ch.13 personality Flashcards
What does personality psychology seek to understand?
It seeks to understand the characteristics of ways people behave
What is personality?
It is the pattern of enduring characteristics that produce consistency and individuality in a given person
What is consistency in a personality?
It leads us to act consistently in different situations, and over extended periods of time
What is individuality in a personality?
They are behaviors that make each one of us unique, differentiating us from others
What do psychodynamic approaches to personality assume?
- That personality is primarily an unconscious phenomenon
- That personality is shaped by inner forces and conflicts that are mostly beyond our conscious awareness
What is Freuds Psychoanalytic theory?
That unconscious forces act as determinants of personality
What are the parts of our personalities that are unconscious according to Freud?
- Memories
- Knowledge
- Beliefs
- Feelings
- Urges
- Drives
- Instincts
What are the contents of the unconscious?
A lot more in quantity than the contents of conscious awareness
What can we do to understand personality?
- We need to unlock the unconscious, it is elusive, where it hides itself from the conscious
- Other indirect methods must be used
What are the indirect methods used to understand personality?
- Dream studies
- Studying fantasies
- Observing slips of the tongue (Freudian slips)
What are Freudian slips?
They are slips of the tongue
Example for Freudian slips?
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly seduced yet” which may reveal unconscious sexual desires
What is some of the unconscious made up of?
The preconscious
What is the preconscious?
It contains material that is not threatening and is easily brought to mind
Example for preconscious?
- Certain memories
- Academic knowledge (semantic content)
- Procedural knowledge (skills)
What do we have deeper in the unconscious
We have instinctual drives that are hidden
Why do we have instinctual drives that are hidden deep in our unconscious?
Because it would cause constant pain and stress due to their threatening content so the unconscious is a safe storage place for such content
Personality involves 3 separate but interacting components that structure our personalities
Id, Ego, Superego
What is Id?
Instinctual, unorganized part of personality
Since birth what does the Id do?
It tries to reduce tension from primitive drives
What are primitive drives?
- Hunger
- Sex
- Aggression
- Irrational impulses
These primitive drives of the Id contain what?
They contain limitless psychic energy that constantly puts pressure on personality
Id operates on what?
It operates on pleasure principle
Whats the goal of pleasure principle for the Id?
To immediate reduction of tension and maximization of satisfaction
What is the ego?
Its the component of personality that attempts to balance the desire of the Id and the objective realities of the outside world
Ego operates on what?
It operates on the reality principle
Whats the goal of the reality principle for the ego?
To restrain instinctual energy which maintains the individuals safety and to help that individual integrate into society
Example for restraining instinctual energy
The executive control part of personality
What is the executive control part of personality?
-Decision making
-Self-control
-Problem solving, thinking
which works above the limitations of Id
What is the superego?
Its the component of personality that harshly judges the morality of our behavior
What does our superego represent?
It represents the rights/wrongs of society
Our rights and wrong are modeled from what?
Are modeled from parental teaching/education
What does the superego operate on?
It operates on the idealistic principle
What does the idealistic principle include?
- The conscience
- Ego ideal
What does the conscience result from in the superego?
It results from punishment for improper behavior (making us feel guilty if we do wrong)
What does the ego ideal stem from in the superego?
It stems from rewarding socially acceptable behavior
The ego must negotiate between what and what?
The ego must negotiate between the Id and the Superego
According to Freud personality develops progressively through 5 distinct psychosexual stages
1-Oral stage 2-Anal stage 3-Phallic stage 4-Latency stage 5-Genital stage
What are these psychosexual stages?
They are developmental periods during which children encounter conflicts between the demands of society and their own sexual urges
What occurs when we cant resolve conflicts during these developmental stages?
Fixations occur
What are fixations?
They are persisting concerns that proceed beyond the developmental period in which they first occur
Example for fixations
- Ignoring needs of the child (ending breast feeding early, being too strict during toilet training)
- Overindulged children in an earlier period (overly-attentive parenting, intensely rewarding a child during toilet training)
What is the oral stage(12-18 months)?
Babys mouth is the focal point of pleasure (sucking, eating, biting anything they can put into their mouths)
What is the main conflict of the oral stage?
Weaning (withdrawing mothers breasts- bottle)
Main conflict of weaning in overindulged infants
Being fed every time they cry
Main conflict of weaning in frustrated infants
Lacking oral gratification
Weaning in overindulged infants and frustrated infants both result in
Fixations
Adults having had been fixated at their oral stage may show
- Unusually high interest in oral activities (eating, talking, smoking)
- Symbolic signs of oral interest (being bitingly sarcastic, being very gullible easily fooled swallowing anything that is said)
What is the anal stage(12-18 months)?
Babys anus is the focal point of pleasure
In the anal stage the baby gets pleasure from?
- Retention of faeces
- Expulsion of faeces
In the anal stage toilet training is initiated
Training excretion while on a toilet if too strict causes fixation
Adults having had been fixated at their oral stage may show
- Unusual rigidity, orderliness, punctuality
- Unusual disorderliness, sloppiness
What is the phallic stage(3 years- 5-6 years)?
Babys focal point of pleasure is the genitals
What is the main conflict of the phallic stage?
The Oedipus complex (Oedipal conflict)
What is the Oedipus complex?
The childs intense sexual interest in his/her opposite sex parent
The Oedipus complex in boys
- Develops sexual interest in mother
- Seeing father as a powerful rival in getting mothers attention
- Secretly wishing to replace father
What is castration anxiety?
The fear of father removing the penis of the boy
Castration anxiety can lead to
Identification
What is identification?
Its the process of wanting to be like another person as much as possible imitating that persons behavior and adopting similar beliefs and values
In identification what does the boy do?
The boy represses his desires for mother, identifies with mother, and seeks to obtain a woman like his unattainable mother
In identification what does the girl do?
- Sexual arousal towards father (Electra complex)
- Experiences penis envy (a lacking body part)
- They blame mother for their castration (anatomically missing body part)
- Resolution: identification with mother
What is the electra complex?
Sexual arousal towards father in a girl
What is resolution: identification with mother?
Behaving like her, adopting her attitudes, values
What does identification do in the phallic stage?
It resolves the main conflict of the phallic stage moving into the latency period
If there is a failure to resolve in the phallic stage
Improper sexual behavior and lacking conscience
What is the latency period (5-6 years puberty 12-13 years)?
Where childs sexual interests become passive, inactive, temporarily put aside even in the unconscious
What is the genital stage (puberty-adulthood)?
Its the period from puberty until death
What is the genital stage marked by?
Its marked by mature sexual behavior: sexual intercourse
In maturity what would be in control?
- The ego would be in control of the Id and the superego
- Consciousness would play a more important role in behavior
What are the 8 distinct type of defense mechanisms?
1-Repression 2-Regression 3-Displacement 4-Rationalization 5-Denial 6-Projection 7-Sublimation 8-Reaction formation
What is anxiety?
An intense, negative emotional experience
What can anxiety arise from?
- It can arise from realistic fears in our everyday lives
- It can also arise from irrational impulses from the id
When anxiety becomes threatening to surface up and become incontrollable it becomes
Neurotic anxiety
How do people develop certain strategies to deal with neurotic anxiety?
Defense mechanisms
What are defense mechanisms?
They are unconscious strategies that people use to reduce anxiety by distorting reality and concealing the source of the anxiety from themselves
What is the primary defense mechanism?
Repression
What is repression?
It is where the ego pushes unacceptable or unpleasant thoughts and impulses out of consciousness but maintains them in the unconscious
Example for repression?
- Hatred for mother may be repressed because acknowledging them would provoke anxiety
- A woman is unable to consciously recall that she was raped
Throughout the years repression for mother may be showed through
- Affecting behavior towards women
- Dreams
- Slip of tongue
- other symbolic ways
When repression is not strong enough to keep neurotic anxiety away other mechanisms are used
Which are the 8 defense mechanisms
What is regression?
Where people behave as if they were at an earlier stage of development
Example for regression
A boss has a temper tantrum when an employee makes a mistake
What is displacement?
The expression of an unwanted feeling or thought is redirected from a more threatening powerful person to a weaker one
Example for displacement
A brother yells at his younger sister after a teacher gives him a bad grade
What is rationalization?
People provide self-justifying explanations in place of the actual, but threatening, reason for their behavior
Example for rationalization
A student who goes out drinking the night before a big test rationalizes his behavior by saying the test isnt all that important
What is denial?
Where people refuse to accept or acknowledge an anxiety-producing piece of information
Example for denial
A student refuses to believe that he has flunked a course
What is projection?
Where people attribute unwanted impulses and feelings to someone else
Example for projection
A man who is unfaithful to his wife and feels guilty suspects that his wife is unfaithful
What is sublimation?
Where people divert unwanted impulses into socially approved thoughts, feelings or behaviors
Example for sublimation
Where a person with strong feelings of aggression becomes a soldier
Whats is reaction formation?
Unconscious impulses are expressed as their opposite in consciousness
Example for reaction formation
A mother who unconsciously resents her child acts in an overly loving way toward the child
What do sublimations involve?
They involve the elevation of the sexual instincts aim to a higher level
The elevation of sexual instincts aiming to a higher level permits people to do what?
Permits them to make contributions to society and culture
According to Freud all of us employ self defense mechanisms to some degree but when they are not appropriate
-A large share of attention needs to be used to keep neurotic anxiety at check
When we employ self defense mechanisms when they are not appropriate may result in
May result in anxiety-driven mental disorders “neurosis”
What are the strengths of Freuds legacy?
- The unconscious
- Defense mechanisms
- Childhood roots of adult psychological difficulties
- Scientific progress was stimulated, philosophical debates were and still are prolific
- Many contemporary theorists doing research on psychopathology have their roots in Freudian theory
- Numerous therapy methods had been devised
What are the limitations of Freuds legacy?
- Lack of compelling scientific evidence
- Abstract, empirically unobservable variables
- Freuds study group: limited in scope
Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts that rejected Freuds points emphasized
- Functions of the ego (it has more control than id does over day-to-day activities)
- The importance of society and culture (having more influence on personality development)
Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts that rejected Freuds points minimized
The importance of sex as a driving force
What did Carl Gustav Jung not agree with Freud on?
He did not agree with Freud on the primary importance of sexual urges in the unconscious
What did Carl Gustav Jung argue with instead?
He looked more positively on the nature of the unconscious
What is a collective unconscious?
A inherited set of ideas/feelings/images/symbols that are shared with all humans due to our common ancestral past as species
The collective unconscious is common where?
Its common across cultures
The collective unconscious affects what?
Affects behavior/attitudes and personality
What are archetypes?
Universal symbolic representations of particular types of people, objects, ideas, or experiences
Whats the main task of human development?
- Individuation
- Facing the unique challenges brought about by each of them
What are the ideas on personality types?
- Jungs ideas (Personality Typology)
- 2 basic general attitudes
- 4 basic functions
- Judging vs perceiving
The Personality Typology lead to what?
It lead to the development of Myers-Briggs personality test
Where is Myers-Briggs personality test used?
Its used in business and industry to better understand how employees engage in decision making
What are the 2 basic general attitudes?
1-Extravert
2-Introvert
What are the 4 basic functions?
- Sensing vs intuition
- Thinking vs feeling
What are extraverts?
Its the affinity towards interactions with the outer world
What are introverts?
General interest is directed towards the inner world
What does thinking and feeling represent?
It represents how a person processes information
What is thinking?
Decision making that is due mainly to the use of logic
What is a feeling?
Where a person is inclined to make decisions based on emotions (the gut feeling on what they should do)
What does sensing and intuition represent?
It represents the method through which a person obtains information
What is sensing?
Its relying mainly on direct information from the outside world
What is intuition?
Where the person is inclined to believe mainly the information received from the internal as well as imaginative world
What does judging and perceiving represent?
It represents how people put into practice the information they acquired and processed
What is judging?
Organization of all life events and strictly following them
What is perceiving?
The inclination to improvise (act as is willed depending on current circumstances) and explore alternatives
Karen Horney argued that personality develops through?
- Social relationships
- Parent-child relationships
Karen Horney rejected Freuds concept of penis envy, what did she argue instead?
She argued that women envy the independence/success/freedom associated to the male gender and denied to women in society
Alfred Alder was the founder of?
Individual psychology, where the patient is an indivisible whole, we should focus on all aspects of a patients life, to understand the personality structure
Alfred Alder considered Freuds emphasis on sexuality as
Misleading
Alfred Adler believed that we strive for superiority due to?
- Due to the feelings of inadequacy they developed as children
- Constantly need care/affection/ physical comfort
- Lack strength to deal with life on their own
What is the inferiority complex?
Lack of self-worth, doubting abilities of oneself and a persistent feeling of being behind a comparable standard
Inferiority complex can lead to 2 outcomes
1-Striving for personal superiority (psychologically unhealthy)
2-Striving for success for all (psychologically healthy)
What is a trait?
Its a consistent personality characteristic and behavior displayed in different situations
Example for a trait?
S/he is friendly, outgoing, shy, aggressive, dominant, calm, repulsive
What is the trait theory?
A model of personality that aims to identify the basic traits necessary to describe personality
How many traits are there?
1-Allports theory
2-Cattell and Eysenck
3-The big five
What is Allports Trait Theory?
Identifies basic characteristics
How many basic traits are there?
There are 3 basic traits
What are the 3 basic traits?
1-Cardinal traits
2-Central traits
3-Secondary traits
What are Cardinal traits?
A single characteristic that directs most of a persons activities (totally selfless, power hungry)
What are Central traits?
Several traits that make up the core of personality (honest, social, extraverted, pensive)
What are Secondary traits?
Traits that are less influential than central or cardinal traits and affect behavior in rarer occasions
What is Cattel and Eysenck theory?
Factoring out personality
Factoring out personality is based on the statistical technique known as
Factor analysis
What is Factor analysis?
Identification of patterns among a large number of variables
We have 3 major dimensions in factor analysis
1-Extraversion
2-Neuroticism
3-Psychoticism
What is extraversion?
Describes a persons level of sociability
What is neuroticism?
Focuses on a persons emotional stability
What is psychoticism?
The degree to which reality is distorted
What are the big five personality traits?
1-Opennes to experience 2-Consientiousness 3-Extraversion 4-Agreeablessness 5-Neuroticism
What is openness to experience?
Being independent/ conforming/ imaginative/ practical/ preferring variety/ preferring routine
What is conscientiousness?
Being careful/ careless/ disciplined/ impulsive/ organized/ disorganized
What is extraversion?
Being talkative/ quiet/ fun loving/sober/ sociable/ retiring
What is agreeableness?
Being sympathetic/ fault finding/ kind/ cold/ appreciative/ unfriendly
What is neuroticism?
Emotion stability being stable/ tense/ calm/ anxious/ secure/ insecure
What are the benefits of evaluating trait approaches?
- They provide clear, straightforward explanation of peoples behavioral consistencies
- Allow easier comparison between people
- Helped in the development of several useful personality measures/tests
What are the drawbacks of evaluating trait approaches?
- Not a mutual agreement on basic/fundamental traits
- Traits appear to be mere labels personality but not explanations for behavior
For learning approaches the focus is on what?
The focus is on the external environment on how the environment affects personality
What are the learning approaches?
- Skinner behaviorist approach
- Social cognitive approach
- Walter Mischels approach
- Self-esteem approach
What is Skinners behaviorist approach?
Where personality is a collection of learnt behavior patterns
Similarities in responses across different situations are not due to?
Are not due to an internal trait, or unconscious factors but is due to similar patterns of reinforcement i received in similar situations earlier on in life
What are social cognitive approaches to personality?
They are theories that emphasize the influence of a persons cognitions and observations of others behavior in determining personality
What is observational learning?
Where personality develops through repeated observations of others behavior and their favorable/unfavorable consequences
What is self-efficacy?
The belief that we have the personal capabilities to master a situation and produce positive outcomes
What is Walters Mischels approach?
Where personality is considerably more variable from one situation to the other
What is situationism?
The view that personality cant be considered without taking the particular context of the situation into account
Example for situationism
- Behavior during a cinema session/ in a library more or less the same kind of behavior across people
- Behavior during a party/ in a cafe more variability in behavior
What is Cognitive-affective processing system theory (CAPS)?
Where peoples thoughts and emotions about themselves and the world determine how they view, and then react, in particular situations
Personality is a reflection of what?
Its a reflection of how our prior experiences in different situations shape our behavior
What is the self-esteem approach?
Where our behavior is also affected by our views of ourselves, and how we value various characteristics about our personalities
What is self-esteem?
The part of our personality that includes our positive and negative self-evaluations
Over inflation of self-esteem can lead to
Narcissism
What is narcissim?
Its over-indugence on ones on capabilities and self-worth to the degree of uncaring about others, leading to self absorption, and holding unrealistic expectations from self
What are limitations of skinners approach
Reducing behavior to a series of stimuli and responses
Reducing behavior to a series of stimuli and responses lead to
Leads to ignoring thoughts and feelings an inadequate science
What are the benefits of social cognitive approaches?
- It focuses on observable behavior and the effect of environment
- Able to provide scientific insights on treating psychological disorders
Focusing on observable behavior and the effect of environment helps with?
Helps improve scientific understanding and research
Being able to provide scientific insight on treating psychological disorders helps with?
- Modification of environmental effects
- Focusing on self-efficacy and self-esteem
- Focusing on behavioral tasks to defeat self limiting thoughts
What does the biological and evolutionary approach suggest?
It suggests that important components of personality are inherited (genetically inherited)
The evolutionary perspective suggests that?
It suggests that personality traits that helped our ancestors survival and reproductive success are more likely to be preserved and passed on to subsequent generations
What are the traits that are heavily influenced by heredity?
- Social potency (the degree to which a person assumes mastery and leadership roles in social situations
- Traditionalism (Tendency to follow authority)
What are the root of adult personality?
Temperament
What is temperament?
An individuals behavioral style and characteristic way of responding that emerges early in life
What are the genes that interact with the environment?
Epigenetics
Particular environmental factors may turn on
Genetic activation
Genes not only influence behavior the also help with what?
They also help produce the environmental conditions that will help in personality development
What is the humanistic approach?
It emphasizes peoples innate goodness and desire to achieve higher levels of functioning
What is the core of personality?
Conscious, self-motivated ability to change and improve along with unique creative impulses
Carl Rogers and the need for self-actualization
People develop a need for positive regard from others we see and judge ourselves through their eyes
What is self-actualization?
A state of self-fulfillment in which people realize their highest potential in their own unique way
Developing a positive regard from others may lead to conflict with
Self-concept
What is self-concept?
A set of beliefs we hold about our own abilities, behavior, and personality
If the discrepancy between what we experience in life, including regard from others, and our self-concept is not minor
Disturbance in daily functioning
Whats one way to overcome this discrepancy?
To receive unconditional positive regard from a significant other or a therapist
An attitude of acceptance and respect on the part of an observer, no matter what a person says or does gives and leads to what?
- It gives the opportunity to grow both emotionally and cognitively
- It leads to developing more realistic self-concepts
What is conditional positive regard?
Depends on ones behavior
Discrepancy?
Your true self-others expectations of you
What are the benefits of the humanistic approaches?
- Highlights the uniqueness of human beings
- Guides the development of a form of therapy designed to alleviate psychological difficulties
What are the limitations of the humanistic approach?
- Difficulty of verifying basic assumptions of the approach
- Making the assumption that people are basically good
