1. Chapter 10
Personality

2. Personality
Personality: Psychological qualities that bring continuity to an individual’s behavior in different situations and at different times
Theories – help understand the causes of similarities and differences among people

3. Psychodynamic Theory
Psychoanalytic theory: focuses on early childhood experiences, unconscious motives/conflicts, and methods used to cope with sexual & aggressive urges

4. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Unconscious: thoughts, memories, desires well below the surface of conscious awareness, but still exert great influence on behavior
Sexual & aggressive impulses – major source of conflict
Ambiguous social norms – inconsistent messages about what is appropriate
Thwarted more often than other urges

5. Drives and Instincts
Eros (life instincts) – drives people towards acts that are life giving
Libido (energy behind eros) – drives people to experience sensual pleasure
Thanatos (death instincts) – drives people toward aggressive and destructive behaviors

6. Freud’s Psychoanalytic TheoryId
Primitive, unconscious portion of personality; houses most basic drives and stores repressed memories
Superego
Ego

7. Freud’s Psychoanalytic TheoryId
Mind’s storehouse of values, moral attitudes learned from parents and society; same as common notion of conscience
Superego
Ego

8. Freud’s Psychoanalytic TheoryId
Conscious, rational part of personality; charged with keeping peace between superego and id
Superego
Ego

9. Freud’s Model of the Mind

10. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Psychosexual stages: Successive, developmental periods with a characteristic sexual focus that leave their mark on adult personality
Oral Stage
Anal Stage
Phallic Stage
Latency
Genital Stage

11. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Ego defense mechanisms: Largely unconscious mental strategies employed to reduce the experience of anxiety or guilt
Repression: keeping distressing thought/feelings in the unconscious
Projection: attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another
Regression: reversion to immature patterns of behavior
Denial: arguing against an anxiety by stating that it doesn’t exist
Undoing: attempt to take back thoughts/ behaviors that are unacceptable

12. More Defense Mechanisms
Displacement: diverting emotional feelings from their original source to a substitute target
Reaction Formation: acting in a way opposite of one’s true feelings
Sublimation: acting out unacceptable impulses in a socially acceptable way
Rationalization: creating false, but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behavior

13. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Projective tests: Personality assessment instruments based on Freud’s concept of projecting hidden motives, interests, conflicts
Rorschach inkblot technique
Sentence completion
Free association
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

14. Rorschach Inkblot

15. Thematic Apperception Test

16. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Psychic determinism: Freud’s assumption that all mental and behavioral reactions are caused by unconscious traumas desires or conflicts
Nothing is accidental

17. Carl Jung: Extending the Unconscious
Believed that Freud overemphasized sexuality at the expense of other unconscious needs and desires
Disputed the structure of the unconscious
Personal unconscious: Portion of the unconscious corresponding roughly to Freud’s id
Collective unconscious: Jung’s addition to the unconscious, involving a reservoir for instinctive “memories” including the archetypes, which exist in all people

18. Carl Jung: Extending the Unconscious
Archetypes
Animus
The male archetype
Anima
The female archetype
Shadow

19. Carl Jung: Extending the Unconscious
Animus
Archetype representing the destructive and aggressive tendencies we don’t want to recognize in ourselves
Anima
Shadow

20. Humanistic Theories Third Force
Focus on mental capabilities that set humans apart
Innate drive to grow and fulfill potential
How people view the world and respond
Humanistic Theories include
Gordon Allport’s trait theory
Abraham Maslow’s self-actualizing personality
Carl Roger’s fully functioning person

21. Gordon Allport and the Beginnings of Humanistic
Traits: Stable personality characteristics that are presumed to exist within the individual and guide his or her thoughts and actions under various conditions
Central traits form the basis of personality
Secondary traits include preferences and attitudes
Cardinal traits define peoples lives

22. Abraham Maslow and the Healthy Personality
Self-actualizing personalities: Healthy individuals who have met their basic needs and are free to be creative and fulfill their potentials

23. Carl Rogers’s Fully Functioning Person
Fully functioning person: Term for a healthy, self-actualizing individual, who has a self-concept that is both positive and congruent with reality

24. Carl Rogers’s Fully Functioning Person
Phenomenal field: Our psychological reality, composed of one’s perceptions and feelings
Unconditional positive regard: Love or caring without conditions attached

25. Evaluating Humanistic Theories
Positive psychology: Movement within psychology focusing on the desirable aspects of human functioning, as opposed to an emphasis on psychopathology

26. Social-Cognitive Theories
More scientific; driven by expectations, too
Based on principles of learning (Bandura)
Observational learning: Process of learning new responses by watching the behavior of others
Personality is a collection of learned behavior patterns (skills, attitudes, beliefs, fears)
Reciprocal determinism: Process in which the person, situation and environment mutually influence each other

27. Reciprocal Determinism
Cognition
Environment
Behavior

28. What Persistent Patterns are Found in Personality?
Another approach describes personality in terms of stable patterns known as temperaments, traits, and types

29. Patterns in Personality
The Big Five (McCrae) - handout
Type: Clusters of traits that are not only central to a person’s personality but are found with essentially the same pattern in many people
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Person-situation controversy: Theoretical dispute concerning the relative contribution of personality factors and situational factors in controlling behavior (criticizes trait theory)

30. Assessing Traits NEO-PI (Big Five Inventory)
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)
Must be valid and reliable!!!
Measure what it is supposed to and be consistent!

31. What “Theories” Do People Use to Understand Each Other?
People everywhere develop implicit assumptions (“folk theories”) about personality, but these assumptions vary in important ways across cultures

32. Implicit Personality Theories
Implicit personality theories: Assumptions about personality that are held by people to simplify the task of understanding others
Fundamental attribution error: Assumption that another person’s behavior (especially undesirable behavior) is the result of a flaw in the personality, rather than in the situation