
Personality – the unique way in which each individual
thinks, acts, and feels throughout life
› Character – value judgments of a person’s moral and ethical
behavior
› Temperament – the enduring characteristics with which each
person is born

Personality should not be confused with character or
temperament
› Temperament is based on one’s biology, either through genetic
influences, prenatal influences, or a combination of those
influences, and forms the basis for personality to be built upon

Both character and temperament are vital parts of
personality
› Every adult personality is a combination of temperaments and
personal history of family, culture, and the time during which they
grew up
Personality is still a relatively young field and there are several
different ways in which the characteristic behavior of human
beings can be explained
 One reason no single explanation of personality exists is because
personality is still difficult to measure precisely and scientifically
 There are 4 traditional perspectives in personality theory

Psychodynamic perspective: focuses on the role of the unconscious
mind in the development of personality and also greatly emphasizes the
role of biological causes of personality differences
› Behaviorist perspective: based on the theories of learning and focuses on
the effect of the environment on behavior
› Humanistic perspective: focuses on the role of each person’s conscious
life experiences and choices in personality development
› Trait perspective: differs from the other 3 in its basic goals
›
 The psychoanalytic, behaviorist, and humanistic perspectives all seek to
explain how personality forms
 Trait perspective focuses on the end result – the characteristics themselves
 There are some trait theorists that assume that traits are biologically
determined, but others make no such assumption
Understanding Freud’s cultural background helps us
understand how he developed his ideas and theories of
personality
 Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1856, Freud’s family
moved to Vienna when he was only 4 years old
 He lived there until 1938, when Germany occupied Austria,
and Freud, of Jewish background, moved to England to
escape the Nazis
 During this time period, Europe was in what is commonly
known as the Victorian Age

› The Victorian Age was a time of sexual repression
› People growing up in this period were told by their church that
sex should take place only in the context of marriage and then
only to make babies
› To enjoy sexual intercourse was considered a sin

Men were understood to be unable to control their “animal”
desires at times
›

A good Victorian husband would father several children with his wife and
then turn to a mistress for sexual comfort, leaving his wife untouched
Women, especially those of the upper class, were not supposed
to have sexual urges
›
It’s no wonder that many of Freud’s patients were wealthy women with
problems stemming from unfulfilled sexual desires or sexual repression
Freud’s “obsession” with sexual explanations for abnormal
behavior seems more understandable in light of his cultural
background and that of his patients
 Freud came to believe that there were layers of consciousness in
the mind

›
His belief in the influence of the unconscious mind on conscious
behavior, published in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life in 1901,
shocked the Victorian world

Freud believed that the mind was divided into 3 parts
The conscious mind: one’s current awareness
The preconscious mind: contains memories, information, and events of
which one can easily become aware
› The unconscious mind – level of he mind in which thoughts, feelings,
memories, and other information are kept that are not easily or
voluntarily brought into consciousness
›
›

While no one really disagreed with the idea of a conscious or
preconscious mind, the unconscious mind was the real
departure for the professional of Freud’s day
Freud theorized that there is a part of the mind that remains hidden at all
times, surfacing only in symbolic form in dreams and in behavior people
engage in without knowing why they have done so
› Even when a person makes a determined effort to bring a memory out of
the unconscious mind, it will not appear directly, according to Freud
›

Freud believed that the unconscious mind was the most
important determining factor in human behavior and personality


Freud believed, based
on observations of his
patients, that
personality itself could
be divided into 3 parts,
each existing at one or
more levels of
conscious awareness
The way these 3 parts
of the personality
develop and interact
with one another
became the heart of
his theory

Id – part of the personality present at birth and completely
unconscious
›
›
›

The id is the first and most primitive part of the personality
It is completely unconscious
Pleasure-seeking, amoral part of the personality that contains all of the
basic biological drives: hunger, thirst, self-preservation, and sex
Freud did believe that babies have sex drives, which shocked
and outraged his colleagues and fellow Victorians
By “sex drive” he really meant “pleasure drive,” the need to seek out
pleasurable sensations
› People do seem to be pleasure-seeking creatures, and even infants seek
pleasure from sucking and chewing on anything they can get into their
mouths
›

Thinking about what infants are like when they are just born
provides a good picture of the id
›
›
Infants are demanding, irrational, illogical, and impulsive
They want their needs satisfied immediately, and they don’t care about
anyone else’s needs or desires

Freud called this need for satisfaction the
pleasure principle – principle by which the
id functions; the immediate satisfaction of
needs without regard for the consequences
› The pleasure principle can be summed up simply
as “if it feels good, do it”

A word of caution
› The fact that infant behavior seems to fit Freud’s
concept of the id is not proof that the id exists
› It simply means that Freud came up with the
concepts of the id to fit what he already knew
about infants

People normally try to satisfy an infant’s needs as quickly as
possible
›

But as infants begin to grow, adults start denying them their
every wish
›

Infants are fed when hungry, changed when wet, and tended to
whenever they cry
There will be things they cannot touch or hold, and they must learn to
wait for certain things
Freud would say that reality has hit, and the id simply cannot
deal with the reality of having to wait or not getting what it
wants
›
Worse still would be the possibility of punishment as a result of the id’s
unrestrained actions
According to Freud, to deal with reality, a second part of the
personality develops
 Ego – part of the personality that develops out of a need to deal
with reality, mostly conscious, rational, and logical




The ego works on the reality principle – principle by
which the satisfaction of the demands of the id only
when negative consequences will not result
This means that sometimes the ego decides to deny
the id its desires because the consequences would
be painful of too unpleasant
Ex. An infant might reach out and take an object
despite a parent telling them not to, but a toddler
with the developing ego will avoid taking the object
when the parent says, “No!” to avoid punishment
› However, the toddler may go back for the object when
the parent is not looking

A simple way to state the reality principle of the ego
is “if it feels good, do it, but only if you can get away
with it”




Superego – the part of the personality that acts
as a moral center
The superego is Freud’s third and final part of
the personality
The superego develops as a preschool-aged
child learns the rules, customs, and
expectations of society
The superego contains the conscience –
produces guilt or moral anxiety when they do
wrong, or engage in an unacceptable
behavior
› It isn’t until the conscience develops that children
have a sense of “right and wrong”

Anyone who has ever watched cartoons has probably
seen Freud’s 3 parts of personality in animated form
› The id is usually a little devil
 Makes demands
› The superego is the little angel
 Putting restrictions on the id’s demands
› The ego is the person or animal caught in the middle, trying to
decide what to do
 Has to come up with a plan that will quiet the id but satisfy the
superego

Sometimes the id or the superego does not get its way,
resulting in a great deal of anxiety for the ego itself
› This constant state of conflict is Freud’s view of how personality
works
› It’s only when the anxiety created by this conflict gets out of
hand that disordered behavior arises

Psychological defense mechanisms –
unconscious distortions of a person’s
perception of reality that reduce stress and
anxiety
› Defense mechanisms were mainly outlined and
studied by Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud

In order for the 3 parts of the personality to
function, the constant conflict among them
must be managed
› Freud assumed that the defense mechanisms
were one of the most important tools for dealing
with the anxiety caused by this conflict




Denial – refusal to recognize or acknowledge a threatening situation
›
Ex. Ben is an alcoholic who denies being an alcoholic
›
Ex. Elise, who was sexually abused as a child, cannot remember the abuse at all
›
Ex. “If I don’t have breakfast, I can have that piece of cake later on without hurting
my diet.”
Repression – “pushing” threatening or conflicting events or situations out
of conscious memory
Rationalization – making up acceptable excuses for unacceptable
behavior
Projection – placing one’s own unacceptable thoughts onto others, as if
the thoughts belonged to them and not to oneself
›

Ex. Tina is attracted to her sister’s husband but denies this and believes the husband
is attracted to her
Reaction formation – forming an emotional reaction or attitude that is
the opposite of one’s threatening or unacceptable actual thoughts
›
Ex. Matt is unconsciously attracted to Ben but outwardly voices an extreme hatred
of homosexuals

Displacement – expressing feelings that would be threatening if directed
at the real target onto a less threatening substitute target
›



Regression – falling back on childlike patterns as a way of coping with
stressful situations
›
Ex. 4 year old Jeff starts wetting his bed after his parents bring home a new baby
›
Ex. Mary really admires Suzy, the most popular girl in school, and tries to copy her
behavior and dress
Identification – trying to become like someone else to deal with one’s
anxiety
Compensation (substitution) – trying to make up for areas in which a
lack is perceived by becoming superior in some other area
›

Ex. Sandra gets reprimanded by her boss and goes home to angrily pick a fight with
her husband
Ex. Reggie is not good at athletics, so he puts all of his energies into becoming an
academic scholar
Sublimation – turning socially unacceptable urges into socially
acceptable behavior
›
Ex. Alan, who is very aggressive, becomes a professional hockey player
For Freud, the 3 parts of the personality develop in a series
of stages
 Because he focused heavily on the sex drive, he believed
that the stages were determined by the developing
sexuality of the child

› Psychosexual stages – 5 stages of personality development
proposed by Freud and tied to the sexual development of the
child
At each stage, a different erogenous zone, or area of the
body that produces pleasurable feelings, becomes
important and can become the source of conflicts
 Conflicts that are not fully resolved result in a “fixation”

› Fixation – disorder in which the person does not fully resolve the
conflict in a particular psychosexual stage, resulting in personality
traits and behavior associated with that earlier stage
› The child may grow into an adult but will still carry emotional and
psychological “baggage” from that earlier fixated stage



Oral stage – first stage occurring in the first year to
year and a half of life in which the mouth is the
erogenous zone and weaning is the primary conflict
The oral stage is dominated by the id
The conflict that can arise here, according to Freud,
will be over weaning (taking the mother’s breast
away from the child, who will now drink from a cup)
› Weaning that occurs too soon or too late can result in too
little or too much satisfaction of the child’s oral needs
› Resulting in the activities and personality traits associated
with an orally fixated adult personality
 Overeating, drinking too much, chain smoking, talking too
much, nail biting, gum chewing, and a tendency to be
either too dependent and optimistic (when the oral needs
are overindulged) or too aggressive and pessimistic (when
the oral needs are denied)


Anal stage – second stage occurring from about 1 or 1 ½ years of age,
in which the anus is the erogenous zone and toilet training is the source
of conflict
As a child becomes a toddler, Freud believed that the erogenous zone
moves from the mouth to the anus
›



Because he also believed that children got a great deal of pleasure from both
withholding and releasing their feces at will
The main area of conflict here is toilet training, the demand that the
child use the toilet at a particular time and in a particular way
This invasion of reality is part of the process that stimulates the
development of the ego during this stage
Fixation at the anal stage, from toilet training that is too harsh can take
on 2 forms
›
Anal expulsive personality


›
The child who rebels openly against the demands of the parents and other adults will
refuse to go in the toilet, instead defecating where and when he/she feels like doing it
This translates in the adult as a person who sees messiness as a statement of personal
control and who is somewhat destructive and hostile (“slobs”)
Anal retentive personality


The child is terrified of making a mess and rebels passively – refusing to go at all or
retaining feces – no mess no punishment
As adults, they are stingy, stubborn, and excessively neat
Phallic stage – third stage occurring from about 3-6 years
of age, in which the child discovers sexual feelings
 As the child grows older, the erogenous zone shifts to the
genitals

› Children have discovered the differences between the sexes by
now, and most have also engaged in normal self-stimulation of
the genitals, or masturbation
The awakening of sexual curiosity and interest in the
genitals marks the beginning of the phallic stage
 Freud believed that when boys realized that little girls
don’t have a penis, they developed a fear of losing their
penis called castration anxiety

› While girls developed penis envy because they were missing a
penis
› Fortunately, nearly all psychoanalysts have long since
abandoned the concept of penis envy

The conflict in the phallic stage centers on the awakening sexual
feelings of the child
›

Freud essentially believed that boys develop both sexual attraction to
their mothers and jealousy of their fathers during this stage, called the
Oedipus complex
›
›

The sexual attraction is not that of an adult male for a female but more of a sexual
curiosity that becomes mixed up with the boy’s feelings of love and affection for his
mother
His jealousy of his father leads to feelings of anxiety and fears that his father, a
powerful authority figure, might get angry and do something terrible
To deal with this anxiety, 2 things must occur by the time the phallic
stage ends
›
›

Oedipus complex/Electra complex – situation occurring in the phallic stage in
which a child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent and jealousy
of the same-sex parent
The boy will repress his sexual feelings for his mother and identify with his father
The boy tries to be like his father in every way, taking on the father’s behavior,
mannerisms, values and moral beliefs as his own, so that Daddy won’t be able to
get angry with the boy
Girls go through a similar process called the Electra complex with their
father as the target of their affections and their mother as the rival
The result of identification is the development of the superego,
the internalized moral values of the same-sex parent
 If things go wrong: if a child does not have a same-sex parent to
identify with, or the opposite-sex parent encourages the sexual
attraction, fixation can occur

›

Fixation in the phallic stage usually involves immature sexual attitudes as
an adult
People who are fixated, according to Freud, will often exhibit
promiscuous sexual behavior and be very vain
The vanity is seen as a cover-up for feelings of low self-worth arising from
the failure to resolve the complex
› The lack or moral sexual behavior stems from the failure of identification
and the inadequate formation of the superego
› Additionally, men with this fixation may be “mama’s boys” who never
quite grow up
› Women with this fixation may look for much older father figures to marry
›




Latency – fourth stage occurring during the
school years, in which sexual feelings of the
child are repressed while the child develops in
other ways
Remember that at the end of the phallic stage,
sexual feelings for the opposite sex have been
pushed into the unconscious
In this stage, children grow and develop
intellectually, physically, and socially but not
sexually
This is the age at which boys play with other
boys and girls play with other girls
› Boys have cooties and girls are yucky

When puberty begins, the sexual feelings that were
repressed surface again
› Bodies develop and sexual urges are allowed into
consciousness

Sexual urges are no longer directed at parents
› When kids are 3, parents are their whole world
› When kids are 13, they want parents to walk 20 feet
behind them in the mall so their friends won’t see them


The focus of sexual curiosity and attraction will be
other adolescents or celebrities of some sort
Since Freud tied personality development to sexual
development, the genital stage represented the final
process in his personality theory
› And as the entry into adult social and sexual behavior

Psychoanalysis – Freud’s term for both the theory of
personality and the therapy based on it

At first Freud’s ideas were resisted and ridiculed, but
eventually theorists altered the focus of
psychoanalysis from biology and sexuality to the
impact of the social environment

At the same time, they retained many of Freud’s
original concepts such as the id, ego, and superego,
and defense mechanisms

Neo-Freudians – followers of Freud who developed
their own competing psychodynamic theories
Disagreed with Freud about the nature of the unconscious
mind
 Jung believed that the unconscious held much more than
personal fears, urges, and memories

› Personal unconscious – unconscious mind as described by Freud
consisting of personal fears, urges, and memories
› Collective unconscious – memories shared by all members of the
human species

According to Jung, the collective unconscious contains a
kind of “species” or “racial” memory
› Memories of ancient fears and themes that seem to occur in
many folktales and cultures called archetypes

2 of the more well known archetypes
› Anima/animus: the feminine side of man/the masculine side of
woman
› Shadow: the dark side of personality, called the “devil” in
Western cultures

Adler believed that the driving force behind all human behavior
was the seeking of superiority, unlike Freud who believed it was
sexual pleasure
Believed that as children, all people develop feelings of inferiority when
they compare themselves with the more powerful adults in their world
› Focused on the defense mechanism of compensation, in which people
try to overcome feelings of inferiority in one area of life by striving to be
superior in another area
›

Adler also developed a theory that the birth order of a child
affected personality
Firstborn children with younger siblings feel inferior once those younger
siblings get all the attention and often overcompensate by becoming
overachievers
› Middle children feel superior over the older child and also dominate
younger siblings and tend to be competitive
› Younger children are supposedly pampered and protected but feel
inferior because they are not allowed the freedom and responsibility of
older children
›

Although some researchers have found evidence to support this
birth order theory, others criticize their research as biased and
sloppy
Disagreed with Freud over sex differences and strongly
opposed his concept of penis envy
 Developed her own concept of “womb envy,” stating
that men felt the need to compensate for their lack of
childbearing ability by striving for success in other areas
 Horney focused on the child’s sense of basic anxiety – the
anxiety created when a child is born into the bigger and
more powerful world of older children and adults

› People whose parents give them love, affection, and security
overcome this anxiety
› People with less secure upbringings develop neurotic
personalities – personalities involving maladaptive ways of
dealing with relationships
 Some children try to deal with their anxiety by moving toward
people, becoming dependent and clingy
 Others move against people, becoming aggressive, demanding,
and cruel

Erikson was an art teacher who became
a psychoanalyst by studying with Anna
Freud (Sigmund Freud’s daughter)

Emphasized that social relationships are
important at every stage of life
› We went over Erikson in chapter 8
Some of Freud’s concepts have remained useful and still
form a basis for many modern personality theories
 The idea of defense mechanisms

› Received some research support
› Has remained useful in clinical psychology as a way of
describing people’s defensive behavior and irrational thinking

The concept of an unconscious mind also has some
research support
› Modern researchers have had to admit that there are influences
on human behavior that exist outside of normal conscious
awareness
› Much of this research has been in the area of hypnosis and
subliminal perception
› Other researchers are looking into the concept of implicit
memory and implicit learning

FREUD DIDN’T DO ANY EXPERIMENTS OR RESEARCH!!!
› His theory is based on his own observations of his patients’
memories of their childhoods and life experiences
› He freely decided if what his patients told him was fantasy
or fact, depending on how well those memories fit in with
his developing theory of psychoanalysis
› Ex. Many of Freud’s patients told him that they were
sexually abused by fathers, brothers, and other close
family members
 Freud was apparently unable to accept these memories as
real and decided that they were fantasies, which he used
to form the basis of the Oedipus/Electra complex

FREUD BASED MUCH OF HIS DIAGNOSIS OF PATIENT’S
PROBLEMS ON THE INTERPRETATIONS OF DREAMS AND
RESULTS OF PATIENTS FREE-ASSOCIATION!!!
› We know from our previous discussion of dreams during the
chapter on consciousness that dreams are not very realistic…
› These “sources” of information are often criticized as being too
ambiguous and without scientific support for the validity of
Freud’s interpretations
› The very ambiguity of these sources of information allowed Freud
to fit the patient’s words and recollections to his own preferred
interpretation
› Ambiguity of the sources also increased the possibility that
Freud’s own suggestions and interpretations, if conveyed to the
patient, might alter the actual memories, who would no doubt
be in a very suggestible state of mind during therapy



Another criticism is that Freud based his theory on a
very limited demographic: sexually repressed and
frustrated higher class Austrian women of the
Victorian era
Critics point out that basing his theory on
observations of such a limited demographic
promoted his emphasis on sexuality as the root of all
problems in personality
And a problem your text doesn’t point out: Freud had
an addiction to cocaine
› He even wrote a monograph, called “Über Coca,” about
how great it was and how much he liked it which was
published in a journal in July of 1884
› This paper was the first in which he shifted from scientific
evidence toward his own personal opinions
Most professionals today are very skeptical of Freud’s theories,
but alas, his influence on the modern world cannot be ignored…
 Freudian concepts have had an impact on literature, movies,
and even children’s cartoons
 People who have never taken a course in psychology are
familiar with some of Freud’s most basic concepts, such as the
defense mechanisms
 Freud was also one of the first theorists to emphasize the
importance of childhood experiences on personality
development


›
In spite of the fact he didn’t work with children
›
One can only wonder how Freud might have changed his theory in light
of what is known about the workings of the human brain and the
changes in society that exist today
It has only been in the last several decades that people have
had the necessary tools to examine the concepts of the
unconscious mind

A the time that Freud’s theory was shocking
the Western world, the behaviorist and
social cognitive theorists were also making
an influence
› Behaviorists use the principles of conditioning to
explain actions and reactions of animals and
humans
› Social cognitive theorists emphasize the
influence of social and cognitive factors on
learning

Both have a very different view of
personality from psychodynamics
Behaviorists view personality as nothing more than a set of
learned responses or habits - sets of well-learned responses that
have become automatic
 The very strictest traditional view of Watson and Skinner,
everything a person or animal does is a response to some
environmental stimulus that has been reinforced or strengthened
by a reward in some way
 Think about how a traditional behaviorist might explain a shy
personality

Beginning in childhood, a person might be exposed to a parent with a
rather harsh discipline style (stimulus)
› Avoiding the attention of that parent would result in fewer punishments
and scolding, so the avoidance response is negatively reinforced – the
“bad thing” or punishment is avoided by keeping out of sight as quiet
› Later, that child might generalize that avoidance response to other
authority figures and adults, such as teachers
› In this way, a pattern (habit) of shyness would develop
›

Social cognitive learning theorists – emphasize the
importance of both the influences of other people’s
behavior and of a person’s own expectancies of
learning
› They suggest that observational learning, modeling, and
other cognitive learning techniques can lead to the
formation of patterns of personality

Albert Bandura (the guy that did the “BoBo Doll
studies) has one of the more well-researched learning
theories
› Social cognitive view – behavior is governed not just by
the influence of external stimuli and response patterns but
also by cognitive processes such as anticipating, judging,
and memory as well as learning though the imitation of
models

Bandura believes that 3 factors influence one another in
determining the patterns of behavior that make up personality
The environment, the behavior itself, and the individual’s personal or
cognitive factors that the person brings into the situation from earlier
experiences
› These 3 factors each affect the other 2 in a reciprocal, or give-and-take,
relationship
› Reciprocal determinism – Bandura’s explanation of how the factors of
environment, personal characteristics, and behavior can interact to
determine future behavior
›
Environment
Reinforcers
Behavior
Personal/Cognitive
Factors
Beliefs, expectancies,
personal dispositions

The environment includes the actual physical
surroundings, the other people who may or
may not be present, and the potential for
reinforcement in those surroundings

The intensity and frequency of the behavior will
not only be influenced by the environment, but
will also have an impact on that environment

The person brings previously reinforced
responses (personality in other words) and
mental processes such as thinking and
anticipating into the situation

Example of how this works
›
Richard walks into a classroom filled with other students, but no teachers
are present at this time
 This is the environment
›
Part of Richard’s personal characteristics include the desire to have
attention from other people by talking loudly and telling jokes, which has
been very rewarding to him in the past
 Past reinforcements are part of his cognitive processes, or expectancies of
future rewards for his behavior
›
›
›
›
›
Also in the past, he has found that he gets more attention when an
authority figure is not present
His behavior will most likely be to start talking and telling jokes, which will
continue if he gets the reaction he expects from his fellow students
If the teacher walks in (the environment changes), his behavior will
change
If the other students don’t laugh, his behavior will change
In the future Richard might be less likely to behave in the same way
because his expectations for reward are different
 Cognitive element of his personal variables
One of the more important personal variables that Bandura talks
about is self-efficacy – a person’s expectancy of how effective
his or her efforts to accomplish a goal will be in any particular
circumstance
 A person’s sense of self-efficacy can be high or low depending
on:

What has happened in similar circumstances in the past (success or
failure)
› What other people tell them about their competence
› Their own assessment of their abilities
›

Ex. Fiona has an opportunity to write a paper for extra credit in a
class, she will be more likely to do so if her self-efficacy is high:
›
›
›

She has gotten good grades on such papers in the past
Her teachers have told her that she writes well
She knows she can write a good paper
According to Bandura, people high in self-efficacy are more
persistent and expect to succeed, whereas people low in selfefficacy expect to fail and tend to avoid challenges



Julian Rotter devised a theory of personality based on the basic
principle of motivation, derived from Thorndike’s law of effect
›
People are motivated to seek reinforcement and avoid punishment
›
If in the past, a certain way of responding led to a reinforcing or
pleasurable consequence, that way of responding would become a
pattern of responding, or part of the “personality”
Rotter viewed personality as a relatively stable set of potential
responses to various situations
Concept of locus of control – the tendency for people to
assume that they either have control or do not have control over
events and consequences in their lives
›
Internal locus of control: people who assume that their own actions and
decisions directly affect the consequences they experience
 High internal locus of control: high in achievement motivation (the will to
succeed in any attempted task)
›
External locus of control: people who assume that their lives are more
controlled by powerful others, luck, or fate
 High external locus of control: give up quickly or attribute events in their
lives to external causes and fall into patterns of learned helplessness and
depression


Like Bandura, Rotter also believed that an interaction
of factors would determine the behavioral patterns
that become personality for an individual
For Rotter there are 2 key factors that influence a
person’s decision to act in any situation
› Expectancy – a person’s subjective feeling that a
particular behavior will lead to a reinforcing consequence
(similar to Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy)
› Reinforcement value - the value of the reinforcement
expected by an individual for behaving in a certain way

If a person has a high expectancy for success, the
behavior will most likely occur
› Expectancies are also based on past experiences with
success and failure of a behavior

Behaviorism has its limits in explaining personality
›
The classic behaviorism: views personality as only a conditioned set of
responses
 Does not take mental processes or social influences into account when
explaining learning and behavior

Social cognitive view
Does include social and mental processes and their influence on
behavior
› And, unlike psychoanalysis, the concepts can and have been
scientifically tested
›

Most recent research has investigated how people’s
expectancies can influence their control of their own negative
moods
Like if you expect something bad to happen if you perform a certain
behavior, then you will be less likely to perform the behavior and avoid
the negative outcome that may produce the negative mood
› Also, you may be able to anticipate when something bad will happen
and prepare yourself for it
›
The humanistic perspective arose in the
mid-20th century as a backlash against
psychoanalysis and behaviorism
 Humanistic perspective – the “third
force” in psychology

› Focuses on those aspects of personality that
make people uniquely human
 Subjective feelings
 Freedom to choose one’s own destiny

Self-actualizing tendency – the striving to fulfill one’s
innate capacities and capabilities
› Basically, trying to be all your genetics allows you to be



Self-concept – the image of oneself that develops
from interactions with important, significant people in
one’s life
Self – an individual’s awareness of his or her own
personal characteristics and level of functioning
As people try to be all they can be (selfactualization) they develop an image of themselves
based on feed back from others (self-concept) that
influences how they really view themselves (sense of
self)



Real self – one’s perceptions of actual characteristics, traits, and abilities
›
Forms the basis for striving for self-actualization
›
Primarily comes from those important, significant others in a person’s life, most often
the parents
Ideal self – one’s perception of whom one should be or would like to be
When the real self and ideal self are very close or similar to each other,
people feel competent and capable
›
›

When there is a mismatch between the real self and the ideal self,
anxiety and neurotic behavior can occur
›

More likely to occur if the real and ideal selves aren’t that far apart at the start
When a person has a realistic view of the real self, and the ideal self is something
that is actually attainable
When a person’s view of self is distorted or the ideal self is impossible to attain
It is primarily how the important people (who can be good or bad
influences) in a person’s life react to the person that determines the
degree of agreement between real and ideal selves

Positive regard – warmth, affection, love, and respect that come
from significant others in one’s life
›

Positive regard is vital to people’s ability to cope with stress and to strive
to achieve self-actualization
Unconditional positive regard – positive regard that is given
without conditions or strings attached
›
Necessary for people to be able to explore fully all that they can achieve
and become
Conditional positive regard – positive regard that is given only
when the person is doing what the providers of positive regard
wish
 Ex. Karen & Sasha

›
Sasha is a freshman and is thinking about becoming a math teacher, a
computer programmer, or an elementary school teacher
 Unconditional positive regard: Her parents have told her that her career
choice is up to her and that they will love her no matter what
›
Karen is a freshman and already knows she is going to be a doctor
 Conditional positive regard: Her parents made it very clear to her as a
child that they expected her to become a doctor, she believes if she tries
to choose a different career, she will lose her parents’ love and respect

For Rogers, the process of self-actualizing leads
people to become a fully functioning person
› Fully functioning person – a person who is in touch with
their own feelings and abilities and are able to trust their
innermost urges and intuitions
› Through exploring your potentials and abilities you find out
what you are good at and what you like
› This leads you to find a match between your real self and
your ideal self, which leads to Rogers’ idea of a fully
functioning person

To become a fully functioning person, a person
needs unconditional positive regard
› If you are not comfortable with exploring your options and
your abilities because you are scared about losing the
love of others, then you may never truly be in touch with
your real self

Differences between self-actualization and fully functioning
(because they sound pretty similar)
›
›
Self-actualization is a goal that people are always striving to reach
Only a person who is fully functioning (in touch with their true self) is
capable of reaching the goal of self-actualization
 So being fully functioning is a necessary step in the process of selfactualization

So, you are constantly striving to be all you can be (selfactualization), even after you explore and become in touch with
your true self
›
Ex. You explore several different fields during college and decide you
want to be a scientific researcher
 This is a pretty close match between your real self and your ideal self
because you are an inquisitive person and enjoy your selected field of
interest, which allows you to be in touch with your self and fully functioning
 Now that you are fully functioning, you can strive to be all you can be (selfactualized) by conducting research experiments that contribute to
humanities knowledge of certain concepts and phenomena
 You wouldn’t be able to do this if you had become a lawyer instead

Some critics of the humanistic perspective of
personality say it is too positive
› Ignoring the more negative aspects of human nature
› Ex. Would humanistic theory be able to explain the
development of sociopathic or psychopathic personalities
who have no conscience or moral nature? Or explain the
motivation behind terrorism?

Humanistic theory is also difficult to test scientifically
› In fact there is little research to support this viewpoint
› Thus, it can be considered more of a philosophical view of
human behavior rather than a psychological explanation

The greatest impact of the humanistic view
› Development of therapies designed to promote self-
growth and help people better understand themselves
and others

Trait theories – attempt to describe the
characteristics that make up human
personality in an effort to predict the future
› Less concerned with how personality develops
› More concerned with describing personality and
using it to predict future behavior

Trait – consistent, enduring way of thinking,
feeling, or behaving
› Trait theorists attempt to describe a personality in
terms of a person’s traits


One of the earliest attempts to list and describe the
traits that make up personality
Allport literally scanned the dictionary for words that
could be traits and found about 18,000
› Then he eliminated synonyms resulting in 200 traits

Allport believed that these traits were literally wired
into the nervous system to guide one’s behavior
across many different situations
› And that each person’s “constellation” of traits was
unique

However, Allport had no scientific evidence of his
theory
› But, behavioral geneticists have found support for the
heritability of personality traits
Raymond Cattell attempted to create a more compact
way of defining personality (Allports 200 traits were a bit
much)
 Defined two types of traits

› Surface traits – aspects of personality that can easily be seen by
other people in the outward actions of a person
› Source traits - the more basic traits that underlie the surface
traits, forming the core of personality
› Ex. Shyness, being quiet, and disliking crowds might all be surface
traits related to the more basic source trait of introversion – a
tendency to withdraw from excessive stimulation


Cattell identified 16 source traits (even though he later
determined that there may be as many as 23)
He developed his The Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF)
Questionnaire to assess individuals on these 16 source traits

These 16 source traits are seen as trait
dimensions, or continuums
› In which there are 2 opposite traits at each
end with a range of possible degrees for
each trait measureable along the dimension

Ex. Reserved/outgoing dimension
› Andy is more reserved than Tina
RESERVED
OUTGOING

After Catell, researchers attempted to reduce the number of trait
dimensions to a more manageable number
›

Five-factor model or Big Five – model of personality traits that
describes five basic trait dimensions
›

Several groups of researchers arrived at more or less the same five trait
dimensions
The Big Five represent the core description of human personality – the only
dimensions necessary to understand what makes us tick
Big Five (OCEAN)
Openness – a person’s willingness to try new things and be open to new
experiences
› Conscientiousness – the care a person gives to organization and
thoughtfulness of others; dependability, punctuality
› Extraversion – one’s need to be with other people
›
 Extraverts – people who are outgoing and sociable
 Introverts – people who prefer solitude and dislike being the center of
attention
Agreeableness – the emotional style of a person that may range from
easygoing, friendly, and likeable to grumpy, crabby, and unpleasant
› Neuroticism – degree of emotional instability
›
The Big Five
Factor (OCEAN)
High Scorer Characteristics
Low Scorer Characteristics
Opennes (O)
Creative, artistic, curious,
imaginative,
nonconforming
Conventional, down-toearth, uncreative
Conscientiousness (C)
Organized, reliable, neat,
ambitious
Unreliable, lazy, careless,
negligent, spontaneous
Extraversion (E)
Talkative, optimistic,
sociable, affectionate
Reserved, comfortable
being alone, stays in the
background
Agreeableness (A)
Good-natured, trusting,
helpful
Rude, uncooperative,
irritable, aggressive,
competitive
Neuroticism (N)
Worrying, insecure,
anxious, temperamental
Calm, secure, relaxed,
stable

Costa & McCrae proposed that these five traits are not
interdependent
That knowing someone’s score on extraversion would not give any
information about scores on the other four dimensions
› Allows for a tremendous amount of variety in personality descriptions
›
More recently Michael C. Ashton and
Kibeom Lee have extended the five factor
model to include a 6th dimension
 6th dimension: Honesty/Humility factor

› H-factor
 High: sincere, honest, faithful, loyal, modest
 Avoid manipulating others, feel little temptation to break
rules, not concerned with lavish wealth, feel no
entitlement to higher social status
 Low: sly, deceitful, greedy, pretentious,
hypocritical, boastful, pompous
 Flatter others to get what they want, inclined to break
rules for personal gain, feel a strong sense of selfimportance

Some theorists have cautioned that personality traits will not
always be expressed in the same way across different situations
Trait-situation interaction – the assumption that the particular
circumstances of any given situation will influence the way in which a trait
is expressed
› Ex. An outgoing extravert might laugh, talk to strangers, and tell jokes at a
party
›
 That same person, if at a funeral, would still talk and be open, but the jokes
and laughter would be less likely to occur (so environment/context matters)

The five-factor model provides a dimensional approach to
classifying personality structure
›

Which, today, is the widely accepted way of describing personality, as
well as personality disorders (ex. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, NPD)
Research, including cross-cultural studies, support the existence of
the Big Five trait dimensions, which raises questions:
Are child-rearing practices across all cultures similar enough to result in
these five aspects of personality?
› Or, could these five dimensions have a genetic component that
transcends cultural differences?
›

Behavioral genetics – field of study devoted to discovering
the genetic basis for personality differences
› The study of just how much of an individual’s personality is due to
inherited traits

Animal breeders have known for a long time that selective
breeding of certain animals with desirable traits can
produce changes in physical characteristics as well as
temperament
› Temperament consists of the characteristics each person is born
with and is, therefore, determined by biology to a high degree




If the temperaments of animals can be influenced by
manipulating patterns of genetic inheritance
Then its only a small step to assume that at least those
personality characteristics related to temperament in
human beings may also be influenced by heredity
But, those who study animals can control the mating
of certain animals and the conditions under which
those animals are raised
Human researchers cannot ethically or practically
develop that degree of control and must study the
accidental “experiments” of nature and opportunity
(i.e. studies that follow twins and adopted persons)


The difference between monozygotic (identical) and
dizygotic (fraternal) twins provides a way to study the
genetics of personality
Identical twins share 100% of their genetic material
(having come from 1 fertilized egg and 1 sperm)
› Fraternal twins share only about 50% of their genetic
material, like any pair of siblings would

By comparing identical twins to fraternal twins,
especially when twins can be found who were not
raised in the same environment, researchers can
begin to find evidence of possible genetic influences
on various personality traits

The Minnesota twin study is the largest study of twins in the U.S.
› Has revealed that identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins
or unrelated people in intelligence, leadership abilities, the tendency
to follow rules, and the tendency to uphold traditional cultural
expectations (nurturance, empathy, assertiveness, and aggression)

This similarity holds even if twins are raised in separate
environments
Correlation
of Scores
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Identical twins
Fraternal twins

Studying adopted children and their adoptive and
birth families
› Studying unrelated siblings who are raised in the same
environment and their unrelated parents should help
discover the influence of environment
› By comparing adopted children to their adoptive families
and if possible their biological families can help uncover
some of the shared and nonshared environmental and
genetic influences on personality

Adoption studies have confirmed what twin studies
have shown: Genetic influences account for a great
deal of personality development, regardless of
shared or nonshared environments
› Through adoption studies a genetic basis has been
suggested for shyness and aggressiveness
Several studies have found that the big
five personality factors have nearly a
50% rate of heritability across several
cultures
 Studies seem to indicate that variations
in personality traits are about 25%-50%
inherited

› Which means that environmental influences
apparently account for about 50% of the
variation in personality traits as well
The methods for measuring or assessing personality vary
according to the theory of personality used to develop
those methods
 However, most psychological professionals doing a
personality assessment on a client take a more eclectic
view of personality

› Which is a way of choosing the parts of different theories that
seem to best fit a particular situation, rather than using only one
theory to explain a phenomenon
› Looking at behavior from all four perspectives can often bring
insights into a person’s behavior that would not easily come from
taking only one perspective
› Ex. Using the humanistic perspective could shed light onto
reasons why a person behaves the way they do, while the trait
perspective can help one understand the person’s current
personality

Many professionals will also use several types of
assessment techniques

Personality assessments differ in the purposes
for which they are conducted
› Sometimes a researcher may administer a personality
test of some sort to participants in a research study so
that the participants may be classified according to
certain personality traits
 Like studying the reactive tendencies of individuals high
and low in neuroticism
› There are also tests available to people who simply
want to learn more about their own personalities
http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/
› Clinical and counseling psychologists, psychiatrists,
and other psychological professionals use these
personality assessment tools in the diagnosis of
disorders of personality

Interview – method of personality assessment in which the
professional asks questions of the client and allows the
client to answer, either in a structured or unstructured
fashion
› Survey type process and is likely to flow naturally from the
beginning dialog between the client and the psychologist

Problems with interviews
› Obviously, clients can lie, distort the truth, misremember, or give
what they think is a socially acceptable answer instead of true
information
› Interviewers themselves can be biased, interpreting what the
client says in light of their own belief systems or prejudices
› Halo effect – tendency of an interviewer to allow positive
characteristics of a client to influence the assessments of the
client’s behavior and statements
 Involves the interviewers tendency to form a favorable or
unfavorable impression of someone at the first meeting

Psychoanalysts have a goal in dealing with clients that
other personality theorists do not share: Uncovering the
unconscious conflicts, desires, and urges that affect the
client’s conscious behavior
› No other theorist assigns such importance to the unconscious
mind, so psychoanalysts use assessment methods that are meant
to “get at” those unconscious, hidden emotions and events

Projection – defense mechanism involving placing, or
“projecting,” one’s own unacceptable thoughts onto
others, as if the thoughts actually belonged to those others
and not to oneself
› What if a person could project unacceptable, unconscious
thoughts onto some harmless, ambiguous stimulus, like a picture?
› Ex. A cloud is an ambiguous stimulus, people can interpret a
cloud as looking like different things, even though the real cloud
is neither of those things, it is capable of being interpreted in
more than one way

Just like viewing a cloud, psychoanalysts
show their clients ambiguous visual stimuli
and ask the clients to tell them what they
see
› The hope is that the client will project those
unconscious concerns and fears onto the visual
stimulus, revealing them to the analyst

These methods are called projective tests
› Personality assessments that present ambiguous
visual stimuli to the client and ask the client to
respond with what ever comes to mind

One of the more well-known projective tests is the
Rorschach inkblot test, developed in 1921 by
Hermann Rorschach
› Uses 10 inkblots as the ambiguous stimuli
› 5 in black on a white background and 5 in colored inks on
a white background


People being tested are asked to look at each
inkblot and simply say whatever it might look like to
them
Using predetermined categories and responses
commonly given by people to each picture,
psychologists score responses on key factors
› Such as reference to color, shape, figures seen in the blot,
and response to the whole or details

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
› Uses 20 black and white pictures of people in ambiguous
situations as the visual stimuli
› Pictures are shown to a client who is then asked to tell a
story about the person or people in the picture

The story developed by the client is interpreted by
the psychoanalyst, who looks for revealing
statements and projection of the client’s own
problems onto the people in the pictures

Projective tests are by their nature very subjective
›


Interpreting client’s answers is almost an art
›
Certainly not a science and is not known for accuracy
›
Reliability is the tendency of a test to give the same score every time it is
administered to the same person or group of people
Validity is the ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure
Problems lie in the areas of reliability and validity
›

Projective tests, with no standard grading scales, have both low
reliability and validity
›

Referring to concepts and impressions that are only valid within a particular person’s
perception and may be influenced by biases, prejudice, and personal experiences
Ex. A person’s answers to a Rorschach might be quite different from one day to the
next, depending on the person’s mood and what scary movie might have been on
TV the night before
However, many practicing clinical psychologists and psychiatrists still use
this type of testing
›
›
Some believe that the latest versions of these tests and other like them still have
practical use, especially when used as a starting point for diving deeper into a
client’s issues
However, more reliable and objective measures are available

Behaviorists typically don’t want to “look into the
mind.”
› Because behaviorists assume that personality is merely
habitually learned responses to stimuli in the environment,
they prefer to watch and assess behavior as it occurs in
the real world

Direct observation – the professional observes the
client engaged in ordinary, day-to-day behavior in
either a clinical or natural setting
› Ex. A therapist observes a child’s behavior in his classroom
and recognizes that he only throws tantrums when he is
asked to do something involving fine motor abilities (like
drawing or writing). The therapist might conclude that the
child has problems with fine motor skills and throws
tantrums to avoid dong those tasks

Rating scale – a numerical value is assigned to
specific behavior that is listed in the scale
› Ex. A therapist who is observing an aggressive child might
assign lower numbers to less severe aggressive behaviors
like taking another child’s toy and higher numbers to more
severe behaviors such as physical assault on another child

Frequency count – the frequency of a particular
behavior is counted
› Ex. A therapist observing a child with ADHD might count
the number of times the child is caught day dreaming in
class, speaking out of turn, or goes off-topic in class

Rating scales and frequency counts are both used by
educators to diagnose behavioral problems such as
ADHD and aspects of personality such as social-skill
level





The observer effect: when a person’s behavior is
affected by knowing he/she is being watched
Observer bias: when the observer’s own personal
thoughts and feelings affect the documenting of
behavior
Both observer effect and observer bias can be
controlled for by having multiple observers and
correlating their observations with each other
As with any kind of observational method, there is no
control over the external environment
There is no guarantee that the target behavior will
occur within the observation time
› Like when a problem with your car never seems to show
up when the mechanic is examining the car

Personality inventory – paper and pencil or
computerized test that consists of statements that
require a specific, standardized response from the
person taking the test
› These questionnaires have a standard list of questions and
only require certain specific answers, like “yes,” “no,” or
“can’t decide”

Personality inventories are more standardized,
reliable, and objective than projective tests
› Everyone gets the same list of questions (standardized)
and there are no open-ended questions

Ex. Cattell’s 16PF, Costa and McCrae
Neuroticism/Extraversion/Openness Personality
Inventory (NEO-PI) which is based on the five-factor
model

A common inventory is the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI), it is based on Carl Jung’s ideas and
looks at 4 personality dimensions
› Sensing/intuition (S/I)
 Sensing includes people who prefer to rely on what they
can see, hear, etc. through their physical senses, these
individuals are very detail oriented and prefer to work only
with known facts
 Intuition includes individuals who look for patterns and trust
their hunches, these individuals are more willing to use
metaphors, analogies, and look for possibilities
› Thinking/feeling (T/F)
 Thinking includes individuals who prefer to use logic,
analysis, and experiences that can be verified as facts
 Feeling includes individuals who tend to make decisions
based on their personal values and emotional reaction
› Introversion/Extraversion (I/E)
 Introversion includes individuals who are more
solitary and avoid being the center or attention
 Extraversion includes individuals who are talkative,
out going, and sociable
› Perceiving/Judging (P/J)
 Perceiving includes individuals who are willing to
adapt and modify decisions, be spontaneous, and
who are naturally curious and tend to put off
making a final decision until all the possibilities are
covered
 Judging includes individuals who action-oriented,
decisive, get-the-task-done-and-don’t-look-back
type
The 4 dimensions can differ for each individual, resulting in
16 (4x4) possible personality types: ISTJ, ISTP, ISFP, ISFJ, and
so on
 Meyer-Briggs s often used to assess personality to help
people know the kinds of careers they are best suited for
 Ex. A person who scored high on the extravert, sensing,
thinking, and judging dimensions would be an ESTJ.

› A typical description of this personality type would be a person
who needs to analyze information and bring order to the outer
world
› These individuals are organizers, energetic in completing tasks,
and practical and they also take their responsibilities seriously
and expect others to do so as well
› School administrators, for example, are often ESTJs

By far the most common personality inventory
is the Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality
Inventory, Version II, or MMPI-2
› Specifically tests for abnormal behavior patterns in
personality
› Consists of 567 statements such as “I am often very
tense” or “I believe I am being plotted against”
 Individuals must answer “true,” “false,” or “cannot say.”
› Includes 10 clinical scales and 8 validity scales, as
well as numerous subscales
› Each scale tests for a particular kind of behavior
 Behavior patterns include relatively mild personality
problems such as excessive worrying and shyness as well
as more serious disorders such as schizophrenia and
depression

Validity scales are built into any well-designed
psychological inventory
› They are intended to indicate whether or not a person
taking the inventory is responding honestly
› Responses to certain items on the test will indicated if
people are trying to make themselves look better or worse
than they are
› Certain items are repeated throughout the test in a slightly
different form, so that anyone trying to “fake” the test will
have difficulty responding to those items consistently
› Ex. If one of the statements is “I am always happy” and a
person responds “true” there would be suspicion that the
person is trying to look better that he or she really is. This
item would be repeated later in a different form such as “I
am never sad”

The advantage of personality inventories over
projective tests and interviews is that inventories are
standardized
› Everyone gets exactly the same questions and the
answers are scored in exactly the same way
› In fact, responses are often scored on computers

Observer bias and bias of interpretation are not
possible because this kind of assessment is objective
rather than subjective

The validity and reliability of personality inventories
are generally recognized as being greatly superior to
those of projective tests

There are some problems though
› The validity scales are a good check against
cheating, but they are not perfect
 Some people are still able to fake their answers and
respond in what they feel are the socially appropriate
ways
› Individual responses to specific questions may also
vary because they may be interpreted in different
ways by different individuals, and are likely to be
subject to cultural differences
› Another problem is human nature itself: some people
may develop a habit of picking a particular answer
rather than carefully considering the statement
 Others may simply grow tired of responding to all the
statements and start picking answers at random