Transcript chpt. 12 ppt.

AP Psychology
• The unique pattern of enduring thoughts, feelings, and actions
that characterize a person.
• Four Main Approaches
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Psychodynamic
Trait
Social-Cognitive
Humanistic
• Sigmund Freud
• Emphasizes the interplay
of unconscious
psychological processes
in determining behavior
• Psychological factors
play a major role in
determining behavior
and shaping personality
• Personality develops out of
each person’s struggle to
satisfy needs for food,
water, air, sex, and
aggression
• Personality is composed of
3 structures:
• Id – pleasure principle libido
• Ego – reality principle
• Superego – distinguishes b/w
right &wrong
Ego
Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind
Superego
Id
 The ego uses defense mechanisms to protect
individual from id impulses
 Repression
 the basic defense mechanism that banishes
anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and
memories from consciousness
 Regression
 defense mechanism in which an individual
faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile
psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy
remains fixated
 Reaction Formation
defense mechanism by which the ego
unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses
into their opposites
people may express feelings that are the
opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious
feelings
 Projection
defense mechanism by which people disguise
their own threatening impulses by attributing
them to others
 Rationalization
defense mechanism that offers self-justifying
explanations in place of the real, more
threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s
actions
 Displacement
defense mechanism that shifts sexual or
aggressive impulses toward a more
acceptable or less threatening object or
person
as when redirecting anger toward a safer
outlet
 Sublimation
Attempting to turn unacceptable thoughts or
actions into socially accepted behaviors
 Compensation
Trying to make up for unconscious impulses or
fears
 Denial
Not willing to accept the truth
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Stage
Focus
Oral
(0-18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth-sucking, biting, chewing
Anal
(18-36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
elimination; coping with demands for
control
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with
incestuous sexual feelings (Oedipus/Electra
Phallic
(3-6 years)
Complex)
Latency
(6 to puberty)
Genital
(puberty on)
Dormant sexual feelings
Maturation of sexual interests
 Alfred Adler
 importance of childhood social tension – personality is influenced by
driving for superiority & fulfillment
 Karen Horney
 sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases – inferiority to men is caused
by restrictions placed on them, not penis envy
 Carl Jung
 Collective unconsciousness - knowledge we are all born with but are not
directly conscious of - Influences all of our experiences and behaviors
• Freud’s contributions to Western thinking and psychology.
• Limited support for certain aspects of Freud’s theory.
• Weaknesses in Freud’s theory.
• Conclusions based on unrepresentative sample
• Ignores the role of the conscious mind and learning as behavior
determinants
• 3 Basic Assumptions:
1.
2.
3.
Personality traits remain relatively stable and therefore predictable
over time.
Personality traits remain relatively stable across situations.
People differ with regard to how much of a particular personality
trait they possess.
• Views personality as the combination of stable internal
characteristics that are displayed across time
• Types: Qualitative differences between people – distinctions
based on characteristics
• Traits: Quantitative differences among people – many
personality characteristics are present in everyone, just in
different amounts
• Allport’s Trait Theory – personality is a combination of varying
strengths of many traits
• Central traits
• Secondary traits – more specific to certain situations
• Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factors
• Costa & McCrae’s Big-Five Model of Personality
• Evsenck’s Biological Trait Theory – 3 basic personality factors:
psychoticism, introversion-extraversion, & emotionality-stability
• Gray’s Approach-Inhibition Theory
• Behavioral approach system (BAS) – reward sensitivity
• Behavioral inhibition system (BIS) – punishment sensitivity
• Extraverts have a sensitive BAS and insensitive BIS – introverts are the
opposite
From The Causes and Cures of
Neurosis: An Introduction to
Modern Behavior Therapy Based
on Learning Theory and the
Principle of Conditioning by H.J.
Eysenck and S. Rachman. © 1965
by Edits.
• Better at describing than understanding people.
• How are traits related to thoughts and feelings that precede,
accompany, and follow behavior?
• Fails to capture how traits combine to form a complex and
dynamic individual.
• Looks to conscious thoughts and emotions in determining
behavior.
• Approach derived from the principles
of animal and human learning – operant and classical
conditioning
• B.F. Skinner – employed functional analysis to understand
behavior in terms of its function in obtaining rewards and
punishments – behavioral psychology
• Rotter’s Expectancy Theory – Decision to engage in a behavior
is determined by:
• What the person expects to happen following the behavior.
• The value the person places on the outcome.
• Bandura’s Reciprocal Determinism – personality evolves as a
result of the interaction among cognitive patterns, the
environment, and through reciprocal determinism
• Perceived self-efficacy – belief a person has that he/she will succeed –
determines behavior
Reprinted from Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, volume 13, A.
Bandura, "Reciprocal Determination" pp. 195-199. Copyright © 1982, with permission from
Elsevier Science.
• Mischel’s Cognitive/Affective Theory – cognitive person
variables are important to explaining behavior
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Encodings
Expectancies
Affects
Goals & values
Competencies & self-regulatory plans
• Blends behavioral and cognitive theories.
• Criticisms
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No role for unconscious thoughts and feelings.
Why do specific situations bring out certain behaviors?
Not a general theory of behavior.
Fails to capture the complexities, richness, and uniqueness of personality.
• The focus is on a human’s unique mental capabilities.
• Behavior motivated mainly by an innate drive toward growth.
• Important to understand how a person views the world.
• Actualizing Tendency – innate inclination toward growth that
motivates behavior
• Importance of the Self
• Self-actualization
• Role of Positive Regard
• Conditions of worth – people are only worthy under certain
conditions in which rewarded behaviors are displayed
• Personality shaped by:
• Actualizing tendency
• Evaluations made by others
• Saw personality as the
tendency to grow toward
self-actualization
• People approach the
satisfaction of their
needs with a deficiency
orientation or growth
orientation
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Consistent with how many people view themselves.
Inspired forms of psychotherapy.
Criticized for being naïve, romantic, and unrealistic.
Criticized for emphasizing culture-specific ideas about mental
health.
• Objective Personality Tests
• Projective Personality Tests