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: 
        1. Move away from each other, seeking independence and self-sufficiency. 
        2. Move toward others, tending to compliant and dependent. 
        3. 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.