Theories of personality

Jefferey Alan Gray

(Biopsychological theory of personality) proposed personality is governed by the behavioural inhibition (punishment/avoidance) and activation (reward) system. (acronym: 50 shades of Gray is based on punishment/rewards)

Social cognitive theory

(originally called social learning theory) is theory of behaviour change that emphasizes interactions between people and their environment. Unlike behaviourism (where environment controls us entirely), cognition is also important. o Social factors, observational learning, and environmental factors (ex. opinions/attitudes of friends and family) can influence your beliefs.

Raymond Cattel

- Proposed we all had 16 essential personality traits that represent basic dimensions of personality. Turned this into the 16 personality factor questionnaire (16 PF). (Acronym: 16 Cattell)

Hans Eysenck

- We all poses all traits which we express to different degrees. (Allport said we have diff unique subsets, while Eysenck says we all have them but just express them in different degrees) o Eysenck says we have 3 major dimensions of personality, which encompass all traits we all possess, but the degrees to which we individually express them are different. We all express varying degress of neuroticism and extraversion, but we all don't necessarily have psychoticism. These 3 are: o extroversion (vs. introversion) - degree of sociability o neuroticism -emotional stability o Psychoticism -degree to which reality is distorted. • We do not all necessarily have psychoticism. o Use acronym: PEN (Eysenck's PEN)

Myers Briggs Personality test

Carl Jung - 4 letters that characterize you in one of 16 personality types. There are a set of traits/behaviors based on these! o ESTJ: extraversion (E), sensing (S), thinking (T), judgment (J)- (Acronym: East ST. Johns High school) o INFP: introversion (I), intuition (N), feeling (F), perception (P) (Acronym: I Need the Feeling of Pain)

Maslow and Rogers

HUMANIST MASLOW ACTUALIZES, HUMANIST ROGERS ACCEPTS). Humanistic Rogers genuinely believes that people can actually reach self-actualization through self-actualization. • Both Rogers + Maslow: o Central feature of our personality is self-concept - achieved when we bring genuineness and acceptance together to achieve growth-promoting climate. o When there's discrepancy between conscious values and unconscious true values leads to tension, must be resolved. o Genuine + acceptance = self-concept o Importance of congruency between self-concept and our actions to feel fulfilled.

Id

Id at the bottom, it's the unconscious part. It develops after birth and demands immediate gratification.

Freud and our minds

These three parts are the id, ego, and superego (ACRONYM: Immature Entertainer Sydney). They exist in either the unconscious or conscious mind. o Conscious mind: top of iceberg is the conscious part of mind (small, tip of the iceburg), These are the mental functions you are aware of. o Unconscious mind is the bottom part of the iceberg is the larger part of the mind (most of the mind is unconscious just like most of an iceberg is beneath water). Consists of primitive, instinctual wishes and information that cannot be accessed. • Not to be confused with Subconscious mind/precocious mind: consists of information that becomes accessible once you direct your attention to it (memory recall for example).

Gordon Allport

all of us have different traits. Came up with list of 4500 different descriptive words for traits. From those he was able to come up with 3 basic categories of traits: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits. Individuals have a subset of traits from a universal set of possible traits. o Cardinal traits are characteristics that direct most of person's activities - the dominant trait that influence all of our behaviours, including secondary and central traits. o Central trait - Less dominant than cardinal. ex. honesty, sociability, shyness. o Secondary trait - preferences or attitude. Ex. love for modern art, reluctance to eat meat. o Acronym: A Cardinal named Allport Can Sing (Central, Cardinal, Secondary) .

Albert Bandora

and did the Bobo Doll Experiment. Cited when people debate if they should ban violent video games. It's a blow-up doll you can punch. BOBO AL o Had group of children doing arts and crafts, but in middle of it suddenly man appeared and started hitting this inflatable Bob doll. Also screaming "kick it, hit it, etc". Did for 10 minutes straight. Some children observed the behavior, others weren't fazed. o Then man left, and researchers gave kids an impossible puzzle to solve to frustrate the children. Researchers brought into the room Researched how the kids reacted to frustration. Many children would come up to the doll and hit it, and ones hitting it were yelling kick it, hit it - the same words as the man whom they learned the behavior from. Revealed that kids can observe and learn from it. o Why people use this to argue to ban violent games and movies. o But learning behavior vs. performing it is different. Many of the kids were aggressive to the doll, others weren't aggressive. So how come some kids different? Did the other kids learn the behavior?

Pavlov

associated with classical conditioning, ex. Pavlov dog experiment. Places a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to trigger an involuntary response. Ex. ringing a bell in presence of food causes dog to start salivating. o People have consistent behaviour patterns because we have specific response tendencies, but these can change, and that's why our personality develops over our entire lifespan. Constantly evolving and changing.

Superego

develops around age of 4, and it's our moral conscience. Also part of conscious and unconscious minds. o Our libido impulses are what want to be gratified - when overgratified or partially/not gratified at all, fixation occurs at a certain stage. Face conflict/anxiety. It's a conflict between these 3 mental structures - ego, id, and superego. They're all competing for demand, so in conflict.

Pathological defense mechanism

distort reality o Denial - person pretends something hasn't happened. Most important defence mechanism. (acronym: PATHOLOGICAL liar/denier) • Ex; if someone has breast cancer, they just deny the fact that they do.

C. Robert Colinger

linked personality to brain systems in reward/motivation/punishment, such as low dopamine correlating with higher impulsivity. (acronym: Clone-iger cares about them brain systems - Clone the Brain)

Neurotic defense mechanism

o (acronym: 3RID) o Intellectualization - taking intellectual aspects and detaching to the emotional aspects of the situation. Separating emotion from ideas o Rationalization - making yourself believe you were not on fault - avoids blame to oneself. Can have false logic or false reasoning. o Regression - acting like a baby in some situations ex. throwing temper tantrum, start whining. o Repression - unconscious process where thoughts pushed down to unconscious o Displacement - person anger at someone but displaces it to someone else (a safer target). • Ex: mother who is mad at her husband gets mad at her child o Reaction Formation - unconscious feelings that make person to complete opposite. • Ex. A mother who bears an unwanted child, for example, may react to her feelings of guilt for not wanting the child by becoming extremely solicitous and overprotective to convince both the child and herself that she is a good mother. • Ex: a person who doesn't like immigrants might start to volunteer at an immigration center

Mature

o Acronym: Mature HASS o Humor - expressing humor/jokes to be truthful and alleviate feelings but make them socially acceptable. o Sublimation - channeling negative to positive energy. Ex. Violent energy, instead of expressing violence you become a boxer. Transform into socially acceptable behaviors. o Suppression - conscious thought get pushed to unconscious but can access thoughts at a later time. o Altruism - in service of others - we feel fulfilled and gain pleasure/satisfaction.

Second bandora experiment

o Did second experiment, set up TV that showed a bobo doll and someone being aggressive to it. But difference here was video showed afterwards that person was punished. Some of the kids again walked up to bobo doll and hit it. What about kids that didn't? • Researchers bribed kids, offered them stickers/juice if they imitate behavior. Kids were able to imitate the aggressive behavior. Concept called learning-performance distinction - learning a behaviour and performing it are 2 different things. • Not performing it doesn't mean you didn't learn it!

Eros drive and thantos

o Eros Drives: Life Drive. Like health, safety, sex. Comes with love, cooperation, collaboration. Working with others to promote your and others wellbeing o Thantos: Death Drive. Self-Destructive/Harmful to Others. Comes with Fear, anger (inward or outward), hate.

Big 5 personality traits

o Openness - independent vs. conforming, imagining vs. practical), o Conscientiousness - careful vs. careless, disciplined vs. impulse, organized or not o Extroversion - talkative or quiet, fun loving or sober o Agreeableness - kind vs. cold, appreciative vs. unfriendly o Neuroticism - stable vs. tense, calm vs anxious, secure vs. insecure o Use acronym OCEAN • Cattell, Eysenck, and Big 5 all use factor analysis - a statistical method that categorizes and determines major categories of traits. Allport's theory did not, he used different methods. o Factor Analysis: Reduces variable and detects structure between variables. We get a final classification of personality after the factor analysis.

Immature defense mechanism

o Projection - throw your attributes to someone else - like accusing another person of being jealous when you are the one being jealous. (acronym: saying PP is immature (Projection and Passive Aggression) • Can cause projective identification - that person targeted with projection can starting believing, feeling, having thoughts of the attributes that were projected to them Ex. The person now actually feels jealous and the person can believe "I am a jealous person" o Passive Aggression - aggressively doing something for someone and failing to do it or doing it slowly. Passive way to express your anger.

Research about twins

o Results show even if twins reared separately, still had similar personalities (traits) which shows strong genetic component. Some traits showed a weak genetic component (twins had different personalities when studied in different environments) o Social potency trait - the degree to which a person assumes leadership roles and mastery of roles in social situations. Common in twins reared separately. o Traditionalism - tendency to follow authority also shown to be common in twins. o Weaker genetic traits - achievement, closeness o Specific genes that relate to personality, people with longer dopamine-4 receptor gene are more likely to be thrill seekers. o But of course, just because you have gene doesn't mean you'll express it - depends on environment as well. o Temperament - innate disposition, our mood/activity level, and is consistent throughout our life.

Ego

part of conscious and unconscious. Involved in our perceptions, thoughts, and judgements, and seeks long-term gratification.

Individual influences on behavior

projection (projecting own feelings of inadequacy on another), reaction formation (defence mechanism where someone says or does exact opposite of what they actually want/feel), regression (defence mechanism where one regresses to position of child in problematic situations), sublimation (defence mechanism where unwanted impulses are transformed into something less harmful).

Hans eysenck

proposed extroversion level is based on differences in the reticular formation (controls arousal and consciousness)- introverts are more aroused than extroverts so they seek lower levels of stimulation.

Skinner

strict behaviourist, associated with concept of operant conditioning. Uses rewards/punishment to increase/decrease behaviour, respectively.

Defense Mechanisms

ways to protect ourselves - a psychological shield against anxiety or discomfort of unconscious psychological processes. A way to protect ourselves when we have to deal with unconscious wants, feelings, desires, and impulses.

Trait theory

• A personality trait is a stable predisposition towards a certain behavior. Straightforward way to describe personality - puts it in patterns of behavior. Description of traits instead of explaining them. • Surface traits are evident from a person's behavior, while source traits are factors underlying human personality (fewer and more abstract). • What is a trait? A relatively stable characteristic of a person that causes individuals to consistently behave in certain ways. Combination and interaction of traits forms the personality.

Am i motivated to learn something?

• Am I motivated to learn something? o Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory - Attention, Memory, Imitation, Motivation. Acronym: "AM I Motivated?" o Ex. Want to teach you to draw a star. In order to learn it, need a long enough attention span, the memory to remember it, and be able to imitate it. Question is, are you motivated enough to do it? If you are, you do the action (draw the star). .

What do both principles do ?

• Both Reality and pleasure principle fill the task of gratification. With reality principle you might have to wait for gratification (may be a delay).

Rogers

• Carl Rogers is a humanistic theorist says qualities Maslow described are nurtured early in life, self-actualization is a constant growth process nurtured in a growth-promoting climate. In order for this climate to help someone reach self-actualization, 2 conditions that need to be met: o Growth is nurtured by when individual is genuine. One has to be open and revealing about themselves without fear of being wrong. o Second is growth is nurtured through acceptance - unconditional positive regard from others. This allows us to live up to our ideal selves. Allows us to be open and learn without fear of others looking at us differently if we do something wrong. Ex. Parent might yell at child but still love their child. o Genuine relationship with others and acceptance is what allows us to live upto our real self. • Ideal self: we can't live upto that is bounded by conditions.

Libido

• Central to his theory is libido. Libido is natural energy source that fuels the mechanisms of the mind. o When this energy is stuck/fixated at various stages of psychosexual development, conflicts can occur that have lifelong effects. o Fixation at a particular stage is what predicts adult personality. o Ex. someone fixated at oral stage (first stage) might have oral personality characteristics, such as smoking habits/overly talkative when they grow up.

Id, Ego,Superego example

• Ex. Id is on one shoulder and it's not getting immediate gratification, then we have superego on other shoulder, preaching to id about what's moral, and ego is in middle. • Id wants gratification, and is going back and forth with superego, so ego here is trying to gratify the id but it also has to take into account what the superego is saying. It's moral oversight. • The ego is part of the conscious and unconscious mind, so it acts as mediator between the unconscious desires of the id and the moral demands of the superego. (just remember superego is also conscious and unconscious as well) • Ex. a Freudian slip is example of mental conflict. Ex. financially stressed patient, please don't give me any bills - meant any pills.

Maslow

• First theorist of the humanistic theory was Abraham Maslow, who formed hierarchy of needs. Must first fulfill physiological needs of pyramid and work our way up, then safety, then love, self-esteem, and finally self-actualization. o Self-actualization is rarely achieved, only 1% of people ever reach it. Self-aware, caring, wise, and interests are problem-centered. They have a higher purpose that is focused on larger causes and less about basic aspects of life. They are striving to think of larger causes. Average person seeks to self-actualize but we don't achieve it.

Focus on what in behaviorist theory?

• Focuses on observable and measurable behaviour, rather than mental/emotional. o The psychoanalytic theory would be the most opposite of this theory (focuses on mental behaviour).

Biological theory

• Many variations to this theory, some relate to the brain and some to behaviour (the evolutionary psychology approach) instead of traits o Ex. A dominant Psychological (behavioral) biological Theory by Buss: Evolutionary psychology theorizes that males + females have different mating strategies that influence costs associated with passing on genes. Males can have many mates, females more selective due to cost of pregnancy. • The biologic theory suggests important components of personality are inherited, or determined in part by our genes.

Observational learning

• Observational learning (aka social learning/vicarious learning) is learned through watching and imitating others - such as modeling actions of another. o Mirror neurons found that support this. o Aggression is environmentally learnt and mass-media can have an performance effect (performance is situationally dependent depending on If the actor is rewarded or punished)

Personality

• Personality has memories, beliefs, urges, drives, and instincts that we are not always aware of that make up the unconscious. Says childhood experiences and unconscious desires o 2 instinctual drives motivate human behavior: • Libido -natural energy source - fuels energy of mind for motivation for survival, growth, pleasure, etc. • Death instinct - drives aggressive behaviours fuelled by unconscious wish to die or hurt oneself/others

Freud outline the pleasure principles and the reality principles

• Pleasure Principle: As a young child (or if you are immature) you want to immediately feel pleasure to avoid suffering. Not willing to compromise. o Ex. I want the candy now • Reality Principle: When we become mature, you need to sacrifice short term reward and replace it with long term gratification. Not always going to get what you want and the outside world might tolerate your behavior. You have to play by the roles of the real world and might have to compromise. "Play your role in the real world" o Ex. taking candy may get you in trouble.

Freud vs Rogers

• Primary difference between Freud's psychoanalytical theories is Freud's theory was deterministic - behaviour is determined by unconscious desires. • Humanistic Theory focuses on the conscious, and says people are inherently good, and we are self-motivated to improve (so we can reach self-actualization). (Freud theory focuses on mental conflicts (fixations))

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Sigmund Freud was a neurologist and went to study hypnosis, but this turned him to medical psychopathology. Psychiatry/psychology as we knew it was unknown before his work. • Psychoanalytic theory - says personality is shaped by childhood experiences person's unconscious thoughts/desires, feelings, and past memories (particularly experiences in childhood).

Behaviorist theory

• The behaviourist theory says personality is the result of learned behavior patterns based on a person's environment - it's deterministic, in that people begin as blank states and the environment completely determines their behavior/personalities. Do not take thoughts and feelings into account. Environment → BEHAVIOR

Humanistic theory

• The humanistic theory (developed by Carl Rogers) focuses on healthy personality development, and humans are seen as inherently good. The most basic motive of all people is the actualizing tendency (self-actualization), innate drive to maintain and enhance oneself to full potential. It also says that people have free will. Person will grow towards self-actualization as long as there are no obstacles.

Connecting behavioral to psychoanalytic approach

• What connects the observable (behavioral) to mental approach (psychoanalytic) approach? The cognitive theory, a bridge between classic behaviourism and other theories like psychoanalytic. Because cognitive theory treats thinking as a behaviour, and has a lot in common with behaviour theory (Albert Bandura comb)