Theories of personality

1. THEORIES OF
PERSONALITY
Presented by: Dr Anshuman Gogoi
PGT, Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry, SMCH

2. Plan of presentation
2
 Introduction
 Historical perspectives
 Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic schools
 Behaviourist approaches
 Social-Cognitive approaches
 Humanist theories
 Trait theories
 Evolutionary theories
 Personality assessment – brief overview
 Summary

3. Introduction and Historical
Perspectives
3
 Personality can be defined as the distinctive and characteristic
patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour that make up
an individual’s personal style of interacting with the physical and
social environment
 Gordon Allport: “Personality is the dynamic organization within
the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his
characteristics behavior and thought“

4. 4
 The first major account of personality in Western thought was
provided by Plato (circa 428–348 BCE )
He elaborated in his Republic, the
constituents of the soul: appetites (for food,
sex, and so on), passions (for honor and
advancement), and reason
Character and social standing of an
individual depended on the relative strengths
of these constituents
This depended upon both in-born
tendencies as well as upbringing and
education (Nature vs Nurture)

5. 5
 Aristotle (384–322 BCE ) followed
with detailed analysis of human
character in the Nicomachean
Ethics
 He defined and distinguished courage,
temperance, generosity, pride,
ambition, irascibility, friendliness,
boastfulness, and shame
 Pathological variations on these traits
led to innate defects or to disease
processes

6. 6
Adi Shankara, an 8th century Vedic
theologist
Shankara argued that the basis of
existence was Brahman (the
Absolute), which pervades everything
but is itself indivisible
Through study and virtuous actions it
is possible to come to understand this
fact, leading to a state of
enlightenment

7. 7
 Charak Samhita described 3 psychological
characteristics: Sattvik, Rajsik, Tamsik
 It described 16 personality types
 7 sattvik (Brahma, Rishi, Indra,Yama,
Varuna,Kubera, and Gandharva types)
 6 Rajsik (Asura, Rakshasa, Pichasa, Sarpa,
Preta, Sakuna types)
 3 Tamsik (Pasva, Matsya, Banaspatya
types)

8. 8
 Buddhist Typologies: A person is defined as a stream of
phenomenal events (dhammas) in a causal series of mind
moments (samaya)
However, in the analytical Abhidharma
works, Buddhists outlined how different
individuals could still be dominated by
certain consistent tendencies, thought
patterns based on which personality types
can be classified

9. 9
 It considered twelve major classes of persons, four of the worldly
ordinary class (puthujjana) and eight of the spiritual elect (ariya,
the noble ones)
 Buddhaghosa outlines several types of personalities, each one
dominated by a particular trait: three major negative traits are
grasping, aversion, and delusion (lobha, dosa, and moha), three
main positive personality traits, confidence (saddha), wisdom
(pañña), and speculation

10. Psychoanalytic theory
10
Sigmund Freud 1856 – 23
September 1939) an Austrian
neurologist and the creator of
psychoanalytic theory, is a
central figure in theories of
personality

11. 11
 Influenced by Helmholtzian physicalist principles in early career
 He propounded a model of the mind where ‘Psychic energy’ in
different forms (libidinal, aggressive, narcissistic etc) worked in
accordance with quasi-physical principles like entropy,
conservation, constancy, neuronic inertia, pleasure-unpleasure,
nirvana etc

12. 12
 But this model gave way as Freud acquired newer theoretical
insights in his workings with patients, particularly those with
hysteria
 Especially his work with persons with hysteria led him to witness
phenomena like traumatic events, their memories,
resistances to resurfacing of these memories, and the
disappearance of hysterical symptoms upon resurfacing of
those memories with accompanying affects through analytic process
 Led him to adopt newer model
 Thus a Topographic model of the mind was conceived

13. 13
Freud compared the human mind
to an iceberg
The small part above the surface of
the water consists of the conscious
The much larger mass of the
iceberg below the water represents
the unconscious
In between them lies the
preconscious

14. 14
 Conscious: that region of the mind in which perceptions coming
from the outside world or from within the body or mind (of thought
processes or various affective states) were brought into awareness
 Preconscious: consists of those mental events, processes, and
contents that were for the most part capable of reaching or being
brought into conscious awareness by the act of focusing attention. It
was thought that it acted as a barrier against unacceptable
unconscious instincts

15. 15
 Unconscious: can be described from several viewpoints
 Descriptively, refers to the sum total of all mental contents and
processes at any given moment outside the range of conscious
awareness
 Dynamically, refers to those mental contents and processes that
exerts pressure for their discharge on the rest of the mental
apparatus but remain incapable of achieving consciousness because
of the operation of counter forces i.e. Repression
 In this sense, the unconscious mental contents consist of drives or
wishes that are unacceptable, threatening, or abhorrent to the
intellectual or ethical standpoint of the individual.

16. 16
 Topographic model could not account for two extremely important
characteristics of mental conflict
 Preconscious was thought to be a barrier for resurfacing of
unconscious repressed wishes to conscious. That implies that these
barrier processes could be accessed by concentration, as
preconscious is accessible. But it was seen that not all such
processes could be simply brought to conscious
 Secondly, some patients exhibited a need for punishment which was
unconscious. So this moral agency cannot be the anti-instinctual
forces in the preconscious – by definition they have to be accessible
to conscious awareness

17. 17
 So, he went on to develop a structural
model, which divided personality into
three major systems that interact to
govern human behavior: the id, the
ego, and the superego

18. 18
 Id:
 The most primitive part of the personality
 Present in the newborn infant
 Consists of the most basic biological impulses or drives: the need
to eat, drink, eliminate wastes, avoid pain, gain sexual (sensual)
pleasure. Freud believed that aggression is also a basic biological
drive
 Seeks immediate gratification of these impulses
 operates on the pleasure principle: It continually strives to obtain
pleasure and to avoid pain, regardless of the external
circumstances

19. 19
 Ego: develops as the young child learns to consider the demands of
reality. The ego obeys the reality principle: The gratification of
impulses must be delayed until the situation is appropriate
 It is essentially the executive of the personality: It decides
which id impulses will be satisfied and in what manner
 The ego mediates among the demands of the id, the realities of
the world, and the demands of the superego.

20. 20
 The superego: it judges whether actions are right or wrong. It is
the internalized representation of the values and morals of society
 It is the individual’s conscience, as well as his or her image of the
morally ideal person (called the ego ideal)
 Initially, parents control children’s behaviour directly through
reward and punishment. By incorporating parental standards into
the superego, children bring behaviour under their own control, so
that they no longer need anyone to tell them it is wrong to steal;
their superego tells them
 Violating the superego’s standards, or even the impulse to do so,
produces anxiety – beginning with anxiety over loss of parental love

21. 21
 The three components of personality are often in conflict
 Ego postpones the gratification that the id wants immediately
 Superego battles with both the id and the ego because behaviour
often falls short of the moral code it represents
 Well-integrated personality: ego remains in firm but flexible
control; the reality principle governs

22. 22
PERSONALITY DYNAMICS
 Freud’s view, human personality arises from a conflict between
impulse and restraint—between our aggressive, pleasure seeking
biological urges and our internalized social controls over these
urges
 Personality arises from our efforts to resolve this basic conflict—to
express these impulses in ways that bring satisfaction without also
bringing guilt or punishment

23. 23
 Anxiety and defense: Individuals with an urge to do something
forbidden experience anxiety
 One way of reducing this anxiety is to express the impulse in a
disguised form that will avoid punishment either by society or by its
internal representative, the superego
 Freud and his daughter Anna Freud described several additional
defense mechanisms , or strategies for preventing or reducing
anxiety
 Defenses have been classified on the basis of the particular form of
psychopathology with which they are commonly associated

24. 24
Narcissistic-
Psychotic
Defenses
Usually found as part of a
psychotic process, but may also
occur in young children and
adult dreams or fantasies.
Commonality: avoiding,
negating, or distorting reality
PROJECTION,
DENIAL,
DISTORTION
Immature
Defenses
Common in preadolescent
years and in adult character
disorders
Often mobilized by anxieties
related to intimacy or its loss
ACTING OUT, BLOCKING,
HYPOCHONDRIASIS,
INTROJECTION,
PASSIVE-AGGRESSION,
PROJECTION, REGRESSION
SCHIZOID FANTASY,
SOMATIZATION

25. 25
Neurotic
Defenses
Apparently normal and healthy
individuals as well as in neurotic
disorders
Alleviation of distressing affects
and may be expressed in neurotic
forms of behaviour
DISPLACEMENT,
DISSOCIATION,
EXTERNALIZATION,
INHIBITION
INTELLECTUALIZATION
RATIONALIZATION
REACTION FORMATION
REPRESSION
MATURE
DEFENSES
Healthy and adaptive throughout
the life cycle
Socially adaptive and useful in the
integration of personal needs and
motives, social demands, and
interpersonal relations
ALTRUISM, ANTICIPATION,
ASCETICISM, HUMOUR,
SUBLIMATION, SUPPRESSION

26. 26
Personality development
 Analysis of his patients’ histories convinced Freud that personality
forms during life’s first few years
 He concluded that children pass through a series of psychosexual
stages, during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on
distinct pleasure-sensitive areas of the body called erogenous
zones
 During each stage, the pleasure-seeking impulses of the id focus on
a particular area of the body and on activities connected with that
area

27. 27
5
5
Early childhood relations—especially with parents and caregivers—
influence our developing identity, personality
Conflicts unresolved during earlier psychosexual stages could surface as
maladaptive behaviour in the adult years

28. 28
 At any point in the oral, anal, or phallic stages, strong conflict could
lock, or fixate, the person’s pleasure-seeking energies in that stage.
 A person who had been either orally overindulged or deprived
(abrupt, early weaning) might fixate at the oral stage. This adult
could exhibit either passive dependence (like that of a nursing
infant) or an exaggerated denial of this dependence ( eg. by acting
tough). Or the person might continue to seek oral gratification by
smoking or excessive eating
 A person fixated at the anal stage of psychosexual development may
be abnormally concerned with cleanliness, orderliness, and saving
and may tend to resist external pressure

29. Other dynamic theories
29
Carl Gustav Jung
Originally one of Freud’s most dedicated
followers, Jung eventually came to disagree
profoundly with some aspects of Freud’s
theory and founded his own school of
psychology, which he called analytic
psychology.

30. 30
 Jungian Unconscious is 2 layered
 In addition to the personal
unconscious described by Freud,
there is a collective
unconscious
 a part of the mind that is common
to all humans.

31. 31
The collective unconscious consists of
primordial images or archetypes inherited
from our ancestors. Among those archetypes
are the earth mother, the father, the sun, the
hero, God, and death
Archetypes are elaborated into
Complexes by interactional stimulation
Eg. The Earth Mother archetype is
elaborated into the Mother complex by
experience of the young individual with a
mother or a mother surrogate
These complexes lie in personal
unconscious

32. 32
 Complexes in the personal unconscious lie dormant
 When stimulated by external reality a complex may come to the fore
and tend to dominate consciousness and displace other complexes
 Compared to Freud’s model, here the Conscious – Unconscious
boundary is much more permeable

33. 33
Jungian personality structure
 Ego is a complex that lies in conscious
 Self is the archetype of the ego. Arising from the self archetype, ego is also
shaped partially by external reality
 Persona: public personality. Mediates between ego and the real
world
 Shadow: reverse image of persona. Contains traits unacceptable to
persona, eg. Brave persona has a fearful shadow
 Anima: residues of all experiences of a woman in a man’s psychic
heritage
 Animus: residue of all experiences of a man in a woman’s psychic
heritage

34. 34
Jungian Psychological Types
 3 axes
 Introversion-Extroversion polarity
 Sensation-Intuition polarity
 Thinking-Feeling polarity
 Everyone’s psyche contains all of the types, but each person has a
superior set of types
 Eg an extroverted-sensation-thinking type is oriented to the real
world, tends to perceive external details,, and organizes them in a
logical structure

35. 35
ALFRED ADLER (1870-
1937)
His dynamism principle considers
every individual as future oriented
and goal directed
Cornerstone of his personality
theory : concept of moving from a
sense of inferiority to a sense of
mastery
This movement is the most
important motivation in life

36. 36
Franz Alexander (1891-1964)
Created the basis for a biopsychosocial
model of personality
Studied diseases with psychosomatic
components
Hypothesized certain illnesses are a
product of interactions between specific
constitutional predispositions, specific
unconscious conflicts, and specific types of
stressors that give rise to these conflicts

37. 37
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957)
Laid the groundwork for a psychoanalytic
theory of personality
One of the originators of Ego psychology
Gave the concept of Character Armour –
involuntary, repetitive, ego-syntonic
behaviours that prevent the emergence of
repressed impulses

38. 38
Karen Horney (1885-
1952)
Stressed upon biological and cultural
influence on psychosexual development
Personality developed from interaction
of biological and psychosocial forces that
are unique for each individual
Natural unfolding of self-realization
leads to the development of human
potential in 3 basic directions –
towards, against, and away from

39. 39
 Based on these 3 basic dispositions she divided human
personalities into 3 character types
 compliant-self effacing type – cling to others, subordinate themselves,
reluctant to disagree
 aggressive-expansive type – moving agains others, relies heavily on
power and mastery as means to achieve security
 detached, resigned type – results from moving away from others, private
individuals

40. 40
 Concept of basic anxiety – all human beings have basic anxiety,
which is the normal response to the infant’s situation of
helplessness and separateness.
 How families respond to this fundamental situation determines
whether a person will in later life keep on struggling with basic
anxiety or will engage in self realization
 Horney propounded the idea that masculine and feminine
personalities are culturally determined and not biologically
determined as thought by many psychoanalysts of her time

41. 41
Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949)
Personality: relatively enduring pattern of
interpersonal relations which characterize a human
life
Described 3 modes of experiencing and thinking
about the world
Prototaxic – undifferentiated thought that can’t
separate the whole into parts or use symbols. Infancy,
schizophrenia
Parataxic –causal relation is made between events
because of their temporal or serial connections and
not logical relations
Syntaxic – logical, mature cognitive functioning

42. 42
 Concept of self-system – total configuration of all personality
traits
 Self system develops in various stages
 This development is due to interpersonal experiences rather
than due to unfolding of intrapsychic forces

43. 43
Eric Erikson
 Instead of viewing developmental stages in terms
of their psychosexual functions, Erikson saw them
as psychosocial stages involving primarily ego
processes
 Eg. the important feature of the first year of life
is not focus on oral gratification but the child is
learning to trust (or mistrust) the environment
as a satisfier of needs
 Second year of life - not that it focuses on anal
concerns such as toilet training but that the
child is learning autonomy

44. 44
Age Stages of psychosocial
development
Virtue
Birth – 18 months Trust vs Mistrust Hope
18 months – 3
years
Autonomy vs Shame & Doubt Will
3 years – 5 years Initiative vs Guilt Purpose
5 years – 13 years Industry vs Inferiority Competence
13 years – 21 years Identity vs Role confusion Fidelity
21 years – 40
years
Intimacy vs Isolation Love
40 years – 60
years
Generativity vs Stagnation Care
60 years till death Integrity vs Despair Wisdom

45. 45
Melanie Klein : Object relations
theory
 Deals with a person’s attachments and
relationships to other people throughout life.
 Object relations theorists have an interest in
questions of degree of psychological
separateness from parents, degree of
attachment to and involvement with other
people versus preoccupation with self, and the
strength of the individual’s feelings of self-
esteem and competence.

46. 46
Behavioural and Social Learning
approaches

47. Pavlov’s device for recording
salivation A tube in the dog’s
cheek collects saliva, which is
measured in a cylinder
outside the chamber
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936): Russian
physiologist known primarily for his work in
classical conditioning

49. Skinner Box
B. F. Skinner’s Radical Behaviourism

50. 50
 Basic concept: Operant Conditioning
 Organisms are like blank slates on which behaviours can be written
through reinforcements
 Replicated many animal findings in human subjects
 Propounded a reductionist view of personality: “a self or personality
is at best a repertoire of behaviour imparted by an
organized set of contingencies.”

51. Social Learning theories
51
Human behaviour is not guided solely
by reinforcement, but also by plans, goals,
and expectations of success
Julian Rotter (1916-2014)

52. 52
 Concept of “Locus of control”
 Individuals with a history of successes in life have a generalized
expectation that they can control their lives – they have an
internal locus of control
 Individuals with history of failed efforts have an external locus of
control in that they’re likely to believe that rewards and
punishments are due to control of some outer overpowering
agency

53. 53
People can learn by observing others’
behaviours and the consequences that result
(Modeling/Vicarious reinforcement)
Cognition plays important roles in learning
Personal agency: People can have
considerable control over their actions and
environments
ALBERT
BANDURA

54. Bandura’s Bobo doll study: one group of children was shown adult
persons (models) behaving aggressively towards a Bobo doll. Another
group of children was exposed to adult models behaving non-
aggressively.
Afterwards, the children were led into a room in which they could play
with many different toys. The first group of children was shown to
display more aggressive behaviour towards the Bobo doll than the second
group of children

55. 55
 Personality is something more than a collection of
learned behaviours
 Social-Cognitive approaches focus on
 the individual’s understanding of him- or herself and how these
self- appraisals shape goals, plans, and behaviours
 role of the environment, effects of social interactions

56. Humanistic Approaches
56
 1960s: some personality psychologists had become discontented
with the sometimes bleak focus on drives and conflicts in
psychodynamic theory and the mechanistic psychology of
behaviourism
 In contrast to Freud’s study of the motives of “sick” people, these
humanistic theorists focused on the ways people strive for self-
determination and self–realization
 People through their own self - reported experiences and feelings.
 Offered a “third-force” perspective that emphasized human
potential

57. 57
GORDON ALLPORT
Allport viewed the major task of
personology (or personality psychology)
as the understanding and prediction of the
individual case
To grasp the real personality, personal
dispositions must be assessed, and this
requires intensive study of an individual’s
past, present

58. 58
 Man’s behaviour is proactive, reflecting internal, self-initiating
characteristics more than situational forces
 Personality functioning is rational and organized. Is influenced
by conscious characteristics as long-range goals, plans of
action, and philosophies of life
 He put extreme on the uniqueness of the individual personality

59. 59
Abraham Maslow’s Self - Actualizing Person
Abraham Maslow (1908–
1970) interpreted personality in
motivational terms
The individual’s whole life -
his or her perceptions, values,
strivings, and goals - is focused
on the satisfaction of a set of
needs
These needs are arranged in a
universal hierarchy.

60. 60
He proposed that the needs at
one level must be at least
partially satisfied before those
at the next level become
important motivators of action
Self-actualization is the
development of one’s full
potential as a unique human
being

61. 61
 Studied lives of exemplary people (Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham
Lincoln, Albert Einstein) – self-actualizers
 Found distinctive characteristics of self-actualizers
 accurate perception of reality, creativity, a need for privacy, frequent
experience of mystical or peak experiences
 As an exception to his general theory of motivation, he also noted
that such individuals often skip the lower levels and proceed
directly to self-actualization. The most creative artists and
musicians never seemed to care about poverty or lack of social
acceptance

62. 62
Carl Rogers’ Person-Centered Perspective
Propounded client centred therapy

63. 63
 All organisms tend toward their own actualization
 Mental health and personal growth are the natural condition of
humankind
 Psychopathology is a defensive distortion of this actualization
process
 Psychotherapy consists of creating conditions in which defense
is unnecessary
 Given these conditions, patients (or clients, as Rogers called them)
essentially cure themselves

64. 64
Kelly’s personal construct
theory
He proposed that the goal of the study
personality should be to discover
personal constructs
These are dimensions that individuals
themselves use to interpret themselves
and their social worlds

65. 65
 Individuals should be viewed as intuitive scientists
 They observe the world, formulate and test hypotheses about it, and
make up theories about it. They categorize, interpret, label, and
judge themselves and their world
 Often, individuals entertain invalid theories, beliefs that hinder
them in their daily lives and lead to biased interpretations of events
and persons, including themselves

66. 66
 Anxiety: awareness that one’s construct system is inadequate for
construing important events
 Guilt: the recognition that one’s behaviour is inconsistent with the
ways in which one construes oneself
 Hostility: the attempt to force experience to fit one’s existing
constructs
 Such definitions offer the prospect of novel ways of treating them

67. 67
Viktor Frankl (1905–1997)
Austrian neurologist and
philosopher
Views were profoundly shaped
by his experience in Nazi
concentration camps. There he
came to the conclusion that even
the most appalling circumstances
could be endured if one found a
way of making them meaningful
Described his experience in
Man’s Search for Meaning

68. 68
 Human beings shared with other animals somatic and psychological
dimensions, but that humans alone also had a spiritual dimension
 Because of the spiritual dimension, human beings show
 self- transcendence (capacity to put other values (e.g., the
well-being of a loved one) above self-interest )
 self-distancing (ability to take an external perspective, as seen
in a sense of humor)
 These capacities form the basis for therapeutic interventions in
Frankl’s version of psychotherapy known as logotherapy

69. 69
Erich Fromm (1900-1980)
Two central facts dominate human
behavior:
Inevitability of separateness
the historical and social
moment into which each person
is born..

70. 70
 He argued that every person yearns to recapture the state of blissful
union that existed prenatally
 From the moment the baby begins to recognize itself as a separate
human being a struggle ensues - desperate anxiety of
loneliness vs the urge to fully express and actualize
oneself, and, ultimately to transcend the self

71. 71
 Fromm identified 5 character types determined by Western
capitalist culture:
1. Receptive personality – passive consumer
2. Exploitative personality – manipulative
3. Marketing personality – opportunistic, changeable
4. Hoarding personality – saves and stores
5. Productive personality – mature, enjoys love and work

72. 72
Martin Seligman : Positive
Psychology
Seligman believes, thriving Western cultures
have a opportunity to create, a more positive
psychology, as a “humane, scientific
monument,”
Psychology concerned not only with
weakness and damage but also with strength
and virtue

73. 73
 3 pillars of Positive Psychology
1. Positive emotions: satisfaction with the past, happiness with
the present, and optimism about the future define the movement’s
first pillar
2. Positive character: focuses on exploring and enhancing
creativity, courage, compassion, integrity, self-control, leadership,
wisdom, and spirituality
3. Positive groups, communities, and cultures: seeks to foster
a positive social ecology. This includes healthy families,
communal neighborhoods, effective schools, socially responsible
media, and civil dialogue

74. Trait and Factor Models
74
 Rather than focusing on unconscious forces and thwarted growth
opportunities, some researchers attempt to define personality in
terms of stable and enduring behaviour patterns
 One of the first major trait theorist was Gordon Allport
 As a student, after meeting Freud, Allport said that Freud, “taught
me that [psychoanalysis], for all its merits, may plunge too deep,
and that psychologists would do well to give full recognition to
manifest motives before probing the unconscious.”

75. 75
 He defined a trait as “a neuropsychic structure having the
capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent,
and to initiate and guide equivalent (meaningfully
consistent) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior”
 Individual differences are peripheral concerns in many social
learning and humanistic theories of personality. But they are the
central focus of trait theories

76. 76
 Characteristics of Traits: Although there are many different
trait theories, there is general agreement on several key features of
traits
 (1) Traits are tendencies to show consistent patterns of
thoughts, feelings, and actions, across different situations
 (2) Traits are relatively enduring features that characterize
the individual. In this respect, they are to be distinguished from
transient moods or episodes of mental disorder that affect the
individual
 (3) Traits are continuously distributed, usually
approximating a normal or bell curve

77. 77
 Different investigators stressed upon different trait variables
 Jung - introversion and extraversion as basic personality
variables,
 Bandura emphasized self-efficacy
 Rogers - openness to experience
 Allport and Henry Odbert listed some 18,000 descriptive
terms for people’s characters. They regarded approximately
4,000 as legitimate trait terms

78. 78
Raymond Cattell (1905–1998)
By grouping and doing factor analysis of the
4000 traits identified by Allport, Cattell retained
12 factors and added 4 more factors he obtained
from research
Thus he created the 16 Personality Factor
Questionnaire (16PF)
It is a self- report instrument that has been
widely used in personality research and clinical
psychology

79. 79
Sample 16PF report

80. 80
 British psychologists
Hans Eysenck and
Sybil Eysenck
arrived at two
personality factors:
 introversion–
extroversion and
 emotional
instability–
stability, which he
calls neuroticism
 They later added a
third – Psychoticism

81. 81
 An alternative solution was offered in 1961 by Ernest Tupes and
Raymond Christal
 They found that a five-factor solution fit all possible traits:
"surgency", "agreeableness", "dependability", "emotional stability",
and "culture“
 Contemporary five-factor researchers give them somewhat different
labels: neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), openness to
experience (O), agreeableness (A), and conscientiousness
(C)
(Mnemonic: CANOE or OCEAN)

82. 82
 Trait psychologists adopt hierarchical models of trait structure
 Broadest factors are composed of more specific traits
 Each trait is defined by subtraits
In the NEO Personality
Inventory 3 (NEO-PI-
3), for example, six
specific traits or facets
are measured for each of
the five factors (or
domains) of personality

83. 83
Factor Traits
Neuroticism (N) Anxiety, Angry hostility, Depression, Self-
consciousness, Impulsiveness, Vulnerability
Extraversion(E) Warmth, Gregariousness, Assertiveness,
Activity, Excitement seeking, Positive Emotions
Openness (O) Fantasy, Aesthetics, Feelings, Actions, Ideas,
Values
Agreeableness (A) Trust, Straightforwardness, Altruism,
Compliance, Modesty, Tender-mindedness
Conscientiousness (C) Competence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement
striving, Self-disciline, Deliberation

84. Evolutionary perspectives
84
 Modern field of evolutionary
psychology began with the work of
Edward O. Wilson (1975) on
‘sociobiology’.
 The basic premise: behaviours that
increased the organism’s chances of
surviving and leaving descendants
would be selected for over the course of
evolutionary history and thus would
become aspects of humans’
personalities

85. 85
 Some theorists argue that men are more individualistic,
domineering, and oriented toward problem solving than women
because these personality characteristics increased males’ ability to
reproduce often over history and thus were selected for
 In contrast, women are more inclusive, sharing, and communal
because these personality characteristics increased the chances of
survival of their offspring and thus were selected for

86. 86
 Critics argue - evolutionary psychology simply provides a tacit
justification for the unfair social conditions and prejudices in
today’s world.
 As if women are subordinate to men in economic and political power
because this was evolutionarily adaptive for the species
 If men beat their wives and have extramarital affairs, they can’t help it; as if
it’s in their genes

87. Brief overview of Personality
tests
87
Research method Description Perspective
Case study Indepth study of 1
individual
Psychoanalytic,
Humanistic
Projective tests (TAT,
Rorschach)
Ambiguous stimuli are
given to trigger
projection of inner
dynamics
Psychodynamic
Personality inventories
eg MMPI (to determine
scores on personality
factors)
Objectively scored
groups of questions to
identify personality
dispositions
Trait
Observation Studying how
individuals react in
different situations
Social-cognitive
Experimentation Manipulate variables Social-cognitive

88. Summary
88
Personality
theory
Key
propone
nts
Assumptions View of
personality
Psychoanalytic Sigmund
Freud
Emotional disorders spring
from unconscious
dynamics, such as
unresolved sexual and other
childhood conflicts, and
fixation at various
developmental stages.
Defense mechanisms fend
off anxiety.
consists of
interactions between
pleasure-seeking
impulses (id), a
reality-oriented
executive (ego), and
an internalized set of
ideals (the superego)
Other
Psychodynami
c schools
Adler,
Jung,
Horney
The unconscious and
conscious minds interact.
Childhood experiences and
defense mechanisms are
important
The dynamic
interplay of
conscious and
unconscious motives
and conflicts shape
our personality

89. 89
Humanistic Maslow,
Rogers
Rather than examining the
struggles of sick
people, it’s better to focus on
the ways people
strive for self-realization.
If our basic human
needs are met,
people will strive
toward self-
actualization
Trait Allport,
Eysenck
We have certain stable and
enduring characteristics,
influenced by genetic
predispositions
Scientific study of
traits has isolated
important
dimensions of
personality
Social-
Cognitive
Bandura Our traits and the social
context interact to produce
our behaviors
Conditioning and
observational
learning interact
with cognition to
create behavior
patterns

90. Bibliography
90
1. Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of
Psychiatry, 10th Ed
2. Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry, 11th Ed
3. Atkinson and Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology, 6th Ed
4. Myer’s Psychology, 2nd ed