PSYCHOLOGY:

Chapter 11

Name the artist?

Maybe you’ve heard his music.

Kurt Cobain

• Member of top grunge band of early 90’s, Nirvana• Wife, daughter, fame, popularity• At age 27, he took his life

In his diary, he wrote, “when you wake up this morning, please read my diary. Look through my things and figure me out.”

Researchers have developed many ways of assessing personality, but even if we

do gain an understanding of how we are (personality), the question of why we are that way (theories of personality) remains.

Figuring someone out involves exploring PERSONALITY

Personality theories help us understand the differences among people

PERSONALITY DEFINED

Personality is the consistent, enduring, and unique characteristics of a person

Personality traits are characteristic behaviours and feelings that are consistent and long lasting

Personality States are temporary patterns of behaviour and feelings that may arise in a specific situation

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES

• Emphasize the unconscious (part of the mind that contains material we are unaware of, but that strongly influences behaviour)

• Unconscious feelings as children = impact adulthood

FREUD’S ID, EGO, SUPEREGO

Freud used the Id, Ego, and Superego to try to explain how the mind functions and personality is shaped

Id

• instinctual & biological urges

• lustful, impulsive, fun – pleasure principle• completely unconscious

• Seeks immediate gratification of impulses (what feels good)• Ignores consequences

Following the pleasure principle (ID) leads to conflict with others (parents) and results in the development of the EGO in the

2nd and 3rd year of life.

Ego

• Rational & thoughtful

• Based on the reality principle, the awareness that gratification of impulses has to be delayed in order to accommodate the demands of the real world.

Superego

• Responsible for society’s rules of behaviour (moral standards). Feels guilty if rules are disobeyed.

• Based on morality principle, must follow moral standards and rules and breaking them causes guilt.

ID – What you WANT TO DO

EGO – What you CAN DO

SUPEREGO – What you SHOULD DO

ID & SUPEREGO are frequently in conflict. Ego must satisfy both.

Rather than feel conflict or frustration when the ID’s desires & SUPEREGO’s rules cannot be satisfied, humans distort reality

using DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Did Kurt Cobain write the song, “I Hate Myself and Want To Die” because of some unconscious

forces that he was unaware of and had repressed?

If so, how could we have explored what was in Kurt’s unconscious?

• Freud believed that information in the unconscious emerges in slips of the tongue, jokes, dreams, illness symptoms, etc. These are called Freudian Slips.

Freud’s techniques for exploring the Unconscious

• Dream interpretation

• Word association

• Psycho-analysis

• Ink blot tests

“Monkey see monkey do/ I don’t know why I’d rather be dead than cool” - Stay Away

“Everything is my fault/I’ll take all the blame” - All Apologies

Freud had trouble proving there was an unconscious, but he might have looked at these lyrics and said that Cobain was hiding some of

his Unconscious feelings in his lyrics.

FREUD’S LEGACY• 1ST Person to propose unified theory to understand and explain human behaviour

• No theory more complete, complex, or controversial

• Some criticize his theory for being impossible to test

• Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was the predecessor of all later personality theories

•Oedipus complex*

Oedipus Complex

Defense Mechanisms

As you know, Freud proposed that our Id (what we want) and our Superego (what we should do) are often in conflict.

He also suggested that we rely on 6 defense mechanisms to help us deal with these conflicts.

IN FREUD’S FOOTSTEPS….

Carl Jung• Freud’s personal successor before relationship ended because Jung disagreed with Freud’s emphasis on sexual urges

• The Collective unconscious (part of the mind that contains inherited instincts, urges, and memories common to all people) holds Archetypes (an inherited idea based on experiences of one’s ancestors, which shapes one’s personality)

• Jung believed we fit our personalities to our Archetypes

OTHER PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES

ALFRED ADLER

• Believed people are driven to overcome feelings of inferiority

• Inferiority Complex – when a person continually tries to compensate for his weakness and avoid feelings of inadequacy.

4 PERSONALITY THEORIES

1. Psycho-analytical theories (Freud)2. Behavioural theories (B.F. Skinner)3. Humanist theories (Maslow)4. Trait theories

B.F. SKINNER

• Behaviourist

•Personality arises from Operant conditioning (specifically reinforcement)

• What is the behaviour and what causes (reinforces) it?

HUMANISTIC THEORIES

• Believe all humans strive for self-actualization, or the realization of their potential

• Becoming true to oneself and having an ability to grow

TRAIT THEORIES

• Try to explain consistency and normal, healthy behaviour in different situations

• Trait - relatively stable and enduring tendency to behave in a particular way

• Traits apply to all people. • Can quantify traits (scale 1-10 how nice are you)

BIG FIVE TRAIT THEORY

Current popular belief; all personality traits derive from five basic personality traits

EXTRAVERSION

AGREEABLENESS

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE

NEUROTICISM

O C E A N

PERSONALITY TESTS – WHY?PERSONALITY TESTS – WHY?

Personality Tests ASSESS an individual’s CHARACTERISTICS and IDENTIFY PROBLEMS.

They can help PREDICT future behaviour.

OBJECTIVE PERSONALITY TESTSA limited- or –forced choice test in which a person

must select on of several answers

MMPI-2 – Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MPI) – • Most widely used objective test• 567 questions divided into groups. People answer true, false,

cannot say.• Originally to help diagnose mental disorders

MBTI - Myers-Briggs Test –• Rate personality on four scales

• Extraversion vs. Introversion• Intuition vs. Sensing• Feeling vs. Thinking• Judging vs. Perceiving

PROJECTIVE PERSONALITY TESTS

Require subjects to respond to pictures and phrases that can be interpreted in many different ways.

Rorschach Test – series of ten inkblots that subjects look at and determine what they see. Most widely used.

What do you see in this picture?

(TAT) Thematic Apperception Test – series of pictures containing a variety of vague but suggestive scenes. 2nd most widely used