Personality Flashcards
What is Personality?
- consistent set of characteristics displayed over time and across situations
- characteristics that make them unique
- behavioral, emotional, and cognitive tendencies
- distinguish individuals from eachother
What theories shape our personalities?
Psychodynamic -Freud, unconscious motives Biological -genetic programming Social Cognitive -learning and social interaction
Psychoanalytical Perspective
Sigmund Freud
- Discovered the unconsciousness
- Free association: give person a word and they say first thing that comes to mind, those words eventually form from unconsciousness
- Dreams and Freudian slips: go to say something neutral and say something sexual
- Iceberg analogy
Freudian Mind
ID: pleasure principle, baby cries to get food
Ego: realistic principle, can’t always get what they want and realize this so try to get what they want and satisfy an urge w/o punishment
Superego: ego ideal, black and white with no middleground b/c want to be perfect
Oral Stage
infancy-18m
- smoking, nail biting, talkativeness
- babies eating: if not enough food then they will form an oral fixation
Anal Stage
18m-3yrs
- excessive cleanliness, cruelty, messiness
- Babies liked gaining control over bowels and bladder (potty training)
- if start training too early or are too strict about it then they become anal retentive
- if start training too late or are too lenient then they become anal expulsive
Phallic stage
3-6 years
- oedipus complex: boys had castration anxiety
- electra complex/jealousy: girls had penis envy
Latent stage
6yrs-puberty
- focus more on social or intellectual pursuits
- go to school
Genital stage
puberty-death
- sexual relationships
- diff than phallic stage
Defense Mechanisms
Repression, Regression, Projection, Displacement
Repression
Urge or any anxiety that is socially unacceptable–push it down into our unconsciousness
Regression
Regress to an earlier stage
Homesicknesses: want to regress to a simpler time
Projection
Don’t like characteristic about yourself so push it onto someone else
Ex) cheating: if you’re cheating you lash out on partner and accuse them of cheating
Displacement
Take urge and find way to satisfy it in a more socially acceptable way
Ex) get yelled at by boss- can’t yell back so you yell at family at home
Model of the Jungian Psyche
Ego (more complex than Freud)
-personality: thinking, feeling, intuition, sensation
Unconscious broken into 2 parts:
-personal unconscious, similar to ID
-collective unconscious, innate tendencies that influence behavior
Jung: Archetypes
Anima/animus: representations of personality come through dreams
Shadow: characteristics we hide
Self: characteristics coming together
Personal: characteristics you show people as a mask
-Mother,father,hero,trickster,child,wise old man
-Represented in many myths, legends, fairytales
Jung & Personality
"Principle of opposites" -each pair are opposites and we favor one over the other intro/extroversion thinking/feeling sensing/intuition judging/perceiving rational/irrational masculine/feminine
Birth Order & Personality
Sulloway
1st born: high level of responsibility, more dominant
Mid-born: “black sheep”, misfit, more likely to get into trouble
Later-born: social, outgoing, self-conscious
Gender & Personality
Women
-higher social conectedness
-more empathic and nurturing
-higher score of neuroticism (measures anxiety and depression)
Men
-higher individuality
-lower neuroticism (social pressure stunted men into not having emotions)
Culture & Personality
- each culture may praise or condemn diff characteristics
- individualists: competition
- Collectivists: cooperation
- are national character stereotypes accurate?
Rorchadch inkblot test
- tells a little bit about your personality or if you have a psychological disorder
- ambiguous figures + clinical interview
NEO-PI
Measures the big 5
MMPI-2
- tests psychological/personality disorder
- used on police officers
Myer-Briggs Type indicator
- more simple
- careers based on personality
The Big 5 Personality Traits
- Openness to experience
- imagination and insight - Conscientiousness
- thoughtfulness, impulse control, goals, civic duties - Extraversion
- excitability, sociability, talkativeness, outgoing - Agreeableness
- trust, altruism, prosocial behaviors, compliance & modesty - Neuroticism
- emotional stability, mood, irritability, anxiety, depression
Temperament
- earliest personality: either stay or change depending on how they are raised
- based on irritability, mood, attention, activity, intensity, rhythm
What personality genes are inherited
Neuroticism and extroversion
Shyness
10-15% of children born shy or introverted
40% of college-age students report being shy
