
◦ Underlies all other defense mechanisms
◦ Keeps repressed urges (e.g. incest) from becoming
conscious

Regression
◦ Retreating to an earlier, more infantile stage of
development

Reaction formation
◦
◦
◦
◦
Doing the opposite of what you actually feel
Inadequate feelings become bravado
“I hate him” becomes ” I love him”
Makes unacceptable impulses more acceptable
Ego defense mechanisms (Cont.)

Projection
◦ Projecting your unacceptable impulses to others
◦ E.g. “He is lying like everyone else.”

Rationalization
◦ Thinking up socially acceptable reasons for your
negative behavior.
◦ E.g. “I only steal from rich people”

Displacement
◦ Diverts sexual or aggressive energies toward a more
acceptable target.
 E.g. Mad child kicks the pet.
Do you remember?
Where is the unconscious in the iceberg?
 If you feel guilty, what part of Freud’s
personality theory is operating?
 What are two methods attempting to
measure the unconscious?
 What are the ego defense mechanisms?

What is the Humanistic Perspective?

The self concept –
“Who am I”
◦ A basic focus of the Humanistic
perspective

Maslow’s Self-actualization
◦ People strive for self-actualization
 To be the best you can be
◦ After other needs are met for
physiological, safety, love, and
self-esteem
What is the Humanistic Perspective?

Carl Rogers - Person Centered Perspective
◦ Unconditional positive regard
 If we feel accepted, we will be more open and
expressive.
What is the Trait Perspective?
Traits = Characteristic behaviors or
disposition
 Myers-Briggs type indicator

◦ Describes personalities in complimentary
terms
◦ Extroversion or introversion
◦ Thinking or feeling
Trait Perspective (cont.)

MMPI = Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory
◦ Most widely used personality inventory
◦ Used to identify emotional disorders
MMPI = Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory
Do you remember?
What is Maslow’s “Self-actualization”?
 What is Carl Rogers’ “unconditional
positive regard”?
 What is one of the main tests used to
determine your personality traits?
 What is the most widely used inventory
used to identify personality disorders?

What is the Social Cognitive
Perspective?
How does learning & thinking & society
influence each other?
 Reciprocal Determinism

◦ Albert Bandura
◦ Behavior, internal personal factors, and the
environment all operate to determine each
other.
Reciprocal Determinism
What is your locus of control?

Internal locus of control
◦ “I personally control my
destiny.”

External locus of control
◦ “Outside forces which I can not
control determine my destiny.”
What is Learned Helplessness?

Repeatedly faced with traumatic events
over which people have no control, people
feel helpless, hopeless, and depressed.
Exploring your“self concept”
 Benefits
of positive self esteem:
More persistent at tasks
Less likely to use drugs and conform
to group pressure
Happier
 Self
serving bias
We like to perceive ourselves
favorably
We contribute successes to our own
effort and failure to factors beyond
our control.
Do you remember?
What is an example of Bandura’s reciprocal
determinism?
 Do you tend to have an internal or
external locus of control?
 What is an example of learned helplessness
with humans?
 What is an example of self serving bias in
the stock market?
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