Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Personality
Theory and Assessment

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Chapter 11 Overview

 Psychoanalytic theories
 Humanistic theories
 Trait theories
 Social-cognitive theories
 Nature, nurture, and personality
 Personality assessment


Psychoanalytic Theories
 Psychoanalysis is Freud’s theory of
personality and his therapy for treating
psychological disorders; focuses on
unconscious processes
 Personality is a person’s characteristic
pattern of behaving, thinking, and feeling


What are the three levels of
awareness in consciousness?

 The conscious
– All thoughts, feelings, memories of which we are
aware at a given moment
 The preconscious
– Thoughts, feelings, memories that we are not
consciously aware of but can easily bring to mind
 The unconscious
– The primary motivating force of human behavior
– Contains repressed memories and instincts,
wishes, and desires that have never been
conscious

What are the roles of the id, the
ego, and the superego?

 Id
– Contains life and death instincts
– Operates according to the pleasure principle
 Ego
– The logical, rational part of personality
– Operates according to the reality principle
 Superego
– The moral system of the personality
– Consists of the conscience and the ego ideal


Freud’s Conception of Personality

 Ego is largely
conscious, but
partly unconscious
 Superego
operates at both
the conscious and
unconscious levels
 Id is completely
unconscious

What is the purpose of defense
mechanisms?

 The ego uses defense mechanisms to
maintain self-esteem and protect itself from
anxiety created by conflict between the id
and superego
– The id’s demands for pleasure often conflict with
the superego’s desires for moral perfection
 e.g., ego protects itself from unacceptable
thoughts and memories through repression
– Removing painful thoughts, memories, desires
from consciousness and keeping them in the
unconscious

What are the psychosexual stages,
and why did Freud consider them
important in personality
development?
 According to Freud, the sex instinct is the
most important factor influencing personality
 It is present at birth, and then develops
through a series of psychosexual stages
– Each stage involves an erogenous zone and a
conflict
– If the conflict is not resolved, the child develops a
fixation, and a portion of the libido remains
invested at that stage


development?
 Oral stage: Birth to 1 year
– Conflict: Weaning
– Fixation can lead to dependency and passivity or
sarcasm and hostility
 Anal stage: 1 to 3 years
– Conflict: Toilet training
– Fixation can lead to excessive cleanliness and
stinginess or messiness and rebelliousness


development?
 Phallic stage: 3 to 5 or 6 years
– Conflict: Oedipus complex
– Fixation can lead to flirtatiousness and
promiscuity or excessive pride and chastity
 Latency: 5 or 6 years to puberty
– Period of sexual calm
 Genital stage: Puberty on
– Revival of sexual interests


How are Freud’s ideas evaluated by
modern psychologists?

 Freud is credited with making important
contributions to psychology
– Recognizing the importance of childhood
experiences in shaping personality
– Identifying the role of defense mechanisms
– Calling attention to the unconscious
 But critics argue that
– People do not typically repress painful memories
– Dreams do not have symbolic meaning
– Freud’s ideas are difficult to test scientifically

How do the views of the neo-
Freudians differ from those of
Freud?
 Several theorists built on the strengths of
Freud’s theory, and tried to avoid its
weaknesses
 They are called the neo-Freudians
– Carl Jung (1875-1961)
– Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
– Karen Horney (1885-1952)


Freud?
 In Jung’s theory, the
personality has three parts
– Ego
– Personal unconscious
– Collective unconscious
 Jung rejected Freud’s
ideas
– that the sexual instinct is
the most important
determinant of
personality
– that personality is mostly
formed in childhood


Freud?
 Adler’s theory
– The predominant force of the personality is not
sexual in nature
– The drive to overcome feelings of inferiority
motivates most human behavior
 When feelings of inferiority prevent personal
development, they constitute an inferiority complex


Freud?
 Karen Horney believed that Freud
overemphasized the role of sexual instinct
– She rejected his psychosexual stages and ideas
such as the Oedipus complex and penis envy
 She argued that women’s psychological
difficulties arise from failure to live up to
idealized versions of themselves
– To be psychologically healthy, women and men
must overcome irrational beliefs about the need
for perfection
– These ideas can be seen in modern cognitive-
behavioral therapy

Humanistic Theories
 In humanistic psychology, people are
assumed to have a natural tendency toward
growth and the realization of their fullest
potential
 These theories are more optimistic about
human nature than Freud’s theory
 But, like Freud’s theory, humanistic theories
are difficult to test scientifically


What are some of the traits of self-
actualizers?

 Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) proposed a
hierarchy of needs that motivates human
behavior
 The highest need is self-actualization
 Self actualizers
– Accurately perceive reality and quickly spot
dishonesty
– Tend not to depend on external authority, but are
internally driven, autonomous, and independent
– Frequently have peak experiences
 Experiences of deep meaning, insight, and harmony
within themselves and with the universe

Why is unconditional positive
regard critical to personality?
 According to Carl Rogers (1902-1987), our
parents set up conditions of worth
– Conditions on which their positive regard depends
 These conditions force us to live according to
someone else’s values
 A goal of person-centered therapy is to
enable people to live by their own values
– And not live by the values of others to gain
positive regard
– To achieve this, the therapist must give the client
unconditional positive regard

Trait Theories

 Attempts to explain personality and
differences among people in terms of
personal characteristics that are stable
across situations


What were some of the ideas
proposed by early trait theorists?
 Allport (1897-1967) proposed two kinds of
traits
– Cardinal traits
 Which are so pervasive that almost every act can be
traced to their influences
– Central traits
 The kinds of traits that one would mention in a
recommendation letter
 Cattell’s(1950) theory
– Surface traits are the observable qualities of
personality
– Source traits underlie surface traits, and cause
certain surface traits to cluster together
 Cattell identified 23 source traits

What were some of the ideas
proposed by early trait theorists?
 Eysenck (1916-1997) proposed that there are three
personality factors
– Psychoticism
 An individual’s link to reality

– Extraversion
 A dimension ranging from outgoing to shy

– Neuroticism
 A dimension of emotional stability, from stable to anxious
and irritable
 These personality factors are rooted in neurological
functioning
– An idea that has been supported by modern brain-imaging
studies


What do five-factor theorists
consider to be the most important
dimensions of personality?
 The five-factor model is a trait theory that
attempts to explain personality using five
broad dimensions, each of which is
composed of a constellation of personality
traits
– Openness
– Conscientiousness
– Extraversion
– Agreeableness
– Neuroticism

What do five-factor theorists
consider to be the most important
dimensions of personality?
 Openness
– Open to new experiences, curious, and broad minded
versus having narrow interests and preferring the familiar
 Conscientiousness
– Reliable, orderly, and industrious versus undependable
and lazy
 Extraversion
– Outgoing with a preference to be around other people
versus shy with a preference to be alone
 Agreeableness
– Easygoing and friendly versus unfriendly and cold
 Neuroticism
– Pessimistic and irritable versus optimistic and able to take
things in stride

Social-Cognitive Theories

 The view that personality can be
defined as a collection of learned
behaviors acquired through social
interactions


What is the situation-trait debate
about?

 An ongoing discussion among theorists
about the relative influence of traits and
situations on personality
 Walter Mischel (1968) proposed that
situations dictate personality more than
traits
 Research suggests that traits are generally
stable over time and across situations
– Although situations can modify personality traits
 e.g., lack of social support can increase neuroticism


What are the components of
Bandura’s reciprocal determinism
model?
 Bandura proposed that
internal, environmental,
and behavioral variables
interact to influence
personality
 An important cognitive
factor in Bandura’s theory
is self-efficacy
– A person’s perception of his
or her ability to perform
competently whatever is
attempted

What does locus of control
contribute to personality?

 Julian Rotter proposed a personality factor
called locus of control
 People with an internal locus of control
– See themselves as primarily in control of their
behavior and its consequences
 People with an external locus of control
– Perceive that what happens to them is in the
hands of fate, luck, or chance


Nature, Nurture, and
Personality
 Although all psychologists agree that
our genes play at least some roles in
personality, most also acknowledge
that environmental factors influence
how our traits change over time


What have twin and adoption
studies revealed about the
influence of genes on personality?
 Identical twins are
similar on several
personality
dimensions
– Whether raised
together or apart
 Adoption studies
indicate that
shared family
environment has
little influence on
personality
development
 These findings
show that heredity
strongly influences
personality

How does personality differ across
cultures?

 Advocates of the five-factor model assert that
the factors are universal
 But other theorists argue that cultures differ in
individualism/collectivism, a dimension of
personality
– In individualist cultures more emphasis is
placed on independence and individual
achievement
– In collectivist cultures, people emphasize social
connectedness and tend to define themselves in
terms of group membership

Personality Assessment

 Personality assessment is commonly
used in business and industry to aid in
hiring decisions
 Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists,
and counselors use various ways of
measuring personality in the diagnosis
of patients and in the assessment of
progress in therapy


How do psychologists use
observations, interviews, and
rating scales?
 Assessment methods include
– Behavioral assessment
 In which behavior is observed and recorded
– Structured interviews
 In which an interview follows a prescribed procedure
 Rating scales provide a standardized
format for recording behaviors or interview
responses


What is an inventory, and what are
the MMPI-2 and CPI designed to
reveal?
 An inventory is a paper and pencil test
with questions about a person’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors
– Scored according to a standard procedure
– Used to measure several dimensions of
personality


reveal?
 The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI-2) is the most widely
used personality inventory
 Used to screen for and diagnose psychiatric
problems and disorders
 Includes 550 items that differentiate specific
groups of psychiatric patients from people
considered to be normal
– Also includes validity scales, such as a social
desirability scale

reveal?
 California Personality Inventory (CPI)
– Developed to assess personality in normal
individuals
– Is useful for predicting school achievement,
leadership and executive success, and
effectiveness of police and military personnel
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
– Based on Jung’s theory of personality
– Measures normal individual differences on four
personality dimensions


How do projective tests provide
insight into personality, and what
are some of the most commonly
used projective tests?
 A projective test is a personality test
consisting of inkblots, drawings of
ambiguous human situations, or incomplete
sentences for which there are no correct or
incorrect responses
 People respond by projecting their inner
thoughts, feelings, fears, or conflicts onto
the test materials


 In the Rorschach Inkblot
Method the test taker is
asked to describe 10 inkblots
 According to Rorschach,
responses can be used to
diagnose disorders
 Critics argue that results are
too dependent on the
judgment of the examiner
 In response, Exner (1993)
developed the
Comprehensive System for
scoring

 The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was
developed by Henry Murray
 Test taker describes a series of drawings of
ambiguous human situations
– Descriptions are thought to reveal inner feelings, conflicts,
and motives
 Critics argue that
– It relies too heavily on interpretation of the examiner
– Responses may reflect temporary states and may not
indicate more permanent aspects of personality


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