Psychology Personality Theories Overview

Personality Overview

• Personality is defined as an individual's unique, relatively stable, and enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Lecture Overview

• Trait Theories
• Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Theories
• Humanistic Theories
• Biological Theories
• How Sex, Gender, and Culture Affect Personality

Trait Theories

• Traits are relatively stable and consistent personal characteristics.
• Early trait theorists include Allport, Cattell, and Eysenck.
• A modern trait theory is the five-factor model (FFM) by McCrae & Costa.
• The FFM explains personality in terms of five dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Trait Dimensions

• Openness: Ranges from original and imaginative to conventional and down-to-earth.
• Conscientiousness: Ranges from responsible and organized to irresponsible and lazy.
• Extraversion: Ranges from talkative and outgoing to quiet and passive.
• Agreeableness: Ranges from trusting and good-natured to suspicious and ruthless.
• Neuroticism: Ranges from worried and moody to calm and even-tempered.

Five-Factor Model (FFM)

• The table shows low and high scorers for each trait.
• Information on what men and women want in a mate is also included.

Evaluating Trait Theories

• Pro: Descriptions and organization of personality characteristics using the fewest traits.
• Con: Fails to explain why traits develop, change, and why some traits change while others remain constant. Also disregards situational effects.

Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Theories

• These theories explain individual differences by examining unconscious mental forces.
• The founding father is Freud.

Levels of Consciousness

• Conscious: Thoughts in the present moment.
• Preconscious: Thoughts that could easily become conscious.
• Unconscious: Thoughts beyond a person's normal awareness.

Personality Structures

• Id: Innate; operates on the pleasure principle.
• Ego: Rational part of the psyche, operating on the reality principle.
• Superego: The conscience, operating on the morality principle.

Defense Mechanisms

• The ego uses defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety by distorting reality.
  • Examples include:
    • Repression
    • Rationalization
    • Projection

Psychosexual Stages of Development

• Oral (birth-18 months): Focus is on the mouth.
• Anal (18 months-3 years): Focus is on bowel and bladder elimination.
• Phallic (3-6 years): Focus is on the genitals.
• Latency (6 years-puberty): Sexual feelings are dormant
• Genital (puberty-adulthood): Maturation of sexual interests

Evaluating Psychoanalytic Theories

• Pro: Highlights the influence of the unconscious and developed defense mechanisms.
• Con: Difficult to test, overemphasizes biology and unconscious forces, lacks adequate empirical support, is sexist, and lacks cross-cultural support.

Humanistic Theories

• Each individual's personality is created from his/her unique way of perceiving and interpreting the world.

Rogers: The Self-Concept

• Emphasized the importance of the self-concept.
• Concerned with the match between the self-concept and actual experiences with life.

Rogers: Positive Regard

• Conditional Positive Regard: Positive behavior toward a person is contingent on behaving in certain ways.
• Unconditional Positive Regard: Positive behavior toward a person without any contingencies attached.

Maslow: Self-Actualization

• Inherent tendency toward growth is a major motivator for behavior, and leads to full potential.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Self-actualization
• Esteem
• Belonging and love
• Safety
• Physiological

Evaluating Humanistic Theories

• Pro: Many concepts are incorporated into therapy.
• Con: Naive assumptions, poor testability, inadequate evidence, and narrowness.

Biological Theories

• Three main contributors are brain structures, neurochemistry, and genetic factors.

Biopsychosocial Model

• Shows the combined percentages of genetic, shared environment, non-shared environment, and unknown factors that impact individual personality differences.

How Sex, Gender, and Culture Affect Personality

• Sex: Biological dimensions of maleness and femaleness, including physical anatomy, secondary sex characteristics, and brain differences.
• Gender: Psychological and sociocultural meanings added to biological sex.
• Culture: Individualistic cultures emphasize individual needs and goals, whereas collectivistic cultures emphasize group needs and goals.

Personality Assessment

• Interview: Face-to-face meeting to gather information on personality, psychological state, or personal history.
  • Unstructured: Informal conversation.
  • Structured: Pre-arranged questions.
• Limitations: Halo effect
• Direct Observation: Observing behavior through direct surveillance.
• Behavioral Assessment: Recording frequency of specific behaviors.
• Situational Test: Simulating real-life situations to observe someone's reactions

Personality Questionnaires

• Paper-and-pencil measures with questions about personality aspects.
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2): A widely used objective personality questionnaire.

Reliability and Validity

• Reliability: Consistency of test scores for the same person.
• Validity: Accurately measuring what the questionnaire intends to measure.

Projective Tests

• Use ambiguous or unstructured stimuli.
• People describe the stimuli or make up stories about them.

Rorschach Technique

• Developed by Hermann Rorschach.
• Uses 10 standardized inkblots.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Developed by Henry Murray.
• Uses 20 black and white cards of various situations.
• People create stories about the drawings.

This quiz covers various theories related to personality, including trait, psychoanalytic, humanistic, and biological theories. You'll explore the impact of sex, gender, and culture on personality and learn about the five-factor model by McCrae & Costa. Test your knowledge of the key traits and their dimensions in personality psychology.