Personality
Defined: the consistent and distinctive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that an
individual engages in
Cultural beliefs can actually shape personality development
Sigmund Freud:
-studied the nervous system
-symptoms seemed to originate from emotional trauma
-sought advice from neurologist Jean Charcot, & advice from psychiatrist Joseph Breuer
(talking cure)
-Freud encouraged his patients to talk about their symptoms
-Freud’s model of the mind—iceberg
-Freud proposed that personality has three structures and each structure has different
operating principles and different goals that often conflict with the others’ goals
unconscious--id
preconscious--superego
conscious--ego
erogenous zone: each psychosexual stage is characterized by a part of the body
fixation
oral-first year of life
anal-ages 2-3
phallic-ages 4-5
latency-ages 6-11
genital-puberty +
the ego uses these defense mechanisms:
Rationalization: people offer logical self-justifying explanations
Reaction formation: people express unacceptable feelings or ideas by consciously
expressing their exact opposite
Displacement: people divert their sexual or aggressive
Projection: people perceive their own aggressive or sexual urges not in themselves, but
in others
Regression: people faced with intense anxiety psychologically retreat to a more infantile
developmental stage where some psychic energy remains fixated
-has limitations, but unconscious processes DO shape human behavior, childhood
experiences DO shape adult personality, and learning to regulate impulses IS critical for
healthy development
NEO-FREUDIANS
Alfred Adler:
-Austrian psychologist
-founder of the school of individual (undivided) psychology (see people as whole not
parts)
-rejected the Freudian emphasis upon sex as the root of neurosis
-maintained that feelings of helplessness during childhood can lead to an inferiority
complex
-Adler's theory: social forces, and his therapy, while still concerned with the analysis of
early childhood, is also interested in overcoming the inferiority complex through positive
social interaction
Inferiority: attention becomes focused on self because life is dealing a tough hand
Compensation: making up for deficiencies
Striving for perfection: desire to fulfill our potentials, closer to ideal us
Striving for Superiority vs. Inferiority Complex
Covering up inferiority by pretending to be superior (bullies)
Being overwhelmed by feelings of inferiority-neurosis
Psychological Types: (heuristics NOT absolutes)
Ruling type-aggressive and dominating, will push over anything/body to get what they
want. Bipolar………….bullies/sadists
alcoholics/drug addicts
Leaning type-sensitive w/ shell of protection and dependent. When overwhelmed
develop neurotic symptoms (i.e., phobias, OC, anxiety, etc.).
Avoiding type-avoid life (other people), when overwhelmed become psychotic and
internal
Socially useful type-healthy, social interest and energy
Prototype:
-Fixed by age 5
-New experiences do not change the prototype, instead, are force fit into it
Karen Horney
-stressed environment and culture
-countered Freud’s idea that women have weak super egos causing “penis envy”
-childhood anxiety causes a sense of helplessness, which triggers the need for love and
security
-anxiety is created by anything that decreases one’s security
-best theory for neurosis, continuous with normal life (control/coping)
-10 patterns of neurotic needs, basic needs distorted by a person’s difficult life (anxiety)
3 Coping Strategies:
Compliance-moving-forward strategy and the effacing solution
Aggression-moving-against and the expansive solution
Withdrawal-moving-away-from and the resigning solution
-healthy people have an accurate concept, self-realization
-neurotic people have a bipolar view of the self
despised self……………..ideal self
“striving for glory”
Carl Rogers
-we are born with the need for positive regard, acceptance sympathy love
-unconditional positive regard: inherent worthiness of love no matter what
-positive self-regard: feel good about ourself
-conditions of worth: circumstances which we approve and disapprove of ourself
-phenomenology: emphasis of conscious experience, creative potential, inborn
motivtivation for self-actualization (total realization of one’s potential)
-behavior is an immediate reaxn to self-environment interplay
-self: organized consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself
-self-concept, early life, established we maintain through self-consistency and selfcongruence (perceptions & experience)
-anxiety occurs when things go against our self-concept
-healthy people can adapt by bending the rules of the concept
Trait Theorists
-A trait is a relatively stable tendency to behave in a particular way, small building blocks
of personality
-Trait perspective is more concerned with describing how people differ from one another
than in explaining why they differ
Eysenck’s Extraversion-Stability Model (1916-97)
‘lumper’
-Normal personality in 2 dimensions “supertraits”
-1967, suggested biological basis: intro-extro, stab-unstab differences in arousal patterns
w/in the brain
-(1990) Preferred level where extreme extro chronically underaroused therefore need
frequent stimulation, extreme intro overaroused therefore need to minimize/reduce
arousal
-Stability represents suddenness of shifts in arousal
--Unstable show large sudden shifts
--Stable show smaller gradual shifts
-Neuroticism: extremely unstable likely to experience emotional problems requiring
clinical attention
-Genetic bases comes from twin studies (monozygotic)
Raised together, identical twins have more similar traits than do fraternal twins,
indicating a moderate genetic influence.
The trait correlations for identical twins reared apart are considerably lower than
for those reared together, suggesting that environment also influences trait
development.
Social Cognitive Perspective
-reciprocal determinism, which is the belief that personality emerges from an ongoing
mutual interaction among people's cognitions, their actions, and their environment.
Most important cognitive factor in reciprocal determinism is self-efficacy
Julian Rotter-Locus of Control
-degree to which we expect that outcomes in our lives depend on our own actions and
personal characteristics versus the actions of uncontrollable environmental forces
-People who believe that outcomes occur because of their own efforts are
identified as having an internal locus of control.
-People who believe that outcomes are outside their own control are identified
as having an external locus of control
Projective Tests Are Designed to Reveal Inner Feeling, Motives, and
Conflicts
-psychological tests that ask people to respond to ambiguous stimuli or situations in ways
that will reveal their unconscious motives and desires
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Objective Tests Ask Direct Questions about a Person’s Thoughts,
Feelings, and Behavior
-personality tests that ask direct, unambiguous questions about a person’s thoughts,
feelings, and behavior
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)