Personality and Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

• Personality is the relatively stable set of psychological characteristics influencing how an individual interacts with their environment.
• Personality includes the unique patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that distinguish one person from another.
• Personality is the sum total of how an individual reacts to and interacts with others as well as the enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavior that characterize a person.

Psychodynamic Theories (Freud, Jung)

• Emphasizes unconscious processes and early childhood experiences.

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory:

• Focuses on the structure of personality with the Id, Ego and Superego

• Id: The primitive, instinctual part of the personality, driven by the pleasure principle, seeking immediate gratification.

  • A toddler throwing a tantrum because they want a toy immediately is an example.

• Ego: The rational, decision-making part of the personality that operates on the reality principle, mediating between the id and superego.

  • A student deciding to study for an exam instead of going to a party, recognizing the long-term benefit showcases this.

• Superego: The moral compass of the personality, representing internalized societal values and norms.

  • Feeling guilt after telling a lie, even if no one else knows, is an example.

Jung's Analytical Psychology:

• Collective Unconscious: A shared, inherited reservoir of universal experiences and archetypes.
  • Recurring themes of heroes and villains in myths and stories across cultures exemplify this.
• Archetypes: Universal, symbolic images and patterns such as the hero or the shadow.
• Individuation: The process of integrating the conscious and unconscious aspects of personality.
• Jung developed the concepts of Extraversion and Introversion.

Trait Theories

• Focuses on identifying and measuring stable personality traits.

• The Big Five Personality Model (OCEAN) is part of this

• Openness to Experience: Curiosity, imagination, and a willingness to try new things.

  • A person who enjoys traveling to new countries and trying different cuisines exemplifies this.

• Conscientiousness: Organization, responsibility, and self-discipline.

  • A student who consistently meets deadlines and prepares thoroughly for exams showcases this.

• Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness, and a preference for social interaction.

  • A person who enjoys attending parties and meeting new people exemplifies this.

• Agreeableness: Cooperation, empathy, and a tendency to be compassionate.

  • A person who volunteers to help others and avoids conflict is an example.

• Neuroticism (Emotional Stability): Tendency to experience negative emotions like anxiety, sadness, and anger.

  • A person who becomes easily stressed and overwhelmed by minor setbacks is an example.

Cattell's 16 Personality Factors:

• Raymond Cattell identified 16 source traits that underlie personality.

• Source Traits: Observable behaviors and underlying personality factors which the 16PF focuses on.

• Factor Analysis: A statistical technique used to identify 16 core personality dimensions.

• Cattell developed the 16PF Questionnaire to measure these traits, providing a personality assessment.

• 16 Personality Factors Summary:

• Warmth (A): Ranges from reserved/detached to outgoing/supportive.

• Reasoning (B): Ranges from concrete to abstract thinking.

• Emotional Stability (C): Ranges from reactive/moody to stable/calm.

• Dominance (E): Ranges from docile/submissive to controlling/dominant.

• Liveliness (F): Ranges from serious/restrained to spontaneous/enthusiastic.

• Rule-Consciousness (G): Ranges from expedient/non-conforming to conscientious/rule-following.

• Social Boldness (H): Ranges from shy/timid to uninhibited/bold.

• Sensitivity (I): Ranges from tough-minded/practical to tender-hearted/sensitive.

• Vigilance (L): Ranges from trusting/accepting to suspicious/wary.

• Abstractedness (M): Ranges from practical/down-to-earth to imaginative/abstract.

• Privateness (N): Ranges from open/genuine to discreet/non-disclosing.

• Apprehension (O): Ranges from confident/secure to apprehensive/worried.

• Openness to Change (Q1): Ranges from traditional/attached to familiar to flexible/open to change.

• Self-Reliance (Q2): Ranges from group-oriented/dependent to self-sufficient/independent.

• Perfectionism (Q3): Ranges from tolerant of disorder/flexible to organized/disciplined.

• Tension (Q4): Ranges from relaxed/patient to tense/impatient.

• Applications include career counseling, personnel selection, clinical psychology, and research.

• While the Big Five model provides a broad overview of personality, Cattell's 16PF offers a more detailed nuanced perspective, providing a more granular look at personality.

Humanistic Theories:

• Emphasis on personal growth, self-actualization, and the inherent goodness of people.
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs says personality development is driven by the desire to fulfill a hierarchy of needs, culminating in self-actualization.
  • An artist who dedicates their life to creating art, fulfilling their creative potential, exemplifies this.
• Rogers' Person-Centered Theory emphasizes unconditional positive regard, empathy, and genuineness in fostering personal growth.
  • A therapist who creates a safe and supportive environment for clients to explore their feelings is an example.

Social Cognitive Theories:

• Focuses on the interaction between individuals, their behaviors, and their environments.
• Bandura's Social Learning Theory states that personality is shaped by observational learning, self-efficacy, and reciprocal determinism (the interaction between person, behavior, and environment).
  • A child learning to play a musical instrument by watching their teacher demonstrate exemplifies this.
• Self-efficacy is the belief that one can perform a certain task.

Biological Theories:

• Emphasize the role of genetics and brain structure in shaping personality.

• Research in behavioral genetics has shown that many personality traits have a genetic component.

• Brain imaging studies have also identified links between specific brain regions and personality traits.

• Understanding personality helps in understanding individual differences.

• Aids in predicting behavior and improves interpersonal relationships.

• Is crucial in organizational settings for team building, leadership, and conflict resolution.

• Is used in career counseling.

Perception

• is the process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions to give meaning to their environment.

• Perception is subjective, meaning different people can perceive the same situation differently.

• Factors Influencing Perception:

  • Perceiver: Attitudes, motives, interests, past experiences, and expectations.
  • Target: Novelty, motion, sounds, size, background, and proximity.
  • Situation: Time, work setting, and social setting.

• Theories and Concepts:

  • Gestalt Psychology: Emphasizes perceiving the whole rather than just the sum of its parts.
    • Principles like figure-ground, proximity, similarity, and closure explain how visual information is organized.
  • Social Perception: Focuses on how we perceive other people, including concepts like impression formation, social schemas, and stereotypes.

Perceptual Errors:

• Include stereotyping, halo effect, horn effect, selective perception, projection, contrast effect, and recency effect.

Attribution

• is the process by which individuals explain the causes of behavior, both their own and others'.

• This is about making inferences about why things happen.

• Theories:

  • Attribution Theory (Heider): Distinguishes between internal (dispositional) and external (situational) attributions.

    • We attribute behavior to either personal characteristics or environmental factors.

  • Kelley's Covariation Model: Explains how we make attributions based on three types of information.

    • Distinctiveness: Does the person behave differently in different situations?
    • Consensus: Do other people behave the same way in the same situation?

  • Consistency: Does the person behave the same way in the same situation at different times?

• High distinctiveness, high consensus, and high consistency lead to external attributions.

• Low distinctiveness, low consensus, and high consistency lead to internal attributions.

• Fundamental Attribution Error: Underestimating the influence of external factors and overestimating internal factors when judging others' behavior.

  • If someone is late, you assume they are lazy, not considering they may have had car trouble.

• Self-Serving Bias: Attributing successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.

  • "I got an A because I'm smart" versus "I got an F because the test was unfair" exemplifies this.

Attitudes

• are evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or events.

• Attitudes reflect how we feel about something.

• Components:

• Cognitive Component: The beliefs and knowledge we hold about an object or situation as well as the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.

• Behavioral Component is the intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something.

• Theories:

  • Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger): Incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes creates discomfort (dissonance).
    • Individuals are motivated to reduce this dissonance by changing their attitudes or behavior.
    • An example would be a person who values health continues to smoke.
  • Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen): Intentions are the best predictors of behavior.
    • Intentions are influenced by attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control.
    • The theory is often used in health psychology to predict health-related behaviors.

• Attitude Change: Attitudes can be changed through persuasion involving the source of the message, the message itself, and the audience.

  • Central route processing: Careful consideration of the message.
  • Peripheral route processing: Less careful consideration, relying on cues like source credibility.

Learning Theories

• Classical Conditioning (Pavlov): Learning process through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.

  • It involves pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that naturally evokes a response, until the neutral stimulus alone elicits the response.

• Key Components:

  • Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response
    • Example: food.
  • Unconditioned Response (UCR): The natural, unlearned response to the UCS.
    • Example: salivation to food.
  • Neutral Stimulus (NS): A stimulus that initially does not elicit a specific response.
  • Example: a bell.
  • Conditioned Stimulus (CS): The previously neutral stimulus that, after being paired with the UCS, elicits a response.
    • e.g., the bell after pairing with food.
  • Conditioned Response (CR): The learned response to the CS.
    • Example: salivation to the bell.

• Real Life Example: A child who is afraid of dogs after being bitten develops a conditioned response of fear to the sight of dogs.

• Operant Conditioning (Skinner): Learning process through rewards and punishments which focuses on how consequences shape behavior.

• Key Components:

• Reinforcement - any consequence that strengthens a behavior

  • Positive reinforcement: Adding a desirable stimulus to increase behavior.
    • Example: Giving a child a sticker for completing their homework.
  • Negative reinforcement: Removing an undesirable stimulus to increase behavior.
    • Example: Taking away a chore when a child gets good grades.

• Punishment - Any consequence that weakens a behavior.

  • Positive punishment: Adding an undesirable stimulus to decrease behaviour.
    • Example: Giving a child extra chores for misbehaving.

• Negative punishment: Removing a desirable stimulus to decrease a behavior

  • Example: Taking away a child's phone for misbehaving

• Schedules of Reinforcement: Patterns of how often reinforcement is given

  • Continuous Reinforcement: Reinforcing every correct response.
  • Intermittent Reinforcement: Reinforcing some, but not all, correct responses.
  • Examples: fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, variable interval.

• Social Learning Theory (Bandura): Learning through observation, imitation, and modeling.

• Highlights the role of cognitive factors

• Key components:

  • Observational Learning: Learning by watching others (models).
  • Modeling: The process of observing and imitating a specific behaviour
  • Vicarious Reinforcement/Punishment: Learning about the consequences of a behaviour by observing others
  • Self-Efficacy: Belief in ones ability to succeed in specific situations

Key differences between Classical, Operant, & Social Learning

• Classical conditioning focuses on associations between stimuli.
• Operant conditioning focuses on the consequences of behavior.
• Social learning theory focuses on learning through observation and cognitive factors.

Job Satisfaction

• is a positive feeling about one's job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

• Represents the degree to which individuals like or dislike their jobs as well is an affective or emotional response to various aspects of one's work.

• Significance:

• Higher job satisfaction is linked to increased productivity, lower absenteeism and turnover, improved customer satisfaction, enhanced organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and better overall employee well-being.

Theories of Job Satisfaction

1. Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory (Motivation-Hygiene Theory) says that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are influenced by separate sets of factors.

• Hygiene Factors: These factors prevent dissatisfaction, but do not necessarily lead to satisfaction.
• e.g., Salary, working conditions, company policies, and job security
• Motivators: These factors lead to job satisfaction.
• e.g., Achievement, recognition, responsibility, and growth opportunities

2. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Individuals are motivated to fulfill a hierarchy of needs, starting with basic physiological needs and progressing to self-actualization.

• Job satisfaction can be influenced by how well a job fulfills these needs.
  • Physiological Needs: Adequate salary to cover basic needs.
  • Safety Needs: Job security and safe working conditions.
  • Social Needs: Positive relationships with coworkers and managers.
  • Esteem Needs: Recognition and appreciation for work.
  • Self-Actualization Needs: Opportunities for personal growth and development.

3. Equity Theory: Individuals compare their input-outcome ratios with those of others and if they perceive inequity, they will experience dissatisfaction.

   • Inputs - Effort, skills, experience.
   • Outcomes - Salary, recognition, promotions.

4. Dispositional Approach: Job satisfaction is partly determined by individual personality traits with some people simply more predisposed to be satisfied with their jobs than others.

   • Factors such as positive affectivity and core self-evaluations can influence job satisfaction.

5. Job Characteristics Model (Hackman and Oldham): Job satisfaction is influenced by five core job characteristics.

• Skill Variety: The degree to which a job requires a variety of activities.

• Task Identity: The degree to which a job requires completing a whole and identifiable piece of work.

• Task Significance: The degree to which a job has a substantial impact on the lives of others.

• Autonomy: The degree to which a job provides freedom and discretion.

• Feedback: The degree to which performing job activities provides direct and clear information about performance.

• Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction:

  • Pay and benefits.
  • Work environment.
  • Relationships with coworkers and supervisors.
  • Opportunities for growth and development.
  • Work-life balance.
  • Job security.
  • Organizational culture.