1. What is Personality? Free will or determinism? Nature or nurture?
Masters of our own fate or biological, unconscious, external factors
Nature or nurture?
Heredity or environment
Past, present, or future?
Is it determined in childhood or can it change with present or future goals?
Uniqueness or universality?
Is each personality unique or are the patterns with people?
Equilibrium or growth?
Are we motivated by pleasure or growth?
Optimism or pessimism?
Are human being basically good or evil?

2. What is Personality? Personality
an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
four basic perspectives
Psychoanalytic
Trait
Humanistic
Social-cognitive

3. Personality - The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Sigmund Freud
childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality
Dreams and “Freudian slips”

4. The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Psychoanalysis
Attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts
Treatment seeks to expose and interpret those conflicts

5. The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Preconscious
information that is not conscious, but is retrievable into conscious awareness
Unconscious
a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories
Contemporary viewpoint- information processing of which we are unaware

6. The Psychoanalytic Perspective - Personality StructureId
Superego
Ego
Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind Id
contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy
strives to satisfy basic sexual (Eros) and aggressive (Thanatos) drives:
what you want to do.
operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification at any and all costs
Video marshmallow test, website for artwork “THE ID”

8. Personality Structure
Superego
the part of personality that presents internalized ideals
provides standards for judgment and for future aspirations – what you should do.
initiates guilt Id
Superego
Ego
Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind

9. Personality Structure
Ego
the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality
mediates among the demands of the id, superego and reality: plans what you can do.
operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain Id
Superego
Ego
Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind

10. Personality Structure - Summary
Can you now explain this picture?

11. Psychoanalysis – Personality Development
Psychosexual Stages
the childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Fixation
a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved

12. Personality Development
Identification
the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos

13. Personality Development
Oedipus Complex
a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

15. Psychoanalysis -Defense Mechanisms
the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

16. Psychoanalysis -Defense Mechanisms
Repression
the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness

17. Defense Mechanisms Denial Reaction Formation
Rejects that the anxiety causing fact is true, despite overwhelming evidence
Reaction Formation
people express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings
Projection
people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Displacement
redirecting aggressive or sexual impulses toward a safer outlet

18. Defense Mechanisms Regression Intellectualization
retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage where some psychic energy remains fixated
Intellectualization
Employing an over emphasis on thinking to distance from a feeling, behavior, or event.

19. Defense Mechanisms Rationalization
offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions

20. Defense Mechanisms Sublimation
defense mechanism by which people re-channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities
i.e. using art, fantasy, and humor as an outlet for anxiety producing situations

21. Defense Mechanisms Compensation Suppression
Counterbalancing a perceived weakness by emphasizing a strength in another area.
Suppression
Conscious form of repression – actively working to forget.

22. Defense Mechanisms Identification
Bolstering self-esteem by joining a real or imagined group.

23. The Psychoanalytic Perspective – Assessing the Unconscious
Free Association
A type of treatment for exploring the unconscious
person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

24. Assessing the Unconscious
Projective Test
a personality test, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics
TAT
Rorschach

25. Assessing the Unconscious
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

26. Assessing the Unconscious
Rorschach Inkblot Test
the most widely used projective test
seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

27. Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective
Important within its historical context
Researchers find little support that defense mechanisms disguise sexual and aggressive impulses
History does not support Freud’s idea that sexual repression causes psychological disorder

28. Humanistic Perspective
Abraham Maslow
studied processes of productive and healthy people
Striving for self-determination and self-realization

29. Humanistic Perspective Hierarchy of Needs
Self-Actualization
the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved

30. From different cultures…
Come up with three examples of people that are self-actualized.
What roles in society did these people play?
What types of things were they able to accomplish?
Did they inspire others to follow their examples?
Did people outside of their cultures recognize them? Why or why not?

31. Humanistic Perspective
Carl Rogers
focused on growth and fulfillment of individuals requires three things:
Genuineness
Acceptance
Empathy
Unconditional Positive Regard
an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

32. Humanistic Perspective
Self-Concept
all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves
“Who am I?’
know, accept, and be true to oneself
Self-Esteem
one’s feelings of high or low self-worth
Self-Serving Bias
a readiness to perceive oneself favorably

33. Evaluating the Humanistic Perspective
Concepts like self-actualization are vague
Emphasis on self may promote self-indulgence and lack of concern for others
Theory does not address reality of human capacity for evil
Theory has impacted popular ideas on child-rearing, education, management, etc.

34. The Trait Perspective Trait
a characteristic pattern to describe behavior
a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

35. The Trait Perspective Hans and Sybil Eysenck
UNSTABLE
STABLE
choleric
melancholic
phlegmatic
sanguine
INTROVERTED
EXTRAVERTED
Moody
Anxious
Rigid
Sober
Pessimistic
Reserved
Unsociable
Quiet
Sociable
Outgoing
Talkative
Responsive
Easygoing
Lively
Carefree
Leadership
Passive
Careful
Thoughtful
Peaceful
Controlled
Reliable
Even-tempered
Calm
Touchy
Restless
Aggressive
Excitable
Changeable
Impulsive
Optimistic
Active
Hans and Sybil Eysenck
use two primary personality factors as axes for describing personality variation
Factor Analysis
Eysenck

36. The Trait Perspective The “Big Five” Personality Factors
Note: “Neuroticism” has been changed to “Emotional”

37. The Trait Perspective Personality Inventory
a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors

38. The Trait Perspective Empirically Derived Test
a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
the most widely researched and clinically used
Designed primarily for emotional disorders, but now has other uses.

39. Evaluating the Trait Perspective
Situational influences on behavior are important to consider
People can fake desirable responses on self-report measures of personality
Averaging behavior across situations seems to indicate that people do have distinct personality traits