Personality Created by David Silverman

Personality - Psychologists define personality as,

“the unique attitudes, behaviors, and emotions that

characterize a person.”

Type A Feel a sense of time

pressure

Easily angered

Competitive

Ambitious

Work hard, play hard

mentality

Higher risk for heart

disease

Type B Relaxed

Easygoing

Don't feel time

pressure until the “last

minute”

Along for the ride

instead of for the

competition

Less stressed

Psychoanalytic Theory

Sigmund Freud thought that personality was developed

and set in early childhood.

Thought all children went through the psychosexual stage

theory of personality in the same order (See development

powerpoint for the stages).

Believed people's behavior is controlled by the

unconscious, where we cannot access these thoughts.

This is contrasted with the conscious mind (what we are

thinking of at any given moment) and the preconscious

(information we could recall at any given time, bringing it to

our conscious).

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud thought that personality was comprised of the id, ego, and superego.

id- The id is ruled by instinct, psychic energy, and unconscious desire.

Driven by the pleasure principle, and exists entirely in the unconscious (babies are completely ruled by this).

Made up of two instincts

Eros- the life instinct which is driven by out libido (sex drive)

Thanatos- the death instinct which is driven by aggression

Ego- follows the reality principle, moderates the desires of the id and the reality of the superego.

Partly in the unconscious and the conscious

Superego- children develop a “conscience” around the age of five which helps them determine right from wrong.

Defense Mechanisms REPRESSION: blocking thoughts from awareness

Bets says ‘Who? Oh yeah, I haven’t thought about him’ when asked about the breakup

DENIAL: not accepting anything that could threaten the ego

Betsy continues to act like she never got dumped. She is still planning the wedding.

DISPLACEMENT- redirecting feelings towards another person/thing. Usually people displace feelings on less threatening people or things.

Instead of telling him how she feels, Betsy yells at her co-workers, cries at anything her family does, and screams at her dog.

PROJECTION- believing that the feelings you have are the feelings someone else has. You project your own feelings onto someone else and think that they are their own.

Betsy insists that Bryce still loves him.

REACTION FORMATION- expressing the opposite of how one truly feels

Betsy claims she hates Bryce

REGRESSION- Returning to an earlier form of behavior or expression

Betsy starts to sleep with her childhood stuffed animal

RATIONALIZATION- Coming up with a beneficial result of the undesirable occurrence.

Betsy decides she can finally travel now that Bryce dumped her… and that she can do better. Now she says that Bryce was never that smart or cool to begin with.

INTELLECTUALIZATION- undertaking an academic, unemotional stance

Betsy starts an in-depth research project on failed teen romances

SUBLIMATION- channeling frustrations towards a different goal. This is actually seen as a healthy mechanism.

Betsy dedicates herself to writing a play about this and vows to publish it before graduation. She also gets back into yoga.

Criticisms of Freud

The main criticism of Freud is that there is very little empirical evidence to support his theories like the unconscious, Thanatos, Oedipus complex etc.

Both positive and negative reactions from patients can be used to support psychoanalytic theory.

While Freudian theory can be used to create logical explanations for events, it has very little predictive power as to what problems an individual could develop.

Freud's emphasis on sexuality in children and that personality is essentially "set" by age 5 is also highly disputed.

Critics and feminists, like Karen Horney and Nancy Chodorow, believed that some theories of Freud were developed on Freud's assumption that men were superior to women.

Karen Horney disputed "penis envy" and said men suffered from womb envy instead.

Many also object to Freud's view that men have stronger superegos than women.

Psychodynamic / Neo-

Freudian theories

Carl Jung

Proposed the unconscious is divided into two parts

Personal unconscious(similar to Freud) contains painful events and memories that are too difficult to confront (complexes)

Collective unconsciousis passed down through species (which is why we all experience fear of the dark)

Shadow represents the evil side of personality and persona represents a persons public image

Alfred Adler

Focused on the role of the ego over the unconscious

Believed people were motivated by the fear of failure, inferiority, and the desire to achieve, superiority

Also known for his study on birth order in shaping personality

Trait Theory Trait Theory- Trait theorists believe that we can describe people’s

personalities by specifying their main characteristics or traits.

Traits- (ex- honesty, laziness, ambition, etc) are thought to be stable and motivate behavior. Usually when a person has a strong stable characteristic, this is the case in most situations and motivates them in most choices. (Friendly in most situations)

Nomothetic Approach- some trait theorists believe that the same basic set of traits can be used to describe someone’s personality.

Hans Eyesenck believed that you could describe most people’s personalities by plotting them on a scale that had both introversion/extroversion and stable/unstable.

Raymond Cattell developed the 16 PF (Personality Factor) test to measure what he believed were the 16 basic traits in all people.

The Big Five- a common belief among theorists that uses 5 personality traits...

extraversion (how outgoing or shy someone is)

agreeableness (how easy to get along with someone is)

conscientiousness (high in this area are responsible, organized, and hard working)

openness to experience (creativity, curiosity, and willingness to try new things) AROUSAL AROUSAL

emotional stability (neuroticism)

Trait Theory continued Factor Analysis- is how Psychologists categorize common

traits found when compiling personality test answer choices. When strong correlations of traits are found between traits like, punctuality, diligence, and neatness for example, one could conclude this person is rather conscientious.

Idiographic theorists believe using the same set of terms to classify all people is impossible, and each person should be assessed based on terms that are unique to that individual.

Gordon Allport believed that while some traits are common in all people, personal traits also should be included when assessing personality. Some traits were so powerful, they governed the majority of aspects of that person’s personality, he called these traits cardinal dispositions. Central and secondary dispositions were other strong indicators of personality, central being stronger than secondary.

The major criticism of trait theory is that they do not take context and situation into account when assessing personality. Nobody is “Friendly” 100% of the time.

Biological Theory

These personality theories view genes, chemicals, and body types as the central determinants of who a person is. More and more evidence supports that personality is shaped by genetics (testing is difficult) so there is little evidence for the heritability of personality traits.

Heritability- is a measure of the variation in a trait in a given population that is due to genetics. Basically how likely or unlikely a trait is passed down through genes. EX- some traits are high heritability (ex height) 90% of people show to receive their height from genetics passed down. Intelligence is also another heritability trait, however estimates are more around 50-70% heritability.

Temperaments- There is strong evidence to suggest that genes play a major role in a persons temperament, or their emotional style. This is the way we deal with the world.

Even infants differ at birth. Some are more fearful, so are easy-going and love strangers. This is believed to be because babies have different temperaments.

Biological Theories continued

Hippocrates

Believed that personality was determined by four fluids (humors) in the body. The four humors were blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.

He believed that happy people had an access of blood. This was all proved untrue but he was one of the first to think personality was based on biology.

William Sheldon-

Created the somatotype theory, basing personalities off of three different body types as followed...

endomorphs (fat)- friendly and outgoing

mesomorphs (muscular)-confident and assertive

ectomorphs (thin) - shy and secretive

His research only showed correlation, never cause or proof. His methodology has been questioned & this theory is not supported.

Social-Cognitive

Theory/Cognitive-Behavioral

Theory Many psychologists today consider themselves as Social-Cognitive/Cognitive-

Behavioral based. This takes the above information from the behaviorist theories about environment, but also acknowledges cognition (patterns of thought).

Albert Bandura believed that personality is based on interaction between traits, environment, and a person’s behavior. His model is based on the idea of triadic reciprocality (aka reciprocal determinism). Basically saying that those three factors affect each other in a constant loop-like fashion.

EX- Brad is a friendly person. This trait influences Brad’s behavior in that he talks to many people. It influences his environment because he goes to lots of social events and parties. The talking reinforces the friends, the friends reinforces all of the opportunities for parties. The parties reinforce the talking and the friendliness, etc

Bandura also said that personality is affected by people’s sense of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy- people with high self-efficacy are optimistic about their own ability. People with low self-efficacy feel a sense of powerlessness.

Bandura thought this had a powerful effect on behavior. EX- two people with the same levels of intelligence are taking a test. The one with high self-efficacy believes they can do well and takes more time on the test… the other student with low self-efficacy gives up because they think they will fail.

Social-Cognitive Theory

continued George Kelly proposed the Personal-Construct Theory of personality-saying that people, in their attempts to understand the world, develop their own personal constructs.

These constructs consists of opposite pairs (fair/unfair, smart/dumb, exciting/dull).

Kelly believed people used these construct to evaluate their world.

This was based on a fundamental postulate that essentially states that people’s behavior is influenced by their cognitions and that by knowing how people have behaved in the past- we can predict how they will act in the future.

Julian Rotter’s concept of locus of control- said that a person’s locus of control affects how a person thinks and acts, thus largely effecting the personality. people either have an internal or external LOC.

Internal locus of control- people with internal control feel as if they are responsible for what happens to them. EX- they believe that hard work will lead to success.

External locus of control- are people that believe in luck and believe that outside forces determine their destinies. EX- they believe in fate.

Again, these are correlations and not proof or genetic, but they affect how we make our choices and our attitudes to our stimuli. It is said that people with internal focus are healthier, do better in school/work, and are more politically active.

Behaviorist Theory

They believe that personality is shaped by environment and the

reinforcements create one’s personality.

Most radical behaviorist theories (like BF Skinner) believe that

most personality research is meaningless.

By changing environments, personalities can change.

Determinism- Many of the models of personality we have

talked about believe in determinism, which is the belief that

personality is dictated by what has happened in the past. So

some analysts believe that personality is determined by what

happened to that individual in his/her early childhood. Other

theorists believe in the weight of this, but those behavioral and

biological theories don’t acknowledge the existence of free will.

Humanistic Theory These theories believe that humans are innately good and that we are all

able to create our own destinies based on free-will.

Free will- is an individual’s ability to choose his or her own destiny. It says that other theories don’t take into consideration the fact that we each have the chance to make a choice with our personality and behaviors.

This perspective is also considered the third force because it came during a time of high opposition between psychoanalytic models and behaviorist models.

Humanistic theory embraces the concept of the self and self-esteem.

Self-concept - a person’s global feeling about his/her self. A person’s self-concept affects their self-esteem. Self-concept is largely influenced by your involvement with others (especially your parents).

Two of the most influential humanistic psychologists…

Abraham Maslow- developed the hierarchy of needs where he said that you needed to reach your lower needs before moving upwards.

Carl Rogers- also believed in people’s ability to motivate towards self-actualization, but Roger’s created self theory.

Roger’s believed that people needed encouragement through interactions with others (unconditional positive regard) in order to achieve self-actualization.

He believed that all people were innately good, but that we needed support in order to move forward.

Criticism with Rogers and that the idea that all people are born ‘good’, is that it becomes difficult to explain the number of truly terrible acts that people commit.

Assessment Techniques Just like all other kinds of testing, there are concerns in personality assessments. These aspects should

always be challenged….

Reliability- often dealing with consistency, reliable measures consistent results. At least multiple similar results. (You can’t just do one test and call it reliable, or just survey 10 people..the more the better).

Validity- means accuracy. A valid test measures what it is supposed to measure. (Using a thermometer is better than using the back of your hand to determine a fever in someone...the thermometer is a more valid test).

Types of assessments:

Projective tests- involve asking people to interpret ambiguous stimuli (mostly used by psychoanalysts). The interpretations are used because people are thought to project their unconscious thoughts onto stimuli.

Rorschach inkblot tests- shows the inkblot designs and asks people to describe what they see.

TAT (thematic apperception test)- shows people flashcards that have different people in ambiguous situations and people are asked to describe what is going on.

Criticism of projective tests- how the card is held, or turned, or if a portion is covered up or focused on- all changes how the person can see the image. Not necessarily just the unconscious. There are also endless amounts of interpretations and puts the majority of the analysis on the individual therapist (not reliable or scalable).

Self-report Inventories- essentially questionnaires that ask people about themselves. Many of the approaches use these surveys to gain information about people. They are common, easy, cheap, and don’t depend on any bias. People are more likely to give a biased answer in front of a interviewer than a survey.

MMPI-2 (Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory) is one of the most widely used self report instruments. Even though some have ‘lie scales’ built into the tests, the only downside is that sometimes people lie.

One final critique of personality assessment is how a person’s curiosity can make them susceptible to being deceived. People tend to see themselves in vague descriptions of themselves (also horoscopes). This is called the Barnum effect, after the circus owner who said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”.

References and Resources

Resources

Crash Course

Rorschach and Freud

Measuring Personality

Defense Mechanisms

A vs B Video

Birth Order and Personality

Myers Briggs Personality test

Multiple Intelligences Test

Learning Style Test

A vs B Type

Other Personality Tests

References

This powerpoint presentation was adapted using information from the Barron’s AP Psychology 5th

edition prep book.

Weseley, Allyson, Robert McEntarffer, and Robert McEntarffer. AP® Psychology. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron's Educational Series, 2014. Print.