Study Guide
Psychology of Adjustment
Chapter 2: Theories of Personality
What is personality? An individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits
Personality traits: durable dispositions to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations
Traits are consistent across situations and distinctive when comparing the behavior of different
individuals in a given situation.
Personality traits are empirically derived. This means that individuals are asked a number of
different questions and the results are analyzed by factor analysis. In this procedure, correlations
are computed among the questions to identify closely-related clusters of responses.
Personality researchers have come to agreement on the Five-factor Model of Personality. The
five traits are: 1) extroversion, 2. neuroticism, 3) openness to experience, 4) agreeableness and
5) conscientiousness. You should be able to recognize general descriptions of each of these.
Which one is associated with getting good grades? Which two are associated with career
success? Which one is associated with a higher prevalence of mental illness?
Psychodynamic Perspectives (Freud)
What three aspects of Freud’s theory made people uncomfortable? Answer: 1) unconscious
forces govern human behavior; 2) childhood experiences determine adult personality;
3) personality is shaped by how the individual copes with sexual urges. Why do these make
people uncomfortable?
For Freud, the personality was structured into the id, the ego, and the superego. You should be
able to recognize descriptions of each of these.
What is the purpose of ego defense mechanisms? You should be able to recognize definitions or
examples of repression, projection, displacement, reaction formation, regression, rationalization,
identification, and sublimation.
(You do not need to know anything about Freud’s developmental stages.)
What is Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious”? What did Alfred Adler believe to be the foremost
human drive?
How does this theory or perspective of psychology stack up on testability and research evidence?
Behavioral Perspective
Behaviorism: a theoretical perspective based on the premise that scientific psychology should
Behavioral theorists study observable behavior and focus on the shaping rather than the structure
of personality.
Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the capacity to
evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. It is the learning or
conditioning counterpart of “guilt by association”. It contributes to the acquisition of emotional
responses including phobias and some positive responses such as preferences.
Operant conditioning is a form of learning in which voluntary responses come to be controlled
by their consequences. Behaviors which are reinforced (rewarded) will tend to strengthen and
occur again. Those that are punished will be less likely to occur again, and behaviors which are
ignored or produce no consequences will tend to extinguish or go away.
Observational learning was created when Albert Bandura and others began to explore the
cognitive dimension of changes in behavior due to conditioning. It occurs when responding is
influenced by observations of others (models). In other words, you do not have to engage in the
behavior and experience the consequences to alter your tendency to do it; you can simply watch
others engage in the behavior and learn from their consequences.
Bandura talked about self-efficacy which is a person’s belief about his/her ability to perform
behaviors which will lead to expected outcomes. It is acquired through success experiences and
may differ among situations.
The behavioral perspective is well-grounded in research (mostly on animals), but leaves little
room for individuality or for examination of underlying cognitive motives.
Humanistic Perspective
Carl-Rogers Person-Centered Theory
Self-concept: Everything a person believes to be true about himself/herself
Incongruence: disparity between the self-concept and experience
Rogers held several beliefs, one of which was that mental health comes from a congruent selfconcept. This, in turn, comes from unconditional love (or positive regard). He further believes
that parents generally do not offer this, and people learn that positive regard is conditional. They
then warp their own self-concepts in order to please others and become unhappy. They may
become anxious and defensive and require therapy.
Abraham Maslow created a hierarchy of human needs that included the needs to be accepted and
respected and to achieve. He also believed that humans have a tendency to self-actualize or to
attempt to realize all of their potential. He even created his own description of the selfactualized person from biographies of famous people. However, research has not really borne
out that people have this tendency although it remains a popular concept.
Overall, the humanist perspective is untestable and hence has no supporting scientific evidence.
It is also unrealistically optimistic about the goodness of human nature.
Biological Perspectives
Some theorists, like Hans Eysenck, believe personality to be inherited at least in part. Evidence,
however, is somewhat contradictory. The concept of a heritability ratio is an estimation of the
proportion of trait variability in a population that is determined by variations in genetic
inheritance. Although twin studies point to some heritability for the Big 5 personality traits, the
research is difficult to interpret.
Current Perspectives
Terror Management Theory is a current perspective that attempts to explain why people need
self-esteem. Step 1 says that evolution and our connection to the animal kingdom gives us an
instinctive survival drive. Secondly, humans have cognitive abilities and self-awareness, so they
can contemplate the future. Thirdly, the awareness of the inevitability of death creates potential
for anxiety/terror. Culture then saves us by providing answers to questions such as “Why am I
here?” In so doing it provides a sense of order, meaning, and soothes the fear of death. Selfesteem becomes a sense of personal worth that depends on confidence in the worldview and the
fact that one is living up to its standards.
This is an interesting theory. However, I think the analysis might apply more readily to religion
than to cultural worldview.
Assessing Personality
Self-report inventories are personality scales that ask individuals to answer a series of questions
about their characteristic behaviors. They are scored using information from test development
& standardization and factor analysis. They should be reliable (yield similar scores across time
and situations), but can only be as accurate as the answers given by the respondent. They can be
faked. Projective tests offer ambiguous pictures or designs in hopes that test-takers will reveal
their personalities by projecting their feelings into the interpretation of the ambiguous stimuli.