Chapter 14 Flashcards
(33 cards)
Personality
-typical way of thinking feeling and behaving
Trait
-A trait is a relatively stable, long-term characteristic of a person that influences how they think feel behave in different situations
Two major approaches to studying personality
-nomoethic approaches: seek general principles in nature rather than principle specific to an individual (focusses on explaining the thinking, emotions and behaviour of all people)
-ideographic approaches: focuses on identifying the unique configuration of characteristics and life history experiences with a person (most case studies are ideographic)
-tries to understand the whole person, and the characteristics that make them unique
Causes of personality
Numerous personality traits are influenced by genetics
-however, all twin correlations and inheritability scores are below 1.0
-shared environment, please a little to no role in adult personality (supported by twin and adoption studies)
-A significant non-shared environmental influence has been identified
Genes and personality
-Gene code for proteins, but not specific behaviours
-Genes have an indirect influence on traits, but this role is moderated by the environment. The functioning of many neurotransmitters is intern associated with certain personality traits.
-the goal of molecular genetic studies is to pinpoint the gene associated with traits however, there have been many challenges
-most are weak, replication issues, few genes identified
Psychoanalytic theory
Developed by Freud
- Psychic determinism: psychological events have a cause. Dreams, Freudian slips are all reflections of deep, psychological conflict, bubbling up to the surface
- Symbolic meaning: no action no matter how trivial it may seem is meaningless. All are attributable to proceeding mental causes even if we can’t figure out what they are.
- Unconscious motivation: we rarely understand why we do what we do. Lot of the reasons behind her behaviour come from deep hidden parts of the mind that we aren’t aware of (unconsciousness) we often make up explanations afterwards, without realizing the true reasons are hidden deep in our unconscious mind
Structure of personality
-Freud hypothesis that the human psyche is composed of three components
- ID: entirely unconscious, contains a variety of drives, especially aggressive and sexual operates by means of pleasure principle
- Ego: principal decision maker interacting with the real world,
- Superego: sense of morality. Contains the sense of right and wrong. Delete the sense for gratification until there’s an inappropriate outlet. (reality principal)
-conflict between these distress
Dreams and psychoanalytic theory
-Freud a thought that dreams were about this unconscious struggle
-Dreams reflect a desire for wish fulfilment
-some wishes had to be disguised with symbols
-freudians believe that different symbols can mean different things to different dreamers
Defence mechanisms
-unconscious manoeuvres intended to minimize anxiety
- Repression: we forget because we want to forget (motivated for getting up emotionally, threatening memories, or impulses) (past)
Ex: witnessing or experiencing something traumatic - Denial: refusal to acknowledge current events in our lives.
Ex: mother who loses his child in a car accident insists her child is alive - Reaction formation: returning, psychologically to a younger and safer time
Ex: college students start, sucking his thumb during a difficult exam - Projection: unconscious attribution of our negative qualities onto others.
Ex: married man with powerful unconscious sexual impulses towards females complain, that other women are always after him - Displacement: directing an impulse from a socially unacceptable target onto a more acceptable one
Ex: golfer and girly throws his club into the woods after missing an easy putt - Rationalization: providing reasonable, sounding explanations for unreasonable, behaviors, or failures.
Ex: politician who loses an election convinces herself that she didn’t really want the position after all - Sublimation: transforming a socially unacceptable impulse into an admired and socially valued goal.
Ex: a boy who enjoys beating up another child grow up to become a successful professional boxer
Stages of psychosexual development
Individuals can become fixated or stuck in an early stage of development, occurs because they were either excessively badly during that stage or did not receive it during that stage in either case experience, difficulty moving ahead to the next stage
- Oral stage (birth to 12-18 months)
-sucking and drinking - Anal stage (18 months to three years)
-alleviate attention by spelling pieces - Phallic stage (3 to 6 years)
In boys: oedious complex
-genitals
-child wants same sex parent to themselves - Latency stage (6 to 12 years.) dominant sexual stage
-most girls and boys tend to find members of the opposite gender to be yucky and unappealing - Genital stage (12 years and beyond): sexual impulses, awaken, emergence of mature, romantic relationships
Psychoanalytic theory evaluated scientifically
-Unfalsifiable
-failed predictions
-questionable conception of unconsciousness
-Unrepresentative samples (limited generalizability)
-Emphasis on shared environment, when behavior, genetic studies have shown shared environment plays a limited role in adult personality
Neo Freudian theories
-theories, derived from Freud model with less emphasis on sexuality as a driving force in personality and more optimism regarding the prospects of long-term personality growth
-Adlers work:
-style of life: each individuals way of achieving superiority is our overriding goal in life (be better than others)
-inferiority complex: low self-esteem that can lead to over compensation
-people with this are prone to low self-esteem, and as a result, they often attempt to demonstrate their superiority to others at all costs
-Adler the most forms of mental illness are unhealthy attempts to overcompensate for the inferiority complex
-Difficult to falsify
Behavioural approaches
-Argue that differences in our personality, stem, largely from our learning histories
-personalities are bundles of habit acquired by classical and opera personalities are bundles of habit acquired by classical and operant conditioning
-don’t believe that personality causes behaviour instead they believe that personality consists of behaviours
Ex: they would believe that extroverted people tend to have many friends and attend many parties, but they would strongly dispute the conclusion that certain people have many friends and attend many parties because they’re extroverted
Behavioural views of the causes of personality
-genetic factors
-Contingencies: reinforcers and punishers in the environment
Social learning theorists
-Emphasize, thinking as a central cause of personality
-so learning as important for personality, but are you thinking place a crucial role as well?
Emphasize reciprocal determinism : people influence each other’s behaviour rather than skinneran determinism
Ex: extra-virgin leads us to approach people/make friends, and in turn friends, reinforce your extra version
Locus of control
-Extent to which we believe that reinforcers and punishers lie inside or outside or control
-people with an internal locus of control “ internals” believe that life events are due largely to their own efforts and personal characteristics
-people with an external locus of control “externals” believe that life events are largely a product of chance and fate
Evaluation of social learning theories
-social learning, emphasis on shared environment is not supported
-radical behaviorists, ignoring of thinking is not supported by research
Humanistic models of personality
Call Rogers: rejected notion of determinism and embraced free will
-self actualization: drive to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent
Rogers model
According to Rogers model R personalities consist of three major components
- The organism: our innate and substantially, genetic influenced blueprint. Roger viewed the organism as inherently positive and helpful towards others. (true inner self)
- The self: set of beliefs about who we are. (self-concept)
- Conditions of worth: expectations we place on ourselves for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour
Ex: I’m only worthy if I act a certain way
-Can result in in congruence between self and organism. Incoherent means our personalities are inconsistent with our innate dispositions. We are no longer our genuine cells because we’re acting in ways are inconsistent with our genuine potentialities. (feeling like you’re not being real)
Self-actualized individuals according to Maslow
-according to maslow self actualized, people tend to be creative, spontaneous, and accepting of themselves and others, their self confident, but not self-centred
-can be difficult to work with because they’ve outgrown the need to be popular
-prone to peak experiences: moments of intense, excitement, and tranquillity marked by a profound sense of connection to the world
Humanistic models evaluated
-many nonfalsifiable assumptions
-challenged Rogers claim that human nature is entirely positive
Trait models
-interested primarily in describing and understanding the structure of personality
-examine the question of what makes up our personality rather than question what causes it
-use factor analysis: statistical technique that looks at how people‘s answers to different questions are related to each other and tries to group those related questions into underlying factors or traits
Big five
-5 traits that have surface repeatedly in fact, analysis of reasonably comprehensive personality measures
-uncovered, using lexical approach: assumption that the most crucial features of personality are embedded in our language
Big five model
-model included five traits
- Extraversion: extra rooted people tend to be social and lively.
- Neuroticism: neurotic people tend to be tense and moody.
- Agreeableness: agreeable people tend to be social and easy to get along with
- Conscientiousness: conscientious people tend to be careful and responsible.
- Openness to experience: open people tend to be intellectually, curious and unconventional in their interests and outlook on the world
