Chapter 14 Personality Flashcards
Personality is defined as
an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Psychodynamic Theories
theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences.
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.
What is personality, and what theories inform our understanding of
personality?
Personality is an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Psychoanalytic (and later psychodynamic) theory and humanistic theory have become
part of Western culture. They also laid the foundation for later theories, such as trait
and social-cognitive theories of personality.
How did Sigmund Freud’s treatment of psychological disorders lead to his view
of the unconscious mind?
Psychodynamic theories of personality view behavior as a dynamic interaction between
the conscious and unconscious mind. These theories trace their origin to Sigmund
Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis. In treating patients whose disorders had no clear
physical explanation, Freud concluded that these problems reflected unacceptable
thoughts and feelings, hidden away in the unconscious mind. To explore this hidden
part of a patient’s mind, Freud used free association and dream analysis.
What was Freud’s view of personality?
Freud believed that personality results from conflict arising from the interaction
among the mind’s three systems: the id (pleasure-seeking impulses), ego (realityoriented executive), and superego (internalized set of ideals, or conscience
What developmental stages did Freud propose?
He believed children pass through five psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital). According to this view, unresolved conflicts at any stage can leave a person’s pleasure-seeking impulses fixated (stalled) at that stage.
How did Freud think people defended themselves against anxiety?
For Freud, anxiety was the product of tensions between the demands of the id and superego. The ego copes by using unconscious defense mechanisms, such as repression, which he viewed as the basic mechanism underlying and enabling all the others.
Which of Freud’s ideas did his followers accept or reject?
Freud’s early followers, the neo-Freudians, accepted many of his ideas. They differed in placing more emphasis on the conscious mind and in stressing social motives more than sex or aggression. Most contemporary psychodynamic theorists and therapists
reject Freud’s emphasis on sexual motivation. They stress, with support from modern research findings, that much of our mental life is unconscious, and they believe that our childhood experiences influence our adult personality and attachment patterns.
Many also believe that our species’ shared evolutionary history shaped some universalpredispositions.
How do contemporary psychologists view Freud’s psychoanalysis?
Freud is credited with drawing attention to the vast unconscious and our irrationality, to the importance of human sexuality and to the conflict between biological impulses and social restraints, and for formulating some science-backed defense mechanisms.
But his concept of repression, and his view of the unconscious as a collection of repressed and unacceptable thoughts, whishes, feelings, and memories, cannot survive scientific scrutiny. Freud offered after-the-fact explanations, which are hard to test scientifically. Research does not support many of Freud’s specific ideas, such as the view that development is fixed in childhood, as we now know it is lifelong.
How has modern research developed our understanding of the unconscious?
Research confirms that we don’t have full access to the ongoings of minds. Today’s science views the unconscious as a separate and parallel track of info processing. This includes schemas out of our perceptions, priming, implicit memories of learned skills, instantly activated emotions, and implicit stereotypes/ prejudice that filter our info proc of other’s traits and characteristics.
Research also supports reaction formation and projection (the false consensus effect), and the idea that we unconsciously defend ourselves from anxiety.
What are projective tests, how are they used, and what are some criticisms of them?
Projective tests show people stimuli that are open to many interpretations, treating their answers as revelations of inner dynamics. The TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) and the Rorschach inkblot test are examples of such. The TAT provides a valid and reliable map of people’s implicit motives and is consistent over time. The Rorschach has low reliability and validity, but some clinicians view it as a source of suggestive leads, an ice breaker, or a revealing interview techinique.
How did Humanistic Psychologists view personality, and what was their goal in studying personality?
Humanistic psychologists’ view of personality focused on the potential for healthy personal growth and people’s striving for self-determination and self-realization.
Abraham Maslow proposed that human motivations form a hierarchy of needs if basic needs are fulfilled, people will strive toward self-actualization and self-transcendence. Carl Rogers believed that the ingredients of a growth-promoting environment are acceptance (including unconditional positive regard) genuineness, and empathy. Self concept was a central feature of personality for both Maslow and Rogers.
How did humanistic psychologists assess a person’s sense of self?
Some rejected any standardized method of relied on interviews and convos. Others (like Rogers) utilized questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves; these were later used to judge progress during therapy. Some now use the story approach, enabling a rich narrative detailing a person’s unique life history.
How have humanistic theories influenced psychology? What criticisms have they faced?
Humanistic psychology has had pervasive cultural impact and helped renew interest in the concept of self; it also laid the groundwork for today’s scientific subfield of positive psychology. Critics have said that humanistic psychology’s concepts are vague and subjective, its values self-centered, and its assumptions naively optimistic.
How do psychologists use traits to describe personality?
Trait theorists see personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior. They have been more interested in trying to describe our differences than explaining them. Using factor analysis, they identify clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together. Genetic predispositions influence many traits.
What are some common misunderstandings about introversion?
Western cultures prize extraversion, but introverts have different, equally important skills. Introversion does not equal shyness, and extraverts don’t always outperform introverts as leaders. Introverts handle conflict well, seeking solitude rather than revenge.
What are personality inventories and what are their strengths and weaknesses as trait-assessment tools?
Personality inventories, such as the MMPI are questionnaires on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors. Test items are empirically derived, and the tests are objectively scored. Objectivity does not guarantee validity; people can fake their answers to create a good impression (but may then score high on a lie scale that assesses faking).
