PERSONALITY

Personality

• Enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behavior that are expressed in different circumstances

• Includes– Internal processes

• Thoughts and emotions that guide behavior

– Reputation• The manner in which a person acts across a variety

of situations

Personality

• Dual focus for personality psychologists:

• Structure of personality– How we resemble one another

• Individual differences– What makes us unique

Psychodynamic Theories

• Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychodynamics

• Involves both conscious and unconscious drives

• Explored through the use of case studies

Psychodynamic Theories

Topographic Model:• Conscious

– Mental processes we are aware of– Rational and goal oriented

• Desire to have a pizza for dinner

• Pre-Conscious– Not conscious but can be recalled at any time

• The make and color of your first car

• Unconscious– Mental processes we cannot draw into conscious awareness

• What drives you to chew your fingernails

Conflict and Ambivalence

• Ambivalence– Conflicting feelings or motives

– Those we love also cause us the most pain

• Conflict– Tension between opposing forces

– Desire to loose weight & join friends for ice cream

• Compromise Formations– Maximize fulfillment of conflicting motives

Freud’s Drive Model

• Freud proposed two basic drives (instincts)

• Sex (libido)– Sexual intercourse, pleasure seeking, sensuality

and love

• Aggression– Physical and emotional domination of others

Freud’s Developmental ModelPsychosexual Stages

• Each stage focuses on an erogenous zone which is the part of the body generating sexual pleasure

Freud’s Structural Model• Id

– Source of sexual and aggressive energy– What I want to do, now!– Primary process thinking (wishful, illogical)

• Superego– Conscious and source of ideals– What I ought to do; Parental and societal influences

• Ego– Balances wants from the id & oughts from the superego– Weights desire, reality and morality– Secondary process thinking-rational, logical and goal oriented– Weak ego- Either the Id or the Superego takes control of behavior

Freud’s Defense Mechanisms

• Defense mechanisms are emotional coping strategies that include:

• Repression– Keep thoughts or memories out of awareness– You are unaware of your repressing something

• Denial– Consciously choose to ignore something– You are aware of a potential problem but ignore it

• My partner would never cheat on me

Freud’s Defense Mechanisms

• Projection– We attribute our own unacknowledged feelings or

impulses to others– Keeping a thought out of awareness tends to keep it

very active at an implicit level• He seems very greedy, don’t you think?

• Reaction Formation– We turn unacceptable feelings or impulses into their

opposites– I have unconscious feelings for a homosexual encounter

so I consciously preach against homosexuality

Freud’s Defense Mechanisms

• Rationalization– We explain away actions in a seemingly logical

way to avoid uncomfortable feelings• I am glad I didn’t get a promotion as I don’t want to

relocate

• Passive Aggression– Indirect expression of anger towards others– Conscious failure to take action as a means of

exerting control

Personality Theories

• Object Relations Theories– Focus on interpersonal disturbances and our

ability to relate to others in both love and work– Our ability to form intimate relationships

• Relational Theories– An outgrowth of object relations theory– Adaptation involves effective relating to others– Focus is on important people in our lives

Tapping into the Unconscious

• Life History Methodology

– Case study of a given individual’s life experiences

– Focus on key events that may have shaped a person’s personality

Projective Tests

• Rorschach Inkblot Test– Subject views inkblots

and tells the tester what each one resembles

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Subject is asked to make up a story about each of a series of ambiguous drawings

• Most drawings used in the TAT involve two or more people interacting

Cognitive-Social Theories

• Incorporates learning, beliefs, expectations and information processing

• Behavior is generated through:– Encoding a situation as relevant to us– Giving personal meaning to the situation– Believing our actions can impact the situation– Believing we can actually do the desired task

Encoding Principles

• Personal Constructs– Mental representations of people, places,

things, and events– Must be significant to be encoded

• Personal value– We focus on behaviors and situations that we

perceive as relevant to our goals or life tasks

Expectancies

• Behavior–outcome expectancies & self-efficacy expectancies– To undertake an effort we must:

• Desire the expected outcome– I want it

• Believe we can achieve the expected outcome – I can do it

Competences

• Self- Efficacy– Believing we can accomplish something

• Competences– The objective degree to which we actually

possess a given skill set– Varies widely across individuals– Varies widely (by task) within an individual

Self-Regulation

Involves:

• Setting goals

• Evaluating one’s performance

• Adjusting behavior to achieve goals

Trait Theories

• Traits involve– Emotional– Cognitive– behavioral

tendencies that constitute underlying personality dimensions

Eysenck’s Trait Theory

• Three Psychological Types– Extroversion

• From shy to sociable, interactive, taking risks

– Neuroticism• From emotional stability to negative affect

– Psychoticism• Tendencies towards aggression, egocentric,

impulsive and antisocial

Five Factor Model

• Openness to experience

• Conscientiousness• Extroversion• Agreeable• Neuroticism

Situational Consistency

• Situational consistency– Are traits consistent across different situations?

• Principle of aggregation• Maintains that a trait does not refer to a specific

behavior• Suggests that personality refers to behavior across

many situations but not all instances• We can adjust to a given set of circumstances

Situational Consistency & Diplomacy

• Mary & John and the tropical shirt:

• John is shopping with Mary, tries on a shirt, and ask her opinion before he buys the shirt. Mary says the shirt is simply awful.

• John comes home with the same shirt, that he has purchased on sale and cannot return, and is very excited as he shows it to Mary. Mary responds that the shirt “fits your personality.”

Consistency over Time

• Traits tend to be consistent over time

• Person-by-situation interactions:

– Helps determine whether we will express (show) a given trait in a given situation

• Is it safe to be real?

Humanistic Theories

• Focuses on aspects of personality that are distinctly human

• Roger’s person-centered approach– Phenomenal Experience

• Centers on how we construct meaning to our experiences• Uses empathy by therapist to understand client

• Self Concept– Organized pattern of thought and perception about oneself as we

are

• Ideal Self– How we want to perceive ourselves

Existential Approaches to Personality

• Suggests that we have no set nature and must essentially create ourselves

• We find ourselves by making commitments even though such commitments have no intrinsic meaning

Existential Approaches to Personality

• Existential Dread– Recognition that life has no absolute value or

meaning– Recognizes the reality of death

• Supports theories that we try to deny death by committing ourselves to beliefs that incorporate immorality (religion)

Personality and Culture

• There tends to be a remarkable degree of consistency in many traits and behaviors across cultures– Everyone tends to experience

• Anxiety

• Joy

• The concepts on personality we have studied in this chapter reflect our culture

Personality and Culture

• Culture Pattern Approach– Views culture as an organized set of beliefs,

rituals, and institutions that shape behavior

• Interactionist Approaches– Perceive culture as multidirectional with

personality, economics and culture mutually influencing one another