Personality
What is it??
We use the term personality often but what
does it actually mean?
» “She has a wonderful personality”
» “He has no personality”
» “We seem to have a personality conflict”
Personality
• The collection of emotional, thought, and
behavioral patterns unique to a person
that is consistent over time
• its who we are
• how we act and react, how we interact and
respond to the world
We get a good idea of what
personality is by listening
to what we say when we
use “I” – “I like…, I
dislike…, I love…, I am
good at…, I fear…, etc.”
Psychodynamic Theory
• Says personality is a product of tension and
anxiety within us that drive our thoughts and
behavior
– unconscious thoughts and unresolved inner
conflicts (usually centering on sex and aggression)
– i.e. think Freud
• Example
– There is something going on inside of us, on some
level, that produces the behavior and actions
people see in us
Trait Theory
• Our personality resides inside our genes
• Each person has certain characteristics (or
traits) that we are born with which determine
our behavior and personality
– Example
– a friendly person is likely to act friendly in a situation
because of the traits in their DNA
• Trait theorists usually believe these traits
usually remain the same throughout our lives in
spite of the environment we may be in
– We cant change our DNA
Social-Cognitive Theories
• Says personality is learned either through
conditioning or through social learning
– think bobo doll (Bandura) and Skinner’s box
• Environment and cognition are important
factors in personality development
• Reciprocal Determinism
Humanistic Theories
• States that personality is a product of free
will and that people play an active role in
determining how they behave
• Individuals have a capacity for personal
growth and have a goal of reaching ones
full potential
– Think self-actualization and Maslow
Issues in Personality Theory
The Following basic questions
define the personality theorists’
image of human nature and
personality
Free will or Determinism?
• Do we have control of ourselves?
• Are we free to choose to be masters of
our fate
Or…
• Are we victims of biological factors,
unconscious forces, or external stimuli?
Nature or Nurture?
• Is our personality determined by the
things we inherit
Or…
• shaped by the environment in which
we live?
Past, Present, or Future?
• Is personality development complete in
early childhood
Or…
• Is it independent of the past capable of
being influenced by present or even
future events, aspirations, and goals?
Uniqueness or Universality?
• Is the personality of each individual
unique
Or…
• Are there broad personality patters that
fit large number of people?
Psychodynamic Perspective
Of Personality
Psychodynamic Theory
It all started with Freud
• Freud proposed psychology’s first and most famous
theory of personality
• Freud believed an individual’s personality emerged
from an unresolved conflict between…
– unconscious sexual impulses (most often starting in
childhood) and societies rules and expectations
• Freud believed that to resolve these conflicts he had
to understand a persons mind ( or, psyche)
• But what is the mind according to Freud??
The Mind According
to Freud
The Conscious Mind
The thoughts and
feelings we are aware
of at any given time
The Preconscious Mind
Information that is stored and
available at any time
Memories like phone numbers
The Unconscious Mind
Mostly unacceptable
thoughts, wishes, feelings,
and memories
If Freud could get people to
open the door to this region
they could start the healing
process and understand their
personality
Freud's Early Exploration into the Unconscious
• To get to a persons unconscious Freud
used a process he called
psychoanalysis (psyche (mind)=mind
analysis)
– A technique that tries to expose and
interpret underlying unconscious motives
and conflicts
• Two specific psychoanalysis
techniques that he used were
– hypnosis and
– free association (relax and say it all)
Once Freud understood the mind and could reach the
unconscious, he could begin to look at personality
Freud's Personality Structure
• He believed we all were born with pleasure-seeking
biological impulses
• However, we live in a society with rules that we
internalize as we get older
• Freud believed that the way we resolve this conflict
(social rules vs. personal desires) would shape our
personality.
Freud thought there
were 3 forces
interacting to form
and shape personality
Id
Superego
Ego
Id
• Unconscious energy that
drives us to satisfy basic
survival, sexual and
aggressive drives.
– Present at birth
– Is primitive and not affected
by values, ethics, or morals
• Id operates on the pleasure
principle
– the drive to achieve pleasure
and avoid pain.
– Demands immediate
gratification
Sometimes is illogical,
irrational and can get us
into trouble
Superego
• Part of personality that
represents our internalized moral
standards
– Comparable to our conscience
– learned from society
• Focuses on what we should do, not
what we’d like to do
• Causes people to feel guilty when
they go against society’s rules
Ego
• The boss of the conscious.
• It is the great compromiser
– Makes decisions after
listening to both sides
– Tries to satisfy the Id
without offending the moral
standards of the Superego
• Called the “reality principle”
Delays the demands and needs of the id until
a more appropriate time
Conflict and Anxiety
• Freud believed that the id, the ego, and the
superego are in constant conflict (always
unconscious).
• These conflicts can make a person feel anxious
and to manage this feeling people use what
Freud called…
–defense mechanisms
Defense Mechanisms
The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by
distorting reality and preventing awareness of
unacceptable sexual or aggressive impulses or wishes
Seven major types
Repression
• The Mac Daddy defense
mechanism.
• Means to push or banish
anxiety driven thoughts deep
into unconscious.
• Being sexually assaulted
when you are five and not
remembering this as an
adult
Regression
• When faced with anxiety
the person retreats to a
more comfortable infantile
stage.
• Thumb sucking when you
get scared at a movie.
Reaction Formation
• When a person
behaves in a way that
contradicts their actual
thoughts
• Being mean to
someone you have a
crush on.
Projection
• Disguise your own
threatening impulses by
attributing them to others.
• Thinking that your spouse
wants to cheat on you
when it is you that really
wants to cheat.
Rationalization
• Providing excuses or
explanations to justify
thoughts or behaviors
• You don’t get into a college
and say, “I really did not
want to go there it was too
far away!!”
Displacement
• Shifts the unacceptable
impulses towards a safer
outlet.
• Instead of yelling at a
teacher, you will take your
anger out on him by
spitting on his car
Sublimation
• Re-channel unacceptable
impulses towards more
acceptable or socially
approved activities or
areas
• Channeling unacceptable
aggressive feelings into
aggressive sports play
Freud's Stages of Psychosexual
Development
• Freud believed that your personality developed in
your childhood – before 5
• Believed that children pass through a series of
psychosexual stages.
• Each stage has special conflicts and children’s
ways of managing these conflicts influence their
personalities
Fixation
Fixation
– the inability to progress normally
from one stage into another
As an adult these fixations show up as a
tendency to focus on the needs that were
over-gratified or over-frustrated
How do we assess the
unconscious?
We can use hypnosis or free
association to get to the unconscious.
But more often we use projective
tests.
Projective Tests
• Provides a vague stimuli designed to
trigger insight (projection) of one’s
inner thoughts and feelings
TAT
Thematic Apperception Test
• People express their inner feelings
through stories they make about vague
scenes
TAT
Rorschach Inkblot Test
A set of ten inkblots designed to identify people’s
inner thoughts when they are asked to
interpret what they see in the inkblots.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
"This is a..." constitutes a "bad" response. You are
supposed to know that the cards don't actually
represent any recognizable figures, so saying
something like "This looks like ..." is considered a more
"healthy" response.
"The only thing the inkblots do reveal is the secret world of the
examiner who interprets them. These doctors are probably saying
more about themselves than about the subjects."
Advantages and Disadvantages of
Projective Tests
• Good - – they allow psychologists to assess
unconscious aspects of personality
• Good - – Open and vague – no way to know how
responses will be interpreted – so you can not
fake responses
• However – questionable validity and
reliability – hard to test
Neo-Freudians
• Psychologists that took some ideas
from Freud and built upon them.
Alfred Adler
Karen Horney
Carl Jung
Alfred Adler
• Believed the focus of
personality research should be
on social factors - not sexual
ones.
• Believed our behavior is driven
by our efforts to conquer our
feelings of inferiority
– Inferiority Complex
Carl Jung
• Jung did focus on the unconscious, but
just not an individual
• Said we all have a collective
unconscious
– a shared/inherited well of memory from all
people throughout history and cultures
• Archetypes
– thoughts or symbols that have the same
meaning for all human beings
– Example
• shadow = the darker, evil side of human nature
• or the idea or image of a hero figure
Karen Horney
• Thought Freud’s theory was to male
dominated
• Fought against Freud’s “penis envy”
concept.
• Thought men have “womb envy”
– Thought social restraints, not anatomy,
created psychological differences between
males and females
– Anxiety and helplessness is felt by people
because of the hostile and competitive world
not conflict with the id, ego, and superego