Personality Personality Characteristic patterns of emotional responses thoughts and behaviors that are relatively stable over time and across situations Thinking Feeling Behaving Need to consider enduring aspects of behavior not one time at bat in baseball but the season s hitting average not a evening s flirtation or adventure but marriage or an enduring relationship A H Buss 1989 Allport Personality is The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought More Freud Personality Development Psychosexual stages of development Stages Physical focus Psychological theme Adult character Oral stage Birth 18 mos Mouth sucking dependency Dependent independent Anal Stage 18 mos 3 5 yrs Anus elimination self control Uptight vs impulsive Phallic Stage 3 5 6 yrs Penis morality and sexuality identification Amoral vs very rigid morals Latency Stage 6 yrs to puberty Period of relative calm Genital stage post puberty Genitals Maturity and creation enhanceme nt of life Balance of love and work Defense Mechanisms Regression defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage where some psychic energy remains fixated Reaction Formation defense mechanism in which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxietyarousing unconscious feelings Projection defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others Rationalization defense mechanism that offers self justifying explanations in place of the real more threatening unconscious reasons for one s actions Displacement defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward another object or person Sublimation Channeling unacceptable impulses into constructive behaviors Skinner s view of personality Skinner showed us that reinforcement contingencies could influence behavior In fact Skinner thought personality was essentially the product of a person s history of reinforcement Humanistic Perspective Carl Rogers 1902 1987 focused on growth and fulfillment of individuals genuineness acceptance empathy Carl Rogers Personality Theory Love the sinner hate the sin I love you IF Traits Gordon Allport wrote the influential book Personality in 1937 He developed his ideas about traits viewing these as the basic structural elements of personality Traits were defined as a predisposition to respond in a particular way to a broad range of situations So an even tempered person remains calm across a broad range of situations The situations or stimuli are rendered functionally equivalent opportunities to exercise restraint Each person has a certain expressive and adaptive style that they bring to the situation Big 5 personality test Extroversion Extroverted people Energetic Enthusiastic Dominant Sociable Talkative Introverted people Shy Retiring Submissive Quiet Agreeableness High Low Agreeableness Agreeableness Friendly Cold Cooperative Quarrelsome Trusting Warm Conscientiousness Conscientious Cautious Dependable Organized Responsible Impulsive Careless Disorderly Undependable Neuroticism Emotionally unstable Nervous High strung Tense Worrying Emotionally stable Calm Contented Openness High on Openness Imaginative Witty Original Artistic Low on Openness Down to earth Conventional Conformist Simple Big Five personality dimensions Openness to Experience intellect imagination curiosity creativity Conscientiousness order duty deliberation self discipline Extraversion sociability assertiveness activity positive emotions Agreeableness trust nurturance kindness cooperation Neuroticism anxiety depression moodiness vulnerability to stress Type and Trait Approaches Describe Behavioral Dispositions Personality Types are discrete categories into which we place people Personality traits are dispositional they predispose persons to behave think and feel in enduring patterns across situations Type and trait approaches describe but do not explain patterns Personality Reflects Learning and Cognitive Processes Cognitive perspectives include Personal constructs Expectancies and value Beliefs in locus of control Personality Refers to Both Unique and Common Characteristics Gordon Allport distinguished two approaches Idiographic approaches are person centered Nomothetic approaches examine characteristics common to all persons but on which people vary and focus on differences between persons We Can Use Objective and Projective Methods to Assess Personality Assessment methods often vary with theoretical preferences Psychodynamic theorists like projective methods more than Trait theorists who use objective methods Objective methods use self reports Projective methods purport to tap the unconscious using ambiguous stimuli Assessing the Unconscious Thematic Apperception Test Projective Test Thematic Apperception Test TAT Based on Freud s defense mechanisms repression projection Animals do have personality it can be assessed Personality Is Rooted in Genetics Adoption Studies show Adopted siblings are no more alike in personality than randomly selected persons are Personalities of adopted children are largely unrelated to their adoptive parents Are there specific genes for personality Personality Is Rooted in Genetics Twin Studies Cortical Arousal Differences Eysenck 1967 He suggests that the difference between introverts and extroverts depends on the ascending reticular activating system ARAS Causes introverts to be stimulus shy Causes extroverts to be stimulus hungry Eysenck Arousal Explanation Introverts Extraverts Performance High Low Low Moderate Arousal High Why are there personality differences Should natural selection make people more similar Random variation Frequency dependent selection Inheritance of alternative strategies Group selection Personality Test http www personal psu edu j5j IPIP ipipneo300 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