CHAPTER 14
Personality
OUTLINE
I.
THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH
The psychodynamic approach, developed by Freud, emphasizes the interplay of unconscious
psychological processes in determining human thought, feelings, and behavior. The basis of this
approach is that psychological factors play a major role in determining behavior and shaping
personality.
A.
The Structure and Development of Personality
According to Freud, personality develops out of each person’s struggle to satisfy needs for
food, water, air, sex, and aggression. Personality is reflected in how each person goes about
satisfying these needs.
1.
2.
3.
B.
Id, Ego, and Superego. Personality is composed of three structures: the id, the ego, and
the superego. The id, which operates according to the pleasure principle, contains the
life instincts, called Eros, and death instincts, called Thanatos. Libido, or psychic
energy, is a product of the life instincts. The ego, which operates according to the
reality principle, attempts to satisfy id impulses while obeying society’s rules. As we
internalize parents’ and society’s rules, the superego forms to tell us right from wrong.
Conflicts and Defenses. The ego uses defense mechanisms to protect the individual
from feeling anxious about id impulses.
Stages in Personality Development. Freud believed that personality develops in
psychosexual stages; in each stage a part of the body becomes the child’s main source
of pleasure. Failure to resolve conflicts at any stage can cause fixation, an unconscious
preoccupation with the pleasure area associated with that stage. Personality
characteristics are a reflection of each person’s fixation(s).
The oral stage occurs during the first year of life because the mouth is the center of
pleasure. The anal stage occurs during the second year when toilet training begins. The
ego evolves during this stage as the child vacillates between id impulses (defecation at
will) and parental demands (only on the toilet). The phallic stage emerges at age three
and lasts until age five. The boy experiences the Oedipus complex; he sexually desires
his mother and wants to kill his father out of jealousy. The girl develops penis envy
and begins to hate her mother for not providing a penis. The girl then transfers her love
to her father, which is known as the Electra complex. After age five, the latency period
ensues, during which sexual impulses lie dormant. During the genital stage, which
begins at adolescence and lasts until death, sexual desires reappear.
Variations on Freud’s Personality Theory
1. Jung’s Analytic Psychology. Jung viewed the libido as a general life force that included
a productive blending of basic impulses and real-world demands, of creativity and
growth-oriented resolution of conflicts. Personality develops as the person tends
toward introversion or extraversion and toward reliance on specific psychological
functions (such as thinking versus feeling or vice versa).
2. Other Neo-Freudian Theorists. Several neo-Freudians, including Alfred Adler, Erik
Erikson, Erich Fromm, and Henry Stack Sullivan, proposed that personality was
C.
determined by how social needs were met. Karen Horney proposed that the inferiority
that women may feel is caused by restrictions imposed by men, not penis envy, and
that it is actually men who feel inferior when they experience womb envy.
Contemporary Psychodynamic Theories
Object relations theorists believe that the early relationships between infants and significant
objects (such as primary caregivers) shape personality.
D.
II.
Evaluating the Psychodynamic Approach
1. Freud developed one of the most influential personality theories ever proposed; his
ideas shaped Western thinking from medicine to religion. Psychodynamic therapies
introduced the use of personality assessments, including projective personality tests.
2. Freud’s theory is criticized for being based on an unrepresentative sample: his own
patients, who were predominantly upper-class Viennese women with mental problems.
Freud never examined patients from, or his theory with regard to, other cultures.
3. Freudian scholars acknowledge that Freud may have modified reports of therapy to fit
his theory and that he may have asked leading questions during therapy. Finally, his
belief that humans are driven mainly by instincts and the unconscious ignores the role
of conscious drives and learning as important behavior determinants.
THE TRAIT APPROACH
The trait approach has three basic assumptions: personality traits are relatively stable and
therefore predictable; personality traits are consistent in diverse situations; and each person has a
different set or degree of particular traits. The trait approach views personality as the combination
of stable internal characteristics that people display consistently across time and across situations.
Traits vs. Types. Hippocrates suggested that a temperament, or personality type, is associated with
a bodily fluid: blood, phlegm, black bile, or yellow bile. Other type theories have been proposed.
However, research has shown that personalities are much too varied to fit into type theories.
A.
Allport’s Trait Theory
Gordon Allport believed that there are usually about seven basic or central traits. Secondary
traits are more specific to certain situations and have less control over behavior.
B.
The “Big-Five” Model of Personality
More recently, trait theorists have identified five cross-cultural factors (big-five model)—
Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and
Neuroticism—that make up personality. The big-five model is supported by both Western
culture and cross-cultural research.
C.
Biological Trait Theories
1. Hans Eysenck also utilized factor analysis to identify two basic personality factors:
introversion-extraversion and emotionality-stability, or neuroticism. Eysenck proposed
that the ease with which the nervous system can be aroused relates to positions on
these personality dimensions.
2. Gray’s approach-inhibition theory has largely supplanted Eysenck’s theory and
suggests that these differences are due to biological differences in the sensitivity of
brain systems involved with responsiveness to rewards (behavioral approach systems)
and punishments (behavioral inhibition systems).
Thinking Critically: Are Personality Traits Inherited?
What am I being asked to believe or accept?
D.
Core aspects of personality may be partly inherited.
What evidence is available to support the assertion?
Data from studies of twins and adoptive children show genetic basis for general
predisposition and a few traits, including activity level, sociability, anxiety, and
emotionality. An estimated 30 to 60 percent of variability in personality traits is due to
genetics.
Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
A child’s similarities to a parent could be due to social influence. For example, the child
could model the parent and siblings. Other factors, such as birth order, accidents, and illness,
could have an impact on personality.
What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
Psychologists have studied infancy, a time period in which the environment hasn’t yet had a
chance to have an impact, and have found differences in infant temperament. This suggests
biological and genetic influences. Studies examining adopted children have also supported
the role of biology and genetics in the formation of personality. However, more research is
needed.
What conclusions are most reasonable?
The evidence does suggest that genetic influences have a significant impact on personality.
However, genetic makeup probably provides only a predisposition toward certain levels of
activity, emotionality, and sociability. These factors then interact with the environment to
produce specific personality features.
E.
Evaluating the Trait Approach
Trait theories are better at describing behavior than at explaining it. Also, trait theories do
not create a unique description of every individual, nor can they reflect changes in a person’s
behavior in different environments or situations.
III. THE SOCIAL-COGNITIVE APPROACH
The social-cognitive approach to personality, sometimes called the social-learning approach,
equates personality with behavior. Others believe that learned thought patterns play a role in
behavior and that personality is learned in social situations.
A.
Roots of the Social-Cognitive Approach
B. F. Skinner employed functional analysis to understand behavior in terms of its function in
obtaining rewards or avoiding punishment.
B.
Prominent Social-Cognitive Theories
1. Rotter’s Expectancy Theory. Julian Rotter suggested that behavior is determined by
cognitive expectation—that is, what a person expects to happen following behavior
and the value the person places on the outcome. Rotter measured the degree to which
people expect events to be controlled by their own internal efforts or by external forces
over which they have no influence, and found these expectancies to be related to
behavioral differences.
2. Bandura and Reciprocal Determinism. Personality evolves as a result of the interaction
among cognitive patterns, the environment, and behavior through a process called
reciprocal determinism. For example, Albert Bandura concludes that people’s beliefs
about the impact they have on the world and their self-efficacy (belief they will
succeed) will determine emotions and behaviors.
3. Mischel’s Cognitive/Affective Theory. According to Walter Mischel, cognitive person
variables are important in explaining behavior. The most important cognitive person
variables are encodings, expectancies, affects, goals and values, competencies, and
self-regulatory plans.
Mischel’s views sparked a debate that led to several conclusions (note the similarity to
reciprocal determinism). First, traits influence behavior only in relevant situations.
Second, traits can lead to behaviors that alter situations that, in turn, promote other
behaviors. Third, people with different traits choose to be in different situations.
Fourth, traits are more influential in some situations than in others.
C.
Evaluating the Social-Cognitive Approach
In its favor, this approach is objective, experimentally oriented, defined by operational
concepts, and based on empirical data. However, some psychologists think that behaviorists’
narrow focus on behavior, the environment, and even cognitive factors still ignores other
potential influences on behavior (subjective experiences, genetic and physiological factors).
IV. THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH
The humanistic approach defines personality as the unique way in which each individual
perceives and interprets the world. The primary human motivator is an innate drive toward growth
that prompts people to fulfill their unique and natural potential. This approach has fueled the
development of research in positive psychology with its focus on strengths rather than
weaknesses.
A.
B.
Prominent Humanistic Theories
1. Rogers’s Self Theory. Carl Rogers emphasized the concept of actualizing tendency, the
innate inclination toward growth that motivates all human behavior. The self is what
people come to identify as I or me. According to Rogers, the development of selfconcept depends on self-evaluations and the positive regard shown by others.
Incongruities between self-evaluations and others’ evaluations cause anxiety and other
problems. Whenever people, instead of their behaviors, are evaluated, conditions of
worth are created. People come to believe that they are worthy only under certain
conditions—those in which rewarded behaviors are displayed.
2. Maslow’s Growth Theory. Abraham Maslow saw personality as the tendency to grow
toward self-actualization. People can approach the satisfaction of their needs with a
deficiency orientation or growth orientation.
Evaluating the Humanistic Approach
The humanistic approach has been instrumental in the development of many types of
psychotherapy, short-term group experiences (such as encounter groups), and child-rearing
practices. However, the belief that all humans are driven by a positive and innate growth
potential may be naive. Also, this approach ignores potential genetic, biological, learning,
social, and unconscious motivational influences on personality. Most humanistic assessment
methods are better at describing behavior than explaining it. Also, many humanistic
concepts are difficult to measure and define scientifically. The humanistic approach is
culturally confined to North America and other Western cultures. The definition of self is
very different in Japan, Africa, and other parts of the world.
C.
Linkages: Personality, Culture, and Human Development
Recognition of the role of cultural factors in establishing ideals of personality development
requires that various approaches to personality and to the achievement of self-esteem be
evaluated in terms of the extent to which they apply to cultures different from the one in
which they were developed. Gender-role differences must also be considered.
D.
Focus on Research Methods: Longitudinal Studies of Temperament and Personality
In a longitudinal study of about 1,000 individuals, a significant but modest relationship was
found between temperament at age three and personality and behavior at age twenty-one.
However, individual differences in adult behavior within same-temperament groups suggest
that long-term consistency in behavior results from the mutual influence that temperaments
and environmental events have on one another.
V.
ASSESSING PERSONALITY
Aspects of behavior can be assessed by observational methods, interviews, and personality tests.
Personality tests are more standardized and economical than either observations or interviews. A
test must be reliable and valid.
A.
Objective Personality Tests
The typical objective test is a paper-and-pencil form containing clear, specific questions,
statements, or concepts to which a person is asked to give yes-no, true-false, or multiplechoice answers. Scores can be compared mathematically. The Neuroticism Extraversion
Openness Personality Inventory, Revised (NEO-PI-R) is given to measure personality
variables in normal populations. A widely used test for diagnosing disorders is the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).
B.
Projective Personality Tests
Tests consisting of unstructured stimuli that can be perceived and responded to in many
ways are called projective personality tests. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the
Rorschach Inkblot Test are examples of this format. Responses to projective personality tests
reflect many aspects of an individual’s personality. These tests are relatively difficult to
score and tend to be less reliable and valid than objective tests.
C.
Personality Tests and Employee Selection
Personality tests do seem to be useful in screening prospective employees; however, the tests
can lead to incorrect predictions. Some employees believe that utilizing personality tests in
the selection process is a violation of their privacy.