Personality Flashcards
Personality
an individual’s consistent patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving
Franz Joseph Gall
phrenology founder
somatology
William Herbert Sheldon
the idea that we could determine personality from people’s body types
people with more body fat and a rounder physique (“endomorphs”) were more likely to be assertive and bold, whereas thinner people (“ectomorphs”) were more likely to be introverted and intellectual
physiognomy
idea that it is possible to assess personality from facial characteristics
traits
relatively enduring characteristics that influence our behavior across many situations
most popular way of measuring traits is by administering personality tests on which people self-report about their own characteristics
Gordon Allport (1897–1967), Raymond Cattell (1905–1998), and Hans Eysenck (1916–1997)
Meyers Briggs reliability/validity
the measure itself is not psychologically useful because it is not reliable or valid
classifications change over time, and scores on the MBTI do not relate to other measures of personality or to behavior
Allport
“cardinal traits” (the most important traits), “central traits” (the basic and most useful traits), and “secondary traits” (the less obvious and less consistent ones)
Cattell
used a statistical procedure known as factor analysis to analyze the correlations among traits
“source” (more important) and “surface” (less important) traits, and he developed a measure that assessed 16 dimensions of traits based on personality adjectives taken from everyday language
Hans Eysenck
fundamental personality trait: extraversion versus introversion
Five-Factor (Big Five) Model of Personality
According to this model, there are five fundamental underlying trait dimensions that are stable across time, cross-culturally shared, and explain a substantial proportion of behavior
agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. (You can remember them using the watery acronyms CANOE or OCEAN.)
issue w trait personality theory
traits are not stable
Walter Mischel
showed that low correlation between traits that a person expressed in one situation and those that they expressed in other situations
personality not only comes from inside us but is also shaped by the situations that we are exposed to
Barnum effect
the observation that people tend to believe in descriptions of their personality that supposedly are descriptive of them but could in fact describe almost anyone
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
a test used around the world to identify personality and psychological disorders
a list of more than 1,000 true-false questions and choosing those that best differentiated patients with different psychological disorders from other people
Projective measures
measures of personality in which unstructured stimuli, such as inkblots, drawings of social situations, or incomplete sentences, are shown to participants, who are asked to freely list what comes to mind as they think about the stimuli
used to capture the non-conscious aspects of our personality
Rorschach Inkblot Test
a projective measure of personality in which the respondent indicates his or her thoughts about a series of 10 symmetrical inkblots
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
a projective measure of personality in which the respondent is asked to create stories about sketches of ambiguous situations, most of them of people, either alone or with others
issues w projective measures
The reliability of the measures is low because people often produce very different responses on different occasions. The construct validity of the measures is also suspect because there are very few consistent associations between Rorschach scores or TAT scores and most personality traits. The projective tests often fail to distinguish between people with psychological disorders and those without or to correlate with other measures of personality or with behavior.
Charismatic leaders
leaders who are enthusiastic, committed, and self-confident; who tend to talk about the importance of group goals at a broad level; and who make personal sacrifices for the group
transactional or transformational leadership styles
Transactional leaders are the more regular leaders, who work with their subordinates to help them understand what is required of them and to get the job done.
Transformational leaders, on the other hand, are more like charismatic leaders—they have a vision of where the group is going, and attempt to stimulate and inspire their workers to move beyond their present status and to create a new and better future.
sources of personality
psychodynamic approach
humanistic approach
psychodynamic approach/Freud
Freud did not believe that we were able to control our own behaviors
all behaviors are predetermined by motivations that lie outside our awareness, in the unconscious
id
the component of personality that forms the basis of our most primitive impulses
driven by the pleasure principle—the desire for immediate gratification of our sexual and aggressive urges
superego
our sense of morality and oughts. The superego tell us all the things that we shouldn’t do, or the duties and obligations of society
based on the reality principle—the idea that we must delay gratification of our basic motivations until the appropriate time with the appropriate outlet
ego
the largely conscious controller or decision-maker of personality
the intermediary between the desires of the id and the constraints of society contained in the superego
psychological disorders in Freudian theory
psychological disorders, and particularly the experience of anxiety, occur when there is conflict or imbalance among the motivations of the id, ego, and superego.
When the ego finds that the id is pressing too hard for immediate pleasure, it attempts to correct for this problem, often through the use of defense mechanisms
defense mechanisms
unconscious psychological strategies used to cope with anxiety and to maintain a positive self-image
major defense mechanisms
Displacement
Projection
Rationalization
Reaction formation (Making unacceptable motivations appear as their exact opposite)
Regression
Repression (or denial)
Sublimation (Channeling unacceptable sexual or aggressive desires into acceptable activities)
development of personality in Freudian theory
based on psychosexual stages
psychosexual stages
Oral Anal Phallic Latency Genital
oral stage
begins at birth and lasts until about 18 months of age, the focus is on the mouth
too little or too much gratification become fixated or “locked” in the oral stage, and are likely to regress to these points of fixation under stress, even as adults
will become orally dependent as an adult and be likely to manipulate others to fulfill his or her needs rather than becoming independent. On the other hand, the child who was overfed or overly gratified will resist growing up and try to return to the prior state of dependency by acting helpless, demanding satisfaction from others, and acting in a needy way
anal stage
lasting from about 18 months to 3 years of age is when children first experience psychological conflict
toilet training was either too harsh or too lenient, children would become fixated in the anal stage and become likely to regress to this stage under stress as adults
too little anal gratification (i.e., if the parents had been very harsh about toilet training), the adult personality will be anal retentive—stingy, with a compulsive seeking of order and tidiness. On the other hand, if the parents had been too lenient, the anal expulsive personality results, characterized by a lack of self-control and a tendency toward messiness and carelessness.
phallic stage
age 3 to age 6 is when the penis (for boys) and clitoris (for girls) become the primary erogenous zone for sexual pleasure
children develop a powerful but unconscious attraction for the opposite-sex parent, as well as a desire to eliminate the same-sex parent as a rival
Oedipus and Electra Complex
penis envy
latency stage
6 years to 12 years.
sexual impulses were repressed, leading boys and girls to have little or no interest in members of the opposite sex
genital stage
12 years of age and lasts into adulthood
sexual impulses return
neo-Freudian theories.
based on Freudian principles that emphasize the role of the unconscious and early experience in shaping personality but place less evidence on sexuality as the primary motivating force in personality and are more optimistic concerning the prospects for personality growth and change in personality in adults
Alfred Adler
primary motivation in human personality was not sex or aggression, but rather the striving for superiority
inferiority complex
Adler
a psychological state in which people feel that they are not living up to expectations, leading them to have low self-esteem, with a tendency to try to overcompensate for the negative feelings
most psychological disorders result from misguided attempts to compensate for the inferiority complex in order meet the goal of superiority
Carl Jung
collective unconscious, self-realization, archetypes
Karen Horney
underlying motivation that guides personality development is the desire for security, the ability to develop appropriate and supportive relationships with others
Erich Fromm
focus was on the negative impact of technology, arguing that the increases in its use have led people to feel increasingly isolated from others
the independence that technology brings us also creates the need “escape from freedom,” that is, to become closer to others
the primary human motivation was to escape the fear of death
Problems w Freudian theory
he predictions that it makes (particularly those regarding defense mechanisms) are often vague and unfalsifiable, and second, that the aspects of the theory that can be tested often have not received much empirical support
almost anything that conflicts with a prediction based in Freudian theory can be explained away in terms of the use of a defense mechanism.
humanistic psychologists
embraced free will
underlying motivations that they believed drove personality, focusing on the nature of the self-concept, the set of beliefs about who we are, and self-esteem, our positive feelings about the self.
Abraham Maslow
conceptualized personality in terms of a pyramid-shaped hierarchy of motives moving towards self actualization
self-actualization
the motivation to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent
Carl Rogers
most famous humanist
viewing people as primarily moral and helpful to others, and believed that we can achieve our full potential for emotional fulfillment if the self-concept is characterized by unconditional positive regard
unconditional positive regard
a set of behaviors including being genuine, open to experience, transparent, able to listen to others, and self-disclosing and empathic
Self-Discrepancies, Anxiety, and Depression
Tory Higgins
the emotions we experience are determined both by our perceptions of how well our own behaviors meet up to the standards and goals we have provided ourselves (our internal standards) and by our perceptions of how others think about us (our external standards).
Higgins argues that different types of self-discrepancies lead to different types of negative emotions
ideal, ought, and actual self-concepts
discrepancies between the ideal and the actual self lead us to experience sadness, dissatisfaction, and other depression-related emotions, whereas discrepancies between the actual and ought self are more likely to lead to fear, worry, tension, and other anxiety-related emotions
gene
the basic biological unit that transmits characteristics from one generation to the next
instincts
complex inborn patterns of behaviors that help ensure survival and reproduction
genes in personality
the complex relationship among the various genes, as well as a variety of random factors, produces the final outcome influence personality, and as mixed with environment
behavioral genetics
a variety of research techniques that scientists use to learn about the genetic and environmental influences on human behavior by comparing the traits of biologically and nonbiologically related family members
based on the results of family studies, twin studies, and adoptive studies
family study
starts with one person who has a trait of interest—for instance, a developmental disorder such as autism—and examines the individual’s family tree to determine the extent to which other members of the family also have the trait
can reveal whether a trait runs in a family, it cannot explain why
twin study
researchers study the personality characteristics of twins
the data from many pairs of twins are collected and the rates of similarity for identical and fraternal pairs are compare
correlation coefficient is calculated that assesses the extent to which the trait for one twin is associated with the trait in the other twin
Heritability
indicated when the correlation coefficient for identical twins exceeds that for fraternal twins, indicating that shared DNA is an important determinant of personality.
Shared environment determinants
indicated when the correlation coefficients for identical and fraternal twins are greater than zero and also very similar. These correlations indicate that both twins are having experiences in the family that make them alike.
Nonshared environment
indicated when identical twins do not have similar traits
adoption study
compares biologically related people, including twins, who have been reared either separately or apart.
Influence of non-shared environment
although parents must provide a nourishing and stimulating environment for children, no matter how hard they try they are not likely to be able to turn their children into geniuses or into professional athletes, nor will they be able to turn them into criminals
molecular genetics
the study of which genes are associated with which personality traits
novelty-seeking
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
smoking behavior
for most traits, genetics is more important than parental influence, BUT, the major influence on personality is nonshared environmental influences, which include all the things that occur to us that make us unique individuals, including variability in brain structure, nutrition, education, upbringing, and even interactions among the genes themselves.
knockout study
for animals
researchers use specialized techniques to remove or modify the influence of a gene in a line of “knockout” mice
found that removing or changing genes in mice can affect their anxiety, aggression, learning, and socialization patterns.
