Chapter 14: Personality
(overview)
Personality is defined asan individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and
acting. In this study of Psychology, we will evaluate four different perspectives on
personality, which include the Psychoanalytic Theory, the Trait Perspective, the
Humanistic Approach and the Social-Cognitive Approach.
It is important to note the major players in the area of personality research, such as
Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Karen Horney, Gordon Allport, Hans Eysenck,
Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Albert Bandura.
Students will study these four perspectives and should ultimately identify the differences
in their explanations of behavior, the assessment techniques employed by each
perspective and their strengths and criticisms.
(lesson 1: Pages 420- 430 in Myers 5th edition or module #39, pages 503-515 in Myers
modules)
The Psychoanalytic Perspective
This approach to the study of personality comes from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic
theory that proposes that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence
personality. It is important to understand the following terms:
1. Psychoanalysis-Technique of treating psychological disorders by seeking to
expose and interpret unconscious tensions Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of
personality sought to explain what he observed during psychoanalysis.
2. Free Association Method of exploring the unconscious. The patient relaxes and
says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.
3. The Unconscious Freud it is a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts,
wishes, feelings and memories. In contemporary terms, it is the place for
information processing of which we are unaware.
4. Preconscious- information that is not conscious but is retrievable into conscious
awareness.
Freudian Personality Structure
Freud believed that personality arose from the conflicts between three interacting and
conflicting systems: the id, ego, and superego.
ID- Described as the pool of psychological drives that arise from physiological needs
for such things as food, water, warmth, sexual gratification, etc. It operates on the
“pleasure principle” in that it seeks only its own pleasure with no regard for logic or
reason. According to Freud, the id is like a selfish, demanding and impulsive child.
2. SUPEREGO- The part of personality that represents the moral standards of society; it
is the voice of conscience. A strong superego may impose guilt and it demands restraint.
A weak superego may be self-indulgent and remorseless.
3. EGO- Defined as the conscious, “executive” part of one’s personality in that it
mediates among the demands of the id, superego and reality. The ego operates on the
reality principle and strives to satisfy the id’s desires without causing feeling of guilt or
remorse.
Defense Mechanisms
According to the psychoanalytic theory, defense mechanisms are mental strategies used
by the ego to protect itself from anxiety.
Repression is considered the most basic defense mechanism that pushes anxiety-arousing
thoughts, feelings and memories into the unconscious; the ultimate aim of all defense
mechanisms. A so-called “Freudian slip” is considered an incomplete repression, an
anxiety-arousing thought that has “slipped” out. Other defense mechanisms include:
1. Regression- occurs when a person faced with anxiety behaves in a way
characteristic of an earlier more infantile stage of life.
2. Reaction Formation- occurs when the ego unconsciously replaces an anxietyproducing impulse with its opposite. People may express feelings that are the
opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings. For example, a person
strongly attracted to pornography may vehemently protest against the distribution
of it. (“He doth protest too much”)
3. Projection- this occurs when people unknowingly attribute their own
objectionable impulses to others. For example, a cheating husband may be
suspicious of his wife and accuse her of being unfaithful. (“The thief thinks
everyone else is a thief.”)
4. Displacement- this is a defense mechanism that occurs when a person “transfers”
unacceptable feeling from the appropriate target to a “safer” one. For example, a
person belittled by his boss or his peers may return home and vent his anger on
his wife and children.
5. Sublimation- forbidden impulses are redirected toward a more socially
acceptable goal.
6. Rationalization- this occurs when one attempts to justify the reasons for one’s
actions in an attempt to avoid facing the real, less acceptable reason.
Personality Development
Freud believed that a person’s personality was developed very early in life. He felt that a
child passes through various “psychosexual stages” of development during which the
id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones. He believed that the
more significant influences on personality arise from the unconscious, which contains
emotions connected to early childhood experiences. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
include the following:
1.Oral (0-18 months): Pleasure focuses on the mouth (sucking, biting, chewing).
2.Anal (18-36 months): Pleasure involves bowel and bladder elimination. During this
time toilet training is usually imposed and the child must cope with demands for control.
3.Phallic (3-6 years): Pleasure involves the genitals. At this time Freud believed that a
young boy may develop an “Oedipus Complex” (* see below) and must cope with
incestuous sexual feelings.
4.Latency (ages 6 to puberty): Dormant sexual feelings and children are busy focusing
on social situations and play mostly with peers of the same sex.
5.Genital (puberty+): Maturation of sexual interests and feels of sexual attraction
towards others.
* Oedipus Complex- a boy’s sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of
jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
Fixation was a term used by Freud to describe a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking
energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved (can occur in
the oral, anal or phallic stage). For example, according to Freud, people who never
resolved the anal conflict (the conflict between the child’s id impulses and society’s
rules) may be messy and disorganized (anal expulsive) or highly controlled and
compulsively neat (anal retentive).
Neo-Freudians
Freud’s descendants continued to accept his basic ideas on personality structure and
development, the unconscious mind, and the role of defense mechanisms in the reduction
of stress. They however emphasized a conscious interpretation of experience criticized
Freud’s emphasis on sex and aggression as all-consuming motivators. Take note of the
following neo-Freudians:
1. Alfred Adler- focused on the importance of childhood social tension in
personality development and not sexual tension.
2. Karen Horney- sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases and disagreed with
his theory of penis envy.
3. Carl Jung- emphasized the idea of a collective unconscious…the concept of a
shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history. He
believed that the unconscious held more than just repressed thoughts and feelings.
How do You Assess The “Unconscious” Mind?
To evaluate the contents of the unconscious mind, psychoanalysts are not interested in
objective tests that assess conscious knowledge. Instead, they wish to reveal and to
explore hidden conflicts and impulses. Projective personality tests attempt to assess the
unconscious by providing ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger the projection of one’s
inner feelings. Two examples include:
1.
2.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)- a projective test in which people
express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make
up about ambiguous pictures.
Rorschach Inkblot Test- designed by Hermann Rorschach, it is the
most widely used projective test and uses a set of 10 inkblots to identify
people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
Evaluating the psychoanalytic perspective
Critics have suggested that Freud’s ideas lack good scientific evidence and offer only
after-the fact explanations with no predictive ability. Developmental psychologists argue
that personality development is lifelong and not completed in childhood while gender
identity (the sense of being male or female) occurs much earlier in childhood than Freud
has suggested and research has shown that gender identity occurs even without a samesex parent as a role model. Lastly, although there are cases of repressed memories, more
often negative and traumatic events are remembered well.
Having said that, Freud’s ideas changed people’s perspectives in that they drew attention
to the unconscious, to the effects of anxiety and our ability to cope with it, and to our
struggle with balancing biological impulses and social acceptance. His language, which
included the terms ego, repression, “anal”, fixation, and having a complex is the source
of many expressions that we use today.
(lesson 2: pages 430-436 in Myers 5th edition or module #40, pages 517-526 in Myers
modules)
The Trait Perspective
Gordon Allport attempted to explain personality in terms of a person’s pattern of
behaviors, or traits. Unlike Freud, Allport was concerned with a person’s conscious
motives and instead of explaining the reasons for certain behaviors, Allport focused on
describing individual traits.
The assessment of personality traits is usually carried out with the aid of Personality
Inventories, questionnaires (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which
people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors.
William Sheldon classified people according to their body type assuming that there was a
connection between a particular body shape and personality type. According to Sheldon,
the plump endomorph is typically relaxed and jolly, the muscular mesomorph is typically
bold and energetic, and the thin ectomorph is seen as high-strung and solitary.
Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenck used factor analysis to statistically identify clusters of
behaviors and thus identify a particular trait. For example, behaviors such as avoiding
crowds, preference for solitary activities, difficulty in showing affection, and dreading
social events taken together may indicate an introverted personality. The Eysencks use
two main personality factors: extraversion-introversion and stability-instability for
their analysis. They believe that varying the combination of these traits produce more
specific traits.
Currently, many believe that the best description of personality using basic traits is seen
in a test called the “Big Five” personality factors. The basic trait dimensions include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Emotional Stability
Extraversion
Openness
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
For instance, one would be considered an extravert if they were affectionate (vs.
reserved), talkative (vs. quiet), active (vs. passive) and passionate (vs. unfeeling).
Researchers can also assess several traits at once by using personality inventories. The
most widely used is the MMPI otherwise known as the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory which was originally developed to identify emotional disorders
and is now used now used for many other personality screening purposes. It is an
empirically derived test and in contrast to the subjectivity of projective tests, the set of
MMPI tests are scored objectively and often by computer.
Some people consider astrology and palm reading as an alternative ways of assessing
traits. Astrologers have a keen way of taking statements that are commonly true for
everyone and making them sound specifically descriptive of their client. An example
would be when your horoscope states: “you are worried about something more than you
let on”. Acceptance of such statements as personally accurate is called the Barnum
effect.
Evaluating the Trait Perspective
With respect to trait assessment, it is possible that people can fake desirable responses on
self-report measures of personality. Research does show however that averaging behavior
across several situations seems to indicate that people do have distinct personality traits.
Genetic studies have supported the claim that genetic predispositions influence most
personality types and that many traits are biologically rooted.
(lesson 3: pages 436-444 in Myers 5th edition or module #41, pages 527-537 in Myers
modules).
Humanistic Perspective
Humanistic psychologists are not interested in hidden motives or assessing traits, instead
they focus on nurturing growth and self-fulfillment. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
studied self-actualization processes of productive and healthy people. Self-actualization
is defined as the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and
psychological needs such as the need for food, security, love, etc. are met and self-esteem
is achieved; it is the need to fulfill one’s potential (see Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in
unit 11, lesson 1).
While Maslow focused on self-actualization, Carl Rogers (1902-1987) emphasized
people’s potential for growth and fulfillment. Rogers suggested that the process
involving this person-centered perspective required three conditions:
1. Genuineness
2. Acceptance (unconditional positive regard)
3. Empathy
Unconditional Positive Regard refers to having an attitude of total acceptance toward
another person. Being empathetic requires one to listen carefully and reflectively to
another person and to be nonjudgmental.
For both psychologists, a person’s beliefs about themselves or their self-concept is
central to one’s personality. Assessment techniques would naturally include
questionnaires regarding one’s self-concept. Research shows that people with high selfesteem (high self-worth) are more likely to be healthier, happier and more accepting of
others compared with those having low self-esteem.
A self-affirming attitude is obviously adaptive and some feel that we are all programmed
to make the effort to see ourselves in a more positive light. Self-Serving Bias is defined
as a readiness to perceive oneself favorably. Research has shown that generally we do
accept more responsibility for good deeds and successes than for our failures and we see
ourselves as better than the average Joe. Many studies have shown although we all suffer
from feelings of inferiority at times, we tend toward self-serving perceptions.
Culture and the Individual
Our identities are molded in the context of the cultures in which they have developed.
In ndividualistic cultures such North American culture, a person gives priority to his
own goals over group goals and defines his identity in terms of his own personal
characteristics rather than group characteristics. Collectivism on the other hand describes
a culture in which there is priority given to the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended
family or work group) and defining one’s identity accordingly. Collectivist cultures such
as Asian cultures give priority to family identity and the goals of the group. North
Americans on the other hand, emphasize personal identity and individual goals and
aspirations.
Evaluating The Humanistic Perspective
Critics of this theory suggest that concepts like “self-actualization” are vague and lack
objectivity and that the emphasis on “self” may promote a lack of concern for others.
Although it is the most optimistic personality perspective, this theory does not
acknowledge human capacity for evil. The humanistic perspective however has strongly
influenced our ideas on child rearing, education, management, counseling, etc.
(lesson 4: pages 445-451 in Myers 5th edition or module #42, pages 538-543 in Myers
modules)
Social-Cognitive Perspecitve
Coined the social-cognitive perspective by Albert Bandura, its proponents believe that
our behaviors are influenced by our environment and by our sense of personal control in
a particular environment or situation. They apply principles of learning, cognition, and
social behavior to personality and emphasize ways in which personality is influenced by
interaction with our environment.
Reciprocal Determinism
Bandura used the term Reciprocal Determinism to describe the process of interacting
influences between personality and environmental factors. For example, television
influences viewing preferences, which in turn influences behavior.
We are reminded that:
1. Different individuals prefer different environments.
2. Individual differences in personalities dictate how we interpret and react to
situations.
3. These differences in personality are partly responsible for creating the
situations to which we respond.
Our Sense Of Personal Control
Social-cognitive psychologists also emphasize our sense of Personal Control, our sense
of whether or not we feel that we have control or are controlled by our environments.
According to them there are two extremes when it comes to perceptions of control:
External Locus of Control- this is the perception that outside forces beyond
one’s personal control determines a person’s fate.
2. Internal Locus of Control- this is the perception that one controls one’s own
fate. Studies show that “internals” achieve more in school, act more
independently and feel less depressed than do “externals”. Internals tend to be
better at delaying gratification and coping with stress.
Usually when a person feels helpless it suggests that he or she perceives control as
external and that there is nothing that they can do to make things right. These feelings
may lead to Learned Helplessness, the hopelessness and passive resignation that an
animal or human learns when they are unable to avoid repeated aversive events. It refers
to losing the drive to help oneself and it is this perceived control that is vital to healthy
human functioning.
It has been shown through many studies that Optimism or lack thereof affects wellbeing. Depression and hopelessness weakens the immune system thereby reducing the
effectiveness of the disease-fighting immune system. A person’s attributional style is
linked to how optimistic or how pessimistic one is. If your attributional style is positive
then you attribute poor performance to something that you can change. For instance, a
poor test score would motivate you to change your study habits. If your attributional style
is negative you may blame the teacher or attribute poor performance to a lack of ability.
It is this sense of lacking control in one’s life that leads to pessimism and feelings of
hopelessness.
Assessment Techniques
Assessment techniques include studies of people’s feelings of personal control. To these
theorists, the best means of predicting people’s future behavior is not personality tests or
an interviewer’s intuition. Rather, it is past behavior in similar situations. For example,
they would suggest that the best predictor of future grades is past grades or that the best
predictor of future aggressiveness is past aggressiveness.
Evaluating this perspective
This perspective is often criticized for underestimating people’s unconscious motives,
emotions and dispositions (traits).
However, this perspective has been developed from research on learning and cognition
and reminds us of the importance of social situations with respect to how they affect us as
well as how we affect the situation. Ultimately, the cognitive-behavioral theory is
currently the predominant psychological approach to explaining human behavior.
**See table at end of chapter (14.4 in 5th edition or page 545 in Myers modules) “The
Four Perspectives on Personality”.