Chapter 10:
Personality
I. “Personality"
Unique pattern of thoughts, feelings, behaviors that persists across time and across situations
II. Psychodynamic Theories
A. Introduction
1. Freud (1856-1939)
2. Biologically based motives (love/lust/sex; death/risk/aggressiveness) determine behavior
B. Freud’s theory
1. General Structure of mental life
a. Conscious
b. Pre-conscious
c. Unconscious
2. Personality Structure
a. Id
b. Ego
c. Super-ego
3. Personality Dynamics
a. Pleasure Principle
b. Reality Principle
c. Ego Ideal and Conscience
4. Personality Development
a. Libido -- the energy generated by desire. Eros (love/lust/sex) and Thanatos
(death/risk/aggressiveness)
b. Stages and erogenous zones:
(1) Oral
(2) Anal
(3) Phallic
(4) Latent
(5) Genital
c. Oedipal/Electra Complexes During Phallic Stage
5. Personality Disturbances
a. Fixation: e.g., oral, anal
b. Defense mechanisms (pp. 392-394)
(1). Basis for neuroses
(2). Denial, repression, projection, identification, regression,
intellectualization, reaction formation, displacement, sublimation,
*rationalization
C. Neo-Freudian theories
1. More emphasis on social motives and drives, and less on biological
2. Ego active, stronger.
D. Carl Jung (1875-1961)
1. Personal and collective unconscious
2. Archetypes
3. Persona
4. Extrovert/Introvert
E. Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
1. Compensation
2. Inferiority Complex
F. Karen Horney (1885-1952)
1. Anxiety
2. Neurotic trends
G. Erik Erikson (1902-1994)
8 stages and crises
H. Overall evaluation
1. Re females: Does anatomy determine destiny? What about role of culture?
2. Importance of childhood psychosexual events?
3. Retrospective approach?
4. Supporting anthropological evidence?
III. Humanistic Personality Theories
A. General principles
1. Humanistic theory emphasizes that we are positively motivated and progress toward
higher levels of functioning--in other words, that there is more to human existence than
dealing with hidden conflicts.
2. The “experiencing person” is of primary interest, especially the potential for growth.
3. Human choice, creativity, and self-actualization are preferred topics of psychological
investigation.
4. Meaningfulness precedes objectivity in the selection of research problems.
5. Ultimate value is placed on dignity of person.
B. Carl Rogers' Self Theory
1. Self-actualizing tendency, fully functioning
2. Grow, mature, develop according to own goals and values
3. Person centered rather than theory centered.
4. People respond better to unconditional than conditional positive regard.
C. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy (see p. 275)
D. Evaluation
1. Emphasizes whole person
2. Representative of broad class of people?
Characteristics of self-actualizers
1. Perceives reality efficiently
2. Accepting
3. Spontaneous
4. Problem-centered, rather than self-centered
5. Good sense of humor
6. Creative
7. Resistant to enculturation
8. Concerned for welfare of humanity
9. Deeply appreciates basic experiences of life
10. Deep, satisfying interpersonal relations with a few, rather than many people
11. Objective
Behaviors leading to self-actualization
1. Experiences life as a child does
2. Willing to try something new
3. Listens to own feelings, rather than tradition, authority, or majority
4. Honest with self and others
5. Be prepared to be unpopular if views do not coincide with majority
6. Assume responsibility
7. Work hard
8. Identify defenses, and have the courage to give them up.
IV. Trait theories
A. Introduction
1. Personality Traits are dimensions or characteristics on which people differ in distinctive
ways.
2. Traits inferred from behavior
B. Allport and Odbert found nearly 18,000 (17,953) words which described personal traits. Boiled
down to about 2,800 stable and enduring traits.
1. Traits for Allport are “dispositions” which are somehow encoded into the nervous system
as structures that guide consistent behavior across a wide variety of situations.
2. Traits were at 3 levels. In decreasing order of importance:
cardinal > central > secondary.
C. Raymond Cattell
1. Factor analysis: Cattell rated people on different trait dimensions, and found that traits
tended to cluster into groups.
2. Cattell found that he could reduce the nearly 18,000 trait-descriptors to 16 basic trait
dimensions: 17,953 => 4,500 => 200 => 16 pf
3. Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors
D. Eysenck: 3 basic trait dimensions:
1. Emotional Stability: whether persons control their emotions
2. Introversion-Extraversion: whether persons are inwardly or outwardly oriented.
3. Psychoticism: whether persons are insensitive and uncooperative on one end to warm
and cooperative on the other hand.
E. Contemporary trait theory: "Big Five" (Table 10-1)
1. OCEAN- The five factors
a. Openness
b. Conscientiousness
c. Extroversion
d. Agreeableness
e. Neuroticism (emotional stability)
2. Some suggestion these may be cross-cultural and universal
F. Evaluation of trait approach
1. Origin/nature of traits?
2. Static vs. dynamic?
3. Situational determinants and inconsistency?
G. Consistency controversy: Walter Mischel
1. Our intuitions tell us that the behavior of individuals should be consistent across time and
situations.
2. Our research tells us it is not.
3. Given this fundamental discrepancy, how can theorists nevertheless maintain a belief
that an individual's personality should be described in terms of relatively stable and enduring
personal possessions, such as traits?
4. Possible resolutions of controversy
a. Inconsistency illusory?
b. Behavior always an interaction between personality traits and situation?
V. Cognitive/Social-Learning Theories
A. Albert Bandura
1. Blend of behavioral and cognitive approaches: "reciprocal determinism"
a. Direct experiences with environment
b. Emphasizes vicarious, symbolic experiences (observation, imitation)
2. Features
a. Expectancies
b. Performance standards
c. Self-efficacy
B. Julian Rotter and Locus of Control
1. An internal locus of control describes those who are convinced that they control their
own destiny. (similar to Bandura’s Self-Efficacy)
2. An external locus of control describes those who are convinced that outside forces
determine their fate; that they have little control over events.
C. Similarities between Rotter and Bandura
1. Both attempt to combine personal variables with situational variables in an effort to
understand the complexities of human behavior.
2. Both maintain that expectancies become part of a person’s explanatory style, which in
turn, influences his or her behavior and thus shapes his or her personality.
D. Evaluation of cognitive-social approach
VI. Personality Assessment
A. Methods
1. Personal interview
2. Observation
B. General considerations
1. Reliability
2. Validity
C. Objective assessment
1. Introduction
2. Cattell's 16 PF
3. MMPI-2
D. Projective assessment
1. Introduction
2. Rorschach
3. TAT
4. Reliability/validity?