Chapter 14 Flashcards
Personality
- A distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behaviour, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterizes an individual
- Pattern may consist of many distinctive traits
Traits
a characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual way of behaving, thinking, or feeling
Psychoanalysis
A theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy that emphasizes uncuncious motives and conflicts
Originally formulated by Sigmund Freud
Psychodynamic
explains personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual
Structure of Personality
ID, Ego, and Superego
ID (Instinctive drives)
part of personality that contains inherited psychic energy, particularly sexual (libido) & aggressive impulses
Ego
part of personality that represents reason, good sense, and rational self-control
Superego
the part of personality that represents conscience, morality, and social standards
Defence Mechanism
When the id and superego are in conflict, the ego deals with this tension through the use of defense mechanisms
- Methods used by the ego to prevent unconscious anxiety or threatening thoughts from entering consciousness
- Many mechanisms proposed but some more common than others
Types of Defence Mechanisms (6)
Repression, projection, replacement, reaction formation, regression, denial
Repression
the selective, involuntary pushing of threatening or upsetting information into the unconscious
Projection
a person’s unacceptable or threatening feelings being repressed and then attributed to someone else
Displacement
when people direct their emotions (especially anger) toward things, animals, or other people that are not the real object of their feelings. (Called sublimation when serves a higher cultural or social purpose)
Reaction formation
when a feeling that produces unconscious anxiety is transformed into its opposite in consciousness
Regression
when a person reverts to a previous phase of psychological development
Denial
when people refuse to admit something unpleasant is happening, that they have a problem, or that they are feeling a forbidden emotion
Protects self image and preserves illusion of invulnerability
Freud’s Psychosexual
A series of different forms of sexual energy into which personality develops as the child matures
Stages of Freud’s ‘Psychosexual’ (5)
oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital
Oedipus Complex
conflict in the phallic stage where a child desires the parent of the other sex and views the same-sex parent as a rival
Fixated
The level when conflict and anxiety aren’t resolved and they become fixated at that level
Jungian theory & collective unconscious
The universal memories and experiences of humankind, represented in symbols, stories, and images (archetypes) that occur across all cultures
Archetypes
symbolic images that appear in myths, art, stories, and dreams.
- Shadow
- Anima/Animus
Shadow
bestial, evil side of nature
Anima/Animus
Feminine and masculine
Object-Relations school
Emphasized the importance of the infant’s first two years of life and the baby’s formative relationships, especially with the mother
Psychodynamic theories guilty of three scientific failings:
- Violating the principle of falsifiability
- Drawing universal principles from the experiences of a few atypical patients
- Basing theories of personality development on retrospective accounts of adults
Objective inventories
- Standardized questionnaires requiring written responses
- Typically include scales on which people are asked to rate themselves
Core Personality Traits
Allport evaluated personality traits based on their influence on a person’s life
Central Traits
aspects of personality that reflect a characteristic way of behaving, dealing with others, and reacting to new situations
Secondary Traits
changeable aspects of personality
Factor analysis
often used to identify clusters of behaviours that are measured by a common underlying factor
Most researchers agree on the centrality of five core traits in personality
- Extroversion versus introversion
- Neuroticism (negative emotionality) versus emotional stability
- Agreeableness versus antagonism
- Conscientiousness versus impulsiveness
- Openness to experience versus resistance to new experience
The Big Five
Culture can influence the expression of traits & how they are reflected in language (even nonverbal signs)
-Big Five are relatively stable, but may reflect maturational changes over lifespan
Animal Personalities
- Research has argued that some nonhuman species show ‘personality’
- Ratings of personalities of dogs between dog, owners, their friends, and neutral observers all showed strong agreement (Dimensions of extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience)
What aspects of personality may have an inherited component?
Temperaments and heritability
Temperaments
- Physiological dispositions to respond to the environment in certain ways
- Present in infancy and in many nonhuman species and assumed to be innate (Include reactivity, soothability, impulsivity, positive and negative emotionality)
Heritability
- A statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals within a group
- Often examine adoption and twin studies (heritability for traits in twins around .50)
- Canadian researchers have found that similarities in personality increase with age
If genetic theories are correct, we may not be able to transform personalities drastically
Implications for realistic goals in therapy
Focus on living with temperaments we have
Be careful not to oversimplify support for genetic influences
Genetic predisposition ≠ genetic inevitability
Don’t overlook role of environment & experience
Three primary aspects of environmental influence that have been examined:
- Situational and Social learning
- Parental Influence
- Peer Influences
Situational and Social Learning
Display different behaviours in different contexts
Central personality traits acquired from learning history & expectations/beliefs
Acknowledgement that people can have a core set of traits and their behaviour can vary across situations
Reciprocal Determinism
In social-cognitive theories, the two-way interaction between aspects of the environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits
Accounts for aspects of non-shared environments
Parental Influence
Western belief that child-rearing practices are the strongest influence on children’s personality development
Especially in cases where public is looking for someone to blame for horrible events
Belief that personality primarily determined by parental treatment discounted on the basis of three sources of evidence: (3)
- The shared environment of the home has little if any influence on personality
- Few parents have a single child-rearing style that is consistent over time and that they use with all their children-different children may require different styles
- Even when parents try to be consistent in the way they treat their children, there may be little relation between what they do and how the children turn out
Peer Influences
Conformity to dress, habits, language, & rules of peers can be highly influential
Identification with peer group is key to survival of the next generation (peer acceptance very important)
Peers shape expression of personality traits, with emphasis on some and downplaying others
Personality may also influence the types of peers we are drawn to in the first place
Culture
A program of shared rules that governs the behaviour of members of a community or society and a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by most members of that community
May be as influential as any biological process
Individualistic cultures
Cultures in which the self is regarded as autonomous, and individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and relations with others
Collectivistic cultures
Cultures in which the self is regarded as embedded in relationships, and harmony with one’s group is prized above individual goals and wishes (pg. 28)
