Personality
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Personality
Unique, relatively stable pattern of thoughts, emotions and actions.
The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s
distinctive character.
General definition x psychological definition - different personality
theories – partly different point of view
Personality assessment
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one of the most common tasks for clinical psychologists
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Observation
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Interview
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Objectives tests
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Projective tests
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Psychiatric x psychological approach
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Describe personality – what for?
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Concept of personality disorders
Observation and interview
Almost always present in one way or another
The most important part of a psychological diagnostics
Observation – what to concentrate on? (evaluation guidelines)
What is specific for a diagnostic interview?
How to ask?
Structured x unstructured
The data you already have got
Objective tests
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Personality tests, inventories
- questionnaires, written response multiple choice or yes no answer
„objective“ – how much objective information can we expect?
(deliberate deception, social desirability bias, defensivive stands,
propriate useage of methods)
MMPI-2 The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is the most
widely used and researched standardized psychometric test of adult
personality and psychopathology.
567 items questionnaire - clinical scales, validity scales, supplemental
scales
The 16PF Questionnaire (R. Cattell) 1949, (1994)
for individual and marital counseling, career counseling and employee
development, in educational settings, and for basic research
MBTI - Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions (16-type
indicator test, Carl Jung's Psychological Types, (Extroversion-Introversion, SensingIntuition, Thinking-Feeling and Judging-Perceiving)
Generally well known, almost not used in clinical practise
TCI Temperament and Character Inventory (240 item)
operates with seven dimensions of personality traits:
four so-called temperaments: Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA),
Reward Dependence (RD), Persistence (PS)
and three so-called characters: Self-Directedness (SD), Cooperativeness (CO),
Self-Transcendence (ST)
NEO PI-R - The Revised NEO Personality Inventory, (240-item) P. T. Costa,
Jr. and Robert R. McCrae
The Big Five personality traits are five broad domains or dimensions of personality
that are used to describe human personality - the Five Factor Model (FFM).
Five Factor Model (FFM) is widely used personality assessment that describes five
core traits that a person possesses:
Openness - degree to which people enjoy experiencing new stimuli
Conscientiousness - degree to which people are dutiful and goal-oriented
Extraversion - degree to which people seek stimuli outside of themselves
Agreeableness - degree to which people aim to cooperate and please others
Neuroticism - degree to which people are emotionally unstable
MCMI-III The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (175 true-false questions)
provides information on psychopathology (DSM-IV)
standardized specifically on clinical populations, should not be used with the
general population
has multiaxial format
Projective tests
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Personality test designed to let a person respond to unstructured
stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts.
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The Rorschach inkblot test was introduced in 1921 by Herman
Rorschach as a way to determine personality by the interpretation
of abstract inkblots.
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The Thematic Apperception Test was commissioned by the Office of
Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the 1930s to identify personalities that
might be susceptible to being turned by enemy intelligence.
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The Hand Test
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The Word Association Test
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The Sentence completion test
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The Draw-A-Person test
The oldest typology of personality
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Hippocrates - successor Galen - the balance of bodily fluids:
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Choleric people - an excess of yellow bile, making them irascible
and ambitious.
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Melancholic people - an excess of black bile; pessimistic and
analytical.
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Phlegmatic people - an excess of phlegm; relaxed, calm
temperament.
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Sanguine people - an excess of blood; cheerful, pleasure seeking.
Trait theories
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The definition of a trait: A relatively stable and consistent characteristic that can be used to
describe a personality
The first lists of traits ever done included about 4500 of them (Gordon Allport 1937)
reduction of the number of items by using the so called factor analysis
narrowing down to the most basic traits:
The „Big Five“ Model
reduces the whole complex of a human personality down to five basic traits:
1.
„O“ Openness
2.
„C“ Conscientiousness
3.
„E“ Extraversion
4.
„A“ Agreeableness
5.
„N“ Neuroticism (emotional stability)
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic theories
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Trait theories try to describe personality, psychoanalytic theories try to explain it.
Sigmund Freud
Levels of consciousness - the whole mind „psyche“ consists of three main levels of awareness:
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The preconscious – not our current thoughts but those that can be readily brought into
mind
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The conscious – current thoughts
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The unconscious – can‘t be brought into mind under standard conditions – instinctual
motives, repressed emotions prevented from being brought unto conscious mind, thoughts
burdened with anxiety…
Personality structure: each personality consists of three main structures
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The superego (morality principle)
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The ego (reality principle)
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The id (pleasure principle)
Defense mechanisms
Defense mechanisms are the ways of the mind of transferring the uncomfortable into the unconscious
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Repression – preventing „those thoughts“ from entering the consciousness – forgetting traumatic events
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Sublimation – working off unmet desires or unacceptable impulses into constructive activities
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Denial – refusing to perceive an unpleasant reality
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Rationalization – justifying unacceptably motivated actions by substituting the real motives with positive ones
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Intellectualization – ignoring the emotional aspects of a situation and focusing only on the abstract ideas
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Projection – transferring unacceptable thoughts and motives into others
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Reaction formation – exaggerating the opposite of the unacceptable urges that are held
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Regression – responding to a situation in a way appropriate for an earlier age
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Displacement – substituting a less threatening subject for the original object of impulse
stage
Freud – Psychosexual development
Approxiamate age
Erogenous zone Key conflict or task
Effects of fixation or
regression
Oral
0-18 months
Mouth
Weaning (from breast
or bottle)
Gullibility,
dependency,
excessive pleasures
from eating,
drinking…
Anal
18 months – 3 years
Anus
Toilet training
Excessive
orderliness and
stubbornness or
messiness and
rebelliousness
Phallic
3 – 6 years
Genitals
Overcoming the
Oedipal complex
Castration anxiety
struggles with
authority M, penis
envy, flirtatiousness F
Latency
6 years - puberty
None
Interacting with same
sex peers
Being asexual
Genital
Puberty to adult
Genitals
Establishing intimate
relationships
Psychodynamic theories
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Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
theory of individual psychology
centred around conciousness more, motivation, will-to-power, inferiority
complex
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Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
analytical psychology, distinguishes personal and collective
unconcious, archetypes
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Karen Horney (1885–1952)
Challenges the sexism of Freud‘s theories, emphasises on socialized
differences between the sexes rather than biological – redefines the
„penis envy“ to „power envy“
theories on personality Development, basic anxiety
Humanistic theories
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Believing in the natural goodness and positive drive towards selffulfilment of people
Carl Rogers (1902–1987) – the self-concept theory of personality
the „self-concept“ – all the and believes you have as an individual
regarding your own nature, behaviors, qualities…
Poor mental health and maladjustment come from differences
between the „self-concept“ and the life experiences
Low self-esteems originates from experiences (mostly parental) that
define their love and approval as conditional .
.
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Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
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„self actualization“ – the inborn drive to develop all one‘s talents
and capacities
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Ongoing desire, process of growth
One of the every person‘s basic needs
Maslow‘s hierarchy of human‘s needs:
Social/cognitive perspective
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Albert Bandura (born1925)
„self efficacy“ – belief one can generally succeed, regardless of past failures
and current problems
this belief also affects how others respond to the person and thereby actually
affects the chances they have – reciprocal determinism
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Julian Rotter (1916-2014)
„locus of control“ – internal or external
internals believe they can control the events in their lives
externals think it‘s mainly environment and external causes
The biological theories
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Brain structures
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Neurochemistry
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Genetic predispositions
Personality Theories
with Biological Basis
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Eysenck's Three Factor Model of Personality
based on activation of reticular formation and limbic system
The reticular formation is a region in the brainstem that is involved in mediating
arousal and consciousness. The limbic system is involved in mediating emotion,
behavior, motivation, and long-term memory.
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Cloninger Model of Personality
This model of personality is based on the idea that different responses to punishing,
rewarding, and novel stimuli is caused by an interaction of the three dimensions:
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Novelty Seeking (NS) - degree to which people are impulsive, correlated with
low dopamine activity.
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Harm Avoidance (HA) - degree to which people are anxious, correlated with
high serotonin activity.
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Reward Dependence (RD) - degree to which people are approval seeking,
correlated with low noradrenaline activity.