Chapter 10: Personality: Theory and Measurement

1. Chapter 10: Personality: Theory and Measurement

2. Learning Outcomes • Describe the psychoanalytical perspective and how it contributed to the study of personality. • Explain the trait perspective and the “Big Five” trait model.

3. Learning Outcomes • Identify the contributions of learning theory to understanding personality. • Describe the humanistic-existential perspective on personality.

4. Learning Outcomes • Describe the sociocultural perspective on personality. • Describe the different kinds of tests psychologists use to measure personality.

5. What is Personality? • Personality consists of the reasonably stable patterns of emotions, motives, and behavior that distinguish one person from another

6. The Psychodynamic Perspective

7. Psychodynamic Theory • Sigmund Freud • Personality characterized by conflict • Conflict is first external, then internalized • Our behavior is the result of these inner conflicts

8. Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development • Three levels of awareness • Conscious, preconscious, unconscious • Unconscious urges are kept below the surface by repression • Psychoanalysis • Form of therapy used to explore the unconscious mind

9. The Human Iceberg According to Freud

10. Structure of Personality • Three psychic structures of personality • Id – pleasure principle • Ego – reality principle • Defense Mechanisms • Superego – moral principle • Identification

11. Stages of Psychosexual Development • Stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital • Fixations at any stage are expressed by characteristics of that stage • Oral Fixation • Anal Fixation

12. Stages of Psychosexual Development • Oral Stage • Conflict centers on nature and extent of oral gratification • Excessive or insufficient gratification leads to fixation • Anal Stage • Focuses on the control of elimination of waste • Learn to delay gratification – self-control

13. Stages of Psychosexual Development • Phallic Stage • Oedipus or Electra complex • Resolved through identification with same sex parent • Latency • Sexual feelings remain unconscious • Genital Stage • Incest taboo

14. Neo-Freudians • Carl Jung - Analytical Psychology • Downplayed importance of sexual instinct • Collective unconscious • Archetypes

15. Neo-Freudians • Alfred Adler – Individual Psychology • People are motivated by an inferiority complex • Drive for superiority • Creative self

16. Neo-Freudians • Karen Horney • Argued girls do not feel inferior to boys • Social relationships are more important than unconscious sexual and aggressive impulses

17. Neo-Freudians • Erik Erikson – Psychosocial Development • Eight stages named for traits that should develop at each stage • First stage – trust versus mistrust • Goal of adolescence is attainment of ego identity

18. Evaluation of Psychodynamic Perspective • Shift to examination of problems as having a psychological source • Focused attention on childhood experiences • No evidence for existence of psychic structures • Problems with clinical method for gathering evidence

19. Truth or Fiction? • Biting one’s fingernails or smoking cigarettes is a sign of conflict experienced during early childhood.

20. Truth or Fiction? • Biting one’s fingernails or smoking cigarettes is a sign of conflict experienced during early childhood. • FICTION!

21. The Trait Perspective

22. What are Traits? • Traits are reasonably stable elements of personality that are inferred from behavior

23. History of the Trait Perspective • Hippocrates (ca. 460-377 BCE) • Personality depends on the balance of four fluids (humors) in the body • Disease was reflected by imbalance and was restored through bloodletting and vomiting

24. Truth or Fiction? • Bloodletting and vomiting were once recommended as ways of coping with depression.

25. Truth or Fiction? • Bloodletting and vomiting were once recommended as ways of coping with depression. • TRUE!

26. History of the Trait Perspective • Charles Spearman – factor analysis • Heritable traits embedded in nervous system • Gordon Allport (1936) • Catalogued 18,000 human traits

27. Hans Eysenck’s Trait Theory • Focus on relationship between • Introversion – Extraversion • Stability – Instability (Neuroticism)

28. Truth or Fiction? • Twenty-five hundred years ago, a Greek physician devised a way of looking at personality that—with a little “tweaking” —remains in use today.

29. Truth or Fiction? • Twenty-five hundred years ago, a Greek physician devised a way of looking at personality that—with a little “tweaking” —remains in use today. • TRUE!

30. Eysenck’s Personality Dimensions and Hippocrates’ Personality Types

31. The “Big Five”: The Five-Factor Model • Five basic personality factors • extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience • Research has shown cross-cultural application and relationship to inborn temperament • Popular means of developing personality “types”

32. The “Big Five”: The Five-Factor Model

33. Truth or Fiction? • Actually, there are no basic personality traits. We are all conditioned by society to behave in certain ways.

34. Truth or Fiction? • Actually, there are no basic personality traits. We are all conditioned by society to behave in certain ways. • FICTION!

35. Biology and Traits • Biological factors related to traits • Heredity, Neurotransmitters • Temperament • Shyness and behavioral inhibition • Antisocial personality disorder

36. Evaluation of Trait Model • Personality tests have been used to identify “types” related to certain occupations • Trait theory has been more descriptive than explanatory

37. Positive Psychology and Trait Theory • Character Strengths and Virtues • Virtuous traits

38. Learning-Theory Perspectives

39. Behaviorism • John B. Watson • Focus on determinants of observable behavior, not unseen, undetectable, unconscious forces • B.F. Skinner • Emphasized the effects of reinforcements on behavior • Criticism • Ignored the role of choice and consciousness

40. Social Cognitive Theory • Albert Bandura • Focuses on learning by observation and cognitive processes of personal differences • Person and Situational Variables

41. Person Variables and Situational Variables in Social-Cognitive Theory

42. Social Cognitive Theory • Predicting behavior is based on • Expectancies about the outcome, and • Subjective values perceived about those outcomes • Self-efficacy expectations • Beliefs we can accomplish certain things

43. Observational Learning • Modeling or cognitive learning • Acquiring knowledge by observing others

44. Biology, Social Cognition, and Gender-Typing • Gender-Typing • Evolution – natural selection • Biology – prenatal levels of sex hormones • Social cognition – observation • Gender Schema Theory • gender schema

45. Evaluation of Learning Perspective • Emphasize observable behaviors which can be measured • Emphasize environmental conditions • Avoid internal variables • Social cognitive theory does not explain self-awareness and genetic variation

46. The Humanistic-Existential Perspective

47. What is Humanism? • Humanism argues people are capable of • free choice • self-fulfillment • ethical behavior • Existentialism

48. Abraham Maslow and the Challenge of Self-Actualization • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs • Conscious need for self-actualization

49. Carl Rogers’ Self Theory • Self • Your ongoing sense of who and what you are • Your sense of how and why you react to the environment • How you choose to act on the environment • Self Theory • Focuses on nature of self and conditions that allow the self to develop freely

50. Self-Concept and Frames of Reference • Self-Concept • Our impressions of ourselves and our evaluations of our adequacy • Frames of Reference • The way in which we look at ourselves and the world