Chapter 11 Flashcards
Personality
Organized combination of attributes, motives, values, and behaviors uniques to each individual
Despoitional Traits: OCEAN
Charactersitic adaptations: Situation personality
Narrative identities: Intergrated life style that we construct, autobiography
Self concept
Perceptions of unique attributes and traits
Self-esteem
Evaluation of worth as a person based on all the positive and negative self-perceptions that make up self-concept
Identity
Overall sense of who they are, where they are heading and where they fit into society
Self-report measures
People see statements and then assess how much each statement is/is not descriptive of them
Con: people might not be so honest about themselves
Projective tests
Responses are often provided writtten or verbally, and need to be interpreted by a trained psychologist
Con: Different people might think differently of the questions
Behavioral observations
Watching what epople do and how they act in different situations
Con: Watchers need to be culturally aware of the individual/situation
Eriskon’s Theory of persoanlity
- Proposed that people undergo similar personality changes at similar ages
- Placed more emphasis on social influences
- Saw the potential for personal growth and change trhoughout lifespan
Freud believed personality formed during first five years of life
- Little evidence to support
Trait theory of personality
- Personality is a set of dispositional trait dimensions along which people can differ
- Assumes that personality traits are consistent across situations
“The big five or OCEAN”
OCEAN: Openness, neuroticism, agreeableness, extraverision, conscientiousness
Openness to Experience
- Fantasy: Vivid imagination
- Aesthetics: Appreciations of art and beauty
- Feelings: Experience feelings strongly, emtions are important for a meaning life
- Actions: Willingness to try new things, travel
- Ideas: Curious, value knowledge for its own sake
- Values: open-minded in values,
Conscientiousness
- hard-working, engergetic, scrupulous, ambitous, persevering
- Desire to make something of themselves
- Low conscientiousness: Aimless, disorganized. late
Extraverison
- Warmth: Friendly compassionate,
- Gregariousness: Desire to be with other peopole
- Assertiveness: Natural leaders, take charge easily
- Activtiy: Like to be busy
- Excitement seeking: prefer stimulating challenging environments
- Positive emotions: zest, delight, fun, happy
Agreeableness
- Overly compliant, dependent
- Low agreeableness: Skeptical, distrusting, stubborn
Neuroticism
Reflects emotional stability
- Anxiety: Nervous, tense, worried
- Hostility: prone to anger irritable
- Depression: sadness, hoplessness
- Self-consciousness: sensitive to criticism, feeling of inferiority
- Impulsiveness: low self-control, lack of willpower
- Vulnerability: panic in crisis, highly dependent on others for help
Social Learning theory
- Rejects the notion of universal stages of personality development
- Emphasizes the roles of situations and envrionmenton developing new behaviors/personality
Flesson and Heckhausen(1997)
- Early adulthood: exploration, striving for growth
- Middle age: productivity and increasing experience
- Older adulthood: greater reflection on what has been accomplished in life
Emerging sense of self
- 18 months: infants recognize themselves visually as distinct individuals
- 18-24 months: form categorical self, able to classify selves into social categories based on age, sex, and other visible characteristics
Temperament
Traits that determine how someone reacts to the world
- Easy temperament: happy content, able to tolerate some level of frustration and discomfort, about 40%
- Difficult temperament: Tend to more active and more irritable, unable to adapt to situations, about 10%
- Slower-to-warm-up temperament: a little bit moody, slow to adapt to changes, about 15%
The remaning percentage is a mixed of 2 temperament
Rothbart
Surgency/extraversion
Tendency to actively, confidently, and energetically approach new experiences in emotionally positive way
Negative affectivity
Tendency to be sad, easily frustrated and irritable
Effortful control
Ability to focus and shift attention when desired, inhibit responses
Sense of self in childhood
- 2 years old: Toddlers use personal pronouns
- preschool child’s emerging self concept is concrete and phsyicall
- 8 years old: self conceptions emphasize psychological and social qualities, terms to describe self, define themselves as part of a group
Factors for development of self-esteem
- Heritable
- Environment
- Social comparisions and social feedback
- stable over elementary school
Self concept in adolescence
- Less phsycial and more psychological
- Less concrete and more abstract
- More differentiated
- more integrated and coherent
- rteflect greater self-awareness
Self-esteem adolescent
- Self-esteem tends to decrease from childhood to early adolescence
- Most emerge with high self-esteem if there are opportunities to feel competent, experience approval and support from peers
High self-esteem = lower crime rate
Erikson’s view of identity formation
- Adolescence is a critical period in the lifelong process of forming an identity as a person
- adolescent must integrate varied perceptions of the self-concept into a coherent sense of self
- May experience identity-crisis
Identity diffusion
- No firm identity
- not overly concerned about it
Moratorium
Have experienced crisis but haven’t committed to anything yet
Haven’t really figured it out yet
Foreclosure
Never had a crisis, but already committed to something
Getting into the family business
Identity achievement
Experienced crisis and committed to something
Just over 50% have reach this status by the age of 24
Conway’s theory of representation in autobiographical memory
- Event-specific memories: Personal memories
- General events: events that are repeated
- Lifetime periods: personal ways in which we organize our autobiographical memories
Working self
Monitoring function that controls retrieval of information
Allows some memories to be retrieved and others not retrieved
Coherence
Yields memories consistent with the working self
Lends supportive evidence to your ideas and about “Who you are”
Correspondence
Match between retrieved memories and actual past events
Leads to an accurate representation of your personal past
Maintaining a postive self image in adulthood
- Reducing the gap between the ideal and real self
- Changing one’s goals and standards of self-evaluation
- making social comparisons to other old people
- Avoiding negative self-stereotyping
Peck’s necessary adjustments in old age
1968
1) Ego differentation vs work-role preoccupation
2) body transcendence vs body preoccupation
3) Ego transcendence vs ego preoccupation
Adult personality is marked by
- Stability
- retain relative balance of trait dimensions
Personality adjustment
Developmental changes in terms of their adaptive value and functionality
The way their express their personality might differ with time
Personality Growth
Ideal end states such as increased self-transcendence, wisdom, and integrity
Midlife crisis
Levinson the transition period is from 40 to 45
A person questions his life structure and raises unsettling issues
Phases of retirement
- People often experience a honeymoon phase
- Novelty wears off many enter a disenchantment phase
- Realistic and satisfying lifestyle in retirement leads to a reorientation phase
Average person holds around 7 full time jobs between 18 - 36
Factors contribute to a successful adjustment to retirement
- Voluntary retirement
- Prossessing good physical and mental health
- possessing positive traits such as agreeablness and emotional stability
- having finanical resources to live
- having strong social supports available
Dispostional traits(Person as actor)
Broad individual differences in temperament displayed in early life
Traits are typically assessed by self-report or observer ratings
Characteristics adapatiation(Person as agent)
Emergence of goals and motives in childhood
Emphasizes the dynmaic nature of human behavior
Focuses on the goal factor
Goal factor shifts across development
Life narratives(Person as author)
construction of a narrative identity in adolescence and young adulthood
Is EXPECTED to change over time
