3- textbook personality Flashcards
hippocrate’s theory on personality
personality traits and human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids (“humors”) of the body:
- choleric
- melancholic
- sanguine
- phlegmatic
Galen built on Hippocrates’s theory
suggesting that both diseases and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in the humors and that each person exhibits one of the four temperaments.
- choleric temperament (yellow bile from the liver),
- melancholic temperament (black bile from the kidneys),
- sanguine temperament (red blood from the heart),
- phlegmatic temperament (white phlegm from the lungs)
choleric temperament
§ passionate, ambitious, and bold;
○ melancholic temperament (black bile from the kidneys),
§ reserved, anxious, and unhappy;
○ sanguine temperament (red blood from the heart),
§ joyful, eager, and optimistic;
○ phlegmatic temperament (white phlegm from the lungs)
§ calm, reliable, and thoughtful
Franz Gall,
German physician, proposed that the distances between bumps on the skull reveal a person’s personality traits, character, and mental abilities
Kant
- agreed with Galen that everyone could be sorted into one of the four temperaments
○ no overlap between the four categories - developed a list of traits that could be used to describe the personality of a person from each of the four temperaments.
Wundt
suggested that a better description of personality could be achieved using two major axes: emotional/nonemotional and changeable/unchangeable.
Electra complex.
A girl desires the attention of her father and wishes to take her mother’s place.
individual psychology
- focuses on our drive to compensate for feelings of inferiority.
- feelings of inferiority in childhood are what drive people to attempt to gain superiority
- this striving is the force behind all of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
- importance of social connections,inter-relatedness of humanity and the need to work together for the betterment of all.
inferiority complex
refers to a person’s feelings that they lack worth and don’t measure up to the standards of others or of society.
- three fundamental social tasks that all of us must experience in individual psychology
○ occupational tasks (careers),
○ societal tasks (friendship)
love tasks (finding an intimate partner for a long-term relationship).
birth order shapes our personality.
- alfred adler, individual psychology
- older siblings, who start out as the focus of their parents’ attention but must share that attention once a new child joins the family, compensate by becoming overachievers.
- The youngest children may be spoiled,
- the middle child with the opportunity to minimize the negative dynamics of the youngest and oldest children.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development
stage 1
0–1
Trust vs. mistrust
Trust (or mistrust) that basic needs, such as nourishment and affection, will be met
stage 2
1–3
Autonomy vs. shame/doubt
Sense of independence in many tasks develops
stage 3
3–6
Initiative vs. guilt
Take initiative on some activities, may develop guilt when success not met or boundaries overstepped
stage 4
7–11
Industry vs. inferiority
Develop self-confidence in abilities when competent or sense of inferiority when not
stage 5
12–18
Identity vs. confusion
Experiment with and develop identity and roles
stage 6
19–29
Intimacy vs. isolation
Establish intimacy and relationships with others
stage 7
30–64
Generativity vs. stagnation
Contribute to society and be part of a family
stage 8
65–
Integrity vs. despair
Assess and make sense of life and meaning of contributions
jung
- collective unconscious
- Archetypes
- proposed two attitudes or approaches toward life: extroversion and introversion
- Persona
collective unconscious
universal version of the personal unconscious, holding mental patterns, or memory traces, which are common to all of us
Archetypes
ancestral memories, are represented by universal themes in various cultures, as expressed through literature, art, and dreams
- task of integrating these unconscious archetypal aspects of the self is part of the self-realization process in the second half of life.
Persona
- mask that we adopt.
- consciously create this persona
- compromise between who we really are (our true self) and what society expects us to be.
derived from both our conscious experiences and our collective unconscious.
Karen horney
- believed that each individual has the potential for self-realization
- the goal of psychoanalysis should be moving toward a healthy self rather than exploring early childhood patterns of dysfunction.
- disagreed with the Freudian idea that girls have penis envy and are jealous of male biological features and instead that any jealousy is most likely culturally based,
- focused on the role of unconscious anxiety
unconscious anxiety
○ normal growth can be blocked by basic anxiety
○ stemming from needs not being met
§ childhood experiences of loneliness and/or isolation.
horney’s coping styles
- moving toward people
- moving against people
- moving away from people
Moving toward people coping style
Affiliation and dependence
Child seeking positive attention and affection from parent; adult needing love
Moving against people coping style
Aggression and manipulation
Child fighting or bullying other children; adult who is abrasive and verbally hurtful, or who exploits others
Moving away from people coping style
Detachment and isolation
Child withdrawn from the world and isolated; adult loner
PROJECTIVE TESTS
- Relies on projection defense mechanism as a way to assess unconscious processes
- series of ambiguous cards is shown to the person being tested
- then is encouraged to project their feelings, impulses, and desires onto the cards by telling a story, interpreting an image, or completing a sentence.
- can be used to access whether someone has unusual thoughts or a high level of anxiety, or is likely to become volatile.
pros and cons of projective tests in comparison to self-report inventories
- Projective tests are less subject to intentional distortion
- it is hard to fake “good” because it is not obvious what a “good” answer is.
- more time consuming for the evaluator than self-report inventories.
- many are not standardized, valid, reliable
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
- shown 8–12 ambiguous pictures and is asked to tell a story about each picture
- give insight into their social world, revealing hopes, fears, interests, and goals.
- storytelling format helps to lower a person’s resistance divulging unconscious personal details
- has been used in clinical settings to evaluate psychological difficulties.
- one of the most widely used projective tests.
TAT standardization?
- Standardization of test administration is virtually nonexistent among clinicians
- test tends to be modest to low on validity and reliability
Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)
- three forms of this test for use with different age groups:
- the school form,
- the college form,
- the adult form.
- include 40 incomplete sentences that people are asked to complete as quickly as possible
- similar to a word association test, and like other types of projective tests, it is presumed that responses will reveal desires, fears, and struggles.
Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks Test (C-TCB)
- first culturally specific projective test designed to reflect the everyday life experiences of African Americans
- contains 20 color images that show scenes of African-American lifestyles.
- led to increased story length, higher degrees of positive feelings, and stronger identification with the C-TCB
- TEMAS Multicultural Thematic Apperception Test
- another tool designed to be culturally relevant to minority groups, especially Hispanic youths.
- images and storytelling cues that relate to minority culture
2 categories of self-concepts
- the ideal self: the person that you would like to be;
- the real self: person you actually are.
congruence
experience when our thoughts about our real self and ideal self are very similar—in other words, when our self-concept is accurate
The HEXACO Traits
(H) Honesty-humility
Sincerity, modesty, faithfulness
(E) Emotionality
Sentimentality, anxiety, sensitivity
(X) Extraversion
Sociability, talkativeness, boldness
(A) Agreeableness
Patience, tolerance, gentleness
(C) Conscientiousness
Organization, thoroughness, precision
(O) Openness
Creativity, inquisitiveness, innovativeness
social-cognitive theory
- emphasizes both learning and cognition as sources of individual differences in personality.
- the concepts of reciprocal determinism, observational learning, and self-efficacy all play a part in personality development.
locus of control
- cognitive factor that affects learning and personality development.
- refers to our beliefs about the power we have over our lives.
walter Mischel and the Person-Situation Debate
- found that the data did not support the central principle of the field—that a person’s personality traits are consistent across situations.
- He found that although behavior was inconsistent across different situations, it was much more consistent within situations
- most notable contributions to personality psychology was his ideas on self-regulation–> MARSHMALLOW
Temperament
- Most contemporary psychologists believe temperament has a biological basis due to its appearance very early in our lives
- two dimensions of our temperament that are important parts of our adult personality:
- reactivity – how we respond to new or challenging environmental stimuli;
- self-regulation – refers to our ability to control that response
three approaches that can be used to study personality in a cultural context,
○ the cultural-comparative approach;
○ the indigenous approach;
○ the combined approach,
