Personality Theories and Traits

• Personality refers to the enduring characteristics differentiating individuals, leading to consistent and predictable behavior across situations and time.
• Personality is defined as enduring patterns of behavior and thought across time and situations.

Four Major Perspectives on Personality

• Psychoanalytic perspective focuses on unconscious motivations.
• Trait perspective focuses on specific dimensions of personality.
• Humanistic perspective focuses on inner capacity for growth.
• Social-Cognitive perspective focuses on environmental influence.

Sigmund Freud

• Sigmund Freud lived from 1856-1939.
• Freud graduated from the University of Vienna in 1873 and was a voracious reader and medical school graduate.
• Freud specialized in nervous disorders and found some patients' disorders had no physical cause.

Freud's Ideas

• Psychoanalysts believe behavior stems from unconscious aspects of personality.
• Freud's 3 levels of awareness/consciousness are the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind.
• Conscious awareness is the small part above the surface, or preconscious realm.
• The unconscious is below the surface, containing thoughts, feelings, wishes, and memories.
• Repression banishes unacceptable thoughts and passions to the unconscious, manifesting in dreams and slips.
• Conscious mind includes things actively being focused on.
• Preconscious mind involves things not currently aware of but accessible.
• Unconscious mind encompasses aspects unaware.
• Personality is composed of the id, ego, and superego according to Freud's theory.
• The id is the unorganized, inborn part of personality that reduces tensions related to primitive impulses.
• The ego restrains instinctual energy to maintain safety and societal membership.
• The superego represents societal rights, wrongs, conscience, and the ego-ideal.
• The id constantly seeks to satisfy basic drives and operates on the pleasure principle.
• The ego seeks to gratify the id in realistic ways and operates on the reality principle.
• The superego is the voice of conscience, focusing on how one ought to behave.
• The id uses primitive thinking and operates on the pleasure principle, seeking to avoid pain.
• The id operates unconsciously without direct contact with reality.
• Eros (life instinct) motivates pleasure-seeking, including sexual urges, and Thanatos (death instinct) motivates aggressive urges.
• The libido is the energy source for the id's instincts.
• The ego consists of conscious faculties for perceiving and dealing intelligently with reality.
• The ego mediates between the id and superego and is partly conscious, dealing with reality demands and making rational decisions.
• It is the rational part of personality that maintains contact with reality, governed by the 'Reality Principle'.
• The ego controls higher mental processes.
• It uses these mental processes to help satisfy the urges of the id.
• The superego is the moral part of personality, internalizing rules from parents and society and consists of the conscience and ego ideal.
• Conscience involves notions of right and wrong.
• Ego Ideal involves how one ideally likes to be.
• The superego constrains gratification because of immorality, not fear of being caught and is partly conscious and partly unconscious.
• Feelings, thoughts, and behaviors stem from interaction between the id, superego, and ego.
• Conflict between the id, ego, and superego generates anxiety.
• The ego, the conscious part of our personality, handles the resulting anxiety.
• Ineffectively handled anxiety can overwhelm individuals and impact daily life.
• The ego tries to control anxiety by use of defense mechanisms.
• Defense mechanisms reduce/redirect anxiety by distorting reality and operate at an unconscious level.
• Individuals are typically unaware they are using defense mechanisms when they are deployed but may become aware of their use later.

Freud's Theory: Defense Mechanisms

• Repression involves pushing unacceptable thoughts into the unconscious; it entails unintentional forgetting of repressed memories.
• Regression includes acting in ways characteristic of earlier life stages
• Reaction formation involves replacing an anxiety-producing feeling with its opposite.
• Rationalization involves creating false but believable excuses to justify inappropriate behavior.
• Denial includes claiming and believing something false to be true.
• Displacement involves redirecting emotional feelings to a substitute target.
• Projection involves attributing unacceptable feelings to others, while sublimation involves substituting socially acceptable behavior.

Stages of Development

• Theory suggests personality develops through stages tied to biological functions.
• People pass through psychosexual stages of development.
• Psychosexual stages are sources of unconscious conflicts.
• Personality development stages involve critical events in childhood.
• Each level has a conflict between pleasure and reality.
• Resolution from conflict determines personality.
• A fixation" can occur at any stage if needs are under-gratified or over-gratified.
• Each stage involves an erogenous zone related to sexual pleasure.
• Personality forms during the first few years of life and rooted in unresolved conflicts of early childhood.

Psychosexual Stages

• The oral stage (0-18 months) centers on the mouth.
• The anal stage (18-36 months) focuses on bowel/bladder elimination.
• The phallic stage (3-6 years) focuses on genitals, involving the "Oedipus Complex.”
• The latency stage (6-puberty) means dormant sexuality.
• The genital stage (puberty on) means directing sexual feelings toward others.
• A strong conflict can cause an individual to fixate at Stages 1, 2, or 3.
• Oral stage is the first period, occuring during the first year of life
• The anal stage is next in development and lasts from 1 to 3 years of age.
• The phallic stage follows, with interest focusing on the genitals.
• The latency period lasts until puberty
• The genital state is after puberty, and is a time period marked by mature sexuality
• In the oral stage, the erogenous zone is the mouth with gratification through sucking and swallowing during the birth to 18 months developmental time period.
• Oral fixation can result in either an oral receptive personality or an oral aggressive personality. -The Oral receptive personality often involves the individual being preoccupied with eating/drinking, reducing tension through oral activity, being passive and needy, as well as sensitive to rejection.
• The oral aggressive personality is typically hostile and abusive to others.
• In the second stage of development known as the anal stage an erogenous zone is the anus, toilet training is one of the most important conflicts that will arise for the developing person
• Anal fixation can lead to two different personality outcomes, anal retentive an anal expolsive
• Anal retinitive often leads to personality outcomes such as stinginess, compulsive orderliness, and being stubborn.
• Anal expulsive is related to outcome includes lack of self control, and being messy/careless
• At age 5 or 6, near the end of the phallic stage, children experience the Oedipal conflict (boys) while the Electra conflict (girls) - a process through which they learn to identify with the same gender parent by acting as much like that parent as possible.
• Oedipus complex relates to little boys and results in castration anxiety.
  • This is rooted in the fear that the child will be castrated by the father.
• Electra complex corresponds to little girls and includes penis envy.
  • It is characterized as a daughter initially attached to to her mother.
  • Shift of attachment occurs when she realizes she lacks a penis.
  • Then She desires dad whom she sees as a needs to obtain penis substitute, a child.
  • The daughter represses her desire for the father, incorporates the values of the mother and accepts her inherent “inferiority” in society.
• During the latency period, there is little awareness of the other sex.
• Freud suggests that children minimize the awareness of sexuality during the latency period.
• 5th stage of psychosexual development relates to the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics
• The onset of physical sexual characteristics “re-awakens” people's sexual urges so they can no longer be successfully be supressed
• Individuals will search for a material mate can whom they can share intimacy.
• This is a Freud idea that suggests theories must explain observations and offer testable hypotheses, but has few objective observations and hypotheses.
• Freud's theories were based on recollections/interpretations of patients' free associations, dreams & slips of the tongue and do not predict behavior or traits.

Four Types of Personality Theories

• The psychodynamic appraoch
  • This is the area of the brain that is thought by Frued to govern sexuality and the way an individual handles conflict between the id, the ego, and the super ego
• Humanistic approach
  • Here it is thought that humans are capable given the right conditions of acting correctly and are at heart good.
• Trait approach
  • Individual behavior is based on an identifiable and fixed trait.
• Social cognitive approches
  • Takes into the impact of an individual's actions based on social and environmental factors.

Types of personality and related details

• Psychodynamic approach
  • The Source of information about personality is in the analyst.
  • The cause of Behavior has a lot to do with unconscious actions that have stemmed from previous childhood experiences
  • There is a negative outlook of humans
  • The theory is very comprehensive overall
• Humanistic personality approach
  • The primary source of personality stems from self reports
  • The root Behavior, thoughts, and feelings has a lot to do with self concepts, actualizing tendencies, and conscious feelings from previous episodes in one's life
  • Positive outlook
• The source of trait personalty therioes comes observation.
• Behavior and thoughts have a lot to do with genetics and internal character traits
• A neutral outlook overall
• Comprehensiveness of theory: not very comprehensive

Psychodynamic / psychoanalytic theory

• These theories are based on the work of Frued who suggested the following
  • Personal vs. collective unconscious
  • Balance between interversion vs extreversion
  • Other figures in this field:
    • Alfred Adler
      • Strive for superiority
      • Notion of inferiority complex
    • Karen Horney
      • Personality is cultural rather than biological.

Theories on the humanistic approach

• Humanistic approach (third force)
  • Positive outlook based on internal growth and individual capability
    • Rejection of Freuds idea of a pessimistic view of personality
    • Humanis are are free and basically good
    • inner directed
    • Self actual
  • Maslow and Rogers are a major part of this field
    • People are basically good
    • Actualizing behaviors
    • Given the right environmental characteristics we will all devlop to our full potential
  • Carl Rogers has proposed that we have multiple selves
    • Real self vs Ideal self , the person with one actually are vs the person that they want to be
    • Self awareness can lead to anxiety
• The conditions under which other people can approve of us in real life
• Individuals can alter their behavior to obtain approval
• What we need is unconditional positive regard
• Maslow's theory of needs:
  • Self awareness is culmination of life time of inner achievement

Trait Theories

• Attempt to identify the most basic and relatively endearing dimensions along which people differ known as: traits
• Most important personality traits are those that are reflected by our values
• Allport’s three types of traits
  • Cardinal: a single personality trait that reflects the majority of one's personality e.g: kindness
  • Central: a set of major characteristics that make up the core of one`s personality
  • less important traits that are not affecting much e.g: shyness
• A person’s introversion vs extroversion
• A person's tendency towrds emotional vs neuratic stability
• The two are thought to be on the same scale and can influence a individuals trait
• Dynamic
• Surface traits
• Source treats

Recently in personality theorists one of the major concensus is

• Emotional stability vs neuraticium: secure vs anxious
• extraversion vs introversion: fun loving vs soberness
• Openness vs closed-mindeness: independent vs practical
• Agreeableness vs disagreement: trustingness Concussions vs undeperdable: disciplined vs carelssness

The big five:

• Emotional stability:

  • Tendency to be cal anxioius

• Extraverson

  • Tendency to be sozial ble and sociable Is unique

• What are some of the typical traits?

  • Explain why individuals behave in certain ways.

Assessing personalty traits

• Personality test MMPI (Minnesota multiphase personality inventory)

• Most widely used personality inventory

• -Assess psychological disorder

• -Emperacally derived

• Do all traits exist:

• Walter mischel argued

• -Behavior is not consistent unless you take into the situation

• Walter micheal

• -Behaviors

• --Walter beleied that the behavior is influenced by the stituation than any internal trait -A is (al internal trait) -b is (Situational of where we are and that determinant

• What the source information social cognitate: Obtained from expirateation of

• -The real

• The neutral

What Social cognitive of Bandura

• What emphasized the role of learning
• ----Classic Condition Modeling

The most emphasis that cognition is in perisontail development

• People’s beliefs about actual goals -Accept greater changes --try hard to meet Bandura always describe notion and Reciprocal Determinism

• The individual and the enviernoment contauily influence one and other

• Internal You pretty much control your own destiny

• External

• Lottery

Social: Cognition

1. Important issue What would the two be

• Not easy to assess, the is really little concsnes
• The behavior B.Behavor Based on learning
• ---Theories Personality assesemnts is based on what a person does and the theories based on what the person does. Objective personality test (self report question)
• It is designed to create specific aspects of the way that people react in way It typically asses the questions "Are you happy in your relationship?

Example of objective and nonobjective

The MMPI The 16 the is SIXteens person factor The N.E.O: personalty inventory test The self report measure to measure the degree