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Personality is different from character and temperament but includes those aspects. Temperament is based in ones biology, either through genetic influences, prenatal influences, or a combination of those influences, and forms the basis upon which ones larger personality is built. Every adult personality is a combination of temperaments and personal history of family, culture, and the time during which they grew up.

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The psychodynamic perspective had its beginnings in the work of Sigmund Freud and still exists today. It focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. This perspective is also heavily focused on biological causes of personality differences. The behaviorist perspective is based on the theories of learning as discussed in Chapter Five. This approach focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior. The humanistic perspective first arose as a reaction against the psychoanalytic and behaviorist perspectives and focuses on the role of each persons conscious life experiences and choices in personality development. The trait perspective differs from the other three in its basic goals: The psychoanalytic, behaviorist, and humanistic perspectives all seek to explain the process that causes personality to form into its unique characteristics, whereas trait theorists are more concerned with the end resultthe characteristics themselves. Although some trait theorists assume that traits are biologically determined, others make no such assumption.

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The college student was intent on making a good first impression on an attractive woman he had spotted across a crowded room at a party. As he walked toward her, he mulled over a line he had heard in an old movie the night before: I dont believe weve been properly introduced yet. To his horror, what came out was a bit different. After threading his way through the crowded room, he finally reached the woman and blurted out, I dont believe weve been properly seduced yet. Although this students error may seem to be merely an embarrassing slip of the tongue, according to some personality theorists such a mistake is not an error at all (Motley, 1987). Instead, psychodynamic personality theorists might argue that the error illustrates one way in which behavior is triggered by inner forces that are beyond our awareness. These hidden drives, shaped by childhood experiences, play an important role in energizing and directing everyday behavior.

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The three divisions of the mind are the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The unconscious can be revealed in dreams and Freudian slips of the tongue. The three parts of the personality are the id, ego, and superego. The id works on the pleasure principle and the ego works on the reality principle. The superego is the moral center of personality, containing the conscience, and is the source of moral anxiety. FIGURE: This iceberg represents the three levels of the mind. The part of the iceberg visible above the surface is the conscious mind. Just below the surface is the preconscious mind, everything that is not yet part of the conscious mind. Hidden deep below the surface is the unconscious mind, feelings, memories, thoughts, and urges that cannot be easily brought into consciousness. While two of the three parts of the personality (ego and superego) exist at all three levels of awareness, the id is completely in the unconscious mind. Freud maintained that to understand personality, it is necessary to expose what is in the unconscious. But because the unconscious disguises the

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The conflicts between the demands of the id and the rules and restrictions of the superego lead to anxiety for the ego, which uses defense mechanisms to deal with that anxiety.

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Psychological defense mechanisms: unconscious distortions of a persons perception of reality that reduce stress and anxiety Denial: psychological defense mechanism in which the person refuses to acknowledge or recognize a threatening situation Repression: psychological defense mechanism in which the person refuses to consciously remember a threatening or unacceptable event, instead pushing those events into the unconscious mind Rationalization: psychological defense mechanism in which a person invents acceptable excuses for unacceptable behavior Projection: psychological defense mechanism in which unacceptable or threatening impulses or feelings are seen as originating with someone else, usually the target of the impulses or feelings Reaction formation: psychological defense mechanism in which a person

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Fixation occurs when conflicts are not fully resolved during a stage, resulting in adult personality characteristics reflecting childhood inadequacies.

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The personality develops in a series of psychosexual stages: oral (id dominates), anal (ego develops), phallic (superego develops), latency (period of sexual repression), and genital (sexual feelings reawaken with appropriate targets). The Oedipus and Electra complexes (sexual crushes on the opposite sex parent) create anxiety in the phallic stage, which is resolved through identification with the same-sex parent. Oral stage: first stage, occurring in the first year of life, in which the mouth is the erogenous zone and weaning is the primary conflict; id dominated Anal stage: second stage occurring from about one to three years of age, in which the anus is the erogenous zone and toilet training is the source of conflict; ego develops anal expulsive personality: a person fixated in the anal stage who is messy, destructive, and hostile anal retentive personality: a person fixated in the anal stage who is neat,

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A number of early psychoanalysts, objecting to Freuds emphasis on biology and particularly on sexuality, broke away from a strict interpretation of psychoanalytic theory, instead altering the focus of psychoanalysis (the term Freud applied to both his explanation of the workings of the unconscious mind and the development of personality and the therapy he based on that theory) to the impact of the social environment. The neo-Freudians changed the focus of psychoanalysis to fit their own interpretation of the personality, leading to the more modern version known as the psychodynamic perspective. Jung developed a theory of a collective unconscious, which was his name for the memories shared by all members of the human species. Adler proposed feelings of inferiority as the driving force behind personality and developed birth order theory. Horney developed a theory based on basic anxiety and rejected the concept of penis envy. Erikson developed a theory based on social rather than sexual relationships, covering the entire life span.

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