Personality
What is it??
We use the term personality often but what
does it actually mean?
» “She has a wonderful personality”
» “He has no personality”
» “We seem to have a personality conflict”
Personality
• The collection of emotional, thought, and
behavioral patterns unique to a person
that is consistent over time
• its who we are
• how we act and react, how we interact and
respond to the world
We get a good idea of what
personality is by listening
to what we say when we
use “I” – “I like…, I
dislike…, I love…, I am
good at…, I fear…, etc.”
Personality Theories
Many people throughout the years
have tried to determine what
makes a person unique and how
the personality develops. Most
theories can be grouped into one
of the following classes.
Psychodynamic Theories
• Says personality is a product of tension and
anxiety within us that drive our thoughts and
behavior
– unconscious thoughts and unresolved inner
conflicts (usually centering on sex and
aggression)
– i.e. think Freud
• Example
– There is something going on inside of us, on some
level, that produces the behavior and actions
people see in us
Trait Theories
• Our personality resides inside our genes
• Each person has certain characteristics (or
traits) that we are born with which
determine our behavior and personality
– Example
– a friendly person is likely to act friendly in a
situation because of the traits in their DNA
• Trait theorists usually believe these traits
usually remain the same throughout our lives
in spite of the environment we may be in
– We cant change our DNA
Social-Cognitive Theories
• Says personality is learned either through
conditioning or through social learning
– think bobo doll (Bandura) and Skinner’s box
• Environment and cognition are important
factors in personality development
• Reciprocal Determinism
Humanistic Theories
• States that personality is a product of
free will and that people play an active
role in determining how they behave
• Individuals have a capacity for personal
growth and have a goal of reaching ones
full potential
– Think self-actualization and Maslow
Issues in Personality Theory
The Following basic questions
define the personality theorists’
image of human nature and
personality
Free will or Determinism?
• Do we have control of ourselves?
• Are we free to choose to be masters of
our fate
Or…
• Are we victims of biological factors,
unconscious forces, or external stimuli?
Nature or Nurture?
• Is our personality determined by the
things we inherit
Or…
• shaped by the environment in which
we live?
Past, Present, or Future?
• Is personality development complete in
early childhood
Or…
• Is it independent of the past capable of
being influenced by present or even
future events, aspirations, and goals?
Uniqueness or Universality?
• Is the personality of each individual
unique
Or…
• Are there broad personality patters that
fit large number of people?
Psychodynamic Perspective
Of Personality
Psychodynamic Theory
It all started with Freud
• Freud proposed psychology’s first and most
famous theory of personality
• Freud believed an individual’s personality emerged
from an unresolved conflict between…
– unconscious sexual impulses (most often starting in
childhood) and societies rules and expectations
• Freud believed that to resolve these conflicts he
had to understand a persons mind ( or, psyche)
• But what is the mind according to Freud??
The Mind According
to Freud
The Conscious Mind
The thoughts and
feelings we are aware
of at any given time
The Preconscious Mind
Information that is stored and
available at any time
Memories like phone numbers
The Unconscious Mind
Mostly unacceptable
thoughts, wishes, feelings,
and memories
If Freud could get people to
open the door to this region
they could start the healing
process and understand their
personality
Freud's Early Exploration into the Unconscious
• To get to a persons unconscious
Freud used a process he called
psychoanalysis (psyche (mind)=mind
analysis)
– A technique that tries to expose and
interpret underlying unconscious
motives and conflicts
• Two specific psychoanalysis
techniques that he used were
– hypnosis and
– free association (relax and say it all)
Once Freud understood the mind and could reach the
unconscious, he could begin to look at personality
Freud's Personality Structure
• He believed we all were born with pleasure-seeking
biological impulses
• However, we live in a society with rules that we
internalize as we get older
• Freud believed that the way we resolve this
conflict (social rules vs. personal desires) would
shape our personality.
Freud thought there
were 3 forces
interacting to form
and shape personality
Id
Superego
Ego
Id
• Unconscious energy that
drives us to satisfy basic
survival, sexual and
aggressive drives.
– Present at birth
– Is primitive and not affected
by values, ethics, or morals
• Id operates on the pleasure
principle
– the drive to achieve pleasure
and avoid pain.
– Demands immediate
gratification
Sometimes is illogical,
irrational and can get us
into trouble
Superego
• Part of personality that
represents our internalized moral
standards
– Comparable to our conscience
– learned from society
• Focuses on what we should do, not
what we’d like to do
• Causes people to feel guilty when
they go against society’s rules
Ego
• The boss of the conscious.
• It is the great compromiser
– Makes decisions after
listening to both sides
– Tries to satisfy the Id
without offending the moral
standards of the Superego
• Called the “reality principle”
Delays the demands and needs of the id until
a more appropriate time
Conflict and Anxiety
• Freud believed that the id, the ego, and the
superego are in constant conflict (always
unconscious).
– He focused mainly on the conflicts concerning
sexual and aggressive urges (as opposed to other
urges such as hunger and thirst) because these
urges are most likely to violate societal rules.
• These conflicts can make a person feel
anxious and to manage this feeling people use
what Freud called…
– defense mechanisms
Defense Mechanisms
The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by
distorting reality and preventing awareness of
unacceptable sexual or aggressive impulses or
wishes
Ten major types
Repression
• The Mac Daddy defense
mechanism.
• Means to push or banish
anxiety driven thoughts
deep into unconscious.
• Being sexually assaulted
when you are five and not
remembering this as an
adult
Regression
• When faced with
anxiety the person
retreats to a more
comfortable infantile
stage.
• Thumb sucking when you
get scared at a movie.
Reaction Formation
• When a person
behaves in a way that
contradicts their
actual thoughts
• Being mean to
someone you have a
crush on.
Projection
• Disguise your own
threatening impulses by
attributing them to
others.
• Thinking that your
spouse wants to cheat on
you when it is you that
really wants to cheat.
Rationalization
• Providing excuses or
explanations to justify
thoughts or behaviors
• You don’t get into a
college and say, “I really
did not want to go there
it was too far away!!”
Displacement
• Shifts the unacceptable
impulses towards a safer
outlet.
• Instead of yelling at a
teacher, you will take
your anger out on him by
spitting on his car
Sublimation
• Re-channel unacceptable
impulses towards more
acceptable or socially
approved activities or
areas
• Channeling unacceptable
aggressive feelings into
aggressive sports play
Freud's Stages of Psychosexual
Development
• Freud believed that your personality developed in
your childhood – before 5
• Mostly from unresolved problems in the early
childhood.
• Believed that children pass through a series of
psychosexual stages.
• Each stage children gain sexual gratification or
pleasure from a particular part of their bodies
• Each stage has special conflicts and children’s
ways of managing these conflicts influence their
personalities
Fixation
• If a child’s needs in a particular
stage are gratified too much or
frustrated too much, they can
become fixated at that stage
• Fixation
– the inability to progress normally
from one stage into another
• As an adult these fixations show
up as a tendency to focus on the
needs that were over-gratified
or over-frustrated
Oral Stage
• 0-18 months
• Pleasure center
is on the mouth.
• Sucking, biting
and chewing.
Result of fixation – excessive
smoking, overeating, or
dependence on others
Anal Stage
• 18-36 months
• Pleasure focuses on
bladder and bowel
control.
• Controlling ones life
and independence.
Result of Fixation – overly
controlling – anal retentive
personality or easily
angered – anal expulsive
Phallic Stage
• 3-6 years
• Pleasure zone is
the genitals.
Result of Fixation –
guilt or anxiety about
sex – Oedipus
Complex
Latency Stage
• 6- puberty
• Dormant sexual
feeling.
• Cooties stage.
• No Fixation
Genital Stage
• Puberty to death.
• Maturation of
sexual interests.
Freudian Terminology
• Eros Thanotos
• EXPLAIN
How do we assess the
unconscious?
We can use hypnosis or free
association to get to the unconscious.
But more often we use projective
tests.
Projective Tests
• provides an vague stimuli designed
to trigger insight (projection) of
one’s inner thoughts and feelings
TAT
Thematic Apperception Test
• People express their inner feelings
through stories they make about
vague scenes
TAT
Rorschach Inkblot Test
• The most widely used projective test
•A set of ten inkblots designed to identify people’s
inner thoughts when they are asked to
interpret what they see in the inkblots.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
"This is a..." constitutes a "bad" response. You are
supposed to know that the cards don't actually
represent any recognizable figures, so saying
something like "This looks like ..." is considered a
more "healthy" response.
"The only thing the inkblots do reveal is the secret world of
the examiner who interprets them. These doctors are
probably saying more about themselves than about the
subjects."
Advantages and Disadvantages of
Projective Tests
• Good - – they allow psychologists to assess
unconscious aspects of personality
• Good - – Open and vague – no way to know how
responses will be interpreted – so you can not
fake responses
• However – questionable validity and
reliability – hard to test
Neo-Freudians
• Psychologists that took some ideas
from Freud and built upon them.
Alfred Adler
Karen Horney
Carl Jung
Alfred Adler
• Believed the focus of
personality research should be
on social factors - not sexual
ones.
• Believed our behavior is driven
by our efforts to conquer our
feelings of inferiority
– Inferiority Complex
Karen Horney
• Thought Freud’s theory was to male
dominated
• Fought against Freud’s “penis envy”
concept.
• Thought men have “womb envy”
– Thought social restraints, not anatomy,
created psychological differences
between males and females
– Anxiety and helplessness is felt by people
because of the hostile and competitive
world not conflict with the id, ego, and
superego
Carl Jung
• Put less emphasis on social and sexual
factors on personality
• Jung did focus on the unconscious, but
just not an individual
• Said we all have a collective
unconscious
– a shared/inherited well of memory from
all people throughout history and cultures
• Archetypes
– thoughts or symbols that have the same
meaning for all human beings
– Example
• shadow = the darker, evil side of human nature
• or the idea or image of a hero figure
The Trait Perspective on
Personality
From Freud, psychoanalysis and the
un-measurable unconscious to rock
solid traits and characteristics
The Trait Perspective
• People have tried to classify and label
people’s personalities for thousands of years
• It all started with the Ancient Greeks
– Labeled people and personality in terms of
humors or the type of body fluid flowing in a
person
4 types
– Blood – Sanguine – cheerful and passionate
– Black Bile – Melancholic – unhappy and depressed
– Yellow Bile – Choleric – angry and hot-tempered
– Phlegm – Phlegmatic – dull and unemotional
Identifying Traits
• Eventually people moved on from “humor” to body type as a
measurement of personality
• However, most psychologists realized that this was an
oversimplified way of looking at personality
• So they went about finding new ways to define personality
Trait
A relatively stable set of characteristics that
influences your thoughts, feelings, and behavior
 Believed to be found in your Genes and DNA
Trait vs. States
What is the Difference??
trait = stable and consistent over time
state = a temporary emotional condition dependent on situation and
motive
May have trait of calmness but be in a state of anxiety
UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE!!
How do we measure or find
out our personality traits?
Objective Tests
– a questionnaire where people respond to
different items attempting to measure
aspects (traits) of their personality
• Yes-no, true-false, agree-disagree
• Also called Personality Inventories
MMPI
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory:
•the most widely used personality
inventory test.
•567 questions
•Originally used to identify
emotional/mental disorders.
Now used for screening purposes.
Advantages and Disadvantages
of Objective Tests
• Get standard answers to standardized
questions
• However, contain transparent questions
– Often will include lie detectors
• Social desirability bias
– people might state what they wish were true
rather than what IS true
• BAD !!! – Objective Tests don’t tell us WHY
we behave the way we do – they just tell us
HOW we behave
The Theories
Behind the Tests
Gordon Allport’s Trait Theory
• Believed traits were inherited but influenced by experience
• Believed some traits were more important than others
• Central Traits or Source Traits
– Easily recognized and have a strong influence on personality
– example – competitiveness, generosity, independence
• Secondary Traits or Surface Traits
– More specific to certain situations and have less effect on
personality
– traits like personal styles and preferences (particular
styles of clothing or types of music that affect behavior
in fewer situations)
• Allport believed in total there were around 16,000
different types of traits
Raymond Cattell’s Sixteen Traits
Believed that Allport went to far with his traits
• Identified only 16 fundamental traits that all
people posses
• Each trait is represented on a continuum (scale) and
they are found in every person to some degree on the
continuum
– To measure these traits Cattell used a test
called the Sixteen Personality Factor
Questionnaire (16 PF for short)
16 personality factors
However, many psychologists still thought
this was still to many traits
Hans Eysenck: A simpler Trait Model
3 major traits
• Introversion – Extraversion
– Are people outward or inward focused?
• Neuroticism
– Emotional instability or stability
• Psychoticism
– Cold and hostile, or warm and concerned with
others
The combination of these produced 4 basic
personality types
The Big Five - Five-Factor Model (FFM)
16 to many - - 3 to few
Openness (to experience)
• imaginative, curious, intellectual, open to nontraditional values vs.
conforming, practical, conventional
• Sample Openness items
•I am full of ideas. - I am quick to understand things. - I have a rich
vocabulary. I have a vivid imagination. – I prefer practical ideas
(reversed) - I do not have a good imagination. (reversed) - I have
difficulty understanding abstract ideas. (reversed)
Conscientiousness
• organized reliable, hardworking
• Sample Conscientiousness items
•I am always prepared. - I am exacting in my work. - I follow a
schedule. - I get chores done right away. - I like order. - I leave my
belongings around. (reversed) - I make a mess of things. (reversed) - I
often forget to put things back in their proper place. (reversed)
Extraversion
•Active, energetic, affectionate
• Sample Extraversion items
•I am the life of the party. - I don't mind being the center of attention. - I
feel comfortable around people. - I start conversations. - I am quiet around
strangers. (reversed) - I don't like to draw attention to myself. (reversed) - I
don't talk a lot. (reversed) - I have little to say. (reversed)
Agreeableness
• Forgiving, generous, trusting
• Sample Agreeableness items
– I am interested in people. - I feel others’ emotions. - I
have a soft heart. - I am not really interested in others.
(reversed) - I feel little concern for others. (reversed) I insult people. (reversed)
Neuroticism
• (our level of emotional instability/stability)
anxious, tense, vulnerable
• Sample Neuroticism items
– I am easily disturbed. - I change my mood a lot.
- I get irritated easily. - I get stressed out
easily. - I am relaxed most of the time.
(reversed) - I seldom feel blue. (reversed)
Remember by = OCEAN
The Humanistic Perspective
of Personality
From Freud, to the Big 5, to
Bandura, to the Ideal Self
Humanistic Psychology
• In the 1960’s people became
sick of Freud’s negativity and
his focus on troubled people.
•Along came psychologists who
wanted to focus on “healthy” people
and how to help them strive to “be all
that they can be”.
Humanistic Psychologists…
• Focus on conscious experiences
• Focus on an individuals own ability to
change attitudes and behavior (free will)
• Focus on personal responsibility and
growth (internal locus of control)
• Have an optimistic perspective on human
nature
• Thought psychology should focus on
human strengths and virtues
Abraham Maslow and Personality
• Said personality comes from the pursuit of meeting
our Hierarchy of Needs
– The pyramid of physiological (food/water) and
psychological (love/esteem) needs
– Ultimately our goal is to obtain our full potential
– self-actualization – the pursuit of realizing one’s
potential that defines personality
• Said most people don’t reach full potential because
they lose focus of the pursuit because they strive
for materialistic, meaningless goals
Maslow developed his ideas
by studying what he termed
“healthy people”
Who did Maslow study? Who were the
“healthy” people??
Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs
Self-Actualized People
They share certain characteristics:
•They are self aware and self accepting
•Open and spontaneous
•Loving and caring
•Not paralyzed by others’ opinions.
•They are secure in who they are.
•They enjoy work and see work as a mission
to fulfill
Self-Actualized People
• Problem centered rather than self-centered.
Focused their energies on a particular task.
Few deep relationships, rather than many
superficial ones.
Carl Rogers: The Importance of Self
Humanistic psychologist who agreed with Maslow
• Believed people are basically GOOD and are like seeds
•We are like seeds
Need Water, Sun and
Nutrients to Grow into a
big healthy plant
We need acceptance,genuineness,
and empathy for us to grow.
AGE
Acceptance
• Unconditional Positive Regard:
An attitude of acceptance
regardless of circumstances.
Accepting yourself or others completely
regardless of behavior at that time.
Rogers believed that many parents display what he
called conditional positive regard
children only feel accepted when they are
pleasing others
Genuineness
• Being open with
your own feelings.
•Dropping your
guard.
•Being transparent
and self-disclosing.
Empathy
• Listening, sharing,
understanding and
mirroring feelings
and reflecting their
meanings.
Assessing Personality from a
Humanistic Perspective
• Humanistic psychologists
evaluate your personality by
looking at your self-concept
(or self-identity)
How did Rogers
assess personality?
– How YOU saw yourself and how you
would personally answer the
question…
WHO AM I?
#1 - ask clients to describe their self-concept
#2 – ask them how they would ideally like to be
When your ideal self and your self-concept are alike you are generally happy.
Self-Concept
Both Rogers and Maslow believed that your
self-concept is at the center of your
personality.
•If our self concept is positive….
We tend to act and perceive the world
positively.
•If our self-concept is negative….
We fall short of our “ideal self” and feel
dissatisfied and unhappy
Rogers said that often people’s selfconcepts don’t exactly match reality
• Congruence
– a fairly accurate match between the selfconcept and reality
• Incongruence
– the difference between the self-concept and
reality
Results of Incongruence
– can experience anxiety when self-concepts are
threatened
– therefore people distort their experiences to
hold on to their self-concept
Criticisms of Humanistic Theory
• Overly optimistic and unrealistic view of human
nature
– Maslow’s self-actualized people are almost perfect
(had a hard time finding any self-actualized people)
• Like psychodynamic hard to test
– Believers say this isn’t a problem – you can’t test
people’s journey to ideal self
• “What is a healthy person?”
– concept may just reflect Maslow’s own values and ideals
– What is a loving and productive person??
Sometimes to hold on to our Selfconcept we use a Self-Serving Bias
• A readiness to perceive oneself favorable.
• People accept more responsibility for
successes than failures.
79% thought Mother
•Most people see
themselves as better thanTeresa would go to
heaven vs. 87% thought
average.
they would
Does culture play a part in our
personality and our self-identity?
(according to humanistic psychologists)
• Individualism: giving priority to one’s own
goals over group goals. Defining your
identity in terms of yourself.
“the squeaky wheel gets the grease”
•Collectivism: giving priority to the goals
of a group and defining your identity as part
of that group.
“the quaking duck gets shot”
Which is really better?
The Social-Cognitive
Perspective of Personality
From the unconscious to traits
to the effects of thoughts and
the environment on personality
Social-Cognitive Perspective
Social Learning Theory
• People gain personality by watching
others (it is learned) and being either
reinforced or punished
– Albert Bandura
– In other words… Monkey See – Monkey Do
Social-Cognitive theorists believed however that it was
more than the environment that impacted personality
• Reciprocal Determinism
– the interaction between a person’s behavior, cognitions
(the way you think about the world) and the
environment to create your personality
• Bandura also focused on the importance of SelfEfficacy
– the belief that you are capable
of performing in a certain
manner to reach your goals
– i.e. = you believe you can do things
Cognition
High SE = confidence in abilities
Low SE = less confidence in abilities
Behavior
Environment
How Reciprocal Determinism Can Work
The TV you watch, friends you hang with,
music you listen to were all chosen by you (your
personal characteristics)
People’s characteristics influence the kind of
environment in which they find themselves.
Those environments, in turn, influence and
modify people’s personal characteristics.
Do you feel as though your environment
controls you, or do you believe you are in
control of your environment??
When you try to get a job, do you believe that
it is who you know not what you know??
Do you believe that if you want to be a success
it depends on luck or hard work??
Social-cognitive psychologists say the way you answer
this question provides clues to your personality and
to your feelings of
Personal Control
Personal Control
(also called locus of control)
Our sense of controlling our
environment rather than the
environment controlling us
Two Types:
Internal Locus of Control
And
External Locus of Control
Internal Locus of Control
• The perception that one controls one’s
own fate and environmental influences
External Locus of Control
• The perception that chance or outside
forces beyond one’s personal control
determine one’s fate.
Internal vs. External
• Internals
– Are Less depressed
– Are More likely to be healthy
– Achieve more in school and act
more independently
– Cope better with stress
Learned Helplessness
• Hopeless feeling when an animal or
human can’t avoid repeated bad events
• People often perceive control as external
and may often eventually give up
Learned Helplessness
Uncontrollable bad
events
Perceived lack of control
Generalized
helpless behavior
PsychSim