Personality A person’s pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.

What is personality? Layman’s definition: –Obvious skill: labeling by observable features (sweet, timid, aggressive, shy, bossy…) –Social skill: how well does a person interact, get along with others?  Psychologist’s definition:  The sum total of an individual’s relatively consistent, organized, and unique thoughts and reactions to the environment

Where do you fit in the fruit cocktail of life? Are you a grape, orange, banana or a melon?

Does birth order determine personality? Some psychologists believe that your ordinal position in the family affects personality traits –Creates a social effect not a biological one –No Conclusive evidence

First Borns Parents tense with first child and expect much High achievers, perfectionists, reliable, list makers, well organized, critical Serious, shy, oriented toward adults Enter structured occupations, love control and organization More socially conforming Large percentage go to college Physical appearance: stepped off Glamour or GQ  every hair in place, color coordinated head to toe Goal oriented, achiever, self-sacrificing, people pleaser, conservative, supporter of law and order 21 of first 23 astronauts More than ½ US Presidents

Middle Borns Comfortable where there is little friction Good at reconciliations Not as rigid or rule bound as First borns Easy going, laid back Loyal to peer group “Never meets a stranger” Fewest pictures in the family album

Last Borns Parents relaxed, demand less Fast talker, a little manipulative, show- off, vivacious, out-going, affectionate, absent-minded Make the best salesmen, entertainers Want to out do older siblings

Psychoanalytic Perspective Of Personality

Unconscious Conscious Preconscious Unconscious

Freud's Early Exploration into the Unconscious Used hypnosis and free association (relax and say it all) to delve into unconscious. Mapped out the “mental dominoes” of the patients past in a process he called psychoanalysis.

Freud's Personality Structure Ego Superego Id

Unconscious energy that drives us to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. Id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

Superego Part of personality that represents our internalized ideals. Standards of judgment or our morals.

Ego The boss “executive” of the conscious. Its job is to mediate the desires of the Id and Superego. Called the “reality principle”.

Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development Freud believed that your personality developed in your childhood. Mostly from unresolved problems in the early childhood. Believed that children pass through a series of psychosexual stages. The id focuses it’s libido (sexual energy) on a different erogenous zone.

Oral Stage 0-18 months Pleasure center is on the mouth. Sucking, biting and chewing.

Anal Stage months Pleasure focuses on bladder and bowel control. Controlling ones life and independence. Anal retentive  neat freaks, uptight Anal expulsive  carefree, rumpled, messy

Phallic Stage 3-6 years Discover physical differences in boys and girls Develop strong attachments to parent of opposite sex –Coping with incestuous feelings. –Oedipus and Electra complexes. –Same sex parent seen as rival Pleasure zone is the genitals.

Latency Stage 6- puberty Dormant sexual feeling. Cooties stage.

Genital Stage Puberty to death. Maturation of sexual interests.

Fixation A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage. Where conflicts were unresolved. Orally fixated people may need to chain smoke or chew gum. Or denying the dependence by acting tough or being very sarcastic. Anally fixated people can either be anal expulsive or anal retentive.

Defense Mechanisms The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by distorting reality. Never aware they are occurring. Seven major types.

Repression The Mac Daddy defense mechanism. Push or banish anxiety driven thought deep into unconscious. Why we do not remember lusting after our parents. Leads to slips of the tongue (Freudian slips)

Regression When faced with anxiety the person retreats to a more infantile stage. Thumb sucking on the first day of school.

Reaction Formation Ego switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Being mean to someone you have a crush on. “We only tease the ones we love”

Projection Disguise your own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. Thinking that your spouse wants to cheat on you when it is you that really wants to cheat.

Rationalization Offers self- adjusting explanations in place of real, more threatening reasons for your actions. You don’t get into a college and say, “I really did not want to go there it was too far away!!”

Displacement Shifts the unacceptable impulses towards a safer outlet. Instead of yelling at a teacher, you will take anger out on a friend by peeing on his car.

Sublimation Re-channel their unacceptable impulses towards more acceptable or socially approved activities. Channel feeling of homosexuality into aggressive sports play.

Psychoanalysis Today Couch sitting Transference is likely to happen. The idea is to delve into your unconscious. Pull out Manifest Content. Then talk about the Latent Content.

How do we assess the unconscious? We can use hypnosis or free association. But more often we use projective tests.

Projective Tests A personality test. Provides an ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics. Examples Are:

TAT Thematic Apperception Test A projective test which people express their inner feelings through stories they make about ambiguous scenes

TAT

Rorschach Inkblot Test The most widely used projective test A set of ten inkblots designed to identify people’s feelings when they are asked to interpret what they see in the inkblots.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Neo-Freudians Psychologists that took some premises from Freud and built upon them. Disagreed on Freud’s emphasis on sex and aggression Alfred AdlerKaren HorneyCarl Jung

Less emphasis on sexual factors; more on social. Focused on the unconscious. We all have a collective unconscious: a shared/inherited well of memory traces from our species history. Archetypes

Alfred Adler Childhood is important to personality. But focus should be on social factors- not sexual ones. Our behavior is driven by our efforts to conquer inferiority and feel superior. Inferiority Complex

Karen Horney Personality development, (women or men) can be found in child- parent social “interactions” Childhood anxiety is caused by a dependent child’s feelings of helplessness. This triggers our desire for love and security. Horney theorized that: –child-parent conflicts are avoidable if the child is raised in a loving, trusting, and secure environment Fought against Freud’s “penis envy” concept. –founded the psychology of women Coping Mechanisms compliance aggression detachment

Modern on Views Psychoanalytic Perspective Freud or Fraud?

Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective  Personality develops throughout life and is not fixed in childhood.  Freud underemphasized peer influence on the individual, which may be as powerful as parental influence.  Gender identity may develop before 5-6 years of age.  Develops without same sex parent present Modern Research

Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective  There may be other reasons for dreams besides wish fulfillment.  Verbal slips can be explained on the basis of cognitive processing of verbal choices.  Freud’s emphasis on suppressed sexuality leading to psychological disorders discounted.  Sexual inhibition has decreased, but psychological disorders have not. Modern Research

Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective Freud's psychoanalytic theory rests on the repression of painful experiences into the unconscious mind. The majority of children, death camp survivors, and battle-scarred veterans are unable to repress painful experiences into their unconscious mind. These types of trauma tend to enhance memories rather than repress them. Repression, when it does occur, is very rare.

Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective Freud was right about the unconscious mind. Modern research shows the existence of nonconscious information processing. 1.Schemas that automatically control perceptions and interpretations 2.Parallel processing during vision and thinking 3.Implicit memories 4.Emotions that activate instantly without consciousness

More often than not “we fly on autopilot” –Nonconscious information processing Brings Freud’s defense mechanisms into mind –We do defend ourselves against anxiety –Projection  new view  False consensus effect Overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors –Displacement  meager support  tied to instinctual energy –Reaction formation  modern support seen to protect self- esteem Terror-management theory: –faith in one’s world view and pursuit of self esteem provide protection against fear of death –Death anxiety motivates contempt for others and esteem for one’s self  cleave to close relationships September 11 th —victims calling loved ones…”witnesses” making connections as well Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective

The scientific merits of Freud’s theory have been criticized. Psychoanalysis is meagerly testable. Most of its concepts arise out of clinical practice, which are the after-the- fact explanation.