Chapter 12 Lectures

Modified: 2023-10-31 10:13 AM CDST

• Personality
  • Another construct (an abstract concept made up to explain a complex psychological entity)
  • Personality theories are either descriptive or developmental
  • Personality is one of the most important parts of psychology

Read the following lectures. Test hints marked in RED

• PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVES (p. 394)
  • Freud's Stages of Personality
    • Freud's metaphors for the personality were highly influential in their time
    • Today, however, they are largely of historical interest.
    • Freud's theory can be broken down into three main parts
      • Stages of personality development
        • These are his five stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic (Castration Anxiety and Penis Envy), Latency, and Genital
          • Fixation: Adult personality traits based upon lack of enough stimulation as a child)
      • The structure of the personality
        • These are the Ego (mediates the other two), the Id, and the Super-Ego
      • The parts of mental life
        • These are the Conscious, the Pre-Conscious, and the Unconscious.
  • Ego, Id, Super-Ego
    • Remember, these are metaphors
    • The Ego is the outward manifestation of the personality, the part shown to the world
    • The Id is hidden and is the biological part ot the personality and is governed by two forces:
      • Libido: the sex drive (most important motivator)
      • Thanatos: the death instinct
    • The Super-Ego is also hidden and has two parts, the conscience and the ego-ideal
  • Defense Mechanisms
    • Defense mechanisms are unconscious methods of dealing with anxiety.
    • They do not eliminated it, they just transform it into a form more easilty dealt with
    • The link above lists the following defense mechanisms:
      • Repression
      • Compensation
      • Denial
      • Displacement
      • Fantasy
      • Intellectualization
      • Projection
      • Rationalization
      • Reaction Formation
      • Regression
      • Sublimation
  • Anxieties (graphic)
  • Anxieties (graphic explained)
    • Freud indentifies three types of anxiety
      • Reality anxiety: you are truly in danger of loss of life or limb (i.e., being mugged). This is when a real life threat to your ego is in effect.
      • Moral anxiety: your Super-Ego threatens your ego because of a moral rule violation (i.e., having sex with you spouse's brother or sister).
      • Neurotic anxiety: your Id bursts out of its normal confines and causes an emotional reaction (i.e., shooting your spouse when caught with another in bed).
  • Mental Life (graphic)
    • This a version of Freud's famous iceberg metaphor (most of the ice is underwater)
    • It shows the three parts of mental life: the Conscious, the Pre-Conscious, and the Unconscious
      • Conscious: What are you thinking about right now? (Don't tell me :-)
      • Pre-Conscious: What can be easily brought into the conscious. I doubt your were thinking about this until I write: BREAKFAST
        • Now, you might think about bacon and eggs, pancakes, or some other breakfast item.
      • Unconscious, notice it's the biggest part of mental life, according to Freud.
        • It is difficult or impossible, Freud argues, to move items from the Unconcious to the Conscious.
        • For Freud, dreams and slips of the tongue reveal the unconscious.
        • Here's a personal example: I moved to Arkansas around the 4th of July. Ten years later, I tried to recall the previous nine 4th of July experiences I had. But, I could not recall one. One day while taking a hot shower it came to me. I had taken an auto trip to a city 1000 miles away and it had turned into a nightmare. So, I must have repressed it and I could not easily recall it. The memory came flooding out when I was relaxed and my normal efforts to repress the events were weakened.
  • Rorschach sample (graphic, what do you think this is?)
    • Obviously, it could be anything. (I see a large woman dancing, btw.)
    • Psychodynamic therapists (such as Freud) like to interpret the results as revealing the Unconscious.
  • Neo-Freudians
    • Long page discusses Freud's influence on others and how they altered his theory.
    • Freud did not like others making such alterations and broke with those that did.
    • Freud's informal group was called the "Vienna Circle" and included:
    • Carl Jung
      • Added collective unconscious, shadow, anima, animus, and other components
    • Alfred Adler
      • Birth order effects, feelings of superiority and inferiority
    • Karen Horney
    • Erik Erikson
• HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVES (p. 401)
  • Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
    • The two major humanistic theorists
    • Maslow's hierarchy of needs
      • Self-actualization is highest level
  • Humanistic Theories
  • Third Force psychology (e.g., not Freudian nor Behavioral)
  • Client-centered therapy
  • Focus on here and now.
  • Humanistic theory "give away" is usually the prefix "self-" as in self-esteem, self-worth, or self-concept
• TRAIT PERSPECTIVES (p. 404)
  • Type Theories
    • Maybe you once said, "That person is not my type." What are personality types?
    • They are attempts to summarize a complex idea (e.g., personality) into a smaller, more manageable form.
    • Historically, type theories began in antiquity and persevered into the 20th century.
      • Hippocrates humor theory persisted for hundreds of years
      • Lombroso, in the 19th century attempted to describe the "criminal type"
      • Kretschmer created a four-part type theory
      • Sheldon (see below) attempted to link body types to personality
  • Sheldon's Somatotypes (graphic)
  • Trait Theories
    • The general public often describes others by their personality traits: honest, cunning, friendly, and so on.
    • Scientific trait theories have evolved and have become very useful.
    • The trend in those theories is to incorporate fewer, rather than more traits.
    • The 16PF and the MMPI are examples of trait theories that use many categories
    • The "Big Five" theory looks at:
      • Conscientiousness
      • Agreeableness
      • Neuroticism
      • Openness
      • Extraversion
      • Taken together, these traits are very useful in describing personality
      • Mnemonics to remember them are CANOE or OCEAN
    • Eysenck and Norman
      • Hans Eysenck's personality theory was biologically based and had three dimensions:
        • neurotic vs stable
        • extroverted vs introverted
        • stupid vs intelligent
      • Norman's Five Factor theory (see above)
• PERSONOLOGICAL AND LIFE STORY PERSPECTIVES (p. 409)
  • Murray's Approach
  • The Life Story
• SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVES (p. 412)
  • Learning and Social Learning Theories
    • These were an American learning psychology response to Freud
    • Bandura and Walter's social learning theory was an influential response
      • Reciprocal determinism links: person's behavior, the environment, and person's cognition all act to influence each other
    • So was Rotter's idea of internal and external locus of control
• BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES (p. 415)
  • Personality and the Brain
  • Behavioral Genetics
    • Behavioral genetics is an emerging area of personality research that links personality to its inherited underpinnings
• PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT (p. 419)
  • Studying Personality
    • Because of its complexity, studying personality is difficult
      • More than likely you have a good idea of the personality of your college roommate, brother or sister, or your parents because you have lived with them for a while.
      • But, it's not efficient to study a person's personality by moving in with them. Imagine if I knocked on your door and said I was there to live with you sixth months because the court wanted me to do a personality assessment.
      • So, we have a variety of personality assessments that include:
        • Self reports (most common method)
        • Interviews
        • Rating scales of others or of self
        • Personlity inventories
        • Projective techniques (mostly used by psychodynamic theorists)
          • Rohrschach
          • TAT
            • Now more likely to be used to measure "need for achievement"
          • Draw-a-Person
• PERSONALITY AND HEALTH AND WELLNESS (p. 422)
  • Personality and Physical Health