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Chapter 2

Theories of Personality

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►LECTURE GUIDE

Defining Personality (p. 73)

Psychodynamic Theories of Personality (p. 73)

The Modern Study of Personality (p. 75)

Genetic Influences on Personality (p. 76)

Environmental Influences on Personality (p. 77)

Cultural Influences on Personality (p. 78)

The Inner Experience (p. 79)

►FULL CHAPTER RESOURCES

Learning Objectives (p. 81)

RapidReview (p. 82)

Lecture Launchersand Discussion Topics (p. 83)

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, andExercises (p. 97)

Handout Masters (p. 104)

APS: Readings from the Association of Psychological Science (p. 121)

Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research (p. 123)

Web Resources (p. 124)

Video Resources (p. 126)

MultimediaResources (p. 129)

CRS “Clicker” Questions (p. 131)

PowerPointSlides (p. 132)

Study Guide (p. 133)

Accessing Resources (p. 134)

LECTURE GUIDE

  1. DEFINING PERSONALITY (Text p. 39)

Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics

“Personality” as a Narrative Concept

Freud, Skinner, Rogers

Personality Theory—Add Women and Stir!

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises

The Barnum Effect—Part 1

The Three Faces of Psychology

Handout Masters

2.1 – The GPT (General Personality Test)

2.2 – The Three Faces of Psychology

Web Resources

General/Comprehensive

Video Clips

Liz – Borderline Personality Disorder

Multimedia Resources

Hear More: Psychology in the News: Theories of Personality

Audio file of the chapter (students can listen to the entire chapter)

Flashcards (students can download and print these cards)

Test Yourself—practice quizzes

A.Personality--distinctive and stable pattern of behaviors, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterize an individual over time

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  1. PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES OF PERSONALITY (Text p. 40)

Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics

Archetypes

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises

Mechanisms of Defense

A Jungian Exploration of the Personal Unconscious

Handout Masters

2.3 – Mechanisms of Defense

2.4 – Exploring the Personal Unconscious

Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research

Masculine or Feminine…or Both?

Web Resources

Psychodynamic Views of Personality

Video Clips

Passions of the Soul – Symbolism

Multimedia Resources

Listen More: Freud’s View of the Human Mind

Explore More: Freud’s Five Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development

Explore More: The Id, Ego, and Superego

Biography: Carl Gustav Jung

Watch: Carl Jung: Unconscious

Biography: Karen Horney

Biography: Alfred Adler

A.Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was the first psychodynamic theory

B.Freud’s theory and the theories of his followers are called psychodynamic theories

C.Elements shared by all psychodynamic theories

  1. Based on movement of psychic forces within the mind (intrapsychic dynamics)
  2. Adult behavior and problems determined primarily by early childhood experiences
  3. Psychological development occurs in fixed stages
  4. Unconscious fantasies and symbols are main influences on personality and behavior
  5. Reliance on subjective methods of getting at the truth of a person’s life

Learning Objective 2.1 – Freud’s theory of the structure and development of personality

D.Freud and psychoanalysis

  1. Freud believed that unconscious forces have more power to control behavior than conscious thought
  2. The unconscious reveals itself in free association and through slips of the tongue
  3. Personality is composed of three systems that balance in a healthy personality
  4. The id--operates according to the pleasure principle and contains the life (sexual) instinct (fueled by libido) and death (aggressive) instincts.Energy buildup results in tension
  5. The ego--referee between demands of id and society, obeys the reality principle, represents reason and good sense
  6. The superego--morality and rules of parents and society, consists of moral standards and conscience, judges the activities of the id
  7. Defense mechanisms
  1. Used by ego to reduce anxiety when id’s wishes conflict with society
  2. They are unconscious and deny or distort reality
  3. Some defense mechanisms: repression, projection, displacement (and sublimation), regression, denial
  1. The development of personality
  2. Occurs in psychosexual stages.Child may remain fixated if too much anxiety or conflict is present

(1)Oral stage--focus on the mouth--fixation at this stage may result in constantly seeking oral gratification

(2)Anal stage--issue is control--people fixated at this stage become excessively tidy or excessively messy

(3)Phallic stage--Oedipus complex emerges, sexual sensation located in penis or clitoris.Identification with the same-sex parent then occurs in boys; by the end of this stage, personality is formed

(4)Latency stage--sexual feelings subside

(5)Genital stage--beginning of mature adult sexuality

  1. Criticisms

(1)Pressured patients to accept his ideas

(2)Ignored disconfirming evidence

Learning Objective 2.2 – Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious

E.Other psychodynamic approaches

  1. Carl Jung--biggest difference was the nature of the unconscious
  2. Collective unconscious contains universal memories
  3. Archetypes are themes and symbolic images that appear repeatedly in myths
  4. Two major archetypes are those of maleness and femaleness

(1)Masculine and feminine psychological qualities appear in both sexes

(2)Anima = feminine archetype in men

(3)Animus = masculine archetype in women

  1. Perceived humans as more positively motivated than did Freud
  2. Identified introversion-extraversion as a central personality orientation

Learning Objective 2.3 – The nature of the “objects” in the object-relations approach to personality

  1. Object-relations school--emphasizes need for relationships
  2. Object--a representation or complex cognitive schema about the mother that the child constructs unconsciously
  3. Object-relations reflect numerous representations of self and others and the psychodynamic interplay among them
  4. Central tension is balance between independence and connection to others
  5. Children of both sexes identify with mother; males must separate
  6. Males’ identity is less secure than females’

Learning Objective 2.4 –Why many psychologists reject most psychodynamic ideas

F.Evaluating psychodynamic theories

  1. Problems with psychodynamic theories
  2. Principle of falsifiability violated--can’t confirm or disprove ideas
  3. Universal principles drawn from the experiences of selected atypical patients
  4. Theories based on the retrospective memories of patients--creates illusion ofcausality
  5. Some researchers are trying to study psychodynamic concepts empirically

▲ Return to Chapter 2: Table of Contents

  1. THE MODERN STUDY OF PERSONALITY (Text p. 46)

Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics

L P Q R T

Allport On Personality Development

The Rorschach Test and Wikipedia

Type D Personality

Introverts and Extraverts

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises

The Barnum Effect—Part 2

Critique of Online Personality Tests

Using Projective Tests in Personality Assessment

Doodling as a Projective Technique

The Sentence Completion Test

Handout Masters

2.5 – Graphological Analysis

2.6a – Doodling Exercise

2.6b – Analysis Guidelines for Doodles

2.7a – The Sentence Completion Test

2.7b – The Sentence Completion Test Scoring Guidelines

APS: Readings from the Association of Psychological Science

Temperament, Development, and Personality

Web Resources

Trait Approaches

Video Clips

Temperament

Set in Your Ways

Multimedia Resources

Biography: Gordon Allport

See More: Video Classic footage on personality traits with Allport

Watch: Personality Traits

Biography: Raymond B. Cattell

Watch: Adolescent Shyness

Explore More: The Five-Factor Model

Learn More:About critical scales of the MMPI-2

Learning Objective 2.5 –Whether you can trust tests that tell you what “personality type” you are

A.Popular personality tests

  1. Being popular – like the Myers-Briggs – is no indication of being useful

Learning Objective 2.6 – How psychologists can tell which personality traits are more central or important than others

B.Core personality traits

  1. Trait--characteristic assumed to describe a person across many situations

Learning Objective 2.7 –The five dimensions of personality that describe people the world over

  1. The “Big Five” traits--supported by research as fundamental traits
  2. Extroversion vs. introversion
  3. Neuroticism vs. emotional stability
  4. Agreeableness vs. antagonism
  5. Conscientiousness vs. impulsiveness
  6. Openness to experience vs. resistence to new experience

▲ Return to Chapter 2: Table of Contents

  1. GENETIC INFLUENCES ON PERSONALITY (Text p. 49)

Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics

The Constitutional Theory of Personality

The Study of Bumps on theHead

Hippocratic Oafs

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises

Analyzing Harry and Sally

Handout Masters

2.8 – Analyzing Harry and Sally

APS: Readings from the Association of Psychological Science

Personality as Risk and Resilience in Physical Health

Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research

Racing Against Your Heart

Web Resources

Genetic, Environmental, and Cultural Influences

Multimedia Resources

Simulation: The Biology of Personality

Watch: Twin Studies

Watch: Twins

Biography: Hans Eysenck

Learning Objective 2.8 – Whether animals have “personalities” just as people do

Learning Objective 2.9 –The extent to which temperamental and personality differences among people are influenced by genes

A.Heredity and temperament--temperaments are relatively stable, characteristic physiologicaldispositions that appear in infancy and have some genetic basis

  1. Reactive and nonreactive temperamental styles--detectable in infancy, tend toremain stable throughout childhood
  2. Children with reactive temperaments are shy and timid, react negatively to novelsituations
  3. Children with nonreactive temperaments are outgoing and curious
  4. Reactive children show increased sympathetic nervous system activity during mildly stressful tasks

B.Heredity and traits

  1. Computing heritability
  2. Behavioral geneticists study the genetic bases of ability and personality
  3. Heritability tells the proportion of variation in a trait that is due to genes
  4. Heredity is investigated with adoption and twin studies

Learning Objective 2.10 –Why people who have highly heritable personality traits are not necessarily stuck with them forever

  1. How heritable are personality traits?
  2. Regardless of the trait, heritability is typically about .50
  3. The only environmental effects on personality come from nonshared (with familymembers) experiences--shared environment and parental child-rearing practices do not seem related to adult personality traits

C.Evaluating genetic theories

  1. Not all traits are equally heritable or unaffected by shared environment
  2. Studies may underestimate the impact of environment
  3. Even traits that are highly heritable are not fixed

▲ Return to Chapter 2: Table of Contents

  1. ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON PERSONALITY (Text p. 54)

Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics

A Case Study in Personality Development

Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research

Are You the Master of Your Fate?

Web Resources

Genetic, Environmental, and Cultural Influences

Multimedia Resources

Biography: Albert Bandura

Learn More: About behaviorists Dollard and Miller’s four critical situations

A.Situations and social learning

  1. People don’t have “traits”--instead, they show patterns of behavior
  2. Reason for inconsistencies in behavior is that different behaviors are rewarded, punished, or ignored, depending on the situation

Learning Objective 2.11 –How social-cognitive theory accounts for personality change

B.Social-cognitive learning theory

  1. Reciprocal determinism summarizes the influence of both stable traits and situational factors in producing behavior

Learning Objective 2.12 –The extent to which parents can—and can’t—influence their children’s personalities

C.Parental influence and its limits

  1. Belief that personality is determined by how parents treat their children is challenged by three lines of empirical evidence:
  2. The shared environment of the home has little, if any, influence on personality
  3. Few parents have a single child-rearing style that is consistent over time and that they use with all of their children
  4. Even when parents try to be consistent in the way they treat their children, there may be little relation between what they do and how the children turn out

Learning Objective 2.13 – How your peers shape certain of your personality traits, and suppress others

D.The power of peers

  1. Peer environment consists of different peer groups, organized by interests,ethnicity, and/or popularity
  2. A child’s behavior in the home environment (with parents) may differ from behavior in the larger social environment outside the home (with peers)

▲ Return to Chapter 2: Table of Contents

  1. CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON PERSONALITY (Text p. 58)

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises

Applying Personality Theories to TV Characters

APS: Readings from the Association of Psychological Science

Self-Esteem Development Across the Lifespan

Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research

The One; the Many

Web Resources

Genetic, Environmental, and Cultural Influences

Learning Objective 2.14 –How culture influences your personality, and even whether you think you have a stable one

A.Culture, values, and traits

  1. Two kinds of cultures
  2. Individualist--individual needs take precedence over group needs
  3. Collectivist--group harmony takes precedence over individual wishes
  4. Cultures’ norms and values vary
  5. Conversational distance
  6. Tardiness

(1)In monochronic cultures, people do one thing at a time; value promptness (e.g., northern Europe, Canada, United States)

(2)In polychronic cultures, people do several things at a time; promptness not valued (e.g., southern Europe, Middle East, South America, Africa)

Learning Objective 2.15 –Why men in the South and West are more likely to get angry when insulted than other American men are

  1. The “culture of honor” in the South and West illustrates cultural differences in aggressiveness
  2. Economic factors influence responses to real and perceived insults or threats
  3. Southern man better keep his head

Learning Objective 2.16 –How to appreciate cultural influences on personality without stereotyping

B.Evaluating cultural approaches

  1. Cultural psychologists describe cultural influences on personality, avoiding stereotyping
  2. Regional variations occur in every society
  3. Many cultures share many human concerns (e.g., need for love, attachment, family,work, religion)

▲ Return to Chapter 2: Table of Contents

  1. THE INNER EXPERIENCE (Text p. 62)

Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics

The Origins of Personality

Don’t Worry! I’m Self-Actualized…

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises

The View from Here: Comparing Personality Theories

Handout Masters

2.9–Comparing Personality Theories

APS: Readings from the Association of Psychological Science

Is Optimism Always Best? Future Outlooks and Preparedness

Web Resources

Humanism

Multimedia Resources

Biography: Carl Rogers

Learning Objective 2.17 –How humanist approaches to personality differ from psychodynamic and genetic ones

A.Humanist approaches

  1. Developed as a reaction against psychoanalysis and behaviorism

Learning Objective 2.18 –The contributions of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May to understanding our “inner lives”

  1. Abraham Maslow’s approach
  2. Emphasized good side of human nature, peak experiences
  3. Emphasized movement toward state of self-actualization
  4. Carl Rogers’ approach
  5. Interested in the fully functioning person--requires congruence between self-image and true feelings
  6. Fully-functioning--means a person is trusting, warm, and open to new experiences
  7. Becoming fully functional requires unconditional positive regard
  8. Conditional love results in incongruence and unhappiness
  9. Rollo May--brought aspects of existentialism to American psychology
  10. Emphasized the burdensome aspects of free will
  11. The burden of responsibility can lead to anxiety and despair

B.Narrative approaches

  1. “What’s your story?” holds more truth than may appear at first glance

Learning Objective 2.19– How psychological scientists evaluate humanist views of personality

C.Evaluating humanist and narrative approaches

  1. Many assumptions of humanism cannot be tested
  2. Humanist concepts are difficult to define operationally
  3. Both humanism and the narrative approach balance psychology’s traditional view ofpersonality

▲ Return to Chapter 2: Table of Contents

FULL CHAPTER RESOURCES

▼Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter, students should be able to understand the following principles:

Psychodynamic Theories of Personality

2.1 – Freud’s theory of the structure and development of personality

2.2 – Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious

2.3 – The nature of the “objects” in the object-relations approach to personality

2.4 – Why many psychologists reject most psychodynamic ideas

The Modern Study of Personality

2.5 – Whether you can trust tests that tell you what “personality type” you are

2.6 – How psychologists can tell which personality traits are more central or important than others

2.7 – The five dimensions of personality that describe people the world over

Genetic Influences on Personality

2.8 – Whether animals have “personalities” just as people do

2.9 – The extent to which temperamental and personality differences among people are influenced by genes

2.10 – Why people who have highly heritable personality traits are not necessarily stuck with them forever

Environmental Influences on Personality

2.11 – How social-cognitive theory accounts for personality change.

2.12 – The extent to which parents can—and can’t—influence their children’s personalities.

2.13 – How your peers shape certain of your personality traits, and suppress others.

Cultural Influences on Personality

2.14 – How culture influences your personality, and even whether you think you have a stable one

2.15 – Why men in the South and West are more likely to get angry when insulted than other American men are

2.16 – How to appreciate cultural influences on personality without stereotyping

The Inner Experience

2.17 – How humanist approaches to personality differ from psychodynamic and genetic ones

2.18 – The contributions of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May to understanding our “inner lives”

2.19– How psychological scientists evaluate humanist views of personality

▲ Return to Chapter 2: Table of Contents

▼RAPID REVIEW

Chapter 2 – Theories of Personality

Chapter 2 defines personality and reviews the major theoretical approaches that have been advanced to explain its development. The psychodynamic approach focuses on the role of unconscious processes, five psychosexual stages, and the development of the id, ego, and superego. Freud originally proposed this approach, and then other theorists such as Jung and Horney modified his work. Modern views of personality emphasize the trait approach with cross-cultural (and cross-species) empirical support for the “Big Five” personality traits. The biological approach focuses on the heritability of traits and the idea that there is a genetic basis for certain temperaments. Environmental influences also are important; theorists have emphasized the reciprocal interactions between specific situations and a person’s cognitions and behaviors. Cognitions and behavior are also influenced by culture in a variety of ways. The humanist and existential approaches reject the deterministic views of the psychoanalytic and behavioral approaches. Instead, they focus on the positive aspects of humanity and the idea that humans have free will to shape their own destinies.