lecture+10+personality_posting
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lectureTRANSCRIPT
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1SOSC1960Discovering Mind and Behavior
Lecture 10Personality
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2 Exercise Write a few words to describe the personality
of your best friend.
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3 Personality The pattern of enduring characteristics that
produce consistency and individuality in a given person
Consistency (across time and situations) Individuality (help describe and explain
variations across individuals)
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Approaches to personality and assessment methods
Criteria in assessing personality
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5Freudian approach Unconsciousness
A part of the personality that contains memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, urges, drives, and instincts of which an individual is not aware
Cannot be observed directly but can be interpreted through clues such as
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7IdSex drives (libido), survival drives, aggressive drives; immediate gratification
EgoBuffer the conflicts between the id and the outside world; integration into society
SuperegoRepresents the rights and wrongs of society as handed down by parents, teachers, and other important figures; conscience
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9 Defense mechanisms Neurotic anxiety occurs when the id threatens
to become conscious Unconscious strategies people use to
__________________ by concealing the source of anxiety from themselves and others
Ling Sui Fongreduce anxiety
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Defense mechanisms Repression: unacceptable or unpleasant id
impulses are pushed back to the unconscious E.g.
Regression: people behave as if they were at an earlier stage of development E.g.
Ling Sui Fonga man unable to recall that he has killed someone
Ling Sui Fongan individual fixated at the oral stage might begin eating excessively under stress
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Defense mechanisms Displacement: redirecting expression of
unwanted feelings or thoughts from a powerful person to a weaker one E.g.
Rationalization: People provide self-justifying explanations in place of the actual, but threatening, reason for their behavior E.g.
Ling Sui Fonga man beats his wife after being criticized by his boss
Ling Sui Fonga student who goes out drinking the night before a bigtest rationailzes his behaviour
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Defense mechanisms Denial: people refuse to accept or
acknowledge anxiety-producing information E.g.
Projection: attributing unwanted impulses and feelings to someone else E.g.
Ling Sui Fonga woman denies that her husband requested a divorce
Ling Sui Fonga man angry at his father complains that his father isangry with him
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Defense mechanisms Sublimation: people divert unwanted impulses
into socially acceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors E.g.
Reaction formation: unconscious impulses are expressed as their opposite in consciousness E.g.
Ling Sui Fonga person with strong feelings of aggression becomes a competitive basketball player
Ling Sui Fonga mother who unconsciously hates her child acts in an overly loving way toward the child
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Neurosis A mental disorder
when tremendous amount of psychic energy is used for defense mechanisms
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Evaluation Contributions
ideas of unconsciousness, defense mechanisms, and children roots of adult personality
Limitations Lack of empirical data and verification, partially due
to the fuzziness of the concepts (e.g., how to measure fixation or id drives?)
Derivation of the concepts and theories from a limited population (upper-class Austrian women who sought treatment from Freud)
Important changes in personality can take place during adolescence and adulthood
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Assessing personality: Projective methods
Projective personality tests Tests in which a person is shown some vague,
ambiguous stimuli and asked to describe them or tell a story about them
The responses are considered to be projections of ones unconsciousness and personality
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Projective personality tests to obtain from the subject, what he cannot or
will not say, frequently because he does not know himself and is not aware what he is revealing about himself through his projections(Frank, 1939)
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Rorschach Test A series of symmetrical inkblots Test-takers are asked What might this be?
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Thematic Apperception Test
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Projective Drawings: House-Tree-Person Test (Buck, 1948)
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Some interpretations of the HTP Test House
Windows, doors, and sidewalks are ways that others enter or see into the house, so they relate to openness, willingness to interact with others shades, shutters, bars, curtains, and long and
winding sidewalks indicate some unwillingness to reveal much about yourself
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Some interpretations of the HTP Test Tree
The trunk is seen to represent the ego, sense of self, and the intactness of the personality small trunks are limited ego strength, large trunks
are more ego strength/intact personality
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Some interpretations of the HTP Test Person
Person of the same sex is what you admit is like you; person of the opposite sex is what you may not admit is like you
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Limitations The personality to be measured is ill-defined Test-takers responses may be limited by
verbal or figural expression ability Lack of standard procedures (may introduces
errors) Lack of standard scoring and interpretation
(may introduce subjectivity biases)
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Trait approaches Trait theory
A model of personality that seeks to identify the ________________ necessary to describe personality
Traits are characteristics and behaviors that are consistently displayed in different situations
Ling Sui Fongbasic traits
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Gordon Allport Identified 18,000 terms to describe personality.
Which are the most basic? Cardinal: single characteristic that directs most of a
persons activities Central: five to ten major characteristics of an
individual Secondary: characteristics that affect behavior in
fewer situations and are less influential
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Raymond Cattell Factor analysis: statistical method of
identifying associations among a large number of variables to reveal more general patterns
16 source traits, the basic personality dimensions; Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF)
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Cattells Self-Report Inventory
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Big Five personality traits Openness to experience
Toleration for and exploration of the unfamiliar Conscientiousness
Degree of organization, persistence, and motivation in goal-directed behavior.
Extraversion Capacity for joy, need for stimulation
Agreeableness Ones orientation along a continuum from compassion to
antagonism in thoughts, feelings, and actions
Neuroticism Proneness to psychological distress and excessive cravings
or urges
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Evaluation Contributions
Clear, straightforward description of people Allow us to readily compare one person with another
Limitations Which theory is most accurate? How many basic
traits are there? The traits are simply some descriptive labels of
behavioral pattern. But how do we explain personality?
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Self-report measures Asking people questions about a sample of
their behavior The self-report data is then used to infer the
personality characteristics of the person
Assessing personality: Self-report measures
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Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF; Cattell, 1946) Some measures are of larger scale and greater
length. They measure a number of traits (or personality factors).
185 items, forced-choice Sample items:
I make decisions based on
a. feelings
b. feelings and reason equally
c. reason
I find it hard to give a speech to strangers
a. yes
b. somewhat
c. no
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Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) A widely-used self-report test, particularly
useful in identifying people with __________________________
Sample items:I feel useless at timesa. Trueb. Falsec. Cannot say
I am bothered by an upset stomachseveral times a week
a. Trueb. Falsec. Cannot say
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Limitations
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Limitations Response styles
Socially desirable responding Present oneself in a favorable light
Acquiescence Agree with whatever is presented
Deviance Make unusual or uncommon responses
Extreme Make extreme rating
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Operant conditioning Personality is a collection of learned behavior
patterns through reinforcement and punishment E.g. A person is sociable at parties because he has
been reinforced for displaying social behaviors (e.g., winning contracts, winning friends)
Learning theorists are interested in looking at how the environment shape peoples personality
The importance of context People may act differently across different situations
depending on the patterns of reinforcers
Learning approaches
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Observational learning Continual and repeated exposure to the
behavior of models shape the personality A full range of behaviors are learned by
watching adults (watching television, watching peers, etc.)
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Self-efficacy Belief in ones personal capabilities to carry out
a specific task or produce a desired outcome People with high self-efficacy have higher
aspirations and greater persistence Prior successes and failures, and reinforcement
and encouragement from others help self-efficacy develop
I believe I can!
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Evaluation Contributions
Learning theories can explain either consistency or inconsistency Friendly at school but not at homebecause different
reinforcement history in the two settings Objective and scientific conceptualization of
personality Observable behaviors and environment
Limitations Deterministic Human behaviors are shaped by external forces that
are beyond the individuals control
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Behavioral assessment Direct observation and record of an individuals
behavior used to describe personality Naturalistic observations or observations in
controlled conditions
Assessing personality: Behavioral assessment
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Particularly informative for understanding psychological difficulties
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Limitations Need an impartial, objective observer or rater
(but who? parents, teachers, supervisors, trained observers?)
Observation or rating biases Confirmation bias Leniency or severity bias
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Criteria in assessing personality Personality characteristic manifests in
many behaviors (an universe of behaviors) A personality test could only sample some
presumably relevant behaviors from this universe
5353
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Reliability consistency in measurement
Electronic scale
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Reliability
Scale A Scale B Scale C1 1 1.3 0.9
2 1 1.3 1.1
3 1 1.3 1.05
Measured weight (in pounds) of a one-pound metal bar at three different trials.
Reliable Not reliableReliable
Ling Sui FongA
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_________________ A test is considered valid if it measures the
characteristic it purports to measure A personality test is valid if its test scores
indeed reflect personality
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(source: http://mindcity.sina.com.tw/qa/folder/love/index.shtml)
Recently you checked email and found that someone had bombed your inbox with a lot of junk emails. What would you do?- Create a new email account- Just delete them- Forward them to someone you hate- Reply and take revenge
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The characteristic measured by a given test is defined by results of empirical research, not by what the developer chooses to name the test
Ways to test validity _______________ validity: Correlation with other
personality scales _______________ validity: whether test scores are
predictive of psychological and behavioral outcomes (e.g. size of social network, depression, well-being, etc)
Ling Sui Fongconvergent
Ling Sui Fongpredictive
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Required Readings Ch. 13