Unit 11 (Chapter 12) Flashcards
What is personality?
Relatively consistent patterns of thought, feelings, and behaviour that characterize a person.
- Shapes how we interact with the world and other people.
Freud’s psychodynamic theories of personality
Psychodynamic theories emphasize the interplay between mental forces (psycho=mind, dynamic=energy or force).
Two main premises:
1) People are often unconscious of their motives
2) Defense mechanisms keep anxiety-producing motives outside of consciousness.
Personality differences arise from variations in unconscious motives, their manifestations, and defense mechanisms.
Three components of personality (according to Freud)
- The Id
- The Ego
- The Superego
Personality is sort of like a closed energy system = always conserved.
Id
Unconscious & instinctual drives/needs.
- Operates by the pleasure principle (do what feels good).
- Develops very early in life.
Pizza ex: “I want ALL the pizza NOW”
Superego
Internalized cultural rules & ideals guiding moral conscience; the “seed” of our moral conscience; the “goodie-two-shoes” of one’s personality.
Pizza ex: “It’s rude & selfish to grab food until everyone has been served. Besides, we are trying to eat healthy.”
Ego
Mediates needs of the id within the constraints of the reality. It is our largely conscious awareness of reality.
- Rational, decision-making part of the mind operating by the reality principle.
- Practical mediator between Superego + Id.
Pizza ex: “We will politely wait to be served and take one slice of pizza with some salad.”
Defense mechanisms
The various ways in which the ego is thought to cope with conflict between the unconscious desires of the Id and moral constraints of society.
- According to Freud, defense mechanisms operate unconsciously.
- Havitual employment of defense mechanisms is though to shape personality (ex: you might have a repressive coping style).
Defense mechanism: Repression
Defense mechanism via which ego keeps unwanted feelings, thoughts, & memories out of conscious awareness.
Defense mechanism: Displacement
Defense mechanism via which the ego redirects unacceptable wishes, drives, and impulses of the id from their intended targets to more acceptable alternatives. I.e. using a scapegoat.
Ex: If you’re furious at your boss, you might take your aggression out on a family member or a pet.
Defense mechanism: Sublimation
Occurs when displacement results in the redirection towards activities that are particularly valued by society (e.g., artistic or scientific endeavours).
I.e. finding an outlet through “aproved” activities by society.
Defense mechanism: Reaction formation
Conversion of an anxiety-provoking desire or impulse into its opposite.
Ex: Being extremetly angry at your mom and wishing her dead may turn into extreme love for her.
Defense mechanism: Projection
A defense mechanism in which people, instead of acknowledging an unconscious desire or impulse in themselves, attribute it to others.
Ex: Frat studies- Rate dothers higher on a characteristic they’re high on, and rated themselves low.
Defense mechanism: Rationalization
Use of conscious reasoning to explain away anxiety-provoking feelings or thoughts.
Ex: Father beating his child “for the better of the kid”.
Critiques of Freud
- Theory based exclusively on case studies, not systematic research (not very generalizable).
- Lack of testable theories, subjective approach (e.g., interpretation of dreams), prone to confirmation bias. This means it was hard to falsify, and could kind of read whatver you wanted into your client’s dreams.
(E.g., Gordon Allport’s anecdote about meeting Freud: tended to assume everything meant something else on another level.) - Overemphasis on sexuality
- Sexist views (E.g., “penis envy” - women had feelings of inferiority towards males leads to resentment towards mother).
Freud’s contributions
- The existence of unconscious processes
- Focus on and insight into mental processes
- Empirical support for some cognitive biases & defensive processes described by Freud:
§ Rationalization as a way of reducing cognitive dissonance
§ Frustration can lead to aggression
§ Although concept of recovered memories has been questioned, some evidence that some people may strive to keep distressing material out of awareness (intentional forgetting) - The importance of early development
- The influence of mind on the body
- The talking cure (therapy)
Traits
Habitual patterns of behaviour, thought, and emotion that can be used to describe a person and that are observable in a wide range of situations.
Traits shape how a person interprets situations and can lead people to behave in similar ways across different situations.
Traits are something individuals vary along a continuum, rather than in an all-or-nothing fashion (ex: no one is just an introvert or just an extrovert!).
Functionally equivalent situations
Situations that cue a similar response from a
person.
Ex: For an introvert, being on a plane, sitting in a coffee shop, and going to a museum are functionally equivalent situations, as they all give them the opportunity to meet people (interpretation), and start conversations (behaviour).
Lexical hypothesis
Personality traits that are useful for differentiating among people will be reflected in language.
- Allport’s collation of words that could be used to describe human characteristics yielded an unwieldy 4,500 terms with lots of overlap between words.
Factor analysis
Statistical technique that involves analyzing the interrelations among different variables to look for the common factors underlying the scores.
Steps:
1) Collect data on various traits from large group of people
2) Identify patterns: which traits are correlated?
3) Group traits: group correlated traits into factors (what do they have in common)?
I.e. calculating a bunch of correlations; comparing the correlations and extracting common factors from them.
Factor analysis example: Step 1 (Collecting data)
- Ask participants to rate themselves on the following dimensions on a scale of 1 to 5 (1=not at all true, 2=somewhat untrue, 3=neither true nor untrue, 4=somewhat true, 5=very true):
- I am someone who is: Thorough, careless, dependable, talkative, outgoing, reserved…
Usual caveats about self-report apply here (e.g., social desirability bias). In subsequent stages, may want to collect additional data from individuals who know the target.
Factor analysis example: Step 2 (Grouping traits)
Highly correlated traits have a larger magnitude. Disregard the r-coefficient’s + or - sign!
Factor analysis example: Step 3 (Group traits)
Creating two clusters -> factors.
The big five (five factor model)
The dominant model in the trait approach to personality, which
posits five key dimensions along which humans vary:
o Open-mindedness to experience
o Conscientiousness
o Extraversion
o Agreeableness
o Neuroticism
Mnemonic: OCEAN
Openness to experience
Low: Prefers known to unknown; conventional, traditional.
High: Creativity, imagination, curiosity, inventiveness, deep thinking. Ex: artists.
Conscientiousness
Low: Disorganized, poor timekeeping, careless, impulsive. Ex: Jake from B99.
High: Thorough, dependable, focused, high capacity for self-regulation. Ex: Amy from B99.
Extraversion
Low (a.k.a. introvert): Reserved, low key, quiet, lower social engagement and energy.
High: Talkative, energetic, enthusiastic, assertive, outgoing, social. Ex: Alexis from Schitt’s Creek.
Agreeableness
Low: Critical, quarrelsome, harsh, aloof, blunt
High: Helpful, selfless, sympathetic, kind, considerate, trusting. Ex: Ted Lasso
Neuroticism
Low: Handles stress well, emotionally stable, calm, relaxed. Ex: Bob Ross.
High: Anxious, easily ruffled/upset, worried, moody. Ex: Eyore.
Heightened activation is shown in the amygdala and the hippocampus. The insula is also involved.
Measurement validity of the big 5
According to various studies, it looks as though we are measuring what we think we’re measuring!
Personality traits: stability and change
Fair amount of evidence for stability over time. Relative ranking of personality traits remains consistent.
- E.g., if you are more conscientious than your peers in high school, you will likely be more conscientious than your peers in adulthood even if your overall level of conscientiousness changes.
However, some average shifts in personality over the lifespan have been observed:
- Increases in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (mellow out, increased responsibilities in adulthood).
- Increases in open-mindedness in young adulthood, then reduction in late adulthood
- Extraversion is mixed: Social vitality (social activity) stays the same, but social dominance (how assertive you are) increases until middle adulthood then levels off.
Personality change can occur after counselling (positively) or traumatic events (negatively).
Social cognitive approach
Social cognitive theories of personality emphasize role of cognitive processes and social interaction in shaping personality.
o Offer several critiques of the trait approach.
Social cognitive critiques of the trait approach
- Correlations between traits and behaviors are modest (around r=.30).
- Individual consistency across situations is lower than imagined.
- E.g., Observed 19 forms of behaviour presumed to be related to conscientiousness like class attendance, assignment punctuality, room neatness, personal appearance neatness. Found high consistency within measures, but relatively low consistence across measures. Ex: student may attent classes but have a very messy room. - Traits can be reframed as templates used to perceive and categorize others, rather than internal forces that shape our behavior—this creates the illusion of consistency in people’s traits (schemas).
- While traits do predict behaviour, we overestimate the strength of the relationship between traits & behaviour
- E.g., extraversion correlates r=.30 with tendency to talk more, but perceived extraversion correlated r=.67 with tendency to talk more. (We have this idea that extroverted people talk more, and thus label people who talk more as extroverts).
Person x situation interaction
A model positing that in order to understand and predict behavior, it is necessary to account for both personal dispositions and the situation people find themselves in, as well as the interaction between the two.
o The “right” situations afford the opportunity to express a certain trait
o Some “strong” situations will evoke certain types of behaviour regardless of individual differences
Ex point 1: Someone who is prone to achievement might not push for it in every situation.
Ex point 2: Milgram experiment.
Example of person x situation interaction
- Rejection sensitivity: tendency to ”anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection”.
- Individuals higher in rejection sensitivity were more likely to feel rejected in an ambiguous situation that could be interpreted as an experience of social rejection.
Ex: Ps “rejected” by confederate in lab, second interaction did not happen at all. Either given a reason, or left to wonder why.
Reciprocal determinism
The idea that personality guides cognition about the world in ways that can shape the environments people choose, serving to reinforce or amplify their personality.
Key elements:
§ Personality guides cognition- our schemas shape how we interpret and process information about the world.
§ People select or create environments that are consistent with their personality traits.
§ This, in turn, reinforces our schemas (self-fulfilling prophecies).
Ex: Rejection expectancies lead people to behave in ways that elicit rejection.
They exhibit more negative behaviour and aggression towards romantic partners during conflict discussions. This, in turn, predicts higher anger from romantic partner and serves to reinforce the cognitive schemas of the rejection sensitive person (i.e. partner denying responsibility, or putting them down).
Attatchment styles
The attachment system regulates proximity-seeking towards an attachment figure during separation or distress. This system is universal, but individual differences exist in attachment strategies (called attachment styles):
- Secure attatchment style
- Anxious attatchment style
- Avoidant attatchment style
Secure attatchment style
Comfort with intimacy and seeking closeness, belief that others can be relied on and that support seeking will be effective, sense of self-efficacy in dealing with challenges.
- Attachment figures have been consistently supportive.
- Insecure attachment thought to stem from deficits in caregiving.
Anxious attatchment style
Excessive preoccupation with closeness and vigilance for signs of distance and rejection, difficult to reassure, “clingy”, lack of self-efficacy (being not as close as they would like to their partner causes distress).
- Caregiver is inconsistent, which leads to hyperactivation of the attachment system (if I ramp up my bids for proximity, maybe caregiver will respond).
Avoidant attatchment style
Discomfort with closeness and intimacy, distrust of others, overemphasis on self-reliance.
- Caregiver is rejecting, discourages closeness, which leads to deactivation of the attachment system (if I don’t come off as too needy, maybe the caregiver won’t reject me).
Attatchment schemas
- Through attachment interactions, people develop schemas or internal working models of themselves, their attachment figures, & attachment relationships.
- ”Working” = Allows to simulate/predict likely outcomes of attachment behaviours; provisional/subject to updating
- These scemas include specific autobiographical memories; generalized beliefs about oneself, attachment figures, & close relationships; procedural knowledge (how to regulate emotions & behave in close relationships).
- Working models—like other schemas—direct attention & influence the way we interpret, store, & recall information.
- Self-perpetuating—provide continuity between early and later attachment-related feelings & behaviour.
- Perceptual confirmation. E.g., being overly attentive to signs of inattention may perpetuate anxious individuals’ insecurity (you see rejection everywhere).
- Behavioural confirmation. E.g., avoidants’ cold behaviour may drive away partners—confirming idea that others cannot be relied on.
- Within-person variation in attachment security across different attachment figures. Ex: The way you relate to mom may not necessarily be the same as you relate to your romantic partner.
- Most people possess relational schemas corresponding to a range of attachment orientations
- E.g., even individuals with a global avoidant or anxious orientation have access to secure representations (available to be primed).
- Can be made more accessible in certain contexts
Self-concept (type of schema)
What we know and believe about ourselves.
- ”Who am I”
- Our attributes, abilities, values, goals
- Descriptive & evaluative components (how you feel about those attributes)
Where does it come from?
- Self-perception
- Reflected appraisals (perceived feedback from others)
- Social comparison
Self-perception
Inferences from observations of our own behaviour.
Self-perception theory:
When we are uncertain about our attitudes and feelings, we infer them by observing our own behaviours (forming impressions about ourselves).
More likely to happen in ambiguous situations where there is no salient extenal force acting on you.
E.g., If I am the kind of person who does kind acts, I must be a kind person; if I
someone who regularly recycles, I must be the kind of person that cares about the environment.
Reflected appraisals
- The looking-glass self (we’re like a mirror, reflecting the appraisals of others).
- We develop self-concept through interactions with others
1. Imagine how we appear to others (”How do others see me?”)
2. Interpret others’ reactions (”How do they judge/evaluate me”?)
3. Develop & revise self-concept based on these perceptions & judgments.
Reflected self-appraisal
A belief about what others think of one’s self.
Ex: If others laugh at your jokes: “I’m funny”. If not: “I’m boring.”
Social comparison
We are driven to to evaluate our opinions and abilities. When objective standards are not available, we engage in social comparisons.
I.e. Figuring out where we stand in comparison to other people.
Ex: Job ad study with either put together or messy confederate. Participants asked to rate themselves.
Self-esteem
The positive or negative evaluation a person has of themselves.
- Trait level:
Enduring level of self-regard
Fairly stable
- State level:
Dynamic, changing feelings about the self
Vary moment to moment
Self-enhancement motivation
Motivation to view oneself positively.
For college students, self-esteem > pizza, beer, & sex.
Self-enhancement/self-serving biases
Tend to view ourselves and process information in ways that allow us to maintain a positive attitude toward the self.
This is done through:
1. Self-serving attributions
2. Above-average effect
3. Idiosyncratic trait definitions
4. Overestimating our contributions
Self-serving attributions
Tend to make internal attributions for our positive behaviours & outcomes, external for our negative behaviour & outcomes.
“The teacher asked us unfair questions” VS “I’m super smart and worked very hard.”
Better-than-average / above average effect
Finding that most people think they are above average on various personality trait and ability dimensions.
Idiosyncratic trait definitions
Most people think of themselves as above average on ambiguous traits (e.g., intelligence).
- Can construe these ambiguous traits in multiple ways: E.g., good at math, good at writing, “street smarts”, emotional intelligence
- When the domain is constrained to be specific, better-than-average effect diminishes (ex: when asked how good they are at math).
Overestimating our contributions
Tend to overestimate the contributions we make to various joint efforts (e.g., group projects, household chores).
Why?
- Tend to focus on and recall our efforts more; our eforts are more salient
- Judge ourselves by our intentions, and others by their actions
Self-verification theory
People strive to maintain a coherent self-view because it serves
our need for prediction and control.
- Predicts that people will seek feedback that reinforces their self-view, even when self-view is negative (like confirmation bias for the self!).
- We are uncomfortable with social feedback that conflicts with our self view.
Ex: Roommate experiment. Those with negative self-views prefer interaction
partners who appraise them unfavourably rather than favourably. More desire to stay with roommates whose appraisals are congruent with one’s own self-
views.
Sociometer theory
People use self-esteem as a “gauge” to assess the degree to which they are accepted by others (like a gas tank).
- Supporting evidence: our perceptions of acceptance & rejection influence our self- esteem.
- May have stemmed from the need to belong, which was essential to survival. It makes sense to have a signal telling us something’s wrong and we need to do something.
Social approval and self-esteem
Success in a given domain increases self-esteem to the extent that the domain is believed to be valued by others.
Ex: You’re going to feel good if you get a good grade to the extent that you think others also value academic success.
Naïve realism
The belief that we see the world as it is.
- Corollary: idea that others see the world as we do (false consensus effect?).
- Individuals with low self-esteem believe others share their negative self-views—but this often not true. Ex: If you feel bad about yourself, you assume your partner feels the same.
Low v.s. high self-esteem
Low self-esteem associated with:
- Poorer well-being (e.g., anxiety, depression, loneliness)
- Relationship problems. E.g., may pre-emptively distance oneself from the relationship.
High self-esteem
- Higher initiative, resilience, positive affect
- Self-fulfilling prophecies: expectations of success can lead us to behave in ways that ensure success
BUT…
High self-esteem is not a guarantee for professional and interpersonal success, or a positive impact on the world.
Narcissism
Unrealistic and self-aggrandizing views of the self, i.e. very inflated.
- Sense of superiority, entitlement, & need for admiration.
- Can lead to defensiveness and aggression toward people who threaten their positive self-view.
- Very charming early on, leads to relationship problems later on.
Kind of like the dark cousin of high self-esteem, though not equal.
Narcissism and aggression
Individuals scoring higher on narcissism more likely to retaliate aggressively against targets delivering negative feedback.
Ex: Essay writing = got negative feedback from the “other person” (i.e. the confederate). Did a task they thought to be unrelated (play a sound in the other person’s ears), and the higher levels of narcissism, the higher sound volume.
Independant or individualist cultures
Prevalent in Western Europe, current and former British colonies (e.g., Canada, US) = independent self-construals.
Interdependant or collectivistic cultures
Prevalent in East & South Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Latin America = interdependent self-construals.
Independant self-construals
- Self is an autonomous entity distinct and separate from other people.
- Focus on asserting uniqueness & independence, internal causes of behaviour.
- Conception of self as a set of traits stable across time and social context.
E.g., “I am adventurous”, “I am smart”, “I am outgoing”.
Interdependant self-construals
- Self is fundamentally connected to other people.
- Focus on social roles, one’s place within community.
- Attention to social context & awareness that situations influence behaviour.
- Conception of self in terms of social identities, relationships & roles; malleable across situational contexts.
E.g., “I am the daughter of Juan & Camila”, “I am a devout Hindu”, “I am outgoing with my friends”
Visualize a cicle overlapping with others.
Culture and self-esteem
- Independent cultures place more focus on self-esteem
- Further, for independent people, self-esteem is more personal & less relational
- By contrast, people from interdependent cultures more concerned with self-improvement & working toward collective goals
Ex: If a Westerner’s self-esteem is threatened, they would feel more angry than if their collective was threatened. The opposite is true for collective societies and their numbers.
Unconscious
The part of our mental life that influences our thoughts, feelings and actions that we cannot directly observe and of which we are unaware.
Cardinal traits
Traits that dominate someone’s personality.
Central traits
The most general dispositions that we use to describe someone, for example, as outgoing or neurotic - traits that do not interlay define the person but provide useful insight into how they typically behave.
Secondary traits
Traits that are relevant only in certain contexts.
Assessment
The process of developing and validating tools to accurately measure and quantify traits and other features of personality.
Six factors that shape how we perceive others
Personality
Error in the judgements we make
Residual (idiosyncratic biases about certain types of people)
Steteorypes about traits we expect different groups to possess
Opinion (idiaosyncratic biases about certain types of behaviour)
Norms that guide how we perceive certain behaviours
Behavioural genetics
An approach that statistically compares patterns of similarity in the behavioural or personality profiles of people who differ in their genetic relatedness.
Genetic essentialism
The tendency to assume that just because something has a genetic basis it is natural and unchangeable.
Gene x environment interactions
The interaction between environmental factors and a person’s genetic predispositions that determine the unique phenotypes expressed in personality.
Locus of control
A person’s perception of what determines his or her outcomes: intrinsic (internal) characteristics or random, external forces.
Outcome efficacy
The belief that if a person can perform a behaviour, the desired outcome will result.
Self-efficacy
The belief that one can successfully execute a behaviour linked to a desired outcome.
Learned helplessness
A state of passive resignation to an aversive situation that one has come to believe is outside of one’s control.
Depressive realism
The painful awareness of personal limitation that render outcomes uncontrollable, in contrast to a more commonly held illusion of control for those who are not depressed.
Social role theory
A theory positing that the roles people find themselves in can profoundly shape their personality.
Self-actualization
The process of fulfilling one’s true potential by gaining a sense of personal autonomy, accepting oneself, and accepting other people.
Self-discrimination theory
A theory positing that well-being and success are most likely to be achieved when a person’s environments support three key motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
