Chapter 14 - Personality Flashcards
Personality
Pattern of psychological characteristics
Leads us to act conssistently
Still subject to enviro influences
Trait
Stable predisposition (as opposed to being in a state)
Two traditions of personality study (and science in general)
- Nomothetic - seeking out general principles that apply to all people (more common)
- Idiographic - identifying unique configurations of characteristics and history of a individual (less common)
How many english terms describe personality, per Allport and Odbert
17,000
Eysenck diagram of 4 traits and combinations
Unstable, Stable
Introverted, Extroverted
Unstable introvert is neurotic
Unstable extrovert is psychotic
Stable extrovert is extroverted
Stable introvert is UNDEFINED
Situationism and its rebuttal
Walter Mischel’s Critique of trait/big five
Said behaviour is not consistent across situations and that our behaviour is more a function of the situation not traits
BUT Seymour Epstein found that traits do aggregate (factor analysis) across situations
Eros and Thanatos
Victorian era notion of the two instinctual forces, sexuality and aggression
Id, Superego, Ego
Id - Reservoir of primitive impulses; obeys pleasure principle (striving immediate gratification)
Superego - Our sense of morality; obeys idealistic principle (striving for perfect moral behaviour)
Ego - Our executive and principal decision maker; obeys reality principle (delaying gratification)
Defense Mechanisms
Used by ego to defend itself
- Repression - buries anxiety (threatening momories) into unconscious; most critical
- Denial - refusing to acknowledge the anxiety
- Projection - seeing one’s own unacceptable feelings in others
- Reaction formation - reversing nature of anxiety
- Sublimation - channeling anxiety into sociall–acceptable activities
Psychosexual Theory
Old Age Pensioners Love Grapes
Oral (birth-1) - Id Anal (1-3) - Ego Phallic (3-6) - Superego Latency (6-11) Genital (adolescence)
Humanist approach to personality
- Carl Rogers
- Reaction to psychoanalysis
- Rejected determinism; embraced free-will and self-awareness
- Self-actualization is core motive in personality
- Pers. comes from innate self, beliefs about self
Behavioural approaches to personality
- Personality based on classical, operant, and observational learning
- Genetic factors plus reinforcers and punishments
- Parents can shape child’s pers. through reward/punishment
Cognitive/social learning approach to pers.
Reciprocal determinism - mutual influences: personality, cognition, behaviour, environment