Personality

Question 1

What is personality?

Answer 1

• An individual’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours persisting over time and across situations
• Puts together the cognitive functions (learning, memory, emotions, motivation) to make the person

Question 2

Why is Dr. Phil problematic?

Answer 2

• Dr. Phil is not a registered psychologist but profits from complex problems that combine abusive relationships, important family adjustment problems, clear emotional distress and more
• Typically sums up complex problems with one simple “englightened” answer
• Can be “easily” fixed by a directive solution that will make the world a harmonious place
• Draws on poor, specific concept of personality (everyone has a trait that defines them regardless of situation) that makes for good entertainment
• Mistake: only considers what’s in the person and neglects to consider the social environment

Question 3

What is Freud’s psychoanalysis?

Answer 3

• Physical symptoms can be caused by psychological factors
• Fascinated by unconscious (without our awareness)
• Formulated a theory of structure of human personality and its development
• The theory and his therapeutic technique were named psychoanalysis
• At the start of life, personality is made up of the id (“the pleasure principle”)
• Freud thought that the biggest part of ourselves comes from animal instincts
• Then the ego develops (“reality principle”), negotiates the demands of the id with reality and later, with the superego
• Eg. potty training; you can’t just go whenever you want
• Around age 4-5, the child develops the superego, a conscience internalized from parents and society, following the ideals of a “morality principle”

Question 4

How did Freud explain personality?

Answer 4

• Personality emerges from the efforts of our ego to resolve tension between our id and the superego
• Often characterized by the use of “defense mechanisms”
• Eg. denial, projection (project your own mistakes onto someone else, think they have same impulses

Question 5

How was the unconscious measured? What are problems?

Answer 5

• Projection of unconscious themes to into the conscious world
• Newer approachs include projective tests:
• Rorschach (ink blobs)
• TAT (plates with images on it, and they will make up story)

The problems are validity (can’t assess objectivity of test because it is measuring unconscious) and reliability (if different therapists assess the patient, you will come up with different explanations for a consistent thing; personality)

Question 6

What are some flaws in Freud’s scientific method?

Answer 6

• Unfalsifiability: for many elements of Freudian theories, it is impossible to derive clear hypotheses (use defense mechanisms that allow you to argue that you’re correct, no way to rebuttle)
• Unrepresentative sampling: very limited number of observations for theories that apply to humanity (bulk of research mainly with upper-society Victorian women)
• Biased observations: he elaborated and examined his theory with his own patients (he and the participant wanted the patient to get better; need independent person that is not part of the therapy session)
• Post facto explanations rather than predictions: it is easy to make convincing arguments about what is going on (you are either fixated or repressing)

Question 7

What is a trait?

Answer 7

An enduring quality that makes a person act a certain way (Gordon Allport)

Question 8

What is factor analysis?

Answer 8

• Take a bunch of variables and see which ones cluster together
• Look at the 18000 English words that represent personality traits
• See which cluster together to form factors/dimensions

Question 9

What is the Big 5?

Answer 9

• Openness: flexibility, nonconformity, variety
• Conscientiousness: self-discipline, careful pursuit of delayed goals
• Extraversion: drawing energy from others, sociability
• Agreeableness: helpful, trusting, friendliness, gets along easily with other people
• Neuroticism: anxiety, insecurity, emotional instability (does not neccessitate disorder)

Question 10

Do traits change over time? Are they learned or genetic?

Answer 10

• Most evidence suggests stability (won’t change that much)
• Evidence shows that you can inherit traits
• Supports argument for stability (genes)

Question 11

How are personality traits assessed?

Answer 11

• Personality inventory: questionnaire assessing many personality traits by asking which behaviours and responses the person would choose
• Self report, rating self
• Eg. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, The Big Five

Question 12

What is the Myers-Brigg test?

Answer 12

1. Where you focus your attention
   - Extraversion focus on outer world (you enjoy wide circle of acquaintances)
   - Introversion focus on inner world (you find it difficult to speak loudly)
2. The way you take in information
   - Sensing take information from senses in the moment ((you like to keep a check on how things are progressing)
   - Intuition take information from big picture (you often think about humankind and its destiny)
3. The way you make decisions
   - Thinking prefer decision made through logic (you trust reason rather than feelings)
   - Feeling make decisions based on subjective evaluation (your actions are frequently influenced by emotion)
4. How you deal with the outer world
   - Judgement prefer planning and organizing (you usually plan your actions in advance)
   - Perception prefer to be spontaneous (you believe the best decision is one that can be easily changed)

Question 13

What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory?

Answer 13

• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is fully atheoretical (purely driven by statistics, no personality theory comes with it)
• Clinical scales: hypochondriases, depression, hysteria, psychopathy, masculinity/femninity, paranoia, schizophrenia, hypomania, socia introversion
• Reverse coded items: if you say no, you score high on the dimension for depression
• Validity scales: designed to detect when clients are over reporting or exaggerating the prevalence or severity of psychology symptoms (faking bad) OR under-reporting or downplaying psychological symptoms (faking good)
• “The best things in life are orange” - dimension is not revealed to general public, attempt to control person trying to present themselves in a specific way (no face validity)
• Supplemental scales: addictions potential scale

Question 14

What is the NEO Personality Inventory?

Answer 14

NEO Personality Inventory (only neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience) or NEO-PI-R tests the Big 5

Question 15

What do personality tests really assess?

Answer 15

• Personality tests try to capture traits that are unique to you in order to predict behaviour
• Struggle to predict any one instance of a behaviour but not meant to predict one situation
• Predict occurrence of behaviour over long period of time
• The longer the period of time, the better these tests are to predict behaviour
• Wonder whether it is really that useful if it cannot predict a single event of behaviour
• Used in organizational psychology to select employees
• SOLUTION: use socio-cognitive approach

Question 16

What is the socio-cognitive approach?

Answer 16

• Trait theory assumes that we have traits that are a function of personality, not to context
• BUT situation shapes how our personality/traits is/are expressed (contextual factors like social roles)
• The self is assumed to be the centre of personality by this approach
• In long term memory, schemas, and expectations/perceptions, you have stored yourself which are used to interpret situations and understand world
• Functions to store information about us and guide the processing of thoughts, feelings, and actions

Question 17

What did Albert Bandura contribute to the socio-cognitive approach?

Answer 17

• Albert Bandura established reciprocal determinism: how personality, thoughts, and social environment reinforce/cause each other over time
• Behaviour: choosing to be at UoG, shape cognition/environment
• Cognition: thoughts and feelings about stimulating and socially engaged environment, shapes how you act in social environment
• Social environment: have friends at UoG, shapes how you will act in the future and what you will think

Question 18

What is self esteem?

Answer 18

• Self esteem: value of the self
• Benefits: increased self-esteem has been observed to buffer inflammatory responses to acute stress
• Problem: high self-esteem (constant praising = empty self esteem) leads to overconfidence (not enough competency/skills), common in modern times
• Why are you worried about how you feel about yourself rather than improving yourself

Question 19

What is the Barnum effect?

Answer 19

Easy for people to be convinced that a personality profile describes them well

Question 20

What is the HEXACO model of personality?

Answer 20

• 6 factor theory that generally replicates the 5 factors and adds one additional factor, honesty/humility
• High score: sincere, honest, faithful, modest
• Low score: greedy, deceitful, pompous
• Selfish, antisocial, violent tendencies
• Doing whatever it takes to achieve a goal
• Strong sense of self-importance and feeling of entitlement

Question 21

What is the Dark Triad?

Answer 21

Refers to 3 traits, machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism, that describe a person who is socially destructive, aggressive, dishonest, and likely to commit harm in general

Machiavellianism: tendency to use people and to be manipulative/deceitful
“What’s in it for me?”

Psychopathy: general tendency toward having shallow emotional responses

Narcissism: egotistical preoccupation with self-image and an excessive focus on self-importance

Question 22

What is right-wing authoritarianism?

Answer 22

Highly problematic set of personality characteristics

• Obeying orders and deferring to the established authorities in a society
• See things as black and white
• More likely to agree to unethical decisions made by leaders
• Supporting aggression against those who dissent or differ from the established social order
• See things as “us” versus “them”
• Believing strongly in maintaining the existing social order

Question 23

What is a state?

Answer 23

• Atemporary physical or psychological engagement that influences behaviour
• Environmental changes can interact with personality to determine behaviour

Locations
Associations (who you’re with)
Activities (awake, rushed, studying)
Subjective states (emotions)

Question 24

How does personality develop?

Answer 24

• Infant temperament predicts adult personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness
• Well-adjusted: capable of self-control, confident, not overly upset by new people or situations
• Under-controlled: impulsive, restless, distractible, emotionally volatile
• More likely to engage in externalizing behaviours (fighting, bullying, lying) and somewhat more internalizing behaviours (worrying, being fussy, crying easily)
• Have trouble in relationships
• Inhibited: socially uncomfortable, fearful, easily upset by strangers
• Strong internalizing behaviour patterns
• Neurons that fire together wire together; the more people practice a characteristic, the more they train their brains to function in that manner
• People’s personality traits fluctuate over time, but their relativity to others stays the same

Question 25

What is the behaviourism approach?

Answer 25

• Behaviourism: relationship between specific environmental stimuli and an observed pattern of behaviour
• Eg. negative person experienced bad things in their past and learned that when they let their guard down, they get hurt

Question 26

What is the difference between cultures?

Answer 26

• Research has shown that the Five Factor Model does extend beyond WEIRD countries
• However, analyzing personality with personality descriptors in other languages have found that there are some differences
• Eg. In China there were 4 big traits; dependability, social potency, individualism, and interpersonal relatedness (combination of characteristics concerning social harmony and tradition)

Question 27

What is the approach/inhibition model of motivation? Link it to extraversion.

Answer 27

• Processing rewards and punishments

1. Behavioural activation system: arousing person to action in pursuit of desired goals
   - Responsive to rewards, unresponsive for possible negative consequences
   - Correlated with extraversion
2. Behavioural inhibition system: motivating person to action in order to avoid punishments or negative outcomes
   - Associated with greater negative emotional responses and avoidance motivation

Question 28

What is the arousal theory of extraversion?

Answer 28

• Arguing that extraversion is determined by people’s threshold for arousal
• Extraverts seek greater amounts of stimulation
• Ascending reticular activating system: brain system that plays central role in controlling this arousal response

Question 29

What are the links between the Big 5 and the brain?

Answer 29

• Extraversion: larger medial orbitofrontal cortex (involved in processing rewards) and less activation in amygdala (involved in processing danger and fear)
• Neuroticism: smaller dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (controls emotions), smaller hippocampus (controlling obsessive negative thinking) and larger mid-cingulate gyrus (detects errors and perceive pain)
• Agreeableness: less volume in left superior temporal sulcus (activated when one is interpreting another’s actions), greater volume in posterior cingulate cortex (empathy, perspective taking)
• Conscientiousness: larger volume in middle frontal gyrus in left prefrontal cortex (working memory processes, carrying out actions you have planned)
• Openness to experience: greater activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (involved with creativity and intelligence)

Question 30

What are the defense mechanisms for Freud?

Answer 30

• Repression: keeping distressing information out of conscious awareness by burying it in unconscious
• Denial: refusing to acknowledge unpleasant information, particularly about oneself
• Rationalization: attempting to hide one’s true motives by providing what seems to be a reasonable explanation for unacceptable feelings or behaviours
• Displacement: transforming an unacceptable impulse into a less unacceptable or neutral behaviour
• Identification: unconsciously assuming the characteristics of a more powerful person in order to reduce feelings of anxiety about the self
• Projection: keeping yourself unaware of undesirable qualities that you possess by instead attributing those qualities to other groups of people
• Reaction formation: altering an impulse that one finds personally unacceptable into its opposite
• Sublimation: transforming unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable alternatives

Question 31

What are Freud’s psychosexual stages of personality development?

Answer 31

1. Oral (0-18 months): actions of the mouth; sucking, chewing, swallowing
   - Must develop ego as restrictions get placed on you
   - Fixation represents lack of self-confidence and “ego-strength”, leaving person dependant on outside support
2. Anal (18-36 months): bowel elimination, control
   - Must achieve feeling of control and competency
   - Fixation leads to “anal retentive” adults (rigid personality excessively concerned with cleanliness and order) or if too lenient parenting “anal repulsive” adults (slovenliness, disorganization, irresponsibility)
3. Phallic (3-6 years): genitals
   - Oepipus complex: sexually attracted to mothers, competition with father
   - Penis envy: girls experience this because sexually attracted to mothers
   - Must resolve healthy relationship with parents
   - Fixation: jealousy, preoccupation with sex and seduction and competition
4. Latency (6-puberty): external activities
   - Ego and superego achieved degree of general calm
   - Directed into productive activities, rich personal development
   - Fixation at this stage is not a big concern
5. Genital (puberty to adulthood): sexual activities
   - Given that they are not fixated on other stages, enter world as themselves
   - Express mature, adult personality

Question 32

What is analytical psychology?

Answer 32

• Focuses on role of unconscious archetypes in personality development
• Personal unconscious: vast repository of experiences and patterns that were absorbed during the entire experiential unfolding of the person’s life
• Collective unconscious: separate, non-personal realm of the unconscious that holds the collective memories and mythologies of human kind, stretching deep into our ancestral past