Lecture Overview
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Trait Theories
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Theories
Humanistic Theories
Social-Cognitive Theories
Biological Theories
Personality Assessment
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Key Definition
• Personality: unique &
relatively stable
pattern of thoughts,
feelings, & actions
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Trait Theories
• Trait: relatively stable personal characteristic
used to describe someone
• Key Figures:
– Early Trait Theorists: Allport, Cattell,
Eysenck
– Modern Trait Theorists: McCrae & Costa-Five-Factor Model (FFM)
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Five Factor Model
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Openness
Conscientiousness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
OCEAN
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Pause & Reflect:
Psychology at Work
Measuring Personality Traits
Goes both ways!
Conscientiousness can
reflect a hard-working
person or someone with
OCD.
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Evaluating Trait Theories
• Pro:
– Five-factor model (FFM) helps describe &
organize personality characteristics using the
fewest number of traits.
– Evolutionary, cross-cultural, & cross-species
studies support five-factor model (FFM).
• Con:
• Dan McAdams: “The Psychology of a Stranger”
– Lacks explanation
– Ignores situational effects; doesn’t predict
behavior
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Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Theories
• Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Theories:
examine how unconscious mental forces
interplay with thoughts, feelings, & actions.
Accounts for inner conflict
• Early Key Figures:
– Founding Father--Freud
– Neo-Freudians--Adler, Jung, Horney
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Theories: Levels of Consciousness
• Conscious: thoughts or motives
person is currently aware of or
remembering
• Preconscious: thoughts, motives,
or memories that can be
voluntarily brought to mind
• Unconscious: thoughts, motives,
or memories blocked from
normal awareness
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Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Theories: Personality Structures
• Id: instinctual energy
(pleasure principle)
• Ego: rational part of
psyche (reality
principle)
• Superego: the
conscience (morality
principle)
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Theories: Defense Mechanisms
• Defense mechanisms: ego’s protective
method of reducing anxiety by distorting
reality
EGO
ID
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SUPER
EGO
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Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Theories:
Psychosexual Stages of Development
• Psychosexual Stages: Freudian idea of five
developmental periods key to personality
development
– Oral Stage: birth-18 months
– Anal Stage: 18 months-3 yrs
– Phallic Stage: 3-6 yrs
– Latency Stage: 6 yrs-puberty
– Genital Stage: puberty-adulthood
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• Freud believed all
children pass through
five psychosexual
stages. At each stage
the id’s pleasure
seeking energies focus
on specific pleasure
areas of the body
(erogenous zones).
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Theories: Neo-Freudian Theorists
• Adler: suggested that most
people experience an
inferiority complex, which
later results in a “will-topower” that can be either
positive or negative
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Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Theories: Neo-Freudian Theorists
• Jung: proposed an
inherited collective
unconscious
consisting of
archetypes
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Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Theories: Neo-Freudian Theorists
• Horney: believed
some adults
experience basic
anxiety due to
childhood feelings
of helplessness
and isolation
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Evaluation?
• Con:
– Emphasis on unconscious, – Difficult to test
intra-psychic conflicts
– Overemphasizes drive
reduction & unconscious
– Modern psychodynamic
theories have moved away forces
from psychosexual analysis – Inadequate evidence for
theory
and focus on relationships
– Sexism
“Object Relations”
• Pro:
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Personality Development:
Erikson’s Eight Psychosocial Stages
• Erik Erikson identified 8
psychosocial stages of
development—each
marked by a
“psychosocial” crisis or
conflict related to a
specific developmental
task.
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Humanists
• Emphasis:
– Personality develops from internal
experiences (feelings & thoughts) &
individual feelings of basic worth.
– People are innately good (or, at
worst, neutral) with a positive drive
toward self-fulfillment.
• Key Figures: Rogers & Maslow
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Humanistic Theories:
• Key component of personality
= the self, what a person
defines as “I” or “me”
• Mental health is related to the
degree of congruence
between the self-concept &
life experiences.
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
cepts
Humanistic Theories:
Rogers’s Key Terms (Continued)
• Unconditional
Positive
Regard: love &
acceptance
with no
contingencies
attached
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Humanistic Theories:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow’s proposal that
basic physical necessities must be satisfied
before higher-growth needs
• Self-Actualization: Maslow’s term for the
inborn drive to develop all one’s talents &
capabilities
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Evaluating Humanistic Theories
• Pro:
– Many concepts
incorporated into
successful therapy
• Con:
– Naive assumptions
– Poor testability &
inadequate
evidence
– Narrowness
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Social-Cognitive Theories
• Social Cognitive Theories
Personality reflects:
– individual’s interactions
environment
– how people think about
world & interpret
to them
– Key Figures:
Rotter
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with the
the
what happens
Bandura &
Social-Cognitive Theories:
Bandura’s Key Terms
• Self-Efficacy: person’s
learned expectation of
success
• Reciprocal Determinism:
cognitions, behaviors,
& the environment
interact to produce
personality
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Social-Cognitive Theories:
Rotter’s Key Terms
• Cognitive Expectancies: what people expect to
happen
• Reinforcement Value: degree to which people
prefer one reinforcer over another
• Locus of Control: what people consider the source
of life’s rewards & punishments (internal or external
locus of control)
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Evaluating Social-Cognitive Theories
• Pro:
• Con:
– Emphasizes how
– Narrow focus
environment affects – Ignores
& is affected by
unconscious &
individuals
emotional aspects
– Easy to measure in
of personality
psychology
experiments
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Biology
• Three major biological
contributors to personality:
• Brain Structures
• Neurochemistry
• Genetic Factors
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Integrating the Perspectives
• Biopsychosocial
model suggests
multiple theories
provide different
insights &
contribute different
proportions to
personality.
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010
Personality Assessment
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Four methods to measure
personality:
Interviews
Observations
Objective Tests
(MMPI)
Projective Tests
(Rorschach, TAT)
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Two Key Criteria for Test Assessment
• Reliability: Measure of the consistency &
reproducibility of a test’s scores when test is
given again
• Validity: Ability of a test to measure what it
was designed measure
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010