Lecture+10+Personality_posting

1SOSC1960Discovering Mind and Behavior

Lecture 10Personality

2 Exercise Write a few words to describe the personality

of your best friend.

3 Personality The pattern of enduring characteristics that

produce consistency and individuality in a given person

Consistency (across time and situations) Individuality (help describe and explain

variations across individuals)

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Approaches to personality and assessment methods

Criteria in assessing personality

5Freudian approach Unconsciousness

A part of the personality that contains memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, urges, drives, and instincts of which an individual is not aware

Cannot be observed directly but can be interpreted through clues such as

7IdSex drives (libido), survival drives, aggressive drives; immediate gratification

EgoBuffer the conflicts between the id and the outside world; integration into society

SuperegoRepresents the rights and wrongs of society as handed down by parents, teachers, and other important figures; conscience

9 Defense mechanisms Neurotic anxiety occurs when the id threatens

to become conscious Unconscious strategies people use to

__________________ by concealing the source of anxiety from themselves and others

Ling Sui Fongreduce anxiety

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Defense mechanisms Repression: unacceptable or unpleasant id

impulses are pushed back to the unconscious E.g.

Regression: people behave as if they were at an earlier stage of development E.g.

Ling Sui Fonga man unable to recall that he has killed someone

Ling Sui Fongan individual fixated at the oral stage might begin eating excessively under stress

Defense mechanisms Displacement: redirecting expression of

unwanted feelings or thoughts from a powerful person to a weaker one E.g.

Rationalization: People provide self-justifying explanations in place of the actual, but threatening, reason for their behavior E.g.

Ling Sui Fonga man beats his wife after being criticized by his boss

Ling Sui Fonga student who goes out drinking the night before a bigtest rationailzes his behaviour

Defense mechanisms Denial: people refuse to accept or

acknowledge anxiety-producing information E.g.

Projection: attributing unwanted impulses and feelings to someone else E.g.

Ling Sui Fonga woman denies that her husband requested a divorce

Ling Sui Fonga man angry at his father complains that his father isangry with him

Defense mechanisms Sublimation: people divert unwanted impulses

into socially acceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors E.g.

Reaction formation: unconscious impulses are expressed as their opposite in consciousness E.g.

Ling Sui Fonga person with strong feelings of aggression becomes a competitive basketball player

Ling Sui Fonga mother who unconsciously hates her child acts in an overly loving way toward the child

Neurosis A mental disorder

when tremendous amount of psychic energy is used for defense mechanisms

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Evaluation Contributions

ideas of unconsciousness, defense mechanisms, and children roots of adult personality

Limitations Lack of empirical data and verification, partially due

to the fuzziness of the concepts (e.g., how to measure fixation or id drives?)

Derivation of the concepts and theories from a limited population (upper-class Austrian women who sought treatment from Freud)

Important changes in personality can take place during adolescence and adulthood

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Assessing personality: Projective methods

Projective personality tests Tests in which a person is shown some vague,

ambiguous stimuli and asked to describe them or tell a story about them

The responses are considered to be projections of ones unconsciousness and personality

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Projective personality tests to obtain from the subject, what he cannot or

will not say, frequently because he does not know himself and is not aware what he is revealing about himself through his projections(Frank, 1939)

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Rorschach Test A series of symmetrical inkblots Test-takers are asked What might this be?

Thematic Apperception Test

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Projective Drawings: House-Tree-Person Test (Buck, 1948)

Some interpretations of the HTP Test House

Windows, doors, and sidewalks are ways that others enter or see into the house, so they relate to openness, willingness to interact with others shades, shutters, bars, curtains, and long and

winding sidewalks indicate some unwillingness to reveal much about yourself

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Some interpretations of the HTP Test Tree

The trunk is seen to represent the ego, sense of self, and the intactness of the personality small trunks are limited ego strength, large trunks

are more ego strength/intact personality

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Some interpretations of the HTP Test Person

Person of the same sex is what you admit is like you; person of the opposite sex is what you may not admit is like you

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Limitations The personality to be measured is ill-defined Test-takers responses may be limited by

verbal or figural expression ability Lack of standard procedures (may introduces

errors) Lack of standard scoring and interpretation

(may introduce subjectivity biases)

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Trait approaches Trait theory

A model of personality that seeks to identify the ________________ necessary to describe personality

Traits are characteristics and behaviors that are consistently displayed in different situations

Ling Sui Fongbasic traits

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Gordon Allport Identified 18,000 terms to describe personality.

Which are the most basic? Cardinal: single characteristic that directs most of a

persons activities Central: five to ten major characteristics of an

individual Secondary: characteristics that affect behavior in

fewer situations and are less influential

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Raymond Cattell Factor analysis: statistical method of

identifying associations among a large number of variables to reveal more general patterns

16 source traits, the basic personality dimensions; Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF)

Cattells Self-Report Inventory

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Big Five personality traits Openness to experience

Toleration for and exploration of the unfamiliar Conscientiousness

Degree of organization, persistence, and motivation in goal-directed behavior.

Extraversion Capacity for joy, need for stimulation

Agreeableness Ones orientation along a continuum from compassion to

antagonism in thoughts, feelings, and actions

Neuroticism Proneness to psychological distress and excessive cravings

or urges

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Clear, straightforward description of people Allow us to readily compare one person with another

Limitations Which theory is most accurate? How many basic

traits are there? The traits are simply some descriptive labels of

behavioral pattern. But how do we explain personality?

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Self-report measures Asking people questions about a sample of

their behavior The self-report data is then used to infer the

personality characteristics of the person

Assessing personality: Self-report measures

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Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF; Cattell, 1946) Some measures are of larger scale and greater

length. They measure a number of traits (or personality factors).

185 items, forced-choice Sample items:

I make decisions based on

a. feelings

b. feelings and reason equally

c. reason

I find it hard to give a speech to strangers

a. yes

b. somewhat

c. no

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Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) A widely-used self-report test, particularly

useful in identifying people with __________________________

Sample items:I feel useless at timesa. Trueb. Falsec. Cannot say

I am bothered by an upset stomachseveral times a week

a. Trueb. Falsec. Cannot say

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Limitations

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Limitations Response styles

Socially desirable responding Present oneself in a favorable light

Acquiescence Agree with whatever is presented

Deviance Make unusual or uncommon responses

Extreme Make extreme rating

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Operant conditioning Personality is a collection of learned behavior

patterns through reinforcement and punishment E.g. A person is sociable at parties because he has

been reinforced for displaying social behaviors (e.g., winning contracts, winning friends)

Learning theorists are interested in looking at how the environment shape peoples personality

The importance of context People may act differently across different situations

depending on the patterns of reinforcers

Learning approaches

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Observational learning Continual and repeated exposure to the

behavior of models shape the personality A full range of behaviors are learned by

watching adults (watching television, watching peers, etc.)

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Self-efficacy Belief in ones personal capabilities to carry out

a specific task or produce a desired outcome People with high self-efficacy have higher

aspirations and greater persistence Prior successes and failures, and reinforcement

and encouragement from others help self-efficacy develop

I believe I can!

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Learning theories can explain either consistency or inconsistency Friendly at school but not at homebecause different

reinforcement history in the two settings Objective and scientific conceptualization of

personality Observable behaviors and environment

Limitations Deterministic Human behaviors are shaped by external forces that

are beyond the individuals control

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Behavioral assessment Direct observation and record of an individuals

behavior used to describe personality Naturalistic observations or observations in

controlled conditions

Assessing personality: Behavioral assessment

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Particularly informative for understanding psychological difficulties

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Limitations Need an impartial, objective observer or rater

(but who? parents, teachers, supervisors, trained observers?)

Observation or rating biases Confirmation bias Leniency or severity bias

Criteria in assessing personality Personality characteristic manifests in

many behaviors (an universe of behaviors) A personality test could only sample some

presumably relevant behaviors from this universe

5353

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Reliability consistency in measurement

Electronic scale

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Reliability

Scale A Scale B Scale C1 1 1.3 0.9

2 1 1.3 1.1

3 1 1.3 1.05

Measured weight (in pounds) of a one-pound metal bar at three different trials.

Reliable Not reliableReliable

Ling Sui FongA

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_________________ A test is considered valid if it measures the

characteristic it purports to measure A personality test is valid if its test scores

indeed reflect personality

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(source: http://mindcity.sina.com.tw/qa/folder/love/index.shtml)

Recently you checked email and found that someone had bombed your inbox with a lot of junk emails. What would you do?- Create a new email account- Just delete them- Forward them to someone you hate- Reply and take revenge

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The characteristic measured by a given test is defined by results of empirical research, not by what the developer chooses to name the test

Ways to test validity _______________ validity: Correlation with other

personality scales _______________ validity: whether test scores are

predictive of psychological and behavioral outcomes (e.g. size of social network, depression, well-being, etc)

Ling Sui Fongconvergent

Ling Sui Fongpredictive

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Required Readings Ch. 13

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Lecture+10+Personality_posting