Slide 1
12
Personality Theories
and Assessment
© 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Slide 2
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
• Definition
– Sum total of all typical ways of acting,
feeling, and thinking that makes a
person different from all others
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Slide 3
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
• Trait theories
– Traits are characteristics, aspects of personality
– Allport: traits can be ranked
• Motivational traits related to one’s values
• Cardinal traits dominate one’s life (ie: desire
for social justice)
• Central/secondary traits are more common
(ie: obtaining sexual gratification)
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Slide 4
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
• Trait theories
– Five-factor model of personality traits
• Five dimensions measured in personality tests
– Neuroticism (anxious, worrisome)
– Extraversion (outgoing, social)
– Openness (creative, daring)
– Agreeableness (selfless, forgiving)
– Conscientiousness (reliable, hardworking)
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Slide 5
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
• Validating personality traits
– Eysenck’s introverts and extraverts
• Brain’s neural systems may work different
– Tests:
• Classical conditioning
• Functional MRI
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Personality Theories and Assessment
Human Diversity
• Personality and culture
– Personality influenced by culture
– Individualistic culture (ie: U.S.) – emphasize
individual rights and characteristics
• Feeling of pride, superiority
• Seek own goals over those of others
• More willing to use embarrassment and
aggression to prove oneself right
• Free time often spent in solitary pursuits
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Slide 6
Personality Theories and Assessment
Human Diversity
• Personality and culture
– Collective cultures (ie: Japan, China, India) –
emphasize individual in terms of rights, duties,
and expectations as member of a group
– Leisure time more often spent with family
– Less aggressive in conflict; say things to avoid
embarrassment of others
– Characterized as having close ties, respectful,
and friendly
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Slide 7
Personality Theories and Assessment
Human Diversity
• All personality theories must consider effects
of culture
• People of different cultures tend to differ in
some important ways
• There is tremendous variation within cultures
• Collective and individualistic traits are found
among members of all cultures
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Slide 8
Personality Theories and Assessment
Psychoanalytic Theory
• Freud’s theory and views
– Original interest in conversion disorder
– Case of Anna O.
– Three levels of consciousness
• Mind is iceberg; conscious, preconscious,
and unconscious mind are levels
• Repression pushes thoughts into
unconscious
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Slide 9
Slide 10
Conscious
Contact with
outside world
Preconscious
Material just
beneath surface
of awareness
Unconscious
Well below surface
of awareness;
difficult to retrieve
Ego
Reality principle
Secondary process
thinking
Id
Pleasure principle
Primary process
thinking
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Superego
Moral
imperatives
Ideals
Personality Theories and Assessment
Psychoanalytic Theory
• Freud’s theory and views
– Personality has 3 parts
– Displacement
• Sometimes, ego must substitute a goal of
the id
• Sublimation – best kind of displacement
– Identification
• Superficial act of imitation
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Slide 11
Freud: Personality has 3 parts
Primary
process
thinking
Life
and death
instincts
Reality
principle
Ego Ideal
Libido
Id
Sexual,
aggressive
urges
Ego
Pleasure
principle
The selfish
beast
Superego
The conscience
The executive
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Slide 12
Personality Theories and Assessment
Freud: Psychosexual Theory
• Fixation – stuck in one stage
• Five stages of developmental theory:
– Oral stage (birth to 1 year) –
• Erogenous zones
• Oral dependent oral personality
• oral aggressive personality
– Anal stage (1 to 3 years)
• Anal retentive personality
• Anal expulsive personality
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Slide 13
Personality Theories and Assessment
Freud: Psychosexual Theory
– Phallic stage (3 to 6 years)
• Oedipus complex
• Castration anxiety
• Electra complex
• Phallic personality
– Latency stage (6 to 11 years)
– Genital stage (11 years on)
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Slide 14
Personality Theories and Assessment
Slide 15
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
• Carl Jung
– Questioned Freud’s sexual motivation emphasis
– Opposites in all elements of mind (ie: selfish and
generous, good and evil)
– Known for introversion and extraversion
– Personal unconscious: motives, conflicts,
information repressed as threatening
– Collective unconscious: all humans born with it
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Personality Theories and Assessment
Slide 16
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
• Alfred Adler
– Struggle with sexual and hostile impulses not
primary factor in personality development
– Primary struggle: overcome inferiority
feelings, develop superiority feelings in social
relationships (later seen as unhealthy)
• Outgrow childhood inferiority, become
competent adult
– All born with positive motive, social interest
– People’s lives governed by their goals
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Personality Theories and Assessment
Slide 17
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
• Karen Horney
– Unconscious conflicts – source of most human
misery and maladjustment
– Freud overemphasized sexual conflicts, penis
envy, and criticized his views of women
– Conflicts result from inadequate child-rearing
experiences (love and security produce no
conflicts, positive personality results)
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Personality Theories and Assessment
Slide 18
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
• Others
– Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, Erikson
• Revised Freud’s image of women
• De-emphasized importance of sexual and
aggressive motivation
• Emphasized positive aspects of personality
• Asserted importance of adequate social
relationships
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Personality Theories and Assessment
Slide 19
Social Learning Theory
• Social learning: sum total of all ways one to
act, think, and feel as s/he does
• Albert Bandura
–
–
–
–
–
People play active role in selecting behavior
Cognition is important in personality
Reciprocal determination (ie: social learning)
Personality is learned behavior
Behavior influences future learning experiences
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Personality Theories and Assessment
Role of Cognition in Personality
• Helping others makes one more reliable
and less stingy?
– Self-efficacy: subjective perception of what
one is capable of
• High self-efficacy: accepts more challenges
– Bandura: emphasizes learning of personal
standards (self-regulation) of reward and
punishment from experience and watching
others
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Slide 20
Slide 21
Percentage of subjects stopping to
help after finding a dime
Did not
find a dime
Found a
dime
100
Percent stopping to help
Percent stopping to help
100
75
50
25
0
Female Male
Subjects
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75
50
25
0
Female Male
Subjects
Personality Theories and Assessment
Slide 22
Situationism and Interactionism
• B.F. Skinner –
– argued against idea of traits; behavior determined
by situations one is in (situationism)
– People behave in ways to suit their situations
– Behavior cannot be consistent enough to be traits
because situations change
– Solution: behavior influenced by both person and
situation (person X situation interactionism)
– One situation influences people in different ways
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Slide 23
90
80
70
Percentage of
pedestrians
stopping to
help man in
high and low
noise
conditions
60
Percent of
pedestrians 50
stopping to 40
help
30
20
10
Low
noise
High
noise
© 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Personality Theories and Assessment
Humanistic Theory
• Third force in psychology; historically deep
roots in philosophy (lack of unity)
– Inner-directedness (innate internal force
pushing for growth); positive view of humans
• Personality develops from this and can only
be understood by the individual (subjective
reality) – everyone’s views are different
– Self-concept (subjective perception) is central
to Roger’s personality theory
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Slide 24
Slide 25
Roger’s Self-Concept
Self
the person I
think I am
Ideal self
the person I
think I am
Congruence –
consistencies
between the two
The larger the discrepancies between the two, the
more psychological problems one experiences
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Personality Theories and Assessment
Humanistic Theory
• Feelings and information are mentally
symbolized
• Reactions of others create one’s conditions
of worth
– Self-actualization
• Maslow’s ultimate level of growth
– High level of moral development
– Open, honest, have courage
– Accurate and positive view of life
• Maslow’s peak experiences
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Slide 26
Slide 27
Personality Theories and Assessment
Comparing the Theories
Personality
unconscious
Learn what is good
Innate knowledge
of good and bad
Innate selfishness
Innate goodness
Innate: neither good
or bad
Society influences
Psychoanalytic Humanistic Social Learning
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
© 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
Personality Theories and Assessment
Psychological Methods
• Interviews and observations
• Projective personality tests
– Thematic Apperception test (TAT)
– Rorschach Inkblot Test
• Objective Personality Tests
– Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI and MMPI-2)
• Evaluation of personality tests
© 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Slide 28
Relationship between types of physical
aggression and the month of the year
Assaults
Aggressive crimes
Wife beating
Rapes
Amount of
aggression
Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
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Slide 29
Slide 30
Personality Theories and Assessment
12
The End
© 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved