CH 13 PERSONALITY
PERSONALIT Y
 Unique way in which each individual thinks, acts, and feels
throughout life
 It is not
 Character – person’s value judgments made on a person’s morals or
ethical behavior
 Temperament – enduring characteristics with which each person is
born, such as irritability or adaptability
 Biology through genetic and prenatal influences
 One’s larger personality is built on this
PERSPECTIVES OF PERSONALIT Y THEORY
 Psychodynamic
 Sigmund Freud
 role of the unconscious mind and biological causes of personality
 Behaviorist
 Effect of environment on personality
 Humanistic
 Reaction against psychoanalytic and behaviorist
 Role of each person’s conscious life experiences and choices
 Trait
 End result, not focused on causes
SIGMUND FREUD
Born in 1856
Grew up in Vienna
Jewish, so he then moved to England to escape Nazis
Victorian age, sex only in marriage, and you should not like it
Many of Freud's patients were wealthy women with sexual
repression
 Freud was obsessed with sex being the explanation for
abnormal behaviors
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UNCONSCIOUS MIND
 Three parts of a persons’ mind
 Preconscious, conscious, and unconscious mind
 Unconscious mind
 Level of the mind that we keep thoughts, feelings and memories.
 Not easily or voluntarily brought into consciousness
 To Freud it is what makes up our personality and human
behavior
DIVISIONS OF PERSONALIT Y
 ID-if it feels good do it
 Pleasure seeking, immoral
 Basic biological drives
 Hunger, thirst, self preservation and sex
 Pleasure Principal – desire for immediate gratification with no regard
for the consequences
 Ego-the Executive Director
 Rational, logical and conning
 Reality Principal - satisfying the needs of the ID when negative
consequences will not result
 Superego- the moral watchdog
 Moral Center
 Contains the Conscience, what makes up feel guilty
HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER
 Psychological defense mechanisms
 How our unconscious distorts our perception of reality to reduce
stress and anxiety
 Examples
 Denial
 Repression
 rationalization
STAGES OF PERSONALIT Y DEVELOPMENT
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Freud determined 5 stages
Developing sexuality of the child
Each stage focus on a dif ferent erogenous zone
Fixation
 Getting stuck in one stage
 Child will grow but will carry emotional baggage from one stage
ORAL STAGE
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Birth to 1 ½ years old
Mouth is the erogenous zone
Weaning is the primary conflict
Fixation in adults
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Overeating
Drinking
Smoking
Excessive talking
ANAL STAGE
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1 ½ - 3 years of age
Erogenous zone is now the anus
Toilet training becomes an issue
Fixation
 Anal Explosive
 Messiness is a statement of control
 Destructive
 Hostile
 Anal Retentive
 Stingy
 Stubborn
 Excessively neat
PHALLIC STAGE
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3-6 years old
Erogenous zone is the genitals
Realizing dif ferences between boys and girls
Oedipus/Electra Complex
Fixation
 Immature sexual attitude
 Promiscuous
 “mama’s boys”
LATENCY STAGE
 6 – onset of puberty
 Children hide their sexual feelings
 Children grow and develop intellectually, physically and
emotionally
 Play with own gender, other gender is bad
 Fixation
 Difficulty getting along with others
GENITAL STAGE
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When puberty begins
Sexual feelings can no longer be hidden
Bodies are changing
Begins adult social and sexual behavior
Fixation
 Immature love relationships
CRITICISMS
 He did no experiments to arrive at his conclusions about
personality
 Used observations and case studies
 He used confirmation bias
 Memories and dreams would be put into his theory as he needed
 No scientific basis of dreams
PSYCHODYNAMIC TODAY
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His concepts remain useful
Basis for modern personality theories
Defense mechanisms has drawn much research
Unconscious mind
BEHAVIORIST
 Watson and Skinner
 Operant and classical conditioning influence our personalities
 Our personality is just a set of learned habits
 Social Cognitive learning Theorists
 Importance of both the influences of other people’s behavior and of a
person’s own expectancies on learning
 Observations
 Modeling
BANDURA
 Three factors in the behaviors that make up a persons
personality
 Environment
 Behavior itself
 Personal or cognitive factors
 Reciprocal Determination
 The three factors affecting
one another in a give-take
relationship
ROTTER
 Motivation
 People are driven to seek reinforcement and to avoid punishment
 Personality is a relatively stable set of potential responses to
a situation
 Locus of Control
 We assume we either have or do not have control, internal or external
 Expectancy
 An expectation that a behavior will lead to a reinforcement
BEHAVIORISTS TODAY
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Limited
Does not take mental process into account
Does not look at social influence
Has influenced therapies based on learning theories
HUMANISTIC
 Maslow and Rogers
 Focuses on what makes us human, unique
 Feelings and freedom of choice
ROGERS
 We are striving to fulfill what our genetic makeup will allow us
to
 Self-actualization=fulfillment
 Self concept is our own image of who we are
 Real self – who we are
 Ideal self – who we want to be
CONDITIONAL AND UNCONDITIONAL
POSITIVE REGARD
 Positive regard
 Warmth, affection, love
 Unconditioned positive regard
 No strings attached
 Conditioned positive regard
 Strings
 Fully functioning person
 In touch with their own feelings and abilities, trust themselves
HUMANISTIC TODAY
 Ignores the negative aspects of human nature
 Dif ficult to test
 Development if therapies to promote self growth and a better
understanding of self
TRAIT
 Concerned describing personality and predicting behavior
 Trait – is a consistent, enduring way of thinking, feelings, or behavior
ALLPORT & CATELL
 Found 200 traits in dictionary
 Paired down to surface or source traits
 Reserved vs outgoing
 Submissive vs dominant
 Shy vs bold
 These traits were wired in the nervous system to guide our
behavior
 Used in many different situations
 Persons “constellation” of traits are unique
 Lack of scientific evidence
 However, behavioral genetics support heritability of personality traits
THE BIG FIVE
 5 trait dimensions
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Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
TRAIT TODAY
 Traits will not always be expressed the same
 Depends on situation
 The big 5 has been tested
 Found in 11 different cultures
ASSESSMENT OF PERSONALIT Y
 Interviews – asking questions of the person, structured or not
 Halo Effect – interviewer to allow positive traits to influence the
assessment
 Projective tests
 Psychoanalysts want to uncover the unconscious conflicts, desires
and urges
 These tests have the person project their “issues” unto harmless
stimuli
 Client responds to whatever comes to mind
 Uncovers problems in personality
RORSCHACH INKBLOTS
 Developed in 1921 by a Swiss Psychiatrist
 10 inkblots, 5 black and white, 5 color
 Using predetermined responses based on past answers,
people were given a score
 They are still used today
 No right or wrong answers
 Issues
 Subjective
 Not reliable
RORSCHACH INKBLOTS
RORSCHACH INKBLOTS
PERSONALIT Y INVENTORIES
 Standardized test with yes or no questions
 More reliable as the questions are not open ended, and
everyone gets asked the same questions
 Myers Briggs is used to assess personality to help with career
selection
 MMPI-2 very common
 True or false answers to statements
 Issues
 Some people are able to fake the answers