L11: Personality Flashcards
Definition of personality
Consistent, stable behaviour patterns & intrapersonal processes originating within the individual
historical approaches: bumps
- Phrenology: judging character by reading “bumps” on the head
- Gall argued that skill bumps were a sign of specific brain enlargements
- measured by a psychograph
historical approaches: blots
- projective tests were used to uncover hidden
thought processes. - Rorschach Ink blot test
- draw a person test
historical approchaes: bodies
- body type theories
- fluid types: temperament related to four body fluids: blood, urine, feces, mucus
- somatotypes: overweight, muscular, skinny
Humanistic theories
- one’s inner psychological experiences as perceived by the person
- human beings are inherently good and seek to reach their full potential
- people have free will and are responsible for themselves
Critiques of psychoanalytic theory
1) Not based on scientific methodology
2) Lack of empirical support
Contribution of Psychoanalytic Theory
1) Existence of unconscious thought
2) Importance of early development
3) Influence of mind on body
4) The talking cure
freud’s theory: three levels of awareness
conscious mind, preconscious mind, unconscious mind
Id, Ego, Superego
Id - the manifestation of unconscious and instinctual drives and needs, governed by the pleasure-pain principle.
Ego - Represents the largely conscious awareness of reality and the ability to mediate the needs of the id within the constraints of reality, governed by the reality principle, reason & self-control.
Superego - Represents the internalized cultural and social rules and ideals that guide our moral conscience, governed by the morality principle, morality & ideals
Pleasure-pain principle of Id
increase pleasure & reduce pain
Unhealthy personalities
develops when:
- we become too dependent upon defense mechanisms
- when the id or superego is too strong (overly hedonic or moralistic)
- when the ego is too weak (bad mediator)
Frued’s psychosocial states of personality development
oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital
Anal-retentive personality
If the child reacts to harsh toilet training by trying to get even with the parents by withholding bowel movements, an anal-retentive personality with the traits of orderliness, neatness, stinginess, and stubbornness develops
Anal-expulsive personality
The anal-expulsive personality develops when the child rebels against the harsh training and has bowel movements whenever and wherever he desires
Phallic stage conflicts
oedipus conflict - young boy becomes sexually attracted to his mother and fears his father will find out and castrate him
electra conflict - young girl is attracted to her father because he has a penis; she wants one of her own and feels inferior without one (penis envy)
Carl Jung’s collective unconscious
- represents universal human experiences that we all share
- manifested in archetypes, which represent personality styles, each one has a primary desire
- this theory is more mystical than scientific and cannot be empirically tested
Alfred Adler’s striving for superiority
- main motivation is striving for superiority, overcoming the sense of inferiority we feel as infants
- a healthy person learns to cope with these feelings, becomes confident, and develops a sense of self-esteem
- inferiority complex is the strong feeling of inferiority felt by those who never overcome this
Karen Horney and the need for security
- Focused on dealing with our need for security, rather than a sense of inferiority
- A child’s caregivers must provide a sense of security for a healthy personality to develop or else neurotic personality types will develop
- three neurotic personality patterns: moving toward people, moving against people, moving away from people
Trait theories of personality
- Personality traits are individual dimensions, a continuum ranging from extremely low to extremely high
- Trait theorists use factor analysis and other statistical techniques to tell them the number and kind of traits
self-concept
- The broad dynamic network of mental representations that a person has of him or herself; self-knowledge structure
- Includes network of possible selves which motivate our behaviour
Working self-concept
the most salient concepts of the self in brought to mind in a given context
Locus of control
- the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces (beyond their influence), have control over the outcome of events in their lives
- Internal locus of control: they can control their own fate
- External locus of control: chance or outside forces determine what happens to them
Learned helplessness
A state of passive resignation to an aversive situation that one has come to believe is outside of one’s control
Lexical hypothesis
Traits that provide useful ways to differentiate among people’s characteristics are necessarily encoded in language
Big 5 Theory
The dominant model in the trait approach to personality, which posits five key dimensions along which humans vary
1) Openness to experience
2) Conscientiousness
3) Extraversion
4) Agreeableness
5) Neuroticism
Personality Disorders: Prevalence
- Around 9-15% of the general population (rates much higher in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics)
- Prevalence of individual PDs is around 1-5%
Personality Disorders: Comorbidity
- Comorbidity among PDs very high –> People with a PD have an average of 6 comorbid PDs
- Comorbidity with other disorders is also very high
Personality Disorders: Sex / Age difference
- generally higher prevalence in women and early / midlife
- women and men roughly equal in older age
- higher in men: antisocial and narcissistic PD
- higher in women: dependent, histrionic, borderline
Personality Disorders: General criteria
- pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from expectations of the individual’s culture in at least two of the following:
- cognition
- affect
- social
- impulse control - this pattern is inflexible and pervasive across different situations
- it causes clinically significant distress or impairment
- the pattern is stable and it has early onset (traced back to at least adolescence or early adulthood)
- note that PDs are ego-syntonic
Personality Disorders: DSM disorders
Cluster A - odd / eccentric
- paranoid
- schizoid
- schizotypical
Cluster B - dramatic / erratic
- antisocial
- borderline
- histrionic
- narcissistic
Cluser C - anxious / fearful
- avoidant
- dependent
- obsessive-compulsive
Personality Disorders: Diagnostic problems
- is it right to say who someone is is “disordered”?
- culture and norms
- are PDs even distinct constructs?
- PDs end up on permanent record
- problems with coverage
- polythetic criteria
Psychopathy checklist (factor 1 and 2)
Factor 1 - affective / interpersonal components, eg pathological lying, promiscuity, failure to accept responsibility
Factor 2 - impulsive / antisocial components, eg parasitic lifestyle, impulsivity, juvenile delinquency
Psychopathy / ASPD relationship
Factor 1: sometimes referred to as the primary essence of psychopathy
Factor 2: ASPD
Roger’s self theory
- Natural human state is to be a fully functioning person
- The self is an integrated whole organism that interprets the world
- He focused on ways to foster and attain self-actualization
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
1) Physiological Needs
2) Safety Needs
3) Social Needs
4) Esteem Needs
5) Self Actualization
Self-actualization
- Acceptance of self, others, and nature
- Problem-focused
- Independent from culture / environment
- Democratic values
- Deep ties with relatively few people
Narcissism
the tendency to have unrealistic and self-aggrandizing views of one’s self
