Personality & Self Flashcards
What is personality? What are personality theories?
An individuals unique, relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving
Define and describe personality, including:
How to classify individuals and compare to each other
Explaining how personality develops and its causal influences
Explaining how/if personality changes
Four main theoretical approaches: Dispositional or trait-based Social-Cognitive Psychodynamic Humanistic
How does the dispositional approach study and explain personality?
Dispositions (or traits) are relatively stable and enduring over time
Dispositions influence behavior
What are the five big traits according to trait theory and how do you define each?
Openness to Experience - imaginative and artistic
Conscientiousness - plan, organize
Extraversion - enjoy company of others
Agreeableness - orientation toward others, sympathetic
Neuroticism - negative emotions, worriers
Remember OCEAN
How do the Big 5 traits vary across cultures?
Same 5 categories in dozens of other cultures
Chinese - found traits similar to N, E, and A
- O not found
- other trait - interpersonal relatedness
What are the benefits and criticisms of the trait approach?
Benefits:
- Useful descriptions used in personality assessment and research
- Can OBJECTIVELY compare individuals
Criticisms:
- Do not EXPLAIN human personality (only labels)
- Do not explain development of individual differences
- Do not address important personality issues
What is the social-cognitive perspective and who discovered it?
Interaction of personality and situation
Processing of info from social experiences
Bandura
What is reciprocal determinism?
Personalities are shaped by the interaction of our personal traits, our environment, and our behavior
What is the psychodynamic approach? Why do people still study Freud?
Emphasizes unconscious thought
Cultural influence, historical importance, people improved on his work
What are the Ego, Superego, and Id? What did Freud believe about the unconscious mind?
Id - irrational, impulsive, “pleasure principle”
Ego - rational, meditating, “reality principle”
Superego - moralistic, rules, “morality principle”
What is Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages?
People feel shame about the Id’s needs and can get fixated at one stage
Oedipus complex - boys want their moms and hate their dads as a rival
What were some of the problems with Freud’s scientific methods?
Unfalsifiability - hard to prove or disprove
Unrepresentative sampling and bias
Development is lifelong, not just during childhood
Hindsight bias rather than predictions
What is the humanistic approach and who founded this theory?
Studied healthy people
Healthy personal growth
Maslow and Rogers
What is the person-centered perspective?
where the person is placed at the centre of the service and treated as a person first. The focus is on the person and what they can do, not their condition or disability
What are the pros and cons of the humanistic approach?
Pros:
Genuineness, Empathy, Acceptance
Cons:
Lack of empirical evidence
Naive and too optimistic
How does humanistic theory approach psychotherapy?
Actualizing - figuring out what you want
Supportive Environment
Integrated Self-Concept - help understand who you are
