Personality Theories

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Psychology
 After
Freud’s theories are popularized
 Debate between pro-Freud and anti-Freud
psychologists
 Various theories to fit your own insights
about causes of human behavior
 To explain human complexity
 All
behavior is reaction to stimuli from the
world around you
 Control the stimuli-control the behavior
 John Watson: Psychologists frustrated with
making assumptions about unknown mental
functions
 Focus only on verifiable observable behavior
 Based on Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning
research: Pavlov’s dogs
 System
of stimulus-response units: cause and
effects between environment and behavior
 Rewarded or pleasurable responses
encourage repetition of behavior

Punishment deters behavior
 Example:
Baby responds to mother, expects
care

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Food, warmth, love
Responds with cooing and waving arms
Cry when mom goes away
 Watson’s
successor as leading American
behaviorist
 Dismisses Freud’s psychoanalytic approach
 Believes development of personality is too
important to leave to parents/learning
experiences
 Walden
Two: Invents self-sufficient
community run on behaviorist principles


Trained nurses raise children
Shape personalities to maintain stable productive
society
 Applied
theory to all of society in Beyond
Freedom and Dignity

Critics accuse him of trying to solve problems by
sacrificing free will and individual responsibility
 Infants
born with 3 instinctive responses:
love, rage, and fear
 All others developed through learning
 Classifies all behavior as respondent or
operant:
 Respondent: When stimulus causes reflexive
automatic involuntary response
 Operant:
Behaviors that act on environment to
gain reward
 Most human behavior falls into this category

Can be conditioned through reinforcement
 To
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display: Skinner trains pigeons
Teach behaviors in small steps and reward with food
pellets
Bowling, play ping pong, piano, and drop bombs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGazyH6fQQ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhvaSEJtOV8&fe
ature=related
 Broken
down into small steps
 Desirable behavior is rewarded
 Undesirable behavior is ignored
 Example: Teaching a child to swim
 Applied to personality: Early life experiences
can condition later life behavior
 Underlying cause for neurotic behavior
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXA
CsOI
 Neurotic
behavior is poorly chosen response
to stimuli
 Causes general anxiety that makes it
impossible to cope with symptoms
 Behavioral Therapy: Teaches you to form the
correct response
 Common Technique: Systematic
Desensitization process

Example: Get over fear of heights
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn9lBdkY
u5Y
 1940s:
Wanted her to have the best possible
environment to produce healthy, happy baby

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Temperature control: less restrictive clothing
Keep out noise and light so she sleeps well
Clean: Bath her less often
She grew up normal and successful
He was criticized: Why didn’t it catch on?
 New
research shows humans are highly
adaptable to change in environment
 Psychoanalysts modify Freud’s ideas: Believe
social influences play a major role in shaping
personality
 Think less about influence of heredity and
childhood experiences
 Agree:
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Unconscious has important influence
Repression used to cope with anxiety
Defense mechanisms protect ego
Early childhood is when you form basic personality
 Disagree:
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Sex Drive
vs. Social influence=more important
Childhood Sexuality vs.
Learned relationship skills
Woman=inferior
vs.
Neither superior
Id/Ego/Superego
vs.
They don’t exist
 Basic
needs must be met; then child needs
love, support and motivation
 http://www.wisconline.com/objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=I2P4
01
 Broke
with Freud in 1911 to form new school
of “individual psychology”
 Believes Freud focuses too much on
sexuality’s influence on personality
 Focuses on inborn social needs/urges instead
 Society modifies these according to it’s own
values/culture
 Inner
system that guides an individual to a
fulfilling style of life
 It is you: it makes you the unique person you
are
 Each person chooses a particular role
because society seems to reward that choice


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Examples: happy-go-lucky, romantic,
intellectual, melancholy
Fosters your drive to be a superior person
Adler contributes this to free will/choice, unlike
Freud contributing it to unconscious
 Begins
as child when you are helpless, adults
have all the control and power
 Most healthy people overcome this
 Some don’t: lack social skills, have
disabilities, a lack of support, or experience
discrimination
 Some use it as a motivation to try harder and
succeed to prove themselves
 Some compensate through actions that hurt
others
 People
driven by ideals that may be pure
fiction, but are ones they pursue with great
determination
 Causes stress when they attempt to strictly
adhere to them


Example: “Honesty is the best policy”
“If I am good, everyone will love me”
 Inborn
characteristic: we want out
community to be a better place
 We want to believe there is good in everyone

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Why some will risk their lives for a stranger
Give generously to charity for greater good
Many now are placing concern about personal
safety over social interest in the modern world
 German
psychiatrist
 Didn’t like focus on sexual drives and
inferiority of women

New ideas cost her a job and some of her support
 Worked
very hard to be respected as a
woman in her field
 Well loved for her warmth and dedication to
helping people
 Believes
that ability to cope with life is
directly related to how well a child copes
with threats to it’s security
 Adult personality grows out of this success or
failure in coping with this anxiety
 Babies: unable to control their environment
and feel helpless
 Harsh/strict/negligent parents increases
anxiety
 Major
contribution to personality theory
 Needs grow out of strategies to combat
anxiety
 People often make unrealistic demands on
themselves on others
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“I SHOULD always be understanding, helpful,
sympathetic, forgiving, etc.”
Do things because you should do them not
because you necessarily feel it or want to
 Needs
that move an individual toward people:

Need for affection, approval, to please others

Need for partner to run their life, fear of being
alone

Need for prestige: self-confidence rests totally on
receiving recognition from others

Need for personal admiration: Expects to be admired
on the basis of false/inflated self-image
 Needs
the move an individual away from
people:

Need to restrict one’s life within narrow borders

Need for self-sufficiency and independence:
relationships are painful, won’t accept love

Need for perfection: Mistakes are weakness, person
tries to be infallible at all times
 Needs
that move an individual against people:

Need for power: control is so important that they
will do anything to attain it

Need to exploit others: Take advantage of people to
relive own feelings of insecurity/helplessness

Need for personal achievement: Constantly needs
more success, even if at the expense of others
 Austrian
psychologist who studied with Anna
Freud
 Theory of Psychosocial Development:
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Same age as Freud’s psychosexual development
In each stage: Achieve new way of seeing
yourself in relation to society
Personality develops throughout your whole life
In each stage: Conflict develops between positive
and negative ego qualities, you must resolve
each crisis to move successfully through stages
If one is not resolved, it CAN be resolved later in
life
 Trust

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vs. Mistrust: Birth to one year
Babies learn to trust of fear the world depending
on experiences with other people/parents
Need to feel world is orderly and predictable
Lack of trust causes anxiety/fear in later stages
 Autonomy
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vs. Doubt: Early childhood age 2-3
Children must develop self confidence and
independence
Learn to feed and dress themselves and become
toilet trained
Kids not given the opportunity to explore new
skills will be full of shame and self doubt
 Initiative
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vs. Guilt: Play age, ages 4-5
Children are curious and should be encouraged to
develop their intellectual resources and interests
Free to run, play, and question everything
Guilt results from overly strict parenting that
hinder self-motivation
 Industry
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vs. Inferiority: School age, 6-11
Most kids enter school eager to learn and show
off skills
Curious and love trying new things
Explore interpersonal relationships
Teachers/parents who push too hard can cause
feelings of inferiority and lack of initiative
 Identity
vs. Role Confusion: Adolescence,
ages 12-18
Critical period where you find your own identity
 Made more difficult by challenges of adolescent
tasks: sex, career choices, relationships with
peers and parents, etc.
 Must resolve identity crisis in order to have
clear goals for a happy productive adulthood

 Intimacy
vs. Isolation: young adulthood,
ages 19-35
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People are looking for a partner
Find your values while your identity will be
challenged by friends and lovers
Must develop strength to stick to commitments
even if there is sacrifice or deferred gratification
 Generativity
vs. Stagnation: Adulthood, ages 36-60
Mature adults begin to plan for future generations,
through children or community contribution
 Volunteer work, coaching, or helping your own kids
succeed adds to quality of life
 Stagnant adults are concerned only with themselves and
try to deny aging process and concentrate
on material pleasures
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 Ego
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Integrity vs. Despair: old age, 60+
Well-integrated elderly people can cherish their
successes, learn from their failures, and accept
death
Remain active and involved
Those who did not achieve ego integrity are full
of anger, fear, despair and regret
 Swiss
Psychoanalyst, friend of Freud
 Doesn‘t agree with Freud’s focus on sex drives
 Instead, places emphasis on spiritual and moral
aspects of life
 So influential and original that he has his own
school of psychology; Analytic Psychology
 Calls the human personality the psyche
 Two
parts: Personal and Collective Unconscious
 The Personal Unconscious: contains experiences
that were once conscious but have been
forgotten/repressed
 Unconscious can influence conscious behavior
 Complex: organized group of feelings/thoughts
in the unconscious
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Fixation on aspect that dominates your life that you
may or may not be aware of
Examples: money complex, power complex, mother
complex, etc.
 The
Collective Unconscious:
 Universal instincts, drives, and memories shared
by the human race
 Cross boundaries of time, skin color, and
geography
 “Memories” of history are unseen forces
influencing your thoughts/feelings/perceptions
 2 million years of evolutionary experience left a
mark on the human brain

Example: People still like to hunt/fish, universal
behaviors across separated cultures, etc.
 Universal
thought patterns, themes, and
symbols
 Appear across time in literature, religion,
music, art, etc.
 Create images on which you base your
perception of the world
 Creates your sense of wholeness,
completeness, and interconnectivity

Examples: Hero archetype, mother earth
archetype, the wise old man, the devil/villain
 Four
become systems within personality:
 1. Persona: The “mask” you wear to hide
your true self in public (your image)
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In response to social pressure, traditions, and
need for acceptance
Healthy if it is a choice, but can’t allow it to
dominate your life
Example: the good girl, the bad boy
 Anima
and Animus:
 All people carry elements of the opposite sex
within their personalities
 Anima: Feminine image men carry
 Animus: Male image women carry
 Provide balance to the personality
 Enable sexes to understand each other
 Forms your perception/expectations of the
opposite sex

Example: Ideal woman
 Shadow:
Represents the primitive side of
personality
 Socially unacceptable thoughts/desires are
repressed by personal unconscious
 Most people hide the shadow behind their
persona

Deep secrets, guilty pleasures, skeletons in the
closet, selfish needs, etc.
 Self:
Analytic psychology places great
emphasis on concept of the self
 Life goal, striving for unity and completeness
 Few reach this because all other elements of
personality must fully develop first

Example: Religious leaders or philosophers who
join conscious and unconscious mind see
emergence of completed self
 Introversion:
look inward, find pleasure in
pursuing own thoughts, shy, happiest alone
 Extroversion: invest psychic energy in the
outside world, need company, excitement,
activity, outgoing
 Everyone has both aspects, one usually
dominates
 As
the subject responds to a list of prepared
words, repressed/concealed thoughts will
slip past the mind’s censors into speech
 Responses to key words admit guilt/connect
them to a crime, etc.

Similar to polygraph test
 Human
beings are free agents, they
determine their behavior by choice
 Not controlled by unconscious forces
 No one is bound to the past
 Rollo May: Encourages people to take
responsibility for their own lives

“I learned along the way to tune in on my being,
my existence in the now, because that was all
there was—that and my tubular body. It was a
valuable experience to face death, for in the
experience I learned to face life”
 Created
after WWII to aid people who felt
life was empty of meaning
 It is the belief in the nobility of the human
spirit that gives meaning and purpose to life
 Central concept of life is being: all you can
know of the world is what you perceive

“You are part of the world, and the world is part
of you”
 Being
is becoming: Humans have potential to
grow and change things
 Alternative is to give in to frustration and sense
of futility
 To realize your potential requires that you
explore your own being/consciousness/identity
 Happiness found in freedom and commitment
 Humans
must take responsibility of their own
life, completely free will
 Make choices, take action, take risks, learn
from mistakes
 Everyone can change for the better and has a
responsibility to do so
 Don’t make excuses for your
problems/issues:

“My parents hit me when I was little, so it’s their
fault that this is the way I am. I can’t change.”
 Happiness
is a by-product of committing
yourself to the choices you have made
 Make each choice in your life as if you are
making it for all humanity
 Anxiety and despair result when you refuse
to take responsibility of your own life
 Life is not fair, bad things will happen, but
live your life to the fullest and make the
beset of it
 Anxiety/despair
are inescapable parts of the
human condition
 Making choices means taking chances
 Each choice brings new anxiety
 If you give in to this anxiety it causes
neurotic behavior

Examples: Withdrawal from society, seeking
pleasure by any means, conforming to the
views/desires of others so they don’t have to
make their own choices, etc.
 Existential
vacuum: Feeling that everything
is meaningless, feeling helpless to change
anything successfully, give up instead
 Viktor Frankl: Studied concentration camp
inmates

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Many were in an existential vacuum=died
Those who lived were those who had a task to
complete in life: someone/something depended
on them=gives them meaning and purpose
 Viktor
Frankl: “I have seen the meaning of
my life in helping others to see in their lives
a meaning”
 Rollo May: Anxiety in small doses is
constructive
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Sharpens your sensitivity
Spark creativity/motivation
Living up to your responsibilities strengthens you
 Psychologists
still hope for an all-encompassing
theory to explain personality
 Family Systems Theory: Therapists should focus
on the family not individuals

Family interactions can cause anxiety or happiness
 Psychologists
are exploring ethnic and cultural
forces that shape personality
 Gender theory is gaining ground in comparing
roles each sex takes on which form their
personalities
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