Personality
Unit X
Personality
• the units leading up to this one have discussed
our similarities
• how we all develop, perceive, learn, remember,
think, and feel
• this unit will look at how we are individuals
• Personality- your characteristic pattern of
thinking, feeling, and acting
– if your personality is distinctive and
consistent, you are often said to have a strong
personality
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory proposed
that childhood sexuality and unconscious
motivations influence personality
• Freud's current influence in psychological science
has diminished but he is still one of the most well
known psychologists in history
• he became interested in psychology after seeing
patients whose disorders made no neurological
sense
• Freud "discovered" something he called the
unconscious
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• the unconscious mind
– by looking at someone's life, he started to think that
blindness or deafness, with no obvious physiological
cause, may be caused by not wanting to see or hear
something that aroused intense anxiety
– Freud first believed that hypnosis may be the key to
entering someone's unconscious, but he found his
patients to contain an uneven capacity for hypnosis
– free association- a method of exploring the
unconscious in which the person relaxes and says
whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or
embarrassing
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• The Unconscious Mind
– Freud believed that free association allowed him to
trace a line back into someone's memory, producing a
chain of thought leading into the patient's
unconscious
– once he could get into someone's unconscious he
could retrieve and release painful unconscious
memories often from childhood
– he called this method psychoanalysis
• attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives
and conflicts
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• The Unconscious Mind
– Freud believed the mind was like an iceberg with
most of it hidden
– our conscious awareness is the part of the iceberg
that floats above the surface
– below the surface is the unconscious
• a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes,
feelings, and memories
• information processing of which we are unaware
• some of the unconscious thoughts we store temporarily
in a preconscious area, from which we can retrieve
them into conscious awareness
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• The Unconscious Mind
– Freud focused much of his research on the things we
repress
– repress- forcibly block from our consciousness
because they would be too unsettling to acknowledge
– Freud believed these feelings and ideas influence us
– Freud did not believe anything was accidental in our
behaviors
– he believed free association was a way into the
unconscious along with looking at someone's dreams
and slips of the tongue
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• The Unconscious mind
– Freud believed the manifest content of a dream
was a censored expression of the dreamer's
unconscious wishes
– manifest content- remembered content of the
dream
– by analyzing dreams, Freud felt he could reveal
the nature of their inner conflicts and release their
inner tensions
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Freud believed our personality comes from a
conflict between our aggressive, pleasureseeking biological impulses and the
internalized social restraints against them
• personality is the result of our efforts to
resolve this conflict
• people figure out ways to express these
impulses in ways that bring satisfaction
without bringing guilt or punishment
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Freud believed there were three interacting
systems that worked to resolve this conflict
• Id- located in the unconscious mind that strives to
satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives
– operates on the pleasure principle, demanding
immediate gratification
– newborn baby acts mainly on the urges of the Id
– people that would rather party that think about their
future
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Ego- largely found in the conscious mind and it
is the executive part of personality that
mediates among the demands of the id,
superego, and reality
– operates on the reality principle
– tries to satisfy the id's desires in ways that will
realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
– around 4 or 5 a child's ego recognizes the
demands of the newly emerging superego
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Superego- represents internalized ideals and
provides standards for judgment and for
future aspirations
– the voice of the conscience
– forces the ego to consider the real and the ideal
– focuses on how we ought to act
– strives for perfection
– someone with a strong superego may be virtuous
but guilt-ridden
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• the ego struggles to mediate between the id
and superego
• a student that is sexually attracted to
someone may satisfy both id and superego by
joining a volunteer organization to which the
desired person belongs
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Freud believed that personality forms during
life's first few years
• Freud's patients seemed to have problems
rooted from early childhood
• children pass through a series of psychosexual
stages during which the id's pleasure seeking
energies focus on distinct pleasure-sensitive
areas of the body called erogenous zones
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• during the phallic stage boys develop both
unconscious sexual desires for their mother and
jealousy and hatred for their father whom they
consider to be a rival
• because of these feelings boys feel guilt and a
fear of punishment possibly by castration from
their fathers
• these feelings are called the Oedipus Complex
• some psychoanalysts believed that girls
experience something called the Electra Complex
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Freud believed that children cope with these
feelings by repressing them and identifying with
the rival parent
• he believed this was an identification process
– children incorporate their parents' values into their
developing superegos
– gives us a sense of our gender identity as either a
male or female
• maladaptive behavior in the adult results from
conflicts unresolved during earlier psychosexual
stages
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• if an earlier stage is not resolved a person can become
fixated on something
• fixation- a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies
at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were
unresolved
• people who were either orally overindulged or
deprived by early weaning might fixate at the oral
stage
• a oral fixation my show in the form of passive
dependence like a nursing infant or by using excessive
sarcasm
• smoking or constantly eating may occur as well
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• those that never resolve the anal conflict
between the desire to eliminate at will and
potty training may be messy and disorganize
which is anal expulsive or they my be
controlling and compulsively neat which is
anal retentive
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• sometimes our ego fears losing control of the
inner war between the id and the superego
• this fear leads to anxiety and a lack of
understanding of why we are feeling anxious
• the ego will protect itself using defense
mechanisms
– the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety
by unconsciously distorting reality
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Repression- the basic defense mechanism that
banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings,
and memories from consciousness
– underlies all other defense mechanisms
– this why we do not remember our childhood lust
for our opposite sex parent
– repression is incomplete as repressed thoughts
can seep out during our dreams or slips of the
tongue
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Regression- an individual faced with anxiety
retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage,
where some psychic energy remains fixated
– on the first day of school, a child may go back to
sucking their thumb
– homesick college students long for home
• Reaction formation- the ego unconsciously
switches unacceptable impulses into their
opposites
– I hate him becomes I love him
– timidity becomes daring
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Projection- people disguise their own threatening
impulses by attributing them to others
– "He doesnt trust me" may be a projection of "I don’t
trust him“
– the thief thinks everyone else is a thief
• Rationalization- offers self-justifying explanations
in place of the real, more threatening
unconscious reasons for one's actions
– drinkers say they drink with friends to be social
– students who fail may say "All work and no play makes
a person dull"
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Displacement- shifts sexual or aggressive
impulses toward a more acceptable or less
threatening object or person
– students that are upset over an exam may snap at
a roommate
• defense mechanisms work by reducing anxiety
by disguising out threatening impulses
• the defends itself against disease and the ego
defends itself against anxiety
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Denial is often seen as a defense mechanism
as well
– refusing to admit that something unpleasant is
happening
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• in order to evaluate personality according to
Freud's perspective, the researcher needs to find
a path to the person's unconscious
• psychoanalysts dismiss objective assessment
tools
– agree-disagree or true-false tests
– only look at the conscious mind
• Projective tests- a personality test that provides
ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection
of one's inner dynamics
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Projective tests
– provide an ambiguous stimulus then ask the test
taker to describe it or tell a story about it
– the stimulus has no real meaning so any
description is a projection of the person's interests
or conflicts
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Thematic Apperception Test(TAT)- a projective
test in which people express their inner
feelings and interests through the stories they
make up about ambiguous scenes
– developed by Henry Murray
– can assess achievement motivation
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Rorschach inkblot test- a set of 10 inkblots
that seek to identify people's inner feelings by
analyzing their interpretations of the blots
– most widely used projective test
– developed by Hermann Rorschach
– if you see predatory animals in the inkblot, the
examiner may infer you have aggressive
tendencies
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• many scientists believe the Rorschach test is
not reliable or valid
– no universally accepted system for scoring or
interpreting the test
– two raters may not agree at all on their
interpretations for the same test taker
– not very good at predicting behavior or at
discriminating between groups
• who is suicidal and who is not?
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• even with all the critics, the Rorschach is said
to be used at least occasionally by 82 percent
of clinicians
• the biggest complaint of the test is that the
test can diagnose many normal adults as
pathological
• TAT and draw a person test are respected a
little more
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Freud's writings were controversial but very
popular
• Neo-Freudians- psychoanalysts that accepted
Freud's basic ideas of the id, ego, superego,
unconscious, personality being shaped in
childhood, and the use of defense mechanisms
– placed more emphasis on the conscious mind
– doubted that sex and and agression were allconsuming motivations
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Alfred Adler and Karen Horney
– Neo-Freudians
– agreed that childhood was important
– believed childhood social, not sexual, tensions
were crucial for personality formation
– Adler studied feelings of inferiority during
childhood
– Horney studied childhood anxiety
– Horney challenged Freud's belief that women
have weak superegos and suffer from penis envy
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Carl Jung
– Neo-Freudian
– Freud's disciple turned dissenter
– believed the unconscious contained more than
our repressed thoughts and feelings
– Collective unconscious- concept of a shared,
inherited reservoir of memory traces from our
species' history
Psychoanalytic perspective and
personality
• Psychodynamic Theory
– emerged after Freud's death
– do not talk about ids and egos and do not talk
about the psychosexual stages
– do agree with Freud that much of our mental life
is unconscious, that childhood shapes our
personality, and that we do struggle with inner
conflicts between our wishes, fears, and values
Humanistic Perspective
• by 1960 people were getting tired of Freud's
negativity of people
• Freud studied mostly "sick" people to develop his
theories
• Humanistic Psychologists wanted to look at ways
"healthy" people strive for self-determination
and self-realization
• Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were two
humanistic psychologists that studied a person's
potential
Humanistic Perspective
• Maslow says we are motivated by our
hierarchy of needs that has a goal of selfactualization
• Maslow studied healthy, creative people
• studied people like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas
Jefferson, and Eleanor Roosevelt to develop
his idea of self-actualization
– each shared certain characteristics
Humanistic Perspective
• Carl Rogers agreed with most of Maslow's ideas
• Rogers believed that people are basically good
• unless thwarted by an environment that inhibits
growth, we are like an acorn that is primed for
growth and fulfillment
• a growth promoting environment requires three
things:
– genuineness, acceptance, and empathy
• genuine- being open with your own feelings,
dropping your facades, and being transparent
and self-disclosing
Humanistic Perspective
• Acceptance- offering unconditional positive
regard to other people
– an attitude of total acceptance toward another
person
– you accept someone even with their faults
• Empathy- sharing and mirroring our feelings
and reflecting our meanings
– he believed we rarely listen and understand others
• these three things nurture proper growth
Humanistic Perspective
• Rogers and Maslow believed a central feature
of a person's personality is their self-concept
– all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in
answer to the question, "Who am I?"
– positive self-concept leads to a positive view of
the world
– the goal of therapists, parents, and teachers
should be to help others develop a positive selfconcept
Humanistic Perspective
• humanistic psychologists would often use
questionnaires to evaluate a person's selfconcept
• Carl Rogers believed that when someone's ideal
for themselves and the actual self are nearly
alike, the self-concept is positive
• believed that any standardized assessment of
personality is depersonalizing
• believed that interviews and personal
conversation provide a good understanding of a
person's unique experiences
Humanistic Perspective
• humanistic psychologists are like Freud in that
their impact is waning but has been pervasive
• their ideas have influenced counseling,
education, child-rearing, and management
• many people believe in Rogers and Maslow's that
self-concept is the key to happiness and success,
acceptance and empathy help nurture positive
feelings about oneself, and that people are
basically good and capable of self-improvement
Humanistic Perspective
• Critics have the following problems with
Humanism
–
–
–
–
concepts are vague and subjective
does not use scientific descriptions
use's Maslow's personal values and ideals
the ideas promoted by Humanism can lead to selfindulgence, selfishness, and an erosion of moral
restraints
– fails to appreciate the reality of our human capacity
for evil
Humanistic Perspective
• Humanists defend Humanism by saying:
– a secure, nondefensive self-acceptance is actually
the first step toward loving others and does not
cause self-indulgence
Humanistic Perspective
• humanistic psychologists debate among
themselves about whether people are basically
good
• action requires enough realism to fuel concern
and enough optimism to provide hope
– humanism provides the hope but not the realism
• Rogers did not find that this evil is inherent in
human nature
– evil springs not from human nature but from toxic
cultural influences
The Trait Perspective
• Gordon Allport developed this perspective after
interviewing Freud
• he would try to describe personality in terms of
fundamental traits
– traits- people's characteristic behaviors and conscious
motives
• he was not concerned with explaining individual
traits but was interested in describing the traits
• he would classify the traits into different types
The Trait Perspective
• Business and career counselors try to classify
people according to Carl Jung's personality
types
• in order to assess these types the MyersBriggs Type Indicator can be used
– 126 questions
– choices are offered and the choices chosen are
grouped into certain types
The Trait Perspective
• How can psychologists condense the number
of traits and group them more efficiently?
• Factor analysis- the statistical procedure to
identify clusters of test items that tap basic
components of intelligence
• Hans and Sybil Eysenck developed to a few
dimensions or types
– Extraversion-Introversion and Emotional stabilityinstability
The Trait Perspective
• assessment techniques that come from trait
concepts try to profile a person's behavior
patterns
• some trait scales only look at one trait at a time
• multiple traits can be studied using personality
inventories
– a questionnaire on which people respond to items
designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and
behaviors used to assess selected personality traits
The Trait Perspective
• the most researched and widely used personality
inventory is the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory(MMPI)
• the MMPI items were empirically derived
– a test developed by testing a pool of items and then
selecting those that discriminate between groups
• the MMPI-2 is the modern day version
– includes a lie scale to try and detect if someone is
lying in their responses to try and impress someone
The Trait Perspective
• personality inventories are scored objectively
– a computer can administer and score the test
• even though it is objective it does not mean it is
valid
– often times people use it for other reasons than what
it has been found to be valid for
• self-report personality tests are the most widely
used method of assessing traits
• David Funder believes peer reports are more
trustworthy
The Trait Perspective
• the Big Five- personality factors that are
studied by using personality inventories
– it specifies where you are in the dimensions
• the dimensions are on the next slide
The Trait Perspective
• the Big Five traits are considered to be pretty
stable with a possible slight change during the
years right after college
• the Big Five describe different personality traits in
different cultures pretty well
• person-situation controversy- when you look for
genuine personality traits that persist over time
and across situations
– in order to consider someone friendly they must show
it over time and in different situations
The Trait Perspective
• some people argue against the consistency of
the Big Five and say that some behaviors are
not consistent enough
• the critics believe the scores on the tests can
only mildly predict someone's behavior
Social-Cognitive Perspective
• Social-Cognitive Perspective- views behavior as
influenced by the interaction between persons
and their social context
– proposed by Albert Bandura
• social-cognitive theorists believe we learn many
of our behaviors either through conditioning or
by observing others and modeling our behaviors
after theirs
• they focus on how we and our environment
interact with each other
Social-Cognitive Perspective
• Bandura called the process of interacting with
our environment, reciprocal determinism
– this is the interacting influences between
personality and environmental factors
– example- children's TV-viewing habits influence
their viewing preferences, which influence how TV
affects their current behavior
Social-Cognitive Perspective
• Social-cognitive theorists emphasize our sense
of personal control
– our sense of controlling our environment rather
than feeling helpless
• External locus of control- the perception that
chance or outside forces beyond one's
personal control determine one's fate
• Internal locus of control- the perception that
one controls one's own fate
Social-Cognitive Perspective
• Self-control- the ability to control impulses and
delay gratification
– predicts adjustment, better grades, and social success
according to some psychologists
• self-control takes energy and must have a chance
to replenish
• people who feel helpless perceive control as
external
• dogs strapped to a harness and that receive
repeated shocks, with no opportunity to avoid
them, learn a sense of helplessness
Social-Cognitive Perspective
• even when that dog is given a chance to
escape by jumping over a hurdle, the dogs
cower as if without hope
• learned helplessness- the hopelessness and
passive resignation an animal or human learns
when unable to avoid repeated aversive
events
Social-Cognitive Perspective
• Spotlight effect- overestimating others'
noticing and evaluating our appearance,
performance, and blunders
• Self-esteem- one's feelings of high or low selfworth
• Self-serving bias- a readiness to perceive
oneself favorably
– accept good deeds more than bad ones
– consider yourself better than average
Social-Cognitive Perspective
• Individualism- giving priority to one's own goals
over group goals, and defining one's identity in
terms of personal attributes rather than group
identifications
• Collectivism- giving priority to the goals of one's
group and defining one's identity accordingly
• terror management theory- proposes that faith in
one's worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem
provide protection against a deeply rooted fear of
death
Other Terms
• False Consensus Effect- the tendency to
overestimate the extent to which others share
our beliefs and our behaviors
– People who cheat on their taxes or break speed
limits tend to think many others do it as well
– People who are happy, kind, and trustworthy tend
to see others as the same
– This is the term used by today’s researchers for
Freud’s idea of projection
Other Terms
• Behavioral approach- in personality theory,
this perspective focuses on the effects of
learning on our personality development
– We are conditioned to repeat certain behaviors,
and we learn by observing and imitating others
– A child with a very controlling parent may learn to
follow orders rather than think independently, and
may exhibit a more timid personality
Other Terms
• Positive psychology- the scientific study of
optimal human functioning; aims to discover
and promote strengths and virtues that
enable individuals and communities to thrive
– Shares with humanistic psychology an interest in
advancing human fulfillment
– Its more scientific than humanism
– Positive psychology is an umbrella term for the
study of positive emotions, positive character
traits, and enabling institutions
Other Terms
• Self-efficacy- one’s sense of competence and
effectiveness
– People who feel good about themselves have
fewer sleepless nights
– They succumb less easily to pressures to conform
– They are more persistent at difficult tasks
– Less shy, anxious, and lonely
Other Terms
• Narcissism- excessive self-love and selfabsorption
– Generation Me(born in the 1980s and 1990s) is
expressing more narcissism by agreeing more
often with statements such as, “If I ruled the
world, it would be a better place”