1. Personality

2. Yesterday…
Personality: the quality of being a person;
existence as a human being driven by
conscious and unconscious forces within the
human mind that result in a wide variety of
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Today…
Personality: the consistent ways in which
one person’s behavior differs from that of
others, especially in relation to social contexts.

3. I. Sigmund Freud
A. Psychoanalysis: a method of explaining the workings
of personality based on the interplay of conscious and
unconscious internal forces.
B. Catharsis: the therapeutic release of pent-up emotional
tension.
C. Unconscious Mind: contains memories, emotions and
thoughts, some of which are Illogical or socially unacceptable.
D. Oedipus Complex: the belief that boys have a sexual
interest in their mother and are therefore competitively
aggressive towards their father.

4. E. Libido: psychosexual energy.

5. F. Three Component Structure of Personality
1) Id: the part that is comprised of all of our biological
drives that demand immediate gratification.
2) Ego: the rational, negotiating, and decision-making
component of the personality.
3) Superego: the internalized values and rules we receive from our parents and society.

6. G. Common Ego Defense Mechanisms:
1) Denial: refusal to acknowledge a problem or believe any information that causes anxiety.
2) Repression: “motivated forgetting” of painful or unacceptable thoughts, feelings or memories.
3) Regression: an apparent return to a more juvenile way of thinking or acting.
4) Displacement: the diversion of an unacceptable thought
or impulse from its actual target to a less threatening object
or person.
5) Reaction Formation: presentation of one’s thoughts or
feelings, often through behavior, as the extreme opposite of what they actually are.

7. 6) Projection: attributing one’s own undesirable characteristics or motives to other people.
7) Rationalization: when people “make excuses” and reframe unpleasant events as actually beneficial, or their actions as justifiable or rational (when the actions are arguably not so).
8) Sublimation: the transformation of sexual or aggressive
energies into acceptable and pro-social behaviors.
II. Carl Jung
A. Collective Unconscious: part of an individual’s unconscious
that reflects the cumulative experiences of all of our ancestors.
B. Archetype: a universally inherited, primitive, and symbolic
representation of a particular experience or object.

8. III. The Learning Approach
C. Analytic Psychology: an area of psychology which posits
that an individual is driven by several compensatory internal
forces including the libido, the need to create, and the need
to perceive oneself as a holistically complete individual.
III. The Learning Approach
A. Gender Role: psychological aspect of being male or female (as opposed to your biological sex.)
IV. Humanistic Psychology: deals with values, beliefs, and consciousness, including spirituality & guiding principles by which people live their lives.

9. A. Peak Experiences: those moments in a person’s life when he or she feels truly fulfilled or content.
B. Self-Actualization: to strive for and to achieve one’s
fullest potential.
C. Self-Concept (Real Self): an image of the person that they really are.
D. Ideal Self: an image that represents the person they would like to be.
E. Unconditional Positive Regard: the acceptance of the
person as he or she is.
F. Conditional Positive Regard: the person is only held in
esteem when they fulfill certain requirements set for
them by the other person or society.

10. V. Personality Traits and Assessment
A. Trait: a consistent, long-lasting behavioral tendency, such as sociability, shyness or assertiveness.
B. State: a temporary activation of particular behavior.
C. Trait Approach to Personality: the idea that people have consistent personality characteristics that can be measured and studied.
D. The Origins of Personality Traits:
Heredity Stronger than Environment
Age
Historical era

11. E. Costa and McCrae’s “Big Five” Personality Traits
1) Neuroticism: the tendency to experience emotional
instability: anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness,
impulsiveness, and vulnerability very easily.
2) Extraversion: the tendency to seek stimulation and enjoy
the company of other people.
3) Agreeableness: the tendency to be trusting and
compassionate rather than distrustful of and antagonistic
towards others.
4) Conscientiousness: the tendency to show self-discipline,
to be reliable, and to strive for competence and achievement.
5) Openness to Experience: the tendency to enjoy new
experiences and new ideas.

12. F. Standardized Personality Tests: carefully designed personality tests administered according to specified rules.

13. G. Projective Techniques: personality characteristics that can be detected through the process of asking people to interpret ambiguous stimuli.
1) The Rorschach Inkblots: a series of ten ambiguous
inkblots. The subject is asked to describe what they see.
2) The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): a series of
many pictures. The subject is asked to make up a story for each picture.

14. BALL SOFA TABLE TRUCK SHYNESS SADNESS
H. Implicit Personality Tests: personality tests that measure aspects of personality that are beyond a person’s awareness.
1) The Emotional Stroop Test: the task will be more difficult and the pauses of the subject will be longer when trying to say the color of the words that relate to areas of concern.
BALL
SOFA
TABLE
TRUCK
SHYNESS
SADNESS

15. Personality Psychology
versus
Abnormal Psychology
Personality Psychology: the study of
individual differences among healthy individuals.
Abnormal Psychology: the study of individual
differences among unhealthy individuals.