Personality Personality: The organization of enduring behavior patterns that often serves to distinguish us from one another. Major Theories and Approaches: Psychoanalytic: Psychoanalytic Approach to Personality: The development in personality which is composed of three elements id, ego, and superego. 1.) The founder of psychoanalytic theory is Sigmund Freud. 2.) Freud divided the mind into two parts: -The conscious mind: includes everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally. A part of this includes our memory, which is not always part of consciousness but can be retrieved easily at any time and brought into our awareness. Freud called this ordinary memory the preconscious. -The unconscious mind: is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. According to Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even though we are unaware of these underlying influences. 3.) Freud’s three elements to developing personality include: -The Id: The id is the only component of personality that is present from birth. This aspect of personality is entirely unconscious and includes of the instinctive and primitive behaviors. According to Freud, the id is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary component of personality. The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a state anxiety or tension. For example, an increase in hunger or thirst should produce an immediate attempt to eat or drink. The id is very important early in life, because it ensures that an infant's needs are met. If the infant is hungry or uncomfortable, he or she will cry until the demands of the id are met. However, immediately satisfying these needs is not always realistic or even possible. If we were ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we might find ourselves grabbing things we want out of other people's hands to satisfy our own cravings. This sort of behavior would be both disruptive and socially unacceptable. According to Freud, the id tries to resolve the tension created by the pleasure principle through the primary process, which involves forming a mental image of the desired object as a way of satisfying the need. -The Ego: The ego is the component of personality that is responsible for dealing with reality. According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world. The ego functions in both the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind. The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. In many cases, the id's impulses can be satisfied through a process of delayed gratification-the ego will eventually allow the behavior, but only in the appropriate time and place. The ego also discharges tension created by unmet impulses through the secondary process, in which the ego tries to find an object in the real world that matches the mental image created by the id's primary process. -The Superego: The last component of personality to develop is the superego. The superego is the aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society--our sense of right and wrong. The superego provides guidelines for making judgments. According to Freud, the superego begins to emerge at around age five. -Major Neo-Freudians would include: -Carl Jung -Alfred Adler -Erik Erikson -Karen Horney -Erich Fromm Neo-Freudian Disagreements with Freud There are a few different reasons why these neo-Freudian thinkers disagreed with Freud. For example, Erik Erikson believed that Freud was incorrect to believe that personality is shaped almost entirely by childhood events. Other issues that motivated neo-Freudian thinkers included: 1. Freud's emphasis on sexual urges as a primary motivator 2. Freud's negative view of human nature 3. Freud's belief that personality is entirely shaped by early childhood experiences 4. Freud's lack of emphasis on social and cultural influences on behavior and personality While the neo-Freudian's may have been influenced by Freud, they developed their own unique theories and perspectives on human development, personality and behavior. 4.) Neo-Freudians: Neo-Freudian psychologists were thinkers who agreed with the basis of Freud's psychoanalytic theory, but changed and adapted the theory to incorporate their own beliefs, ideas and theories. Psychologist Sigmund Freud proposed a number of ideas that were highly controversial, but also attracted a number of followers. Many of these thinkers agreed with Freud's concept of the unconscious mind and the importance of early childhood. There were, however, a number of points that other thinkers disagree with or directly rejected. Because of this, these individuals went on to propose their own unique theories of personality. 5.) Psychoanalytic Theory on Defense Mechanisms: Freud's contributions to the psychodynamic theory of psychology cannot be understated. Although many of his initial conclusions and theories are no longer completely believed or utilized, many have been altered and still form the basis of the psychodynamic theory, as well as play an unspoken role in other psychological theories. One of these lasting theories is his theory on "ego defense," or what we commonly know as "defense mechanisms." Mechanisms which are said to operate "actively and involuntarily, without the person's awareness". Ego defenses are significant in that they deal with the internal threats of an individual. Just as the ego deals with threats of the external world through learning, memory, and judgments, the ego defenses deal with threatening unconscious thoughts. -The first of these five defenses is known as "repression." This basic form of ego defense is actually quite self-defining. Repression is the process of repressing or preventing threatening impulses from reaching the conscious, thus preventing it from over occurring. -"Fixation", is the stunted movement from one psychosexual stage to the next. It occurs when an individual experiences excessive frustration or anxiety concerning the next stage in psychosexual progression. Thus, instead of moving on, they remain fixed on one particular stage. -”Regression”, ego defense number three, deals with an individual experiencing frustration or anxiety with a current psychosexual stage, and regressing to a previous stage. Regression will generally involve an individual returning to a stage which caused them no anxiety, and in contrast brought them great satisfaction and gratification. -"Reaction formation" is the ego defense in which an individual expresses behaviorally the exact opposite of what they are unconsciously feeling. This is done through an unconscious impulse, although it is consciously expressed through one's behavior. -"Projection," the last of the ego defenses, is the instance in which one's feelings are attributed to another individual. Meaning, an individual experiencing projection will reverse their unconscious feelings as being the feelings of someone else toward themselves Humanist: Humanistic Approach to Personality: Believed that personality develops through actualizing tendency that unfolds perceptions of the world 1.) Believes that people are naturally inclined to do good things, love, and to be creative. 2.) People Involved: Carl Rogers: He made up the “Actualizing Tendency”- The theory that we all want to be the best that we can be. He also believed that there are 2 key elements; “self” and desire for “positive regard”. We all experience unconditional; or conditional positive regard (getting a sense or not of being valued by someone else). Abraham Maslow: Maslow stated that actualizing is not just a capacity, but a need as well. He also believes that most people do not reach goals because they’re distracted by lower needs. “Deficiency Orientation”: he stated that this means the preoccupation with perceived needs- we focus on our flaws and we are barely satisfied with our lives. He also made the “Growth Orientation”: which means the tendency to draw satisfaction from what is available in life. A person still has a desire to grow, but satisfied. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: We must obtain from the bottom, up. Criticism: Humanism is vague and individual bias is present. Cognitive: Cognitive Theories: emphasizes cognitive process such as thinking and judging. Essentially, the cognitive perspective of personality is the idea that people are who they are because of the way they think, including how information is attended to, perceived, analyzed, interpreted, encoded and retrieved. People tend to have habitual thinking patterns which are characterized as personality. Your personality, then, would be your characteristic cognitive patterns. The cognitive perspective is that personality is a person’s mental organization. In order to cope with all the information you receive from the world, including sensory information, you need to cope with, integrate and organize all the information the world throws at you. From this point of view you are: 1. what you think. 2. The way you process information (including attending to, perceiving, interpreting, encoding and retrieving of information. 3. The way you self-regulate via cognitive monitoring and adjusting thoughts and behaviors. The cognitive approach is the outgrowth of Bandura’s sociallearning perspectives. Recall that Bandura’s approach has come to be called social cognitive theory. Bandura’s beliefs about the environment and expectations about the self are essentially cognitive concepts. The cognitive approach also draws on Freud’s notions concerning levels of consciousness. The preconscious and the unconscious are receiving increasing attention from many proponents of the cognitive approach to personality. Traits: Traits: People’s characteristic behaviors and conscious motives to act/ feel around others. 1.) We do not just have one trait. We are made of many traits. 2.) A person may have the trait of being extraverted, where as they seek stimulation because their normal brain arousal is relatively low. 3.) We can assess traits by personality inventories such as the MMPI. Personality inventories: a questionnaire (T/F) - people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors- used to assess selected personality traits. 4.) MN Multiphase Personality Inventory (MMPI) - most widely used- originally developed to identify emotional disorders, but now used for many other screening purposes. 5.) there are 5 big personality factors with traits: -Conscientiousness (organized/disorganized) -Agreeableness (trusting/ suspicious) -Neuroticism (calm/ anxious) -Openness (imaginary/ practical) -Extraversion (sociable/ retiring) 6.) As we get older, our personality traits become more persistent. Social Learning: The social cognitive perspective proposes that our personalities are shaped by the interaction of our personal traits, environment, and behaviors. Theorists believe that much of our behaviors are learned through conditioning or by observing others and modeling their behavior. The mental process and what we think about is highly emphasized in this model. They also focus not on just our environment by how our thoughts and our environment interact. Reciprocal determinism is the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment. For example the TV you watched in the past will influence what you will watch Albert Bandura viewed the personenvironment as reciprocal determinism, and proposed the social-cognitive perspective. -With the social cognitive theory comes the Biopsychosocial perspective which believes a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors that influence personality. Behavioral: Behavioral Theories: personality results from interaction between and individual and the environment around them. Behavioral Theorists: Study observable and measurable behaviors They reject theories that take internal thought and feelings into account B.F. Skinner: most known for Operant Conditioning Operant Conditioning: method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Components for Operant Conditioning: 1. Reinforcements: strengthens or increases behavior a. Positive Reinforcements: favorable events or outcomes that are presented after the behavior. b. Negative Reinforcements: the removal of an unfavorable events or outcomes a certain behavior. 2. Punishments: presents a decrease in the behavior. a. Positive Punishments: an unfavorable event or outcome in order to weaken the behavior. b. Negative Punishments: favorable event or outcome is removed after a behavior decreases. Example: Students finish their homework to earn a reward from either a parent or teacher. J.B. Watson: behaviorist who studied Classical and Operant Conditioning. 1. Classical Conditioning: naturally occurring stimulus is paired with a response. 2. Operant Conditioning: occurs through rewards and punishments. Famous Studies: 1. Little Albert Experiment Credits: Psychoanalytic- Ryan X. Humanistic- Jackie O. Cognitive- Ashley M. Traits- Jackie O. Social Learning- Mike M. Behavioral- Ashley M.