Theories of Personality
Chapter Learning Objectives
Unit 1: Chapters 1, 9-11
Aim to understand, describe, provide examples or, or identify examples of the
following items from Unit 1 chapters.
Chapter 1 and Introduction to the Course:
1. Description of the field of personality psychology and how it is different from other related
areas.
2. Definition of personality and the levels of analysis and 6 domains in personality psychology.
3. Theories vs. Beliefs.
4. Criteria to identify a “good” theory.
Chapter 9:
Sigmund Freud and Classic Psychoanalysis
5. Influences of the historical era on Freud’s theories about personality development and his
publications.
6. Influences of relationships Freud had with his relatives (e.g., parents, wife, children) on his
ideas. What was the family composition (e.g., ages of family members)?
7. Freud’s own phobias and his views on neuroses among men.
8. Freud’s most influential publications.
Levels of consciousness:
1. 3 levels of consciousness of the psyche.
2. Iceberg analogy.
3. Motivated unconscious.
4. Causes of mental illness symptoms.
5. Famous patient, “Anna O.”. Her symptoms and the treatments.
Structure of Personality:
1. 2 basic instincts (Eros and Thanatos) that provide energy to the psyche; this amount of
energy is fixed.
2. Characteristics of and functions of the id, ego, and superego.
3. Wish fulfillment, primary process thinking, and the pleasure principle.
4. The reality principle and secondary process thinking.
Types of Anxiety:
1. Objective, moral, and neurotic anxiety and the structures of the psyche involved in each type.
2. Purpose of defense mechanisms.
3. Repression, Denial, Displacement, Rationalization, Reaction Formation, Projection, and
Sublimation, as defense mechanisms.
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Psychosexual Stages of Development:
1. Connections between libidinal gratification and areas of the body in each stage.
2. Sequence of and ages for the stages, the conflict to resolve in each stage, and personality
characteristics and behaviors associated with failing to resolve the conflicts.
3. Oral and anal fixations.
4. The Oedipal conflict, castration anxiety, identification and internalization. How is resolution
of the Oedipal conflict related to superego development in boys?
5. The female Oedipal conflict (Electra) and penis envy. How did Freud view the phallic stage
as unresolved for girls and connected to a lack of a strong superego?
Psychoanalysis:
1. The goal of psychoanalysis.
2. Free association, dream analysis, including manifest content and latent content, as therapeutic
techniques.
3. Interpretation, insight, resistance, and transference in the therapeutic process.
4. Chief criticisms of Freud’s theory.
Chapter 10:
1. Construction of “false memories” and suggestions for avoiding the creation of these
memories, including confirmation bias.
Ego Psychology:
1. Key purpose of the ego.
2. Crises within each the Infancy, Toddlerhood, and Adolescence stages, including positive
identity, negative identity, moratorium, and foreclosure during Adolescence.
3. Role of caregivers in the Infancy and Toddlerhood stages.
Karen Horney:
1. Criticism of penis envy, including social power and the influence of culture on gender.
2. Distinctions between “sex” and “gender.”
3. Causes for women’s “fear of success”.
Object Relations Theory, Attachment, & Adult Relationship Patterns:
1. Bowlby’s “working model” concept.
2. The Ainsworth Strange Situation paradigm. For example, what aspects of the child’s
behavior do researchers focus on?
3. 3 attachment patterns and behaviors manifested by the children.
4. Presumed connection between parental responsiveness (mothers) and each attachment
pattern.
5. Explanations for how secure and insecure attachment form in Erikson’s first two stages.
6. 3 adult relationship styles identified by Hazan and Shaver. Connections drawn between
childhood attachment styles and adult relationship styles.
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Chapter 11:
1. Needs and motives, according to Henry Murray, and why motives are included in the
Intrapsychic domain.
2. Purpose of the Thematic Apperception Test and type of motivation that it measures.
3. 3 Big Motives, including the characteristics of an individual who is classified as high on each
of these motives, and any self-reported gender differences on these motives.
4. Humanistic perspective on human nature compared to Freud.
5. Self-actualization, according to Maslow. Sequence of and descriptions of the levels in
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
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