PERSONALITY: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND ASSESSMENT
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Transcript of PERSONALITY: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND ASSESSMENT
PERSONALITY: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND
ASSESSMENT
Personality: refers to an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits
Used to explain 1)consistency in behavior and 2)distinctiveness of behavior
DEFINING PERSONALITY
Personality trait: a durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations
Cattell concluded that personality can be described completely by measuring just 16 traits
PERSONALITY TRAITS: DISPOSITIONS AND DIMENSIONS
McRae and Costa 1) Openness to
experience 2)
Conscientiousness 3) Extraversion 4) Agreeableness 5) Neuroticism
5-FACTOR MODEL OF PERSONALITY TRAITS
OTHER THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
Def: include all the diverse theories descended from the work of Sigmund Freud, which focus on unconscious mental forces
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES
Attempts to explain personality, motivation, and psychological disorders by focusing on childhood experiences, on unconscious motives, and methods used to cope w/sexual and aggressive urges
FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
3 parts: 1) Id: primitive, instinctive component;
operates according to pleasure principle 2) Ego: decision-making component;
operates according to the reality principle 3) Superego: moral component;
incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong
FREUD’S STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
FREUD’S ICEBERG
Conscious: whatever one is aware of at a particular point in time
Preconscious: material just beneath the surface of awareness that can be easily retrieved
Unconscious: thoughts, memories, and desires that are well beneath the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behavior
FREUD’S LEVELS OF AWARENESS
Freud: people’s lives are dominated by conflicts that center on sexual and aggressive impulses
Sexual and aggressive desires are thwarted more often
CONFLICT AND TYRANNY OF SEX AND AGGRESSION
Lingering conflicts can produce anxiety
Worry about: 1) id going out of control and creating negative consequences or 2)superego out of control creating guilt about a real or imagined transgression
ANXIETY
Def: largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety or guilt
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Rationalization: creating false but plausible causes to justify unacceptable behavior
Repression: keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious
Projection: attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another
Displacement: diverting emotional feelings (anger) from original source to a substitute
Reaction Formation: behaving opposite of what you feel Regression: reverting to immature behavior Identification: bolstering self-esteem by forming an
imaginary or real alliance with some person or group
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Def: developmental periods w/a characteristic sexual focus that leave their mark on adult personality
Fixation: failure to move forward from one stage to another as expected
DEVELOPMENT: PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES
Oral stage: 1st year; erotic focus is the mouth
Anal stage: 2nd year; erotic pleasure from bowel movements
Phallic stage: c. age 4; erotic focus on the genital; self-stimulation
STAGES
Latency stage: expanding social contacts beyond the immediate family
Genital stage: refocus on genitals, channeled toward peers
STAGES
Unconscious has 2 layers
1) Personal unconscious: repressed or forgotten material
2) Collective unconscious: a storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from people’s ancestral past
JUNG’S ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY
People share an unconscious
Archetypes: emotionally charged images and thought forms that have universal meaning
JUNG CONTINUED
1st to describe Introverts:
preoccupied w/the internal world of their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences
Extraverts: interested in external world of people and things
JUNG CONTINUED
Striving for superiority: a universal drive to adapt, improve oneself, and master life’s challenges
Compensation: involves efforts to overcome imagined or real inferiorities by developing one’s abilities
ADLER’S INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
Excessive feelings of inferiority leads to an inferiority complex
People overcompensate and pursue status and power over others
ADLER CONTINUED
Unconscious forces can influence behavior Internal conflict often plays a key role in
generating psychological distress Early childhood experiences can have
powerful influences on adult personality People do use defense mechanisms to
reduce unpleasant emotions
EVALUATING PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVES
Criticisms: Poor testability—ideas too vague to test Inadequate evidence Sexism—a bias against women exists
EVALUATING CONTINUED