Personality and Its Assessment

1. Personality and Its Assessment www.ablongman.com/lefton9e

2. What is Personality? • A pattern of relatively permanent traits, dispositions or characteristics • Give consistency to an individual’s behavior

3. The Psychodynamic Approach to Personality • Focuses on unconscious process • The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud • Early childhood experiences and fantasies • Oedipus Complex • Psychoanalysis

4. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud • Levels of Mental Life • a. Conscious • b. Preconscious • c. Unconscious • Freudian slip

5. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud • The Structure of the Mind • a. Id • Pleasure principle • b. Ego • Reality Principle • c. Superego

6. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud • Development of Personality • 5 psychosexual stages of personality development • Erogenous zones

7. Development of Personality • a. Oral Stage • Birth to age 2 • b. Anal Stage • Ages 2–3

8. Development of Personality • c. Phallic Stage • Ages 4–7 • Boys: Oedipus complex • Castration anxiety • Girls: Penis envy • Controversial • Insulting to women • Disputed by researchers

9. Development of Personality • d. Latency Stage • Ages 7 to puberty • e. Genital Stage • Onset of puberty through adulthood

10. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud • Sex and Aggression: The Two Great Drives • Drive toward life • Expressed through sex • Libido • Drive toward death • Expressed through aggression • Inner conflict from socially unacceptable behaviors or feelings

11. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud • Defense Mechanisms • Unconscious • Protect ego against anxiety • Have some element of repression

12. Defense Mechanisms • a. Rationalization b. Regression

13. Defense Mechanisms • c. Projection d. Reaction formation e. Displacement

14. Defense Mechanisms • f. Denial • Refusing to recognize the true source of anxiety • Sublimation • -- channeling unacceptable impulses into what is socially more acceptable • Only defense mechanism that tends to benefit society

15. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sigmund Freud • Freud Today • Some elements of truth: • Some behavior motivated by the unconscious • Children’s identification with parents • Defense mechanisms • However, theory is sharply criticized today • Overemphasis on sexual urges • Psychosexual stages rejected by many • Does not account for context and culture

16. The Psychodynamic Approach to Personality • Adler and Individual Psychology • Striving for Superiority or Success • Natural feelings of inferiority motivate striving for: • Superiority • Overcompensation

17. Adler and Individual Psychology • Family Constellations - Birth Order • Affect important personality characteristics • Early recollections • Style of life influences how we interpret early experiences • Adler’s theory less influential than Freud’s

18. The Psychodynamic Approach to Personality • Jung and Analytical Psychology • Analytical psychology • Self-realization or perfection • Collective unconscious – a shared collection or storehouse of archetypes • Archetypes – emotionally charged ideas and images inherited from one’s ancestors

19. Jung and Analytical Psychology • Quest for self-realization involves accepting specific archetypes • Shadow • Men must recognize their anima • Women must recognize their animus

20. Jung and Analytical Psychology Jung’s ideas widely known, but not widely accepted

21. The Theory of Karen Horney • a) Basic Anxiety – fear of abandonment in a potentially hostile world • b) The powerful role of culture in shaping personality • c) Described the “neurotic” personality

22. Can Personality Be Learned? • The Power of Learning • Operant conditioning explains personality for the behaviorists • Past experiences • Skinner

23. Trait and Type Theories • A trait is any readily identifiable, stable quality that characterizes how an individual differs from others • Related to disposition (biological) • Exist on a continuum • A type is a category or collection of related traits

24. Trait and Type Theories • The Five-Factor Model • 1. Neuroticism–Stability • 2. Extraversion–Introversion • 3. Openness to experience • 4. Agreeableness–Antagonism • 5. Conscientiousness–Undirectedness

25. Humanistic Approach • Focuses on well-adjusted people • Phenomenological approach • Focus on individuals’ unique experiences and how they interpret them • Emphasizes current, not past, experience • Focus on self-determination • Free will and responsibility

26. Humanistic Approach • Maslow and Self-Actualization • Hierarchy of needs • Studied psychologically healthy people • Very few become self-actualized

27. Maslow and Self-Actualization • Characteristics of self-actualized people • Accept themselves, others, and nature • Spontaneous, simple, and natural • Problem- not person-centered • Childlike appreciation of the world • High levels of social interest • Creative • Non-conformist • Everyone has the potential to be self-actualized • Theory is virtually untestable

28. Humanistic Approach • Rogers and Self Theory • Basics of Carl Rogers’s (1902 – 1987) theory • Three basic assumptions about behavior • People have potential for growth • Perceptions of the self and the world determine behavior • Personality development motivated by fulfillment

29. Basics of Rogers’s Theory • Three conditions necessary for fulfillment • Empathy • Unconditional positive regard • Congruent relationship

30. Rogers and Self Theory • The Self-Concept and the Ideal Self • Self-concept • Ideal self • Incongruence • Leads to anxiety • May motivate change

31. Humanistic Approach • Positive Psychology • Focuses on well-being, contentment, hope, optimism, and happiness

32. Cognitive Approaches • How we think affects how we feel and affects our behavior • Emphasis on personal construction of reality is similar to the humanistic approaches • Emphasis on cognition makes it dissimilar

33. Cognitive Approaches • Rotter and Locus of Control • Types • External locus of control • Internal locus of control • Influences how people identify causes of success and failure • Influences achievement

34. Cognitive Approaches • Bandura and Self-Efficacy • Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about whether she or he can successfully perform a specific behavior • Those with higher self-efficacy attribute success to internal factors

35. Bandura and Self-Efficacy • Observation of positive role models or receiving reinforcement increases self-efficacy • Self-efficacy determines and flows from feelings of self-worth

36. Personality Assessment • Process of evaluating individual differences • Goals of personality assessment • Explaining behavior • Diagnosing and classifying behavioral problems

37. Personality Assessment • Projective Tests • Use standard sets of ambiguous stimuli • Assumed that unconscious feelings and motives are projected onto the stimuli • Example: What is this? • Someone with high aggression might see a rocket • Someone else might see an angel • Related to psychodynamic approaches to personality

38. Projective Tests • 1. The Rorschach Inkblot Test • New scoring system • Little usefulness for diagnosing psychological problems • The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) • Lack of standardized scoring system • Create stories from ambiguous pictures

39. Personality Assessment • Personality Inventories • Most widely used psychological tests, next to intelligence tests • Well-constructed inventories are valid predictors of behavior

40. Personality Inventories • Myers–Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) • Based on Jung’s theory • Modalities define personality type • Four dimensions • Extraversion–Introversion • Sensing–Intuition • Thinking–Feeling • Judging–Perceiving