2. Chapter Overview
Introduction to Personality and Psychodynamic Theories
Humanistic Theories and Trait Theories
Social-Cognitive Theories and the Self

3. Introduction to Personality and Psychodynamic Theories
Is individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

4. Introduction to Personality and Psychodynamic Theories
Posit that behavior is dynamic interaction between conscious and unconscious mind
Humanistic approach
Focus on inner capacities for growth and self-fulfillment
Trait theories
Examine characteristic patterns of behavior
Social-cognitive theories
Explore interaction between traits and social context

5. Observed patients whose disorders had no clear physical explanations
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective: Perspective Exploring the Unconscious
Observed patients whose disorders had no clear physical explanations
Concluded their problems reflected unacceptable thoughts and feelings, hidden away in the unconscious mind
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

6. Let’s take a few minutes to review each of these.
Terms to Learn
Psychoanalysis
Conscious, preconscious, unconscious mind
Free association
Ego, superego, id
Pleasure principle
Reality principle
Let’s take a few minutes to review each of these.
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used interpret unconscious tensions
Unconscious
A reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories; According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.
Free association
In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. Id
A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

7. FREUD’S IDEA OF THE MIND’S STRUCTURE
Psychologists have used an iceberg image to illustrate Freud’s idea that the mind is mostly hidden beneath the conscious surface.
Note that the id is totally unconscious, but ego and superego operate both consciously and unconsciously.
Unlike the parts of a frozen iceberg; however, the id, ego, and superego interact.

8. Freud’s Personality Structure
Freud believed that personality results from the mind’s three systems.
Id: Operates on pleasure principle; unconsciously strives to satisfy basic drives to survive, reproduce, and aggress
Ego: Operates on reality principle; seeks to realistically gratify id’s impulses to bring long-term pleasure; contains perceptions, thoughts, judgments and memories
Superego: Focuses on ideal behavior; strives for perfections; acts as moral conscious
Id (pleasure-seeking impulses)
Ego (reality-oriented executive)
Superego (internalized set of ideals, or conscience)

9. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Focus
Oral (0–18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth—sucking, biting, chewing
Anal (18–36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Phallic (3–6 years)
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Latency (6 to puberty)
A phase of dormant sexual feelings
Genital (puberty on)
Maturation of sexual interests
Freud believed children pass through five psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital). Unresolved conflicts at any stage can leave a person’s pleasure-seeking impulses fixated (stalled) at that stage.

10. Defense Mechanisms
Ego protects itself with tactics that reduce and redirect anxiety by reality distortion (defense mechanisms).
Defense mechanisms function indirectly and unconsciously.
Repression underlies all other defense mechanisms. It is sometimes incomplete and may be manifested as symbols in dreams or slips of the tongue.
For Freud, anxiety was the product of tensions between the demands of the id and superego. The ego copes by using unconscious defense mechanisms, such as repression, which he viewed as the basic mechanism underlying and enabling all the others.

11. REGRESSION
Faced with a mild stressor, children and young orangutans seek from their caregivers.
Freud might have interpreted these behaviors as regression, a retreat to an earlier developmental stage.

12. SIX WELL-KNOWN DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Unconscious Process Employed to Avoid Anxiety-Arousing Thoughts or Feelings
Example
Regression
Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
A little boy reverts to the oral comfort of thumb sucking in the car on the way to his first day of school.
Reaction formation
Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
Repressing angry feelings, a person displays exaggerated friendliness.
Projection
Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
“The thief thinks everyone else is a thief” (an El Salvadoran saying).
Rationalization
Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions.
A habitual drinker says she drinks with her friends “just to be sociable.”
Displacement
Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.
A little girl kicks the family dog after her mother sends her to her room.
Denial
Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.
A partner denies evidence of his loved one’s affair.
SIX WELL-KNOWN DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Freud believed that repression, the basic mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing impulses, enables other defense mechanisms, six of which are listed above.

13. The Neo-Freudian and Later Psychodynamic Theorists
Neo-Freudians
Accepted many of Freud’s ideas
Placed more emphasis on conscious mind and on social motives than sexual or aggression related ones
Contemporary psychodynamic theorists
Reject Freud’s emphasis on sexual motivation
View mental life as primarily unconscious
Contend childhood social experiences influence adult personality and attachment patterns
Many believe species’ shared evolutionary history shaped some universal predispositions (archetypes)

14. Alfred Adler “The individual feels at home in life and feels his existence to be worthwhile just so far as he is useful to others and is overcoming feelings of inferiority” (Problems of Neurosis, 1964).
Karen Horney “The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine tendency to lower women’s self- respect” (Feminine Psychology, 1932).
Carl Jung “From the living fountain of instinct flows everything that is creative; hence the unconscious is the very source of the creative impulse” (The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960).
Adler and Horney
Agreed with Freud about childhood importance
Believed childhood social, not sexual tensions crucial for personality formation
Adler
Proposed inferiority complex
Horney
Theorized childhood anxiety triggers desire for love and security
Countered assumption that women have weak superegos and suffer penis envy
Jung
Placed less emphasis on social factors and agreed with idea of influence of unconscious
Proposed collective unconscious (archetypes) derived from species’ universal experiences

15. Assessing Unconscious Processes
Projective test
Personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics and reveal unconscious motives
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

16. Assessing Unconscious Processes
Rorschach inkblot test
Most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach
Seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots; attempts to address low reliability and validity in most areas addressed with research-based, computer-aided tool
Spencer Grant/Science Source
THE RORSCHACH TEST Some who use this test are confident that the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli will reveal unconscious aspects of the test-taker’s personality.

17. Evaluating Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective and Modern Views of the Unconscious
Modern research contradicts many of Freud’s ideas
Development is lifelong, not fixed in childhood
Parental influence is overestimated and peer influence is underestimated
Oedipus complex questioned
Gender identity develops earlier than Freud theorized and is possible without influence of same-sex parent in home
Belief that dreams disguise and fulfill wishes is disputed, as is idea that suppressed sexuality causes psychological disorders
Freud’s scientific methodology is criticized
After-the-fact explanations of characteristics fail to predict behaviors and traits

18. Evaluating Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective and Modern Views of the Unconscious
Freud is credited
Drawing attention to the vast unconscious
Strugglingto cope with sexuality
Addressing conflict between biological impulses and social restraints
Identifying forms of defense mechanisms and unconscious terror-management defenses

19. Modern Research Challenges the Idea of Repression
Research does not support many of Freud’s specific ideas.
Modern research challenges:
Freud’s concept of repression
View of the unconscious as a collection of repressed and unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
Difficulty of scientifically testing Freud’s concepts

20. The Modern Unconscious Mind
Many research psychologists now think of the unconscious as information processing that occurs without awareness.
Unconsciousness involves
Schemas, priming, right-hemisphere activity, implicit memories, emotions, and stereotypes
Research supports two of Freud’s defense mechanisms: reaction formation and projection
Current research confirms that we do not have full access to all that goes on in our mind, but the current view of the unconscious is that it is a separate and parallel track of information processing that occurs outside our awareness.

21. Humanistic Theories and Trait Theories
Abraham Maslow’s Self-Actualizing Person
Maslow focused on potential for healthy personal growth and people’s striving for self-determination and self-realization
People motivated by hierarchy of needs and strive toward self-actualization and self-transcendence
Carl Rogers’ Person-Centered Perspective
Roger posited that growth-promoting environment characteristics are genuineness, acceptance, and empathy.
Unconditional positive regard and self-concept are key components of theory

22. Assessing the Self
Humanistic psychologists sometimes assessed personality using questionnaires to evaluate their self-concept.
Some rejected any standardized assessments and relied on interviews and conversations.
Rogers sometimes used questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves, which was later used to judge progress during therapy.

23. Evaluating Humanistic Theories
Influences
Influenced counseling, education, child-raising, and management
Laid groundwork for positive psychology
Renewed interest in concept of self
Criticisms
Presents vague and subjective concepts
Advances individualism and self-centered values
Offers naively optimistic assumptions

24. Trait Theories: Describing Personality
Trait theorists
See personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior
Describe differences rather than trying to explain them
Use factor analysis to identify clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together
Suggest genetic predispositions influence many traits

25. Exploring Traits Factor analysis
Statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test items to tap basic components of intelligence
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-extraversion and emotionality factors inevitably emerged as basic personality dimensions
Classifying people as one or another distinct personality type fails to capture their full individuality.

26. Exploring Traits Biology and personality Stigma of introversion
Brain-activity scans of extraverts indicate they seek stimulation because normal brain arousal is relatively low.
Dopamine and dopamine-related neural activity tend to be higher in extraverts.
Stigma of introversion
Introversion is often misunderstood as shyness, but introverted people often simply seek low levels of stimulation from their environment.

27. Assessing Traits Personality inventory Example
Questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits
Test items empirically derived, and tests objectively scored
Example
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI/Hathaway)
Translated into 100+ languages
But people can fake their answers to create a good impression, and the ease of computerized testing may lead to misuse of the tests.

28. The Big Five Factors
The Big Five personality factors (Costa and colleagues, 2011) currently offer the most widely accepted picture of personality
Conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion (CANOE)
Genetic influences are similar in different nations.
Many genes, each having small effects, combine to influence traits.

29. Big Five Research Questions
How stable are these traits?
How heritable are they?
Do traits reflect differing brain structure?
Have these traits changed over time?
How well do these traits apply to various cultures?
Do the Big Five traits predict our actual behaviors?

30. THE “BIG FIVE” PERSONALITY FACTORS
Researchers use self-report inventories and peer reports to assess and score the Big Five personality factors.

31. The Person-Situation Controversy
Behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner disposition with our environment.
In general, personality traits are stable and socially significant.
Personality traits are predictors of mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment.
Consistency of specific behaviors from one situation to another is weak; average behaviors are predictable
At any moment the immediate situation powerfully influences a person’s behavior.
A person’s average traits persist over time and are predictable over many different situations.
But traits cannot predict behavior in any one particular situation.

32. Social-Cognitive Theories and the Self
Social-cognitive perspective (Bandura)
Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context
Emphasizes interaction of our traits with our situations
Applies principles of learning, cognition, and social behavior to personality

33. Reciprocal Influences
Reciprocal determinism
Describes interaction and mutual influence of behavior, internal personal factors, and environmental factors
Interaction of individuals and environments: Internal personal factors
Different people choose different environments.
Personalities shape how people interpret and react to events.
Personalities help create situations to which people react.

34. Assessing Behavior in Situations
Social-cognitive theorists
Build on concepts of learning and cognition
Contend best way to predict behavior in a given situation is to observe that behavior in similar situations
Underemphasize importance of unconscious motives, emotions, and biologically influenced traits
Modern research suggests assessment center exercises are more likely to reveal visible dimensions than others.
Best means of predicting future behavior is the person’s past behavior patterns in similar situations

35. Exploring the Self Exploration of self in psychology has long history
William James (1890)
Gordon Allport (1943)
Humanistic psychology
Psychology today
Self is one of most studied topics and viewed as center of personality
Consideration of possible selves motivates toward positive development; too intense focusing may lead to spotlight effect

36. Exploring the Self Self-efficacy is our sense of competence on a task
Self-esteem is our feeling of self-worth
Self-efficacy is our sense of competence on a task
Timothy Large/ Shutterstock and © Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy
High self-esteem correlates with less pressure to conform, with persistence at difficult tasks, and with happiness. But the direction of the correlation is not clear. Psychologists caution against unrealistically promoting children’s feelings of self-worth. It’s better to reward their achievements, which leads to feelings of competence.
High self-esteem correlates with less pressure to conform, with persistence
at difficult tasks, and with happiness. But the direction of the correlation is not clear.

37. Costs of Self-Esteem Excessive optimism May lead to complacency
May prevent recognition of real risks
May be self-defeating when dealing with temptations
May be directed toward group (illusionary optimism)

38. Costs of Self-Esteem Blindness to one’s own incompetence
People are most overconfident when most incompetent; it takes competence to recognize competence
Self-serving bias
Involves a readiness to perceive self favorably
Suggests people accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, and for successes than for failure
Often creates a better-than-average effect
May underlie a range of conflicts

39. Self-Esteem Some researchers propose two types of self- esteem
Defensive self-esteem is fragile, threatened by failure and criticism, and more vulnerable to perceived threats which feed anger and feelings of vulnerability.
Secure self-esteem is less fragile, less contingent on external evaluations, and more likely to achieve a greater quality of life.