THE JOURNEY OF ADULTHOOD Barbara R. Bjorklund of Arts/Psychology/PSYC2322... · THE JOURNEY OF...
Transcript of THE JOURNEY OF ADULTHOOD Barbara R. Bjorklund of Arts/Psychology/PSYC2322... · THE JOURNEY OF...
1/23/2012
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THE JOURNEY OF ADULTHOOD
Barbara R. Bjorklund
PERSONALITY
Chapter 8
Personality
Personality: relatively enduring set of
characteristics that define our individuality
and affect our interactions with the
environment.
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Personality Structures
Personality traits and factors
Differential continuity
Mean-level change
Intra-individual variability
Personality Traits and Factors
Personality traits: consistent patterns of
thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Personality states: short-term characteristics of
person.
Personality factors: group of traits that occur
together in an individual.
Five-Factor Model
McCrae and Costa: Five-factor model
1. Neuroticism
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Extraversion
5. Openness
Self-report technique may lead to biased
responding.
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Differential Continuity
Differential continuity: stability of individuals’
rank order within a group over time.
Personality traits remain stable during
childhood and throughout adulthood,
increasing steadily through age 50.
Intra-Individual Variability
Intra-individual variability: refers to degree to
which individual’s personality traits remain
stable over time.
Variability in rate and direction of change for
individuals.
Mean-Level Change
• Mean-level change: changes in a group’s
average scores over time.
• Personality does change predictability with
age and continues to change to at least age 92.
• Patterns relatively independent of gender and
cultural influences.
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What do you think?
Can personality be changed
intentionally?
Continuity, Change, and Variability
Continuity, change and variability co-exist.
Research varies in terms of stability or change
over time.
Generally, some people change over time, and
some do not.
What do personality traits do?
Define human uniqueness.
Shape personality by cultivating relationships;
striving and achieving; and maintaining and
promoting health.
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Personality and Relationships
Personality traits important in development of
intimate adult relationship.
People high in neuroticism:
• seek people with similar trait;
• meet partner’s negative behavior with further
escalation; and
• evoke certain behaviors from other partners.
Personality and Job Achievement
Personality traits within conscientiousness are
most important predictors of work-related
markers of achievement.
Traits include competence, order, dutifulness,
and self-discipline.
How do conscientiousness traits affect
job achievement?
1. People choose niches that fit their
personality traits.
2. Conscientious people are singled out, given
jobs, and promoted.
3. Non-conscientious people leave high
achievement jobs.
4. Conscientious people do jobs better.
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Personality and Health
Personality is related to health and
longevity.
Give two examples to substantiate this
claim.
Explanations of Continuity and
Change
Genetics
Environmental influences
Evolutionary influences
Explanations of Continuity and
Change in Adult Personality Traits
Behavior Genetics and Personality Traits
• Genes determine our personalities to a large
degree.
• Heritability of 5 major personality factors.
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Figure 8.4: Monozygotic twins’ scores for five
personality factors show higher correlations than
scores for dizygotic twins, showing that there is a
genetic influence for personality structures.
Explanations of Continuity and
Change in Adult Personality Traits
Environmental Influences on Personality Traits
Person-environment transactions serve to maintain
personality trait consistency.
• Reactive transactions
• Evocative transactions
• Proactive transactions
• Manipulative transactions
Explanations of Continuity and
Change in Adult Personality Traits
Evolutionary Psychology and Personality
Traits
• Traits are based on basic social groups our
early ancestors lived in.
• Differences in personality and the ability to
perceive them have been important to the
survival of our species.
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Psychosocial Development
Identity
Intimacy
Generativity
Ego integrity
Theories of Personality Development
Erik Erikson:
• The most influential theory on adult
development.
• Psychosocial development continues over entire
life span.
• Development follows a universal sequence.
• Successful identity development involves
resolving eight crises or dilemmas.
Identity
To achieve identity, young person:
• Develops specific ideology.
• Develops set of personal values and goals.
• Develops several linked identities.
If identity is not achieved, role confusion
occurs.
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Intimacy
To achieve intimacy, adolescent:
• Fuses identity with someone else without fear.
• Failure to achieve intimacy results in isolation.
Generativity
To achieve generativity, adult:
• Is successful in procreation, productivity, and
creativity.
When generativity is not achieved, adult is self-
absorbed or experiences a sense of stagnation.
Ego-Integrity
If ego integrity is achieved, older adult:
• Finds meaning and integration in life review.
• Resolves conflicts.
• Demonstrates wisdom.
If ego integrity is not achieved, despair
emerges.
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Erikson’s Stage V for Two Cohorts
Loevinger’s Theory of Ego
Development
• The most influential theory on adult
development.
• Psychosocial development continues over entire
life span.
• Development follows a universal sequence.
• Successful identity development involves
resolving eight crises or dilemmas.
Mature Adaptation: Vaillant
• Accepts Erikson’s stages as basic framework for
development.
• Focuses on direction of growth or development.
• Major form of adaptation is the defense
mechanism.
• Developed Defensive Functioning Scale.
• Focuses on progress adults make towards higher
levels of maturity.
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Gender Crossover
Gender crossover: gender characteristics are
accentuated during young adulthood and
relaxed in middle and old age to allow some
“other gender” characteristics to emerge.
Age presents gain in personal freedom and new
roles.
Positive Well-Being
Maslow
• Grew out of psychoanalytic theory.
• Development of motives or needs.
• Deficiency motives: instincts or drives to
correct imbalance or maintain physical or
emotional homeostasis.
• Being motives: distinctly human motives.
Maslow’s Hierarchy
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Self-Actualization
Highest level of Maslow hierarchy.
Being motive that emerges only when all four
types of deficiency needs are largely satisfied.
Peak Experiences
Peak experiences: feelings of perfection and
momentary separation of self when one feels
in unity with universe.
Only achieved in self-actualized people.
Positive Psychology
Positive psychology: humanist psychological
approach that focuses on valued subjective
experiences and positive individual traits.
--Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi
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Self-Determination Theory
Self-determination theory: personality is based
on individuals’ evolved inner resources for
growth and integration.
• Eudaimonia—sense of integrity and well-being
(like Maslow’s self-actualization).
• Hedonia—happiness that involves presence of
positive feelings and absence of negative feelings.
--Ryan and Deci
Ryan and Deci: Competence,
Autonomy, and Relatedness
Competence: feelings of effectiveness as one
interacts with one’s environment.
Autonomy: need to feel that our actions are done
by our own volition.
Relatedness: feeling of being connected to,
cared about, and belonging with significant
others in our lives.
Chapter Review
1. Early ideas about adult _____ were based on
grand theories of development that were
popular and enthusiastically endorsed but not
empirically tested and validated.
2. One of the first methods of testing and
validating ideas about personality was the
_____approach, in which a small number of
trait structures were identified through factor
analysis.
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Chapter Review
3. _____has been found for the major five
factors of personality through childhood and
adulthood. People tend to keep their rank
orders within groups regardless of gender.
4. What happens to personality traits as people
get older? We become more agreeable and
conscientious, less neurotic and open. This
seems to be true regardless of _____ and
gender.
Chapter Review
5. Personality trait structures can be stable in
some ways (_____) and change in others
(_____).
6. _____traits are related to the development of
intimate relationships, career success, and
health in adulthood.
Chapter Review
7. The five major personality structures have a
significant _____component, but there are
mixed findings about the primary factors.
8. _____psychologists argue that personality
traits give us important survival cues about
the people in our environment, and as a
result, have been selected for throughout our
evolutionary history.
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Chapter Review
9. _____’s theory of psychosocial development states
that personality development takes place in distinct
stages over the life span.
10. _____’s theory of ego development states that
adults make their way along the incline from one
stage to the other, but don’t have to complete the
whole progression.
Chapter Review
11._____’s theory of mature adaptation is based
on levels of defense mechanisms-normal,
unconscious strategies we use for dealing
with anxiety.
12._____’s theory of gender crossover explains
that young adults strive to display
accentuated gender traits to attract mates and
raise children.
Chapter Review
13._____’s theory of self-actualization consists
of stages of a sort, in the form of a needs
hierarchy, with the most pressing biological
needs coming first; once they are satisfied,
the individual turns his or her attention to
higher-level needs.