Ch.

12
Personality
Personality a distinct & relatively enduring pattern of thoughts, feelings, motives and
behaviors
Traits habitual ways of behaving, thinking & feeling
Cattell: Factor analysis: statistical analysis that looks at the common denominators
of the factors, he came up with 16 dimensions of personality.
o Across all cultures there are 16 dimensions
Mccrae & Coste : OCEAN
o O: openness to experience- curiosity
o C: Conscientiousness organized
o E: Extraversion- outgoing, social, friendly
o A: Agreeableness-sympathetic, trusting, cooperative
o N: Neuroticism: anxious, insecure
Psychodynamic Theories
Freud worked with upper class women in Vienna
o He was obsessed with sexual frustration and aggression
o ID: pleasure principle, primary instinctive aspects
o Ego: reality principle, delay the gratification
o Super ego: Moral component, tells us what is right or wrong
o Rationalization- justifying something so you dont seem as bad
o Repression- motivated forgetting, if something makes you uncomfortable
o Projection- attributing your own thoughts feelings or motives to others.
o Identification: forming a real or imaginary alliance with someone in a group
o Sublimation: unacceptable impulses are channeled into socially acceptable
even admirable behaviors.
o Everyone has their personality by age 5 unless you have fixation, which is
the failure to move forward
Oral fixation: first year of life (breast feeding)
Phallic stage: edible complex ages 3-6

Jung: psychodynamic
Personal: your own unconscious that youre not aware of
Collective: latent memories that have been translated into current times from past
generations
Adler: part of individual psychology
o His theory was that we are constantly striving for superiority in life. Always
wanting to learn and better ourselves.
o No scientific method that can prove the unconscious
o Sexist: women having penis envy, but no vagina envy
Humanistic Theory
Rogers: Self concept: collection of beliefs about your own nature, qualities and
behaviors
o Incongruence: disparity between your own self view and what is real (think
youre so smart, but youre not)
o Unconditional positive regard: someone is always looking at you in positive
manners

o Conditional positive regard: Opposite, will only say good job when you do
something extremely well
Maslow: for people to be healthy they have to be tuned into reality, open and
spontaneous, they thrive from their work, great sense of humor
o Self actualized
o No testability

Observable Behavior
Behavioral Theories:
Skinner determinism
Behavior is fully determined by environment
Constantly shaped to increase behaviors in a number of ways
Social Cognitive Theories Bandura reciprocal determinism
Gives people credit, says people are reflective and that we try and
influence life outcomes
Environment determines behavior, but behavior also determines
environment
Biological Theories:
Genetic Influences:
Eysenck: Introverts more physical arousal in social situations (more
stressed)
Temperaments - twins were separated at two years old and
reconnected at 34 found that their personalities are still 58% similar
Genetic Mapping: Dopamine (pleasure) Extroversion
Serotonin neuroticism (anxiety)
Heritability - **mainly genetic, not environmental

Sociocultural Influences
Environmental Influences: Environmental, temperamental, psychological
factors are all influential
Parents
Peers Culture
Bio-psychosocial Theory
Environment, temperament, psychological factors are all influential
America self reliant, feeling good about yourself, view ourselves as special,
competitive underdog, stand-up, independent views, personal attributes and
accomplishments
Asia inter-dependent, more modest as to not diminish other achievements, dont
want to stand out, focus on negative to be motivated
Measuring Personality
Interviews
Personal questions (major childhood illnesses, siblings/families
Education and social (repeat/skip a grade, suspended/expelled, favorite/least
favorite subject; childhood social kid in classroom, sexual experiences,
married/relationship, family)
Occupation
Medical issues
Drug
Legal

Observation
Objective tests norms scores from one person to the scores of a standard scorer
MMPI Minnesota multi-phasic personality inventory (gives info about extroversion,
introversion, med problems, mania, depression) very helpful
PAI personality assessment inventory used more for employment
MCMI melon clinical multiaxial inventory clinical disorders (mania, depression)
with personality disorders (narcissistic)