Psychology

1. Psychology Chapter 14 Lecture Questions Section 1 (pages 322-324) Revised March 2012

3. 1. What is a personality trait? Give some examples. • A trait is an aspect of personality that is considered to be reasonably stable. • We assume that a person has certain traits based on how the person behaves. • Traits are assumed to account for consistent behavior in different situations. • Examples of traits: • Aggressive • Out-going • Pessimistic • Demanding • Honest • Independent • Quiet • Lazy • Dominant • Friendly • Sensitive • Persuasive • Curious • Creative • Mischievous

4. 2. How did Hippocrates explain personality traits? • The ancient Greeks believed that the body contains fluids called humors. • Hippocrates suggested that traits are a result of different combinations of these bodily fluids. • Hippocrates believed that there are four bodily fluids, or humors, in the body.

5. 3. Explain the four humors according to the Greeks. • Yellow-bile— • Which was associated with a choleric, or quick-tempered, disposition. • Blood— • Which was connected with a sanguine, or warm and cheerful, temperament. • Phlegm— • Which was linked with a phlegmatic, or sluggish and cool, disposition. • Black-bile— • Which was associated with a melancholic, thoughtful temperament.

6. 4. What was done if it was believed there was a lack of balance in the humors? • Certain diseases and disorders were believed to reflect a lack of balance in these humors. • Methods such as bloodletting (the removal of blood from the body) and vomiting were recommended to restore the balance of fluids and one’s health. • Although there is no scientific evidence for Hippocrates’ biological theory, the terms based on his ideas remain in use today. • A cheerful person, for example, may still be called sanguine.

7. Hippocrates • Born about 460 B.C., Hippocrates lived in an age when most people thought illness was caused by demons or magic. • Hippocrates believed that poor hygiene and malnutrition cause disease. • He studied diseases carefully and taught his methods to other physicians. • He was competent at setting broken bones and at surgery. • He strongly believed that physicians have a moral responsibility to their patients. • Physicians (doctors) today still take the Hippocratic oath, in which they promise to practice medicine in an ethical and caring way.

9. 5. How many personality traits did Gordon Allport find? What was his belief about these traits? • In the 1930s, Allport searched through a dictionary to find every term that could describe a person. • He catalogued some 18,000 human traits from a search through lists of descriptive words. • Some of the words, such as short and brunette, describe physical traits. • Others, such as shy and emotional, describe behavioral traits. • Still others such as honest, concern morality. • Allport assumed that traits can be inherited and that they are fixed in the nervous system. • Allport’s research led him to conclude that traits are the building blocks of personality. • He believed that a person’s behavior is a product of his or her particular combination of traits.

10. 6. What did Hans J. Eysenck focus on? What’s an introvert? What’s an extrovert? • British psychologist Hans J. Eysenck focused on the relationships between two personality dimensions: introversion-extroversion and emotional stability-instability in the 1950s. • Stable people are usually reliable, composed, and rational. • Unstable people can be agitated and unpredictable. • An introvert tends to be imaginative and to look inward rather than to other people. • An extrovert tends to be active, self-expressive and gain energy from interaction with others.

11. 7. How is Eysenck’s scheme similar to the one suggested by Hippocrates? (use the diagram on page 324) • Eysenck cataloged various personality traits according to where those traits appear within the dimensions of introversion-extroversion and emotional stability-instability. • For instance, an anxious person might be highly introverted and emotionally unstable. • A reckless or impulsive person might be highly extroverted and unstable. • Eysenck’s scheme is similar to the one suggested by Hippocrates. • According to Eyensk’s dimensions, the (yellow-bile) choleric type would be extroverted and unstable; the (blood) sanguine type, extroverted and stable; the phlegmatic type, introverted and stable; and the (phlegmatic) melancholic type, introverted and unstable.

12. Eysenck’s Personality Dimensions

13. 8. Describe the five-factor model. • In psychology, the term “five-factor” refers to recent research suggesting that there may be five basic personality factors. • Extroversion— • Contrasts talkactiveness, assertiveness, and activity with silence, passivity, reserve. • Agreeableness— • Contrasts kindness, trust, and warmth with hostility, selfishness, and distrust. • Conscientiousness— • Contrasts organization, thoroughness, and reliability with carelessness, negligence, and unreliability. • Emotional Stability-Instability— • Contrasts reliability and coping ability with nervousness, moodiness, and sensitivity to negative events. • Openness to Experience— • Contrasts imagination, curiosity, and creativity with ;shallowness and lack of perceptiveness.

14. 9. What are the shortcomings of the trait approach? • The main shortcoming of the trait approach is that it describes personality but does not explain where traits come from.

15. Psychology Chapter 14 Lecture Questions Section 2 (pages 324-332)

16. 1. What does the psychoanalytic approach to personality teach? • The psychoanalytic approach teaches that all people—even the most well-adjusted—undergo inner struggles. • According to this approach, which became popular in the late 1800s, people are born with certain biological drives such as aggression, sex, and the need for superiority.

17. 2. Who originated this concept of “inner conflict”? How did he come up with this idea? • The “inner conflict” approach to personality theory owes its origin to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). • Freud was trained as a physician (doctor). • Early in his practice in Vienna, Austria, he was astounded to find that some people had lost feeling in a hand or had become paralyzed in the legs even though nothing was medically wrong with them. • He concluded that these problems must be emotional, he said these people were suffering from “hysteria”.

18. 3. Explain conscious and unconscious according to Freud. • Freud believed that conscious ideas and feelings occupy only a small part of the mind. • Many of people’s deepest thoughts, fears, and urges remain out of their awareness. • These urges are pushed into an unconscious part of the mind.

20. 4. What methods did Freud use to explore the unconscious mind? • One way in which Freud explored the unconscious is through psychoanalysis. • In psychoanalysis, people are encouraged to talk about anything that pops into their minds. • This is called the “talking cure”. • Freud also explored the unconscious through dream analysis. • He believed that people experience unconscious wishes in their dreams—often in disguised form. • Freud would ask people to record their dreams upon waking. • He would help them explore the dreams’ possible hidden meanings. • Another technique that Freud used was hypnosis. • He felt that people in a hypnotic state had better access to their unconscious thoughts. • Freud eventually abandoned hypnosis when people later denied the things they said when they were in a hypnotic state.

21. 5. What are the three psychological structures according to Freud? Explain each. • Freud believed that the mind has three basic psychological structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. • Id • The id is present at birth. • Represents basic drives such as hunger. • It demands pleasure through instant gratification and pays no attention to laws, social customs, or the needs of others. • It follows what Freud called the pleasure principle—the urge for an immediate release of energy or emotion that will bring personal gratification, relief, or pleasure. • The id is like the stereotypical two-year-old: “I want what I want, and I want it now.” • Prisons are full of id-dominated persons.

22. Psychological Structures • Ego • The ego develops because a child’s demands for instant gratification cannot be met or because meeting these demands may be harmful. • Freud wrote that the ego “stands for reason and good sense”. • The ego is guided by the reality principle—the understanding that in the real world we cannot always get what we want. • The ego seeks to satisfy the appetites of the id in ways that are consistent with reality. • For example, the id lets you know that you are hungry, but the ego lets you know that certain ways of satisfying your hunger—such as cooking a hamburger—are more appropriate than others—such as eating raw hamburger. • The ego does not have an easy job. • It is caught between the conflicting messages of the id and the superego.

23. Psychological Structures • Superego • The superego develops throughout early childhood. • It functions according to the moral principle, which incorporates the standards and values of parents and members of the community. • It provides us with our moral sense. • The superego acts as the conscience and floods the ego with feelings of guilt and shame when we think or do something that society defines as wrong. • For example, the id may urge, “You want to go out with your friends, Don’t study now!” while the superego warns, “You have to study or you will not pass the test.” • According to Freud, people with healthy egos—and thus healthy personalities—find ways to balance the id’s demands and the superego’s warnings. • In this case, the healthy ego would probably conclude, “Study now, and after you do well on the test, you can spend time with your friends.”

27. 6. According to Freud, what are defense mechanisms used for? List and describe the eight defense mechanisms discussed in the chapter. • Defense mechanisms are methods the ego uses to avoid recognizing ideas or emotions that may cause personal anxiety or worry. • They help to overcome the sense of dread and help to get on with life. • These defenses operate unconsciously.

29. Repression • One of the main Freudian defense mechanisms. • Repression removes anxiety-causing ideas from conscious awareness by pushing them into the unconscious. • Thus, it is a form of memory loss, intended to lessen anxiety levels. • An example would be repressing an unpleasant or painful memory from your childhood. • Since this memory is now in your unconscious, you do not have to be reminded of it. • Child abuse victims. • Death of a parent at a young age.

30. Rationalization • Another defense mechanism that protects us from unacceptable ideas in a different manner. • These ideas are not completely “repressed”, but they are distorted in one way or another. • This distortion allows us to feel little or no anxiety. • Rationalization is the use of self-deception to justify unacceptable behaviors or ideas. • An example would be a student who cheats during a test may explain, “I only cheated on a couple of questions—I knew most of the material.” • Stealing something from Wal Mart and claiming “they make billions of dollars a year and this only costs $5. • Getting cut from the baseball team, and then stating “I really did not want to be on the team anyway.”

31. Displacement • According to Freudian theorists, displacement is defined as the transfer of an idea or impulse from a threatening or unsuitable object to a less threatening object. • For example, a football player who is yelled at by his coach may go home an yell at his little brother. • This used to be called displaced anger or aggression. • Another example would be slamming a door instead of hitting the person that made you mad.

32. Regression • Freud believed that when an individual is under a great deal of stress he or she will return to behavior that is characteristic of an earlier stage of development. • For example, an adolescent may pout and refuse to speak to his/her parents when forbidden to go out with friends. • Similarly, an adult may become highly dependent on his parents following the breakup of his/her own marriage. • Spend more time or even move back in with their parent.

33. Projection • Freud believed that people sometimes deal with unacceptable impulses by projecting these impulses outward onto other people. • In other words, people see their own faults in other people. • For example, an individual who has hostile feelings towards another person, says “He/she doesn’t like me.” • They project their own negative feelings onto that person.

34. Reaction Formation • People who use the defense mechanism reactionformation act contrary to their genuine feelings in order to keep their true feelings hidden. • Someone who is attracted to another person may keep those thoughts out of their mind by being mean to that person. • A person who is angry with a coworker may behave in a “sickly sweet” manner toward that coworker to hide their true feelings from consciousness.

35. Denial • In the defense mechanism of denial, a person refuses to accept the reality of anything that is bad or upsetting. • For example, people who smoke cigarettes may ignore the risks of lung cancer and heart disease from smoking because they think, “It can’t happen to me”. • Another example would be denying that your mother’s diagnosis of cancer is correct and thus you seek another opinion.

37. Sublimation • Freud also believed that individuals can channel their basic impulses into socially acceptable behavior through a process called sublimation. • For example, a hostile student may channel aggressive impulses into contact sports, like boxing or football.

38. 7. List and describe the five stages of development according to Freud. • Freud believed that an individual’s personality develops through a series of five stages. • These stages of development begin at birth and continue to shape human personality through adolescence. • Children were said to encounter conflicts during each stage. • If the conflicts were not resolved, Freud believed that the child might become fixated, or stuck, at an early stage of development. • The child would then carry that stage’s traits into adulthood. • Thus, Freud believed that an adult’s psychological problems might actually stem from unresolved childhood conflicts.

39. The Oral Stage (1st year) • In Freud’s theory, psychological development begins in the first year of life. • He noted that infants are continually exploring their world by picking up objects and putting those objects into their mouths. • Infants also receive their main source of pleasure—food—with their mouths. • He theorized that the infant’s survival is dependent on the attention of adults. • A child whose caretakers do not meet his or her needs during this stage may become fixated at the oral stage. • Some examples of this fixation might include smoking, overeating, excessive talking, and nail biting. • In addition, as an adult, such a person might be inclined to have clinging, dependent interpersonal relationships.

41. The Anal Stage (1½ to 2½) • According to Freud, during this stage, children learn that they can control their own bodily functions, and the general issue of self-control becomes a vital issue to children. • Conflict during the anal stage can lead to two sets of adult personality traits. • So called anal-retentive traits involve an excessive use of self-control. • They include perfectionism and excessive needs for order and cleanliness

43. Phallic Stage (3rd year) • Young girls and boys begin to discover the physical differences between the two sexes and become more focused on their own bodies. • Children may also develop strong attachments to the parent of the opposite sex and hostility to the parent of the same sex. • In psychoanalysis, the Oedipus complex involves a male child, and the Electra complex involves a female child. • Freud argued that the complex emotions of the phallic stage can lead to severe psychological disorders later in life, including depression, excessive guilt, and anxiety.

44. Latency Stage (5 or 6 years old) • Freud believed by this time, children would have been in conflict with their parents for several years. • At this point, they would retreat from the conflict and repress all aggressive urges. • Latent means “hidden” , and during the latency period, impulses and emotions remain hidden, or unconscious.

45. Genital Stage (puberty) • The adolescent does not generally encounter any new psychological conflicts during this period but does become more aware of his or her own gender identity. • Instead, the conflicts of the early development stages resurface. • This is the final stage of psychological development.

46. 8. Who was Carl Jung? What was his theory called? • Jung (1875-1961) was one of Freud’s colleagues. • The Swiss psychiatrist fell into disfavor with Freud when he developed his own psychoanalytic theory. • This theory was known as analytic psychology. • It placed a greater emphasis on the influences of mysticism and religion on human behavior. • Jung also granted more importance to conscious thoughts than Freud did.

47. 9. How does Jung’s unconscious differ from Freud’s unconscious? • Jung, like Freud, was intrigued by unconscious processes. • But he dramatically altered Freud’s theory of these processes. • Jung believed that people have not only a personal unconscious which stores material that has been forgotten or repressed. • But also had a collective unconscious which stores human concepts shared by all people across all cultures.

48. 10. What is an archetype? • Archetypes are the structural components of the collective unconscious. • They are ideas and images of the accumulated experience of all human beings. • Examples include: supreme being, the young hero, the fertile and nurturing mother, the wise old man, the hostile brother, and even fairy godmothers, wicked witches, and themes of rebirth or resurrection. • Jung argued that although these images remain unconscious, they often appear to us as figures in our dreams. • He declared that these images influence our thoughts and feelings.

49. 11. Who was Alfred Adler? What is an inferiority complex? 12. What did Adler believe about personality? • Adler (1870-1937) was another follower of Freudian psychoanalysis. • Adler believed that people are basically motivated by a need to overcome feelings of inferiority. • To describe these feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, he coined the term inferiority complex. • He believed that all of us have some feelings of inferiority because of our small size as children. In some people, Adler theorized feelings of inferiority may be based on physical problems and the need to compensate for them. Adler was crippled by a disease called rickets and suffered from pneumonia. Adler also introduced the term sibling rivalry to describe the jealousies that are often found among brothers and sisters.

50. 13. Who was Karen Horney and what did she emphasis in her theory of personality development? • Horney pronounced (HAWR-ny), who lived from 1885 to 1952, agreed with Freud that childhood experiences play a major role in the development of adult personality. • She believed that the greatest influences on personality are social relationships. • Horney, like Freud, saw parent-child relationships to be of paramount importance. • Small children are completely dependent. • When their parents treat them with indifference or harshness, children develop feelings of insecurity that Horney termed basic anxiety.