Elements of Personality Characteristics aspects of personality Consistent must occur repeatedly in a variety of situations Unique characteristics of personality combine in unmatched manner

Personality Traits General ways of behaving that characterize an individual tendency to react to a situation in a way that remains stable over time all people have them used to predict future behavior

Personality Theorists Try to determine which traits go together Why people have certain traits Why people exhibit some traits in certain situations Attempt to explain differences between individuals Explain how people conduct their lives Improve life

Psychoanalytic (Freud) Powerful influences are in our unconscious Repress bad things that happened to us and put them into our unconscious Personality is like an energy system Life impulses towards death We are driven by erotic or pleasure seeking urges

Freud ID reservoir or container of the instinctual and biological urges We are all ID at birth Lust or drive ridden part of unconscious

Freud Ego rational, thoughtful personality process that operates in terms of the reality principle plans what to do develops 2-3yrs of age gets its energy through the ID

Freud Superego What person should do source of high ideas moral principals

Freud Defense Mechanisms rather than face frustration, conflict, or feelings of unworthiness, people deceive themselves into believing that nothing is wrong if the demands of the Id and the Ego can not be resolved

Freud Repression When people have too many painful memories that cause the Ego too much anxiety people push that memory or urge out of their consciousness and into their unconscious simply “forget” but does not go away

Freud Projection Ego avoiding internal impulses Ascribing one’s own undesirable attitudes, feelings or thoughts onto others Inner feelings are thrown outside

Freud Reaction Formation replacing the unacceptable feeling or urge with opposite

Freud Regression going back to earlier and less mature behavior

Freud Displacement The redirection of desires, feelings or impulses from their proper object to a substitute The anxiety is reduced when the ego unconsciously shifts the feelings or impulses to another object

Carl Jung Agreed with Freud but . . . . . . Felt that people worked on their issues There was a collective unconscious Storehouse of instincts, urges and memories of entire human species through out history Archetypes Similar instincts, memories and urges for everyone

Alfred Adler Driving force in people’s life is the desire to overcome their feelings of inferiority

Alfred Adler Inferiority Complex person who continually tries to compensate for their weakness and avoids feelings of inadequacy Child pampered by parents tends to produced self centered people Child neglected by parents can become angry and hostile lacks confidence

Behaviorism Individuals differ in their learning experiences, they acquire different behaviors and therefor different personalities

Behaviorism Skinner No need for general concept of personality structure Focus on what causes a person to act in a specific way Not concerned on understanding behavior but what causes it look to contingencies or reinforces that shape behavior and personality popular because action can be taken to fix

Social Learning Theory Personality acquired through direct reinforcement and observational learning or imitating Learn behavior and personality through watching actions of others

Cognitive Theory Shape personality through analysis of your own overt mental actions Emphasis on individual plans including their biases, errors, mistakes and false conclusions

Humanistic Psychology Formed as a rebellion against negative personality theory approaches

Humanistic Psychology Self-actualization humans strive for realization of our potentialities as unique human beings awareness of and respect for one’s own and other people’s uniqueness accepting the responsibilities of freedom desire to become more authentic or true to self

Carl Rogers Clients not patients- infers that a patient is sick Two parts to people Organism whole person, whole body struggling to become complete Self your image of who you are and what you value in yourself, others and in life

Carl Rogers Positive regard- approval Condition of worth Approval or disapproval by mother reflects on who you think you are condition a person must meet in order to regard themselves positively Positives shape personality

Rogers Gap Unconditional Positive Regard Fully Functioning greater the gap between self and organism more defensive one becomes Unconditional Positive Regard cure for this gap others convey the feeling that they value you for who you are in your entirety Fully Functioning self and organism one

Gordon Allport Nomothetic approach study large groups of people in search for general laws of personality Idiographic study a particular person in detail looking at uniqueness Common Traits apply to everyone Individual Traits apply to a specific person

Eysenck’s Dimensions of Personality Factor Analysis mathematical measures extent to which different personality variables are related

Dimensions of Personality Stability Extroverts Introverts