Personality PDF

Personality  Definition of personality "Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristics behavior and thought" (Allport, 1961, p. 28).  CLASS ACTIVITY How do you define Personality? “In th...

Personality  Definition of personality "Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristics behavior and thought" (Allport, 1961, p. 28).  CLASS ACTIVITY How do you define Personality? “In the next slide, there are some concepts that may be important to you in the way you think about your own personality and the personalities of the people around you. Think about each item and check off the three items that are most important regarding your view of human personality.”  external environment the self temperament unconscious mind observing others conscious awareness enduring characteristics self growth childhood experiences rewards and punishments subjective feelings abilities free will  Different schools of thought psychodynamic (childhood experiences, unconscious mind) humanistic (conscious awareness, the self, subjective feelings, self growth, free will) type/trait (temperament, abilities, enduring characteristics) learning (external environment, rewards and punishments, observing others). Psychoanalysis-Sigmund Freud Structure of Personality Freud’s Iceberg theory: Levels of consciousness Defense Mechanisms  Structure of Personality Human psyche consists of three agencies or components: Id-pleasure principle Ego-Reality principle Superego- Morality principle For Freud, the interplay among these three agencies gives rise to our personalities, Differences in the strength of these agencies account largely for individual differences in personality. The structure of personality  Id The pleasure principle works to pursue the immediate gratification of any need or desire that a person has. For example, feelings of hunger produce an immediate desire for food. When these needs are not met, people may experience feelings of anxiety, tension, or unease. Not every need or want that a person experiences can be satisfied immediately. If you were to try to satisfy an urge at the wrong time in the wrong setting, you might find yourself behaving in ways that are inappropriate or socially unacceptable.  Superego The superego (based on morality principle) is part of personality that strives for moral behavior. It is made up of all the internalized beliefs, values, and morals that people learn from their parents and from their society. It is the last component of personality to form and usually begins to emerge sometime between the ages of three and five. The goal of the superego is to suppress the primitive urges of the id. If the superego had its way, you would live up to the high idealistic standards without ever giving into the urges and demands of the primal id.  Ego Freud described the ego as a part of personality that allows the id’s desires to be expressed in a realistic and acceptable way. The ego develops from the id, but has been modified by the influence of the real world. It operates on what Freud described as the reality principle. Where the id’s demands are unconscious, unrealistic, or unacceptable, the ego’s goal is to fulfill those desires in a way that accounts for reality. This means assessing the situation and weighing the pros and cons of taking an action.  Sometimes, this might simply mean waiting to fulfill a need until you are in the right time and place, a process known as delayed gratification. For example, if you are tired, the ego would keep you from taking a nap until you are home in a bed instead of drifting off in the middle of the work day.  Id- child Ego- adult Superego-Parent  Ego strength Ego strength is what Freud called the ego’s ability to manage these competing forces effectively. Having poor ego strength means that you might give in to your impulses more frequently, while having too much might mean an inability to adapt and compromise. Freud’s Iceberg theory: three levels of mind  Conscious state: Our immediate awareness that you are experiencing as you read this. We make use of our conscious mind when we take in input from our senses, analyse the information, and then make decisions based on this information. The conscious mind consists of what we are aware of at any given point in time. It includes the things that we are thinking about right now, whether it’s in the front of our minds or the back. If we’re aware of it, then it is in the conscious mind.  Subconscious/Preconscious state: The subconscious holds information that is just below the surface of awareness. An individual can retrieve such information with relative ease, and we usually refer to these as memories. For example, if someone asked you right now what your middle name was, you would be able to recall it, or when your father’s birthday was or when it last rained.  Unconscious state: This is made up of thoughts, memories, and primitive/instinctual desires that are buried deep within ourselves, far below our conscious awareness. Even though we’re not aware of their existence, they have a significant influence on our behaviour. Although our behaviours tend to indicate the unconscious forces driving them, we can’t readily access the information which is stored in the unconscious mind. Throughout our childhood, we gathered many different memories and experiences that formed the beliefs, fears and insecurities that we carry today. However, we cannot recall most of these memories. They are unconscious forces that drive our behaviours.  Defense Mechanisms Although much of the ego operates in consciousness, some of its processes are unconscious and serve to protect the person against anxiety caused by the conflicting demands of the id and superego. The person needs protection from anxiety because it is a highly unpleasant state that signals a danger to the ego (self).  The danger may be that the person’s instinctual impulses are out of control and are threatening to overwhelm him or her; or the danger may arise because the individual fears punishment from his or her conscience for thinking about doing something that the superego considers wrong; or the threat may come from an outside source in the environment (for example, the death of a parent, severe injury in a car accident, the rejection by a boyfriend or girlfriend). In the face of these dangers, the person’s ego unconsciously attempts to regain control by activating defensive processes.  These defense mechanisms can serve a useful purpose in that they protect the person against pain. They are normal and universally used but if over used, it is unhealthy.  Defense Mechanisms 1) Repression, the most critical defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory, is the motivated forgetting of emotionally threatening memories or impulses. According to Freud, we repress unhappy memories of early childhood to avoid the pain they produce. E.g- A person who witnesses a traumatic combat scene finds himself unable to remember it. 2) Denial-Motivated forgetting of distressing experiences E.g- A mother who loses a child in a car accident insists her child is alive. 3) Regression is the act of returning psychologically to a younger age, typically early childhood, when life was simpler and safer. E.g- A college student starts sucking his thumb during a difficult exam. 4) Reaction-formation is the transformation of an anxiety-provoking emotion into its opposite. E.g-A married woman who’s sexually attracted to a coworker experiences hatred and revulsion toward him. 5) Projection is the unconscious attribution of our negative characteristics to others. E.g-A married man with powerful unconscious sexual impulses toward females complains that other women are always “after him.” 6) Displacement: we direct an impulse from a socially unacceptable target onto a safer and more socially acceptable target. E.g- After a frustrating day at work, we may pound our fist against the punching bag at the gym rather than into the faces of our annoying coworkers. 7) Rationalization provides a reasonable-sounding explanation for our unreasonable behaviors or for failures. E.g- A political candidate who loses an election convinces herself that she didn’t really want the position after all. 8) Intellectualization: Avoiding the emotions associated with anxiety provoking experiences by focusing on abstract and impersonal thoughts. E.g-A woman whose husband cheats on her reassures herself that “according to evolutionary psychologists, men are naturally sexually promiscuous, so there’s nothing to worry about.” 9) Sublimation: Transforming a socially unacceptable impulse into an admired and socially valued goal E.g- A boy who enjoys beating up on other children grows up to become a successful professional boxer.  Neo Freudians ▪ Personality theorists who accepted basic portions of Freud’s theory but rejected or modified other portions. ▪ Differences between Freudian and Neo Freudians Erik Erikson Alfred Adler Carl Jung Karen Horney  NEO-FREUDIAN THEORIES: CORE FEATURES. Most neo Freudian theories share with Freudian theory an emphasis on (a) unconscious influences and (b) the importance of early experience in shaping personality. Nevertheless, neo-Freudian theories differ from Freudian theory in two key ways: 1. Compared with Freudian theory, Neo-Freudian theories place less emphasis on sexuality as a driving force in personality and more emphasis on social drives, such as the need for approval. 2. Compared with Freudian theory, most neo-Freudian theories are more optimistic concerning the prospects for personality growth throughout the life span. Freud was notoriously pessimistic about the possibility of personality change after childhood; he once wrote that the goal of psychoanalysis was to turn neurotic misery into ordinary, everyday unhappiness (Breuer & Freud, 1895).  Basic strengths: satisfactory resolution of the crisis at each developmental stage. The outcome of the crisis at each of these four childhood stages depends on other people. The resolution is a function more of what is done to the child than of what the child can do for himself or herself. In the last four stages of psychosocial development, we have increasing control over our environment. We consciously and deliberately choose our friends, colleges, careers, spouses, and leisure activities. However, these deliberate choices are obviously affected by the personality characteristics that have developed during the stages from birth to adolescence. Whether our ego at that point shows primarily trust, autonomy, initiative, and industriousness, or mistrust, doubt, guilt, and inferiority, will determine the course of our life. Trait and Type Theories and Humanistic Theories Big five theory, Carl Rogers  Those high in conscientiousness are also likely to value order, duty, achievement, and self-discipline, and they consciously practice deliberation and work toward increased competence. Those with high conscientiousness should attempt to use their strengths to the best of their abilities, including organization, planning, perseverance, and tendency towards high achievement. As long as the highly conscientious do not fall prey to exaggerated perfectionism, they are likely to achieve many of the traditional markers of success.  High extroversion is a strong predictor of leadership, and contributes to the success of managers and salespeople as well as the success of all job levels in training proficiency  Agreeable individuals tend to value benevolence, tradition, and conformity while avoiding placing too much importance on power, achievement, or the pursuit of selfish pleasures. Agreeableness affects many life outcomes because it influences any arena in which interactions with others are important—and that includes almost everything. In the long-term, high agreeableness is related to strong social support and healthy midlife adjustment but is slightly negatively correlated to creativity. Individuals high in agreeableness are likely to have many close friends and a good relationship with family members, but there is a slight risk of consistently putting others before themselves and missing out on opportunities for success, learning, and development.  High neuroticism is related to added difficulties in life, including addiction, poor job performance, and unhealthy adjustment to life’s changes. Neuroticism has been found to correlate negatively with self-esteem and general self-efficacy, as well as with an internal locus of control (feeling like one has control over his or her own life). Scoring high on neuroticism is not an immediate sentence to a miserable life, but those in this group would benefit from investing in improvements to their self-confidence, building resources to draw on in times of difficulty, and avoiding any substances with addictive properties. Humanistic Theories  Carl Rogers Within each of us, according to Rogers, is an innate motivation called the self-actualizing tendency—an active, controlling drive toward fulfillment of our potentials that enables us to maintain and enhance ourselves. (Master motive- self actualizing tendency) For achieving self actualization, there needs to be congruence between real and ideal self Real Self and Ideal Self Congruence and Incongruence  Self image/Real Self: At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or bad person, beautiful or ugly. Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves in the world. Ideal Self: This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever changing. The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late twenties etc. Extreme version of ideal self is detrimental to mental health.