Personality Psychology

AP Psych. Prep 10

Personality

Personality is what makes us psychologically unique; our own common ways of thinking, acting, our emotional tendencies, etc.

A very common example of personality types is Type A and Type B personalities (a very pop-psychology idea; popular but not necessarily )

Type A and B Personalities

Type A people feel things are more urgent, they can feel stress more strongly, and are more easily angered. They tend to work hard and be very competitive. Research suggests that these people seem to be more at risk for stress related diseases.

Type B people are the opposite; more relaxed, less effected by feelings of urgency. But people dont all fit into these two groups easily

Psychological Views on Personality

Many psychological perspectives have thoughts on how our personality is formed, how it works, etc.

We will look at: Psychoanalytic / Freudian Psychodynamic / Neo-Freudian

Trait Theories
Biological Theories Behaviourism

Social-Cognition Theories
and Humanistic Theories

Psychoanalytic / Freudian

Freud thought our personality was decided in early childhood, partly by the psychosexual stages we go through (see Ch. 9) Psychosexual stages are discontinuous, and we all go through the same stages in the same order.

The reason we start to want to act like our same sex parent in the phallic stage is because of a defense mechanism.

Psychoanalytic / Freudian

Defense Mechanism - a mental mechanism or tool we use to try to protect our conscious mind from painful or threatening thoughts, feelings, memories.

In the phallic stage, the threat to our love for our opposite sex parent (threat from our same sex parent) causes us to use the Identification defense mechanism.

Psychoanalytic / Freudian

Identification Defence Mechanism - where we try to be like and be close to someone or something that we feel threatened by. This can happen at other times too, not just the phallic stage. Well talk about a few more defence mechanisms in a few minutes.

Psychoanalytic / Freudian

The main way personality is influenced by psychosexual stages is through fixation (when our natural psychic / mental energy libido is trapped or fixed in a stage)

Fixation in Oral Stage - leads adult to focus on the mouth, may cause overeating, chewing gum, smoking addition, etc. (called oral-fixation personality)

Psychoanalytic / Freudian

Fixation in anal stage can result in either anal expulsive personality - very messy, unorganized person, or, anal retentive personality - very neat, organized, compulsive person.

Note: Very hard to test with science, and very hard to falsify. Science likes to be able to falsify ideas. If theres no possibility to falsify its a big problem.

Psychoanalytic / Freudian

Fixation in phallic stage - person is either too confident and aggressive in sexual matters, or they lack a lot of confidence in this area.

Again, impossible to falsify. Any observation might be taken as evidence that your theory is right....

Psychoanalytic / Freudian

Our mind uses a lot of energy to keep damaging, uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and memories down safely in the unconscious.

Freud also thought our personality is made of 3 pieces: Id, Ego, and Superego.

Freudian - id, ego, superego

Id - in the unconscious, has energy and instincts.

Two types of instincts - Eros (life instincts) usually drive to have sex; and Thanatos (death instincts) - our aggressive drives.

Id is guided by the pleasure principle - the desire for instant gratification. It wants pleasure now.

Freudian - id, ego, superego

Then we have our Ego. Ego is guided by the reality principle. This means ego makes compromise between the id and the constraints of the environment.

Ego is partly in the conscious, and partly in the unconscious.

Freudian - id, ego, superego

Superego is the last piece. It is also found in both conscious and unconscious part of our mind.

Superego is our conscience - our sense of right and wrong, justice, fairness, etc.
This piece is the last to develop in our minds, around age 5.

Ego can also often negotiate between the demands of the Id and the Superego.

Defense Mechanisms

Ego also helps protect us by using defense mechanisms; we have lots of diff. defense mechanisms we can use:

Repression - hiding thoughts from our conscious mind. Denial - not believing or accepting the painful / threatening truth

Defense Mechanisms

Displacement - moving a feeling over to someone else or something else.

e.g. if we displace anger feelings that are unsafe, we might get angry at a different person, a less threatening, easy to dominate target.

Your Boss You

Child, Puppy

Freudian - Defense Mechanisms

Projection - believing that your feelings for someone are really the feelings that that person has towards you. e.g. if youre jealous of someones intelligence, you might instead believe they are jealous of you, to protect yourself from those feelings.

Freudian - Defence Mechanisms

Reaction Formation - outwardly expressing the opposite of what your really feel. e.g. Yah, shes really nice

Regression - going back to a previous, comfortable stage of life or behaviour

Defense Mechanisms

Rationalization - deciding that the thing is actually a good thing, and that it will have benefits or good future results. e.g. He was a crappy boyfriend anyway....

Intellectualization - studying the problem or topic in a very unattached, unemotional way.

Defense Mechanisms

Sublimation - moving frustrations into energy to work on another goal.

(i.e. turning the negative energy into positive energy)

This is often seen as the healthiest way to defend our conscious mind. The healthiest defence mechanism.

Freud - Criticisms

Most common criticism is little can be tested with science, and often observations in both directions can be taken as support for theory (things cant be falsified, so are unscientific).

Doesnt seem able to predict peoples problems ahead of time

Versus: hippocampus damage, exposure to traumatic situations (PTSD)

Freud - Criticisms

Seen to focus on early childhood too much (e.g. idea of personality being all formed by about age 5, which has not been supported by scientific research)

As well as being too focused on sexual things (some other psychodynamic theorists have focused more on other parts of our lives, reduced focus on sex).

Freud - Criticisms

Also seen by many as a sexist theory (ignores womens perspectives, too male centred)

Freud thought men had stronger superegos than women. Also his idea of penis envy - that girls/women were envious of men because they have penises, and the women also want to have a penis.

Freud - Criticisms

Female Psych. like Karen Horney and Nancy Chodorow thought that women might be envious of men because they had so much power in society, not because they had a different body part.

Karen Horney also suggested men could be envious of females ability to reproduce; she called this womb envy.

Psychodynamic / Neo-Freudian Theories

Branches of related theories from Freuds psychoanalysis. Carl Jung (pronounced Young) - thought we have two parts to our unconscious. The Personal Unconscious - like Freuds, with hidden threatening things (Jung called these Complexes) and Collective Unconscious - shared by all humans, the content is the same for all of us.

Neo-Freudian - Carl Jung

Collective Unc. holds Archetypes - universal ideas or characters that influence all of mankinds psychology. E.g.: The Shadow - evil side of human personality

Neo-Freudian - Carl Jung

Another Archetype: Persona - the idea of our public image, public self.

Common fear of the dark, importance of circles in many cultures was evidence for Jung of the Collective Unconscious.

Neo-Freudian - Alfred Adler

Adler is another psychodynamic theorist.

He didnt concentrate on the unconscious a lot. He thought people were motivated by a fear of failure (inferiority), and desire to achieve (superiority).

Also explored possibility of influence of birth-order on personality. This idea is not well supported by evidence.

Trait Theories

These are theories that believe we have pretty permanent traits inside us, and that personality is made up of these traits. Possible e.g. of traits - extraversion, laziness, friendliness, etc.

These kinds of things are seen to make up our personalities and therefore influence our behaviours, feelings, etc. in some consistent way.

Trait Theories - Two Main Types

There are lots of different Trait Theories, but we can divide them into two main types.

nomothetic - theories that think we can use the same traits to describe all personalities; even if people have different amounts, we all vary along the same measures.
vs. idiographic - theories that think peoples own individual personally important traits are the best way to describe personalities.

Trait Theories - Nomothetic

Hans Eyesenk - believed we all very across two spectra: introverted extraverted

stable

unstable

measuring peoples scores on these two lines can allow you to describe their personality well.

Eyesenk

Trait Theories - Nomothetic

Raymond Cattell - tried to measure what he thought were our 16 basic personality factors (16PF) Paul Costa and Robert McCrae - the Big Five Personality Factors Openness to Experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism (lack of emotional stability)

Trait Theories - Big Five

Openness to Experience - Explorers, want to try
new things, enjoy learning new things, creative, curious

Conscientiousness - responsible, people who

work hard, are diligent organized, etc.

Extraversion - outgoing, not shy, etc. Agreeableness - easygoing, friendly, easy to get
along with

Neuroticism - inconsistent mood, maybe easily

angered, emotions hard to control, etc.

Trait Theories - Nomothetic Factor Analysis - a statistical method

e.g. if we find correlations between

often used to see what personality traits seem to be connected, to try to find just the basic traits. friendliness, generosity, willingness to compromise, desire to make friends, etc., then we might have found one basic trait (e.g. Agreeableness)

Trait Theories - Idiographic

Idiographic Trait Theories - believe that the Gordon Allport - thought
same measuring sticks arent nec. right for every person. we each had central and secondary dispositions.

Central Dispositions - our main traits; guide

our personality much more than our secondary dispositions.

Trait Theories - Idiographic Secondary Dispositions - less important

traits we have. They just affect us a bit.

Some people even have Cardinal

(not true for most people)

Dispositions - single traits that seem to really strongly guide personality. Seems like they almost have just one trait...

Trait Theories - Criticism Most common criticism is that traits

Peoples personality can be different in

different situations, but trait theory doesnt explain this.

ignore the environment.

If our personality only comes from

internal traits then we should act the same in all situations....

Biological Theories

Believe Personality is determined mainly

by genes, chemicals, body types, etc.

Evidence exists that biology can influence

personality in at least some ways.

Bio. - Hippocrates
Ancient (and wrong) theory from Hippocrates thought our personality comes from amounts

e.g. lots of blood = a happy, cheerful personality Probably earliest to think biology influenced
personality

of certain liquids in our body. (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm).

Biological - Somatotype Theory Another less old, but still wrong theory;
Idea that different body shapes were endomorphic body (fat) - friendly + outgoing mesomorphs (muscular) - confident + extomorphic bodies (thin) - shy + secretive
assertive William Sheldon.

connected to different personalities.

Somatotype Theory

Also no evidence for this idea, a

discredited idea that people dont believe these days.

Biological - Temperament Babies Temperament - how they

generally react to the world, general emotional responses, etc. (e.g. usually fearful, generally calm, etc)

Temperament seems to be genetically

influenced and could affect our later personality (directly or indirectly)

Behaviourist Theories

Really strict behaviourists would believe

that all of our personalities are created by our environment, especially by reinforcements.

Criticized for ignoring human thinking and

human freedom. There arent really any serious psych. who hold this severe position today.

Social-Cognitive Theories

Mixtures of behaviourist and cognitive perspectives Often called Social-Cognitive or CognitiveBehavioural Models

e.g. Albert Bandura - Reciprocal Determinism Theory (or Triadic Reciprocality Theory) The idea that our personal traits, our environment, and our behaviour all work together to create our personality, and they all influence each other.

Social-Cognitive Theories

Reciprocal Determinism means that quiet people might choose quiet environments, and do quiet activities.

Social-Cognitive Theories

But if we change any one of those, it could affect they others. Maybe if the person moves to a more active place like a party, that will cause them to do more loud activities, and this might change what kind of person they think they are. That might lead them to also choose a more active environment next time....

Social-Cognitive Theories

This is one reason why it can be important to control our environment and what we do. Those two can affect who we are....

Social-Cognitive Theories

Bandura also supported the idea of self-efficacy People with high levels of self-efficacy feel strongly that they can get things done. Low self-efficacy means the person will feel helpless / powerless in a situation.

High self-efficacy helps people use Reciprocal Determinism to their own advantage. e.g. changing behaviour or environment.

Social-Cognitive Theories

George Kelly - Personal-Construct Theory - we each make our own constructs (explaining ideas) to understand the world. These are made of pairs of opposites like interesting - boring, intelligent - stupid, etc.

Each person makes their own, so while we can be mostly similar to others, we might be a bit different from each other.

Social-Cognitive Theories

These lead to the idea of the fundamental postulate - that says because we all think a little differently, knowing how people think lets us understand how they will behave.

Thinking and behaviour are closely connected, so if thinking is the same as before, behaviour will be the same too....

Social-Cognitive Theories

Julian Rotters Locus of Control - a very important theory (and similar to self-efficacy)

Internal Locus of Control - people feel like they are in control, and responsible for what happens to them. External Locus of Control - people feel like luck or other environmental (outside) things are in control of their destiny. e.g. do well on a test..... internal vs. external?

Social-Cognitive Theories

Locus of Control strongly affects behaviour, and so also affects personality.

Correlational research finds that internals tend to be healthier, more successful in school, etc.

Any Guesses Why This Might Be?

Humanistic Theories

Other theories are often quite deterministic outcome is decided by past constitution, behaviour, thinking, environment, etc. Humanistic Psychologists dont like determinism very much; they favour free will - our ability to choose our own fate, our own behaviour, thinking, etc. Humanistic Theories have been called the third force, after psychoanalysis and behaviourism (and because it goes against their deterministic views...)

Humanistic Theories

Humanistic Psychologists see people as naturally good, and we can use free will to choose our own path in life.

Self-Concept - our general idea about ourselves. made based on our relationships with other people. Self-Esteem - how we feel about ourselves; our evaluations of our self concepts. Includes feelings of worthiness, discouragement, and other judgement-like feelings.

Humanistic Theories

High self-esteem means you highly value that part of yourself. You feel like you are worthy.

Carl Rogers - an important Hum. Psych. Just like Abraham Maslow, Rogers thinks our goal is selfactualization. Believed in Unconditional Positive Regard acceptance and love given to a person no matter what they do or what happens.

Humanistic Theories

If something is required before the person gets acceptance, the positive regard is not unconditional. Rogers thought we needed acceptance before we could work on self-actualization; Humanistic Psych. would often try to give unconditional positive regard to help patients more through their problems.

Humanistic Psych. have been criticized for their assumptions that people are naturally good....

Personality Testing

Remember Validity and Reliability? We need to think about these two when we try to measure peoples personalities.

There are various ways to measure personality...

Personality Testing

1. Projective tests - often used by psychoanalysts, neo-Freudians, etc. We show people something ambiguous (can be interpreted in many ways), and ask people what they see.

E.g. Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Rorschach

Personality Testing

Projective tests - because tests are ambiguous, psychoanalytic theorists think that our unconscious mind fills in some meaning, so we can use these to trick information from the hidden unconscious.

These are very hard to score / interpret. They are very subjective, and are not backed by scientific evidence, so many modern psychologists dont trust them.

Personality Testing

2. Self-report Inventories - questionnaires used to try to learn about peoples personality, thinking, etc.

Used by many types of psychologists, is very objective and easy to score.

Sometimes include questions to try to detect people who are not telling the truth.

3. Personal Interviews - with questions, sort of like self-report, but people can answer free-form; very subjective, but a lot of information.

Personality Testing

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI2) - a very famous and commonly used self-report personality inventory.

Personality Testing

One curious effect that we need to be careful of when we measure personality:

The Barnum Effect - If you tell someone a general description of a personality (one that could match many people), people are very likely to feel like its them that is being described.

Closely connected to how people can be easily fooled by psychics and fortunetellers.