Personality Theories Flashcards
What is personality?
Personality refers to the psychological qualities that contribute to an individual’s enduring and distinctive patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.
What are the aims of personality psychologists?
The aims of personality psychologists are to describe the structure of personality and to study individual differences in personality
What are the 5 major theoretical perspectives?
- Trait perspective
- Psychodynamic perspective
- Humanistic perspective
- Social Cognitive perspective (Behaviourist perspective)
- Biological perspective
What is the trait theory?
A personality trait is best explained as a stable predisposition to behave in a certain way in various situations.
How is trait theory understood?
Traits exist on a continuum, meaning that they either prefer more or less stimulating environments. There are cases in which extremities exist, but those are rare instances. Most people tend to exist somewhere closer to the middle.
How many traits were discovered initially and by who?
Alport initially found there to be approximately 200 traits.
What technique did Cattell use to minimise the list of traits
Cattell used factor analysis to bring the list down to 16 basic personality traits.
What is the big 5 personality model?
The Big 5 model refers to a group of generalised traits. It is considered reliable because these factors were found to emerge in various cultures and ages
What is Openness to experience?
People who are creative, curious and independent in comparison to people who are more conservative, practical and who aren’t really open to stepping out of their comfort zone.
What is Conscientiousness?
Conscientiousness refers to the extent to which a person is organised, disciplined, dependable in comparisson to someone who is untidy, impulsive, careless and disorganised.
What is extraversion?
People who work well with others and are sociable, compared to people who are quiet, reserved and thoughtful and who can be described as being introverted.
What is agreeableness?
The extent to which a person is kind, helpful and trustful, compared to someone who is ruthless, uncooperative and demanding.
What is neuroticism?
The extent to which a person is anxious and insecure at one extreme versus a person who is more calm, emotional stable and secure.
What was Walter Mischel’s belief?
Mischel believed that people could and would behave immorally depending on a situation rather than focusing on personality traits
What was Mischel’s theory known as?
The theory of situationism
What was the opposing belief to Mischel’s theory?
Traits may fail to predict single behaviours but they are good at predicting the averages of a lot of behaviours.
What is the current view surrounding behaviours and personality?
Behaviour is determined by the interaction of personality traits and the situation or environment, this is known as interactionism.
What are examples of strong situations that have an impact on personality?
Strong situations include events or environments that mask an individual’s personality. An example of this would be a funeral or a religious service.
What are examples of weak situations that have an impact on personality?
Weak situations include being at a party, a park or at home. These kinds of environments don’t tend to have many rules or restrictions which allow people to uncover more of their personality.
What contributions have trait theories had on the knowledge surrounding personality currrently?
Traits are easy to measure and widely applicable.
What are the limitations of trait theories?
Trait models are descriptive rather than explanatory which questions their usefulness.
What is the psychodynamic perspective?
The psychodynamic perspective focuses on the unconscious processes that originate from childhood which have been shown to determine personality.
What were some of the main areas of focus in Freud’s theories?
The topography of the mind, drive, development of personality, personality structure and defence mechanisms.
What is the topographic mind comprised of?
The conscious mind, the preconscious and the unconscious.
What is the conscious?
At this level there is an awareness of our thoughts. These thoughts are always being thought of and can be easily brought to the front of the mind
What is the preconscious?
Thoughts that are slightly further out of reach, such as thoughts that we are not consciously aware of, but are still fairly easy to bring to the conscious mind. Examples of information that exists in the preconscious include remembering your phone number or song lyrics.
What is the unconscious?
Feelings, thoughts and motivations that aren’t as easily accessible are found in the unconscious mind. Freud believed that a person’s desires and motivations came from this part of the mind. Unconscious thoughts may manifest in the form of a phenomenon known as the slip of the tongue.
How did Freud study thoughts in this part of the brain?
Freud found it useful to study this part of the mind by analysing things such as the jokes that a person tells or their dreams.
What are drives?
Freud believed that people are motivated specifically by their need for sex and aggression.
Describe the psychosexual stages of development?
These stages of development from childhood to adulthood made up a lot of a person’s personality based on their experiences.
Name the 5 stages of psychoexual development
Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital.
What occurs in the oral stage?
Freud believed that during the ages of 0 - 18 months a child’s mouth was the most sexually sensitive. Children are dependent on their mothers to orally feed them and when those need are not met they may develop oral fixations. Other impacts can include a person becoming overly dependant or distant.
What are common examples of oral fixations?
Excessive smoking, over-eating or nail biting.
What is the most important aspect of the oral stage?
Dependency.
What occurs in the anal stage?
A child’s erogenous zone during the period of 2 - 3 years is the anus. During this period a child will develop a sense of autonomy by seeking out control.
What are the two types of anal personalities that an adult can have?
An anal expulsive personality or an anal retentive personality
What is an anal expulsive personality?
Adults with an anal expulsive personality tend to be messy, hostile or destructive.
What is an anal retentive personality?
An adult with a retentive personality may tend to be stingy, excessively neat and stubborn.
What are the most important aspects of the anal stage?
Orderliness and Control.
What occurs in the phallic stage?
During the ages of 4 - 6 children are able to distinguish between different sexes. Freud’s idea of the Oedipus and Electra complex came from this stage.
What is the most important aspect of the phallic stage?
A child’s ability to identify their parents as being different sexes.
What occurs in the latency stage?
Children’s sexual feelings towards the opposite sex from the ages of 7 - 11 are repressed and remain latent until puberty. Children also develop intellectually as well as physically and socially.
What is the most important aspect of latency?
During this stages a young adolescents’ sexual and aggressive impulses are channelled into socially acceptable behaviours.
What occurs in the genital stage?
From the ages of 12 and older (puberty and adulthood), adolescents begin having more conscious thoughts about their sexual urges.
What is the most important aspect of the genital stage?
Mature sexuality and relationships between people.
How do fixations develop?
When children are overindulged or deprived within these areas of their lives they may develop fixations.
According to Freud what were the three components that made up the structure of personality?
Id, Ego and Superego
What is the Id?
The Id is found in the unconscious, and it is based on pleasure inspired by biological needs, such as the need to eat, sleep or sexual desires. The id does not take into consideration the consequences of one’s actions, and acts on impulse as a result of seeking instant gratification.
What is the operating principle of the Id?
Pleasure
What is the Ego?
This ego is focuses on reality and rationalising ideas in order to solve problems. The Ego is a largely conscious aspect of personality.
What is the operating principle of the Ego?
Reality
What is the superego?
Unlike the Id, the superego is largely conscious and it is often used to determine right from wrong. Notions about right and wrong tend to come from children internalising the standards set by their parents and society.
What is the operating principle of the superego?
It is idealistic.
What are defence mechanisms?
Defence mechanisms are actions and mental strategies that are meant to protect self esteem and to prevent unacceptable thoughts or impulses from reaching the conscious state of awareness avoiding distress or anxiety.
What are some common examples of defence mechanisms?
Repression, projection, denial, rejection formation, displacement, sublimation and compensation.
What is repression?
Excluding the source of anxiety from awareness, which can occur when people aren’t able to remember traumatic events.
What is projection?
The attribution of unacceptable qualities of oneself unto someone else. This can occur when a person becomes defensive about something that is related to them.
What is reaction formation?
Warding off uncomfortable thoughts by emphasising the opposite. Internalised homophobia is an example of this.
What is rationalisation?
Creating a seemingly logical reason or excuse for shameful behaviour. An example of this would be a person justifying the fact that they cheated on a test, because that test plays a large factor in future decisions.
What is displacement?
The shifting emotion from one object to another (often a safer object). An example would redirecting or displacing anger at work towards one person towards another person or thing.
What is sublimation?
Channelling socially unacceptable impulses into acceptable or admirable behaviour. An example of this would a person who tends to engage in physical fights who channels that energy into a combat or contact sport as this is the more socially acceptable option.
What were some of the criticisms of Freud’s theories?
Freud’s theories that were based on observation particularly about women were seen as problematic. His theories had cultural and sexist bias.
What contributions did Freud’s theories have?
An advantage of Freud’s work was that it stimulated most of the knowledge and work on modern personality and psychodynamic theories. In addition to this, Freud highlighted the importance of childhood experiences and parental relationships.
