AP Psychology
Unit 11: Personality
I. UNIT PREVIEW
Personality is one’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. Sigmund Freud, in his
psychoanalytic perspective, proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motives
influenced personality. For Sigmund Freud, conflict between pleasure-seeking biological
impulses and social restraints centered on three interacting systems: id, ego, and superego. Freud
believed that children develop through psychosexual stages and that people’s later problems are
rooted in how they resolve conflicts associated with these stages. The neo-Freudians agreed with
Freud’s basic ideas but placed more emphasis on the conscious mind and on social influences.
Today, psychodynamic theorists agree with many of Freud’s views but not his idea that sex is the
basis of personality. Contemporary research confirms that, more than most of us realize, our lives
are guided by nonconscious information processing. The humanistic perspective emphasizes the
growth potential of healthy people. Abraham Maslow believed that if basic human needs are met,
people will strive to actualize their highest potential. Carl Rogers suggested that being genuine,
accepting, and empathic helps others to develop a positive self-concept. The trait perspective
attempts to describe the predispositions that underlie our actions. Through factor analysis,
researchers have isolated five distinct dimensions of personality. People’s specific behaviors vary
across situations as their inner dispositions interact with particular environments. The socialcognitive perspective emphasizes how personal-cognitive factors combine with the environment
to influence behavior. More than other perspectives, it builds from research on learning and
cognition. Researchers assess how people’s behaviors and beliefs both affect and are affected by
their situations. Currently, the self is one of Western psychology’s more vigorously researched
topics. Studies confirm the benefits of positive self-esteem but also point to the possible hazards
of pride. Compared to defensive self-esteem, secure self-esteem depends less on external
evaluations and enables us to lose ourselves in relationships and purposes larger than self.
II. UNIT OBJECTIVES
Personality (5–7%)
In this section of the course, students explore major theories of how humans develop enduring patterns
of behavior and personal characteristics that influence how others relate to them. The unit also
addresses research methods used to assess personality.
AP students in psychology should be able to do the following:
• Compare and contrast the major theories and approaches to explaining personality: psychoanalytic,
humanist, cognitive, trait, social learning, and behavioral.
• Describe and compare research methods (e.g., case studies and surveys) that psychologists use to
investigate personality.
• Identify frequently used assessment strategies (e.g., the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
[MMPI], the Thematic Apperception Test [TAT]), and evaluate relative test quality based on
reliability and validity of the instruments.
• Speculate how cultural context can facilitate or constrain personality development, especially as it
relates to self-concept (e.g., collectivistic versus individualistic cultures).
• Identify key contributors to personality theory (e.g., Alfred Adler, Albert Bandura, Paul Costa and
Robert McCrae, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers).
III. CONCEPTS/VOCABULARY
1. defense Mechanisms
a. repression
b. sublimation
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
regression
reaction formation
projection
rationalization
displacement
sublimation
2. ego
3. external locus of control
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
humanistic psychology
Id
learned helplessness
MMPI
personality
positive psychology
projective test
reciprocal determinism
trait- Big Five
Unconditional positive regard
IV. READING QUESTIONS
Chapter 15:
Personality
HW#1: Due Date
Rd. Pg.595-Pg. 600
Q1. Describe Sigmund Freud’s early history as a psychologist and
physiologist
Q2. How did Feud explain the loss of feeling in one’s hand if there is
no physiological explanation?
Q3. Describe Freud’s belief that an iceberg is like unconsciousness?
Q4. How did Freud believe he could glimpse into the unconscious mind?
Q5. How did Sigmund Freud view jokes and dreams?
Q6. Describe the pleasure principle in the id
Q7. Describe the reality principle in the ego
Q8. How does the superego relate to the ego and id?
Q9. Describe Freud’s 5 psychosexual stages
Q10. Compare the Electra complex to the Oedipus complex
Q11. Describe gender identity
Q12. How would Freud describe an individual who is orally overindulged
or deprived?
Q13. Provide an example of repression, regression, reaction formation,
projection, rationalization, and displacement
Q14. How do these defense mechanisms function indirectly and
unconsciously?
HW#2: Due Date
Rd. Pg.601-Pg.604
Q1. Describe how the neo-Freudians accepted Freud’s basic ideas, and
how they veered away from Freud in two important ways
Q2. Describe Alfred Adler’s inferiority complex
Q3. Describe Karen Horney view of childhood anxiety and the masculine
view of psychology
Q4. Describe Carl Jung’s link of the collective unconscious to
spiritual concerns, myths and images
Q5. Which of Freud’s ideas were incorporated into the Psychodynamic
theory?
Q6. Why are objective assessment tools, such as agree-disagree or true-
false questionnaires inadequate in evaluating personality from the
unconscious perspective?
Q7. How did Henry Murray conceive the TAT as a Projective test?
Q8. Why so the Rosarch test not as good a test as an intelligence test
in terms of assessment
Q9. How did Edward Ronow and his colleagues prove the quality of the
Rosarch test?
HW#3: Due Date
Rd.Pg: 604-609
Q1. Describe the accolades and criticism of the Rosarch test?
Q2. How has modern evidence contradicted Freud’s theories on gender
identity, parental influence, and childhood sexuality
Q3. Describe the evidence that the human mind does not repress bad
thoughts?
Q4. Describe Lewickiâ’s experimental results on nonconcious learning on
anticipating patterns
Q5. Describe the 7 pieces of evidence from the text that the modern
researchers view compared to Sigmund Freud’s view of the unconscious
Q6. Based on the terror management theory, how would people act facing
a threatening world?
Q7. How do researchers compare the false consensus effect, to
projection?
Q8. What do critics find do be most serious with Freud’s problems?
Q9. Which o Freud’s ideas are still considered to be enduring?
HW#4: Due Date
Rd. Pg.609-Pg.612
Q1. How did Abraham Maslow develop his idea for self-actualization?
Q2. What did Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Eleanor Roosevelt
share as common characteristics that allowed them to achieve selfactualization?
Q3. What did Maslow’s work with college students lead him to speculate
about self-actualization?
Q4. Carl Rogers believed that a growth-promoting climate required which
three conditions?
Q5. Rogers believed that these three conditions could be nurtured in
which relationships between
people?
Q6. How would a self-concept be regarded as positive?
Q7. What is the changed item on the MMPI that humanistic psychologists
can take satisfaction in?
Q8. What are the criticisms of humanistic psychology?
Q9. Why did critics object to the statement made by Carl Rogers “Am I
living in a way which is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly
expresses me?”
Q10. How does humanistic psychology fail to appreciate the reality of
our human capacity for evil?
HW#5: Due Date
Rd. Pg 613-Pg.615
Q1. How did Gordon Allport come to define personality?
Q2. Describe the Myers-Briggs Type indicator
Q3. What does the National Research Council note bout the Myers-Briggs
personality test despite its popularity?
Q4. How did British psychologists Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenk believe
that we can reduce many of our normal individual variations to two or
three dimensions
Q5. Describe the brain-activity scans of extraverts
Q6. How did Jerome Kagen exemplify temperament?
Q7. Do animals have personalities, and provide examples from the text?
Hw#6: Due Date
Rd. Pg. 615- Pg.622
Q1. Based on the reading passage on Pg.616-pg.617, could we discern
people’s traits from the alignments of the stars and planets at the
time of our birth? From their handwriting, from lines on their palms?
Q2. Describe the attributes of the most extensively researched
personality inventory is the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI)
Q3. Describe the criticisms of the MMPI
Q4. List the five traits dimensions of the big five personality factors
Q5. Describe the 4 research questions referring to the big 5
personality factors
Q6. Explain the person-situation controversy
Q7. Why does inconsistency in behavior make personality test scores
weak predictors of behaviors?
Q8. Provide evidence discussing personality stability with age
Q9. Describe the three studies reported by Sammuel Gossling and his
colleague demonstrating how our traits are socially significant
Q10. Describe the studies of Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal in
video taping 13 Harvard University graduate students teaching
undergraduate courses
Q11. Describe the study regarding physician malpractice suits
Q12. What were the conclusions derived from Bella DePaulo and her
colleagues concerning people’s voluntary controls over their
expressiveness
Q13. Based on the experiments conducted by Maurice Levesque and David
Kenny, and Peter Brorkena and his coworkers, could we size up how
outgoing someone within seconds and why?
Q14. Do personality traits stay stable across different situations, and
provide an example of why you might agree or disagree?
HW#7: Due Date
Rd Pg. 622- Pg.631
Q1. Describe the beliefs of social-cognitive theorists
Q2. Describe the three specific ways in which individuals and the
environment interact
Q3. What is the pervasive theme in psychology and in the book?
Q4. Describe the two ways psychologists study the effect of personal
control
Q5. Describe the differences between individuals who have internal
locus of control vs. individuals who display external loss of control
Q6. How do Roy Baummiester and Julia Exline describe self control
Q7. How does Martin Seligman demonstrate learned helplessness in dogs?
Q8. Describe the famous study of nursing home patients
Q9. Does increasing choice breed happier lives, and how does it explain
tyranny of choice?
Q10. Dhow did Seligman and Schulman explain optimism versus pessimism
in professional achievement
Q11. How does excessive optimism blind us to real risks
Q12. Describe the ”ignorance of one’s own incompetence” phenomenon
Q13. How do military and educational organizations assess behavior in
situations, and describe the benefits
Q14. What are the criticisms of the social-cognitive perspective?\
HW#8: Due Date
Rd. Pg.631 Pg.636
Q1. How does Hazel Markus and her colleagues describe the concept of
the possible selves?
Q2. How does the spotlight effect attribute of people’s fear of public
speaking?
Q3. Describe the self-reference phenomenon?
Q4. Describe some correlations between self-esteem and personal
problems?
Q5. Describe the results of the experiments that reveal an effect of
low self-esteem
Q6. How do members of stigmatized groups that have faced discrimination
and lower status, maintain self-esteem?
Q7. Describe the numerous findings in the text regarding our selfserving bias
Q8. Describe Bushman’s and Baumeister’s experiment with the dark-side
of self-esteem
Q9. Describe defensive self-esteem and secure self-esteem.