Psychology - Personality

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Personality: Relatively stable and enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Character: Refers to ethics, morals, values, and integrity.
The science of personality: 1. Describe individual differences in personality, 2. Explain how those differences come about, and 3. Predict individual behavior based on personality findings. Before this we must asses or measure it.
Measuring Personality: By interviews, observations, objective tests, and projective tests.
Interviews: Unstructured- interviewers get impressions and pursue hunches or let a person expand on information that promises to disclose personality characteristics. Structured- ask specific questions and follow a set of procedures so that the person being evaluated can be evaluated more objectively.
Observation: Observation as a scientific assessment procedure is a methodical process.
Objective tests: Standardized questionnaires that require written responses, typically to multiple-choice or true-false items.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): The most widely research and clinically used self report personality test (MMPI-2 is the revised version). The ask questions about unusual or abnormal behavior because there are to diagnose psychological disorders. This is not the same as career inventories.
Projective Techniques: Psychological tests using ambiguous stimuli, such as inkblots or drawings, which allow the test taker to project his or her unconscious onto the test material.
Rorschach Inkblot Test: A projective test that presents a set of 10 cards with symmetrical abstract patterns, known as inkblots, and respondents describe what they "see" in the image; their response is thought to be a projection of unconscious processes.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): A projective test that shows a series of ambiguous black and white pictures and asks the test taker to create a story related to each; the responses presumably reflect a projection on unconscious processes.
Are these tests accurate?: Interviews and professional training and the actual implementation. Objective tests (such as the MMPI) provide specific, objective information in a short period of time, but they have been criticized for deliberate deception and social desirability bias, diagnostic difficulties, and inappropriate use. Projective tests are believed to offer unique opportunities for accessing the unconscious, but, critics object to the expense and time required to administer and interpret them, and the relatively low reliability and validity.
Pseudo Personality Tests: Barnum effect, fallacy of positive instances, and self-serving bias.
Barnum effect: They people accept pseudopersonality test because they offer generalized statements that apply to almost everyone.
Fallacy of positive instances: People notice and remember events that confirm predictions and ignore the misses.
Self-serving Bias: People prefer information that maintains a positive self-image.
Module 34: Trait Theories
Trait: A relatively stable and consistent characteristic that can be used to describe someone.
Early Trait Theorist: the focus of early theorists was identifying the actual traits people possess and the degree to which they pervade the overall personality. Allport focuses on arranging the most important traits at the top of a hierarchy and the least important at the bottom. Cattell reduced the number of traits with a statistical technique called factor analysis. Eysneck believes personality can be described along three dimensions: introversion, extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.
Factor Analysis: Statistical procedure for determining the most basic units or factors in a large array of data.
The Five-Factor Model: Proponents of the FFM explain personality in terms of a "Big Five" model- openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Openness: People who rate high in the factor are original, imaginative, curious, open to new ideas, artistic, and interested in cultural pursuits. Low scorers tended to be conventional, down-to-earth, narrower in their interests, and not artistic.
Conscientiousness: This factor ranges from responsible, self-disciplined, organized, and achieving at the high end to irresponsible, careless, impulsive, lazy and undependable at the other.
Extroversion: Sociable, outgoing, talkative, fun loving, affectionate vs. withdrawn, quite, passive reserved
Agreeableness: good-natured, warm, gentle, cooperative, trusting, helpful vs. irritable, argumentative, ruthless, suspicious, uncooperative, vindictive
Neuroticism or Emotional Stability: Emotionally unstable, prone to insecurity, anxiety, guilt, worry, moodiness vs. emotionally stable, calm, even-tempered, easygoing, relaxed.
Evaluating Trait Theories: Critics point out three weaknesses; lack of explanation, the stability of these traits, and the effects of the situation on personality.
Walter Mischel: Emphasized the power of the situation, or environment, in determining personality. Honesty depends on the threat of detection or potential reward; it is not an internal personality trait.
Sigmund Freud: The psychoanalytic approach to personality emphasized the power of the unconscious and believed that the mind (or psyche) functioned on three levels, the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious.
Conscious: In Freudian terms, thoughts or motives that a person is currently aware of or is remembering.
Preconscious: Freud's term for thought or motives that one can become aware of easily.
Unconscious: Freud's term for thoughts or motives that life beyond a person's normal awareness but that can be made available through psychoanalysis. Stores our primitive, instinctual motives, plus anxiety laden memories and emotions.
Personality Structures: The id- the source of instinctual energy, which works on the pleasure principle and is concerned with immediate gratification. Ego- the rational part of the psyche that deals with reality by controlling the id, while also satisfying the superego; from the Latin term "ego" meaning "I". Superego- the part of the personality that incorporates parental and societal standards for morality.
Pleasure Principle: The principle on which the id operates- seeking immediate pleasure.
Reality Principle: The principle on which the conscious ego operates as it tries to meet the demands of the id and superego and the realities of the environment.
Morality Principle: The principle on which the superego operates, seeking morality.
Defense Mechanisms: Unconscious strategies used to distort reality and relieve anxiety and guilt when the needs of the id and superego are not filled.
Type of Mechanisms: Repression- preventing painful or dangerous thoughts from entering consciousness. Sublimation- working off unmet desires or unacceptable impulses in activities. Denial- protecting oneself from an unpleasant reality by refusing to perceive it. Rationalization substituting socially acceptable reasons. Intellectualization- ignoring the emotional aspects of a painful experience by focusing on abstract thoughts, words, or ideas. Projection- transferring unacceptable motives or impulses to others. Reaction formation- refusing to acknowledge unacceptable urges, thoughts, or feelings, by exaggerating the opposite state. Regression- responding to a threatening situation in a way appropriate to an earlier age or level of development. Displacement- substituting a less threatening object for the original object of impulse.
Psychosexual Stages: In Freudian theory, five developmental periods (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital) during which particular kinds of pleasures must be gratified if personality development is to proceed normally. How the conflicts at each of these stages are resolved is important to personality development. Anxieties arising from these early experiences are often avoided or distorted through defense mechanisms.
Neo-Freudian/Psychodynamic Theories: Followers of Freud, who later revised his theory, are known as neo-Freudians. Three of the most influential were Adler, Jung, and Horney. While they generally agreed with many of Freud's theories, they broke away because they emphasized different issues, such as, the formation of personality in the first five years and the role of social and cultural forces. Adler emphasized the "inferiority complex" and the compensating "will-to-power". Jung introduced the "collective unconscious" and "archetypes". Horney stressed the importance of "basic anxiety" refuting Freud's "penis envy," replacing it with "power envy."
Inferiority Complex: Adler's idea that feelings of inferiority developed from early childhood experiences of helplessness and incompetence.
Collective Unconscious: Jung's concept of an inherited unconscious that all humans share.
Archetypes: According to Jung, the images or patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior that reside in the collective unconscious.
Birth order: Adler was one of the first to make a connection between personality and birth order.
Evaluating Psychoanalytic Theories: Critics of the psychoanalytic approach, especially Freud's theories, argue that it is difficult to test, overemphasizes biology and unconscious forces, has inadequate empirical support, is sexist, and lacks cross-cultural support. Despite these criticisms, Freud remains a notable pioneer in psychology.
Freud's Accomplishments: 1. Emphasis on the unconscious and its influence on behavior. 2. The conflict among the id, ego, and superego and the resulting defense mechanisms. 3. talking openly about sex in Victorian times. 4. The development of an influential form of therapy, psychoanalysis; and 5. the sheer magnitude of his theory.
Module 36: Other Major Theories
Humanistic theories: Emphasize internal experiences, thoughts, and feelings that create the individual's self-concept. People are naturally good, (or, at worst neutral).
Roger's Theory: Carl Rogers emphasized the concepts self-esteem and unconditional positive regard. People with low self-esteem generally have poor congruence between their self concept and life experiences.
Self-Concept: Rogers' term for all the information and beliefs individuals have about their own nature, qualities, and behavior.
Unconditional Positive Regard: Rogers' term for positive behavior toward a person with no contingencies attached.
Abraham Maslow: Emphasized the basic goodness of human nature and a natural tendency toward self-actualization which is innate and motivates all of human behavior.
Self-Actualization: Maslow's term for the innate tendency toward growth that motivates all human behavior and results in the full realization of a person's highest potential.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Physiological, safety, belonging and love, esteem, self-actualization.
Evaluating Humanistic Theories: Critics of the humanistic approach argue that these theories are based on naïve assumptions, and have poor scientific testability and inadequate empirical evidence. In addition, their focus on description, rather than explanation, makes them narrow.
Social/Cognitive Perspective: Bandura and Rotter: Each of us has a unique personality because of our individual history of interactions with the environment, an because we thing about the world and interpret what happens to us.
Bandura's and Rotters's Approaches: Bandura's social-conitive approach focuses on self-efficacy and reciprocal determinism, while Rotter's locus of control theory emphasizes a person's internal or external focus as a major determinant of personality.
Self-efficacy: Learned beliefs that one is capable of producing desired results, such as mastering new skills and achieving personal goals.
Reciprocal determinism: Cognitions, behaviors, and the learning environment interact to produce personality.
Evaluating Social-Cognitive Theory: Emphasizes the interaction between the environment and the individual, and meets the standards for scientific research by offering testable and objective hypotheses as well as operationally defined terms. Critics argue the social/cognitive theories are too narrow, ignore unconscious and emotional components of personality, and overlook developmental aspects.
Biological Theories: The Nature of Personality: Three major contributor: Biological theories emphasize the role of the brain, neurochemistry, and genetics on personality. Recent research suggests that certain brain areas may account for certain traits such as sociability (extroversion) and shyness (introversion). Along these same lines, certain neurotransmitters that affect the level of arousal may be the source of some personality traits. Studies show a strong influence of hereditary factors on personality, but further research is needed before we have a cohesive biological theory of personality.
Biopsychosocial Model: Research on specific traits, such as extroversion and sensation seeking, support the biological approach. The biopsychosocial/interactionaist approach suggest that the major theories overlap and each contributes to our understanding of personality.
Cultural Concepts of Self: In an individualistic perspective, personality is seen as a composition of individual parts (traits and motives) and the self is bounded individual - separate and autonomous from others. In collectivist cultures, the self is inherently linked to others.

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