1. Personality Theories and Assessment12
Personality Theories and Assessment

2. Personality Definition
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
Definition
Sum total of all typical ways of acting, feeling, and thinking that makes a person different from all others

3. Personality Trait theories
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
Trait theories
Traits are characteristics, aspects of personality
Allport: traits can be ranked
Motivational traits related to one’s values
Cardinal traits dominate one’s life (ie: desire for social justice)
Central/secondary traits are more common (ie: obtaining sexual gratification)

4. Personality Trait theories Five-factor model of personality traits
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
Trait theories
Five-factor model of personality traits
Five dimensions measured in personality tests
Neuroticism (anxious, worrisome)
Extraversion (outgoing, social)
Openness (creative, daring)
Agreeableness (selfless, forgiving)
Conscientiousness (reliable, hardworking)

5. Personality Validating personality traits
Personality Theories and Assessment
Personality
Validating personality traits
Eysenck’s introverts and extraverts
Brain’s neural systems may work different
Tests:
Classical conditioning
Functional MRI

6. Human Diversity Personality and culture
Personality Theories and Assessment
Human Diversity
Personality and culture
Personality influenced by culture
Individualistic culture (ie: U.S.) – emphasize individual rights and characteristics
Feeling of pride, superiority
Seek own goals over those of others
More willing to use embarrassment and aggression to prove oneself right
Free time often spent in solitary pursuits

7. Human Diversity Personality and culture
Personality Theories and Assessment
Human Diversity
Personality and culture
Collective cultures (ie: Japan, China, India) – emphasize individual in terms of rights, duties, and expectations as member of a group
Leisure time more often spent with family
Less aggressive in conflict; say things to avoid embarrassment of others
Characterized as having close ties, respectful, and friendly

8. Personality Theories and Assessment
Human Diversity
All personality theories must consider effects of culture
People of different cultures tend to differ in some important ways
There is tremendous variation within cultures
Collective and individualistic traits are found among members of all cultures

9. Psychoanalytic Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment
Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud’s theory and views
Original interest in conversion disorder
Case of Anna O.
Three levels of consciousness
Mind is iceberg; conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind are levels
Repression pushes thoughts into unconscious

10. Superego
Moral imperatives Ideals
Ego
Reality principle
Secondary process thinking
Unconscious
Well below surface
of awareness; difficult to retrieve
Conscious
Contact with outside world
Preconscious
Material just beneath surface of awareness Id
Pleasure principle
Primary process thinking

11. Psychoanalytic Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment
Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud’s theory and views
Personality has 3 parts
Displacement
Sometimes, ego must substitute a goal of the id
Sublimation – best kind of displacement
Identification
Superficial act of imitation

12. Freud: Personality has 3 parts
Superego Id
Ego
Life
and death
instincts
Sexual,
aggressive
urges
The selfish
beast
Libido
The executive
Pleasure
principle
Primary
process
thinking
Ego Ideal
The conscience
Reality

13. Freud: Psychosexual Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment
Freud: Psychosexual Theory
Fixation – stuck in one stage
Five stages of developmental theory:
Oral stage (birth to 1 year) –
Erogenous zones
Oral dependent oral personality
oral aggressive personality
Anal stage (1 to 3 years)
Anal retentive personality
Anal expulsive personality

14. Freud: Psychosexual Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment
Freud: Psychosexual Theory
Phallic stage (3 to 6 years)
Oedipus complex
Castration anxiety
Electra complex
Phallic personality
Latency stage (6 to 11 years)
Genital stage (11 years on)

15. Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Carl Jung
Questioned Freud’s sexual motivation emphasis
Opposites in all elements of mind (ie: selfish and generous, good and evil)
Known for introversion and extraversion
Personal unconscious: motives, conflicts, information repressed as threatening
Collective unconscious: all humans born with it

16. Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Alfred Adler
Struggle with sexual and hostile impulses not primary factor in personality development
Primary struggle: overcome inferiority feelings, develop superiority feelings in social relationships (later seen as unhealthy)
Outgrow childhood inferiority, become competent adult
All born with positive motive, social interest
People’s lives governed by their goals

17. Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Karen Horney
Unconscious conflicts – source of most human misery and maladjustment
Freud overemphasized sexual conflicts, penis envy, and criticized his views of women
Conflicts result from inadequate child-rearing experiences (love and security produce no conflicts, positive personality results)

18. Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Personality Theories and Assessment
Theories Derived from Psychoanalysis
Others
Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, Erikson
Revised Freud’s image of women
De-emphasized importance of sexual and aggressive motivation
Emphasized positive aspects of personality
Asserted importance of adequate social relationships

19. Social Learning Theory
Personality Theories and Assessment
Social Learning Theory
Social learning: sum total of all ways one to act, think, and feel as s/he does
Albert Bandura
People play active role in selecting behavior
Cognition is important in personality
Reciprocal determination (ie: social learning)
Personality is learned behavior
Behavior influences future learning experiences

20. Role of Cognition in Personality
Personality Theories and Assessment
Role of Cognition in Personality
Helping others makes one more reliable and less stingy?
Self-efficacy: subjective perception of what one is capable of
High self-efficacy: accepts more challenges
Bandura: emphasizes learning of personal standards (self-regulation) of reward and punishment from experience and watching others

21. Percentage of subjects stopping to help after finding a dime25 50 75
100
Female
Male
Subjects
Percent stopping to help
Found a dime
Did not find a dime

22. Situationism and Interactionism
Personality Theories and Assessment
Situationism and Interactionism
B.F. Skinner –
argued against idea of traits; behavior determined by situations one is in (situationism)
People behave in ways to suit their situations
Behavior cannot be consistent enough to be traits because situations change
Solution: behavior influenced by both person and situation (person X situation interactionism)
One situation influences people in different ways

23. Percent of pedestrians stopping to help
Low noise
High noise 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10
Percentage of pedestrians stopping to help man in high and low noise conditions

24. Personality Theories and Assessment
Humanistic Theory
Third force in psychology; historically deep roots in philosophy (lack of unity)
Inner-directedness (innate internal force pushing for growth); positive view of humans
Personality develops from this and can only be understood by the individual (subjective reality) – everyone’s views are different
Self-concept (subjective perception) is central to Roger’s personality theory

25. Congruence – consistencies between the two
Roger’s Self-Concept
Ideal self
the person I think I am
Self
Congruence – consistencies between the two
The larger the discrepancies between the two, the more psychological problems one experiences

26. Humanistic Theory Feelings and information are mentally symbolized
Personality Theories and Assessment
Humanistic Theory
Feelings and information are mentally symbolized
Reactions of others create one’s conditions of worth
Self-actualization
Maslow’s ultimate level of growth
High level of moral development
Open, honest, have courage
Accurate and positive view of life
Maslow’s peak experiences

27. Comparing the Theories
Personality Theories and Assessment
Comparing the Theories
Personality
Psychoanalytic
Humanistic
Social
Learning
unconscious
yes no
Learn what is good
Innate knowledge of good and bad
Innate selfishness
Innate goodness
Innate: neither good or bad
Society influences

28. Psychological Methods
Personality Theories and Assessment
Psychological Methods
Interviews and observations
Projective personality tests
Thematic Apperception test (TAT)
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Objective Personality Tests
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI and MMPI-2)
Evaluation of personality tests

29. Relationship between types of physical aggression and the month of the year
Amount of aggression
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
June
July
Aug
Sept
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Aggressive crimes
Wife beating
Rapes
Assaults

30. Personality Theories and Assessment12
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