🗓️Unit 11
Personality

PSYC 181 – Intro to Psych

Emma Marshall – Instructor

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

August 8, 2024

What you will learn

Learning Objectives

• Define personality
• Describe early theories about personality development
• Describe the assumptions of the psychodynamic perspective on personality development
• Discuss the core differences between major theories on personality

PERSONALITY

What makes two individuals have different personalities? (credit: modification of work by Nicolas Alejandro)

WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Personality long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals
to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways

Happy, sad, impatient, shy, fearful, curious, helpful. What characteristics describe your personality?

Comes from the Latin word persona (a mask worn by an actor).

In ancient times, theatrical masks were used to represent/project a specific personality trait.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Hippocrates (370 BCE)

• personality based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids (“humors”) of the body

1Choleric

• yellow bile from
  the liver

2Melancholic

• black bile from
  the kidneys

3Sanguine

• red blood from the heart

4Phlegmatic

• white phlegm from the lungs

Galen

• Prevalent view for over 1000 years and through the Middle Ages

1Choleric

• passionate, ambitious,
  and bold

2Melancholic

• reserved, anxious,
  and unhappy

3Sanguine

• joyful, eager, and optimistic

4Phlegmatic

• calm, reliable, and thoughtful

Galen - Believed both diseases and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in the humors and that each person exhibits one of the four temperaments. - Prevalent view for over 1000 years and through the Middle Ages. - Choleric – passionate, ambitious, and bold. - Melancholic – reserved, anxious, and unhappy. - Sanguine – joyful, eager, and optimistic. - Phlegmatic – calm, reliable, and thoughtful.

Franz Gall (18th century)

Franz Gall (1780) - Proposed that the distances between bumps on the skull reveal a person’s personality traits, character, and mental abilities. - Discredited for lack of empirical support. - Gall developed a chart that depicted which areas of the skull corresponded to particular personality traits or characteristics (Hothersall, 1995). - An 1825 lithograph depicts Gall examining the skull of a young woman.

Immanuel Kant (18th century)

• Developed a list of traits to describe the personality of each temperament

• Agreed with Galen that individuals could be categorized into one of the four temperaments
• Developed a list of traits to describe the personality of each of the four temperaments

Wilhelm Wundt (19th century)

• Suggested that personality could be described using two major axes: - Emotional/non-emotional – separated strong emotions (melancholic, choleric) from the weak emotions (phlegmatic, sanguine). - Changeable/unchangeable – divided the changeable temperaments (choleric, sanguine) from the unchangeable ones (melancholic, phlegmatic).

Psychodynamic Perspectives

Sigmund Freud (20th Century)

Unconscious mental activity that we are unaware of and are unable to access

• First comprehensive theory of personality explaining both normal and abnormal behaviors. - Proposed that unconscious drives influenced by sex, aggression and childhood sexuality influence personality.

According to Freud: - We are only aware of a small amount (about one-tenth) of our mind’s activities and most of it remains hidden from us in our unconscious. - Unacceptable urges and desires are kept in our unconscious through repression. - The information in our unconscious affects our behavior, although we are unaware of it. - Freudian slip - Freud suggested that slips of the tongue (saying a word you did not intend to say) are sexual/aggressive urges accidently slipping out of our unconscious.

ID, EGO & SUPEREGO

Freud posited that personality results from efforts to balance two competing forces.

• Biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives.

• Internal (socialized) control over these pleasure-seeking drives.

Freud described this process as an interaction between three systems.

Id

• Contains primitive urges
  (for hunger, thirst, and sex)

• Impulsive, instinctual

• Operates on the “pleasure principle”

  • seeks immediate gratification

Superego

• Develops through interactions with others, learning social rules for right and wrong

• Moral compass that tells us how we should behave based on rules

• Strives for perfection

• Judges behavior

• Leads to feelings of pride or guilt

Ego (self)

• Attempts to balance the id with the superego

• Rational

• Operates on the “reality principle”

  • helps id satisfy desires in a realistic way

• Part of personality seen by others

Balanced

• id and superego → healthy personality

Imbalanced

• id superego → neurosis (tendency to experience negative emotions)

  • anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors

DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Unconscious protective behaviors that work to reduce anxiety.

• Used by the ego to restore balance between the id and superego.

• Freud believed them to be used by everyone but that overuse could be problematic.

STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

Freud theorized that children pass through five psychosexual stages. - In each stage, pleasure-seeking urges (id) are focused on a different erogenous zone (part of the body). - Lack of proper nurturing and parenting during conflicts results in the person becoming stuck/fixated in that stage.

1Oral Stage (Birth – 1 year)

• Erogenous zone mouth

• Pleasure from eating and sucking

• Major conflict being weaned from bottle or breast

• Adult fixation smoking, overeating, nail biting

2Anal Stage (1-3 years)

• Erogenous zone anus

• Pleasure from bowel and bladder movements

• Major conflict toilet training

• Adult fixation anal

  • Retentive personality (stingy, stubborn, need for order and neatness)

  • Anal-expulsive personality (messy, careless, disorganized, prone to emotional outbursts)

3Phallic Stage (3-6 years)

• Erogenous zone genitals

• Major conflict child feels a desire for the opposite-sex parent, and jealousy and hatred toward the same-sex parent

  • Oedipus complex (boys) desire for mother’s attention, urge to replace father. Afraid of being punished by father for these feelings (castration anxiety)

  • Electra complex (girls) desire for father’s attention, urge to replace mother. Angry at mother for not providing them with a penis (penis envy)

• Adult fixation vanity, over-ambition

4Latency Stage (6-12 years)

• Erogenous zone none

• Sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on:

  • school

  • friendships

  • hobbies

  • same-sex peers

5Genital Stage (12+)

• Erogenous zone genitals

• Sexual reawakening urges are redirected from parents to more socially acceptable partners

Neo-Freudians (20th Century)

• Agreed that childhood experiences matter
• Less emphasis on sex
• Focused on the social environment and effects of culture on personality

Individual psychology

• Focuses on our drive to compensate for feelings of inferiority

Inferiority complex

• A person’s feelings that they lack worth and don’t measure up to the standards of others or society

• Social motives thought to be the force behind thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. - Placed focus on social connections during childhood development.
• Believed happiness can be found in working together for the betterment of all.
• Viewed main goal of psychology to be “to recognize the equal rights and equality of others”. - Saw conscious processes as more important. - Theorized that birth order shapes our personality.

Adler identified three fundamental social tasks all individuals must experience. - Occupational tasks – careers. - Societal tasks – friendship. - Love tasks – finding an intimate partner.

Erik Erickson

Psychosocial Stages of Development

Psychosocial theory of Development - Personality develops throughout the lifespan. - Emphasizes importance of social relationships at each stage. - Development of a healthy personality and sense of competence depend on successfully completing each of the 8 stages.

Psychosocial Stages of Development

Stage	Age (years)	Developmental task	Description
1	0-1	Trust vs. Mistrust	Trust (or mistrust) that basic needs, such as nourishment and affection, will be met
2	1-3	Autonomy vs. shame/doubt	Sense of independence in many tasks develops
3	3-6	Initiative vs. guilt	Take initiative on some activities, may develop guilt when success not met or boundaries overstepped
4	7-11	Industry vs. inferiority	Develop self-confidence in abilities when competent or sense of inferiority when not
5	12-18	Identity vs. confusion	Experiment with and develop identity and roles
6	19-29	Intimacy vs. isolation	Establish intimacy and relationships with others
7	30-64	Generativity vs. stagnation	Contribute to society and be part of a family
8	64+	Integrity vs. despair	Assess and make sense of life and meaning of contributions

CARL JUNG

Analytical Psychology - Focused on working to balance conscious and unconscious thought. - Carl Jung acknowledged the concept of a personal unconscious but was also interested in exploring the collective unconscious.

Collective unconscious universal version of personal unconscious,
holding mental patterns, or memory traces

CARL JUNG

Archetypes patterns existing in our collective unconscious

• Represented by universal themes in various cultures reflecting common experiences of people around the world

• Integration of unconscious archetypal aspects of the self seen as part of self-realization process

CARL JUNG

Persona A mask that we consciously adopt

• Derived from conscious experiences and our collective unconscious

• A compromise between our true self and the self that society expects us to be

CARL JUNG

Extroversion vs Introversion Jung’s most important contributions to the field of personality psychology was the idea of extroversion and introversion to explain different attitudes towards life.

Introverts	Extroverts
Energized by being alone	Energized by being with others
Avoids attention	Seeks attention
Speaks slowly & softly	Speaks quickly & loudly
Thinks before speaking	Thinks out loud
Stays on one topic	Jumps from topic to topic
Prefers written communication	Prefers verbal communication
Pays attention easily	Distractible
Cautious	Acts first, thinks later

KAREN HORNEY

• Agreed with Jung that individuals have the potential for self-realization and believed the goal of psychoanalysis should be moving toward a healthy self.
• Disagreed with the idea of penis envy – suggested that any jealousy is culturally based.
• Differences in personality between men and women is culturally based.
• Men have womb envy because they cannot give birth.
• Many of Horney’s theories focused on unconscious anxiety.
• Normal growth can be blocked by basic anxiety stemming from needs not being met.

3 styles of coping used by children to relieve anxiety: 1. Moving toward people – affiliation and dependence. - As adults – likely to have an intense need for love and acceptance. 2. Moving against people – aggression and assertiveness. - As adults – likely to lash out and exploit others. 3. Moving away from people – detachment and isolation. - As adults – likely to avoid love/friendship and avoid interaction with others.

Learning Approaches

• Learning approaches to personality focus on observable, measurable phenomena

Behavioral Perspective

B. F. Skinner
Personality is learned and evelops over time or through experience

Social-Cognitive Perspective

Albert Bandura
Personality is learned, but involves thinking and reasoning

Skinner - We learn to behave in particular ways. - Personality is shaped by reinforcements and consequences in the environment. - Personality develops over our entire life. - Personality can vary as we experience new situations.

Bandura - Agreed that personality develops through learning but disagreed with the behaviorist approach because thinking and reasoning are important parts of learning. Social-cognitive theory emphasizes both learning and cognition as sources of individual difference in personality.

Factors in personality development - Reciprocal Determinism – cognitive processes (beliefs, expectations, and personality characteristics), behavior, and context (environment/situation) all interact. - Observational learning – learning by observing someone else’s behavior and it’s consequences. - Teaches us which behaviors are acceptable and rewarded in our culture. - Teaches us which behaviors are socially unacceptable. - Self-efficacy – level of confidence in our own abilities, developed through social experiences. - Affects how we approach challenges.

RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM

Bandura proposed the idea of reciprocal determinism: Our behavior, cognitive processes, and situational context all influence each other.

JULIAN ROTTER: LOCUS OF CONTROL

Locus of control occurs on a continuum from internal to external.

Locus of control beliefs about the power we have over our lives

• Proposed as a cognitive factor that affects learning and personality development

Internal locus of control tend to believe personal efforts determine our outcomes

• Perform better academically, achieve more in careers, more independent, healthier, less depressed

External locus of control tend to believe that our outcomes are outside of our control.

• Believe lives are controlled by other people, luck, or chance

WALTER MISCHEL: THE PERSON-SITUATION DEBATE

Mischel’s Findings: - Behavior was inconsistent across different situations but more consistent within situations. - Behavior is consistent in equivalent situations across time. - This data did not support the theory that a person’s personality traits are consistent across situations - triggered the person-situation debate among psychologists.

Marshmallow Study

1Method

• Children placed in room and given a marshmallow
  • Told could either eat it now, or wait for two marshmallows

2Results

• Children differ in levels of self-control
  • Preschoolers that waited in were more successful in high school

?Problems?

• Study on self-regulation (aka will power) – ability to delay gratification.
• Children were placed in a room with one marshmallow on the table - was told that they could either eat it now, or wait until the researcher returned and could then have two marshmallows.
• Revealed that children differ in levels of self-control.
• Children that had more self-control (waited for two marshmallows) in preschool were more successful in high school.
• Children that had poorer self-control (took the one marshmallow) in preschool were more likely to have academic and behavioral problems.

Mischel’s approach to personality – People use cognitive processes to assess the situation in their own way and behave in accordance with that interpretation.

HUMANISTIC APPROACHES

• Focuses on how healthy people develop

Abraham Maslow

Studied people he considered healthy, creative, and productive found similarities

Carl Rodgers

Linked personality to self-concept (thoughts and feelings about ourselves)

Abraham Maslow - Studied people he considered healthy, creative, and productive (Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln). - Found that they shared similar characteristics – open, creative, loving, spontaneous, compassionate, concerned for others, accepting of themselves.

Carl Rogers - Linked personality to self-concept (thoughts and feelings about ourselves).

• Divided the self into the idea self and the real self. - Ideal self – the person you would like to be. - Real self – the person you actually are. - Believed we needed to find congruence between the ideal and real self – thoughts about ideal self and real self are similar. - High congruence → greater sense of self-worth and a health, productive life. - Incongruence → maladjustment.

BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES

Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart

• Found that identical twins (raised together or apart) have very similar personalities

Perspective that differences in our personalities can be explained by inherited predispositions and physiological processes.

Heritable Traits Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart: - Found that identical twins, whether raised together or apart, have very similar personalities. - Suggests the heritability of some personality traits. - Traits with more than a 0.50 heritability ratio – leadership, obedience to authority, a sense of well-being, alienation, resistance to stress, and fearfulness.

BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES

Temperament appears very early in life (suggesting a biological basis).

• Babies can be categorized into one of three temperaments:
  • easy, difficult, or slow to warm up
  • Environmental factors and maturation can affect expression of personality

Two adult dimensions

1Reactivity

• response to new or
  challenging environmental
  stimuli

2Self-regulation

• ability to
  control responses

SOMATOTYPES

William H. Sheldon believed body type could be linked to personality.

He proposed three somatotypes: 1. Endomorphs – relaxed, comfortable, good-humored, even-tempered, sociable, and tolerant. 2. Mesomorphs – adventurous, assertive, competitive, and fearless. 3. Ectomorphs – Anxious, self-conscious, artistic, thoughtful, quiet, and private.

TRAIT THEORISTS

Gordon Allport

Found 4,500 words to describe personality and sorts by cardinal, central and secondary traits

Raymond Cattell

Narrowed Allport’s list to about 171 traits and identified 16 dimensions of personality

Believe that people have certain traits (characteristics or ways of behaving). - For example, optimistic or pessimistic, sociable or shy.

Gordon Allport - Found 4,500 words in the English language to describe people and organized them into three categories. 1. Cardinal traits – dominates entire personality (rare). 2. Central traits – make up our personality. 3. Secondary traits – less obvious or consistent, present under certain circumstances (e.g., preferences, attitudes).

Raymond Cattell - Narrowed Allport’s list to about 171 traits. - Identified 16 dimensions of personality – instead of a present being present or absent, people are scored on a continuum.

HANS & SYBIL EYSENCK

Hans and Sybil Eysenck focused on temperament and believed that our personality traits are influenced by our genetic inheritance.

The Eysencks described two factors to account for variations in our personalities: extroversion/introversion and emotional stability/instability.

2 specific personality dimensions: 1. Extroversion/Introversion - High in extroversion – sociable, outgoing - High in introversion – high need to be alone, engage in solitary behaviors 2. Neuroticism/Stability - High in neuroticism – anxious, overactive sympathetic nervous system - High in stability – more emotionally stable

FIVE FACTOR MODEL

In the Five Factor Model, each person has five traits, known as the Big Five personality traits. Each trait is scored on a continuum from high to low. The first letter of each trait spells the mnemonic OCEAN.

1. Openness to experience
2. Conscientiousness
3. Extroversion
4. Agreeableness
5. Neuroticism

HEXACO MODEL

Trait	Example Aspects of Trait
(H) Honesty-humility	Sincerity, modesty, faithfulness
(E) Emotionality	Sentimentality, anxiety, sensitivity
(X) Extraversion	Sociability, talkativeness, boldness
(A) Agreeableness	Patience, tolerance, gentleness
(C) Conscientiousness	Organization, thoroughness, precision
(O) Openness	Creativity, inquisitiveness, innovativeness

CULTURAL UNDERSTANDINGS OF PERSONALITY

Culture beliefs, customs, art, and traditions of a particular society

• both universal and culture-specific aspects that account for variation in personalities

Culture is one of the most important environmental factors that influences personality. - Culture – beliefs, customs, art, and traditions of a particular society.

Are personality traits the same across cultures or are there variations? - There are both universal and culture-specific aspects that account for variation in personalities.

Examples: - Asian cultures – more collectivist, tend to be less extroverted. - Central and South American cultures – tend to score higher on openness to experience. - Europeans – tend to score higher on neuroticism.

REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

• Researchers found three distinct regional personality clusters in the United States

People tend to be: - Friendly and conventional in the Upper Midwest and Deep South - Relaxed, emotionally stable, and creative in the West - Stressed, irritable, and depressed in the Northeast

One explanation for this is selective migration - people choose to move to places that are compatible with their personalities and needs. (Rentfrow et al., 2013)

Rentfrow et al. (2013)

INDIVIDUALIST VS COLLECTIVIST CULTURES

Individualist cultures - Value independence, competition, and personal achievement. - Mainly Western nations such as the U.S. England, and Australia. - People display more personally oriented personality traits.

Collectivist Cultures - Value social harmony, respectfulness, and group needs over individual needs. - Asia, Africa, and South America. - People display more socially oriented personality traits.

SELF-REPORT INVENTORIES

Self-Report Inventories Objective test to assess personality.

• Often use multiple-choice items or numbered scales (Likert scales)
• Personality testing is often used:
  • To screen applicants for employment and job training
  • In criminal cases and custody battles
  • assess psychological disorders

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) One of the most widely used personality inventories

• Originally developed to assist in diagnosing psychological disorders
• Newest version (MMPI-2-RF) has 338 questions.
  • Scored on 10 scales: hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviance, masculinity vs femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia (obsessive/compulsive qualities), schizophrenia, hypomania, and social introversion

LIKERT SCALES

If you’ve ever taken a survey, you are probably familiar with Likert-type scale questions. Most personality inventories employ these types of response scales.

MMPI

• These true/false questions resemble the kinds of questions you would find on the MMPI

PROJECTIVE TESTS

Projective testing relies on projection (defense mechanism) to assess unconscious processes

• Ambiguous cards are shown to individual who is asked to tell a story, interpret an image, or complete a sentence.
• Individual will project feelings, impulses, and desires onto the cards

Rorschach Inkblot Test individual interprets a series of symmetrical inkblot cards

• Reveals unconscious feelings and struggles

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Individual tells a story about 8-12 ambiguous cards
  • Gives insight into their social world, revealing hopes, fears, interests, and goals

Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)

• Individual is asked to complete 40 incomplete sentences as quickly as possible
  • Reveals desires, fears, and struggles

These incomplete sentences resemble the types of questions on the RISB. How would you complete these sentences?