Personality

Questions Addressed

• How did Freud develop psychoanalysis?

• What personality traits are most basic?

• Do we learn our personality?

• Is everyone basically good?

• How do psychologists measure personality?

What Is Personality?

• Person’s enduring psychological and behavioral characteristics

Four Main Approachesto Personality

• Psychodynamic

• Trait

• Social-cognitive

• Phenomenological

Freud’s Psychodynamic Approach

Sigmund Freud

• physician in Vienna, 1890s, treating “neurotic” disorders.

• dysfunctions tell us about normal development

• “psychic determinism”• later behavior determined by earlier

psychological development

• emphasized unconscious aspects of personality

Method

• Case Studies• free association (Freudian slip)• dream analysis• transference

Some Defense Mechanisms

• Repression• Rationalization• Projection• Reaction Formation• Regression

• Sublimation• Displacement• Denial• Compensation

Structure of Personality

• Id (Pleasure Principle)• Eros (life instinct), Libido• Thanatos (death instinct)

• Ego (Reality Principle)• defense mechanisms

• Superego (Moralistic Principle)• cultural prescriptions, taboos

Ego’s Tyrannical Masters

• Outside World

• Id

• Superego

Freud’s Conception of the Personality Structure

Psychosexual Stages

• Oral Stage: Mouth object of pleasure.• can’t be neglected or overindulged.

• Anal Stage: Anus object of pleasure. Ego develops to cope with socially appropriate behavior.• Toilet training

• Phallic Stage: Genitals region object of pleasure.• Boys experience Oedipus complex

• Little Hans

• Girls experience Penis Envy• Seduction Theory

• Latency Period: Sexual impulses stay in background.

Psychosexual Stages

• Genital Stage: Sexual impulses reappear at conscious level; genitals again focus of sexual pleasure.

Psychosexual Stages

Assessing the Unconscious

Projective Tests Ambiguous stimuli

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) personality revealed through stories created

Rorschach Inkblot see meaning in pictures

Somewhat reliable, not completely junk science

TAT

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Neo-Freudians Alfred Adler

importance of childhood social tension

Karen Horney sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases

Carl Jung emphasized the collective unconscious

shared, inherited reservoir of our species’ history

introversion/extraversion

Positives

• Freud’s contributions:• first comprehensive theory• talk therapies• defensive mechanisms• new methods (projective tests)

Freud Negatives

• Based almost entirely on a cases studies• Victorian cultural values (seduction theory)• distorted by personal biases• too sexualized

• Untestable

The Trait Approach

Assumptions of Trait Approach

• relatively stable over time

• relatively stable across situations

• individual differences

• biologically based

Two Personality Profiles

Eysenck’s Personality Dimensions

Are There “Basic” Traits?

What trait “dimensions” describe personality?

Eysenck’s (1965)genetically determined

dimensions

Expanded set of factors“The Big 5”

Extraversion/IntroversionEmotional Stability/Instability 1980s

The Big Five

Neuroticism

Extraversion

Openness

Agreeableness

Conscientiousness

• Anxious/Calm•Insecure/Secure

• Sociable/Retiring• Fun Loving/Sober

• Imaginative/Practical• Independent/Conforming

• Soft-Hearted/Ruthless• Trusting/Suspicious

• Organized/Disorganized• Careful/Careless

How Big 5 Discovered?

• Adjective Checklist• Cattell’s 16 PF

• Step 1: Give people long list of adjectives (loner, bright, dominant , shrewd, open, tense, cool)

• Step 2: See if certain personality characteristics “cluster together”

• Step 3: Check for agreement (friend’s rating, behavior)

• Step 4: Crosscultural?

Martin Luther King (16 PF)

• Dominant• Aggressive• Assertive• Stubborn competitive• Bossy

• Apprehensive• Self-blaming• Guilt Prone• Insecure• Worrying

High Average

Dominant vs. Deferential Apprehensive vs. Self-assured

Big 5 (1980s)

• studies repeated with more powerful clustering methods and more adjectives

• identified Big 5

• cross-cultural relevance high

Are Personality Traits Inherited?

• personality is partly biologically determined.• biological factors interact with environmental

factors to produce specific personality features.

Heritability

• Openness: 57% • Extraversion: 54% • Conscientiousness: 49% • Neuroticism: 48% • Agreeableness: 42%

Evaluating the Trait Approach

• better at describing than explaining

• how trigger behavior?

• how do traits combine to form a complex and dynamic individual?

• how about other traits?• authoritarianism• perfectionism• etc.