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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

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

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. 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

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

11. Freud Reaction Formation
replacing the unacceptable feeling or urge with opposite

12. Freud
Regression
going back to earlier and less mature behavior

13. 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

14. 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

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

16. 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

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

18. 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

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

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

21. Humanistic Psychology
Formed as a rebellion against negative personality theory approaches

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

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

28. Dimensions of Personality
Stability
Extroverts
Introverts