1. Chapter 10 Personality

2. Defining Some Terms
Personality: A person’s unique and relatively stable behavior patterns; the consistency of who you are, have been, and will become
Character: Personal characteristics that have been judged or evaluated
Temperament: Hereditary aspects of personality, including sensitivity, moods, irritability, and adaptability
Personality Trait: Stable qualities that a person shows in most situations
Personality Type: People who have several traits in common

3. Personality Types and Other Concepts
Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist who was a Freudian disciple, believed that we are one of two personality types:
Introvert: Shy, self-centered person whose attention is focused inward
Extrovert: Bold, outgoing person whose attention is directed outward
Self-Concept: Your ideas, perceptions, and feelings about who you are
Self-Esteem: How we evaluate ourselves; a positive self-evaluation of ourselves
Low Self-esteem: A negative self-evaluation

4. Figure 10.1
FIGURE 10.1 Personality types are defined by the presence of several specific traits. For example, several possible personality traits are shown in the left column. A person who has a Type A personality typically possesses all or most of the highlighted traits. Type A persons are especially prone to heart disease (see Chapter 11).

5. Figure 10.2
FIGURE 10.2 English psychologist Hans Eysenck (1916–1997) believed that many personality traits are related to whether you are mainly introverted or extroverted and whether you tend to be emotionally stable or unstable (highly emotional). These characteristics, in turn, are related to four basic types of temperament first recognized by the early Greeks. The types are: melancholic (sad, gloomy), choleric (hot-tempered, irritable), phlegmatic (sluggish, calm), and sanguine (cheerful, hopeful).

6. Personality Theories: An Overview
Personality Theory: System of concepts, assumptions, ideas, and principles proposed to explain personality; includes five perspectives:
Trait Theories: Attempt to learn what traits make up personality and how they relate to actual behavior
Psychodynamic Theories: Focus on the inner workings of personality, especially internal conflicts and struggles
Behavioristic Theories: Focus on external environment and on effects of conditioning and learning
Social Learning Theories: Attribute differences in perspectives to socialization, expectations, and mental processes
Humanistic Theories: Focus on private, subjective experience and personal growth

7. Gordon Allport and Traits
Common Traits: Characteristics shared by most members of a culture
Individual Traits: Describe a person’s unique personal qualities
Cardinal Traits: So basic that all of a person’s activities can be traced back to the trait
Central Traits: Core qualities of a personality
Secondary Traits: Inconsistent or superficial aspects of a person

8. Raymond Cattell and Traits
Surface Traits: Features that make up the visible areas of personality
Source Traits: Underlying traits of a personality; each reflected in a number of surface traits
Cattell also created 16PF, personality test
Gives a “picture” of an individual’s personality

9. Figure 10.3
FIGURE 10.3 The 16 source traits measured by Cattell’s 16 PF are listed beside the graph. Scores can be plotted as a profile for an individual or a group. The profiles shown here are group averages for airline pilots, creative artists, and writers. Notice the similarity between artists and writers and the difference between these two groups and pilots.

10. the “Big Five” Personality Factors (McCrae & Costa, 2001)
Openness to Experience
Conscientious
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

11. Figure 10.4
FIGURE 10.4 The Big Five. According to the five-factor model, basic differences in personality can be “boiled down” to the dimensions shown here. The five-factor model answers these essential questions about a person: Is she or he extroverted or introverted? Agreeable or difficult? Conscientious or irresponsible? Emotionally stable or unstable? Smart or unintelligent? These questions cover a large measure of what we might want to know about someone’s personality.

12. Traits and Situations
Trait-Situation Interactions: When external circumstances influence the expression of personality traits
Behavioral Genetics: Study of inherited behavioral traits

13. True or False?
I believe my parents have been one of the most influential forces in my development.
Events that occurred in childhood still affect me today.
I sometimes experience a struggle from within myself.
Sometimes I am not aware of my own motivations and desires.
Sometimes when I am in an argument, I feel they assume that I am upset, when I am actually fine.

14. Psychoanalytic Theory and Sigmund Freud, M.D.
Freud was a Viennese physician who thought his patients’ problems were more emotional than physical.
Freud began his work by using hypnosis and eventually switched to psychoanalysis.
Freud had many followers: Jung and Adler, to name a few.
Freud used cocaine and tobacco and died from oral cancer.
More than 100 years later, his work is still influential and very controversial

15. Some Key Freudian Terms
Psyche: Freud’s term for the personality
Libido: Energy
Eros: Life instincts
Thanatos: Death instinct

16. Figure 10.6
FIGURE 10.6 The approximate relationship between the id, ego, and superego, and the levels of awareness.

17. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory: The Id
Innate biological instincts and urges; self-serving, irrational, and totally unconscious
Works on Pleasure Principle: Wishes to have its desires (pleasurable) satisfied NOW, without waiting and regardless of the consequences

18. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory: The Ego
Executive; directs id energies
Partially conscious and partially unconscious
Works on Reality Principle: Delays action until it is practical and/or appropriate

19. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory: The Superego
Judge or censor for thoughts and actions of the ego
Superego comes from our parents or caregivers; guilt comes from the superego
Two parts
Conscience: Reflects actions for which a person has been punished
Ego Ideal: Second part of the superego; reflects behavior one’s parents approved of or rewarded

20. Freudian Dynamics of Personality and Anxieties
Ego is always caught in the middle of battles between superego’s desires for moral behavior and the id’s desires for immediate gratification
Neurotic Anxiety: Caused by id impulses that the ego can barely control
Moral Anxiety: Comes from threats of punishment from the superego
Unconscious: Holds repressed memories and emotions and the id’s instinctual drives
Conscious: Everything you are aware of at a given moment
Preconscious: Material that can easily be brought into awareness

21. Freudian Personality Development
Develops in stages; everyone goes through same stages in same order
Majority of personality is formed before age 6
Erogenous Zone: Area on body capable of producing pleasure
Fixation: Unresolved conflict or emotional hang-up caused by overindulgence or frustration

22. Freudian Personality Development: Oral Stage
Oral Stage: Ages 0-1. Most of infant’s pleasure comes from stimulation of the mouth. If a child is overfed or frustrated, oral traits will develop. Early oral fixations can cause…
Oral Dependent Personality: Gullible, passive, and need lots of attention.
Later oral fixations can cause…
Oral-aggressive adults who like to argue and exploit others

23. Freudian Personality Development: Anal Stage
Anal Stage: Ages 1-3. Attention turns to process of elimination. Child can gain approval or express aggression by letting go or holding on. Ego develops. Harsh or lenient toilet training can make a child:
Anal Retentive: Stubborn, stingy, orderly, and compulsively clean
Anal Expulsive: Disorderly, messy, destructive, or cruel

24. Freudian Personality Development: Phallic Stage
Phallic Stage: Ages 3-6. Child now notices and is physically attracted to opposite sex parent. The child is vain, sensitive, narcissistic. Can lead to:
Oedipus Conflict: For boys only. Boy feels rivalry with his father for his mother’s affection. Boy may feel threatened by father (castration anxiety). To resolve, boy must identify with his father (i.e., become more like him and adopt his heterosexual beliefs).
Electra Conflict: Girl loves her father and competes with her mother.
Both concepts are widely rejected today by most psychologists

25. Freudian Personality Development: Latency Stage
Latency: Ages 6-Puberty. Psychosexual development is dormant. Same sex friendships and play occur here.

26. Freudian Personality Development: Genital Stage
Genital Stage: Puberty-on. Realization of full adult sexuality occurs here; sexual urges re-awaken.

27. Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development
The Oral Stage (The first year of life)
The infant derives intense psychosexual pleasure from stimulation of the mouth, particularly from breastfeeding but from oral contact with other objects as well.
Oral fixation might involve problems with eating, drinking, substance use, and issues of dependence on/independence from others.
The Anal Stage (About 1 to 3 years old)
The child derives intense psychosexual pleasure from stimulation of the anal sphincter, the muscles that controls bowel movements. This is partly related to toilet training, which usually occurs at this stage.
Anal fixation might involve problems with extreme stinginess or need to maintain strict order. Sometimes the opposite is true, and the person is very wasteful and messy.
The child derives intense psychosexual pleasure from stimulation of the genitals, and becomes attracted to the opposite-sex parent.
Phallic fixation might involve fear of being castrated (in boys) or “penis envy” in girls.
The Latent Period (About 6 years to adolescence)
The child in this period suppresses his or her psychosexual interest. Children in this age group tend to play mostly with same sex peers.
There is some evidence that the “latent period” is a cultural artifact. Children in some non-industrialized societies do not experience a period of “latency.”
The Genital Stage (Adolescence and beyond)
The individual in this period has a strong sexual interest in other people. If he or she has completed the other stages successfully, primary psychosexual satisfaction will be gained from sexual intercourse.
The individual who is fixated in an early period of development has little libido left for this stage.
Table 13.1
Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development

28. Freud’s Search for the Unconscious
Breuer and Freud referred to this process as catharsis, the therapeutic release of pent-up emotional tension.
Freud later expanded this “talking cure” into a method of explaining the workings of personality, based on the interplay of conscious and unconscious internal forces, and called it psychoanalysis.
The unconscious mind contains memories, emotions, thoughts, some of which are illogical or socially unacceptable.
These thoughts and feelings influence our behavior although we cannot talk about them and may not even be aware of them.
Psychoanalysis brings these thoughts to consciousness to achieve catharsis and help the patient overcome irrational and dysfunctional impulses.
Figure 13.5
Freud believed that psychoanalysis could bring parts of the unconscious into the conscious mind, where the client could deal with them.

29. Freudian Defense Mechanisms: Psychological Defenders of You!
Defense Mechanisms: Habitual and unconscious (in most cases) psychological processes designed to reduce anxiety
Work by avoiding, denying, or distorting sources of threat or anxiety
If used short term, can help us get through everyday situations
If used long term, we may end up not living in reality
Protect idealized self-image so we can live with ourselves

30. Freudian Defense Mechanisms: Some Examples
Denial: Most primitive; refusing to believe, denying reality; usually occurs with death and illness
Repression: When painful memories, anxieties, and so on are held out of our awareness
Projection: When one’s own feelings, shortcomings, or unacceptable traits and impulses are seen in others; exaggerating negative traits in others lowers anxiety
Rationalization: Justifying personal actions by giving “rational” but false reasons for them
Reaction Formation: Impulses are repressed and the opposite behavior is exaggerated

31. Describe Your Behavior
On a date
At home with parents
In class
At a sporting event
Reading a book
In dining hall at mealtime
Talking with a good friend
Choose 2 for each: Selfish Energetic Demanding Polite Reserved Helpful

32. Learning Theories and Some Key Terms
Behavioral Personality Theory: Model of personality that emphasizes learning and observable behavior
Learning Theorist: Believes that learning shapes our behavior and explains personality
Situational Determinants: External conditions that influence our behaviors

33. Dollard and Miller’s Theory
Habits: Learned behavior patterns; makes up structure of personality. Governed by:
Drive: Any stimulus strong enough to goad a person into action (like hunger)
Cue: Signals from the environment that guide responses
Response: Any behavior, either internal or observable; actions
Reward: Positive reinforcement

34. Social Learning Theory (Rotter)
Definition: An explanation that combines learning principles, cognition, and the effects of social relationships
Psychological Situation: How the person interprets or defines the situation
Expectancy: Anticipation that making a response will lead to reinforcement
Reinforcement Value: Subjective value attached to a particular activity or reinforcer

35. Social Learning Theory (cont'd)
Self-efficacy: Capacity for producing a desired result
Self-reinforcement: Praising or rewarding oneself for having made a particular response (getting a good grade)
Social Reinforcement: Praise, attention, and/or approval from others
Identification: Feeling emotionally connected to admired adults
Imitation: Desire to act like an admired person

36. Becoming Male or Female
Identification: Feeling emotionally connected to admired adults
Imitation: Desire to act like an admired person

37. Miller and Dollard’s Four Critical Childhood Situations
Feeding
Toilet or cleanliness training
Sex training
Learning to express anger or aggression

38. Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and Androgyny
BSRI: Created by Sandra Bem
Consists of 60 personal traits, 20 each for “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neutral”
Androgyny: Having both masculine and feminine traits in a single person
Androgynous individuals are more adaptable in our society
Rigid gender stereotypes can restrict behavior, especially in males
Instrumental Behaviors: Goal-directed
Expressive Behaviors: Emotion-oriented

39. Figure 10.7
FIGURE 10.7 Another indication of the possible benefits of androgyny is found in a study of reactions to stress. When confronted with an onslaught of negative events, strongly masculine or feminine persons become more depressed than androgynous individuals do.

40. Humanism
Approach that focuses on human experience, problems, potentials, and ideals
Human Nature: Traits, qualities, potentials, and behavior patterns most characteristic of humans
Free Choice: Ability to choose that is NOT controlled by genetics, learning, or unconscious forces
Subjective Experience: Private perceptions of reality
Self-Actualization (Maslow): Process of fully developing personal potentials
Peak Experiences: Temporary moments of self-actualization

41. Carl Rogers’ Self Theory
Fully Functioning Person: Lives in harmony with his/her deepest feelings and impulses
Self: Flexible and changing perception of one’s identity
Self-Image: Total subjective perception of your body and personality
Incongruence: Exists when there is a discrepancy between one’s experiences and self-image
Ideal Self: Idealized image of oneself (the person one would like to be)
Positive Self-Regard: Thinking of oneself as a good, lovable, worthwhile person
Unconditional Positive Regard: Unshakable love and approval

42. Figure 10.8
FIGURE 10.8 Incongruence occurs when there is a mismatch between any of these three entities: the ideal self (the person you would like to be), your self-image (the person you think you are), and the true self (the person you actually are). Selfesteem suffers when there is a large difference between one’s ideal self and self-image. Anxiety and defensiveness are common when the self-image does not match the true self.

43. More Rogerian Concepts
Conditions of Worth: Internal standards of evaluation used by children
Positive Self-Regard: Thinking of oneself as a good, lovable, worthwhile person
Organismic Valuing: Natural, undistorted, full-body reaction to an experience
Unconditional Positive Regard: Unshakable love and approval

44. Personality Assessment
Interview: Face-to-face meeting designed to gain information about someone’s personality, current psychological state, or personal history
Unstructured Interview: Conversation is informal, and topics are discussed as they arise
Structured Interview: Follows a prearranged plan, using a series of planned questions
Direct Observation: Looking at behavior

45. Other Types of Personality Assessments
Behavioral Assessment: Recording the frequency of specific behaviors
Situational Test: Real life situations are simulated so that someone’s spontaneous reactions can be recorded
In-Basket Test: Simulates decision-making challenges that executives face
Basket full of memos is given to applicant, and applicant must act appropriately as quickly as possible
Leaderless Group Discussion: Test of leadership that simulates group decision making and problem solving

46. More Types of Personality Assessments!
Reliability: Does a test give close to the same score each time it is given to the same person?
Validity: Does the test measure what it claims to measure?
Personality Questionnaire: Paper-and-pencil test consisting of questions that reveal personality aspects
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2): Widely used objective personality questionnaire
Honesty (Integrity) Test: Assumes that poor attitudes toward dishonest acts predispose a person to dishonest behavior

47. Figure 10.9
FIGURE 10.9 Sample rating scale items. To understand how the scale works, imagine someone you know well. Where would you place check marks on each of the scales to rate that person’s characteristics?

48. Projective Tests
Psychological tests that use ambiguous or unstructured stimuli; person needs to describe the ambiguous stimuli or make up stories about them
Rorschach Technique: Developed by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach; contains 10 standardized inkblots (the “inkblot” test)
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): Developed by Henry Murray, personality theorist; projective device consisting of 20 drawings (black and white) of various situations; people must make up stories about the people in it

49. Shyness
Definition: Tendency to avoid others and feeling uneasiness and strain when socializing
Social Anxiety: Feeling of apprehension in the presence of others
Evaluation Fears: Fears of being inadequate, embarrassed, ridiculed, or rejected
Private Self-Consciousness: Attention to inner feelings, thoughts, and fantasies
Public Self-Consciousness: Intense awareness of oneself as a social object