THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

● Personality ● Theory
- Individual differences in characteristic patterns of - a set of related assumptions that allows
thinking, feeling, and behaving scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to
- comes from the Latin “persona,” or the mask that formulate testable hypotheses
people present to the outside world
Note:
3 Dimensions of Personality Philosophy deals with what ought to be or what should
be; theory does not. Theory deals with broad sets of
1. Thinking - differences between people in how they typically if-then statements, but the goodness or badness of the
think (cognition) outcomes of these statements is beyond the realm of
theory
Example: Do people tend to focus on the positive (optimists) or Theory and its Relatives
the negative (pessimists)?
Use of Philosophy:
2. Affective (Feeling) - differences between people in how they ● Epistemology (or the nature of knowledge)
typically feel ● Speculation
● Hypothesis - is an educated guess or prediction
Examples: Do people tend to be happy or unhappy? Do they specific enough for its validity to be tested
experience intense emotions or not? Do they get angry easily? through the use of the scientific method
● Taxonomy - a classification of things according
3. Behaving - differences between people in how they typically to their natural relationships
behave
Why do we have different theories?
Examples: Do they tend to talk a lot? Are they neat and tidy or ● History
sloppy and disorderly? ● Social dynamics of theorist
● Psychological construct
● Personality does not refer to physical characteristics, ● experiences
abilities, or temporary states but the psychological
characteristics What makes a theory useful?
● Generates research (descriptive research and
● Personality doesn’t include many skills or abilities hypothesis testing)
Example: Just because someone can be an excellent ● falsifiable (ability to be confirmed or
negotiator or a skilled chess player, that doesn’t mean disconfirmed)
it is part of his/ her personality ● Organizes and explains data
● Guides the action of its practitioners
● Personality doesn’t include fleeting states like hunger, ● Internally consistent
arousal, or mood. Just because a person happens to be - is one whose components are logically
happy at a given moment doesn’t mean it is part of compatible. Its limitations of scope are
his/her personality carefully defined and it does not offer
explanations that lie beyond that scope)
● Parsimonious or simple
 Research in Personality Theory 2. Ideographic - are considered to be flexible measure for it
focuses on the uniqueness and individuality of a certain
1. Reliability - consistency of a measurement person which includes case studies
a. Test-retest reliability is when you get similar results
when you measure someone’s personality using ● Focuses on recognition of uniqueness
measure X at time 1 and then again at time 2 ● Uses subjective experiences
● Based on study of uniqueness of individual
b. Internal consistency - the degree to which the
various items produce similar scores (i.e., measure
the same thing) Goals of Psychology:
- applies to measures with multiple items (e.g., a 1. To Describe
self-report questionnaire with 10 items) 2. To Explain
3. To Predict
2. Validity - accuracy /truthfulness of test and includes 4. To Change
predictive validity and construct validity
Common Sources of Data:
a. Predictive validity- determines if the measure helps ● L - Life record data
predict behaviors and outcomes related to the trait ● O - Observer data
● T - Test data
3. Generalizability - degree to which the measure retains its ● S - Self-report data
validity and reliability

Levels of Personality Analysis I. PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

1. Like all others - a point of view that see all human as a. Sigmund Freud - founder
universally the same b. Alfred Adler
2. Like some others - a perspective that looks at humanity in c. Carl Jung
which it identifies the different groups of people and d. Karen Horney
individuals
3. Like no others - individual uniqueness

Possible Research Designs in Personality

1. Nomothetic - are also considered fixed measures that

describes the general characteristics distributed in a certain
group of people/population
- This includes correlational and experimental
researches

● Attempts to generalize people

● Objective knowledge
● Based on numerical data or data that can be
categorized
 PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Levels of Mental Life
1. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Born in Freiberg, Moravia (currently Czech Republic)

Definition:
- irrational, unconscious drives and motives, often
originating in childhood, underlie human behavior

● People are driven by inborn sexual and aggressive

instincts that must be controlled
1. Unconscious
● People’s behavior was said to reflect unconscious - contains all those drives, urges, or instincts that are
beyond our awareness but that nevertheless motivate
motives that people repress
most of our words, feelings, and actions

Concepts: - fear, violent motives, immoral urges, unacceptable

sexual desires, selfish needs, shameful experiences,
❖ Unconscious motives irrational urges
- Freud’s term for feelings, experiences and conflicts
that influence a person’s thinking and behavior, but - the explanation for the meaning behind dreams, slips
lie outside that person’s awareness of the tongue, and certain kinds of forgetting, called
repression
❖ Instinct - Dreams serve as a particularly rich source of
- Inborn biological force that motivates a particular unconscious material
response(s)
- a form of energy– transformed physiological Elaboration:
energy–that connects the needs of the body with the
wishes of the mind ★ Unconscious does not mean inactive or dormant.
Forces in the unconscious constantly strive to become
❖ hysteria conscious, and many of them succeed, although they
- any psychogenic disorder characterized by symptoms may no longer appear in their original form. Freud
such as paralysis, blindness, loss of sensation, and used the analogy of a guardian or censor blocking the
hallucinations and often accompanied by passage between the unconscious and preconscious
suggestibility, emotional outbursts, and histrionic and preventing undesirable anxiety-producing
behavior memories from entering awareness. To enter the
conscious level of the mind, these unconscious images
❖ catharsis first must be sufficiently disguised to slip past the
- the process of removing hysterical symptoms primary censor, and then they must elude a final
through “talking them out” censor that watches the passageway between the
preconscious and the conscious.
 ★ Unconscious ideas can and do motivate people. For Methods of Assessment
example, a son’s hostility toward his father may
masquerade itself in the form of ostentatious ● Free association
- is the practice of saying every thought that comes to
(vulgar/pretentious display) affection. In an
mind without censoring anything
undisguised form, the hostility would create too
much anxiety for the son. His unconscious mind, ● Dream analysis and Freudian slips
therefore, motivates him to express hostility - Freud believed dreams reveal something about the
indirectly through an exaggerated show of love and unconscious mind. He advocated dream analysis as a
flattery. Because the disguise must successfully way to bring the contents of the unconscious mind
deceive the person, it often takes an opposite form into conscious awareness
- Other places to look for the unconscious leaking out
from the original feelings, but it is almost always
include jokes and mistakes (slips)
overblown and ostentatious.
● Dream Analysis
2. Preconscious/Subconscious - Freud believed that dreams represent, in symbolic
- contains all those elements that are not conscious but form, repressed desires, fears, and conflicts. So
can become conscious either quite readily or with strongly have these feelings been repressed that they
some difficulty can surface only in disguised fashion during sleep
- memories, stored knowledge
Two aspects of dreams:
3. Conscious a. manifest content
- mental elements in awareness at any given point in - refers to the actual events in the dream
time
- Thoughts, perceptions b. latent content
- which is the hidden symbolic meaning of the dream

3 Pillars of Psychoanalysis

● Dream Analysis
● Freudian Slips
● Psychotherapy - hypnosis and word association (i.e.
completing the sentence without thought)
 THREE COMPONENTS OF PERSONALITY 3. SUPEREGO (“Moral Principle”) - the “over-I”
- Conscience
1. ID (“Pleasure Principle”) - the “it” - Insists that the ego find socially acceptable outlets
- Present at birth for the id’s undesirable impulses

Main goal: satisfying one’s wants and needs Main goal: can punish the ego through causing feelings
immediately (biological instincts) of guilt
- has no contact with the outside world and
Biological components of id: 2 Types of Instinct therefore is unrealistic in its demands for perfection
a. Sex (Life) Instinct
- Eros (contains libido or sexual energy) - A well-developed superego acts to control sexual
- procreation, social cooperation, survival and aggressive impulses through the process of
- oriented toward growth and development repression. It cannot produce repressions by itself,
but it can order the ego to do so
The libido can be attached to or invested in objects, a concept
Freud called cathexis - inconsiderate of the difficulties or impossibilities
Ex. If you like your roommate, for example, Freud faced by the ego in carrying out its orders
would say that your libido is cathected to him or her
2 subsystems:
❖ Sex as our primary motivation. Erotic wishes arise 1. Conscience - results from experiences with
from the body’s erogenous zones: the mouth, anus, punishments for improper behavior and tells us
and sex organs what we should not do

b. Aggressive (Death) Instinct 2. Ego-ideal - develops from experiences with

- Thanatos rewards for proper behavior and tells us what we
- Aggression, risky behavior, reliving trauma should do

★ primary-process thought - Childlike thinking by

which the id attempts to satisfy the instinctual drives

2. EGO (“Reality Principle”) - the “I”

- Decision-making component/moderator
- Conscious, rational
- only region of the mind in contact with reality
- partly conscious, partly preconscious, and partly
unconscious

Main goal: realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands

➢ compromising/postponing
➢ satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of
society

★ secondary-process thought - Mature thought

processes needed to deal rationally with the external
world
 Anxiety: A Threat to the Ego Importance of the Unconscious: DEFENSE MECHANISMS

● Anxiety - a feeling of fear and dread without an Defense mechanisms

obvious cause - Strategies the ego uses to defend itself against the
- enables a person to be ready and react to a certain anxiety provoked by conflicts of everyday life
threatening situation - involve denials or distortions of reality
- all operate unconsciously
Purpose:
➢ serves as a warning to the person that something is Common Defense Mechanisms
amiss within the personality
➢ alerts the individual that the ego is being threatened 1. Repression
and that unless action is taken, the ego might be - A type of motivated forgetting in which
overthrown anxiety-provoking thoughts and conflicts are forced
out of conscious awareness
a. objective/reality anxiety
- is a fear of tangible dangers, normal anxiety - You don’t actively deny it; rather, you just decide not
to think about it and eventually forget it
b. neurotic anxiety
- involves a conflict between id and ego; id is more 2. Denial - is refusing to acknowledge something
powerful than the ego
- an unconscious fear of being punished for 3. Reaction formation - is convincing yourself of the
impulsively displaying id-dominated behavior opposite of what is actually true

c. moral anxiety 4. Projection - is attributing an unwanted trait or thought to

- involves a conflict between id and superego; someone else
superego is more powerful than the ego
- a fear of one’s conscience 5. Rationalization - Involves reinterpreting behavior to
make it more acceptable and less threatening

6. Introjection -a defense mechanism whereby people

incorporate positive qualities of another person into their
own ego

7. Displacement - is redirecting an unwanted impulse

toward something more acceptable

8. Regression - Involves retreating to an earlier, less

frustrating period of life and displaying the childish and
dependent behaviors characteristic of that more secure time

9. Sublimation - is converting shameful impulses into

something noble; converting negative to positive
 ❖ Erogenous Zone - Need stimulation for satisfaction
- Pleasure areas in the body producing sexual responses by stimulating (under/over satisfied)
❖ Fixation - An obsessive attachment to something or activity that deters development

❖ Unresolved conflict can lead to certain fixation which affects your personality like having a hobby of smoking

Psychosexual Age Sexual Focus Experiences Fixations

Stage Overstimulation
Understimulation

Oral 0-1 Mouth Sucking, Weaning:

chewing, biting Child: nail-biting, thumb-sucking,
pencil chewing, employing sarcasm, overeating

Anal 1-3 Anus Freedom to Toilet training: extreme cleanliness or messiness;

urinate and being extremely rule-abiding and obsessed with
defecate order (anal retentive) or being rebellious, chaotic,
and anti-authority (anal expulsive)

Phallic 3-6 Phallus Genital Identifying with gender roles:

(Genital) stimulation Boy: Oedipus complex
- the unconscious desire of a boy for his mother,
accompanied by a desire to replace or destroy his
father

Girl: Electra complex

- unconscious desire of a girl for her father,
accompanied by a desire to replace or destroy her
mother

castration anxiety - A boy’s fear during the Oedipal

period that his penis will be cut off

penis envy - The envy the female feels toward the

male because the male possesses a penis; this is
accompanied by a sense of loss because the female
does not have a penis

Latency 6-11 None Social interactions Sexual conflicts and impulses are repressed

Genital 12+ Genital Intimate Puberty reawakens sexual impulses

Relationships If successful: marriage, child-rearing, sexual maturity
If fixated: low sexual interest, difficulty finding or
maintaining a relationship