Personality Theories

Question 1

What is the Psychodynamic Approach?

Answer 1

• Explains behavior in terms of intrapsychic processes

Question 2

What is our definition of personality?

Answer 2

“The consistencies within individuals that lead to the differences between people”

Question 3

What did Sigmund freud theories?

Answer 3

• Freud produced the first comprehensive theory of personality. His theory on personality is encompassed by

• The topographic model (or levels of consciousness)
• The structural model of personality
• Drive (instinct model)
• Defence mechanisms
• Psychosexual development
• Assessment: Projective testing
• The therapeutic process

Question 4

What is the topographic model?

Answer 4

•developed a topographical model of the mind, whereby he described the features of the mind’s structure and function. Freud used the analogy of an iceberg to describe the three levels of the mind.

• Conscious: In awareness
• Preconscious: Not in current thoughts but can easily be brought to mind
• Unconscious: Out of awareness, containing primitive instincts and anxiety-laden memories

Question 5

What is the structural model?

Answer 5

• hypothetical conceptualizations of important mental functions.
• Freud then thought that personality is the dynamic interplay between three mental structures: Id, ego, and superego.
• Id: The ‘Id’ is present at birth and resides totally in the unconscious. It is the source of our ‘mental energy’. It is an innate part of ourselves, which makes us human. It may be where our immature, irrational, and impulsive qualities are derived. The goal of the Id is to satisfy drives without consideration (pleasure principle). It seeks immediate gratification to reduce conflicts anyway it can.
• Ego: The ‘ego’ is found mainly in the conscious and preconscious. It develops rapidly in childhood, but also through the lifespan. It mediates among the demands of the id, superego and reality. The ego thus operates on the reality principle - satisfying the Id’s desires but without penalty (delayed gratification. It is the “self” – our conscious identity.
• Superego: The ‘superego’ is our moral censor, providing us with standards for judgment. It is governed by the rules of parents and society, operating according to the morality principle. The superego seeks perfection, in accordance with the social values which we have learned and is therefore based on our own standards.

Question 6

What is the drives model?

Answer 6

• Freud posits that human behaviour is motivated by two drives

• The life or sexual drive (eros)
• The death or aggressive drive – (thanatos

Question 7

What are defense mechanisms?

Answer 7

• When the ego is unable to mediate the Id and Superego, this elicits anxiety within. The ego reduces anxiety through defence mechanisms, but these ‘distort’ reality. The three types of anxiety this can elicit are

• Reality anxiety: Threats from environment
• Moral anxiety: Threatened by punishment from the superego
• Neurotic anxiety: Ego is overwhelmed by Id’s unacceptable impulses

Question 8

List some defense mechanism?

Answer 8

• Repression: Preventing painful or dangerous thoughts from entering consciousness
• Denial: Protecting oneself from an unpleasant reality by simply refusing to perceive or acknowledge it
• Sublimation: Channelling unacceptable impulses into constructive/socially acceptable activities
• Rationalisation: Socially acceptable reasons are substituted for thoughts or actions based on unacceptable motives
• Intellectualisation: Ignoring emotional aspects of a painful experience by focusing on abstract thoughts, words, or ideas
• Projection: Transferring unacceptable motives or impulses onto others
• Reaction formation: Refusing to acknowledge unacceptable urges, thoughts or feelings by exaggerating the opposite state
• Regression: Responding to a threatening situation in a way that is appropriate to an earlier age or level of development
• Displacement: Channelling threatening impulses onto unthreatening objects

Question 9

What are the Psychosexual sexual stages of development?

Answer 9

• This concept suggests that childhood experiences predict adult personality. There is an emphasis on infantile sexuality. The stages of development are based on sources of sexual pleasure. Child may become fixated at any stage if they were either over-frustrated or over-gratified. Their personality reflects the long-term effects of this fixation.
• Oral stage (0 – 18 months)
- Pleasure centres on the mouth: Sucking, biting, chewing
• Anal stage (18 – 36 months)
- Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
• Phallic stage (3 – 6 years)
- Pleasure zone: Genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feeling
• Latency stage (6 to puberty)
- Dominant sexual feelings
• Genital stage (puberty onwards
- Maturation of sexual interests

Question 10

Strengths of Freud’s theory?

Answer 10

• Enormous impact historically
• First system of therapy: Basis of current approaches such as ‘self psychology’
• Many ideas live on: Defence mechanisms, fixation, unconscious, Freudian slip

Question 11

Limitations of Freud’s theory?

Answer 11

• Originality?
• Difficult to test
• No development after 5-6 years
• Projective tests: Highly subjective
• Overemphasis on sexuality at expense of social/cultural forces
• Therapy based on this theory (psychoanalysis) is not effective

Question 12

What are neo-freudians?

Answer 12

• agreed with Freud that childhood experiences matter; however, they expanded on Freud’s ideas by focusing on the importance of sociological and cultural influences in addition to biological influences.

Question 13

List some neo-freudians?

Answer 13

Carl Jung, Alfred Adler,

Question 14

What did Alfred Adler theorise?

Answer 14

• Adler believed that the main motivating factor was not sexual, but a striving for superiority.
• We all start as weak, powerless children and seek to develop our skills. If this does not happen (when a child does not perform well at school or at sports for example) an inferiority complex can develop if, because of a poor self-image, the person introspects too much and obsesses about this issue. Such individuals will feel that they are a failure. By way of contrast, some others who obsess about it may develop a superiority complex, whereby they cover up for their perceived psychological weaknesses and ‘lord it’ over others.

Question 15

What is the humanistic approach?

Answer 15

• Considers personal responsibility and feelings of self acceptance as the key causes of differences in behaviour.

Question 16

What did Carl Rodgers theorise?

Answer 16

He suggests that we all have a need for positive regard – seeking approval from others. We tend to act in a way that is consistent with how those around us expect us to. Taking our relationship with parents for example – we seek positive regard from our parents, learning to abandon our true inclinations and accept only the parts that our parents value. We are acting in accordance with the behaviours which they most value and expect of us.

Conditions of worth: Conditioned under which the person is deemed to be worth of positive regard. We start to apply this goal of positive regard to ourselves, outlining our perceived condition of worth. Our need for positive regard may conflict with our need for self-actualisation

Our concept of self is influenced by the gap between our actual-self and ideal-self. The closer we are to an ideal-self, the higher we perceive our own concept of self.

Question 17

What causes unhappiness according to this Carl Rodger?

Answer 17

• In general terms, us losing ‘happiness’ is us losing touch with our true selves – we feel anxiety as a result. This could occur when our self-concept is challenged, or a growing gap between actual and ideal self. We respond with defence mechanisms – which may reduce our ability to be a fully functioning person. Could be a key cause in personality disorders

Question 18

What was Abraham Maslows theory?

Answer 18

His theory was conceived in terms of motivation: People are continually motivated by one need or another; satisfying one need only results in the individual trying to satisfy other needs. It aims to explain direction and intensity of behaviour.

Maslows hierachy of Needs

Question 19

What is Maslows hierachy of needs?

Answer 19

He proposed there are two basic types of motives

• Deficiency: Lack of needed object; satisfied when met
• Growth: Not satisfied in attainment but in attaining

Physiological needs

• Hunger, thirst, sleep
• Basic survival

Safety needs

• Safety from elements and predators
• Psychological safety in our culture

Love and belongingness needs

• D-love: Based on deficiency, selfish
• B-love: Non-possessive, unselfish

Esteem needs
- Need to see oneself as competent - Need for appreciation and respect from others

Aesthetic and cognitive needs
- Growth needs - Awareness of knowledge, justice, beauty, order and symmetry

Self-actualisation
- Universal mythology - Develop fu

Question 20

Differences between Individualism vs. Collectivism?

Answer 20

• Personal vs. group goals
• Personal welfare vs. group welfare
• Equality, freedom vs. social order, humility
• Identity based on possessions vs. family ties
• Competition vs. interpersonal harmony

Question 21

Who were the main humanistic approaches we learnt about?

Answer 21

Maslow and Carl Rodgers

Question 22

Strenghts of the humanistic approach?

Answer 22

• Intuitively appealing
• Client centred approach, individually tailored treatment
• Unconditional positive regard
• Optimistic view
• Focus on higher human functions
• Application in work-[;ace and educational settings

Question 23

Limitations of the humanistic approach?

Answer 23

• Can we test free will?
• Key concepts that are unmeasurable – untestable theory
• Romantic, naïve view

Question 24

What are traits?

Answer 24

• Traits are a dimension of personality used to categorise people according to the degree to which they manifest that particular characteristic. Any person can be placed on a continuum and scores are normally distributed

Question 25

Major assumptions of the trait theory?

Answer 25

• Temporal consistency: Traits are relatively stable and enduring across time
• Situational consistency: Traits show stability across sitations

Question 26

What did Gordon Allport theorise?

Answer 26

Early theorist within the trait approach. He believed that traits have a neurological basis. He does acknowledge environmental factors. Allport’s research strategies
• - Nomothetic: Discovering universal laws within groups
- Idiographic: identifying unique characteristics in individuals
• Allport’s trait pervasiveness: Suggests that our trait levels differ from one individual to another. However some are more pervasive than others
• - Cardinal: Dominates the whole personality
- Central: Usually have 5-10 different traits
- Secondary: Less conspicuous,

Question 27

What did Raymond Cattle theories?

Answer 27

Whereas Eysenck based his theory based on the responses of hospitalized servicemen, Cattell collected data from a range of people through three different sources of data.
• L-data - this is life record data such as school grades, absence from work, etc.
• Q-data - this was a questionnaire designed to rate an individual’s personality (known as the 16PF) .
• T-data - this is data from objective tests designed to ‘tap’ into a personality construct.

Cattell analyzed the T-data and Q-data using a mathematical technique called factor analysis to look at which types of behavior tended to be grouped together in the same people. He identified 16 personality traits / factors common to all people.

Cattell made a distinction between source and surface traits. Surface traits are very obvious and can be easily identified by other people, whereas source traits are less visible to other people and appear to underlie several different aspects of behavior.

Cattell regarded source traits are more important in describing personality than surface traits.

Question 28

What did Hans eyesneck theorise?

Answer 28

• Eysenck (1952, 1967, 1982) proposed a theory of personality based on biological factors, arguing that individuals inherit a type of nervous system that affects their ability to learn and adapt to the environment.
• Eysenck (1947) found that their behavior could be represented by two dimensions: Introversion / Extroversion (E); Neuroticism / Stability (N). Eysenck called these second-order personality traits.

Question 29

What are the big 5 and who created it?

Answer 29

Lewis Goldberg

•	The Big Five is a research-driven approach in psychology which derives from the notion that the most common personality traits can be captured by five core dimensions: Openness to Experience. Conscientiousness. Extroversion. Agreeableness.
•	Openness
•	- Insight/shallowness
- Creative/unimaginative 
- Intelligent/ignorant 
•	Conscientiousness 
•	- Efficient/disorganised
- Dependable/unreliable
- Precise/negligent
- Industrious/lazy
- Combination of prudence and will to achieve
•	Extraversion
•	- Gregarious/aloof
- Expressive/silent
- Spontaneous/reserved
- Both a social and cognitive aspect
- Sometimes conceptualised in terms of positive effect
	-Agreeableness
	- Cooperative/belligerent
- Empathic/bossy
- Lenient/unforgiving
- Courteous/ruthless
•	Neuroticism (high ‘N’ is associated with low self-esteem, ineffective coping)
•	¬- Placid/nervous
- Independent/clinging
- Stable/temperamental

Question 30

Critism of the 5 factor model?

Answer 30

• Cognitive artefact or realistic description? Cognitive biases; limitations on information processing
• Too few or too many factors?
• Factor analysis is arbitrary and theoretical

Question 31

Strengths of the trait approach?

Answer 31

• Used objective measures
• Many practical applications
• Generated a large amount of research

Question 32

Limitations to the trait approach?

Answer 32

• Trait measures do not predict behaviour well: Is personality or situation more important
• Personality coefficient is .3 (Mischel)
• There is little evidence for cross-situational consistency: Consistency paradox

Question 33

Did did John B Watson theorise?in

Answer 33

• Classical conditioning
• Classical conditioning theory involves learning a new behavior via the process of association. In simple terms two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response in a person or animal.
• John Watson proposed that the process of classical conditioning (based on Pavlov’s observations) was able to explain all aspects of human psychology.
• Everything from speech to emotional responses was simply patterns of stimulus and response. Watson denied completely the existence of the mind or consciousness. Watson believed that all individual differences in behavior were due to different experiences of learning.
• For example, a person (CS) who has been associated with nice perfume (UCS) is now found attractive (CR). Also, chocolate (CS) which was eaten before a person was sick with a virus (UCS) now produces a response of nausea (CR).

Question 34

What did Julian rotter theorise?ty

Answer 34

• Rotter chose the empirical law of effect as his motivating factor. The law of effect states that people are motivated to seek out positive stimulation, or reinforcement, and to avoid unpleasant stimulation. Rotter combined behaviorism and the study of personality, without relying on physiological instincts or drives as a motive force.
He argued the need to understand influences on behaviour. He formalised these influences in terms of the likelihood of the behaviour (behavioural potential), which can be understood as a product of expectancies (outcomes that have been learned) + the reinforcement values that the behaviour has to us. BP = E + RV
BP = Behavioural potential
E = Expectancy
RV = Reinforcement value
Expectancy
Concerns our beliefs that there will be some consequence of an action. We can expect something to happen, based on the decisions that we make. Consistent behaviour is the result of stable expectations. Generalised expectancies = locus of self-control.
Reinforcement value
• The degree to which we prefer one reinforcer over another. This can vary with time and situation, but there is some degree of consistency. It is independent

Question 35

What did Albert Bandura believe?

Answer 35

• In social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with the behaviorist learning theories of classical conditioning and operant conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:
• Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.
• Behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.
• Reciprocal determinism is the theory set forth by psychologist Albert Bandurawhich states that a person’s behavior both influences and is influenced by personal factors and the social environment.
• Three factors that influence behavior: the environment, the individual, and the behavior itself
• Behavior Component
-For example, a child who doesn’t like school may act out in class, resulting in negative attention from classmates and teachers. The teachers are forced to alter the school environment for this child (and theoretically others like him).
• Reciprocal determinism is the idea that behavior is controlled or determined by the individual, through cognitive processes, and by the environment, through external social stimulus events. So in the case of our troubled student, his dislike of school is being reinforced (and perhaps magnified) by the actions of his teachers and classmates, which he’s perpetuating by continuing to act out.
• Environmental Component
-The environmental component is made up of the physical surroundings around the individual that contain potentially reinforcing stimuli, including people who are present (or absent). The environment influences the intensity and frequency of the behavior, just as the behavior itself can have an impact on the environment. So if our student gets yelled at by a teacher for talking in class, it not only has an effect on him but on the classroom environment for the rest of the students, not to mention the teacher.
• Individual Component
-The individual component includes all the characteristics that have been rewarded in the past. Personality and cognitive factors play an important part in how a person behaves, including all of the individual’s expectations, beliefs, and unique personality characteristics. If our student knows that the teacher is more likely to give him something he wants if he waits until close to the end of the school day to act out, obviously he’ll tailor his behavior.
• So all the factors in our troubled student example affect each other: the child doesn’t like school, he acts out, his teachers and classmates react to his behavior, reinforcing his dislike of school and creating a hostile environment.
• The behavior itself is something that may or may not be reinforced at any given time or situation.

Question 36

How do we acquire phobias? and how are they maintained?

Answer 36

• They are acquired by classical conditioning or social learning, maintained by operant conditioning. They are treated by extinction, flooding, counter conditioning, systematic and desensitisation.

Question 37

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 37

• The cognitive, motivational, and emotional deficits that follow a perceived lack of control over important aversive events. Helplessness can be generalised to other events through conditioning.

Question 38

What is Locus of Control?

Answer 38

Julian Rotter

• A generalised expectancy that classifies people according to the extent that they believe that what happens to them and others is controllable. Those with an internal LoC tend to be happier than those with an external LoC. Externals ae more anxious and depressed, less achievement oriented. Internals practice better health habits than externals. Internals value health.

Question 39

What is Kellys personal construct theory?

Answer 39

• He employs a cognitive approach to personality: Looking at differences in the way people process information to explain differences in behaviour. Attempts to close the gap between humanistic and cognitive theories.
• He views people as scientists. We construct a unique personal perspective of the world and how it feels. We generate a set of personal constructs, and view the world through this lens.
• Fundamental postulate: A person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which they anticipate events. People’s behaviours, thoughts, and feelings are determined by the constructs they use to anticipate or predict events. It encompasses a range of processes – perception, understanding, interpretation. It is an active process.
• Constructivism alternativism
• Events are open to multiple interpretations; people decide among constructs in interpreting events; we can alter experiences by constructing these events differently. Kelly explains’ events’ as
- Objects - People
- Feelings - Experiences
- Events