Personality

Theories of

Personality

Chapter 14

Personality

 Psychodynamic influences on personality

 Measuring personality

 Genetic influences on personality

 Environmental influences on personality

 Cultural influences on personality

 The inner experience

Defining Personality and Traits

 Personality

 Distinctive and relatively stable pattern of

behaviors, thoughts, motives, and emotions that

characterizes an individual throughout life

 Trait

 A characteristic of an individual, describing a

habitual way of behaving, thinking, and feeling

Psychodynamic Theories

 Theories that explain behavior and

personality in terms of unconscious energy

dynamics within the individual









Sigmund Freud

The Structure of Personality

 Id: Operates according to

the pleasure principle

 Primitive and unconscious

part of personality

 Ego: Operates according to

the reality principle

 Mediates between id and

superego

 Superego: Moral ideals and

conscience

Super Ego









ID









EGO

The Defense Mechanisms

 Unconscious strategies that

protect us from conflict &

anxiety

 Become unhealthy when

they cause self-defeating

behavior & emotional

problems

Defense Mechanisms

 Repression  Reaction formation

 Blocking of a  Unconscious anxiety

threatening idea,

memory or emotion transformed into

 Projection conscious opposite

 Repression of one’s own  Regression

unacceptable or  Reverting to previous

threatening feelings and

attributing them to phase of development

someone else  Denial

 Displacement  Refusing to admit that

 Emotions directed something unpleasant

toward things, animals

or people that are not is occurring

the real object of their

feelings

Situation 1

Jess was the butt of jokes as a young child

because he couldn’t pronounce his name

without lisping. As an adult, however, he

doesn’t remember having a problem at all.

What defense mechanism is Jess using?

Answer

 Repression



 Repression occurs when a threatening

idea, memory, or emotion is blocked from

consciousness.

Situation 2



Greg is told he has an inoperable form of

cancer and he has just a few weeks to live.

Greg leaves his doctor’s office, goes home

and acts as if nothing is wrong. Greg's

response to his diagnosis is what type of

defense mechanism?

Answer



 Denial



 Denial occurs when people refuse to

admit that something unpleasant is

happening

Situation 3



Bill has been in therapy for several months

working on issues around physical abuse he

received from his father. One session he

lashes out at his therapist and says, “You’re a

bully and a tyrant!” What type of defense

mechanism is Bill's outburst?

Answer



 Projection



 Projection occurs when your own

unacceptable or threatening feelings are

repressed and then attributed to someone

else.

Situation 4



Sally cannot stand her co-worker. Everything

about this person irritates her. But whenever

they are together in a group, Sally smiles,

laughs, and acts as if they are best friends.

What type of defense mechanism is Sally

using?

Answer

 Reaction Formation



 Reaction formation reduces anxiety by

taking up the opposite feeling, impulse, or

behavior.

Situation 5



Amando, age 10, changes schools when his

family moves to Santa Rosa. He starts

wetting his bed at night, but there is no

physical problem. What type of defense

mechanism is Amando using?

Answer

 Regression



 When confronted by stressful events, people

sometimes abandon coping strategies and act out

behaviors from the stage of psychosexual

development in which they are fixated. Amando is

exhibiting behaviors (bedwetting) suggesting he is

fixated at the anal stage of development.

The Development of Personality

 Freud’s psychosexual stages of personality

 Oral (0-18 months)

 Anal (18 months – 3-1/2 years)

 Phallic (Oedipal) (3.5 years – 6 years )

 Latency period (6 years - puberty)

 Genital (puberty - adulthood)

 Fixation occurs when stages aren’t resolved

successfully

 Defense mechanisms are developed to reduce

anxiety

The Development of Personality

 Freud revered by some and ignored by many

 Current research does not support many of

Freud’s theories

 Freud welcomed women into the profession

 His legacy includes a language to talk about the

unconscious

Other Psychodynamic Approaches



 Jungian Theory

 Object Relations

Other Psychodynamic Approaches



 Jungian Theory

 Collective unconscious

 The universal memories, symbols, and

experiences of human kind

 Archetypes

 Represented in the archetypes or universal

symbolic images that appear in myths, art,

stories, and dreams across cultures.

 Two important archetypes are Animus

(masculinity) and Anima (femininity) which

he believed existed in both sexes.

 Reflects spiritual nature of individual, not

psychosexual

Other Psychodynamic Approaches



Jungian Theory Today

 Conducted by Analysts trained in

Jungian psychology

 Treatment focus is on dream

interpretation and dealing with the

Shadow

Other Psychodynamic Approaches

Klein

 The Object-Relations School

 Emphasizes the importance of the

infant’s first two years of life and Mahler

the baby’s formative relationships.

Especially with the mother (object)

(Klein, Mahler)

 Emphasized child’s needs for a “just

good enough” mother (Winnicott) and to

be in relationship







Winnicott

Evaluating Psychodynamic Theories



 Three scientific failings

 Violating the principle of falsifiability

 Drawing universal principles from the experiences

of a few atypical patients

 Basing theories of personality development on

retrospective accounts and the fallible memories

of patients

Modern Study of Personality

 Popular Personality Tests

 Myers-Briggs

 Enneagram

 Trait Analysis

 Big-Five

Popular Inventories

 Myers-Briggs

 Based on Jungian concepts of

introversion/extroversion

 Used in business and education

 Has poor test-re-test reliability

Popular Inventories

 Myers-Briggs

 Extraversion/Introversion

 Sensing/Intuition

 Thinking/Feeling

 Judgment/Perception

Popular Inventories

 Enneagram

 Based on esoteric principles

 Self-study of 9 different personality types

 Popular in spiritual and personal growth circles

Objective Tests

Standardized questionnaires

 Identify key personality traits (16-PF)

Objective personality

scales

Answer a series of questions about self

“I am easily embarrassed” True or False

“I like to go to parties” True or False



Assumes that you can accurately report

No right or wrong answers

From responses, develop an account of you

called a personality profile

Core Personality Traits

 Definition of a Trait:

 A characteristic of an individual describing a

habitual way of behaving, thinking, or feeling

Trait Analysis

 Leading theorists of traits

 Gordon Allport

 Central/secondary traits



 Raymond Cattell

 16 core traits

Trait Analysis

Core personality traits as determined by

factor analysis (Cattell)

aka The Big-Five

 Extroversion/Introversion

 Neuroticism v Emotional Stability

 Agreeableness v Antagonism

 Conscientiousness v Impulsiveness

 Openness to experience v Resistance

Consistency and

change in personality

What’s Missing?

 Psychopathology

 Non-genetic traits

 Religiosity

 Dishonesty

 Humor

 Independence

 Conventionality

Biology and animal

traits

Evolutionarily adaptive for animals to vary in their

ways of responding to the world and those around

them.

Like humans, bears, dogs, pigs, hyenas, goats,

cats, and of course primates have distinctive,

characteristic ways of behaving that make them

different from others in their species.

Evidence has been found for most of the Big Five

factors in 64 different species, including the

squishy squid.

Puppies and personality



Ongoing research at the Animal Personality

Institute



For additional information go to:

Animal Personality Institute

Genetic Influences

 Heredity and Temperament

 Heredity and Traits

Heredity & Temperament



 Genetically pre-determined ways

of responding to the environment

 Reactivity

 How excitable, arousable, or

responsive

 Continuum between non-reactive and

highly reactive

 Soothability

 How easy to calm an upset baby

 Impulsivity

 Positive & negative emotionality

Heredity and Traits

 Heritability

 A statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance

in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences

among individuals within a group

 Heritability of personality traits is about 50%

 Within a group of people, about 50% of the variation

associated with a given trait is attributable to genetic

differences among individuals in the group

 Genetic predisposition is not genetic inevitability

Environmental Influences

 Situations & Social Learning

 Different behaviors are rewarded, punished, or ignored in

different contexts

 Social-cognitive learning theorists believe:

 Central personality traits acquired from learning history

and resultant expectations

 Behaviorists believe:

 Traits are just reinforced behaviors

Reciprocal Determinism

 The two-way interaction between

aspects of the environment and

aspects of the individual in the

shaping of personality traits







Bandura

Non-shared Environment

 Unique aspects of a person’s

environment and experience that are

not shared (genetically) with family

members

The Power of Parents

 The shared environment of the home has little

influence on personality

 The non-shared environment is a more

important influence

 Few parents have a single child-rearing style that

is consistent over time and that they use with all

their children

 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 their children turn

out

The Power of Parents



 Traits that are highly heritable can be

strengthened or diminished by experience

 Parents affect:

 Religious beliefs

 Intellectual/occupational interests

 Feelings of self-esteem or inadequacy

 Gender roles

 Whether the child feels loved, secure, valued

 Whether the child feels humiliated, frightened, or

worthless

The Power of Peers

 Adolescent culture includes different peer groups

organized by different interests

 Peer acceptance is so important to children and

adolescents that being bullied, victimized or

rejected by peers is far more traumatic that

punitive treatment by parents

 Peers shape expression of personality traits

 Temperaments influence choice of peer groups

Cultural Influences

 What is culture?

 Individualist v collectivist cultures

 Cultural Traits

 Aggressiveness & Altruism

 Evaluating Cultural Approaches

Culture, Values, and Traits



 Culture

 A program of shared rules that govern the

behavior of members of a community or society

and

 A set of values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by

most members of that community

Culture, Values, and Traits

 Individualistic culture

 Cultures in which the self is regarded as autonomous, and

individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and

relations with others.

 Collectivistic culture

 Cultures in which the self is regarded as embedded in

relationships, and harmony with one’s group is prized

above individual goals and wishes.

Culture & Traits



 When culture isn’t appropriately considered,

people attribute unusual behavior to personality

rather than cultural norms

 Tardiness

 monochronic cultures

 time is ordered sequentially, schedules and deadlines

valued over people

 polychronic cultures

 Time is ordered horizontally, people valued over

schedules and deadline

Aggressiveness & Altruism

 In cultures where resources are

abundant, men do not feel they need to

“prove” themselves

 In cultures where competition for

resources is fierce & survival difficult,

men are “toughened up” and pushed to

take risks

Aggressiveness

Inner Experience

 Humanist Approaches

 Maslow

 Rogers

 May

 Narrative Approaches

 Evaluating Humanist Theories

The Humanistic Approach

 Abraham Maslow

 Carl Rodgers

 Rollo May

Abraham Maslow

Father of Human Potential

 Humanist Psychology

 An approach that emphasizes personal

growth, resilience, and the achievement

of human potential.

 Peak experiences

 Rare moments of oneness usually

experienced in conjunction with physical

activities or in nature.

Carl Rodgers

Father of Humanist Psychotherapy



 Unconditional Positive Regard

 Receiving love and support for who

we are, without conditions attached

 Most children raised with “conditional”

positive regard, resulting in

“incongruence” – not being true to

your real self produces low self-

regard, defensiveness & unhappiness

Rollo May



Father of Existentialist Psychotherapy

 Shared with humanists the belief in free

will and freedom of choice but also

emphasized loneliness, anxiety and

alienation

 Existentialism

 Free will confers on us responsibility for our

actions

Narrative Approaches

 Post-modern approach to working with

individuals that depathologizes

strategies, events, and experiences and

allows the individual to become the

“author” of their life

 The story that each of us develops over

time to explain ourselves and make

meaning of everything that has

happened to us

 These stories are the essence of your

personality, capturing everything that

has happened to you and all the factors

that affect your biology, psychology, and

relationships.

Evaluating Humanists



 Hard to operationally define many of the

concepts

 Have added balance to the study of personality

 The approach has encouraged others to focus on

“positive psychology”

 The argument that we have the power to choose

our own destiny has fostered a new appreciation

for resilience