Tuesday November 18 2014 Personality Personality encompasses the unique and relatively stable way a person thinks acts and feels throughout his her life Distinct from character and temperament 3 perspectives on the development of personality Psychodynamic Behavioral and Social Cognitive Humanistic Trait Theory Perspective Personality assessment Perspective that emphases description and prediction Psychodynamic Perspective Focuses on the role of the unconscious in the development of personality Heavily focused on biological causes of personality differences and importance of successfully resolving conflicts at each stage of psychosexual development across childhood Freud s Conception of Personality Freud Id Ego Superego Go to Sleep Instincts These systems are in conflict You have to sort the conflict out ID Ego Superego Morality You have to finish the personality lecture to be a good professor Reality Psychoanalysis Defense Mechanisms Psychological defense mechanisms unconscious distortions of a person s perception of reality that reduce stress and anxiety Examples of Defense Mechanisms Don t worry about all 12 in the book Turning socially unacceptable behavior into something Refusing to acknowledge the threatening situation The person invents acceptable excuses for unacceptable Sublimation acceptable feelings or behavior Denial Rationalization Freud s Psychosexual Stages of Development don t worry about these Neo Freudians Personality is about what happens when you have to handle these things conflicting inside of you Still focused on early development More social less sexual Jung Adler Horney Erikson stages in life guy conflicts Criticism of the Psychoanalytic Approach Current research has found support for Defense mechanisms The concept of an unconscious mind that can influence conscious behavior Examples they cant process the images cognitively but their unconscious experience effects their conscious behavior Other Freudian concepts cannot be scientifically researched Priming Showing people scary images really fast to where Behavioral and Social Cognitive Perspective Behavioral Learning theories classical and operant conditioning Social Cognitive expectations beliefs etc learning more broadly e g modeling cognitive processes e g Bandura s Social Cognitive Theory According to SCT behavior is governed not only by environmental factors but also by cognitive processes Bandura 1986 2001 2005 believes that personality is the result of an interaction that takes place between a person and his social context Bandura called the process of interacting with our environment reciprocal determinism o Reciprocal Determinism Person and environment interaction Reciprocal Determinism Self Efficacy A person s judgments of his her capabilities to execute a behavior in a particular situation Can vary in level across different behaviors circumstances Develops out of 1 Past performance 2 Vicarious experiences from observing others 3 Social influences about capabilities 4 Physiological states influencing judgments about capabilities Rotter s Social Learning Theory Devised a theory based on Thorndike s Law of Effect Viewed personality as a relatively stable set of behaviors to various situations If a certain way of responding behaving is reinforced that way of responding will become a pattern and part of a person s personality Rotter s Theory of Locus of Control Social cognitive psychologists emphasize our sense of personal control whether we control the environment or the environment controls us Internal Locus of Control refers to the perception that we can control our own fate o Believe will succeed in any attempted task External Locus of Control refers to the perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate o Give up quickly learned helplessness Criticisms of the Behavioral and Social Cognitive Approaches Some believe human personality and behavior are too complex to explain as a result of environmental consequences or cognitions o However have a significant amount of research supporting the principles from these perspectives o Many therapies and interventions found to be effective in changing undesirable thoughts and behaviors have been derived from these perspectives Humanistic Perspective By 1960s psychologists had become discontented with the psychoanalytic and behavioral perspectives Focus on aspects that make us uniquely human The role of each person s conscious life experiences and choices in personality development Abraham Maslow Carl Rogers Humanistic Perspective on Personality Development Carl Rogers believed in individual s self actualization tendencies Unconditional positive regard he said was an attitude of acceptance of others amidst Fully functioning person a person who is in touch with and trusting of the deepest innermost urges and feelings In an effort to assess personality Rogers asked people to describe themselves as they should or would like to be ideal self and as they actually are real self From a humanistic perspective a fully functioning self actualized person finds the perceived real self the same as the ideal self When real and ideal self are matched person is fully functioning which is a necessary step in the process reaching your full potential Assessing the Self TOP Unconditional Positive Regard BOTTOM Conditional Positive Regard Criticisms of the Humanistic Perspective Concepts in humanistic psychology are vague and subjective and lack a scientific basis Not always Fails to appreciate the reality of our human capacity for evil Trait Theory Perspective a consistent enduring way of thinking feeling or behaving Trait Focused on the characteristics that make up personality rather than how personality is formed Prediction of future behavior Trait Perspective Factors Raymond Cattell 1990 summarized traits into two categories reducing them to between 16 and 23 source traits using factor analysis Surface Traits Representing personality characteristics easily seen by other people e g shyness being quiet disliking crowds Source Traits basic traits that under lie the surface traits e g introversion Trait Perspective Big 5 Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism Criticisms of the Trait Perspective o Debates about the number of traits o The Trait Situation Controversy Are traits good predictors of behaviors How important is the situation in determining behavior There aren t any values inherent in human nature Values
View Full Document
Unlocking...