personality

Class Notes - Personality
An individual's characteristic way of behaving across different situations and over time.  Includes affects, behaviors, and cognitions (A,B,Cs) of people that characterize them in many situations over time.  Personality theories look for ways describe how individual remain same over time and circumstances and allow for descriptions of differences among people.    THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Type Theories Trait Theories Psychodynamic Theories Humanistic Theories Social-Learning and Cognitive  TYPE THEORIES Types are distinct patterns of personality characteristics  Four-Humors Theory Hippocrates - personality or temperament associated with four basic fluids or humors of body  Blood = sanguine temperament: cheerful and active  Phlegm = phlegmatic temperament: apathetic and sluggish  Black Bile = melancholy temperament: sad and brooding  Yellow Bile= choleric temperament: irritable and excitable  William Sheldon - personality related to somatotypes or body builds  Endomorphic = fat, soft, round: relaxed, fond of eating, and sociable  Mesomorphic = muscular, rectangular, strong: physical, filled with energy, courageous, and assertive  Ectomorphic = thin, long, fragile: brainy, artistic, and introverted  TRAIT THEORIES Tend to be more concerned with adequate description of personality that explanation of personality.  Traits are descriptive dimensions.  Not simple either/or propositions  Traits fall along a continuum.  Traits are stable characteristics of person that determine patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavior.  Gordon Allport - one most influential, viewed traits as building blocks of personality  Cardinal traits - traits around which person organizes life  Central traits - represent major characteristics of person  Secondary traits - enduring qualities, but not assumed explain general behavior patterns  Hans Eysenck - proposed model that links types, traits and behavior into hierarcial system  Big Five Factors - five basic dimensions underlying traits used to describe selves and others  Extroversion: talkative, energetic, and assertive, versus quiet, reserved, and shy  Agreeableness: sympathetic, kind, and affectionate, versus cold, quarrlesome, and cruel  Conscientiousness: organized, responsible, and cautious, versus careless, frivolous, and irresponsible  Emotional stability: stable, calm, and contented, versus anxious, unstable, and temperamental  Openness to experience: creative, intellectual and open-minded, versus simple, shallow, and unintellegent  PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES Based on Freud's - assume powerful inner forces shape personality and motivate behavior.  Unconscious Process  Unconscious is psychic domain which not aware; store house primitive and repressed impulses  Freudian slip - accidental speech or behavior reveals unconscious desires  Drives and Instincts  Eros - driving inner force related to sexual urges and preservation of species  Libido - concept of psychic energy that drives individuals to experience sensual pleasure  Thanatos - negative force driving toward aggressive and destructive behaviors  Psychic Determinism - assumption that all behavior and mental reactions determined by earlier life experience  Early Childhood Experiences - Psychosexual stages of development ... successive, instinctive patterns associating pleasure with stimulation specific bodily areas at different time life  Psychosexual Stages of Development Oral stage - birth to 1 year; pleasure from oral activities - feeding, sucking, making noises  Anal Stage - 1 to 3 years; develop ability control bowel and bladder functions  Phallic Stage - 3 to 5 years; "penis envy"; Oedipus complex; Electra complex  Latency Stage - 4 to 6 years; sexual development on hold  Genital Stage - Puberty on; sexual reawakening and renewal  Fixation - arrested development due to excessive stimulation or frustration in earlier stage  Personality Structure Id - primitive, unconscious part stores fundamental drives  totally inborn or inherited portion of personality  resides in unconscious level of mind  driving force of id is libido  Operates on pleasure principle  Ego - personal view of physical and social reality  Develops through experience with reality  Rational, reasoning part  Operates on reality principle  Mediates between Id and Superego  Superego - values, moral attributes from society  One's sense of morality or conscience  Operates on idealistic principle  Has no contact with reality  Ego Defense Mechanisms Mental strategies employed to reduce experience of conflict or anxiety. Anxiety result of unresolved conflicts between Id and Superego.  Repression - forgetting some anxiety-producing desire or event.  Denial - person simply refuses to acknowledge realities of anxiety-producing situation.  Rationalization - making excuses for behavior rather than facing anxiety-producing, real reasons.  Fantasy - an excape from anxiety through imagination and daydreaming.  Projection - seeing in others motives, or traits, that would make us anxious to see in ourselves.  Regression - return to earlier, more primitive, childish level of behavior.  Displacement - refers to aggression. Directing motives or behaviors at substitute person or object rather than expressing directly.  Using defense mechanisms is normal reaction, but can become maladaptive.  Neo-Freudians Alfred Adler - we are very much products of social influences on personality.  Major goal is achievement of success or superiority.  This is to overcome childhood inferiority complex.  Carl Jung - major goal in life is to bring together in unity all aspects of personality.  Accepted unconscious mind - called it "personal unconscious"  Collective Unconscious contains very basic ideas and notions that go beyond own experiences.  Contents of collective unconscious are archetypes - universal forms and patterns of thought.  Karen Horney - emphasis on early childhood experiences.  Basic anxiety develops when child feels isolated and alone in hostile environment.  If parents inconsistent, indifferent, or overly punishing, child may develop basic anxiety.  People interact with each other in three distinct ways:  Move away from each other, seeking independence and self-sufficiency.  Move toward others, tending to compliant and dependent.  Move against others, where effort is to be in control, to gain power and dominance.  First to take Freud to task for his "male chauvinist" ideas.  HUMANISTIC THEORIES Self-actualization constant striving to realize one's potential - to fully develop capactities and talents  Unconditional Positive Regard - acceptance and approval of person not contingent on person's behavior  This approach is not deterministic - what matters is how people view themselves and others.  Focus on here and now  Emphasizes wholeness or completeness of personality.  Carl Rogers - person-centered or self theory.  Developed view through clinical settings  Most overwhelming human drive is drive to become fully functioning.  Involves openness to one's self and feelings and desires.  Should have unconditional positive self-regard  What is important is not what is but what is felt or perceived.  Abraham Maslow - major goal in life is need to realize positive needs, to self-actualize.  Saw psychology as too pessimistic and negative.  Hierarchical arrangement of motives.  Low level needs basic survival or deficiency needs  Higher level needs called meta-needs or growth needs  SOCIAL-LEARNING AND COGNITIVE THEORIES Focus on environmental contingencies that control behavior  Dollard and Miller demo could learn by social imitation and emphasized role of habits in explaining behavior  Social Learning Observational learning - process learning new responses by watching other's behavior  Reciprocal determinism - process which person, situation, and environment mutually influence each other  Self-effacacy - belief that one can perform adequately in particular situation  Personal Construct Theory - George Kelly. Personal construct is unique system for interpreting reality  BEHAVIORAL-LEARNING APPROACH John Watson and followers argued that psychology should turn away from study of mind and consciousness cause they are unverifiable and ultimately unscientific.  Should study observable behavior  Personality theory not needed.  Instincts and innate impulses have little to do with development of behavior.  B.F. Skinner claimed to have proposed no particular theory of learning much less personality.  Refused refer to any sort internal variables to explain behavior.  Behavior is shaped by consequences.  John Dollard and Neal Miller tried use basic principles of learning theory to explain personality and how it develops.  Personality grows out of system of habits one develops in response to various cues in environment.  Behavior motivated by primary drives and learned drives.  Motivated by drives, habits reinforced become part one's personality.  Miller - conflict explainable terms tendencies (habits) to approach or avoid goals.  Albert Bandura - many aspects behavior and personality are learned -- often learned through observation and social influences.