Chapter 14 - Personality Flashcards
Personality
• Distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that characterize a person’s response to situations
Personality components
• Identity - you are like no one else
• Internal Causes -it’s inside you, not in the environment
• Organized -the pattern ‘fits together’, has
meaning
Things that attribute to personality
- components of indentity
- perceived internal cause
- perceived organization and strucure
Psychodynamic theorists look for the causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of
inner forces that often conflict with one another
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
- Unconscious part of mind
- Powerful influence on behaviour
- E.g., conversion hysteria
Psychic energy
- Generated by instinctual drives
* Discharged directly or indirectly
Mental events
- Conscious: aware
- Preconscious: unaware but can be recalled
- Unconscious: wishes, impulses, etc. we are unaware of
The Id
- Exists totally within the unconscious mind
- It is the innermost core of the personality
- The only structure present at birth
- The source of all psychic energy
- No direct contact with reality and functions in a totally irrational manner
- pleasure principle
Pleasure principle
• Seeks immediate gratification or release
• Regardless of rational considerations and
environmental realities
The Ego
- Functions primarily at a conscious level
- Functions to keep impulses of id in control
- Delays gratification
- Imparts self-control
- It operates according to the reality principle (tests reality to decide when and under what conditions the id can safely discharge its impulses & satisfy its needs)
The Superego
• The last personality structure to develop
• The moral arm of the personality
• Controls impulses of id with external control • According to Freud, the superego developed by the age of four or five
- operates according to moralistic goals
Ego cannot always control id = conflict
In the form of
• Anxiety when impulses of id threaten to get out of control
Defence mechanisms
- repression
- denial
- displacement
- intellectualizaiton
- projection
- rationalization
- reaction formation (psychic E release in exaggerated expression of opposite behaviour)
- sublimation
Psychosexual Development
Series of stages:
- Focuses on specific pleasure-sensitive areas of body
* Adult personality is function of progressing through theses stages, if not could cause fixation
Fixation
• Arrested development where instincts focused on particular area
Research on Psychoanalytic Theory
- Difficult to test: genuine results? Or lies
- Unconscious processes: Nonconscious processes have been demonstrated
Psychosexual stages:
• Concept of childhood sexuality rejected
• Issue = importance of early experiences & emotional attachment
Neoanalytic Approaches
• Adler
- Motivated by social interest
- Place social welfare above personal interests
- Striving for superiority
• Motivated by social interest
- Place social welfare above personal interests
* Striving for superiority
Object relation theorists
• Focus = mental representations people form of themselves
•Become ‘working models’ to interpret social
interactions
• Can generate self-fulfilling prophecies
Object relation theorist can effect what’s
Attachment style in adult relationships
Secure vs avoidant vs anxious-ambivalent
Neoanalysts were psychoanalysts who
disagreed with certain aspects of Freud’s thinking and developed their own theories.
Humanistic Approach
• Reaction to Freud
• Emphasis on role of conscious, creative potential, self-actualization
Motivations for behaviours
Maslow & Rogers
• Innate tendency towards self - actualization
Abraham Maslow
• Considered self-actualization to be the ultimate human need and the highest expression of human nature
George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory
•Kelly’s primary interest was how people construct reality
- personal contructs
Personal constructs
- Are cognitive categories which sort the people and events in their lives
- The primary basis for individual differences in personality
Carl Rogers Self Theory
- Central concept = self-concept
- Organized , consistent set of perceptions & beliefs about oneself
- Once established - tendency to maintain it
- self consistency
- congruence
Self-consistency
•Consistency among ‘self-perceptions’
Congruence
• Consistency between self perceptions & experience
Psychological Adjustment
- Level of adjustment: Degree of congruence between self-concept & experience
- Maladjustment: Deny or distort reality to be consistent with self- concept
- Healthy adjustment: Experiences are easily incorporated into self-concept
High Self-esteem
- Fewer interpersonal problems
- More capable of forming loving relationships
- Achieve at higher level
Poor Self-esteem
• Anxiety, depression, poor social relationships, underachievement
Unstable / unrealistically high self-esteem
- More problematic than low self-esteem
* May react aggressively when self-esteem threatened
Pursuit of self-esteem
- Enhanced self-esteem vs. mastery of the goal
* Failure is problematic if goal is enhanced self-esteem
Fostering self-esteem
- Unconditional acceptance and love
- Clear guidelines for behaviour
- Reinforcement of compliance
- Freedom to make decisions and express opinions within guidelines
Need for Positive Regard
• Innate need for acceptance, sympathy, love
Unconditional Positive Regard
• Independent of behaviour
Conditional Positive Regard
- Dependent upon behaviour
* Creates ‘conditions of worth’
Positive self-regard
• Experience of being understood & valued gives us freedom to grow
Lack of unconditional positive regard
•Creates ‘conditions of worth’
Fully functioning persons
• Self-determined, sense of inner freedom, accept inner & outer experiences as they are
Self-verification
- Motivated to confirm self-concept
- Better recall for more consistent self-descriptions
- Seek out self-confirming relationships
Self-enhancement
- Strong tendency to gain & preserve positive self-image
- Contributes to psychological well-being
Individualistic culture have stronger_________ achievement and collectivist have stronger __________ achievement
personal. Social
Gender schemas
Males
• Achievement, strength, self sufficiency
• Individualistic
- Females
- Helpfulness, kindness, self competencies
- Collectivist
Evaluating Humanistic Theories
- Too much reliance on self-reports • Not scientific?
- How define self-actualization tendency?
- Contribution to psychotherapy approaches
- Characteristics of therapist
- Discrepancies between perceived self & ideal self
Factor analysis
- Find correlations among behaviours
- Reflect basic dimension or trait
- Each dimension reflects a ‘continuum’ of behaviour
Eysenck original theory
• Only 2 dimensions needed
- Introversion-Extraversion
2. Stability-Instability
The Five Factor Model
• Universally found
- Openness
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
• Variations on factors create diversity in personalities
5 Factor Model & Eysenck’s 2 factor Model Good at predicting behaviour
across broad range
Cattel’s 16 Factors Predict behaviour more
specifically
Brains of extreme introverts =
over-aroused
• Minimize stimulation
Brains of extreme extroverts =
under-aroused
• Seek to maximize stimulation
Stability - instability show differences in
autonomic nervous system arousal
Novelty seeking
• Related to levels of dopamine
Traits & Behaviour Show
stability & change
Traits
• Some, e.g., Introversion-extroversion, emotionality, activity level tend to remain
stable over time
Certain thought patterns remain stable
• E.g., optimism-pessimism
Behaviour Shows little
stability across situations
Predicting behaviour from personality traits?
• Difficult because of 3 factors:
- Traits interact with other traits
- ‘Importance’ of trait influences consistency
- Variation in ‘self-monitoring’
Self-monitors
- High = attentive to situational cues
- Low = attentive to internal beliefs
- Extreme = very differently in different situations
Evaluating Trait Approach
• Pros
Focused attention on value of identifying & measuring personality dispositions
Evaluating Trait Approach
Cons
- ‘Describes’ structure of personality & individual differences
- Cannot explain underlying psychological mechanisms
Albert Bandura
Behaviour not explained by ‘external’ or ‘internal’ factors alone
- reciprocal determinism
- social learning and self-efficacy:
Beliefs about ability to perform task based on intention to set and reach goals
Reciprocal Determinism
- Individual & behaviour & environment are linked
* Influential pattern of 2-way causal links
Reciprocal determine contains
Environment, person, behaviour, all interacting
Julian Rotter: Expectancy, Reinforcement Value, & Locus of Control
• Expectancy & Reinforcement
- Behaviour governed by 2 factors (Rotter)
• Expectancy
- Likelihood of consequences given behaviour
• Reinforcement
- How much we desire or dread consequences
Social Cognitive Theories
Locus of Control
• Generalized expectancy
• Applies to many aspects of world view
Internal and external
Internal locus
• Events under personal control
- Self-determined
- Seek out information; becoming involved
- Sense of personal effectiveness
External locus
• Luck, chance, powerful others
- Less resistant to social pressures
- Give into ‘powerful’ others
What influences self-efficacy?
- performance experiences (previous succes and failures)
- observational learning (see behaviour and consequences similar to models)
- emotional arousal (arousal = enthusiasm)
- verbal persuasion (encouraging messages revised form others)
Self-Efficacy & Goal Setting
• Want to know what to do? Then set:
- Specific & measurable goals
- Performance not outcome goals
- Difficult but realistic goals
- Positive not negative goals
- Short-range & long-range goals
- Definite time spans for achievement
Consistency Paradox
Level of consistency in behaviour is low
Cognitive Affective Personality System (CAPS)
Interplay between personality characteristics and situation
Evaluating Social Cognitive Theories
- Advanced understanding of internal & external factors
- Puts insights from other perspectives into cognitive- behavioural concepts
- Explains inconsistency of behaviour as a stable structure which reacts differently to particular situations
Personality Assessment through Interviews
- Structured set of standardized questions
* Note other behaviours - appearance, speech patterns etc.
Drawbacks to interviews
- Characteristics of interviewer can affect answers
* Dependence on co-operation, honesty of interviewee
Behavioural Assessment
- Need explicit coding system
- Aim is not solely to ‘describe’ behaviour
- Specific behaviour, frequency, specific situations, under what conditions
- interjudge reliability
Interjudge reliability
- High level of agreement
* among observers
Remote behavioural sampling
- Sample behaviour at random times over period of days, weeks etc.
- Allows for data collection of behaviour that may otherwise not be revealed
Personality Scales
- Objective measures
* Use standard questions & agreed upon scoring key
Pros and cons to personality scales
Advantage:
• Collect large amount of data
Disadvantages:
• Validity of answers (truthfully answered?)
• Validity scales
•Used to detect a ‘pattern’ in responses
Personality scales items: 2 ways to develop
Rational and empirical
Rational
- Based on conception of trait
- Item seems ‘relevant’ to the trait
- NEO-PI (Costa & McCrae)
- Big 5 personality traits
Empirical
- Answered by differing groups
* Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory revised = MMPI-2
MMPI-2
- 10 clinical scales
- 3 validity scales
- Configuration pattern of scales
- Measure personality deviations
- Aspects of personality in people who do not display disorders
- Screening device in industrial, military settings
Jeffrey Dahmer’s MMPI
profile
• Convicted mass murderer • Reflects his severe psychological disturbance • Is consistent with his pattern of unrestrained and vicious victimization of others
Projective tests
- Presented with ambiguous stimulus
- Interpretation = ‘projection’ of inner needs, feelings, ways of viewing the world
- thematic apperception test
- inkblots
Rorschach Inkblots
• 10 inkblots
• Categorized according to ‘types’ of objects seen
• Different examiners - different
interpretations?
Thematic Apperception Test
- Ambiguous illustrations/ photos
- Asked to ‘tell a story’
- ‘themes’ are analyzed
Personality Theory Provides
framework
Personality assessment proves
‘Tools’
Who uses what tools provided by assessments ?
- Psychodynamic = projective techniques
- Humanistic = self-report measures
- Social-cognitive = behavioural assessments
- Biological = physiological measurements
- Trait theorists = inventories (MMPI, NEO-PI)
