Chapter 14: Personality Notes PDF

lOMoARcPSD|49605066 Chapter 14: Personality notes Introductory Psychology (Tulane University) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected]) ...

lOMoARcPSD|49605066 Chapter 14: Personality notes Introductory Psychology (Tulane University) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066 CH 14: PERSONALITY and the SELF  What is Personality? o Characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting  That distinguishes one person from another o Personality psychologists study the difference from one person to another and try to figure out basic outlines of personality and how biology and environment affect the development of personality o Main Approaches  Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic  Humanistic  Trait  Social-cognitive  The Psychodynamic Perspective o Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)  Father of psychoanalysis  Started off as a medical doctor who lived and worked in Austria during the Victorian era, which was characterized by strict social conservatism  Psychoanalytic theory  First theory o Was the first major theory of personality  Though it wasn’t based in research and hasn’t been supported by research, it was extremely influential for many decades  Emphasis  His theory emphasizes childhood experiences, sexual and aggressive urges, and the unconscious mind o The unconscious  Thoughts, feelings, wishes, memories, desires below conscious awareness  What is contained outside of our conscious awareness  He specialized in nerve disorders and noticed that some of his patients had symptoms that could not be explained by what medical science knew  He started to think that some of his patients’ issues were psychological rather than physical in nature.  Source of problems, in disguise  Because they seemed unaware of any psychological issues that might be causing their problems, Freud decided they must be hidden in the unconscious mind  He may conclude that a hand periodically becomes paralyzed because the person has an unconscious desire to masturbate or punch someone in the face, for example  Solve through awareness  He thought that by making the patient aware of the true nature of what was causing their symptoms, it would make them better Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  His goal was to provide insight for his patients o To do that he would have to try and get into their unconscious mind  He used two methods quite a bit to get into the unconscious mind:  Free association o Typically involves having the patient recline and say whatever comes to their mind no matter how trivial or silly or irrelevant it may seem o Freud believed that when a person became comfortable with that process, a person would let things from the unconscious mind slip through  Dream analysis o He saw dreams as highly symbolic expressions of the unconscious mind o And because they were symbolic they required interpretation o Structure of Personality  Id  Eat that drink that have sex with that fight thatq  When you’re born the id is already in place  instincts, unconscious o It includes basic instincts and is entirely unconscious  pleasure principle o Said to operate on the pleasure principle; guides you to do whatever feels good  immediate gratification  Ego  Develops in the first few years of life in order to gratify the id in socially acceptable ways  reality principle o Said to operate on the reality principle; it is more realistic, taking into account the restraints of reality  delay gratification o trying to get the id to delay gratification  mediator o acts as a go-between for the id and superego  Superego  Develops around 4 or 5 as a person internalizes the values of parents and society  Conscience o Serves as conscience o Generates feelings of guilt or pride Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  morality principle o It guides you to do what is moral, correct, and good o The right thing; what will make other people proud  demands perfection  Iceberg analogy  He compared the mind to an iceberg  Because when you look at an iceberg you’re only seeing a small part of the whole  Icebergs are much bigger than they appear; most of it is underwater  He believed only a small part of the mind was consciously available to us o Defense mechanisms  Unconscious psychological and behavioral tactics that protect a person from unpleasant emotions  If the unconscious would become available to us it would be overwhelming  People develop tactics that protect them from unpleasant emotions by hiding or distorting reality o Defense mechanisms  Repression  There are many defense mechanisms but repression is the basis, the mother of all defense mechanism  Involves pushing troubling thoughts out of conscious awareness o Psychosexual stages of personality development  Freud believed personality was developed entirely in childhood  Erogenous zones – pleasure-sensitive areas of body  He said each stage centers around a certain erogenous zone  Conflicts between satisfying urges and rules of society  Happen at each stage  If that conflict is not resolved in an appropriate manner, fixation may occur  Fixation  enduring focus on particular erogenous zone  when a person becomes fixated on a certain stage, they will show a focus that will typically manifest itself as maladapted behavior in adulthood  Oral stage (0-18 mos) – mouth, weaning  Fixation  He said infants derive pleasure from sucking and biting, and a problem arises when society demands weaning o Id wants constant access to the breast Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  If weaning does not go well, they may exhibit an oral fixation in adulthood o Ex. Chewing on straws and pen caps  Anal stage (18-36 mos) – anus, toilet training  Fixation o Anal personality; neat and uptight  Freud believed that toddlers get pleasure from holding in or expelling feces because those things stimulate the anus  Problem arise when society says you have to be toilet trained o The id doesn’t want to bother with that, they want to go whenever wherever  Phallic stage (from 3-6 years) - genitals  Oedipus complex o desire, jealousy, fear, repression, identification o Said boys underwent this o The boy sexually desires his mother, and wants her all for himself but dad is in the way. He wants to get dad out of there to have mom all to himself o At this point the boy has realized some people don’t have penises (women) and comes to conclusion that someone has cut them off. He thinks if he challenged his father for his mom’s affection his father would cut his penis off. He sees the threat because he is small and vulnerable, so gives up on overcoming his father and begins to imitate him and try to be like him so that mom will like him more and one day he can be in his father’s place  Electra complex o Penis envy o Eventually identify with mom and then want a baby instead of a penis  Latency period (from 6 years – adolescence)  Genital stage (adolescence through adulthood)  Specifically penis and vagina o Variations  Neo-Freudians  Horney, Adler, Jung, Erikson o Developed substantial theory on their own but were initially inspired by Freud  More emphasis on conscious mind and social influences, less emphasis on sex and aggression o As whole, differing from Freud in this way  Early followers of Freud  Modern psychodynamic theories Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  Psychodynamic approach as a whole includes Freud and those inspired by his  Conscious and unconscious, childhood experiences and how they affect us o Measuring the Unconscious  Projective personality tests: ambiguous stimuli  Test comes from psychodynamic approach  Thought that the person will project unconscious mind in their responses to ambiguous stimuli  Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) o Subject show pictures of people in ambiguous situations and asked to tell a story about what is happening in each picture  Rorschach Inkblot o Even more famous o Problem with these tests is that there is no standardized objective way of scoring these tests o One psychologist’s interpretation can differ from another’s  Problems  Subjective interpretation  Reliability, validity o Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Approach  Freud’s theory hasn’t stood up very well to scientific analysis  Problems  Unscientific, few testable predictions o A theory needs to be testable so that you can find out whether it’s true or not  Not supported by research o Research has contradicted some of Freud’s specific theories o Ex. People weaned very early do not show an particular inclination for an oral fixation  It was the first personality theory and the first theory to focus on the unconscious mind  We are influenced by our unconscious mind but not as much as Freud said  The Humanistic Approach o optimistic approach  warm and fuzzy  Sees humans as basically good rather than evil  The major premise is that we are all guided by an inborn drive to grow and reach our full potential o Innate drive to fulfill potential Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  Self-actualization o Roger’s Person-Centered Perspective  We will all strive for growth and fulfillment as long as we encounter supportive environments – mainly referring to relationships  quality of relationships  Whether we reach our full potential depends of the quality of our relationships  Requirements for personal growth  Genuineness o You can be open with your true feelings  Empathy o Feeling for other people  Acceptance o Conditional positive regard  Feel that people in our lives will only love and accept us if we do what they want o Unconditional positive regard  Feeling loved and accepted despite faults; no strings attached  Progress toward fulfilling potential will be stopped if we have to behave in not self-true ways in order to be accepted by our loved ones o Evaluating the Humanistic Approach  Unrealistic, vague  Not testable; how do you know if someone fulfills their full potential  May be unrealistically positive  The Trait Approach o Personality as combination of traits  Traits – specific, stable internal characteristics  People vary in how much or a particular trait they possess o Finding the fundamental dimensions/traits of personality  Questionnaires  Trait theorists often put together big questionnaires about thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and give them to lots of people to find out fundamental personality traits o They perform a factor analysis  factor analysis – statistically correlated clusters of items  identifies patterns in peoples’ responses  grouped together on one dimension  reflect basic trait o Eysenck’s trait theory  introversion/extraversion Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  Main dimension one  emotional stability/instability  Main dimension two  biological basis  Believed these were genetically influenced traits and were related to a person’s physiological activity and how active the nervous system is (baseline arousal)  inherited levels of brain and autonomic nervous system arousal and reactivity  Extraverts vs. Introverts o Extraverts: in general have a low level of arousal in the nervous system  Go be social to bring that level up to an optimum level  Also tend to experience more positive emotions and more sensitive to reward  More talkative  More social and more likely to dress fashionably  More likely to have an open door and candy on their desks o Introverts: high baseline levels of arousal  Often don’t seek out more stimulation  Tend to be less sensitive to reward  Experience more neutral emotions  Tend to have more reactive nervous systems  Lemon juice experiment o Introverts salivate more when a drop of lemon juice is put on their tongue because they tend to have more reactive nervous systems o Gray’s Biopsychological Theory  Behavioral approach system (BAS)  sensitivity to reward  People with a more active BAS experience reward more intensely  Strongly attracted to reward  Generally experience more positive emotion  May be impulsive  More likely to try the new drink because it might be good  Behave according to what they want to happen  Behavioral inhibition system (BIS)  sensitivity to punishment  People with an active BIS tend to be strongly motivated to avoid punishment because it is more punishment  Experience punishment more intensely Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  Tendency to experience more negative emotions, especially anxiety  Behave according to what they don’t want to happen  Less likely to try the new drink in the coffee shop because it might be bad  people differ in relative sensitivities of their BAS and BIS  You could be strong in both, or weak in both, not just one or the other o The Big Five Model of Personality  Probably most popular trait theory  Dimensions  Conscientiousness – competence, self-discipline, strive for achievement  Agreeableness – likable, modest, kind, trustworthy  Neuroticism – anxiety, self-consciousness, anger/hostility, depression  Openness – oriented toward feelings, actions, ideas  Extraversion – outgoing, positive, warm, assertive o Assessing traits: Objective personality tests  Clear, direct questions that can be objectively scored  Most come in the form of:  Personality inventories  An objective personality test that measures several traits at one time  Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory Revised (NEO-PI-R) o Measures the Big Five as well as some sub-traits o Can reflect a person’s career, criminal status, and social behavior  Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) o Assesses psychological disorders, and personality traits  The Social-Cognitive Approach o Focuses on the interaction: o Interaction between personality, thinking, behavior, and the situation (environmental or situational factors) o Bandura and Reciprocal Influences  Reciprocal determinism – personality and environment influence each other  choice  reaction  products and producers of our environments o Rotter’s Expectancy Theory  Or, Rotter’s theory of personal control Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066  behave according to expectations of results  We behave according to what we expect to happen as a result of our behavior  personal control – feeling of controlling or being controlled by the environment  Internal locus of control  Feel that their own behaviors have an impact on what happens to them; sense of control over their lives  feelings of control  achievement, health, independence, well-being  External locus of control  lack feelings of personal control  Feel that their behaviors have very little impact on what happens to them  Feel that events are a matter of luck or fate  Don’t feel effective at affecting their environment  Associated with:  depression  and  learned helplessness – give up on efforts to control events after experiencing helplessness o Tendency to give up on efforts to control events after previous efforts have failed to make a difference o And so may end of failing at something that would have succeeded if they tried o Commonly seen in individuals who have experienced multiple traumas over which they had no control o Ex. Dogs in shock box o This can contribute to why people don’t get out of abusive situations  Exploring the Self o Self-esteem  Refers to our feelings of self-worth  Bad to have too little or too much  Self-worth  violence and aggression  Aggressive behavior is more associated with high self-esteem  People with unrealistically high self-esteem tend to become aggressive when someone who they see as inferior to themselves gives them negative criticism or feedback  The quality of the self-esteem matters  defensive self-esteem – fragile, insecure Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|49605066 o has self-esteem that is very fragile and insecure, easily threatened o Especially related to aggressive behavior  Secure self-esteem o It doesn’t matter very much what other people think o Self-serving bias  Tendency to think well of ourselves  People tend to display this but those with high self-esteem even more  explaining successes and failures  Tendency to take credit when things go well but blame circumstances when things don’t go so well  Even influences our memory  Better remember times we behave well than when we are a jerk o Above-average or better-than-average effect  illusion of superiority  70% of US teens rated themselves superior  60% of students think they are in the top ten percent of positive traits  90% of college professors think they are better teachers than their average college  86% of Australian workers think their job performance above-average  1% rated job performance as below average  Nearly 90% of drivers think they are safer driver than they average driver  We also tend to see our pets and friends as better  Think our friends are better than other people and that we are better than our friends  Most people think this doesn’t really apply to them  Found in pretty much all cultures but is less prominent in Asian cultures o depression and self-serving bias  Some degree of self-serving bias is believed to be a good thing  People with depression often lack it  Some studies suggest that people with depression may see the world more realistically than other people  Being realistic is not necessarily healthy Downloaded by Shayla Dinh ([email protected])