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The Trait Perspective
Thinking About PsychologyModule 26
11/30/04 Personality
Identifying Traits Gordon Allport’s Theory
Should only be studied in normal adults Individual personalities are unique
Raymond Cattell’s Factor Analysis Do some traits predict other traits? 16 core personality dimensions (factors)
11/30/04 Personality
Indentifying Traits cont’d
Hans Eysenck’s Biological Dimensions Introversion/Extraversion Emotionally
Unstable/Stable
11/30/04 Personality
The “Big Five” Traits Agreeableness Conscientiousness Emotional stability Extraversion Openness
11/30/04 Personality
Testing for Traits Personality inventories
Questionnaires on which people respond to items to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors
Used to assess personality traits Often true-false, agree-disagree, etc. types of
questions
11/30/04 Personality
Testing for Traits cont’d Validity
Measures what it is suppose to Personality inventories off greater validity than
projective tests Reliability
Consistent results Personality inventories are more reliable than
projective tests
11/30/04 Personality
Testing for Traits cont’d Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI) Most clinically-used personality test 500 questions Originally designed to assess abnormal behavior
MMPI-2 Revised and updated version Assesses test takers on 10 clinical scales and 15
content scales
11/30/04 Personality
MMPI Scoring Profile
11/30/04 Personality
Evaluating the Trait Perspective Does not consider how the situation affects
personality traits Does not explain why we behave the way we
do Do explain how we behave Does not explain how our thoughts affect
behavior
Psychodynamic Perspective
Thinking About PsychologyModule 25
11/30/04 Personality
Personality Personality: the person’s characteristics
thoughts and behavior
11/30/04 Personality
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939 Founder of psychoanalysis Proposed the first complete theory of
personality Emerges from tensions between the
unconscious motives and unresolved childhood conflicts
11/30/04 Personality
Freud cont’d Structure of the Human Mind (iceberg)
Conscious: what we are aware of Preconscious: easily retrieved Unconscious: includes unacceptable thoughts,
wishes, feelings, and memories
•Free association
•Freudian slips
11/30/04 Personality
Freud cont’d Three forces
Id: the child Unconscious energy from basic aggressiveness and sexual drives pleasure principle
Superego: your parent Internalized ideals and standards what we “should” do
Ego: the adult Mediates between the id and superego reality principle
11/30/04 Personality
Freud cont’d Defense Mechanisms: ways to reduce anxiety
Repression-put anxiety-arousing thoughts into the unconscious Regression-the person retreats into a more comfortable, infantile stage
of life Denial-the person refuses to admit that something unpleasant is
happening Reaction formation- the person expresses the opposite of the anxiety-
provoking, unconscious feeling Projection-disguises threatening feelings by attributing the problems to
others Rationalization-replaces the anxiety-provoking explanations with more
comforting justifications Displacement- shifts an unacceptable impulse toward a more acceptable
or less threatening object or person
11/30/04 Personality
Freud cont’d
11/30/04 Personality
Freud cont’d Stages of personality development
Oral stage Conflict: weaning
Anal stage Conflict: potty training
Phallic stage Oedipus complex
Latency period Identification process & gender identity
Genital stage Starts at puberty
11/30/04 Personality
Neo-Freudians Alfred Adler
1870-1937 Believed that social tensions
were more important that sexual tensions
Believes psychological problems were the result of feelings of inferiority
Inferiority Complex: a condition that comes from being unable to compensate for normal inferiority feelings
11/30/04 Personality
Neo-Freudians cont’d Carl Jung
1875-1961 Believed that humans
share a collective unconscious
Collective unconscious: concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our ancestors
11/30/04 Personality
Neo-Freudians cont’d Karen Horney
1885-1952 Found psychoanalysis
negatively biased against women
Believed cultural/social variables are the foundation of personality development
11/30/04 Personality
Assessing Personality from a Psychodynamic Perspective Projective tests:
ambiguous stimuli to trigger projection of one’s inner thoughts and feelings
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Ambiguous pictures
11/30/04 Personality
Assessing cont’d
Rorschach inkblot test Most widely used Set of 10 inkblots
11/30/04 Personality
Assessing cont’d Problems with the Rorschach
Not reliable Lack of a universal scoring system Does not accurately predict personality
characteristics No scientific basis
11/30/04 Personality
Evaluating the Psychodynamic Perspective Most psychodynamic theorists do not believe
that sex is the basis of personality Agree that there are inner conflicts People do not “fixate” at various stages of
development Agree that childhood experiences do shape
personality Comprehensive theory