• Thought paper #3 is due on December 4th.
• December 11th is the last day you can participate in experiments and is the due date for research reports.

What is Personality?

• Personality consists of the enduring traits, dispositions, or characteristics within an individual that give some measure of consistency to the person's behavior.

How is Personality Studied?

• Focus is on feelings, thoughts, and actions that make individuals unique.
• Researchers often rely on naturally existing correlations between life experiences and peoples' responses on various tests and measurement scales (e.g., birth order & creativity).

How are Data Interpreted?

• Idiographic approach
• Person-centered; focuses on the way unique aspects of an individual's personality form an integrated whole.
• Relies heavily on case studies.
• Nomothetic approach
• Variable-centered; same characteristics apply to everyone; people differ in the degree to which they possess each characteristic.
• Relies heavily on correlational methods applied to groups of people.

Type Theories

• People are grouped into nonoverlapping categories called "personality types."
• William Sheldon's type theory
• endomorphic (fat, soft, round) -> relaxed, fond of eating, sociable.
• mesomorphic (muscular, rectangular, strong) -> energetic, courageous, assertive.
• ectomorphic (thin, long, fragile) -> brainy, artistic, introverted.
• Does not predict behavior reliably.

Trait Theories

• Traits are features or characteristics that people possess to varying degrees; they lend coherence to behavior in different situations and over time.
• Allport's trait theory
• Cardinal traits (life-organizing, ruling passions)
• Central traits (primary, representative)
• Secondary traits (peripheral, occasional)

Trait Theories

• Eysenck's dimensional theory
• Extroversion (internally vs. externally oriented)
• Neuroticism (emotionally stable vs. unstable)
• Psychoticism (kind & considerate vs. aggressive & antisocial)
• The "Big Five"

The "Big Five"

• Extroversion
• outgoing vs. shy; adventurous vs. cautious
• "positive emotionality"
• Agreeableness
• good-natured vs. irritable; capacity for friendly vs. hostile relationships
• Conscientiousness
• responsible vs. irresponsible; persevering vs. likely to quit
• Openness to experience
• original vs. conforming; creative vs. uncreative thinking
• Neuroticism
• anxious vs. calm; emotional stability vs. instability
• "negative emotionality"

The "Big Five"

• Reliable & stable.
• But there is situation dependence.
• Appear in many cultures.
• Predict behavior
• Maternal personality, alone and in conjunction with child's emotionality, predicts parenting behavior (Clark et al., 2000)
  • Mothers high in neuroticism or extraversion used power assertion.
  • Mothers high in empathy did not use power assertion; mothers low in empathy used power assertation with children high in negative emotionality.

Evaluation

• Type and trait theories generally do not explain how personality develops.
• Static.

Psychodynamic Theories

• Each person is viewed as a complex system of diverse sources of psychic energy, pushing and pulling the person in different directions.
• Conflict: Intrapersonal and interpersonal.
• Early theorists, e.g., Freud, viewed their theories as biological.

Psychodynamic Theories

• Heavy emphasis on childhood experiences; early development influences moment-to-moment personality dynamics.
• Deterministic: Behavior is ruled by forces over which we have little control.
• The unconscious mind plays an essential role in determining behavior.

Sigmund Freud's Theory

• Three levels of thought: Conscious, preconscious, unconscious.
• Three basic mental structures: Id, Ego, Superego.

Id

• Present at birth.
• Unconscious, instinctive source of impulses, e.g., sex & aggression; source of fantasies.
• Acts by means of primary-process thought, which is irrational and driven by instincts. Evident in childhood and in dreams.
• Primary-process thought is a source of wish fulfillment, which reduces internal conflict and tension; it is also the wellspring of creativity.
• Id operates in terms of the pleasure principle.

Ego

• Emerges second.
• Mediates between the id and the external world. It represents "reason & good sense."
• Relies on secondary-process thought; rational & based on reality.
• Operates in terms of the reality principle.

Superego

• Emerges last, primarily through identification with our parents.
• Internalized representation of the norms and values of society.
• Operates by means of the idealistic principle.
• Two parts:
• Conscience: Prohibited behaviors.
• Ego ideal: Ideal, rewarded behaviors.

Defense Mechanisms

• Id's strong impulses & superego's strong prohibitions pose problems for the ego.
• Defense mechanisms protect the ego from the id and the superego; they protect us from thoughts that are frightening or anxiety-provoking.
• Nine defense mechanisms: Denial, repression, projection, displacement, sublimation, reaction formation, rationalization, regression, fixation.

Repression

• Threatening idea, memory, or emotion is blocked from consciousness, and yet still affects behavior.
• A woman may avoid intimate sexual contact because of a repressed memory of sexual abuse.

Projection

• An individual's own unacceptable or threatening feelings are attributed to someone else.
• A boy who is angry at his father may feel anxious about disliking someone he depends on, and come to believe that his father hates him.

Reaction Formation

• Feelings that produce unconscious anxiety are transformed into their opposite in consciousness.
• A man who is sexually attracted to other men may constantly ridicule and make fun of homosexuals.

Denial

• Occurs when a person refuses to admit to something unpleasant.
• A person who claims never to have negative thoughts and feelings is "in denial."

Evaluation

• Extremely influential.
• Comprehensive.
• Virtually untestable.
• Universal principles derived from a handful of atypical patients.
• Not friendly to women.
• Based on retrospective accounts and memories.

Humanistic and Existential Theories

• Philosophical tradition has a long history, certainly to the Renaissance (e.g., Erasmus).
• Humanists tend to oppose the belief that humans can be understood in terms of biology, chemistry, & physics.
• View humans as importantly different from other organisms: Future oriented and purposeful.

Humanistic and Existential Theories

• We create our own lives and destinies; we are not shaped and buffeted by inexplicable forces outside of consciousness.
• Heavy emphasis on conscious experience.
• Optimistic, positive outlook on human personality and development.

The Self Theory of Carl Rogers

• Reality is what the self defines as reality.
• Self concept comprises all aspects of the self that the person perceives and conceives.
• Ideal self comprises aspects that a person would like to embody.
• The greater the similarity between the self concept and the ideal self, the better adjusted the person is.
• We all strive toward "self-actualization."

Characteristics of
Self-actualizing People

• Always growing and evolving.
• Open to experience, avoid defensiveness.
• Trust themselves; seek guidance but make their own decisions.
• Harmonious relations with others; realize they do not need to be liked by everyone.
• Live fully in the present.

Evaluation

• Popular in the 1960s and 1970s, but has lost popularity since then.
• Not comprehensive.
• Untestable.

Cognitive-Behavioral Theories

• Human experience is the principal determinant of personality growth and development.
• Cognitive aspect emphasizes the personal interpretation of events and expectations about them.
• Behavioral aspect emphasizes basic learning mechanisms (classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, observational learning).

Social-learning Theory of
Julian Rotter

• Behavior is a function of the interaction between the person and the environment.
• The importance of events is determined by the meaning given to them by the individual.
• Most important contribution: Locus of control.

Social-learning Theory of
Julian Rotter

• Internals: See strong causal relation between what they do and what happens; take responsibility.
• Externals: See causes of personal events in the environment.
• Developed Internal-External (I-E) Control Scale.

Examples

Social-Cognitive Theory of
Albert Bandura

• Reciprocal determinism: Cognitions, behaviors, and environment interact to determine human functioning.
• Crucial personality variable is self-efficacy: Our feelings of competence.

Evaluation

• Very influential, esp. in terms of the research it has generated.
• Not comprehensive.
• More testable than other theories.

Biological Theories

• Personality traits are largely determined by genetic endowment.
• Role of the environment is minimal.

Temperament

• Temperament is a stable, characteristic style of responding present in infancy or early childhood.
• May predict later personality traits.

Kagan: Inhibited vs. Uninhibited Children

• Inhibited
• Shy & timid; negative reactions to novel situations.
• Increased sympathetic nervous system activity during mild stress.
• Uninhibited
• Talkative & spontaneous; novelty seeking.

% Remaining in Same Category at Age 7

Heritability of Personality Traits

• Estimates of the heritability of personality traits range from .40 to .60.

Evaluation

• Extremely visible in popular press.
• Heritability measures relative importance, and measures of environmental factors are crude. Hence, effect of environment is probably underestimated.
• Correlations between twins decrease over time (e.g., extroversion).
• Environment can be the savior.

Summary

• Idiographic vs. nomothetic research
• Type Theories
• Emphasize categories of personality.
• Trait Theories
• Emphasize features or dimensions of personality.
• "Big five"
• Psychodynamic Theories
• Emphasize the unconscious mind.
• Humanistic & Existential Theories
• Emphasize conscious experience & choice.
• Cognitive-Behavioral Theories
• Emphasize interactions among cognitions, behaviors, & environment.
• Biological Theories
• Emphasize heredity & genetic factors.