Chapter 13 - Personality Flashcards
Where do our personalities come from?
A combination of our genes and experiences.
Personality
The characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors that are relatively stable in an individual over time and across circumstances
Personality is a combination of..
How we are born, which forces are in our environments, and what we decide to be
One challenge of figuring out people is that they act differently in different situations
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Ppl constantly try to figure out other people
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What do personality psychologists study?
They explore the influence of culture, learning, biology, and cognition
- some personality psychologists are most interested in understanding the whole person
- some study how individual characteristics like shyness of esteem influence behavior
Personality trait
A characteristic; a dispositional tendency to act in a certain way over time and across circumstances
Personality is not just a list of traits though
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Personality is considered
A dynamic organization within an individual that determine their behaviors and thoughts
The notion of organization related to personality?
Indicates that personality is a coherent whole
Why is personality considered dynamic?
It is goal seeking, sensitive to particular contexts, and adaptive to the person’s environment
Psychophysical systems
Highlighting the psychological nature of personality and recognizing that personality arises from basic biological processes
Personality causes people to have characteristic behaviors and thoughts and feelings. In other words, people do and think and feel things relatively consistently over time
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Explain Gordon Allport’s model of personality?
Personality is an organized whole and is dynamic. Personality arises from basic biological processes and causes people to have characteristic, or consistent behaviors and thoughts over time
What do psychodynamic theorists believe about personality?
They believe unconscious forces determine personality
Humanists emphasize what about personality?
Personal growth and self-understanding
Behaviorists believe what about personality?
It resulted from histories of reinforcement
Cognitively oriented psychologists focus on what about personality?
Focus on how thought processes affect personality
What are contemporary psychologists most interested in when it comes to personality??
Trait approaches and the biological basis of personality traits.
Main idea: lots of different views when it comes to personality!
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Some of Freud’s patients suffered from paralysis for no apparent physical cause!
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Psychogenic
When people’s physical problems are the result of psychological rather than physical factors
Psychodynamic theory
Created by Freud. The premise is that unconscious forces (like wishes, desires, and hidden memories) determine behavior. Many of Freud’s ideas are controversial and are not well supported by scientific research.
Freud believed
The powerful forces that drive behavior are often in conflict
What is Freud’s levels of consciousness idea?
The first level = conscious level. Consists of all the thoughts we are aware of
The second level = preconscious level. Consists of content that is not currently in awareness but could be brought to awareness
The third level = unconscious level. Contains material that the mind cannot easily retrieve, such as hidden memories, wishes, desires, and motives that are often in conflict.
FREUD BELIEVED THAT UNCONSCIOUS FORCES DETERMINE MOST OF OUR BEHAVIOR!!! So think of these levels as a triangle like on page 570
Explain Freudian slip
When someone says like “I don’t think we’ve been properly seduced” instead of “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced” – shows the unconscious coming through
What are the 3 forces that Freud believed made up personality?
The id
The superego
The ego
The id
In psychodynamic theory, the component of personality that is completely submerged in the unconscious and operates according to the pleasure principle. The id is completely submerged in the unconscious. It directs us to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The force that drives the pleasure principle is the libido
Libido
It drives the id. The libido seeks pleasure. It acts on impulses and desires the libido is like an infant, crying to be fed when hungry, held when anxious
Superego
In psychodynamic theory, the internalization of societal and parental standards of conduct. It acts like a break on the id. The superego is a rigid structure of morality and conscience.
Ego
Mediates between the id and the superego. The ego tries to satisfy the wishes of the id while being responsive to the dictates of the superego. The ego operates according to the reality principle, which involves rational thought and problem solving.
Reality principle
The ego operates according to the reality principle which involves rational thought and problem solving
Some aspects of the ego’s operations are open to conscious awareness. For ex., the ego allows us to delay gratification so that the wishes of the id can be realized while accommodating the rules of the superego
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Unique interactions of the is, superego, and ego produce individual differences in personality
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Conflicts between what lead to anxiety?
The id and the superego
Defense mechanisms
Unconscious mental strategies that the mind uses to protect itself from distress
What are some common defense mechanisms?
Denial - refusing to acknowledge source of anxiety
Repression- excluding source of anxiety from awareness
Projection - attributing unacceptable qualities of the self to someone else
Reaction formation - warding off an uncomfortable thought by overemphasizing its opposite
Rationalization - concocting a seemingly logical reason or excuse for behavior that might otherwise by shameful
Displacement - shifting the attention of emotion from one object to another
Sublimation - channeling socially unacceptable impulses into constructive, even admirable, behavior
How do people rationalize their behavior?
They rationalize their behavior by blaming situational factors over which they have little control
Ex of rationalization
You can’t call your mom (who you’re angry at) because you’re studying for an exam
Who came up with and studied these defense mechanisms?
Anna Freud, Freud’s daughter
What do defense mechanisms do for us?
They do not relieve unconscious conflict over libidinal desires. Instead, defense mechanisms protect our self esteem
Freud said that early childhood experiences have a major impact on the….
Development of personality
Freud believed that children unconsciously aim to satisfy libidinal urges to experience pleasure
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Psychosexual stages
According to Freud, developmental stages that correspond to distinct libidinal urges; progression through these stages profoundly affects personality.
What are the psychosexual stages?
The libido is focused on one of the erogenous zones (mouth, anus, or genitals) in each of the stages
- Oral stage - seeking pleasure through the mouth
- Anal stage - toilet training = focus on anus
- Phallic stage - directing libidinal energies toward the genitals (rubbing them)
- Latency stage - children suppress libidinal urges or channel them into doing schoolwork or building friendships
- Genital stage - adolescents and adults attain mature attitudes about sexuality and adulthood. They center their libidinal urges on the capacities to reproduce and contribute to society.
According to Freud, children desire an exclusive relationship with the opposite sex parent and see the same sex parent as a rival and develop hostility toward the same sex parent. What is this called in boys?
The Oedipus complex - he kills his dad mad marries his mom
According to Freud, progression through these psychosexual stages affects…
Personality
Freud believe some people get fixated on a psychosexual stage. Example?
Oral personalities - seek pleasure through the mouth, like smoking. They are very needy
Anal retentive personalities - stubborn and highly regulating (the result of excessive toilet training or excessive rules)
Neo Freudians
They reject aspects of Freudian thinking, but embrace the notion of unconscious conflict. Many neo Freudians rejected Freud’s emphasis on sexual forces
What do contemporary neo Freudians focus on?
They focus on social interactions, especially children’s emotional attachments to their parents or primary caregivers. This focus is embedded in the object relations theory.
Object relations theory
A person’s mind and sense of self develop in relation to others in the particular environment. “Objects” are real others in the world and how a person related to them shapes their personality
Humanistic approaches (to personality)
Approaches to studying personality that emphasize how people seek to fulfill their potential through greater self understanding. Focus on personal growth, the inherent goodness of each person, personal experience, belief system. They are all about self actialization
Who was the most prominent humanistic psychologist?
Carl Rogers
Person-centered approach
Carl Rogers introduced a person-centered approach to understanding personality and human relationships. He emphasized people’s subjective understandings of their lives. In a therapeutic technique, the therapist would create a supportive and accepting environment. The therapist and client would deal with the client’s problems and concerns as the client understood them.
What does Carl Rogers theory demonstrate?
The importance of how parents show affection for their children and how parental treatment affects personality development
What did Carl Rogers believe about parental treatment of children?
Most parents provide love and support that is conditional: the parents love their children as long as the children do what the parents want them to do. Parents who disapprove of their children’s behavior may withhold their love and their children quickly abandon their true feelings, dreams and desires. The children only accept parts of themselves that their parents like and they lose touch with their true selves in pursuit of positive regard from others
Unconditional positive regard
Carl Rogers said that parents should have unconditional positive regard for their kids and accept and prize their children no matter how they behave.
Fully functioning person
Carl Rogers said that a child raised with unconditional positive regard would develop a healthy sense of self esteem and would become a fully functioning person
George Kelly?
He emphasized how we view and understand our circumstances. He referred to such views and understandings as personal constructs.
Personal constructs
Personal theories of how the world works. We are scientists: constantly testing our theories by observing ongoing events and revising those theories based on what we observe. Personal constructs develop through our experiences and represent our interpretations and explanations for events in our social worlds
Julian Rotter believed what?
Behavior is a function of two things. 1. Our expectancies for reinforcement 2. The values we ascribe to particular reinforcers. For ex you don’t know whether to study or party. You weigh the value of each reinforcer.
What did Julian Rotter believe about efforts and outcomes?
He believed people with an internal locus of control believe they bring about their own rewards. He believed people with an external locus of control believe rewards result from forces beyond their control.
Cognitive-social theories of personality
These theories emphasize how personal beliefs, expectancies, and interpretations of social situations shape our behavior and personality. Albert Bandura is a cognitive-social psychologist.
What are some of Albert Bandura’s beliefs?
Albert Bandura believes that the most important determinant of behavior is self-efficacy. This term refers to how much we believe we can achieve specific outcomes…. This is the result of observational learning - seeing people rewarded in certain ways and punished in other ways
Cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS)
Walter Mischel created this. He’s a controversial psychologist. This system is that our personalities often fail to predict our behavior across different circumstances. Instead, our responses are influenced by how we perceive a given situation, our affective (emotional) responses to the situation, our skills in dealing with challenges, and our anticipation of the outcomes of our behavior
Defensive pessimism
Defensive pessimists expect to fail and enter test situations with dread. Whereas optimists enter test situations with high expectations. Pessimists and optimists tend to perform similarly on exams
Pessimists expect the worst so they can be relieved when they succeed. Optimists focus on positive outcomes
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Self-regulatory capacities
Our relative ability to set personal goals, evaluate our progress, and adjust our behavior accordingly.
Personality represents behavior that emerges from 3 factors. What are they?
- Our interpretations of our social worlds
- Our beliefs about how we will affect our social situations
- Our beliefs about how we will be affected BY our social situations.
Personality types
Different categories of people based on personality characteristics. We fill in the gaps in our knowledge about individuals with our beliefs about the behaviors and dispositions associated with these types
Implicit personality theory
The study of two tendencies related to personality types. We tend to assume certain personality characteristics go together. Because of that assumption, we tend to make predictions about people based on minimal evidence. For ex, we think introverts dislike parties, like reading, and are sensitive. Etc.
How do traits exist?
Traits exist on a continuum. Very few people are really an extreme introvert or extrovert, but somewhere in between
Trait approach
Focuses on how individuals differ in personality dispositions such as sociability, cheerfulness, and aggressiveness.
There are 18,000 dictionary personality traits
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