1. Trait theories, Social-Cognitive Theories, and the Self
1.1. Gordon Allport: described personality in terms of fundamental traits and identifiable behavior patterns by focusing on describing them and not why it happens
1.1.1. Traits: characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act
1.2. Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine Briggs
1.2.1. Developed Myers BRiggs Type Indicator
1.2.1.1. Sorts people’s personality types via questionnaire
1.2.1.2. Used in counseling and coaching, not research instrument
1.3. Factor analysis
1.3.1. Statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test items that tap basic components of a trait
1.3.2. Eysenck study
1.3.2.1. Traits fall into extraversion-introversion and emotional stability - instability
1.4. Biology and personality
1.4.1. Dopamine and dopamine related neural activity higher in extraverts
1.4.2. Shyness could be genetic due to their autonomic nervous system reactivity
1.5. Personality inventories: longer questionnaires covering a wide range of feelings and behaviors, assessing multiples traits at once
1.5.1. Scored objectively
1.5.2. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): widely and clinically used personality test for screening purposes
1.5.2.1. Empirically derived inventory
1.5.2.2. Assesses work attitudes, family problems, anger, etc.
1.6. Big 5 traits are
1.6.1. Stable in adulthood
1.6.2. Certain brain areas are associated with traits and some genes may have influence on them
1.6.3. Traits may predict behavioral attitudes
1.7. Person-situation controversy
1.7.1. Personality seems to become more stable with age
1.7.2. Behavior may not be consistent or predictable
1.7.3. People behave differently based on the situation but average behavior does exist, reflecting our traits
1.8. Albert Bandura & Social cognitive perspective: views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits and their social context
1.8.1. Learn behaviors through conditioning or imitation
1.8.2. Behave a certain way because of our cognitive processes
1.8.3. Reciprocal determinism: personality shaped by interaction of traits, our environment, and behaviors
1.9. Personal control: whether we learn to see ourselves as controlling or controlled by our environment; emphasized by social-cognitive psychologists
1.9.1. External locus of control: chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate
1.9.2. Internal locus of control: perception that you control your own fate
1.9.3. Those with internal locus of controls seemed to have less stress and enjoyed better health overall
1.10. Self control: ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long term rewards
1.10.1. Strengthen willpower by practicing restraint, physical exercise, self regulation, etc
1.10.2. Tend to be healthier and less stress
1.11. Learned helplessness: hopelessness and passive resignation you learn when unable to avoid repeated aversive events
1.11.1. Balance between choice and freedom needed to prevent learned helplessness
1.11.2. Diminished sense of control decreased overall well being
1.12. Optimism vs Pessimism
1.12.1. Optimism is necessary but excessive optimism could lead to dangerous outcomes with future life events
1.12.2. Pessimism is necessary to a certain degree to be realistic about events but excessive pessimism could also affect overall well being and idea of control
1.12.3. Understanding one’s own incompetence helps to predict future performance and helps with self assessment
1.13. The “self” is one of the most researched topics in psychology today
1.14. Self: assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions
1.15. Helps to motivate us but also leads us to believe others notice our “self”
1.15.1. Spotlight effect: overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders
1.15.2. Fewer people notice than we think
1.16. Self esteem: one’s feelings of high or low self worth
1.16.1. People with high self esteems generally are more persistent, less shy, or anxious and generally are in better moods
1.16.2. People with lower self esteems tend to be more judgemental and oversensitive, becoming more critical and
1.17. Self serving bias: readiness to perceive oneself favorably
1.17.1. People accept more responsibly for good deeds than bad and for successes not failures
1.17.2. Most people see themselves as better than average
1.17.3. Problematic because conflicts increase and becomes more difficult to resolve
1.18. Defensive self esteem: focuses on sustaining itself, which makes failures and criticism feel threatening
1.19. Secure self esteem: less contingent on external evaluation and to feel accepted for who we are
2. Psychodynamic theories
2.1. Personality: Person’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
2.1.1. Today, psychologists study
2.1.1.1. Various dimensions of personality
2.1.1.2. Various dimensions of personality
2.1.1.3. Interaction of people and their environments
2.1.1.4. Self esteem, bias and cultural influence
2.1.1.5. Unconscious and personality impacts
2.2. Psychodynamic theories: view personality with focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences
2.3. Sigmund Freud
2.3.1. Psychoanalysis: thoughts and actions are driven by unconscious motives and conflicts
2.3.2. Free association: patient relaxes and says whatever comes to mind no matter how embarrassing or trivia
2.3.3. Unconscious: reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories that we are unaware of
2.3.4. Repression: forcibly block things from our conscious mind because it’s not acceptable in society
2.3.5. Repressed feelings and thoughts influence us without our awareness
2.3.6. Believed nothing was an accident jokes, slips of the tongue, dreams all had meanings beyond our conscious awareness
2.4. Personality comes from the conflict between impulse and restraint
2.4.1. Id: reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. Operates on pleasure principle - immediate gratification
2.4.2. Ego: conscious “executive” part of personality that mediates between id, superego, and reality. Operates on reality principle - satisfying id’s desires that will realistically bring pleasure and not pain
2.4.3. Superego: represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement and future aspirations
2.5. Believed personality develops the first few years of life
2.6. Psychosexual stages: childhood stages of development focusing on the unconscious sexual desires
2.6.1. Oedipus complex: boy’s sexual desires towards his mom develops jealousy and hatred for his father
2.6.2. Identification: children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos to cope with their feelings
2.6.3. Fixation: focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stages, where conflict wasn’t resolved
2.7. Defense mechanisms: ego’s protective method of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
2.7.1. Regression (retreating to an infantile stage), reaction formation (switching unacceptable impulses to the opposite), projection (disguising own impulses by attributing it to others), rationalization (self justifying explanations), displacement (shifting impulses to something more acceptable), denial (refusing to believe in reality)
2.8. Repression: basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories that may appear in dreams or mistakes in casual conversation
2.9. Placed more emphasis on the conscious mind’s role in interpreting experience and coping
2.10. Doubted that sex and aggression were the only motivators behind behavior and personality
2.11. Alfred Adler: believed our behavior was driven by efforts to conquer childhood inferiority feelings and not sexual
2.12. Karen Horney: believed childhood anxiety triggers our desire for love and security
2.13. Carl Jung: we have a collective unconscious - shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces that are inherited
2.14. Psychodynamic therapists have to use tests that may reflect the unconscious
2.15. Projective tests: personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger inner feelings/thoughts
2.15.1. Rorschach inkblot test: most widely used projective test where you are shown inkblots and then asked to describe what you see
2.16. Impact on memory
2.16.1. Today scientists find that traumatic events aren’t repressed, but actually remain as vivid memories, challenging Freud’s idea of repression
2.17. Impact on the unconscious mind
2.17.1. Many studies are still being conducted
2.17.2. Dual track mind, parallel processing, things still happen without our conscious awareness of them
3. Humanistic Theories
3.1. Humanistic view: focused on potential for healthy growth
3.1.1. Self Concept: all the thoughts and feelings we have in response to “Who am I?”
3.1.2. Use questionnaires or open conversations for therapy and focus on individuals’ unique experiences
3.2. Abraham Maslow
3.2.1. Self Actualization: process of fulfilling our potential and self transcendence
3.3. Studied healthy people and not clinical cases
3.4. Carl Rogers
3.4.1. Also followed Maslow’s ideas
3.4.2. People are basically good and have self actualizing tendencies if they have a supportive environment that meets the following
3.4.2.1. Genuineness: Open to their own feelings
3.4.2.2. Acceptance: Offer unconditional positive regard
3.4.2.3. Empathy: Share and mirror other’s feelings and meanings
3.5. Influenced counseling, education, management, parenting
3.5.1. Many people believe self esteem is good