Personality

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Defining personality An individual’s unique pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that persist over time and across situations

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Major categories of theories Psychodynamic theories Place the origin of personality in unconscious motivations and conflicts. Humanistic theories Spotlight positive growth motives and the realization of potential in shaping personality.

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Trait theories Categorize and describe the ways in which people’s personalities differ. Cognitive-social learning theories Find the roots of personality in the ways people think about, action, and respond to their environment. Major categories of theories

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Psychodynamic theories Personality is the result of unconscious motivations and conflicts. Sigmund Freud Alfred Adler Erik Erikson

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Freud’s 3 Levels of Consciousness conscious: Ideas, thoughts, and feelings of which we are aware. preconscious: material that can be easily recalled. unconscious: All the ideas, thoughts, and feelings of which we are not and normally cannot become aware.

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Freud’s Structure of Personality Id The collection of unconscious urges and desires that continually seek expression The only structure that is present at birth and that is completely unconscious Works on pleasure principle (seeks immediate pleasure and avoid pain) Since it has no direct contact with real world so it either seeks gratification in following two forms Reflex action Wish fulfillment Or it get a link with reality through ego for its expression

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Ego Part of personality that mediates between environmental demands (reality), conscious (superego), and instinct needs (id) Operates partly consciously, partly pre-consciously, and partly unconsciously Works on reality principle (by means of intelligent reasoning) Superego The social and parental standards that the individual has internalized; the conscious and the ego ideal Not present at birth and is learned afterwards Works at both conscious and unconscious level Works on morality principle Freud’s Structure of Personality

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Alfred Adler Humans possess innate positive motives that strive for personal and social perfection Compensation Personality develops through the individual’s attempt to overcome imagined or real weakness. Inferiority complex The fixation on feelings of personal inferiority that results into emotional and social paralysis Striving for superiority and perfection

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Psychodynamic theories continued…..…… Erik Erikson Presented eight stage theory of personality development Trust vs mistrust (first year of life) Autonomy vs shame and doubt (first three years) Initiative vs guilt (between ages 3 to 6) Industry vs inferiority (during 6 to 12) Identity vs role confusion (at puberty) Intimacy vs isolation (during young adulthood) Generativity vs stagnation (during middle adulthood) Ego integrity vs despair (at maturity with onset of old age)

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Differences Between Freud and Adler Freud We are controlled by our environment View of individual: selfish; Eternally in conflict with society Adler We can control our own fate View of individual: striving for perfection; Develops socially constructive goals

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Evaluation of Psychodynamics Theories Psychodynamic views are based largely on retrospective accounts of people seeking treatment rather than experimental research with healthy individuals More focus on negative relation ship between self and society

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Humanistic Personality Theories Any personality theory that asserts the fundamental goodness of people and their striving toward higher levels of functioning. Human beings are responsible for their lives and their outcomes. Given reasonable life conditions, people will develop in desirable directions

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Humanistic Personality Theories continued…. Carl Rogers Every organism is born with certain innate capacities, capabilities, or potentials “a sort of blue print”. The goal of life is to fulfill this genetic blue print. Actualizing tendency: The drive of every organism to fulfill its biological potential and become the best of what it is inherently capable of becoming. Self-actualizing tendency: The drive of human beings to fulfill their self-concepts (conscious images of one’s self)

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Fully functioning person: An individual whose self-concept closely resembles his/her inborn potentials. Determinants of a Fully Functioning Person Unconditional positive regard: Fully functioning person & not fully functioning person Humanistic Personality Theories continued…. Carl Rogers

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Humanistic Personality Theories continued….. Evaluation of humanistic theories The assumptions are difficult to verify scientifically Fail to take into account the evil in human nature

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Trait theories Trait theories focus on describing one’s current personality with less emphasis on how the personality developed. Personality traits: Dimensions or characteristics on which people differ in distinctive ways such as anxiety, aggressiveness, sociability. Traits can not be observed directly. They can be inferred from behavior

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Trait theories continued……. Eysenck’s three dimensions of personality Emotional stability Introversion-extroversion Psychoticism

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Trait theories continued……. The Big Five Dimensions of Personality by Tupes and Christal Extroversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness/dependability Emotional stability Openness to experience/culture/intellect

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Trait theories continued……. Evaluation of Trait theories Relatively easy to test experimentally More descriptive, less explanatory Does not explain inconsistencies in personality

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Cognitive-Social Learning Theories Behavior is viewed as the product of the interaction of cognitions, learning and past experiences, and the immediate environment.

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Cognitive-Social Learning Theories continued……. Albert Bandura People evaluate the situation according to certain internal expectancies, and this evaluation affects their behavior. The feedback of actual behavior shapes expectancies in future situations. Expectancies: What a person anticipates in a situation or as a result of behaving in certain ways. Self-efficacy: The expectancy that one’s efforts will be successful. Performance standards: Standards that people develop to rate the adequacy of their own behavior in a variety of situations.

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Cognitive-Social Learning Theories continued……. Rotter Locus of control: An expectancy about whether reinforcement is under internal or external control. Internal locus of control One can control his/her own fate. External locus of control One’s fate is determined by chance, luck, or the behavior of others.

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Cognitive-Social Learning Theories continued……. Evaluation of Cognitive-Social Learning Theories Can be studied scientifically Explain why people behave inconsistently

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Methods of Personality Assessment Personal interview Unstructured Structured Observation Effect of being watched Observer bias Objective tests tests that are administered and scored in a standard way

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir Projective tests (tests consisting of ambiguous or unstructured material) Rorschach test: A test composed of ambiguous inkblots; the way people interpret the blots is thought to reveal aspects of their personality. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): A test composed of ambiguous pictures about which a person is asked to write a complete story. Methods of Personality Assessment

“Personality” Instructor: Saba Nasir