1. Chapter Ten
Personality

2. Personality: Refers to an individual’s unique and relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving
Personality theory: Describes and explains how people are similar, how they are different, and why every individual is unique
Personality theory tries to explain the whole person.

3. What Is Personality?
Four major theoretical perspectives on personality
Psychoanalytic perspective
Humanistic perspective
Social cognitive perspective
Trait perspective
Psychoanalytic perspective emphasizes the importance of unconscious processes and the influence of early childhood experience.
Humanistic perspective represents an optimistic look at human nature, emphasizing the self and fulfillment of a person’s unique potential.
Social cognitive perspective emphasizes learning and conscious cognitive processes, including the importance of beliefs about self, goal setting, and self- regulation.
Trait perspective emphasizes description and measurement of specific personality differences among individuals.

4. Psychoanalytic Perspective on Personality
Freud
Influenced by Joseph Breuer; used hypnosis; treated patients with psychological symptoms; used free association
Asserted sexuality was fundamental human motive and aggression was second powerful human instinct
Created important works
Sigmund Freud
(1856–1939) is shown with his wife, Martha, and youngest child, Anna, at their Vienna home in Freud always considered himself to be an outsider.
First, he was a Jew at a time when anti-Semitism was strong in Europe. Second, Freud’s belief that expressions of sexuality are reflected in the behavior of infants and young children was controversial and shocking to his contemporaries. To some degree, however, Freud enjoyed his role as the isolated scientist—it served him well in trying to set himself, and his ideas on personality, apart from other researchers (Gay, 2006).
Among first investigators of a new drug that had anesthetic and mood- altering properties—cocaine
Prospects for an academic career in scientific research were very poor, especially for a Jew in Vienna, which was intensely anti-Semitic at that time Freud gave up physiological research for private practice in neurology.
Fled the Nazis to England
Created his most important work, The Interpretation of Dreams
Described how unconscious thoughts, feelings, and wishes are often reflected in acts of forgetting, inadvertent slips of tongue, accidents, and errors in Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Applied psychoanalytic perspective to civilization as a whole

5. Freud’s Dynamic Theory of Personality: Psychoanalytic Approach
Psychoanalysis is both an approach to therapy and a theory of personality.
Emphasized unconscious motivation: main causes of behavior lie buried in the unconscious mind
Saw personality and behavior as the result of a constant interplay among conflicting psychological forces
Psychological forces operate at three different levels of awareness:
Conscious
Preconscious
Unconscious
Unconscious material seeps through to the conscious level in distorted, disguised, or symbolic forms
Can be revealed by free association, dreams, slips of the tongue (Freudian slip), accidents

6. Levels of Awareness and the Structure of Personality
Figure 10.1 Levels of Awareness and the Structure of Personality
Freud believed that personality is composed of three psychological processes—the id, the ego, and the superego—that operate at different levels of awareness.
If you think of personality as being like an iceberg, the bulk of this psychological iceberg is represented by the irrational, impulsive id, which lies beneath the waterline of consciousness. Unlike the entirely unconscious id, the rational ego and the moralistic superego are at least partially conscious.

7. Techniques to Reveal the Unconscious
Free association
A psychoanalytical technique in which the patient spontaneously reports all thoughts, feelings, and mental images as they come to mind
Dream analysis
Content of dreams
Manifest content (surface meaning)
Latent content (true, unconscious meaning)

8. The Structure of PersonalityId
Instinctual drives present at birth
Does not distinguish reality from fantasy
Operates according to pleasure principle
Motive is to obtain pleasure and avoid tension or discomfort; this is the most fundamental human motive and guiding principle of id
Immune to logic
Energy comes from
Eros: Self-preservation or life instinct
Libido: Psychological and emotional energy associated with expressions of sexuality; sex drive
Thanatos: Death instinct
Reflected in aggressive, destructive, and self-destructive actions
Person possesses a certain amount of psychological energy

9. The Structure of Personality
Ego
Is partly conscious rational component of personality that develops out of the id in infancy
Understands reality and logic
Is most in touch with the demands of the external world
Acts as mediator between id and superego
Reality principle
Is ability to postpone gratification in accordance with demands of external world
Can repress desires that cannot be met in an acceptable manner
Latin for I

10. The Structure of Personality
Superego
At age 5 or 6, child develops an internal, parental voice that is partly conscious
Internalization of parental and society’s moral standards
Responsible for guilt; it praises and admonishes
As children, we learn many rules and values from parents and other authorities. The internalization of such values is what Freud called the superego—the inner voice that is our conscience. When we fail to live up to its moral ideals, the superego imposes feelings of guilt, shame, and inferiority.
Establishing the Superego

11. The Ego Defense Mechanisms: Unconscious Self-Deceptions
If a realistic solution or compromise is not possible, the ego may temporarily reduce anxiety by distorting thoughts or perceptions of reality through defense mechanisms.
Repression
Displacement
Sublimation
Rationalization
Projection
Reaction formation
Denial
Undoing
Regression
See Table 10.1 for addition information about major ego defense mechanisms, including descriptions.

12. Personality Development
Freud’s psychosexual stages
People progress through five psychosexual stages of development.
Oral, anal, and phallic, latency, and genital stages
Each psychosexual stage represents a different focus of the id’s sexual energies; and each is age-related and focused on different bodily zones.
See Table 10.2 for additional information about psychosexual stages, including age, stage, and description.
The foundations of adult personality are established during the first five years of life, as the child progresses through the oral, anal, and phallic psychosexual stages. The latency stage occurs in late childhood and the genital stage begins in adolescence.

13. Personality Development
Fixation
At each psychosexual stage, the child is faced with a developmental conflict that must be successfully resolved.
Child may be frustrated or overindulged in that stage’s expression of pleasurable feelings.
In either case, the result of an unresolved developmental conflict is fixation.
See Table 10.2 for additional information about psychosexual stages, including age, stage, and description.
If frustrated, child will be left with feelings of unmet needs characteristic of that stage
If overindulged, child may be reluctant to move on to the next

14. The Oedipus Complex: A Psychosexual Drama Child’s unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent; usually accompanied by hostile feelings toward the same-sex parent.
Boys
Confrontation with father for the affections of mother
Boy feels hostility and jealousy toward his father
Realizes that father is more physically powerful
Boy experiences castration anxiety, or fear that father will castrate him
To resolve, boy uses identification — imitates and internalizes father’s values, attitudes, mannerisms
Girls
Little girl discovers that little boys have a penis and that she does not
Feels a sense of deprivation and loss — penis envy
Attempts to take her mother’s place with her father, she also identifies with her mother
One of the most critiqued of Freud’s ideas
Freud admitted “the sexual life of adult women is a ‘dark continent’ for psychology.”
See Table 10.2 for additional information about psychosexual stages, including age, stage, and description.
Child’s unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent, usually accompanied by hostile feelings toward the same-sex parent

15. Latency and Genital Stages
Latency (5 years–puberty)
Because the Oedipus complex causes anxiety, the sexual urges of boys and girls become repressed
Children desire to associate with same-sex peers, a preference that strengthens the child’s sexual identity
Genital Stage (puberty and older)
Final resolution of the Oedipus complex in adolescence
Incestuous urges start to resurface; they are prohibited by superego and societal restriction
Person directs sexual urges toward socially acceptable substitutes, who often resemble the person’s opposite-sex parent
See Table 10.2 for additional information about psychosexual stages, including age, stage, and description.

16. The Neo-Freudians Neo-Freudians Key theorists
Followed Freud in stressing the importance of the unconscious and early childhood, but they developed their own personality theories
Key theorists
Carl Jung: Archetypes and collective unconscious
Karen Horney: Focus on security
Alfred Adler: Individual psychology

17. The Neo-Freudians Neo-Freudian disagreement with Freudian theory
Disagreed that behavior was primarily motivated by sexual urges
Disagreed that personality is fundamentally determined by early childhood experiences
Disagreed with Freud’s generally pessimistic view of human nature and society

18. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Carl Jung
People motivated by more general psychic energy to achieve growth
Collective unconscious based on human collective evolutionary history (archetypes)
Espoused mental images of universal human instincts, themes, and preoccupations
Common archetypal themes expressed in virtually every culture
First to describe introverts and extraverts as personality types
According to Jung, archetypal images are often found in popular myths, novels, and even films. Consider the classic film The Wizard of Oz. The motherless child, Dorothy, is on a quest for self-knowledge and selfhood, symbolized by the circular Emerald City. She is accompanied by her symbolic helpers, the Cowardly Lion (seeking courage), the Tin Woodsman (seeking love), and the Scarecrow (seeking wisdom).
Believed in collective unconscious
Based on human collective evolutionary history (archetypes)
“The whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual.”
Common archetypal themes that are expressed in virtually every culture are hero, powerful father, nurturing mother, witch, wise old man, innocent child, and death and rebirth.
Two important archetypes that Jung (1951) described are anima and animus—representations of feminine and masculine qualities
Archetypes in Popular Culture

19. Basic Anxiety and “Womb Envy”
Karen Horney
Cultural and social factors important in personality development
Described three patterns of behavior that the individual uses to defend against basic anxiety
Moving toward, against, or away from other people
Proposed that women envy men’s superior social status, not their penis; men envy women’s childbearing capacity
Believed that the drive to grow psychologically and achieve one’s potential is a basic human motive
Disagreed with Freud’s interpretation of female development, and notion that women suffer from penis envy
Basic anxiety — the feeling of being isolated and helpless in a hostile world
What women envy in men, is not their penis, but their superior status in society
Contended that men often suffer womb envy, envying women’s capacity to bear children
Men compensate for minor role in reproduction by striving to make creative achievements in their work
Karen Horney

20. Feelings of Inferiority
Alfred Adler
Most fundamental human motive is a striving for superiority that arises from universal feelings of inferiority experienced during childhood
These feelings motivate people to compensate for real or imagined weaknesses by emphasizing talents and abilities and by working hard to improve themselves
Overcompensation may cause superiority complex; undercompensation may cause inferiority complex
Importance of cultural influences and social relationships emphasized
Overcompensation may cause superiority complex, in which a person exaggerates their own achievements and importance
When people are unable to compensate for specific weaknesses or when feelings of inferiority are excessive, can develop an inferiority complex—a general sense of inadequacy, weakness, and helplessness
Adler believed that humans were motivated to grow and achieve their personal goals
Alfred Adler

21. Evaluating Freud and the Psychoanalytic Perspective on Personality
Strengths
Emphasis on unconscious nature of mental life
Critical influence of early experiences on interpersonal relationships and psychological adjustment
Significant differences in ability to regulate impulses, emotions, and thoughts toward adaptive and socially acceptable ends
Limitations
Inadequacy of evidence
Problems with testability
Sexism
Inadequacy of evidence
Small and skewed samples
Problems with testability
Psychoanalytic concepts are vague and ambiguous
Impossible to disprove because even seemingly contradictory information can be used to support Freud’s theory
Better at explaining past behavior than at predicting future behavior
Sexism
Because penis envy produces feelings of shame and inferiority, Freud claimed, women are more vain, masochistic, and jealous than men
Women are more influenced by emotions and have a lesser ethical and moral sense than men
Used male psychology as a prototype
Women are essentially viewed as a deviation from the norm of masculinity
Ideas that have been substantiated by empirical research
Much of mental life is unconscious
Early childhood experiences have a critical influence on interpersonal relationships and psychological adjustment
People differ significantly in ability to regulate impulses, emotions, and thoughts toward adaptive and socially acceptable ends

22. The Emergence of the “Third Force”
Another group of psychologists opposed to both psychoanalysis and behaviorism championed a “third force” in psychology.
Saw people as being innately good
Focused on the healthy personality
Doubted that laboratory research with rats and pigeons accurately reflected human nature
Suggested most important factor in personality is the individual’s conscious, subjective perception of self
Major figures – Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow

23. The Humanistic Perspective on Personality
Humanism
Emphasizes free will, self-awareness, and psychological growth
Emphasizes inherent goodness of people, human potential, self-actualization, self-concept, and healthy personality development

24. On Becoming a Person Carl Rogers
Most basic human motive is actualizing tendency; other drives are secondary
People are motivated in accordance with self- concept
Self-concept begins early in life
Regard can be conditional and unconditional
Self-concept begins early in life; increasing self-awareness produces need for positive regard; contradicted self-concept produces incongruence

25. Unconditional Positive Regard
Rogers contended that healthy personality development is the result of being unconditionally valued and loved as a person.
He advised parents and teachers to control a child’s inappropriate behavior without rejecting the child himself.
Such a style of discipline teaches acceptable behaviors without diminishing the child’s sense of self-worth.

26. Evaluating the Humanistic Perspective on Personality
Strengths
Made contributions to psychotherapy, counseling, education, and parenting
Subjective experience and the self-concept has become widely accepted
Limitations
Difficult to test or validate scientifically
Based on philosophical assumptions or clinical observations rather than on empirical research
Tends to be too optimistic, minimizing some of the more destructive aspects of human nature
Influence of humanistic psychology has waned

27. The Social Cognitive Perspective on Personality
Emphasizes conscious, self-regulated behavior rather than unconscious mental influences and instinctual drives
Stresses conscious thought processes, self-regulation, and the importance of situational influences
Proposes that sense of self can vary, depending on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a given situation
Social cognitive personality theorists
Rely on experimental findings

28. Albert Bandura and Social Cognitive Theory
Human behavior and personality are caused by the interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors (reciprocal determinism).
Person’s cognitive skills, abilities, and attitudes represent the person’s self- system.
Most critical elements influencing the self-system are our beliefs of self- efficacy.
Self-efficacy — the belief that people have about their ability to meet the demands of a specific situation
We acquire a strong sense of self-efficacy by meeting challenges and mastering new skills specific to a particular situation.By encouraging his son and helping him learn how to use a knife properly, this father is fostering the young boy’s sense of self-efficacy.

29. Reciprocal Determinism
Reciprocal determinism: A model proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura that explains human functioning and personality as caused by the interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors

30. Evaluating the Social Cognitive Perspective on Personality
Strengths
Well-grounded in empirical, laboratory research
Major impact on the study of personality
Emphasizes the self-regulation of behavior
Places most of the responsibility for behavior on the person
Limitations
Laboratory experiences are simple and may not reflect the complexity of human interactions in the real world
Influences of the unconscious, emotions, and conflicts downplayed

31. Freud Versus Rogers on Human Nature
Aggressive instinct is innate, persistent, and pervasive
Essence of human nature is destructive
Good or moral behavior is result of superego control
Rogers
People are positive, forward-moving, constructive, realistic, and trustworthy
People are innately good; evil due to cultural factors
Truly free humans will move to perpetuate human race and improve society as a whole
A member of Doctors Without Borders administers polio vaccines to children who are among the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing civil war in South Sudan. Doctors Without Borders is an international group of medical workers that won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work in helping the victims of violence and disasters all over the world.
On the one hand, violence motivated by political or ethnic hatred seems to support Freud’s contentions about human nature. On the other hand, the selfless behavior of those who help others, often at a considerable cost to themselves, seems to support Rogers’s view. Which viewpoint do you think more accurately describes the essence of human nature?
Are People Innately Good or Innately Evil?
Which viewpoint do you think more accurately describes the essence of human nature?

32. Trait Perspective on Personality
Trait: Formally defined as relatively stable, enduring predisposition to behave in a certain way
Trait theorists: Focus on identifying, describing, and measuring individual differences in behavioral predispositions
Trait theorists view the person as being a unique combination of personality characteristics or attributes, called traits

33. Surface Traits and Source Traits
Characteristics or attributes that can be inferred from observable behavior
4,000 English words describe specific personality traits (Allport and Odbert)
Source trait
Most fundamental dimensions of personality; broad, basic traits that are hypothesized to be universal and relatively few in number

34. Representative Trait Theories
Raymond Cattell
Proposed 16 personality factors
Used a statistical technique called factor analysis to identify them
Developed the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (abbreviated 16PF)
Sixteen is generally considered by others as too many traits
Raymond Cattell

35. Representative Trait Theories
Hans Eysenck
Proposed simpler model of universal source traits, with three different source traits
Introversion-extraversion
Neuroticism-stability
Psychoticism
Believed that individual differences in personality are due to biological differences among people
Is backed by more recent findings from neuroscience research
PET scans showed increased activity in regions of extrovert brain associated with the processing of sensory information, as compared with introvert brain.
Three is generally considered by others as too few traits

36. Eysenck’s Theory of Personality Types
Figure 10.3 Eysenck’s Theory of Personality Types Hans Eysenck’s representation of the four basic personality types. Each type represents a combination of two basic personality dimensions: extraversion–introversion and neuroticism–emotional stability. Note the different surface traits in each quadrant that are associated with each basic personality type.

37. Sixteen Are Too Many, Three Are Too Few: The Five-Factor Model
McCrae and Costa: Five-Factor Model
Many trait researchers propose that essential building blocks of personality can be described in terms of five basic personality dimensions.
Tested in more than 50 cultures
Probably biologically based as evolution found these factors adaptive
Traits seem stable over lifespan
Seem consistent over different situations, and are related to specific brain activities and structures
The consensus among many trait researchers is that essential building blocks of personality can be described in terms of five basic personality dimensions, which are sometimes called “the Big Five.” Factors: Usually rated from low to high

38. Personality Traits and Behavioral Genetics
Behavior genetics
Interdisciplinary field that studies the effects of genes and heredity on behavior
Basic research strategy of behavior genetics
Compares degrees of difference among subjects with their degrees of genetic relatedness
Evidence for genetic influence
Extraversion and neuroticism
Twin studies
Twin studies have found that openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness are influenced by genetics to a lesser extent
As twins grow up and leave home, personalities can diverge somewhat, showing the influence of environment and experience

39. Neuroscience of Personality: Brain Structure and the Big Five
Personality Traits and the Brain Red and yellow colors highlight regions where brain volume was significantly associated with specific personality traits. The lighter the color, the stronger the association (DeYoung & others, 2010).

40. Neuroscience of Personality: Brain Structure and the Big Five
Extraversion
Medial orbitofrontal cortex
Being sensitive to rewarding stimuli
Agreeableness
Posterior cingulate cortex
Understanding beliefs of others
Fusiform gyrus
Perceiving faces
Conscientiousness
Middle frontal gyrus
Involved in planning, working memory, and self-regulation
Neuroticism
Mixed pattern of brain structure
Openness to experience
No significant pattern of brain differences

41. Evaluating the Trait Perspective on Personality
Strengths
Psychologists generally agree that people can be described and compared in terms of basic personality traits
Limitations
Human personality not really explained
Explanation of how or why individual differences develop not explained
Failure to address other important personality issues

42. Assessing Personality
Psychological tests: Assess a person’s abilities, aptitudes, interests, or personality on the basis of a systematically obtained sample of behavior
Any psychological test is useful insofar as it achieves two basic goals:
It accurately and consistently reflects a person’s characteristics on some dimension.
It predicts a person’s future psychological functioning or behavior.

43. Projective Tests
Rorschach Inkblot Test: Projective test using inkblots, developed by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in 1921
Intrigued by Freud’s and Jung’s theories, Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922) set out to develop a test that would reveal the contents of the unconscious. Rorschach believed that people were more likely to expose their unconscious conflicts, motives, and defenses in their descriptions of the ambiguous inkblots than they would be if the same topics were directly addressed.
Rorschach published a series of 10 inkblots with an accompanying manual in a monograph titled Psychodiagnostics: A Diagnostic Test Based on Perception in Because he died the following year, Rorschach never knew how popular his projective test would become. Although the validity of the test is questionable, the Rorschach Inkblot Test is still the icon most synonymous with psychological testing in the popular media.
What Do You See in the Inkblot?

44. Projective Tests
Thematic apperception test (TAT): A projective personality test, developed by Henry Murray and colleagues, that involves creating stories about ambiguous scenes
The person is thought to project his own motives, conflicts, and other personality characteristics into the story he creates.
The Thematic Apperception Test
Involves creating a story about a highly evocative, ambiguous scene, like the ones shown in the cards in the photograph above.
The Thematic Apperception Test
Developed by psychologists Christiana Morgan and Henry Murray (1935), the TAT involves creating a story about a highly evocative, ambiguous scene, like the ones shown in the cards in the photographs above. The person is thought to project his own motives, conflicts, and other personality characteristics into the story he creates. According to Murray (1943), “Before he knows it, he has said things about an invented character that apply to himself, things which he would have been reluctant to confess in response to a direct question.”

45. Strengths and Limitations of Projective Tests
Provision of qualitative information about individual’s psychological functioning
Information can facilitate psychotherapy
Limitations
Can be influenced by testing situation or examiner’s behavior
Scoring highly subjective
Fails to produce consistent results
Poor at predicting future behavior
Projective tests remain very popular, especially among clinical, counseling, and school psychologists.

46. Self-Report Inventories
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): A self-report inventory that assesses personality characteristics and psychological disorders; used to assess both normal and disturbed populations
California Psychological Inventory (CPI): A self-report inventory that assesses personality characteristics in normal populations
Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF): A self-report inventory developed by Raymond Cattell that generates a personality profile with ratings on 16 trait dimensions
Self-report inventories typically use a paper-and-pencil format and take a direct, structured approach to assessing personality. People answer specific questions or rate themselves on various dimensions of behavior or psychological functioning.

47. Self-Report Inventories
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Self-report personality test that involves categorizing personality types
Test measures person’s preferred way of dealing with information, making decisions, and interacting with others.
Psychologists urge caution in using and interpreting findings.

48. Strengths and Limitations of Self-Report Inventories
Most important strengths of self-report inventories
Are standardized
Use established norms
Reliability and validity greater than those of projective tests
Self-inventory weaknesses
Takers may “fake” responses to look better (or worse)
High number of items leads to loss of interest
Takers not always accurate in self-judgments
No personality test, by itself, is likely to provide a definitive description of any given individual
Most important strengths of self-report inventories
Standardized — each person receives the same instructions and responds to the same questions
Use of established norms: results are compared with previously established norms and are not subjectively evaluated
Reliability and validity of self-report inventories are far greater than those of projective tests
Self-inventory weaknesses
Evidence that people can “fake” responses to look better (or worse)
Tests contain hundreds of items and become tedious
People may not be good judges of their own behavior
No personality test, by itself, is likely to provide a definitive description of any given individual