Lecture 8 Flashcards
Define Personality
Refers to enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behaviour that are expressed in different circumstances.
What is the aim of personality research?
Construct general theories that describe the structure and development of personality.
To assess individual differences in personality.
What is the topographical model?
Put forth by Freud, identifying 3 levels of consciousness (Conscious, pre-conscious, unconscious).
Conflict occurs between these different aspects of consciousness (opposing motives).
Successful resolution requires compromise formation.
What is the developmental model? (The drive/instinct model )
Boils down the motives underlying the unconscious into either sex and/or aggression. Libido;
- stages of psychosexual development
- fixed progression of change from stage to stage
- notion of fixation at a particular libidinal stage.
What are the psychsexual stages of Freud’s developmental model?
Oral stage (0-2) Anal Stage (2-3) Phallic stage (3-5): Boys - Oedipal complex. Girls - Electra complex Latency Period (5 - adolescence) Genital Age: Begins during adolescence.
What is Freud;s structural model of personality?
ID > Superego (unconscious ) > ego (preconscious).
What is the ID?
Unconscious Innate sexual drives present at birth. Demands immediate gratification in any way. Not until ID discovers that it cannot impulsively gratify = ego development.
What is the superego?
The moral guardian of the unconscious. Acts as the conscience and perfect ideal world, which we strive. Usually in direct contrast to ID.
What is the ego?
Balances what the ID wants and what it can realistically get. Rational, logical and goal oriented.
What are the explicit defence mechanisms, in which are prevalent in humans?
Repression: Prevents desires coming into conscious mind.
Denial: Discounting the existence of threatening impulses.
Projection: Unconsciously attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts or impulses to another person.
Reaction formation: Defending against unacceptable impulses by acting opposite to them.
Compensation: Striving to make up for unconscious impulses or fears.
Rationalisation: Make actions or mistakes reasonable/justify them.
Displacement: Deflecting an impulse from original target to a less threatening one.
Sublimation: Converting unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable actions/expressing them symbolically.
What are object relations?
Enduring patterns of behaviour in intimate relationships and also the motivational, cognitive and effective processes that produce these patterns.
What are object relations theories?
Focus on interpersonal disturbances and capacity for relatedness to others.
What does relational theories entail?
Argues that adaptation is primary adaptation to others. A person’s central drive is their need for relatedness to others. They will distort their personalities to maintain bonds with important people.
Assessing personality: Life history methods
Aims to understand whole person in the context of life experiences
Assessing personality: Projective tests:
Person is presented with vague stimulus, and their answer will project their own impulses and desires into a description of the stimulus. Based on idea that you will exhibit your unconscious response.
What is the cognitive social theories of personality?
Emphasis on learned aspects of personality as well as expectations, beliefs and info processing. Constant interplay between the environment and how people subjectively process it and project it the world.
Walter Mischel
If/then learned behavioural signatures
Julian Rotter
Internal vs external expectancies
Albert Bandura
Reciprocal determinism
What are behaviour outcome expectancies?
Belief that a behaviour will lead to an outcome
Self efficacy expectancies?
Belief that the person can perform the behaviour
Competencies?
Skills used for problem solving
Self regulation
Setting goals, evaluating performance and responding to feedback
What are the main criticisms of social cognitive theory?
No role for unconscious contents
No explanations for why specific situations bring out certain behaviours
Not a general theory of behaviour
Fails to capture, complexities, richness and uniqueness of our personalities.
What are humanistic theories? Carl rogers
In opposition to behaviourist or psychodynamic. Focus’ on the notion of each person having a potential for creative growth. Focuses on how people find meaning in their lives and how they are true to themselves and their personal beliefs.
What does Roger’s person-centred approach entail?
That human beings are good by nature, but personality become distorted by interpersonal experiences; phenomenal experience.
Each person has multiple selves;
True self: the core aspect of being
False self: the self that is created by distortions from interpersonal experiences.
Ideal self: what the person would like to be.
Main contributions of the humanistic theory?
How many people see themselves.
Central roles for immediate experience and individuals’ uniqueness.
Promoted research in positive psychology.
Inspired forms of psychotherapy.
Main criticisms of humanistic theory?
Viewed as naive, romantic, unrealistic.
Too simple - too little attention to other possible factors.
Too vague to be tested empirically.
What are trait theories of personality?
Refers to emotional, cognitive and behavioural tendencies, that constitute underlying personality dimensions on which individuals vary. Can be measured by asking the self or another to rate the self.
How many traits did Allport note?
18,000 traits
How many traits did Cattell note?
16 distinct traits
What does the big 5 factor model comprise of?
Neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness.
What does Mischel argue about personality traits?
That there’s consistency across situations. He argues that situational variables largely determine behaviour.
What is the principle of aggregation?
Esptein found average traits across a range of situations. A class of behaviours over a range of situations.
What is the consistency across time phenomenon?>
A person’s innate temperament i.e shyness and anxiety to the unfamiliar. Largely influenced by genes.
What is the person-by-situation interactions phenomenon?
People expressing traits is specific situations.
Main criticisms of trait theory?
Doesn’t describe the relationship among traits, thoughts and feelings.
Fails to capture how traits combine to form complex and dynamic individual.
Perhaps more than five dimensions.
May not hold across all cultures.
Situational variables also affect personality.
Heritability (personality)
Refers to the proportion of variance in a particular trait that is due to genetic influences. Supporting evidence comes from twin studies.
What percentage of the big 5 personality traits are heritable?
40-60%
What percentage of most personality variables are heritable?
15-50%
What does the culture pattern approach entail?
Sees culture as an organised set of beliefs, rituals and institutions that shape individuals to fit its patterns.
What does the interactionists approach entail?
Suggests that personality, economics and culture mutually influence one another.
How did Freud interpret the phenomenology of culture?
Through the essence of individual psychology projected through the cultural sphere. They abide by traditional patterns and standards of their culture which shapes an individual from birth.
