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17 Cards in this Set
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Personality and Behavior
(Approaches and Measurements) What is personality? What is phrenology? What is somatology? |
What is personality?
It is defined as an individual's consistent patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving. Personality guide behavior. Phrenology (early theory) Personality expressed in people's physical appearance. Gall (late 1700's) developed phrenology which was based on the idea that we could measure personality by assessing bumps on people's skulls. Somatology (early theory): Proposed by psychologist Sheldon (early 1900's) it was based on the idea that we could determine personality from body types. "Ectomorphs" thinner people were more likely to be introverted and intellectual. "Endomorphs" rounder people tended to be more assertive and bold. "Mesomorphs" were just right. What is Physiognomy? The idea that it is possible to assess personality from facial characteristics. There might be some slight truth to this approach but very little empirical support (gay, straight, democrat, republican) |
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Personality and Behavior
(Approaches and Measurements) Personality Traits that Predict Behavior |
What are traits?
Relatively enduring characteristics that influence our behavior across many situations...they help explain consistencies in behavior. (ex, introversion, extroversion, friendliness, honesty, helpfulness) More examples of traits that predict behavior: Authoritarianism: include conventionalism, superstition, toughness, overly concerned about sexuality --> more likely to be prejudiced, to conform to leaders, to display rigid behavior Individualism vs collectivism: tendency to focus on oneself and one's personal goals; focus on one's relationships with others --> individualists prefer to engage in behaviors which make them stand out from others. collectivists prefer to engage in behaviors that emphasize their similarity with others. Need for achievement tendency to make significant accomplishments by mastering skills or meeting high standards -->may select tasks not too difficult in order to be sure they will succeed Self-consciousness tendency to introspect and examine one's inner feelings and self --> spend more time primping Self-esteem high self-esteem means having a positive attitude toward oneself and one's capabilities --> associated with a variety of positive pschological and health outcomes Sensation seeking self-explanatory! |
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Personality and Behavior
(Approaches and Measurements) MBTI 5 Factor/ Big Five |
Remember, as with intelligence tests, the utility of self-report measures of personality depends on their reliability and construct-validity.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) The most widely administered personality test given to employees. It categorizes people into 4 categories: introversion vs extroversion, sensing vs intuiting, thinking vs feeling, judging vs perceiving. Although helpful it is not reliable bc people classifications can change and the scores do not relate to other measures of personality and behavior. In the mid-1900's Allport organized trait words/descriptions into 3 levels according to importance - Cardinal Traits: most important traits Central Traits: basic and most useful traits Secondary Traits: less obvious and less consistent traits The fundamental work on trait dimensions conducted by Allport, Cattell, Eysneck and others lead to contemporary trait models with the most important one being Big Five Model of Personality Agreeableness Conscientiousness Extroversion Neuroticism Openness to experience aka as OCEAN or CANOE |
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Situational impact on personality...
people believe in traits more than they should! What is the Barnum Effect? |
An examination of correlations among various behavioral indicators reveals LOW correlation. (ie/ studies show that children who steal in one situation are not necessarily the same who steal in others)
What is the explanation for the low correlations? One possibility is that the natural tendency for people to see traits in other leads us to believe that people have stable personalities when in actuality they do not. It in our (the observers) heads. People use their knowledge representation (or schemas) about people to help interpret the world around them. Another possibility is that we tend to see more traits in others than we do in ourselves. What is the Barnum Effect? The observation that people tend to believe in descriptions of their personality that supposedly are descriptive of them but could in fact be descriptive of anyone. Explains why some people believe in astrology, horoscopes, fortune-telling, palm reading, etc. One insight into traits and behavior pointed out that people express their traits in different ways. Also, psychologists believe that personality will predict behavior when he behaviors are aggregate or averaged over across different situations. Why is this important? These findings show that personality is also shaped by situations . Personality is derived from our interactions and observations |
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More personality tests
What is MMPI? What are Projective Measures? What is Rorschach Inkblot Test? What is the Thematic Apperception Test? (TAT) What are their advantages/disadvantages? |
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI):
assesses standard devaitions from normal/average personality. It is used world-wide to identify personality and psychiatric disorders. It consists of more than 1000 true/false questions. Can detect tendencies to lie, fake, etc. Major subscales include: depression, hypochondriasis, hysteria, psychopathis deviate, paranoia, schizophrenia, social introversion Projective measure: A measure of personality in which unstructured stimuli, such as inkblots, drawings of social situations or incomplete sentences are shown to participants who are asked to freely list what comes to mind upon seeing the stimuli. (Addresses the issue of determining the unconscious process) Rorschach Inkblot Test: A projective measure test in which participant indicates his thoughts about a series of 10 symmetrical inkblots Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) developed by Murray in the mid-1900's. It is a projective measure of personality in which participants are asked to create stories about sketches of ambiguous situations, most of the people. This test assumes that people are unwilling to admit their tru feelings when asked directly but that these feelings will show up in the stories about the picture. Advantages: less direct, respondents less defensive, hopefully show "truer" personality by bypassing the limitations of conscious responding. Good as an "ice-breaker" Disadvantages: despite widespread use, empirical evidence supporting the use of projective measure tests is mixed. Reliability is low bc people often produce different responses on different occasions. Often fail to distinguish between people with psychological disorders and those without or to correlate with other measures of personality/behavior...issues with construct validity. |
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What are the qualities in a leader?
What are the types of leaders? |
Leadership:
is the ability to direct or inspire others to achieve goals Charismatic leaders: Leaders who are enthusiastic, committed and self-confident; who tend to talk about the importance of group goals at a broad level; who make personal sacrifices for the group. Leadership traits: intelligence, social skills and communication skills - a package of traits 2 types of leaders, subordinates: Transactional leaders are "regular leaders" who work with subordinates to help them understand what is required of them and to get the job done Transformational leaders are more like charismatic leaders and they have a vision of where the group is going and attempt to stimulate and inspire worker to move beyond present status and create a new, better future. |
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What is Psychodynamic Psychology?
Who is Charcot? Who is Sigmund Freud? |
Psychodynamic psychology:
an approach to understanding human behavior that focuses on the role of unconscious thoughts, feelings and memories Jean-Martin Charcot was a french neurologist who interviewed many women with hysteria symptoms (chronic pain, fainting, seizures, paralysis, etc). He used hypnosis and found that most of the women had been sexually abused when young. Determined that symptoms were psychological not physical. Influenced Freud. Sigmund Freud Austrian physician and psychologist who founded the psychodynamic approach to understanding personality. Probably most famous pschych figure in part due to his many studies and books. |
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(Psychodynamic con't)
ID - SUPEREGO - EGO What are Freud's Defense Mechanisms? |
Id: I want it now (forms the basis of our most primitive impulses)
Superego: good people don't think abt those things (represents our sense of morality) Ego: Let's figure out a way to work together (decision-maker of personality) Freud believed that the experience of anxiety occurs when there is conflict amongst the id, superego and ego. The ego finds that the id applies too much pressure for immediate pleasure. It attempts to correct the "imbalance" through the use of defense mechanisms Displacement diverting threatening impulses away from the source of anxiety and toward more acceptable source (ex, a student who is angry at a professor for a low grade lashes out at her roommate who is a safer target of her anger. Projection disguising threatening impulses by attributing them to others (ex, a man w/ powerful unconscious sexual desires for a women claims that the women use him as a sex object) Rationalization generating self-justifying explanations for our negative behaviors (ex, a drama student convinces herself that getting a part in the play wasn't really that important after all) Reaction formation making unacceptable motivations appear as their exact opposite (Jane is sexually attracted to Jake but she claims in public she hates him) Regression retreating to earlier, more child-like and safer stage of development (ex, a college student worried abt an exam starts to suck on his finger) Denial/Repression pushing anxiety-arousing thoughts into the unconscious (ex, a person who witnesses their parents having sex is later unable to remember anything abt the event) Sublimation channeling unacceptable sexual or aggressive desires into acceptable activities (ex, participates in sports to sublimate aggression or creates music or art to sublimate sexual drives) |
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(Psychodynamic con't)
What are Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development? |
most controversial and least scientifically valid part of Freudian theory is its explanations for personality development. He argued that personality is developed through a series of psycho-sexual stages, with each one focusing on pleasure from a different part of the body. He believed sexuality begins at infancy and that the appropriate resolution of each stage has implications for later personality development
ORAL (birth to 18months) pleasure comes from the mouth in the form of sucking, biting, chewing ANAL (18months to 3 years) pleasure comes from the bowel and bladder elimination and the constraints of toilet training PHALLIC (3 years to 6 years) pleasure comes from the genitals, and the conflict is with sexual desires for the opposite-sex parent LATENCY (6 years to puberty) sexual feelings are less important and focus is on friendships GENITAL (puberty to older) if prior stages have been properly reached, mature sexual orientation devlops |
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(Psychodynamic con't)
What is Neo- Freudian Theory? Who is Alfred Adler? Who is Carl Jung? Who is Karen Horney? Who is Erich Fromm? |
Freud was extremely popular and had many followers. His students developed, modified and expanded his theories...known as Neo-Freudian Theory. They are based on Freudian principles that emphasize the role of the unconscious and early experience in shaping personality BUT place less evidence on sexuality as the primary motivating force and they are more optimistic concerning the prospects for personality growth and change in adults.
Alfred Adler: was a follower of Freud who proposed that the primary motivation in human personality was not sex or aggression but rather the striving of superiority. We desire to be better than others and we accomplish this goal by creating a unique and valuable life. He believed that psychological disorders begin in early adulthood and argued that children who are either overly nurtured or overly neglected by their parents are later likely to develop an inferiority complex. This inferiority complex, a state in which people feel they are not living up to expectation, leads to low self-esteem and the tendency to overcompensate for negative feelings by demonstrating their superiority to others at all costs including humiliation, domination and alienation tactics. Carl Jung was another student of Freud who felt that Freud overemphasized the importance of sexuality. He argued that in addition to the personal unconscious there was also a "collective unconscious" which is a shared collection of ancestral memories. He believed that archetypes, of cross-culturally universal symbols, explained the similarities among people in their emotional reactions to many stimuli. Important archetypes include: mother, the goddess, the hero and the mandala or circle which Jung believed represented the desire for wholeness and unity. For Jung the underlying motivation that guides successful personality is "self-realization" or about learning and developing self to the fullest. Karen Horney was a german physician who applied Freudian theories to create a personality theory that she though twas more balance btwn men and women...thought that Freud's ideas of the Oedipus complex and penis envy were biased against women. Horney argued that women's sense of inferiority was based not on lack of penis but their dependency on me. Underlying motivation that guide personality development is desire for SECURITY, the ability to develop appropriate and supportive relationships with others. Erich Fromm his focus was the negative impact of technology and he argued that the increase in its use has led people to feeling increasingly isolated from others. He believed that the independence that technology brings us creates the need to "escape from freedom" that is, to be closer to others. He also believed that the primary human motivation was to escape he fear of death. Contemporary research shows that there is a link between fear and aggression (hot sauce experiment) |
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(Psychodynamic Psychology Cont)
What are the strengths and limitations of Freudian and Neo-Freudian approaches? |
Although Freudian psychologists no longer talk about oral/anal/genital fixations they continue to believe that our childhood experiences and unconscious motivations shape our personalities and our attachment with others.
However Freudian and Neo-Freudian theories have in many cases failed to pass the test of empiricism (little scientific support) and are now less influential than in the past. A particular problem with testing Freudian theory is that anything that conflicts with a prediction can be explained away in terms of defense mechanisms. In terms of the unconscious, Freud seems to have been correct at least in part because more research demonstrates that a large part of everyday behavior is driven by processes that are outside our conscious awareness. |
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(Humanism and Self-Actualization)
What is humanistic psychology? What is self-concept? What is self-esteem? What is self-actualization? |
Humanists (mid 1900's. 1950-1960)
in contract to the proponents of psychoanalysis, humanists embraced the notion of free will and argued that people are free to choose their own lives and make their own decisions. Humanistic psychologists focused on the underlying motivations that they believed drove personality. Self-concept is the set of beliefs about who we are ***ex p345 Self-esteem are the positive feelings about self Self-actualization the motivation to develop our innate potential to the fullest extent possible |
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(Humanism and Self-Actualization)
What is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? |
Maslow was one of the most important humanists and he conceptualized personality in terms of a pyramid shaped "hierarchy of motives".
The base of the pyramid are the lowest-level motivations such as hunger, thirst, safety and belongingness. He felt that when people are able to meet the lower-level needs they are able to move on to achieving higher-level needs of self-esteem and self-actualization. He studied successful persons such as Albert Einstein, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Gandhi. He believed that self-actualized people are creative, spontaneous, and loving of themselves and others. They tend to have a few deep friendships rather than many superficial ones and are generally private. These individuals do not need to conform to the opinions of others because they are very confident and this free to express unpopular opinions. From low to high needs: physiological - hunger and thirst safety - world is organized and predictable, safe and secure love/belonging - need to love and be loved, accepted esteem - need for self-esteem, achievement, respect self-actualization - need to live up to fullest potential |
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(Humanism and Self-Actualization)
Who is Carl Rogers? What is unconditional positive regard? |
Carl Roger is the best known human theorist and he held a positive view about human nature, viewing people as primarily moral and helpful to others. He believe we can achieve our full potential for emotional fulfillment if the self-concept is characterized by "unconditional positive regard".
Unconditional positive regard: a set of behaviors, including being genuine, open to experience, transparent, able to listen to others and self-disclosing and empathetic. When we treat ourselves or others with this unconditional positive regard, we express understanding and support even while acknowledging failings. It allows us to admit fears and failures, drop our pretense and yet feel completely accepted for what we are. Interestingly, therapists who utilize this approach are much more effective than those who do not and it has become the foundation of psychological therapy. Although there are critics of the humanistic approach (mainly that it focuses on overly positive conclusions about the capacity for people to do good) the ideas of humanism are so powerful and optimistic that they continue to have influence in everyday experiences as well as psychology...thinking positively and openly has positive consequences on our relationships, life satisfaction and health (this is documented) |
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(Nature or Nurture? Behavioral and Molecular Genetics)
Is personality the result or nature or nurture? What is the role of genes? What is the role of instinct? |
Nature vs Nurture
If nature is more important then our personalities form early in our lives and are difficult to change later. If nurture is more important then our experiences are particularly significant and we might be able to be flexible in altering our personalities over time. (in this section we see that personality traits in humans and other animals are determined in large part by their genetic makeup but will see that genetics does not determine everything) Genes the basic biological unit that transmits characteristics from one generation to the next. In ea nucleus of every cell in our bodies there are 23 pairs of chromosomes. One of ea pair comes from mother and father. The chromosomes make up strands of DNA, and DNA is grouped into segments called genes. Human cells have approx 25,000 genes! Common genetic structures lead members of the same species to be born with a variety of behaviors which come naturally to them and that define the characteristics of the species. Instinct the abilities and characteristics which are complex inborn patterns of behavior that help ensure survival and reproduction. Different animals have different instincts...birds know how to build nests, dogs are naturally loyal to their human families, etc But the strength of traits and behaviors differs within species. Some rabbits are more fearful than others. These differences are determined in part by the small (< .01% in humans) of the differences in genes among the members of a species. Personality is not determined by a single gene but rather by the actions of many genes working together. Some genes tend to increase or decrease a given characteristic. Genetic factors always work with environmental factors. |
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(Nature or Nurture? Behavioral and Molecular Genetics)
What is behavioral genetics? What is family study? What is twin study? What is adoption study? |
Behavioral genetics:
research is selectively breeding in animals for certain traits...if trait in offspring is even stronger than that in parents, most likely genetic However, to study this in humans psychologists rely on behavioral genetics a variety of research techniques that scientists use to learn about the genetic and environmental influences on human behavior by comparing traits of biologically and non-biologically related family members. Family study: starts with one person who has a trait of interest such as autism. examine family tree to determine the extent to which other members of the family have this trait. First-degree relatives include parents, siblings, children. Second-degree relatives include aunts, uncles, grandparents, nephew and nieces. Family studies can reveal whether a trait runs in a family but not why. Twin study: researches study the personality characteristics of twin, relying on the fact that identical twins have the same genetic makeup and fraternal twins have half the same genetic makeup. The idea is that if twins are raised in the same house then the twins will be influenced by their environment to an equal degree and this influence will be the same in both identical and fraternal twins. Meaning, if environmental factors are the same then the only factor that can make identical twins more similar than fraternal twins is their greater genetic similarity. Data from many pairs of twins are collected and the rates of similarity for identical and fraternal twins are compared. A correlational coefficient is calcualted that assesses the extent to which one trait is associated with the other twin. There are 3 aspects to these studies: 1) heritability, meaning correlational coefficient for identical twin exceeds the fraternal twin indicating that shared DNA is important determinant 2) shared environment, determinant are indicated when correlational coefficients for both identical and fraternal twins are greater than zero and also similar. Indicates that both twins are having experiences in the family that make them alike 3) non-shared environment is indicated when identical twins do NOT have similar traits. These influences refer to experiences that are not accounted for either by heritability or shared environmental factors. These are experiences that make individuals within the same family LESS alike. (ex, parents treat one child more affectionately than the other) Adoption study: compares biologically related people, including twins, who have been raised either separately or apart. Evidence for genetic influence on a trait is found when children who have been adopted have traits more similar to biological parents than adoptive parents. Evidence for environmental influence is found when an adoptee is more like his/her adoptive parents than the biological parents. Table on p350 illustrates findings from twin and adoption studies on the heritability of certain traits. Overall, there appears to be more the influence of nature then parents. BUT despite the role of genetics the correlational coefficients in identical twins was still for the most part much less than 1.00 showing that environment must also play an important role. Shared environment influence decreases as child gets older. What are unshared environment factors? This is the "left-over" after taking out effects of parents and genetics. It is these factors that may have the largest influences on personality |
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(Nature or Nurture? Behavioral and Molecular Genetics)
What is molecular genetics? Is genetics our destiny? |
Molecular genetics
is the study of which genes are associated with which personality traits. allows us to better understand the role of biology in personality. A result of new knowledge about the structure of human DNA made possible through the Human Genome Project. Molecular genetic researchers have developed techniques that allow them to locate genes within chromosomes and to identify the effects of those genes (activation and deactivation) Knock out Study: in mice, scientists remove or modify the influence of a gene in a line of "knock out mice. Using embryonic stem cells the DNA created has been modified and a gene(s) eliminated or "knocked out". Scientists then study control group and knocked out group to determine if removing genes can affect anxiety, aggression, learning and socialization patterns. In humans, researchers collect DNA from individuals are compare them. They have found genes associated with ADD, ADHD, smoking, novelty-seeking. Behavioral genetic studies have found that for most traits, genetics is more important than parental influence. But then again, we also know that genetics does not determine everything. A major influence on personality is non-shared environment such as nutrition, brain structure, education, upbringing, etc. |
