Chapter 12
Personality: Theory, Research, and
Assesment
7-9% on AP EXAM
OBJECTIVES:


Explain the 5 Factor Model
Describe Freud’s theory of personality development:
– Id, Ego & Superego
– Iceberg theory of consciousness
– Psychosexual stages
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The Five Factor Model
Research suggests that five personality
factors are inherited or at least present at an
early age.
Openness; Conscientiousne Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticis
curiosity;
ss; self; sociable;
m or
accepting
discipline;
outgoing
emotional
of other
willingness to
stability
points of
achieve
view
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Defining Personality: Consistency and
Distinctiveness

Personality Traits
– Dispositions and dimensions

The Five-Factor Model
– Openness to experience - curiosity, flexibility, vivid fantasy,
imaginativeness,
– Conscientiousness - diligent, disciplined, well organized,
punctual, and dependable
– Extraversion - outgoing, sociable, upbeat, friendly, assertive
– Agreeableness - sympathetic, trusting, cooperative, modest
– Neuroticism - anxious, hostile, self-conscious, insecure, and
vulnerable
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The Trait Perspective
The “Big Five” Personality Factors – “OCEAN”
Trait Dimension
Description
Emotional Stability
(Neurosis)
Calm versus anxious
Secure versus insecure
Self-satisfied versus self-pitying
Extraversion
Sociable versus retiring
Fun-loving versus sober
Affectionate versus reserved
Openness
Imaginative versus practical
Preference for variety versus
preference for routine
Independent versus conforming
Agreeableness
Soft-hearted versus ruthless
Trusting versus suspicious
Helpful versus uncooperative
Organized versus disorganized
Careful versus careless
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Disciplined versus impulsive
Conscientiousness
Raymond Cattell
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The Trait Perspective

Moody
Anxious
Rigid
Sober
Pessimistic
Reserved
Unsociable
Quiet
UNSTABLE
Hans Eysenck uses
two primary personality
factors as axes for
describing personality
variation
Touchy
Restless
Aggressive
Excitable
Changeable
Impulsive
Optimistic
Active
melancholic choleric
INTROVERTED
EXTRAVERTED
phlegmatic sanguine
Passive
Sociable
Careful
Outgoing
Thoughtful
Talkative
Peaceful
Responsive
Controlled
Easygoing
Reliable
Lively
Carefree
Even-tempered
Leadership
Calm
STABLE
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The Trait Perspective
Type A Personality
intense, driven, goal-oriented, successful, taskoriented, higher income, risk for heart disease due to
anger issues
Type B Personality
laid back, easy-going, procrastinator, longer life
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Evaluation of Trait Perspective



Doesn’t really explain personality, simply describe the
behaviors
Doesn’t describe the development of the behaviors
Trait approaches generally fail to address how issues
such as motives, unconscious, or beliefs about self
affect personality development
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Psychodynamic Perspectives

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
– Structure of personality
• Id - Pleasure principle
• Ego - Reality principle
• Superego - Morality
– Levels of awareness – “ice berg”
• Conscious – 10% above water
• Unconscious – 90% below water
– Conflict
• Sex and Aggression
• Anxiety
• Defense Mechanisms
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Personality Structure
Ego
Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind

Freud’s idea of
the mind’s
structure
Superego
Id
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
The school year is ending and final exams are
near.You have done well, but are having difficulty in
your Psychology class.You know that in order to get
a grade of “B”, the minimum acceptable by your
parents, you must get an “A” on the final.You have
tried studying, but feel it is an unattainable goal.As
you are leaving campus to go home on the afternoon
prior to the test, you find a group of papers in the hall
which has apparently been dropped by someone.You
look down, and find that one of the dropped papers
has the heading “Psychology: Final Exam”.You pick
up the paper and look at it quickly, noticing that no
one has seen you.What do you do next?
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Psychology:Final Exam


Create dialogue on how your ID, EGO and
SUPEREGO would discuss this problem.What would
the ID be telling you to do, what would the
SUPEREGO be telling you to do, how is the EGO
involved.
ex.
– ID: “bla bla bla”
– SUPEREGO: “bla bla bla”
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Freud on Development: Psychosexual
Stages


Sexual = physical pleasure
Psychosexual stages
– Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital
• Fixation = Excessive gratification or frustration
• Overemphasis on psychosexual needs during fixated stage

Oedipus Complex
 a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and
feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
 necessary for development of superego; the boy
identifies with the father
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
A man goes to a Psychologist and says, "Doc I got a real
problem, I can't stop thinking about sex."
The Psychologist says, "Well let's see what we can find out", and
pulls out his ink blots. "What is this a picture of?" he asks.
The man turns the picture upside down then turns it around and
states, "That's a man and a woman on a bed making love."
 The Psychologist says, "very interesting," and shows the next
picture. "And what is this a picture of?"
The man looks and turns it in different directions and says,
"That's a man and a woman on a bed making love."
 The Psychologists tries again with the third ink blot, and asks the
same question, "What is this a picture of?"
The patient again turns it in all directions and replies, "That's a
man and a woman on a bed making love."
 The Psychologist states, "Well, yes, you do seem to be obsessed
with sex."
"Me!?" demands the patient. "You're the one who keeps showing
me the dirty pictures!"
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Neo-Freudians
Accepted Freud’s basic ideas:
the personality structures of id, ego, and superego; the
importance of the unconscious; the shaping of personality
in childhood; and dynamics of anxiety and the defense
mechanisms. But they veered away from Freud in two
important ways.
1. They placed more emphasis on the role of the
conscious mind in interpreting experience and coping
with the environment.
2. They doubted that sex and aggression were allconsuming motivations. Instead, they placed more
emphasis on loftier motives and on social interaction.
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Other Psychodynamic Theorists
a.k.a = Neo-Freudians

Carl Jung
– Analytical Psychology
• personal unconscious -which houses material that is not within one’s
conscious awareness because it has been repressed or forgotten; and
the collective unconscious - which houses latent memory traces
inherited from people’s ancestral past.
• Archetypes - emotionally charged images and thought forms that have
universal meaning…
• Introversion/Extroversion

Alfred Adler - argued that Freud had gone overboard with his
focus on sexual conflict
– Individual Psychology
•
•
•
•
Striving for superiority
Compensation
Inferiority complex/overcompensation
Birth order
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Karen Horney





Pronounced “Horn-eye” for obvious reasons
Need for human love and security
Looked at anxiety related to security and social
relationships
Basic anxiety—the feeling of being isolated and
helpless in a hostile world
Sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases- women
don’t have penis envy and they don’t have weak
superegos
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Evaluating Psychodynamic
Perspectives


Pros
Insights regarding
– The unconscious
– The role of internal conflict
– The importance of early childhood experiences

Cons
– Poor testability
– Inadequate empirical base
– Sexist views
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Freud’s ideas in light of
modern research


Freud died in 1939 and did not have the benefit
of all the modern-day research & tools that we
have today.
--human development is not fixed in childhood,
but over time. --gender identity does not form
because of Oedipus Complex. --dreams do not
disguise and fulfill wishes. --repression never
occurs. --unconscious is not seething passions
and repressive censoring but information
processing that occurs without our awareness.
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Freud’s ideas as scientific theory

Psychologists criticize Freud’s theory for its scientific
shortcomings. Good scientific theories explain
observations and offer testable hypotheses. Critics
say that Freud’s theory offers after-the-fact
explanations of people and their behaviors.
Contemporary psychologists are least likely to agree
with Freud’s belief that conscience and gender
identity form in the process of resolving the Oedipus
Complex.
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Behavioral Perspectives

Skinner’s views
– Conditioning and response tendencies
– Environmental determinism

Bandura’s views
– Social learning theory
•
•
•
•

Cognitive processes and reciprocal determinism
Observational learning
Models
Self-efficacy
Mischel’s views
– The person-situation controversy
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Evaluating Behavioral Perspectives

Pros
– Based on rigorous research
– Insights into effects of learning and environmental factors

Cons
– Over-dependence on animal research
– Fragmented view of personality
– Dehumanizing views
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Humanistic Perspectives

Carl Rogers
– Person Centered Theory
• Self-concept
– Conditional/unconditional positive regard
– Incongruence and anxiety

Abraham Maslow
– Self-actualization theory
– Hierarchy of needs
• The healthy personality
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Humanistic Perspective

Self-Actualization
 the ultimate psychological need that arises
after basic physical and psychological
needs are met and self-esteem is
achieved
 the motivation to fulfill one’s potential
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Evaluating Humanistic Perspectives

Humanistic theories are credited with highlighting the
importance of a person’s subjective view of reality.
They are also applauded for focusing attention on the
issue of what constitutes a healthy personality.

They are criticized for lacking a strong research base,
poor testability, and what may be an overly optimistic
view of human nature (Maslow had a hard time
finding live people who had self-actualized).
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Biological Perspectives

Eysenk’s theory
– 3 higher order traits
– Extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism
• Determined by genes

Twin studies
– Novelty seeking and genetics

The evolutionary approach
– Traits conducive to reproductive fitness
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Evaluating Biological Perspectives

Pros
– Convincing evidence for genetic influence

Cons
– Conceptual problems with heritability estimates - heritability
estimates vary depending on sampling procedures and other
considerations, and should only be used as ballpark figures.
– Artificial carving apart of nature and nurture - they interact in
complicated ways
– No comprehensive biological theory
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Self-Reporting Tests

16 PF - Hans Eysenck

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI)
 the most widely researched and clinically used of all
personality tests
 originally developed to identify emotional disorders
(still considered its most appropriate use)
 now used for many other screening purposes
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The Trait Perspective
Clinically
significant
range
Hypochondriasis 1
(concern with body symptoms)
Depression2
(pessimism, hopelessness)
After
treatment
(no scores
in the clinically
significant range)
Hysteria 3
(uses symptoms to solve problems)
Psychopathic deviancy 4
(disregard for social standards)

Before
treatment
(anxious,
depressed,
and
displaying
deviant
behaviors)
Masculinity/femininity 5
(interests like those of other sex)
Paranoia 6
(delusions, suspiciousness)
Psychasthenia 7
(anxious, guilt feelings)
Minnesota
Multiphasic
Personality
Inventory
(MMPI) test
profile
Schizophrenia 8
(withdrawn, bizarre thoughts)
Hypomania 9
(overactive, excited, impulsive)
Social introversion 10
(shy, inhibited)
0
30
40
50
60
70
80
T-score
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Assessing the Unconscious

Projective Test
 a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT,
that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger
projection of one’s inner dynamics

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
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Assessing the Unconscious-TAT
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Assessing the Unconscious

Rorschach Inkblot Test
 the most widely used projective test
 a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach
 seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing
their interpretations of the blots
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Assessing the Unconscious-Rorschach
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Drawbacks to Projective Tests




Examiner or test situation may influence individual’s
response
Scoring is highly subjective
Tests fail to produce consistent results (reliability
problem)
Tests are poor predictors of future behavior (validity
problem)
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Social-Cognitive Perspective
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Social-Cognitive Perspective

Personal Control
 our sense of controlling our environments
rather than feeling helpless

External Locus of Control
 the perception that chance or outside
forces beyond one’s personal control
determine one’s fate
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Social-Cognitive Perspective

Internal Locus of Control
 the perception that one controls one’s own
fate

Learned Helplessness
 the hopelessness and passive resignation
an animal or human learns when unable to
avoid repeated aversive events
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Social-Cognitive Perspective

Learned Helplessness
Uncontrollable
bad events
Perceived
lack of control
Generalized
helpless behavior
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Social-Cognitive Perspective

Positive Psychology – Martin Seligman
 the scientific study of optimal human
functioning
 aims to discover and promote conditions
that enable individuals and communities to
thrive
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Optimism vs. Pessimism
An optimistic or pessimistic attributional style is
your way of explaining positive or negative
events.
Positive psychology aims to discover and
promote conditions that enable individuals and
communities to thrive.
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Assessing Behavior in Situations

Assessing Behavior in Situations
the best means of predicting future behavior is neither
a personality test nor an interviewer’s intuition.
Rather, it is the person’s past behavior pattern in
similar situations.
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Evaluation of Social Cognitive
Perspective



Well grounded in empirical, laboratory research
However, laboratory experiences are rather simple
and may not reflect the complexity of human
interactions
Ignores the influences of unconscious, emotions,
conflicts
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