Personality

Question 1

Personality

Answer 1

refers to an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits

Question 2

Personality trait

Answer 2

is a durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations

Question 3

the Big 5

Answer 3

In recent years, Robert McCrae and Paul Costa (1999) have developed a Five-Factor model of measuring personality according to five higher-order traits.

Also known as the Big 5:

1. Extraversion
2. Neuroticism
3. Openness
4. Agreeableness
5. Conscientiousness

Question 4

Extraversion

Answer 4

refers to people that are outgoing, sociable, upbeat, friendly, assertive, and gregarious

Question 5

Neuroticism

Answer 5

refers to people that are anxious, hostile, self-conscious, insecure and vulnerable.

Question 6

Openness

Answer 6

refers to people that are curious, flexible, are vivid and imaginative, artistic, sensitive and unconventional.

Question 7

Agreeableness

Answer 7

refers to people that are sympathetic, trusting, cooperative, modest and straightforward.

Question 8

Conscientiousness

Answer 8

refers to people that are diligent, disciplined, well-organised, punctual, and dependable.

Question 9

4 dominant approaches towards understanding personality

Answer 9

1. Psychodynamic
2. Behavioural/cognitive
3. Humanistic
4. Biological

Question 10

The Psychodynamic Approach

Answer 10

Deals with mental processes and mechanisms of personality that operate outside conscious awareness i.e. the unconscious.
Freud – Psychoanalytic
Jung, Adler, Horney etc. – Neo-Psychoanalytic
Ego-Psychology
Object relations – Melanie Klein

Question 11

The Behavioral/Conditioning Approach

Answer 11

1. Behaviour shaped purely by learning and environmental influences
2. Represent an empirically scientific approach
3. Emphasis is placed on behaviour that is rewarded/punished
4. Behaviourism presents a very mechanistic view of human beings.
5. Personality is understood as an accumulation of learned responses.
6. Personality is a matter of what can be seen and observed.

Question 12

The Humanistic Approach

Answer 12

1. Emphasizes free will & human dignity
2. Interested in positive human characteristics and less about neuroses and psychoses.
3. Emphasis on the strengths and virtues of human behaviour.
4. You give your condition/experiences meaning
5. You are in charge of your life
6. Focus on the meaning of life and death (existential)
7. Spiritual dimension - ask more “meaningful” questions in life

Question 13

The Biological Approach

Answer 13

Personality is understood to be the result of genetic factors i.e. the study of behavioural genetics. For example, identical twins.
Personality is also accounted for by nervous system functioning.
The role of evolution in shaping personality functioning

Question 14

Projective Tests

Answer 14

Ask subjects to respond to vague and ambiguous stimuli in ways that may reveal the subjects needs, feelings and personality traits

Examinees project themselves onto task:
In this way respond to both meaning that they impart to stimuli
and inner feelings, personal motives and conflicts from previous life experiences feelings that they experiencing whilst engaging with the stimuli

Question 15

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 15

Most widely used
Series of 10 bilaterally symmetrical inkblots on cards
5 cards in black and white, 2 red & gray, 3 in multicolor
Respondents ask to view cards and relate everything they see
Describe as much as possible
Cards are allowed to be turned any way
Considerable skill required to interpret the results
Scoring complex and very time consuming
Use location, determinants and content

(i) Location – what part of the picture was the focus of attention
(ii) Determinants – what qualitative characteristics were perceived on the card
(iii) Content – what is actually seen as a blot

Use of color = emotionality
Use of movement = imagination

Question 16

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Answer 16

1. 31 pictures
2. Stimuli to create stories concerning relationships and social situations
3. Normally administer about 10
4. Analyses involves subjective analyses of story content and evaluating for various themes
5. E.g. extreme attention to detail (OCD), violent stories (lack of impulse control), delays in responses (depression).

Question 17

Other Projective Tests

Answer 17

DAP - the draw-a-person test

KFD – kinetic family drawing

Question 18

Carl Roger’s theory of personality:

Biography

Answer 18

1. Born in 1902, Illinois, Chicago.
2. The fourth child of six children.
3. Parents held strict religious views, a rigid moral code, suppressed displays of emotion, and emphasized the virtue of hard work.
4. Rogers describes his experience as a child of being griped in his parents strict teachings, and that he was forced to live by someone else’s view of the world.
5. As a child and teenager, Rogers described himself as shy, solitary, fantasy and often lost in fantasy.
6. Rogers’s solitude led him to depend on his own resources and experiences.

Question 19

Carl Roger’s theory of personality:

Introduction

Answer 19

Rogers non-directive approach to therapy is what informed how he understood personality.

What Rogers meant by non-directive therapy was that the client is in the best position possible to make decisions to know what is good for her or him.

In other words, the patient directs the course therapy takes, not the therapist.

This is important because it shaped the way in which Rogers came to understand the nature of a person which is pivotal to the manner in which he understood personality.

Question 20

Carl Roger’s theory of personality:

Roger’s View of Human Nature

Answer 20

An optimistic view of human nature.

People are basically good, forward-moving and strive to fulfil their potential.

Rogers believed that if the innate potential of this nature is allowed to unfold, the result will be optimal personal development.

Question 21

The Nature of ‘Person’?

Answer 21

Rogers is concerned with an individuals ‘perceptual field’ – the wheel that steers or drives one’s personality.

One’s ‘perceptual field’ is a preoccupation with the ‘self’ and not the outside world.

‘Perceptual field’ represents the inner dynamics of what comes to motivate one’s personality.

One’s perceptual field creates the ‘self’; this ‘self’ is a basic factor in the formation of personality.

Thus, Rogers asserts that the ‘self’ as an expression of one’s personality, in control of one’s world, and capable of reorganising one’s perceptual field.

Personality, then, is susceptible to influence and change, and can become congruent or incongruent with the ‘self’ and the ‘perceptual field’.

According to Rogers, personality arises from a self that “is not directly influenced or determined by organic or cultural factors but primarily by the perception of these elements” i.e. one’s perceptual field.

Therefore, the primary object of study for Rogers about personality is “the person and [her] world as viewed by the person [herself]”

Question 22

Self-Actualising Tendency

Answer 22

The self-actualising tendency is the innate need to grow, survive and enhance ourself, in order to achieve our highest potential.

It is a “forward thrust of life” that continues despite the many obstacles we face.

The actualising tendency lays the foundation for increased autonomy and self reliance, for enlarging our field of experience, as well as for being creative.

The actualizing tendency does not only aim at tension reduction, but involves increasing tension as well, as behaviour is motivated by the individual’s need to develop and improve.

Question 23

Organismic Valuing Process (OVP)

Answer 23

According to Rogers, the organismic valuing process (OVP) faciliates our tendency to self-actualise.

OVP = experiences people perceive as maintaining or enhancing the self that are sought after and valued in a positive light.

Conversely, experiences the individual perceives as not maintaining and opposing the enhancement of the self are avoided.

One can also understand this as a measure for which one will use to value what is best for oneself and what is not the best.

Question 24

Emergence of the Self-Concept

Answer 24

Self-Actualisation + Organismic Valuing Process + Perceptual Field = Self-Concept

Self-concept = emerges from human experience.

The self-concept consists of the conscious perceptions and values of the ‘I’ or ‘me’.

The self-concept is capable of reflecting on one’s self as a distinct object of which one is aware.

The goal as well as a struggle of the ‘self’ is to achieve a sense of authenticity with regard to how it is the self experiences or engages the world.

Question 25

The Self-Concept, Real & Ideal Self

Answer 25

The self-concept is your self image or how you see yourself.

The self-concept includes the awareness of being i.e. ‘what I am’, and an awareness of function, i.e. ‘what can I do’.

The self-concept is made up of the ‘real self’ and the ‘ideal self’.

The real self is the way one describes oneself.

The ideal self represents the self-concept that the person would most like to be, what one thinks one should be and would like to be.

When the self is initially formed, it is governed by the OVP alone.

Question 26

Unconditional Positive Regard

Answer 26

There are two key factors in the development of the self concept, i.e. unconditional positive regard and conditional positive regard.

Individuals are accepted as people with specific needs which are peculiar to them and which are not measured against the needs of others, nor are others needs forced on them.

People need not fulfil the specific requirements to gain the esteem of significant others and are therefore able to acknowledge all their needs and express their feelings.

Roger’s, however, described that an environment which facilitates such a process is idealistic.

It is rather the task of therapy to continuously provide such acceptance.

Roger’s also argued that it is through the unconditional positive regard one receives that a congruence emerges between one’s experiences and self-concept.

This is because the self concept is allowed to explore and express as many experiences as possible, which is in keeping with one’s perceptual field so not as to restrict it.

Question 27

Conditional Positive Regard

Answer 27

Rogers argues that our self concept emerges relatively most of the time is through positive regard that is conditional.

It is more likely that people will sometimes experience non-acceptance by significant others and that he/she will feel worthy only when he/she has fulfilled certain conditions laid down by significant others.

It is through rigorous conditional positive regard that one’s self concept in relation to the perceptual field of an idealistic view of one’s self emerges especially as there are constantly conditions on the self that must be met in order to receive love.

One’s perceptual field is limited through conditional positive regard and an ideal self is thus sought.

Question 28

Conditions of Worth

Answer 28

According to Rogers, conditional positive regard exposes what he calls conditions of worth.

Rogers argues that these conditions of worth represent values that one has assimilated into one’s self-concept.

Such values, however, are based on the values of others that have been incorporated into the self-concept.

Question 29

The Incongruent Person

Answer 29

Conditions of worth imposed upon the individual produces an incongruent person.

How so? Because the individual relies less on their OVP and more on the ideas and expectations of others to define their self concept.

Conditions of worth dominate one’s OVP which creates an alienation between one’s self and the extent to which authenticity is retained from one’s perceptual field i.e. experience.

Question 30

Anxiety

Answer 30

The incongruent person according to Roger’s experiences a sufficient amount of anxiety.

This is because one’s perceptual field constantly overwhelms the self concept especially as the introjected conditions of worth place limits on all that is felt.

Roger’s argues that one’s perceptual field is not fully experienced and is rather subceived i.e. subception as a means of denying full awareness.

So anxiety is experienced from protecting a rigid self-concept that feels threatened by what may completely undermine introjected conditions of worth.

Question 31

Subception

Answer 31

Rogers used the term ‘subception’ rather than perception to denote an experience that is not completely perceived.

Subception becomes a way for the incongruent person according to Roger’s to discern acutely an experience before it even enters full experience.

In other words, the experience is completely denied from awareness because of one’s ability to subceive.

In this way, the point of subception or rather it’s aim is to deny a potentially threatening event before it causes anxiety.

Subception, then, can be thought of as defense mechanisms, or rather what Rogers refers to as a process of defense that consists of editing experiences.

Question 32

The Therapeutic Process

Answer 32

Carl Roger’s person-centred therapy places emphasis on the quality of the therapeutic relationship in helping the client to change.

Therapy is designed to help the patient tap into or unlock their potential to self-actualise.

Thus the aim of person centred therapy is to help clients achieve their highest potential through the support of an emotionally therapeutic relationship.

Therapy does not emphasise techniques in facilitating change but rather on the quality of the therapeutic relationship, which will help clients to express their highest form of self.

Rogers argues that there are certain core conditions within the therapeutic relationship which are necessary and sufficient for the client to change.

These conditions are:

1. Congruence = genuineness of the therapist to be authentic in the way the relate towards the client;
2. Unconditional positive regard;
3. Accurate empathy.

Some of the techniques in therapy include: active listening, reflecting, paraphrasing, and providing clarification.

Question 33

Pros and Cons

Answer 33

Perhaps the biggest criticism Rogers faced was that his theory did not take into experiences of people that are beyond their consciousness.

Rogers fails to adequately account for childhood and past experiences in the development of personality.

Rogers theory is an optimistic view of human nature, which maintains that people are in control of their behaviour.

His principles and concepts translate easily into counselling and therapy for patients.