Chapter 13-Personality Psychology Flashcards
Personality-allport
The dynamic organization of psychophysical systems that determine characteristic behavior and thought
Dynamic organization -
a personality is a A coherent whole that is goal seeking, context-sensitive, and adaptive. (the self)
Psychophysical system
Personality has both A psychological and biological basis.
Characteristic behavior and thought
People do, think, and feel things relatively consistently over time
Trait
A dispositional tendency to behave, think, and feel in a certain way..they are relatively stable over time but differ bt ppl influencing behavior and feelings
the person X debate
is the persons personaltiy or situation more important…debate btw social and psych psycologists….
Situationism (Mischel, 1968):
Strong situations suppress personality….ex going to a funeral…bc strict norms are expected to be followed
Weak situations elicit personality..ex..going to bar or coffee shop…friends are hanging out with you bc they like you.
Psychodynamic theory-Freud…….relied on psychic determinism(everythin happens in the persons mind…
A scientific model of the overall architecture of mental structures and processes
levels of consciousness: Conscious – Thoughts of which we are aware at any given moment
.Thoughts of which we are aware at any given moment
Preconscious – Thoughts of which we easily could become aware if we attended to them.
.Thoughts of which we easily could become aware if we attended to them.
Unconscious – Thoughts of which we are unaware and are largely hidden from us.
.Thoughts of which we are unaware and are largely hidden from us….ex..iceberg….all the mass that exists under the water
Psychodynamic structure of personality: ID
Id – The irrational and emotional part of the mind.
Pleasure principle – Pursue pleasure and avoid pain
Ego – The rational part of the mind.operates by…
Reality principle – Engages in rational thought and problem solving.
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Superego – The moral part of the mind.
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stages of development..freud
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fixated-oral character
impatient demanding, mistrustful, pessimistic
anal
rigid, need power, concerned with right and wrong, anxiety to lose control
phallic character.2 types
men: exhibitionistic, competitive…emphasis on masculinitty…women: fliertatious
projective tests-rorshach inkblot
responses to ill-defined images on a card and asked what they see in the images……Responses are considered interpretations of an individual’s personality…and
thematic apperception test
People are presented with a scene on a card and asked to make up a story based on the scene. .this leads to personality revealed
comprehensive theory of hum dev.-freud
Weakness
Many aspects of psychodynamic theory are not falsifiable and misogynist
multi-trait theory-goal
To establish a taxonomy in order to understand how individuals differ in personality traits.
Factor analysis
A statistical tool for identifying patterns in a large number of variables that go together.
Allport, Odbert: A psycho-lexical study:The lexical hypothesis – strength is that it allowed clarification and advance in approach to studying personality..but weakness,,,no systematic way to test how people differ or a model to organize the findings were provided
Important aspects of human life will be labeled, and if it is truly important, it will be labeled in multiple languages. (bc since universal they must have different names)..they chose a list of terms that are commonly used to describe a persons personality and mood
cattell: surface trait
..Behavioral tendencies that exist on the surface (e.g., biting one’s nails).
catell-source traits
Internal structures that are the underlying psychological cause of surface traits (e.g., anxiety)…if anxious then express it in biting nails…anxiety source trait,,,and surface trait is biting nails
16 PF:Abstractedness – Imaginative v. practical
how practical person is
Perfectionism – Controlled v. undisciplined
Privateness – how Discrete v. open a person is
Rule consciousness – Conforming v. non-conforming
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Sensitivity – Tender-hearted v. tough-minded
.factors confusing
eysenck model-
if high on extraversion then usually high on sociability then …ex….if extraverted then likely to go to party every Friday…so habitually always go
extraversion
How reserved or sociable a person is.
Neuroticism – How much a person’s mood and emotions change.
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Psychoticism – A mix of aggression, impulse control, and empathy.
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the big fivefactor model…OCEAN(basic tendencies)..these are the gold standard in personality research
social situations influence our behavior but not personality in general
this is suggested as culturally universal
but some personality factors are culturally dependent
it allows correlation btw score and political prefer
animals can be assesed
Openness to experience=access to a lot of diff experience through life..ex…person with curiosity instead of conventional
Conscientiousness=socially prescribed impulse control..ex. person that’s organized
Extraversion: an energetic approach toward social and material world..ex..
Agreeableness=prosocial to others and world in general..ex..too helpful instead of irritable
Neuroticism=emotional stability with neg emotionality…ex…person thats nervous,insecure..instead of calm and secure
big five graph
rank order trait consistency low in childhood…high at age 50..6 and 21 a lot of varability…
heritability coefficient (h2).difference btw identical twins and fraternal twins…stronger relationship of mono zygotic twins then dizygotic in regards to big five trait…..
The proportion of variance in personality due to genetic factors.
h2 is the difference between identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins.if no diff…h^2=0..if big diff then h^2=1
prejudiced personality
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the self
An organized body of knowledge about a person’s behavior, traits, and other personal characteristics.
The self is goal seeking, context-sensitive, and adaptive(changes depending on circumstances
william james …i self vs me self
The “I” self thinks, experiences, and acts in the world.
The self as knower.
The “Me” self is an object in the world.
The self that is known.
Self-awareness – The sense of self as an object of attention.
can lead ppl to act in accordance with values and beleifs….but there are situations where we can be less aware and therefore not behave in way that is consistent with our self and values………self discrepancy theory..
self awareness beahvior study
mirror behind a bowl of candy.in 18 random houses where it was instructed that only one piece of candy per person……makes person more self aware..inf those houses without a mirror tppl not self aware so grabbed more candy
neuroanatomy: Medial prefrontal cortex
Activation is stronger when judging self-relevant information
so ppl with damge,,,,have difficult time to process self relevent info
self-construals-
indicator of society’s influence on the self is
Independent self-construals – People’s self-concept stresses individuality, autonomy, and independence.
very separeated fromother ppl…not part of self…but not includes in self concept…
Interdependent self-construals – People’s self-concept stresses interdependance and being a part of a collective.
mother father friends are incorporated as part of the self…so these ppl are more or less differentiated from self concept
Self-schema – The cognitive aspect of the self-concept.Cocktail party effect
– Self-relevant information focuses attention (Cherry, 1953)…ex….at party and its noisy and a person calls your name..it catches your attention becasue it is self relevant to you
Self schema:Self-reference effect –
Self-relevant information is processed in a privileged manner (Rogers et al., 1977)….ex..study that showed diff levels of how ppl encoded words…the best way to remember things are to apply them to the self,..and how it describes you
Self-verification – We prefer to interact with others who see us as we see ourselves
we want other to confirm our self concepts…includign neg aspects ….those that feel good about self…like ppl that look at them in a positive way…..and those that feel bad…like those that view them negatively…ex..depression…and thatss why depressive ppl are not given self verification then they will distance themselves from you
Self-esteem – The evaluative aspect of the self-concept.
we develop sense of who we are based on interpretation and our observation s…its also contignent on how we do in domains that are important to us….ex….if we like cooking…and we burn it,,then feel bad about self…if there are things that we dont care about,,then it wont matter if we do good or not
sociometer thoery
self esteem has developed as a sociometer that moniteors inclusion or rejection…of icnlusion..then high self esteem..if rejection..then low self esteem..(contingent)
terror management theory
caused by existential terror(how we feel when we know we are going to die) by giving meaning to people’s lives……this motivates ppl to obtain symbolic immortality(ex…grandchildren, art)…uphold cultural values(knowing you were well behavied in society.
Mortality salience leads us to act in ways that enhance self-esteem.
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Implicit egotism – We like things that are associated with the self and prefer people, places, and occupations that are similar to the self.
ex…name letter effect,,,ppl gravitate towars ppl places, occupations that are reflective f the self..E.g., Christine moved to Chicago, where she met and married Chuck…just because have favorite letters…ppl will perfer letters in our own name rather than any other letters…(graph)
Narcissism
People who view themselves in grandiose terms, feel entitled to special treatment, and are manipulative
its shown that with FB more college students this has increased
Self-enhancement – The motivation to maintain and enhance self-esteem.
humans developed various strategies:better than average…etc
better than average effect
we thing so many good things of ourselfs..but statistically speaking this is not true…bc not possible for everyone to be better than average
self evaluative maintence model-self enhance
feel threat when perosn close to us does better…..either we can distance ourselves or choose a diff domain to whcih we can excel…iff….When the domain is not personally-relevant, and:
The person excels, we bask in reflected glory (BIRG).
The person fails, we cut off reflected failure (CORF).
self enhance
compare mean with ouselves…2 tpes..upward..(compare slef to those that are better…so we feel bad)…downward(compare self to those that are worse…we feel good)…aslo make comaprisons btw us now and us in past,,,looking at ourself as more neg in past than now..so we view future self as better
attributions
The process by which we observe, analyze, and explain why someone did something. humans behave in self serving manner that affects the personal attributions we do and downplay our failures(so everyone elses fault)
