Personality (Module 2) Flashcards
What does this topic focus upon?
Individual differences in personality
Personality greatly differs between everyone. Some individuals are caring and friendly and others are uncaring and aggressive ! Personality differs between members of the family as well
Define personality
Stable, internal factors that make one person’s behaviour consistent from one time to another, and different from the behaviour other people would manifest in comparable situations
What are the 4 main terms when defining “personality”
Stable : constant or unchanging personality
Internal: how we behave is determined by our personality
Consistent: we expect people to behave in fairly consistent ways
Different: individual differences in personality lead people to behave differently in the same situation
Do people’s personalities remain the same in all cultures?
NO
Comment on the personality of individualistic and collectivistic cultures.
Individualistic: prefer independence and personal responsibility like the United states
Collectivistic cultures: prefer interdependence and group membership.
Collectivistic cultures like China or Japan have less stable characteristics (they show less consistency across situations) because they are expected to fit in a group
What is the 20 statement test ?
Individuals had to describe their self-concept. The result was that collectivistic cultures mainly highlighted their social roles (ex; parent or a teacher) instead of describing themselves with traits like individualistic cultures.
True or false
Personality only focuses upon nature.
False
Personality is a mix of nature and nurture
What factors determine adult personality?
Psychoanalytical approach: Freud highlighted the importance of childhood experiences. He also took into consideration genetic factors but mainly (NURTURE) + unconscious mind
Humanistic approach: Carl rogers and Abraham Maslow: They emphasized the importance of one’s experiences as an adult. According to them personality can easily be changed if the self-concept is changed. (NURTURE)
Trait: Raymond Cattell and Eysenck: (NATURE): emphasized the importance of genetic factors in determining personality + individual differences.
Therefore, what does adult personality depend on?
Both heredity and childhood experiences, and the type of self-concept that we develop .
What is the structural theory of personality according to Freud?
According to Freud the first 5 years of life, are crucial because it influences the personality that we develop.
One theory by Freud explaining personality was the structural theory of personality.
Id: pleasure principle
Ego: self/reality principle
Superego: morals, conscience (the perfection principle)
Explain the psychosexual theory of development
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latency
Genital
According to Freud adult personality depends heavily on these 5 stages
According to freud our libido (sex drive) as we are growing focuses upon gaining sexual gratification upon these 5 stages as we are growing up.
What happens if children have problems at a given psychosexual stage?
Fixation or Regression can occur
Fixation: when too much or too little pleasure is given at a specific psychosexual stage.
which causes an individual to fail to advance to the next stage of development. And until this conflict is resolved he/she will be “stuck” in this stage ,unable to move from it.
Regression: returning to an earlier psychosexual stage.
Ex: when stressed someone may drink or smoke more (oral fixation)
regression from a later stage to an earlier one, is due to fixation and frustration. hen the individuals is frustrated in his struggles to obtain gratification, he or she goes to an earlier stage.
Explain the oral stage
Age: birth to 1 and a half years
Sexual gratification zone: mouth, lips and tongue
Behaviour focus: sucking, biting and chewing
Fixation: Freud believed that the individual would have issues with dependency like drinking,eating,smoking or even aggression .
Problems in the oral stage can lead to either an oral receptive character OR an oral aggressive character
Oral receptive character: (individual is excessively dependant on others meaning that they are very trusting,gullible and accepting.This is due to overindulgence in infancy.
Oral aggressive character: Tries to manipulate and dominate others + envy other’s success (due to underindulgence in infancy)
Explain the anal stage
Age: 1 and half years to 3 years
Sexual gratification zone: anal area
Behavioural focus: Toilet training
Fixation: Anal retentive character or Anal expulsive character
Anal retentive character: if parents are very harsh in toilet training and put a lot of pressure on cleanliness : stubborn, perfectionistic or mean
Anal expulsive/receptive character: if they are exposed to a lot of freedom in toilet training they are messy or disorganized. + highly generous
Explain the phallic stage
Age: 3 -6 years
Sexual gratification zone: penis or clitoris( genitals)
Behavioural focus: Genital stimulation/attraction to the opposite sex parent/imitation of the same sex parent
Fixation: Phallic personality: men become vain and self-assured + women fight hard for superiority over men
