Personality An individuals characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting The Psychoanalytic Perspective Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Encountered

patients suffering from disorders whose complaints could not be explained in terms of physical causes His theory of personality includes: The unconscious mind Psychosexual stages Defense mechanisms Exploring the Unconscious Use of free association Psychoanalysis Iceberg metaphor Repression of unacceptable passions Dreams as the road to the unconscious Manifest v. latent content Personality Structure Personality is a result of striving to settle the conflict between our pleasure seeking principles and the social restraint against them Id: Goal is to satisfy basic drives Operates on the pleasure principle Ego: Goal is to gratify impulses in realistic ways Operates on the reality principle Superego: Voice of conscience Strives for perfection Psychosexual Stages Oral (0-18 months) Anal (18-36 months) Phallic (3-6 years) Latency (6 to puberty) Genital (puberty on) Defense Mechanisms

Tactics that reduce or redirect anxiety by distorting reality Function indirectly and unconsciously Repression Banishing anxiety arousing thoughts and feelings from consciousness Underlies all other defense mechanisms Regression Retreating to an earlier, more infantile stage of development Reaction formation Making unacceptable impulses look like their opposites Projection Disguising threatening impulses by attributing them to others Rationalization Generating self-justifying explanations as reasons for our actions Displacement Diverting impulses towards an object or person thats psychologically more acceptable

Neo- Freudians Accepted: Personality structures of id, ego, superego Importance of the unconscious Shaping of personality in childhood Dynamics of anxiety Defense mechanisms Veered way from Freud in that: They placed more emphasis on the conscious minds role in interpreting experiences They emphasized social interactions Alfred Adler 1870-1937 Tensions were social, rather than sexual in nature Inferiority complex Karen Horney 1885-1952 Believed in social aspects of growth Confronted Freuds assumptions that women have weak superegos and suffer from penis envy

Carl Jung 1875-1961 Collective unconscious Assessing Unconscious Processes Projective tests Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Henry Murray Rorschach inkblot test Hermann Rorschach

Criticisms of Projective Tests Lack reliability Different raters come up with different interpretations Lack validity May diagnose a normal person as pathological The Humanistic Perspective Many were discontent with Freuds negativity and the mechanistic psychology of behaviorists Under the humanistic perspective, people were studied through their own self-reported experiences and feelings Humanistic psychologists focused on the way healthy individuals strive for selfdetermination and self-actualization Abraham Maslow Self-actualization Hierarchy of needs Carl Rogers Believed in individuals self-actualization tendencies People nurture our growth by: Being genuine Offering unconditional positive regard Being empathetic Self-concept- the thoughts and feelings we have in response to the question Who Am I?

Evaluating the Humanistic Perspective Support: Humanistic psychology had pervasive impact on counseling, education, child-rearing, and management Criticisms: Concepts in humanistic psychology are vague and subjective and lack scientific basis The individualism encouraged by humanistic psychology may lead to selfishness and self-indulgence Instills a nave optimism The Trait Perspective Define personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns Trait- characteristic behaviors and conscious motives Allport Defined personality in terms of identifiable behavior patterns Concerned more with describing traits than in explaining them Exploring Traits Factor analysis- statistical approach used to describe and relate personality traits Cattell (1905-1998) developed a 16 Personality Factor inventory using factor analysis Hans and Sybil Eysenck reduced individual variations to two dimensions: Emotional stability-instability Extraversion-introversion Assessing Traits Personality Inventories Questionnaire with true-false or agree-disagree items Deigned to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Most widely researched and clinically used Originally developed to identify emotion disorders Items are empirically derived Now it is used for a variety of screening purposes Has scales that test work attitudes, family problems, anger etc. The Big Five Conscientiousness Agreeableness Neuroticism Openness

Extraversion The Person-Situation Controversy Walter Mischel Traits may be enduring but the resulting behavior may differ in different situations The Social Cognitive Perspective Albert Bandura (1925-present) Personality is the result of an interaction between the person and his/her social context Behaviors are learned through conditioning, observation, and modeling Emphasize mental processes Internal vs. External Locus of Control Internal locus of control The perception that one controls ones own fate External locus of control The perception that chance or outside forces beyond ones personal control determine ones fate Learned Helplessness Occurs when individuals are unable to avoid repeated aversive events People who feel helpless perceive control as external Martin Seligman Experiments with shocking dogs Leads to reduced morale and increased stress

Optimism v. Pessimism Positive attributional style View failure as flukes or as a means to learning a new approach Optimist Negative attributional style Attribute poor performance to lack of ability or to situations beyond their control Pessimists

Exploring the Self The self organizes thinking, feelings, and actions It is a pivotal center of personality Spotlight effect Overestimating others noticing and evaluating your appearance, performance, and blunders Self-Esteem Ones feelings of high or low self worth People with high self-esteem: Succumb less easily to pressures to conform Are more persistent at difficult tasks Are less shy and lonely Are happier People with low self-esteem: View themselves more critically Have a negative self-image Self-Serving Bias Readiness to perceive oneself favorably Findings dealing with self-serving bias show that: People accept more responsibility for good deeds and successes than for bad deeds and failures. An athlete will consider a win a personal victory, but a loss is due to the referees bad call or a bad break. Most people see themselves as better than average. We remember and justify our past actions in self enhancing ways

Social Psychology Social Psychology The study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

Attribution Theory Fritz Heider (1958)

People usually attribute others behavior to their internal dispositions or to external situations Fundamental attribution error Overestimating the influence of personality and underestimating the influence of situations Requests Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon Small request large request Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon Large request small request Role Playing Zimbardo (1972) Prison guard study Cognitive Dissonance Theory We try to reduce the tension experienced when our actions and attitudes dont align by bringing our attitudes closer to our actions Conformity and Obedience Behavior is contagious Conformity Adjusting ones behavior or thinking to coincide with a group Chameleon Effect Chartrand and Bargh We mimic the expressions, postures, and voice tones of others Group Pressure and Conformity Solomon Asch (1955) Group Influence Individuals behavior is changed in the presence of others Social facilitation Improved performance on a task in the presence of others Social loafing Tendency of an individual in a group to exert less effort toward attaining a common goal than when tested individually Deindividuation Loss of self-awareness and restraint in group situations.

Effects of Group Interaction Group polarization Enhancing prevailing attitudes through discussion Groupthink Occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives People typically: Examine few alternatives Only selectively gather information Conform with the group and withhold criticism Succumb to collective rationalization Obedience Stanley Milgram Teacher/Learner shock experiment Teachers were instructed to administer a shock to learners if they answered incorrectly on a word pairing task In a study with men between the ages of 20-50, 63% complied fully Study caused many ethical concerns

Social Relations How we relate to one another Antisocial relations Prejudice, aggression, and conflict

Prejudice Negative attitude toward a group and its members Components: Beliefs (stereotypes) Emotions Predisposition to act (discrimination) Overtime many prejudices have waned Social Roots of Prejudice Social Inequalities When people have different levels of money, power, and prestige, prejudice increases In-group and Out-group In-group- those with whom one shares a common identity Out-group- those perceived as different form oneself

In-group bias- tendency for one to face ones own group Emotional Roots of Prejudice Scapegoat theory Prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame Cognitive Roots of Prejudice Categorization Categorizing people into groups by stereotypes Vivid Cases Cases that stand out feed stereotypes Just-World Phenomenon Tendency for people to believe the world is just, and people get what they deserve Aggression Any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy whether done reactively or proactively

The Psychology of Aggression Aversive Events Those who are miserable make others miserable Frustration-aggression principle Learning Aggression is Rewarding Positive outcomes reinforces aggression Observing Models of Aggression We act out what we see Acquiring Social Scripts Mental tapes of how to act Prosocial Behavior Behavior that intends to help or benefit someone Psychologists explore attraction, altruism, and peacemaking

Findings on attractiveness Attractiveness predicts: Frequency of dating Feelings of popularity Others initial impressions of their personalities

Attractive people are perceived as: More healthy, happy, sensitive, successful, socially skilled, honest, and compassionate Attractiveness does not correlate with self esteem Attractiveness is relative Romantic Love Passionate love Aroused state of intense positive absorption in another Compassionate love Deep affectionate attachment we feel for others Equity A condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it Self-Disclosure Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others Altruism Unselfish regard for the welfare of others Bystander Effect Tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present. The best odds of our helping someone occur when: The victim appears to need and deserve help The victim is similar to us We have just observed someone helping We are not in a hurry We are in a small town or rural area We are feeling guilty We are focus on others and are not preoccupied We are in a good mood Norms for Helping Social Exchange Theory: Social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs Reciprocity Norm Expectation that we should return help to those who have helped us Social-Responsibility Norm Tells us to help others when they need us

personality an individuals characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. free association in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. psychoanalysis Freuds theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions. unconscious according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware. id contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification. ego the largely conscious, executive part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the ids desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. superego the part of personality that,

according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations. psychosexual stages the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the ids pleasure -seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones. Oedipus [ED-uh-puss] complex according to Freud, a boys sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father. identification the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents values into their developing superegos. fixation according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure -seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved. defense mechanisms in psychoanalytic theory, the egos protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. repression in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety -arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. regression psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated. reaction formation psychoanalytic

defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety -arousing unconscious feelings. projection psychoanalytic 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 ones actions. displacement psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet. denial defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities. collective unconscious Carl Jungs concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species history. projective test a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of ones inner dynamics. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. Rorschach inkblot test the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach;

seeks to identify peoples inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. terror-management theory a theory of death-related anxiety; explores peoples emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death. self - actualization according to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill ones potential. unconditional positive regard according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person. self - concept all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, Who am I? trait a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self -report inventories and peer reports. personality inventory a questionnaire (often with true -false or agree -disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes. empirically derived test a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool

of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups. social - cognitive perspective views behavior as influenced by the interaction between peoples traits (including their thinking) and their social context. reciprocal determinism the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment. personal control the extent to which people perceive control over their environment rather than feeling helpless. external locus of control the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate. internal locus of control the perception that you control your own fate. learned helplessness the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or

human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. positive psychology the scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. self in contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. spotlight effect overestimating others noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us). self - esteem ones feelings of high or low self -worth. self - serving bias a readiness to perceive oneself favorably.