1
Q
Personality
A
- draw heavily from developmental, behavioral, cognitive, and evolutionary approaches to studying the mind
- individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanism–hidden or not–behind those patterns.
2
Q
Approaches to Personality
A
- limit their scope, looking at personality from a specific lens, or approach.
- Some may focus solely on studying the unconscious mind, and how childhood experiences shape adult personality, while others may focus on the way personality can change over time.
3
Q
5 main approaches to studying psychology
A
- Psychoanalytical
- Behavioral
- Cognative
- Trait
- Biological
4
Q
Psychoanalytical
Approach to studying psychology
A
- Sigmund fraud is best known for his theory
- His theory is controversial toay but till holds roots on the impact of the unconcious conflicts of our behaviour
- Overall, it concerns itself with topics like the unconscious mind, hidden desires, and internal conflicts.
5
Q
Freud’s Theory of the Id, Superego, and Ego
A
- what people want to do, what they think they should do, and what they actually end up doing
- human mind is composed of three distinct parts, all of which have different, and sometimes contradictory goals.
6
Q
Id
5
A
- primal part of personality and is present from birth
- concerned with seeking pleasure and has no concern for the consequences that may come from these pleasure-seeking behaviours (immediate gratification)
- entirely unconscious, so we are unaware of it and its influence on us.
- Dominant id can lead to recklessness and impulsivity–even criminality
- Balance of libido and thanatos
7
Q
Ego
5
A
- rational part of the mind.
- first develops when an individual is a toddler
- recognizes that we cannot always seek out pleasure immediately, or behave aggressively to get it, because there are consequences for those actions
- The ego therefore helps balance the wants of the Id and Superego, as well as the constraints of external reality
- Both in consiosus and unconscious
8
Q
Superego
5
A
- develop around 4 years old
- moral standards of society (what is what is right and wrong)
- largely means resisting the Id’s impulses
- partially conscious, meaning that we are actively aware of what is “morally correct” and whether our behaviour aligns with it.
- Overexpression of the superego might result in a preachy, holier-than-thou personality.
9
Q
Psychosexual stages
A
- each marked by particular challenges (i.e potty training) or realisation (i.e women and men are different).
- If a conflict occurred during one of these stages, this was thought to have lasting impacts on one’s personality.
- assumption that children developed sexual desire towards their opposite-sex parent and viewed their same-sex parent as a “rival”.
10
Q
Freudian Slips and Hidden Meanings
A
- EX. accidentally calling your teacher “mom” is known as a freudian slip. It reflects the meaning deep down that you see that teacher as a maternal figure
- Dreams also manifest content revealing desire or concern we’re probably not even aware of.
11
Q
Defense Mechanisms
A
- Anxiety was believed by fraud to drive much of our cognition.
- With anxiety, you can change thesituation, or change pespective of the situation, distorting reality into a more tolerable form, mediate by the EGO.
- 5 defence mechanism:
1. Denial
2. Repression
3. Realisation
4. Projection
5. Sublimation
12
Q
Denial
A
- Anxiety-producing events are not accepted as reality.
- When something upsetting is happening, your ego can reduce psychological anxiety by simply insisting that it’s not happening.
EX. flatly deny that you don’t want something that, deep down, really does
13
Q
Repression
A
- Anxiety-producing thoughts and unacceptable impulses are kept in the subconscious.
EX. a traumatic past experience repressed with the result that a person seemingly forgets that it happened at all.
14
Q
Rationalisation
A
- Anxiety-producing feelings and actions are justified with seemingly logical explanations.
EX. Might let id take over and play video games instead of doing essay, but rationalising and telling yourself that relaxing is a necessary part of the creative process.
15
Q
Projection
A
- Moves the focus away from you and on to someone else.
- The attribution of an undesirable trait in oneself to another.
EX. A partner who is considering cheating strongly suspects their partner is cheating on them.
16
Q
Sublimation
A
- Anxiety-producing thoughts and impulses are converted into socially acceptable outputs.
- Mature self defence mechanism – one that is commonly employed by well-adjusted, psychologically healthy adults
EX. Someone may channel their anger and compose a piece of rock music.
17
Q
Behaviourism
A
- Behavioural approach believes that internal mental processes–what people think and feel–are unmeasurable, and so to try and study them is fundamentally unscientific.
Turns attention to what is observable: behaviours.
18
Q
Behaviourism
- Learning mechanism
A
- Focuses on how personalities develop and change.
- what determines who we become is how our environment teaches us how to act.
- Behaviourists investigate how contingency pairing, rewards, and punishments all shape our personality over time.
- many criticise the behavioural approach for being reductive—can personality really be reduced to just conditioned behaviours and overlooks the role of genes in determining behaviour.
19
Q
Cognition
A
- Considers internal mental processes in the attempt to understand personality.
- First notice that someone doesn’t only learn when their actions are being reinforced–they can also observe the actions of others. Following observations, we can model this behaviour.
- cognitive approach addresses the reductionist tendencies of the behavioural model, it still does not adequately account for biological factors in shaping personality.
20
Q
Trait Approach
A
- A trait is a personality characteristic that is consistent, stable, and that varies from person to person.
EX. someone may be creative, outspoken, and friendly, with these and other traits coming together to form their personality. - the trait approach goes a step further in affixing labels to particular dimensions of psychological variance, and quantifying the degree to which people express specific traits.
- One issue is that the trait approach overlooks the extent to which personality can vary depending on situational context: someone may be very introverted at school, but much more extraverted when at home or around close friends.
21
Q
The Big Five
A
The most widely accepted trait model used today states that there are 5 key personality traits–OCEAN:
1. Openness
2. Conscientiousness
3. Extroversion
4. Agreeable
5. Neuroticism
22
Q
Openness or “openness to experience”
A
- Refers to one’s level of creativity and adventure
- People who score high in embrace new experiences, are inquisitive, and pursue new and creative endeavours.
- People who score low tend to favour tradition, routine and may find change difficult.
23
Q
Conscientiousness
A
- One’s level of thoughtfulness and diligence.
- Those who score high can exercise strong self-control, create concrete plans, set goals, and keep their surroundings neat and organised.
- Those who score low tend to prioritise living in the moment. These people are more casual and don’t adhere to strict schedules. They also feel that rules and timelines are restrictive.
24
Q
Extraversion
A
- Characterised by sociability, assertiveness, and excitement seeking.
- These individuals are outgoing, energised by company and are often talkative for those who score high
- Individuals who scored low on extraversion–aka introverts–-are reserved, introspective and enjoy spending time alone.
25
Agreeableness
- Describes a person’s ability to put others needs above their own.
- Those who score high are compassionate, polite, and generally well liked. They are trusting and helpful, and often take on the caregiving role.
- Those with low agreeable scores are antagonistic and competitive. They are also secretive and quick to assume others are selfish or have ulterior motives.
26
Neuroticism
- Refers to one’s level of emotional stability and resilience
- High score in neuroticism is general not desirable as these individuals experience a lot of psychological distress, and tend to require substantial emotional support
- These individuals are often described as hypersensitive, anxious, self-conscious and insecure.
- Low scorers are relaxed, self-assured and stable.
27
The big 5 over time
- Quite stable over time.
- However, while relative position is stable, the raw value of the big 5 follows characteristic lifetime patterns of change.
EX. Children show substantially higher average levels of extraversion than adults. Conscientiousness, conversely, starts relatively low in childhood, dips lower still in the early teenage years, and then climbs consistently as a person ages.
28
Biological approach
- examines how brain structures, neurotransmitter levels, and genes contribute to personality.
29
The neuroanatomical basis of personality
- Specialisation of function in the brain, it should come as no surprise that particular brain regions have a lot to do with certain personality traits.
- One key player is the amygdala which is involved in feelings of anxiety and fear.
EX. amygdala of shy individuals tend to be especially active when viewing faces of strangers.
30
Amygdala
- plays a major role in pessimism
Ex. in one study, individuals rated as being more pessimistic in general showed higher amygdala activation than optimists when shown mildly-fighting images, such as a picture of a snake.
31
frontal lobe
- research has found that high levels of left frontal lobe activity are associated with emotional stability and optimism
- whereas right-brain activity is correlated with neuroticism
32
Neurotransmitters
- extraversion and openness share the theme of plasticity, or cognitive flexibility, and are underpinned by pathways in the brain that use dopamine
- Conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism, meanwhile, are related to cognitive stability, and are underpinned by signalling involving serotonin
33
The heritability of personality traits
- By examining differences in trait expression between biological and adopted siblings, or between identical and fraternal twins, researchers can estimate the heritability of personality: the degree to which genetic differences correlate with variation in traits.
34
Rorschach Test
- participants are meant to report what image they see in these ambiguous splotches of ink.
- largely discredited for having relatively little reliability or validity
35
Myers-Briggs Test
- The Myers-Briggs is a self-report measure that assigns you one of 16 possible personality types, each depicted by a 4-letter code.
- knowing your personality type could help guide big life decisions, like which career path you should pursue or even who you should marry.
- isn’t enough scientific validity or reliability in this tool to justify its widespread use
36
MMPI
- This is the most widely used clinical assessment of personality, and is used to diagnose severe personality problems and other mental health disorders.
- only true/false questions with existing, clinically diagnosed populations to figure out which questions were most predictive of the personality types of interest.
- This test also has questions that can be used to test if someone is lying or being otherwise inconsistent in the answers they give—something essential when designing useful self-report measures.
PSYCH1XX3
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