Personality Traits and Theories

• Personality refers to an individual's consistent and unique behavioral traits
• Exercise questions for personality study includes "what are you like, and how did you become that way?"

Trait Theories

• Focuses on traits, which are durable dispositions to behave in a particular way across situations
• Does not explain personality development
• Traits include honesty, dependability, and impulsivity
• States are temporary moods that vary depending on the situation

Costa and McCrae’s 5 Factor Model ("The Big Five," or OCEAN)

• Personality can be described using five factors: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism
• Openness to experience includes broad range of interests and open mindedness
• Conscientiousness: Dependable, disciplined, organized, responsible
• Extraversion includes sociability and assertiveness
• Agreeableness includes kindness, trust, and warmth
• Neuroticism includes anxiety, hostility, and impulsivity

Assessing the Big Five

• Cross-cultural studies validate the Big Five theory
• The NEO PI is a questionnaire used to assesses personality based on the Big Five theory
• Critiques include competing trait theories like Myers-Briggs, and rejection of the concept of traits

Psychodynamic Perspectives - Sigmund Freud

• Personality is primarily influenced by the unconscious mind
• Personality develops in stages
• Early childhood experiences shape personality
• Dreams are a window into unconscious desires

Structure of Personality: Id

• Present at birth and entirely unconscious
• Operates according to the pleasure principle, seeking immediate gratification
• Lacks a sense of guilt or shame
• An example of Id is hitting snooze

Structure of Personality: Ego

• Operates consciously and realistically
• Follows the reality principle, delaying gratification until an appropriate outlet is found
• Develops in childhood and mediates between the Id and Superego
• No sense of guilt or shame

Structure of Personality: Superego

• Represents internalized social standards from parents and society
• Acts as a moral guide, inducing feelings of guilt and shame
• Develops through interactions in society and reflects a sense of morality

Defence Mechanisms

• Reactions used by the ego to protect the self from anxiety
• Distort reality and operate unconsciously
• Include repression, projection, denial, rationalization, displacement, reaction formation, and regression

Specific Defense Mechanisms

• Repression blocks distressing thoughts or memories from consciousness
• Projection attributes unacceptable thoughts or feelings to others
• Denial involves a failure to acknowledge reality
• Rationalization creates false excuses to justify unacceptable behavior
• Displacement diverts feelings from the original source to a substitute target
• Reaction formation involves behaving in the opposite way of one’s true feelings
• Regression involves reverting to an immature stage of development

Freud’s Psychosexual Stage Theory

• Childhood involves progression through five stages of development
• Libidinal energy is focused on different parts of the body at each stage
• Fixation occurs when one fails to move forward from one stage to another due to excessive gratification, frustration, or trauma
• Fixation shapes personality and the development of psychological problems

The Stages of Psychosexual Development:

• The oral stage occurs from 0-1 years and focus is the mouth and task is weaning
• The anal stage occurs from 2-3 years and focus is the anus and task is toilet training
• The phallic stage occurs from 4-5 years and focus is the genitals and task is identification
• The latency stage occurs from 6-12 years and focus is none and task is social contracts
• The genital stage occurs puberty+ and focus is the genitals and task is intimacy

Phallic Stage & Oedipal/Electra Complexes:

• During the phallic stage, a child has unconscious erotic desires for the opposite-sex parent and feels hostility towards the same-sex parent
• The child resolves this conflict by repressing unacceptable urges and identifying with the same-sex parent

Personality Assessment - Psychodynamic Approach:

• Projective tests are used

Rorschach Test/Ink Blot Test:

• Utilizes 10 slides, and assesses personality from participant response

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT):

• Presents ambiguous pictures and asks the subject to create a story, revealing underlying themes and motivations

Behavioural Perspectives (the learning approach)

• John Watson (1878-1958) and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Behaviourism:

• All behavior is learned through experience (“conditioning”)

Operant conditioning:

• Voluntary behaviours are controlled by their consequences
  • Reinforcement increases behaviour
  • Punishments decrease behaviour

Behaviourism:

• 'Personality’ is the result of learning a set of behaviors
• Denies the existence of an internal ‘personality’, recognizing only response tendencies
• "We are what we are trained and shaped to be”
• There is no ‘personality’ to measure, but there is behavior (i.e. we are what we do)
  • Identify target behaviour
  • Observe frequency of behaviour
  • Note consequences (rewards and punishments)
  • Therapy: to change behaviour, change consequences (pattern of reward/punishment)

TRAIT, FREUD, and BEHAVIOURS assessment:

• TRAIT is assessed via Neo-pi
• FREUD is assessed via Projective tests
• BEHAVIOURS is assessed via observing behaviours

Bandura’s Social-Cognitive Theory:

• Building upon behaviorism, highlights the role of thoughts and feelings

Social Cognitive Theory:

• Bandura’s reciprocal determinism: behavior, environment, and cognitions (thoughts and beliefs) interact and influence each other

Reciprocal Determinism: Ways of Learning from the Environment:

• Operant conditioning: rewards and punishments
• Observational learning (modeling): imitating others (Bobo doll experiment)

Reciprocal Determinism: Cognition:

• Self-efficacy: belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task

Application: How to increase self-efficacy:

• Break tasks into manageable parts, starting with easier steps and gradually increasing difficulty
• Track progress using data to measure improvements
• Focus on successes and provide rewards for achievements

Humanistic Perspectives - Maslow and Rogers:

• Emphasize the unique qualities of humans, especially their potential for personal growth

Self-Concept:

• The set of beliefs one has about oneself, which can change over time and depending on the situation
• Congruence: alignment between self-concept and reality
• Incongruence: the gap between one’s self-concept and reality, leading to anxiety and poor mental health

How Incongruence Develops:

• Incongruence occurs when we fail to accept ourselves due to "conditions of worth"
• Congruence results from unconditional positive regard

Humanism: Abraham Maslow:

• Self-actualization is the innate drive to fulfill one’s potential
• "We are healthy when we are living in alignment with this tendency”

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (From Base to Peak):

_ Psychological needs _ Safety _ Belongingness and love _ Esteem _ Self-actualization

Intelligence:

• Involves information processing, problem-solving skills, and the ability to learn from experience

Spearman’s Theory:

• Spearman proposed that all forms of intelligence share a core factor called "g," or "general intelligence"
• Spearman describes “g” as our “raw” mental horsepower

Sternberg’s Theory:

• Includes analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence

Sternberg’s Three Intelligences:

• Analytical intelligence: problem-solving/ Information processing
• Creative intelligence: the ability to generate new ideas and be inventive when new problems
• Practical intelligence: "street smarts"/ the ability to read and adapt to the contexts of everyday

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences:

• Eight different intelligences, including bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, naturalistic, intrapersonal, visual-spatial, and musical

Gardner’s Eight Multiple Intelligences:

• Bodily-kinesthetic: Manipulate objects and be physically adept
• Interpersonal: Understand and effectively interact with others
• Verbal-linguistic: Think in words and use language powerfully
• Logical-mathematical: Carry out mathematical operations
• Naturalistic: Observe patterns in nature and understand natural systems
• Intrapersonal: Know your own feelings and guide your behavior
• Visual-spatial: Read maps and understand space
• Musical: Understand and work with pitch, beat, and sound

The Evolution of Intelligence Testing - Sir Francis Galton:

• Coined the term "nature-nurture"
• Supported the "nature" position, believing intelligence is genetically inherited
• Advocated for eugenics

Alfred Binet:

• Commissioned to develop an objective test to identify students that needed support
• Supported the "nurture" position, believing intelligence can be developed
• Developed the first modern intelligence test

Lewis Terman:

• Developed the widely used Stanford-Binet intelligence scale
• Coined the term "intelligence quotient" (IQ)

David Wechsler:

• Developed the most widely used IQ tests in the West
• Wechsler intelligence scale for children (WISC)
• Wechsler adult intelligence scale (WAIS)
• Based scores on the ‘normal distribution’ (bell curve)

Wechsler Tests:

_ Full scale IQ- is made up of performance

Performance scale (PIQ):

• Digit symbol/coding
• Picture completion
• Block design

Verbal scale (VIQ):

• Vocabulary
• Similarities
• Verbal comprehension
• Digit span

Key Concepts in Psychological Testing:

• Reliability: Consistency of test results
• Validity: Whether the test measures what it is supposed to measure
• Standardized: Uniform procedures in administering and scoring the test
• Norms: Information about where a person's score ranks relative to others
• Percentiles: The percentage of people who scored at or below a given score

Origins of Intelligence- Accessing the contribution of nature/nurture: Research methods:

• Family studies
• Twin adoption studies
• Identical twins: monozygotic twins- 100% shared genes
• Fraternal twins: dizygotic twins- 50% shared genes

Evidence of Nature (Inborn):

• Identical twins are more similar in IQ than fraternal twins
• Identical twins raised apart are more similar in IQ than fraternal twins raised together

Evidence of Nurture (Environment):

• Siblings raised together are more similar in IQ than siblings raised apart
• Environmental deprivation and enrichment significantly affect children’s IQ
• Flynn effect: average IQ scores have increased significantly over the past 100 years

Intellectual Disability:

• Characterized by markedly low intellectual functioning (e.g., IQ 70 or below)
• Problems in adaptive living skills
• Originates in childhood (before age 18)
• Affects 1-3% of the population

Levels of Intellectual Disability:

• Mild (85%): Often environmentally caused and virtually indistinguishable from others
• Moderate
• Severe
• Profound: Severe physical and cognitive impairments, often with biological causes

_ Organic (biological) _ Chromosome abnormality (e.g. Down syndrome) _ Prenatal complications, diseases, fetal alcohol, etc.

Familial (often mild):

_ No biological cause (poor education, nutrition, learning opportunities, etc.

Giftedness:

• IQ of 130+ _ Above average strength, physical health, emotional adjustment, mental health and social maturity _ Successful in adulthood

Extremes of Intelligence:

• Ellen Winner suggests that while moderately gifted children are very healthy, profoundly gifted children (IQ above 180) are often socially isolated and may experience distress

Explore personality traits, the Big Five model (NEO PI), and trait vs. state distinctions. Delve into Freud's theories and the roles of the id, ego, and superego.