Chapter 14 Lecture Slides - Personality Psychology PDF

14 Personality © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. module 14.1 Personality Theories After studying this module, you should be able to: Discuss and evaluate Sigmund Freud’s theories and some of the changes he made in them. List Freud’s stages of psychosexual plea...

14 Personality © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. module 14.1 Personality Theories After studying this module, you should be able to: Discuss and evaluate Sigmund Freud’s theories and some of the changes he made in them. List Freud’s stages of psychosexual pleasure. Define and give examples of Freud’s defense mechanisms against anxiety. Explain what Carl Jung meant by the collective unconscious. Discuss how Alfred Adler advanced the idea that mental health is more than the absence of mental illness. Explain how the learning approach deals with apparent inconsistencies in personality. State the distinctive features of humanistic psychology. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. Personality “In most of us, by the age of 30, the character has set like plaster and will never soften again.” William James, Principles of Psychology (1890) Personality – – Is a unique and long-term pattern of inner experience and outward behavior © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Goal Answer philosophical question: Why are we the way we are and why do we do the things we do (example: What made that person commit that crime? How do we find meaning or personal growth?) Attempt to explain and predict our behavior and variations in our behavior? © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Activity Write one paragraph that answers the question: Who are you/what are you like? Write one paragraph that answers why are you like that. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Personality Studies Two directions – Derived from theories of influential psychologists who based their views on observations – Derived from research and/or studies of personality traits and how they effect behavior © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Sigmund Freud and the Psychodynamic Approach Sigmund Freud interpreted dreams, slips of the tongue, and so forth to infer unconscious thoughts and motivations. Psychodynamic theory – view that relates personality to the interplay of conflicting forces, including unconscious ones, within the individual © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Structure of Personality Freud’s three aspects of personality: 1. Id – sexual and other biological drives that demand immediate gratification 2. Ego – the rational, decision-making aspect of the personality 3. Superego – the memory of rules and prohibitions we learned from our parents and others © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. Freud’s Search for the Unconscious ID, Ego, Superego are in conflict: In healthy individuals, healthy compromises are made. Problems/mental illness stem(s) from excessive conflict. Conflict is often unconscious. Therapy is designed to bring conflicts into consciousness. Unconscious effects our behavior even though we can’t talk about it. Catharsis – a release of pent-up emotional tension © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Table 14.1 Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development Stage Effects of Fixation (approximate ages) Sexual Interests at This Stage Oral stage Sucking, swallowing, Lasting concerns with (birth to 1½ years) biting dependence and independence; pleasure from eating, drinking, and other oral activities Anal stage Expelling feces, retaining Orderliness or sloppiness, (1½ to 3 years) feces stinginess or wastefulness, stubbornness Phallic stage Touching penis or clitoris; Difficulty feeling closeness. (3 to 5 or 6 years) Oedipus complex Males: fear of castration Females: penis envy Latent period Sexual interests — (5 or 6 to puberty) suppressed Genital stage Sexual contact with other — (puberty onward) people © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Changes in Freud’s Theory Freud believed problems stemmed from childhood sexual fantasies, such as the Oedipus complex. – Oedipus complex – according to Freud, period when a boy develops a sexual interest in his mother and competitive aggression toward his father His only evidence for his view was that he thought he could infer these childhood events from his patients’ dreams and symptoms. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Defense Mechanisms against Anxiety Defense mechanisms – method employed by ego to defend itself against anxiety. Here are a few examples. – Repression – according to Freudian theory, the motivated removal of something to the unconscious – Denial – the refusal to believe unpleasant information – Rationalization – attempt to demonstrate that one’s actions are justifiable – Displacement – diversion of a behavior or thought away from its natural target toward a less threatening target – Projection – attributing one’s own undesirable characteristics to other people – Sublimation – the transformation of sexual or aggressive energies into culturally acceptable, even admirable, behaviors © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious Collective unconscious – inborn thoughts and images that relate to the cumulative experience of preceding generations Carl G. Jung rejected Freud’s concept that dreams hide their meaning from the conscious mind: “To me dreams are a part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive, but expresses something as best it can” (Jung, 1965, p. 161). © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  The Learning Approach Must of what we call personality is learned through individual experience, imitation, or vicarious reinforcement and punishment. Our personality is based on environment/not personal traits and responsibility. John Watson: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants…” © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Humanistic Psychology Humanistic psychology – Emphasizes consciousness, values, and abstract beliefs, including spiritual experiences. According to humanistic psychologists: – People are essentially good and strive to achieve their potential. – People are free to make deliberate, conscious decisions. – Psychodynamic and behavioral views are reductionalistic (They do not look at whole person or look at healthy person) © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. Carl Rogers and Unconditional Positive Regard Carl Rogers maintained that people naturally strive toward positive goals without special urging. He recommended that people relate to one another with unconditional positive regard. Therapy is designed to create unconditional positive self regard so that you consider yourself worthy regardless of the situation. Unconditional positive regard – the complete, unqualified acceptance of another person as he or she is © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Carl Rogers and Unconditional Positive Regard When you do not have unconditioned positive regard, you develop “conditions of worth” or that you are only worthy if certain conditions are met. This causes anxiety over making sure that conditions are met or that you become anxious when conditions are not met. What are your conditions of worth? © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Carl Rogers In making people feel like they have unconditioned positive regard, be genuine and transparent. Use reflective listening (Repeat what is said in your own words) www.youtube/watch?v=l-pMJ9bJ8l0 (Carl Rogers and Gloria highlights) © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. module 14.2 Personality Traits After studying this module, you should be able to: Use self-esteem as an example to illustrate the difficulty of measuring personality. Describe how psychologists identified the Big Five personality factors. List and describe the Big Five personality factors. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Personality Traits and States Trait – a consistent tendency in behavior, such as shyness, hostility, or talkativeness State – a temporary activation of a particular behavior Both traits and states are descriptions of behavior, not explanations. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  The Search for Broad Personality Traits Trait approach to personality – study and measure of consistent personality characteristics. Traits are defined and people are usually considered to be high or low in these traits. – How many traits does it take to characterize personality? Issues in Personality Measurement Personality researchers rely mostly on self-reports Researchers are measuring abstract concepts and may disagree on what characterizes a certain trait (Example: Self Esteem) © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Derivation of Personality Researchers use statistical techniques to reduce potential ways to describe personality into the least amount of useful traits. – Start with many words that described personality – Use statistical techniques to sort these words into clusters where words in one cluster overlap with each other but not with other clusters. – Look at each cluster and derive a name that accurately describes that cluster – Based on this, researchers have proposed various factor structures that define all personalities © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  “The Big Five” The Five-Factors Model of Personality (OCEAN) Typical true–false Trait Description question to measure it Neuroticism Anxiety, hostility, self- I have few major worries. consciousness, frequent conflicts with others Extraversion Seeking excitement and I make friends easily. social contact Agreeableness Compassionate and I believe others have good trusting intentions. Conscientiousness Self-disciplined and I complete most tasks on dutiful, organized time or early. Openness Stimulated by new ideas I believe art is important for its own sake. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Figure 14.5 ► Older people tend to be higher in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and lower in neuroticism. They are lower in extraversion, openness to experience. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. module 14.3 Personality Assessment After studying this module, you should be able to: Describe several objective personality tests. Explain how the MMPI and other tests detect when someone is lying. Describe the pros and cons of projective personality tests. Discuss the difficulty of using a personality test to diagnose an uncommon psychological disorder. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  An Objective Personality Test: The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) – standardized test consisting of true–false questions intended to measure certain personality dimensions, especially for identifying clinical conditions Latest edition of the test: MMPI–3: 335 Items. Has Validity scales, restructured clinical scales and specific problem scales. Detecting Deception The MMPI guards against lying by including items about common faults and rare virtues. – Anyone who denies common faults or claims rare virtues is probably lying. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  The NEO PI-R NEO PI-3 (NEO personality inventory-revised) – test that measures neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (The big five) © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) – a test of normal personality, loosely based on Carl Jung’s theories. Classifies people as one trait vs. another (Example: extraverted or introverted) © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Items 1) I like to get out and do new things. T F 2) I have lied at least once to get out of trouble. T F 3) I have a good relationship with my mother T F 4) Most people will take advantage of someone if they have the opportunity and are unlikely to get caught T F 5) I give up quickly if things do not go right T F © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved. Projective Techniques What is this? © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Projective Techniques Projective techniques – procedures designed to encourage people to project their personality characteristics onto ambiguous stimuli There are issues with interpretation. Experts have been shown to interpret the same responses differently. No incremental validity (No added value of using these tests beyond what you would get from MMPI which takes less time to administer and score) © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Projective Techniques Two well-known projective techniques: 1. Rorschach inkblots – a projective technique based on people’s interpretations of 10 ambiguous inkblots © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Projective Techniques Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) – a projective personality technique in which someone is asked to make up a story for each picture, describing what events led up to this scene, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Uses and Misuses of Personality Tests Personality tests can help assess personality, but their results should be interpreted cautiously. – Because the tests are not entirely accurate, a score that seems characteristic of a psychological disorder may occur in many people without that disorder. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.