Psych Unit 10

Trait Theories

*Developed by Gordon Allport, trait theorists focus on DESCRIBING people's personalities through the use of traits (a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act), not explaining them -Our characteristics are thought to be stable and consistent across different situations and times -Theorists use factor analysis (a statistical procedure used to identify clusters) to use correlations between traits in order to see which traits cluster together as factors *Some traits theorists take a nomothetic approach to personality traits, believing that the SAME basic traits can be used to describe ALL people -Hans and Sybil Eyesenck believed in classifying all people along an introversion-extroversion scale and a stable-unstable scale -Raymond Cattell developed the 16 PF (personality factor) test to measure the 16 basic traits present in all people *Paul Costa and Robert McCrae have proposed that personality can be described using the Big Five personality traits: 1. Conscientiousness 2. Agreeableness 3. Neuroticism 4. Openness 5. Extraversion -The Big Five is today's "common currency for personality psychology" as the BEST approximation of the basic trait dimensions *Some traits theorists take an idiographic approach to personality traits, believing that using the same terms to classify all people is impossible -Gordon Allport believed that although common traits are useful in describing all people, a full understanding of someone's personality requires looking at his/her personal traits **Allport differentiated between THREE different types of personality traits: A. Cardinal dispositions→ ONE trait that plays a pivotal role in virtually everything a person does ^Ex. Sociability & Oprah Winfrey B. Central dispositions→ traits that are less pervasive than cardinal traits but nonetheless generally influential and easy to identify ^Ex. Kindness, honesty, or friendliness C. Secondary dispositions→ traits that are much narrowly expressed, typically in a specific situation ^Ex. Shyness, irritability, or anxiety

Parts Of The Mind

*Freud believed that much of people's behavior is controlled by the unconscious mind (a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories), which we do NOT have access to -Within the unconscious mind, two INSTINCTS exist: Eros (life; the libido and sex) and Thanatos (death; aggression) -The conscious mind contains everything we are thinking about at any one moment -The preconscious mind contains everything that we could potentially summon to conscious awareness with ease *Psychoanalytic theory states that the personality consists of three parts: A. The Id (from birth)- propelled by the pleasure principle (immediate gratification); unconscious; ex. an infant crying B. The Ego (emerges at 2-3 yrs. old)- propelled by the reality principle (negotiates the desires of the id and environmental limitations); partly conscious and partly unconscious **The ego acts as the mediator between the id and superego **The ego uses defense mechanisms to protect the conscious mind from threatening thoughts C. The Superego (develops around age 5)- serves as the "voice of conscience" ; partly conscious and partly unconscious **The superego represents internalized ideals & provides the standards for judgment.. strives for perfection **Strong superegos lead to virtuous behavior and guilt; weak superegos lead to self-indulgence and remorselessness

Criticisms of Freud

*Freudian psychoanalysis face FOUR major criticisms: A. Freudian theory has little empirical evidence to support it **Patients that like the explanation argue its logic; patients who dislike the explanation are offering "evidence" of its truth B. Freudian theory has little predictive power C. Freudian theory overestimates the importance of early childhood and sex D. Freudian theory is objectionable to feminists **Karen Horney and Nancy Chodorow challenged the sexism of "penis envy" with "womb envy", and disagreed with Freud's belief that women have a weaker superego than men

Humanistic Theories

*Humanistic psychology (view of personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth; "third force") moved away from the determinism of psychoanalysis ("first force") and behaviorism ("second force") -Humanistic psychology emphasized the role of free will (an individual's ability to choose his or her own destiny) -Humanistic psychology includes the following: 1. People are innately good and able to determine their own destinies 2. Stressing the importance of a person's subjective experience and feelings 3. Focused on the importance a person's self-concept ("Who am I?") and self-esteem, or self-worth 4. People are motivated to reach their full potential or self-actualize The humanistic perspective has been criticized for THREE reasons: 1. The humanistic concepts are too VAGUE & SUBJECTIVE 2. The humanistic approach leads to SELF-INDULGENCE, SELFISHNESS, and the EROSION OF MORAL RESTRAINTS 3. The humanistic approach is NAIVE, as it fails to appreciate the reality of our human capacity for evil

Psychodynamic Theories

*Psychodynamic theories (aka neo-Freudian theories) are the modern-day approaches that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences -Neo-Freudians accept Freud's basic ideas: **Personality consists of the id, ego, & superego **Importance of the unconscious **Personality is shaped during childhood **Dynamics of anxiety & the defense mechanisms -Neo-Freudians broke off from Freud in two important ways: **Placed more emphasis on the conscious mind's role in interpreting experience and in coping with the environment **Doubted that sex and aggression were all-consuming motivations ^Emphasized loftier motives & social interactions *Major figures of the psychodynamic perspective include: A. Alfred Adler- focused on the conscious role of the ego; believed people are motivated by the fear of failure ("inferiority") and the desire to achieve ("superiority"); the "inferiority complex" B. Karen Horney- countered Freud's assumption that women have weak superegos and suffer "penis envy"; posited that men suffer from "womb envy" C. Carl Jung- proposed that the unconscious consists of TWO parts: the personal unconscious and collective unconscious **The collective unconscious contains archetypes (universal concepts that we all share as part of the human species)- includes the anima, animus, shadow, & persona *Neo-Freudians developed projective tests (a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics) to access the unconscious mind, like a "psychological x-ray" -Developed by Henry Murray, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) has people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes -Developed by Hermann Rorschach, the Rorschach inkblot test uses a set of 10 inkblots to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

Assessing Traits

*Reliability ("consistency") and validity ("accuracy") are a concern in personality assessment -The Barnum Effect (the tendency to accept certain information as true, even when the information is so vague as to be worthless (ex. horoscopes)) may lead to deception; SEE the MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR (MBTI) *Self-report inventories are questionnaires that ask people to provide information about themselves -These inventories are known as objective personality tests since people's scores are determined by their own answers and are thus unlikely to be affected by evaluator bias (?) **Subjective assessments, like interviews, decrease reliability and allow for bias, but may yield richer and more valid data *The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) is the most widely used self-report instruments -Originally used to identify mental disorders, the test is now used for general personality and occupational screening purposes -The MMPI-2 is considered empirical derived, objective, and highly valid to its creation using factor analysis and the inclusion of a "lie scale"

Psychosexual Stage Theory of Personality

*Sexual to Freud meant not the act of intercourse but how we get sexual pleasure from the world -Failure to resolve a significant conflict during one of the psychosexual stages results in fixation (a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies (libido) at an earlier psychosexual stage) **May be caused by under-gratification OR over-gratification *Freud described the FIVE psychosexual stages as the: A. Oral Stage (0-18 months): infants seek pleasure from their mouths (sucking and biting) **Fixation appears as overeating, smoking, and a childlike dependence on things and people; oral fixation B. Anal Stage (18-36 months): develops during toilet training (act of elimination) **Fixation appears as overly controlling behavior (anal retentive) or out of control behavior (anal expulsive) C. Phallic Stage (3-6 years): sexual gratification moves to the genitalia; children realize their gender and this causes conflict in the family **Girls develop penis envy (desire for a penis) and boys develop castration anxiety (fear that misbehavior will result in castration by their fathers) **Boys develop the Oedipus complex (a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father); girls experience the Electra complex ^Boys go through identification (emulating and attaching themselves to the father who they believe threatens them), which prevents boys from fearing their fathers and encourages detachment from their mothers **Fixation can result in people who appear excessively sexually assured/aggressive or, alternatively, consumed by their perceived sexual inadequacies D. Latency Stage (6-puberty): children experience a period of calm, with low psychosexual anxiety (result of repression **Children to other issues, like school, friends, and skills **Most psychologists do NOT consider this a separate stage E. Genital Stage (puberty on): people enter this stage and remain in it for the rest of their lives, seeking sexual pleasure through sexual relationships **Fixation appears as NORMAL sexual behavior

Psychoanalytic Theory (Freudian Theory)

*Sigmund Freud developed the first comprehensive theory of personality, which included: A. Freud's Psychosexual Stage Theory of Personality B. Freud's "Parts of the Mind" (Id, Ego, & Superego) C. Freudian Defense Mechanisms *Freud utilized free association (a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, not matter how trivial or embarrassing) as part of his theory of psychoanalysis (theory that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts) -"Slips of the tongue" ("Freudian Slips") and dream analysis (manifest vs. latent content (?)) were used to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Evaluating Trait Theories

*The main criticism of trait theories is that they underestimate the importance of the SITUATION -The person-situation controversy proposes that our behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner disposition with our environment, making the assessment and prediction of consistent behavior a challenge **Ex. A student that always arrives for class on time (dependable) may never complete their assignment by the due date (unreliable) **Seymour Epstein proposed assessing people's AVERAGE outgoingness, happiness, carelessness, etc. over many situations to establish predictability **Samuel Gosling promotes the evaluation of personality through the study of a person's music preferences, room spaces, personal websites, etc. due to the consistency of expressive style

Socia Cognitive Theories

*The social-cognitive perspective (aka the cognitive-behavioral model) views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context. -Albert Bandura views the person-environment interaction as reciprocal determinism (aka triadic reciprocality) in which the person (traits), the environment, and the person's behavior mutually influence each other in a constant looplike fashion **Example: ^Frank is a friendly person (person/trait) ^Because of his friendliness, Frank talks to a lot of people (behavior) ^Frank's friendliness and talkativeness leads him to attend lots of parties (environment) ^Since Frank attends so many parties (environment), he tends to talk more and more (behavior) and he is increasingly perceived as friendlier (person/trait) *Albert Bandura also proposed that personality is affected by a person's sense of self-efficacy (one's sense of competence and effectiveness) -Higher self-efficacy results in being more optimistic, while lower self-efficacy results in being more pessimistic **Being optimistic and believing in one's self-efficacy may result in a person acting in ways that result in greater success, resulting in a self-fulling prophecy -Julian Rotter claimed that a person's locus of control (internal vs. external) can impact how a person thinks and acts, influencing their personality... How so? *George Kelly developed the personal-construct theory which suggest that the differences between people result from the different ways that we predict and interpret events in the world around us -Identifying a person's constructs (fair-unfair; smart-dumb; exciting-dull) through past behaviors allows us to predict their future behavior

Major Figures of Humanistic Psychology

A. Abraham Maslow- proposed that we are motivated by a hierarchy of needs (motives) B. Carl Rogers- developed the person-centered perspective (aka the client-centered perspective), which states that a growth-promoting climate required THREE conditions: 1. Genuineness- people are transparent, self-disclosing, & open about their feelings; people drop their facades 2. Acceptance- people offer unconditional positive regard (an attitude of total acceptance toward another person) 3. Empathy- people share and mirror other's feelings and reflect their meanings **Rogers used questionnaires to gauge the self-concept of his clients by asking them to describe their ideal self compared to their actual self

Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are the ego's protective methods reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality; examples include: A. Repression- the basic defense mechanism; blocking thoughts out from conscious awareness **Not "remembering" an ex-partner after a heartbreaking break-up B. Denial- not accepting the ego-threatening truth **Acting like a couple is still together despite a break-up C. Displacement- redirecting one's feeling toward another person or object **Instead of hitting or yelling at an ex-partner, one takes out the anger on a weaker target D. Projection- believing that the feelings one has toward someone else are actually held by the other person and directed at oneself **Acting like an ex-partner wants to badly get back together E. Reaction Formation- expressing the opposite of how one truly feels **Acting like they loathe/hate the ex-partner F. Regression- returning to an earlier, comforting form of behavior **Sucking their thumb whenever they see their ex-partner G. Rationalization- coming up with a beneficial result of an undesirable occurrence **Acting like the break-up is an opportunity to date someone better H. Sublimation- channeling one's frustration toward a different, "healthy" goal **Devoting oneself to a new hobby, skill, or activity I. Intellectualization- undertaking an academic, unemotional study of a topic **Conducting unemotional research about why relationships fail