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81 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Personality Psych
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The scientific study of the psychological forces that make people uniquely themselves
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Deductive approach
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-The conclusions follow logically from the premises or assumptions, where we use our knowledge of basic psychological laws or principles in order to understand each particular person
-Freud favored this approach |
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Inductive approach
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-Concepts are developed based on what carefully collected observations are revealed, so particular behavior and characteristics of individuals work to a theory
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Relative self
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The idea that there is no underlying self beneath an outward-facing mask, but rather the true self is comprised merely of masks
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Fathers of modern personality theory
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1. Gordon Allport - examined the underlying organization of each individual's personality broken into basic components
2. Kurt Lewin - gestalt psychology (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts) 3. Henry Murray - "personology", longitudinal designs, attempted to integrate clinical issues with theory and assessment |
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Basic issues of personality psych
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-importance of the unconscious: influenced by internal forces that we are unaware of or we feel inner urges that we don't understand. However, we generally think that people are responsible for our own actions.
-Self: Is the sense of self merely an inconsequential epiphenomenon or secondary perception arising from bio drives? -Nomothetic vs. idiographic -Gender differences? -Person vs. the situation -To what extent is personality culturally determined? Which parts of personality are fixed and which are changeable? -Is personality a useful concept? People are complex could personality be a convenient illusion |
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Subjective assessment
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-Measurement that relies on interpretation
(+) complex phenomena may be examined and valuable insight gained (-) different observers may make different judgements |
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Reliability
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-The consistency of scores that are expected to be the same
-Internal consistency reliability: the instrument is reliable within itself. Split-half reliability is the correlation between two halves of a test. When this is measured statistically a cronbach's coefficient alpha is used which is a measure of all possible split-half correlations -Test-retest reliability: measuring the instruments consistency in different occasions |
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Validity
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-The extent to which a test truly measures a theoretical construct
-Convergent validity: a measure is related to what it should be related to -Discriminant validity: a measure is not related to what it should not be related to -Criterion-related validity: the measure can predict important outcome criteria -Content validity: the measure contains items that represent the entire domain of the theoretical construct |
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Response sets
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-A bias in responding to test items that is unrelated to the personality characteristic being measured
-Acquiescence response set: individuals agree or disagree to everything to finish quickly; to compensate reverse order some questions -Social desirability response set: people want to respond in a favorable light |
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Ethnic and Gender Bias
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-A characteristic that is a strength in one group may be perceived as a weakness or deficiency in another
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Self Report Tests
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-most common type of test
-measure things like extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, etc. -ex: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Big-Five Inventory, NEO-PI |
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Q-sort Tests
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-Person makes comparisons among their own characteristics
-Uses a stack of cards with various characteristics -Individual places cards into piles indicating how descriptive each card is of him or her -Can be seen as a more objective way to measure and can use to see personality in different situations (ex. now vs as a child) |
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Judgments by Others
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-Someone else answers questions about the person being measured
-Some traits are easier to judge than others -Can use ratings from parents, teachers, friends, spouses, psychologists, etc. |
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Biological Measures
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-Assumes that the nervous system is an important element of personality
-May allow for knowledge about abnormal personalities, so things like antidepressants will change personalities -Ex: PET, fMRI, Hormonal levels, Chromosomal analysis |
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Behavioral Observation
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-Records the actual behavior of a person
-Ex: simple counts of a specific behavior, coding videotaped interactions, electronic pagers (when they go off you record a thought process or current activity to see if these activities are reliable and a valid predictor of future behavior) |
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Interviews
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-Unstructured interviews: typically yield rich information but validity is questionable
-Structured interviews: more valid but usually do not reveal individual nuances -Biased by the person doing the interview |
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Expressive Behavior
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-The analysis of how people stand, move, speak, etc
-Includes: speech rate, gaze patterns, posture, gestures -Biased by cultural factors for ex people in south typically speak slower than someone from NY |
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Document Analysis/Life Stories
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-Involves the careful analysis of writings such as letters and diaries
-Can be a very rich source of information -Ex: Allport's "Letters from Jenny", Terman's analysis of Galton's letters |
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Projective Tests
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-Provides an unstructured stimulus, task, or situation to which the person responds, goal is to gain access to unconscious motives and concerns
-Ex: draw-a-person, rorschach inkblot |
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Demographics and Lifestyle
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-Uses information about a person's age, place of birth, gender, family size, etc
-Can help researchers understand people based on their everyday lives |
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Sigmund Freud
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-1st of 7 children
-Born of Jewish parentage in Austria-Hungary -Favored over siblings -Mother was 20 yrs younger than father and his 3rd wife, very close to Freud's 2 older stap bros, and she called him "Golden Siggie" -Went to school to study bio (sex organs of eels) and eventually to medical school -Studies self with cocaine and dream analysis -Studies others and the unconscious |
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Unconscious
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-The portion of the mind of which a person is not aware
-Techniques to access it: --Hypnosis: used by Charcot to treat hysteria (paralysis with non organic cause) --Free association: Freud used, free flowing associations --Dream analysis: dreams are interpreted, Freud thought they could help understand a person's psyche |
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Dreams
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-"royal road" to the unconscious
-Manifest content: the content of a dream that a person remembers -Latent content: the underlying hidden meaning of a dream, ex: anything phallic in nature like a clarinet or umbrella was phallic and any enclosed space like a box or closed yard was female genitalia (influenced by Victorian era since everything was taboo) |
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Psychosexual Development
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-The gradual development of the mind as the libido is redirected to different parts of the body
-5 stages: 1. Oral 2. Anal 3. Phallic 4. Latency 5. Genital |
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Oral Stage
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-Age 1
-Theme: Infants are driven to satisfy the drives of hunger and thirst -Conflict: Child must give up breast feeding -Fixation: Dependency, preoccupation with oral acquisition (ex: nail biting, sucking hard candy, being too close to others) |
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Anal Stage
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-Around age 3
-Theme: child receives pleasure from relieving self of bodily waste -Conflict: child is "toilet trained" (Id takes pleasure in relief of tension and bodily waste while parents instill in the super-ego society's constraint of using the toilet) -Fixation: preoccupation with neatness (anal retentive - over-learn and take pleasure in holding in feces) or excessive "bathroom humor"/enjoy making messes |
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Phallic Stage
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-Around age 4
-Theme: children gain pleasure through genitals -Conflict: over sexual behavior is not socially acceptable -Oedipus complex: boys desire mother and fear fathers will castrate them -Electra complex: girls experience penis envy |
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Latency Stage
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-School age children
-Theme: psychosexual energy is channeled into academic and social pursuits -Conflicts and fixations do not occur during this stage -It's not possible for sexual urges to be directly expressed so energy is transferred into making friends and school |
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Genital Stage
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-Theme: The individual gains satisfaction from mature relationships
-This stage is achieved if a person makes it through the other stages with enough available sexual energy (no strong fixations) -Freud considered any deviation such as remaining single, remaining childless, homosexuality, or other behaviors as a flaw and unnatural -Freud also thought male behavior the norm and female behavior deviant, saying women had an unconscious desire for suffering (so stay in abusive relationships) |
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Freud's parts of the mind
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1. Id - primitive drives and emotions; operated under the pleasure principle
2. Ego - balances id, super-ego and reality, reality principle 3. Superego - internalized social norms; morality |
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Defense Mechanisms
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-The ego processes that distort reality to protect the individual from anxiety
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Regression
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-Defense mechanism
-Pushes threatening thoughts/ideas into the unconscious -Explanation for: PTSD, Repressed memories, False memories |
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Reaction formation
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-Defense mechanism
-Hides threatening impulses by over-emphasizing their opposite -Explanation for: televangelist Bakker and Mark Adams Foley's inappropriate sexual escapades |
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Denial
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-Defense mechanism
-Refuses to acknowledge anxiety-provoking stimuli -Explanation for: not acknowledging the sudden death of a loved once or interpreting a terrible fight with a spouse as just a lovers quarrel |
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Projection
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-Defense mechanism
-Attributes anxiety provoking impulse or thoughts to others -Explanation for: always being suspicious of others or extreme political opinions -Reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the ego recognize them |
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Displacement
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-Defense mechanism
-Shifts one's unconscious aggression or fears to a safer target (hydraulic model) -Explanation for: Little Hans (phobia of horses), "kicking the dog" |
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Sublimation
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-Defense mechanism
-Dangerous urges are transformed into positive, socially meaningful motivations -Explanation for: artistic creation, community leaders -Freud analyzed Michaelangelo and determined that he was repressed homosexual dominated by his mother, and he sublimated his sexual energies into a great sculptor, painter, architect, and poet |
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Regression
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-Defense mechanism
-Protects the individual by returning to an earlier, "safer" time of life -Explanation for: a child with a new baby sibling wanting a bottle again, when an adult whimpers, a distressed individual treating their spouse as a parent |
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Rationalization
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-Defense mechanism
-Creating logical and socially acceptable explanations for behaviors which were driven by unconscious impulses -Explanation for: telling a lie and then claiming it was to protect the feelings of another person |
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Hypermnesia
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-Refers to the situation in which a later attempt to remember something yields information that was not reportable on an earlier attempt to remember, "excess memory"
-The link between the psychoanalytic tool of free association and the more modern notion of signal detection theory (likelihood of reporting a memory varies not only with availability or strength of the memory but also with the rewards and penalties of an accurate versus inaccurate reports) -Free association is used as a method to uncover memories that initially not accessible through the consciousness, skepticism that these memories may have never occurred and did these memories just arise by chance or did the analyst or environment bring it about |
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Infantile Amnesia
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-Freud noted that adults cannot remember much from their earlier years (he attributed it to traumatic conflicts)
-Research has found that all memories are forgotten not just traumatic ones |
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Current Applications
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-Subliminal Perceptions
-Infantile amnesia -Hypermnesia -Unconscious emotions -Memory (explicit or what we can recall vs. implicit which we are unaware of) -Amnesia |
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Psychoanalytic Approach
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-Analogy: humans as a bundle of sexual and aggressive drives contained by civilization
(+) emphasizes importance of childhood, acknowledges importance of sexual and aggressive drives, attempts to understand unconscious forces, explains defense mechanisms, assumes multiple levels are operating in the brain (-) pessimistic, difficult to test empirically, sexist, heterosexist, modern research has not supported many of notions -View of free will: behavior is determined by inner drives and conflicts -Assessment: psychotherapy, free association, dream analysis |
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Carl Gustav Jung
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-Born in Switzerland
-Jung's father and mothers brothers were pastors -Sustained a head injury which awakened his interest in the nature of the mind and paranormal phenomenon -Believed he had 2 personalities: a child and a wise and cultured man from a previous century -Worked with Freud but questioned his emphasis on sexual motivation |
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Jung's Parts of the Mind
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-Ego: conscious part of personality, embodies sense of self, similar to Freud's ego
-Personal unconscious: contains thoughts that are not currently part of conscious awareness, contains past and future material (patients experience dreams related to future or things likely to happen) -Collective unconscious: deeper level of the unconscious shared with the rest of humanity, contains archetypes (universal emotional symbols) |
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Archetypes
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-Animus/anima: male element in a woman/female element in a man
-Persona and Shadow: socially acceptable front vs dark and unacceptable side of personality -Mother: embodiment of generativity and fertility -Hero and Demon: strong force for good vs cruelty and evil |
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Complexes (Jung)
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-A group of emotionally charged thoughts that are related to a particular theme
-Created a word association test to study complexes |
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Introversion/extroversion (Jung)
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-2 major attitudes of the mind
-Extroversion: direct psychic energy toward things in the external world -Introversion: directs psychic energy inwardly |
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Jung's functions of the mind
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1. Sensing: getting information by means of the sense. Good at looking and listening and generally getting to know the world
2. Thinking: evaluating information or ideas rationally, logically, involves decision making or judging rather than simple intake of information 3. Feeling: matter of evaluating information by weighing one's overall emotional response 4. Intuiting: kind of perception that works outside of the usual conscious processes. Comes from the complex integration of large amounts of information, rather than simple seeing or hearing. Like seeing around corners. |
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Alfred Adler
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-Born in Vienna
-Frail child close to death, run over twice on the street -Knowledge of own fragility made him become a doctor -Worked with Freud but eventually parted because believed human motivation to be more complex than based on pleasure -Organ inferiority: everyone is born with some physical weakness -Individual psychology: unique motivations of individuals and the importance of each person's perceived niche in society, emphasized importance of social conditions on personality -Social conditions: occupation tasks, societal tasks, love tasks |
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Complexes (Adler)
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-For Adler, the central core of personality is striving for superiority
-Inferiority complex: takes normal feelings of incompetence and exaggerates them; making individuals feel like it is impossible to try -Superiority complex: overcompensation, to maintain self worth, people are always bragging, or quick to argue. May result from trying to overcome inferiority complex -Aggression drive: lash out against inability to achieve, a reaction to perceived helplessness or inferiority -Masculine protest: attempt for children to be independent and equal to adults and people of power. Striving for superiority in a healthy way if it involves positive assertiveness -Perfection striving: people spend their lives trying to meet fictional goals (individual goals that each person believes is perfection) |
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Birth Order
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-Adler believed that birth order can determine personality characteristics
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Karen Horney
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-Born in Germany
-Father was a ship captain; she adored him but felt less loved -"If I couldn't be pretty, I decided I would be smart" -Went to med school and married Oskar -Was depressed throughout her life then moved to Brooklyn -Had daughters and was distant to them because wanted them to be independent |
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Womb Envy
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-Horney rejected Freud's penis envy. Said women did feel inferior to men because of society's views of them, they wanted to gain freedoms and powers.
-Womb envy: men are envious of a woman's ability to bear children. The degree to which men are driven to success may be merely a substitute for the fact they cannot carry children. |
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Basic Anxiety
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-A child's fear of being alone, helpless, and insecure
-Because children are powerless they have to repress feelings of hostility and anger towards powerful adults -Cope with it in 3 ways: --Passive (complying) --Aggressive (fighting) --Withdrawn (disengaging) |
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Horney coping strategies
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-Saw neurosis as an attempt to make life bearable, 10 defenses against anxiety
1. Moving toward (complying): striving to make others happy and gain love (need affection/approval, need a partner, need to restrict one's life) 2.Moving against (aggression): striving for power and recognition (need for power, to exploit others, for social recognition or prestige, for personal admiration, personal achievement) 3. Moving away (withdrawing): withdrawal of emotional investment (need to restrict one's life, need for self-sufficiency and independence, need for perfection and unassailability) |
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Horney's aspects of self
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-Real self: inner core of personality; free to realize that potential (self-realization)
-Despised self: feelings of inferiority and shortcomings -Ideal self: one's view of perfection -Neurotic people vacillate between the despised self and the ideal self; preventing them from actualizing their potentials |
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Anna Freud
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-Emphasized social influences on the ego
-Gave the ego more power -Studied children and teens -Very attached to her father -Ego is the seat of observation for id and superego/unconscious in general so deserves to be studied in its own right |
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Heinz Hartmann
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-Father of "ego psychology"
-Gave the ego more autonomy -Id and ego in compensatory relationship: regulating each other -Ego could direct people to do things that in the long run were self-preserving but in the short term were unpleasant (goes against Freud's pleasure principle of the id) -Defended against libidinous urges and functioned independently to cope with societies demands |
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Object Relations Theories
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-Focus on the importance of relations with others in defining ourselves
-Object relations refers to mental representations of significant others |
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Margaret Mahler
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-Theory of symbiosis: the idea that we struggle between a need for autonomy and a longing to surrender and become close to others
-Object Relations theorist -Emphasized the importance of parenting skills |
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Melanie Klein
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-First significant child psychoanalyst
-Play therapy: see how children work out unconscious feelings by playing with toys (like free association for adults) -Object Relations theorist -How do children come to think and represent others in their own minds? |
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Heinz Kohut
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-He thought the key problem for many anxious people was the loss of an important object of love; they develop a narcissistic personality dx
-Another way early attachments could influence ourselves -Object Relations theorist |
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Erik Erikson
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-Born in Germany of Extramarital affair
-Went to art school and turned to psychoanalysis -Moved to Boston and changed name |
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Erikson's stage theory
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-Saw identity formation as a lifelong process
1. Trust vs mistrust (0-1)- gain Hope 2. Autonomy vs. shame (1-3) - gain Will 3. Initiative vs guilt (3-5) - gain Purpose 4. Industry vs inferiority (6-12) - gain Competence 5. Identity vs role confusion (12-18) - gain Loyalty 6. Intimacy vs isolation (18-35) - gain Love 7. Generativity vs stagnation (middle adulthood) - gain Caring 8. Ego Integrity vs despair (late adulthood) - gain Wisdom |
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Neo-Analytic and Ego Theory
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-Analogy: Humans are conscious actors and strivers
(+) importance of the goal-oriented nature of humans, acknowledges impact of society and culture, development continues throughout the life cycle, emphasizes the self as it struggles to cope with emotions on the inside and the demands on the outside (-) unconcerned with biology and fixed personality structures, hodgepodge of different ideas from different traditions, relies on abstract or vague concepts, difficult to test empirically -Free will: personality is largely determined by unconscious forces, individuals do have the ability to overcome these -Assessment: varies from free association to situational and autobiographical study with an emphasis on self-concept |
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Evolutionary personality theory
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-natural selection: process by which certain adaptive characteristics (personality) emerge over generations
-evolutionary personality theory: modern application of darwin's ideas to individual differences in personality, attention is focused on the function of a characteristic in survival |
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Behavioral genomics
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-the study of how genes affect behavior
-examines the complex matter of how our genes, evolved from variation and natural selection, function together with each other and the environment to influence behavior |
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Temperament
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-Stable individual differences in emotional reactivity
-Buss and Plomin studied infant twins (identical vs fraternal) and found these factors influence temperament: --Emotionality-impassiveness: how emotional and excitable --Sociability-detachment: enjoy or avoid contact and interaction --Activity-lethargy: vigorous, how active, how energetic --Impulsivity-deliberateness: how quickly move from one interest to another |
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Eysenck's Model
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-Links the introversion-extroversion dimension to the underlying nervous system
-Extroverts have a low level of brain arousal, and so seek out stimulation -Introverts have a higher level of internal arousal, and so they tend to shy away from stimulating social environments |
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Jeffrey Gray's biological systems
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1. Behavioral inhibition system: provides the orienting response to novel situations and also responds to things that are punishing
2. Behavioral activation system: regulates our response to rewards |
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Zuckerman's theory
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-Those high on "sensation seeking" have a low level of internal arousal, so they are drawn to novel and exciting experiences
-It is likely that some people have natural defects or disease-caused weaknesses in their dopamine systems, and such people may be unusually susceptible to addiction -Sensation seekers are not the same as extroverts, they have no constant preference if they want to be around people |
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Schizophrenia
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-Twin studies have helped to show that it is genetically influenced
-Structural abnormalities have been found, there is a genetic predisposition to it -Not simply a genetic disease though, concordance between identical twins is far from perfect |
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Sexual identity and LGBT
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-Twin studies show LGBT linked to genetics
-Appear to be some environmental influences as well -Bem's "Exotic becomes Erotic": inborn temperament influences young children to engage in gender-congruent (socially-expected) behavior or not, the sex that you are not friends with becomes exotic and are thus attractive -Kin selection: inclusive fitness theory |
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Mediated Effects of Biology
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1. Poisoning (mercury, lead)
2. Legal/illegal drugs 3. Physical illness (Alzheimers, strokes, Picks) |
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Tropisms
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-The processes by which some individuals grow towards more fulfilling and health-promoting spaces while other individuals remain subject to darker, health-threatening environments
-Biology may create our environments |
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Sheldon's bodytypes
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-Body types:
1. Mesomorphs - muscular, large-boned 2. Ectomorphs - slender, bookworm types 3. Endomorphs - roly-poly, and supposedly good-natured types -Personality types: 1. Cerebrotonics: nervous types, relatively shy, often intellectual 2. Somatotonics: active types, physically fit and energetic 3. Viscerotonics: sociable types; lovers of food and physical comforts |
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Sociobiology
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-The scientific study of the influence of evolutionary biology on an organism's responses regarding social matters
-Cinderella effect: refers to evidence suggesting that parents give preference to bio children over stepchildren (evolving from natural selection) |
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Misuse of knowledge regarding genetics
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-Social darwinism: the right to dominate and kill others, weak should not survive, bio and morally just for groups such as whites to invade conquer and dominate others
-Eugenics: similar to social darwinism and also to force sterilization of those considered to be mentally unfit or undesirable even the poor -Immigration laws -Nazis and genocide |
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Biological approach
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-Analogy: Humans as genes, brains, and hormones
(+) emphasizes the limits imposed by genetics and bodily endowment on personality, acknowledges the effects of biological influences on the reactions of others and the environments that individuals choose, can be combined with other approaches (-) minimizes human potential for growth and change, danger of misuse by those who oversimplify its findings, uses biological concepts, which may not be appropriate for psychological phenomena, difficult to capture consciousness -Free Will: behavior determined by bio tendencies -Assessments: neuroscience, heritability studies, physiological measures |
