PsychSmart
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
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
CHAPTER TEN:
PERSONALITY
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Psychodynamic Approaches
to Personality

How do psychologists define and use the
concept of personality?

What do the theories of Freud and his
successors tell us about the structure and
development of personality?
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Psychodynamic Approaches
to Personality

Based on the idea that personality is
motivated by inner forces and conflicts
about which people have little awareness
and over which they have no control
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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind
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Psychoanalytic Theory
Sigmund Freud
 Unconscious

Part of the personality that contains memories,
knowledge, beliefs, feelings, urges, drives, and
instincts of which one is not aware
 Motivates much of our behavior
 Preconscious


Holds material easily brought to mind
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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind

Structuring Personality: Id, Ego, and
Superego

Id
Raw, unorganized, inborn part of personality
 Holds primitive drives
 Pleasure principle

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Copyright © McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2011
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind

Structuring Personality: Id, Ego, and
Superego

Ego
Strives to balance the desires of the id and the
realities of the objective, outside world
 Reality principle
 “Executive” of personality

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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind

Structuring Personality: Id, Ego, and
Superego

Superego
Represents the rights and the wrongs of society as
taught and modeled by one’s parents, teachers,
and other significant individuals
 Includes the conscience

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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind
Freud’s Model of Personality
Figure 1 of Chapter 10
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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind

Developing Personality: Psychosexual
Stages
Individuals encounter conflicts between the
demands of society and their own sexual
urges
 Failure to resolve conflicts at any stage can
result in fixation

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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages of Personality
Figure 2 of Chapter 10
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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind

Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious strategies that people use to
reduce anxiety by concealing its source from
themselves and others

Repression
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Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
Mapping The Unconscious Mind
Freud’s Defense Mechanisms
Figure 3 of Chapter 10
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The Neo-Freudian
Psychoanalysts: Building on
Freud

Jung’s Collective Unconscious
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Common set of ideas, feelings, images, and
symbols that we inherit from our relatives, the
whole human race, and even animal
ancestors from the distant past

Archetypes

Universal symbolic representations of a particular
person, object, or experience
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The Neo-Freudian
Psychoanalysts: Building on
Freud

Horney’s Neo-Freudian Perspective

Women’s issues


First feminist psychologist
Suggested that personality develops in the
context of social relationships and depends
particularly on the relationship between
parents and child
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The Neo-Freudian
Psychoanalysts: Building on
Freud

Adler and the Other Neo-Freudians
Alfred Adler
 Proposed that the primary human motivation
is a striving for superiority in a quest for selfimprovement and perfection
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Inferiority complex

Describes situations in which adults have not been able
to overcome the feelings of inferiority they developed as
children
Erik Erikson
 Anna Freud

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Trait Approaches to Personality

What are the major aspects of trait,
learning, social cognitive, biological and
evolutionary, and humanistic approaches
to personality?
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Trait Approaches to
Personality

Trait Theory

Seeks to explain, in a straightforward way, the
consistencies in individuals’ behavior

Traits

Consistent personality characteristics and behaviors
displayed in different situations
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Allport’s Trait Theory
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Cardinal Trait

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Central Trait


Single characteristic that directs most of a
person’s activities
Major characteristics of an individual
Secondary Trait

Affect behavior in fewer situations
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Factor Analysis

Statistical method of identifying
associations among a large number of
variables to reveal more general patterns

Factors

Combinations of traits

Cattell

Eysenck
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Factor Analysis
Eysenck’s Three Dimensions of Personality
Figure 4 of Chapter 10
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The Big Five Factors of
Personality

Openness to Experience

Conscientiousness

Extraversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism
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The Big Five Factors of
Personality
The Big Five Personality Factors and Dimensions of
Sample Traits
Figure 5 of Chapter 10
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Learning Approaches

B.F. Skinner’s Behaviorist Approach


States that personality is a collection of learned
behavior patterns
Social Cognitive Approaches to Personality

Emphasize the influence of cognition as well as
others’ behavior


Self-efficacy
 Belief in one’s personal capabilities
Self-esteem
 Encompasses our positive and negative self-evaluations
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Biological and Evolutionary
Approaches

Suggest that important components of
personality are inherited
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Biological and Evolutionary
Approaches
Genetic Influences on Personality
Figure 6 of Chapter 10
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Humanistic Approaches

Emphasize people’s inherent goodness
and their tendency to move toward higher
levels of functioning
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Carl Rogers

Self-actualization


Self-concepts
Unconditional positive regard
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Humanistic Approaches
Rogers’s Model of the Need for
Unconditional Positive Regard
Figure 7 of Chapter 10
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Comparing Approaches to
Personality
Summary of Five Approaches to Personality
Figure 8 of Chapter 10
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Assessing Personality

How can we most accurately assess
personality?

What are the major types of personality
measures?
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Psychological Tests

Standard measures devised to assess behavior
objectively
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Reliability
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Validity
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
The measurement consistency of a test
When a test measures what it is designed to measure
Norms

Standards of test performance that permit the comparison of
one person’s score with the scores of others
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Self-Report Measures of
Personality
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Self-Report Measures

Ask people about a relatively small sample of
their behavior
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory -2
(MMPI-2)
 Test standardization
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Projective Measures

Projective Personality Tests
Rorschach test
 Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
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Behavioral Assessment

Direct measures of an individual’s
behavior designed to describe
characteristics indicative of personality
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Assessing Personality
Assessments

Understand what the test claims to
measure

Base no decision only on the results of
any one test

Remember that test results are not always
accurate
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