Personality (Ch. 12) Flashcards
personality
consistent ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, which explains why people react differently to the same situation.
what was Freud’s belief when it came to personality?
believed unconscious thoughts helped with psychological disorders
“Freudian slips”
unconscious thoughts that slipped out with humor/ stream of consciousness
Anna Freud
daughter of Sigmund Freud, she studied defense mechanisms
defense mechanisms
ways ego copes with conflict between unconscious desires of id and moral constraints of society
what are some disproven aspects that came out of Freud’s research on defense mechanisms?
displacement, projection, depression, denial
what are some proven aspects that came out of Freud’s research on defense mechanisms?
redirect, reappraise, react
displacement
response to anger, ego redirects aggression from id on intended target, usually a defenseless target (using someone as a scapegoat)
projection
instead of acknowledging internal feelings/ traits, think you see it in others (project)
ex. saw someone as dishonest so rated themselves as more honest
repression
ego’s effort at keeping unwanted feelings, thoughts, and memories from conscious awareness
denial
ego’s refusal to perceive painful/ threatening reality as it is occurring
why is denial disproven?
the studies used to justify mostly included leading questions where patients were baited into remembering some false aspect of their past. It usually happens because you don’t know how to define it (ex. as a child, didn’t know what abuse was, so couldn’t define it)
what were the contributions of psychoanalysis and Freud’s research?
- the existence of unconscious thought
- the importance early development
- the influence of mind on body
- the talking cure
how did Freud contribute to current psychoanalysis thought?
he originally theorized unconscious thought and established the talking cure
why is psychoanalysis bad?
not represented of population (upperclass women)
didn’t use quantitative measures
based on first hand observation
Gordon Allport vs. Freud
Allport spoke to Freud, interested in his work, but found Freud psychoanalyzing him and trying to uncover his childhood to dictate his understanding of Allport’s actions. Allport used this as a reminder that psychoanalysis digs too deeply
Freud: “self as an active knower,” psychoanalysis is how personality colors our view of daily experiences
Allport: “self as something to be known”
Cardinal traits
(Allport)
those that dominate someone’s personality
(ex. Dalai Lama’s cardinal trait is compassion)
central traits
(Allport)
traits that are relevant only in certain contexts
(ex. Joe is not talkative but when he’s with his high school friends he can’t shut up)
functional equivalent
situations where someone of behave in similar ways despite the situations being very different.
(ex. in a plane or in a coffee shop, an extrovert may see it as a time to talk to the person next to them and meet someone new, similarly an introvert may see the places as a time for quiet reflection. The places are functionally equivalent because it elicits the same response in someone despite different contexts)
different stimuli –> same interpretation –> same behavior response
lexical hypothesis vs. factor analysis
lexical hypothesis assumes every descriptive word has a distinct trait linked to it, but factor analysis is more accurate bc it groups descriptors along the lines of a larger category to describe someone
what are the drawbacks of self-report? and how can they be addressed?
people don’t always describe themselves accurately (can sometimes have people’s families report on them too (informant reporters) to compare and get more accurate info)
why is personality perceived as consistent across time?
bc people change relative to each other. Your relative rank stays fairly consistent while your personal growth occurs. (ex. if you are the tallest person in MS, likely be big basketball player, not bc everyone hasn’t grown but bc you’ve grown too and it seems consistent)
how does agreeableness change with time?
increases with age (become more conscientious and emotionally stable)
how does openmindedness change with time?
increases in adulthood and decreases as you become an older adult (less cognitive flexibility with age)
how does extraversion change with time?
social vitality: (how socially active someone is) stays pretty constant, and decreases only slightly with adulthood
social dominance: (how assertive/ dominant someone is) become more dominant until middle age, when it levels off
how do findings about growth in personality measure up to Freud’s findings?
Freud theorized that personality is fixed, this is wrong. personality develops with time and increases as you become socially mature with age, therapy, and new roles
are the BIG 5 replicable across cultures?
Yes, although it was mostly done with WEIRD samples it has fairly high replicability
what causes some discrepancies in the BIG 5 across countries?
cultural norms can impact the distribution of personality traits, norms that can vary between countries, however how we perceive ourselves isn’t always true
(ex. Americans believe themselves as more neurotic and less agreeable with emphasis on the free market system, while Canadians see themselves as more agreeable because of their free healthcare system. However both are actually very similar)
Rosenthal study on perceiving personality
within 6 seconds of a lecture, college students could accurately rate professors’ teaching ability
PERSON model of how we perceive others
- Personality (reflection of someone’s disposition)
- Error (errors in judgment)
- Residual (our idiosyncratic biases about people)
- Stereotypes (expectations of traits we expect people to possess)
- Opinion (idiosyncratic biases about behavior)
- Norms (norms of how we perceive behavior)
an accurate impression also requires that we pick up on cues (ex. clothes we wear, pets we own, etc.)
is one trait harder to discern than others?
hard to asses neuroticism
behavioral genetics
statistics comparing patterns of similar behavior and personality of people with different genetic relatedness
how heritable are traits?
most traits are between 40-60% heritable with 61% openness and 41% agreeableness and neuroticism
how can heritability explain personalities?
it can explain variability in a sample of people but not the personality of a single person
heritability of twins reared apart of different sexes?
still debate on this, not sure whether the personality differences and similarities are because of a shared environment or shared personality