Theory of personality

1. Theories of Personality

2. Overview
 Definition
 Theories
 Differences
 Conclusion
 Clinical implications
 Bibliography

3. Definition
 Personality refers to relatively enduring
characteristics that differentiate one person from
another and that lead people to act in a consistent
and predictable manner, both in different situations
and over extended periods of time.
 Personality is defined as: the enduring or lasting
patterns of behavior and thought ( across time and
situation).

4. History
 Personality is an area of the still relatively young field of
psychology in which there are several ways in which the
characteristic behavior of human beings can be explained.
 However, the investigation of personality goes back quite
some time.
 The physiological roots of personality were postulated as
early as the IV century B.C. by Empedocles and later by
Hippocrates.
 Hippocrates’ work later influenced Galen in the second
century C.E. (Dumont, 2010).
 Hippocrates and Galen believed that temperament or
personality was related to the relative balance of the 4
physical humors of the body: blood, black bile, yellow bile,
and phlegm.

5.  One reason no single explanation of personality exists is because
personality is still difficult to measure precisely and scientifically,
and different perspectives of personality have arisen.
 There are four traditional perspectives in personality theory:
 Psychodynamic perspective
Behaviorist perspective
 Humanistic perspective
Trait perspective

6. Psychodynamic perspective
“A Freudian slip is when you mean one thing and say your mother.”
—Anonymous
Sigmund Freud
Basic aspects:
 Mind made up of different levels of awareness—conscious, preconscious,
and unconscious
 Personality stems from interplay and conflict between demands made by
the id, restrictions set forth by the superego, and direction by the ego
 Disordered behaviour is product of constant conflict and anxiety;
 ego uses unconscious defence mechanisms as ways to manage
anxiety/conflict between three parts of personality.

7. Psychodynamic perspective
 Id exists at birth; ego and superego develop in childhood
 Personality evolves in stages, according to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory;
unresolved conflicts result in individuals getting stuck or fixated at that stage.
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages:
 Stage Approximate Ages Main Features
1. Oral Birth–1 1/2 or 2 Mouth, dependency
2. Anal 1 1/2–3 Toilet training, give and take
3. Phallic 3–6 Oedipus complex, super ego,
identification
4. Latency 6–12 Repression of sexuality
5. Genital 12–Adulthood Development of normal
sexuality

8.  Freud’s psychoanalytical theory has provoked a number of
criticisms:
A lack of supportive scientific data
The theory’s inadequacy in making predictions
Its limitations owing to the restricted population on which it is
based.
 Still, the theory remains popular
For instance, the Neo-Freudian psychoanalytic theorists built
upon Freud’s work although they placed greater emphasis on
the role of the ego and paid greater attention to social factors
in determining behavior.

9. Psychodynamic perspective
The Neo-psychoanalytic Approach
 Several personality theorists, who were loyal to Freud and committed to
his psychoanalysis, broke away because of their opposition to certain
aspects of his approach.
 These neo-psychoanalytic theorists differ from one another on a number
of points but are grouped together because of their shared opposition to
two major points: Freud’s emphasis on instincts as the primary
motivators of human behavior and his deterministic view of personality.
 The neo-psychoanalytic theorists also known as Neo - Freudians are more
optimistic about human nature.

10. I . Alfred Adler
 To Adler, people are born with weak, inferior bodies—a condition that leads to
feelings of inferiority and a consequent dependence on other people.
 Therefore, a feeling of unity with others (social interest) is inherent in people and
the ultimate standard for psychological health.
 The main tenets of Adlerian theory can be stated as:
1. The one dynamic force behind people’s behavior is the striving for success or
superiority.
2. People’s subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality.
3. Personality is unified and self-consistent.
4. The value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest.
5. The self-consistent personality structure develops into a person’s style of life.
6. Style of life is molded by people’s creative power.

11. II. Carl Gustav Jung( Analytical Psychologist)
 Freud’s closest friend and dearest colleague and was a psychiatrist from
Switzerland.
 Disagreed with Freud about the nature of the unconscious mind.
 He believed that there was not only a personal unconscious, as described
by Freud, but a collective unconscious as well ( Jung, 1933).
 According to Jung, the collective unconscious contains a kind of “species”
or “racial” memory, memories of ancient fears and themes that seem to
occur in many folktales and cultures-called archetypes by Jung.
 There are many archetypes, but two of the more well known are the
anima/animus (the feminine side of a man/the masculine side of a woman)
and the shadow (the dark side of personality, called the “devil” in Western
cultures).
 The side of one’s personality that is shown to the world is termed the
persona.

12. III. Karen Horney
 Recognized as having proposed the most complete psychoanalytic theory of
women’s personality development.
 Whereas Freud had placed great importance on biological factors, Horney believed
that the differences between men and women were mainly due to societal
conditions.
 She argued that women felt inferior to men not because of an innate penis envy,
but because of the way women were treated in society.
 The Importance of Childhood Experiences (“the sum total of childhood
experiences brings about a certain character structure, or rather, starts its
development”.)
 Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety (identified four general ways that people protect
themselves against this feeling of being alone in a potentially hostile world-
Affection, Power-prestige-Possession, Submissiveness, Withdrawal).
 Identified 10 categories of neurotic needs

13. IV. Erik Erikson
 He was an art teacher who became a psychoanalyst by
studying under Anna Freud.
 Erikson converted Freud’s emphasis on sexuality to a
focus on social relationships and then extended
Freud’s five psychosexual stages to eight psychosocial
stages.
 These stages became known as the Eight Ages of
Man.

14. Psychodynamic perspective-Erik
Erickson

15. Psychodynamic perspective
 Source of information about personality:
-obtained from expert analyst from people in therapy.
 Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings:
-unconscious internal conflict associated with childhood
experiences.
-also, unconscious conflicts between pleasure-seeking impulses
and social constraints.
 Outlook on humans:
-negative.
 Comprehensiveness of theory:
-very comprehensive.

16. Behaviorism
 Behavior theorists shifted the focus away from the mind and
onto observable,measurable behavior.
 They emphasize that personality is learned.
 John B.Watson was the founder of behaviorism, but B. F.
Skinner was the most influential researcher and advocate of
this school of psychology.
 Skinner stressed three factors as determiners of behavior:
genetics, personal history , and the current setting.
 Behaviorism focuses on behavior, how it is learned within the
environment, and how situations influence a person’s
actions.

17. Behaviorism
 The behaviorist approach to personality sees a newborn as
essentially neutral; behaviors are learned depending on
experiences in the world.
 Personality is a set of learned responses and habits, gained
through classical and operant conditioning.
 Behavioral theories also emphasize observational learning—
learning behaviors by seeing or hearing others.
Social cognitive learning theory:
 Emphasize the role of human interaction in the development
of personality.
 Both learning (individual and through imitation of models) and
cognitive processes (such as anticipation, judgment, and
memory) are important.

18. Albert Bandura :
 Apart from external stimuli , he emphasized the importance of
cognition in personality development.
1.People develop a sense of self – efficacy: A person’s
expectancy of how effective his or her efforts to accomplish a
goal will be in any particular circumstance.
individuals with higher self-efficacy accept greater challenges
and try harder to meet challenges.
people’s sense of self-efficacy can be high or low, depending
on what has happened in similar circumstances in the past
(success or failure), what other people tell them about their
competence, and their own assessment of their abilities.

19. 2. Reciprocal determinism
Environment
reinforcers
Personal/cognitive
factors- Beliefs,
expectancies, personal
disposition
Behavior

20. Rotters :
 Theory based on principles of motivation derived from
Thorndike’s law of effect
 Personality is set of potential responses to various situations,
including one’s locus of control (internal vs. external) and
sense of expectancy.
 Locus of control-the tendency for people to assume that they
either have control or do not have control over events and
consequences in their lives.
 Expectancy : a person’s subjective behavior that a particular
behavior will lead to a reinforcing consequence.

21. Humanistic perspective
 Humanistic approach (Third force):
Rejected Freud’s pessimistic view of personality.
Rejected Behaviorist’s mechanistic view.
More optimistic/positive about human nature.
Humans are free and basically good.
Humans are inner-directed.
Everyone has the potential for healthy growth.
Healthy growth involves Self-actualization: “Be all you can
be”.
Given the right environmental conditions, we can reach our
full potential.

22.  Humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow wanted
psychology to focus on the things that make people uniquely
human, such as subjective emotions and the freedom to
choose one’s own destiny.
 Personality theory should focus on conscious mind (vs
psychoanalytical),the ability to make conscious decisions and
rational choices and also on inner life (feelings and thoughts)
of the individual, not on a person’s overt behaviors (vs
behaviorism).

23.  Abraham Maslow:
The third approach, called humanism or humanistic
psychology, was initiated in the 1950s by an American
psychologist named Abraham Maslow (1908–1970).
He wrote, “It is as if Freud has supplied to us the sick half of
psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half”
(Maslow, 1998).
He referred to it as a holistic-dynamic theory because it
assumes that the whole person is constantly being motivated
by one need or another and that people have the potential to
grow toward psychological health, that is, self-actualization.

24.  Characteristics of the Self-actualized person:
Creative and open to new experiences.
Committed to a cause or a higher goal.
Trusting and caring of others, yet not dependent.
Have the courage to act on their convictions.

25.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs concept assumes that lower
level needs must be satisfied or at least relatively
satisfied before higher level needs become motivators.
 The 5 needs composing this hierarchy are conative
needs, meaning that they have a striving or motivational
character.
 He referred these needs to as basic needs, arranged on
a hierarchy or staircase, with each ascending step
representing a higher need but one less basic to survival.

27.  Carl Rogers (1902–1987) :
One of Maslow’s colleagues and collaborators in humanistic
psychology was a counseling psychologist who developed an
influential theory of personality centered on the idea of self-
concept.
Rogers’s theory is quite often known as self theory.
This approach emphasizes conditions of worth, valuing
people, and the selfactualizing tendency.

28.  Rogers theorized that each person has an inner concept
of what she or he ideally would like to be—an ideal self.
 Also, it is theorized that each of us has an inner concept
of what we are really like—a real self.
 The drive of self-actualization, then, is the striving to
merge these two concepts.
Self-actualization is the ongoing attempt to make your
real
self congruent with your ideal self, to bring one’s concept
of what one thinks one is(real self) more and more into
accord with what they think they should be like (ideal
self).

29. Rogers defined positive regard as warmth, affection, love, and
respect that come from the significant others (parents,
admired adults, friends, and teachers) in people’s experience.
Positive regard is vital to people’s ability to cope with stress
and to strive to achieve self-actualization.
Rogers believed that unconditional positive regard, or love,
affection, and respect with no strings attached, is necessary
for people to be able to explore fully all that they can achieve
and become.
Unfortunately, some parents, spouses, and friends give
conditional positive regard, which is love, affection, respect,
and warmth that depend, or seem to depend, on doing what
those people want.

30. Rogers proposed a style of counseling whose techniques are
widely used today and are known by several terms, including
Rogerian, person-centered, client-centered , and
nondirective.
The essence of Rogers’s counseling style is to help clients
(notice that they are not called patients) with the process of
self-discovery.
That is, the counselor helps a client to become aware of his or
her true inner self, the true personality of feelings and self-
concept.
Then the client must come to accept his or her true feelings
and personality and to embrace the inner self.
The client should then be ready to take the necessary steps to
fulfill his or her inner needs and to bring the world of
experience into line with the inner self-concept.

31.  While psychology has become much more of a scientific
discipline in recent years, humanistic psychology has been
somewhat left behind.
 Although a new subfield called positive psychology uses
scientific methods to explore similar topics, such as happiness
and optimism.
 Like those of psychoanalytic theory, the concepts of
humanistic psychology are not easily placed into a scientific
framework.
 Still, humanistic psychology has been very influential, was
founded and flourished during the “love and peace” era of the
1960s,
 It is at the root of the currently popular self-help movement.

32. Humanistic perspectives
Summary:
 Source of information about personality-
obtained from self reports from general population and
people in therapy.
 Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings-
Self concepts,
Self-actualizing tendencies
Conscious feelings about oneself(based on one’s previous
experiences)
 Outlook on humans-
Positive
 Comprehensiveness of theory-
Fairly comprehensive.

33. www.ablongman.com/hinrichsle

34. Trait theories
 Trait theories are less concerned with the explanation for
personality development and changing personality than they
are with describing personality and predicting behavior based
on that description.
 A trait is a consistent, enduring ways of thinking, feeling, or
behaving, and trait theories attempt to describe personality in
terms of a person’s traits.

35. Gordon Allport:
 One of the earliest attempts to list and describe the traits that
make up personality can be found in the work of Gordon
Allport (Allport & Odbert, 1936).
 Allport and his colleague H. S. Odbert literally scanned the
dictionary for words that could be traits, finding about 18,000,
then paring that down to 200 traits after eliminating
synonyms.
 Allport believed (with no scientific evidence, however) that
these traits were literally wired into the nervous system to
guide one’s behavior across many different situations and that
each person’s “constellation” of traits was unique.
(In spite of Allport’s lack of evidence, behavioral geneticists have found support for the
heritability of personality traits.)

36.  Allport suggested that there are 3 kinds of traits-
cardinal: a single personality trait that directs most of a
person’s activities(eg:greed, lust, kindness)
central: a set of major characteristics that make up the core of
a person’s personality.
secondary: less important personality traits that do not affect
behavior as much as central and cardinal traits do.

37. Raymond Cattell:
 Cattell’s trait theory-
distinguished 3 types of traits
1)Dynamic
2)Ability
3)Temperament
 Also defined two types of traits
1)Surface traits-representing the personality
characteristics easily seen by other
people.(less important to personality)
2)Source traits -more basic traits that underlie the surface
traits.(more imp.)
 Identified 16 basic traits & developed 16 PF to measure these traits.

38.  Using a statistical technique that looks for groupings and
commonalities in numerical data called factor analysis,
Cattell identified 16 source traits (Cattell, 1950, 1966),
 These 16 source traits are seen as trait dimensions, or
continuums, in which there are two opposite traits at
each end with a range of possible degrees for each trait
measurable along the dimension.

39. Cattell’s 16 PF

40. Hans Eyesenck:
 Fundamental personality characteristics are largely
inherited.
 The central nervous system is the seat of personality
functioning.
 All behavior is learned.
 Studied possible relations between behavior and certain
brain parts.
 Found 2 major trait dimensions-introversion vs
extroversion and neuroticism vs emotional stability.

42.  ARAS:
 Introversion –
(higher level of ARAS arousal)
- easily become overstimulated
- tend to be quiet, introspective,
reserved
- excitement decreases
performance
- distrust impulsive decisions
- sensitivity to pain
- "stimulus-shy"
Extraversion-
( lower level of ARAS arousal
- outgoing, has many friends
- likes parties
- craves excitement
- impulsive
- performance enhanced by
excitement
- tolerance for pain
- "stimulus-hungry”

43. Limbic system:
 Related to emotional arousal
 Acts through the autonomic nervous system
 Neuroticism-
-lower threshold for activation of limbic
system
- greater responsivity of autonomic nervous system
- overreact to even mild stimulation
- emotionally labile
- complain of worry and anxiety

44.  Psychoticism:
-Later, after studying individuals suffering from mental illness,
Eysenck added a personality dimension he called psychoticism
to his trait theory.
- Individuals who are high on this trait tend to have difficulty
dealing with reality and may be antisocial, hostile, non-
empathetic and manipulative.

45. Trait theories -Eyesenck
 "Biological causes act in such a way as to predispose an
individual in certain ways to stimulation; this stimulation may
or may not occur, depending on circumstances which are
entirely under environmental control (Eysenck, 1967).
 Evaluation of Eysenck:
- Eysenck's model was designed to be tested in laboratory
- support for the personality dimension findings
- no direct empirical data for hypothesized links with brain
functioning

46. Five factor model
•Sixteen factors are still quite a lot to discuss when talking about
someone’s personality.
•Later researchers attempted to reduce the number of trait
dimensions to a more manageable number, with several groups of
researchers arriving at more or less the same five trait dimensions
(Botwin & Buss, 1989; Jang et al., 1998; McCrae & Costa, 1996).
•These five dimensions have become known as the five-factor
model, or the Big Five.

48. Five Factor Model
•The five-factor model provides a dimensional approach to
classifying personality structure (as opposed to a categorical
approach), which is consistent with the changes in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM-5), and has implications for the diagnosis of personality
disorders.
•Cross-cultural studies have found evidence of these five trait
dimensions in 11 different cultures, including Japan,thePhilippines,
Germany, China, and Peru (Digman, 1990; John et al., 1988; McCrae et
al., 2000; 2005; McCrae & Terracciano, 2007; Paunonen et al., 1996;
Piedmont et al., 2002).

49. Walter Mischel:
 Some theorists have cautioned that personality traits will not
always be expressed in the same way across different
situations.
 Walter Mischel, a social cognitive theorist, has emphasized
that there is a trait–situation interaction in which the
particular circumstances of any given situation are assumed to
influence the way in which a trait is expressed (Mischel &
Shoda, 1995)

50. Trait Theories
Summary:
 Source of information about personality-
obtained from observation of behavior and questionnaire
responses from the general population as well as from people
from therapy.
 Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings-
stable internal characteristics;
some emphasize genetic basis.
 Outlook on humans-
neutral-neither positive nor negative.
 Comprehensiveness of theory-
not very comprehensive.

51. Behavioral genetics
 Behavioral genetics studies how much of an individual’s
personality is due to inherited traits adoption studies of twins
have confirmed that genetic influences account for a great
deal of personality development, regardless of shared or non-
shared environments.
 Identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins or
unrelated people in many facets of personality.
 Personality factors of the five-factor model have nearly a 50%
rate of heritability across cultures; variations in personality are
about 25–50% inherited.
 Studies of twins and adopted children have found support for
a genetic influence on many personality traits, including
intelligence, leadership abilities, traditionalism, nurturance,
empathy, assertiveness, neuroticism, and extraversion.

52. Big five theory
 Biological basis of the Big Five :
Personality neuroscience is a growing area of research
and brain structure differences associated with some
aspects of the Big Five dimensions of personality have
been identified using structural MRI.

53.  Dr MRM