Personality Flashcards
Personality Definition
Unique characteristics that account for our enduring patterns of inner experience (thoughts and feelings) and outward behaviour.
Psychodynamic Perspective
Personality forms as a result of primal (often socially unacceptable) needs and social and moral restraints of one’s society.
Id
Represents instinctual desires and needs fed by libido. Impulses governed by the pleasure principle, childlike, unconscious mind.
Ego
Develops as we grow and learn our impulses cannot always be satisfied. Rational, problem-solving, both conscious and unconscious mind.
Superego
Develops as we grow and internalizes values, morals, norms, etiquette displayed in people’s behaviours. Conscious, or parent voice. Both conscious and unconscious mind.
Psychosexual Stages
Oral (weaning), anal (toilet training), phallic (attraction to opposite sex parent), Latency (repression of sexual impulses, identification with same-sex parent), genital (sexual maturation).
Oral
0-18 months, focuses on the mouth, weaning off breast formula. Smoking, overeating, drinking, general dependence on mother is the adult expression of fixation.
Anal
18 months-3 years, focuses on anus, toilet training. Excessive neatness, stinginess, controlling, excessive messiness is adult expression of fixation.
Phallic
3-6 years, focuses on genitals, resolves Oedipus/Electra complex. Sexual role rigidity or confusion; deviancy is adult expression of fixation.
Latency
6 years-puberty. Development of defense mechanisms.
Genital
Puberty-adult. Focuses on genitals, reaching sexual maturity and emotional intimacy. Sexual dysfunction and unsatisfactiory relationships is adult expression if fixation.
Fixations
Extreme or minor, unresolved conflict of psychic energy. Neuroses and anxiety.
Defense Mechanisms
Unconscious tacticts of redirecting energy fixated by unresolved conflicts between the Id and superego.
Neo-Freudians
Psychoanalysts who revised and expanded freudian concepts.
Alfred Alder
Social needs and conscious thoughts are more important than unconscious desires. Innate feelings of inferiority and how people mask and compensate for it. Need for power as motivation for behaviour.
Carl Jung
Collective unconscious, positive drives as well as sexual and aggression drives. Concept of archetype as an expression of collectively held unconscious narratives.
Karen Horney
Early childhood experiences (isolation, helplessness), impacts later neuroses, but argues basic anxiety as a middle step. Cultural differences in application of psychoanalysis.
Situationism
Personality is comprised of response tendencies to situational cues. Personality is a culmination of learned tendencies, past behaviours helped acquire your incentive. Criticised due to there being different reinforcers active in personality.
Interactionism
Personality exists in the interaction between the person and the environment. Albert Bandura and self-efficacy, those high in self-efficacy (confidence in ability to succeed), will achieve greater success.
Humanistic Perspective
Emphasizes human potential, consciousness, free-will, resilience, perseverance and other positive qualities.
Abraham Maslow
People are basically good, and our personality develops when we strive to meet our needs and reach potential.
Maslow and Self-Actualizaton
The need to reach a state with the full use of ones capacities , talents, and potential. Self actualized people recognize needs of others, respond to others uniquely, resist conformity but are still realistic, deep connections with few people.
Carl Rogers
Focuses on self concept- pattern of self perception that remains consistent over time and can be used to characterize an individual. Also unconditional positve regard, children need this in order to learn worth, and harsh regard can result in maladaptive behaviours and disjointed self concept.
Personality Traits
Domains of general disposition that lead to relatively consistent behavioural tendencies across situations-don’t always guarantee consistent behaviour.
Gordon Allport
Amount of words dedicated to describing people indiciates behavioural tendencies of individuals are recognizable. Used case studies to identify personality types.
Hans Eysenck
Biology influences personality, manifests as traits.
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
Used factor analysis to group traits by higher ordered traits (superfactors). Goes from superfactors, to traits, to habitual responses to specific responses.
Superfactors
Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism.
Five Factor Model
Empirically derived model of personality, lexicon of descriptors created by Raymond Cattel. Extraversion/Introversion, Aggreableness/Disaggreableness, Irresponsibility/Conscientiousness, Emotional Stabilty/Neuroticism, Openess/Unimaginative.
Cross Cultural Performance of Five Factor Model
Holds up across cultures, extraversion, aggreeableness and conscientiousness fair best.
Stability of Five Factor Model
Not stable across lifespan, but gets more stable with age. Heretibility coeffecient: r= .40.
Personality Inventories
Minnesota Multiple Personality Inventory 2: Personality and Psychiatric Disorders, Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Projective Tests, used in clinical settings to tap into unconscious perceptions.
Amygdala
Emotional validity, motivation, processing negative stimuli.
Sensitive vs Insensitive Amygdala
Sensitive: Heightened response to environment cues create shy behaviour and anxiety. Insensitive: Lessened response to environment gives lack of fear response.
Hemisphere Dominance
Right dominance: more negative emotions, withdrawal, sadnss, distress. Left dominance: positive emotions, engagement, optimism.
Neurotransmitter activity
High dopamine= pleasure. Low seratonin=depression.
Gender Differences in Personality
Differences within gender are larger in scope and number than differences between genders. Differenes are learned behaviours associated with gender roles.
What are the key differences in gender and personality?
Women are more accurate in appraising emotion and social connectedness and empathy than men. Men emphasize autonomy and independence, as well as scoring higher on aggression.
Cultural Differences
Self-esteem and behaviours to promote it, autonomy and accomplishment vs community involvement and respectful way of life. Individualism vs Collectivism.
SES differences
Among the poor, highly impulsive kids are more likely to engage in criminal activity. Among the affluent, highly impulsive kids and low impulsivity kids did not differ in criminal behaviour. Environment interacts with personality in an accomodating or maladaptive way.
Personality disorders
Inflexible pattern of inner experience and outward behaviour that causes distress or difficulty with daily functioning.
Core features of Personality Disorders
Rigid, extreme distorted thinking patterns, problematic emotional response patterns, impulse control problems, significant interpersonal problems.
Borderline Personality Disorder
Severe instability in emotions, self concept, and volatility.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Disregard for and violation of the rights of others.
Histrionic Personality Disorder
Excessive emotionality and attention seeking.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy.
Avoidant Personality Disorder
Social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, hypersensitivity to negative evaluations.
Dependent Personality Disorder
Submissive and clinging behaviour; need to be taken care of.
Schizoid Personality Disorder
Detachement from social relationships; restricted range of emotional expression.
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Distrust and suspition that others motives are malevolent.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control.
Schizotypal
Acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive/perceptional distortions; eccentricities.
