This document provides an overview of personality theories including: - Gordon Allport's definition of personality as the unique patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings that determine an individual's adjustment. - Allport's categorization of traits into cardinal, central, and secondary traits. Central traits form the basic personality foundations while secondary traits appear in specific situations. - Raymond Cattell's identification of 16 source traits underlying surface personality traits through factor analysis. He developed the 16PF questionnaire to measure these traits. - The Big Five model which proposes there are five key dimensions of personality that can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN.

1. SEMESTER III
UNIT IV: PERSONALITY

2. Personality: An individual’s unique and relatively stable patterns of
behavior, thoughts, and feelings.
According to Gordon Allport (1937), “Personality is the dynamic organization
within the individual of those psycho-physical systems that determine his
unique adjustment to his environment”.

3. • Personality is the unique way in which each individual thinks, acts, and feels
throughout life.
• Personality should not be confused with character, which refers to value
judgments made about a person’s morals or ethical behavior; nor should it be
confused with temperament, the enduring characteristics with which each
person is born, such as irritability or adaptability.
• Temperament is based in one’s biology, either through genetic influences,
prenatal influences, or a combination of those influences, and forms the basis
upon which one’s larger personality is built.
• Both character and temperament are vital parts of personality, however. Every
adult personality is a combination of temperaments and personal history
of family, culture, and the time during which they grew up.
• Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna believed that temperament or personality
was related to the relative balance of the four physical humors of the body:
blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm.

4. An Indian Perspective on Personality
The Indian intellectual tradition includes detailed conceptual frameworks aimed
at the understanding of the nature of human beings
For instance Charaka, the father of Indian medicine, in his Compendium
Charaka Samhita gave a humoural classification of personality (prakriti) during
200 BC . These humours were wind (Vata), bile (Pitta), and phlegm (Kapha)
which constitute tridosha prakirti.
Most of the major schools of Indian thought, both orthodox like Vedānta and
Yoga which follow the teaching of the Upanishads, as well as heterodox such as
Buddhism and Jainism, present theories of personality that reflect their
distinctive views of the world.

5. There are several traditional perspectives in personality theory:
• • The psychodynamic perspective had its beginnings in the work of Sigmund
Freud and still exists today. It focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the
development of personality. This perspective is also heavily focused on biological
causes of personality differences.
• • The behaviorist perspective is based on the theories of learning. This approach
focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior and as addressed here, includes
aspects of social cognitive theory in that interactions with others and personal
thought processes also influence learning and personality.
• • The humanistic perspective first arose as a reaction against the psychoanalytic
and behaviorist perspectives and focuses on the role of each person’s conscious life
experiences and choices in personality development.
• • The trait perspective differs from the other three in its basic goals: The
psychodynamic, behaviorist, and humanistic perspectives all seek to explain the
process that causes personality to form into its unique characteristics, whereas trait
theorists are more concerned with the end result—the characteristics themselves.
Although some trait theorists assume that traits are biologically determined, others
make no such assumption.

6. TRAIT THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
• A trait is a consistent, enduring way of thinking, feeling, or behaving, and trait theories
attempt to describe personality in terms of a person’s traits
• Personality Traits: Specific dimensions along which individuals’ personalities differ in
consistent, stable ways.
• Trait Theories: Theories of personality that focus on identifying the key dimensions along
which people differ.
• Type Theory: Type theory emphasizes the significance of a distinct type of personality. Type
theorists highlight on individual physique and temperaments. There are many classifications
that come under type theory. The specialty is that all type theories point out that individual
personality falls under a specific category.
• 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.
• If someone asked you to describe a close friend's personality, what kind of things would you
say? A few things that might come to mind are descriptive terms such as "outgoing," "kind"
and "even-tempered." All of these represent traits.

7. Allport’s Central, Secondary, and Cardinal Traits
• In 1936, psychologist Gordon Allport found that one English-language dictionary contained
more than 4,000 words describing different personality traits. He categorized these traits into
three levels:
• Cardinal traits: Allport suggested that cardinal traits are rare and dominate, usually
developing later in life. They tend to define a person to such an extent that their names
become synonymous with their personality. Examples of this include the following
descriptive terms: Machiavellian, narcissistic, Don Juan, and Christ-like.
• Central traits: These general characteristics form basic personality foundations. While
central traits are not as dominating as cardinal traits, they describe the major characteristics
you might use to describe another person. Terms such as "intelligent," "honest," "shy," and
"anxious" are considered central traits.
• Secondary traits: Secondary traits are sometimes related to attitudes or preferences. They
often appear only in certain situations or under specific circumstances. Some examples
include public speaking anxiety or impatience while waiting in line.

8. Perhaps an even more important aspect of Allport’s theory of personality is his concept of functional
autonomy (Allport, 1965)—the idea that patterns of behavior that are initially acquired under one set
of circumstances, and which satisfy one set of motives, may later be performed for very different
reasons.
For example, initially a child may learn to read because this pleases his teachers and parents and
because failure to do so is punished. Later in life, however, the same person may read because he has
come to enjoy reading in and of itself- reading is intrinsically motivated

9. CATTELLAND THE 16 PF
• Another well-known advocate of the trait approach is Raymond Cattell. He and his
colleagues have focused on the task: identifying the basic dimensions of personality.
• Instead of beginning with hunches or insights, however, Cattell has used a very different
approach. He has conducted extensive research in which literally thousands of persons
responded to measures designed to reflect individual differences on hundreds of traits.
• These responses were then subjected to a statistical technique known as factor analysis. This
technique reveals patterns in the extent to which various traits are correlated. In this manner,
factor analysis can help identify important clusters of traits—ones that seem to be closely
linked to one another.
• As such clusters are identified, Cattell reasoned, the number of key traits in human
personality can be reduced until we are left with those that are truly central.

10. • Raymond Cattell (1990) defined two types of traits as surface traits and source traits.
• Surface traits are like those found by Allport, representing the personality
characteristics easily seen by other people.
• Source traits are those more basic traits that underlie the surface traits.
• For example, shyness, being quiet, and disliking crowds might all be surface traits related to
the more basic source trait of introversion, a tendency to withdraw from excessive stimulation
• Using the statistical technique that looks for groupings and commonalities in numerical
data called factor analysis, Cattell identified 16 source traits and although he later
determined that there might be another 7 source traits to make a total of 23, he developed his
assessment questionnaire, The Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) Questionnaire (Cattell,
1995), based on just 16 source traits.
• 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.
• For example, someone scoring near the “reserved” end of the “reserved/outgoing”
dimension would be more introverted than someone scoring in the middle or at the opposite
end.

11. • According to Cattell, there is a continuum of personality traits. In other words, each person contains all
of these 16 traits to a certain degree, but they might be high in some traits and low in others.
• The following personality trait list describes some of the descriptive terms used for each of the 16
personality dimensions described by Cattell.
1. Abstractedness: Imaginative versus practical
2. Apprehension: Worried versus confident
3. Dominance: Forceful versus submissive
4. Emotional stability: Calm versus high-strung
5. Liveliness: Spontaneous versus restrained
6. Openness to change: Flexible versus attached to the familiar
7. Perfectionism: Controlled versus undisciplined
8. Privateness: Discreet versus open
9. Reasoning: Abstract versus concrete

12. 10. Rule-consciousness: Conforming versus non-conforming
11. Self-reliance: Self-sufficient versus dependent
12. Sensitivity: Tender-hearted versus tough-minded
13. Social boldness: Uninhibited versus shy
14. Tension: Inpatient versus relaxed
15. Vigilance: Suspicious versus trusting
16. Warmth: Outgoing versus reserved

13. The Big Five: OCEAN, Or The Five-Factor Model Of
Personality
• Research conducted during the past twenty years has begun to converge on an encouraging conclusion:
In fact, there may be only five key or central dimensions of personality (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1994;
Zuckerman, 1994). These are sometimes labeled the “big five,”.

14. These five trait dimensions can be remembered by using the acronym OCEAN, in which each of the letters
is the first letter of one of the five dimensions of personality.
• Openness can best be described as a person’s willingness to try new things and be open to new
experiences. People who try to maintain the status quo and who don’t like to change things would score
low on openness.
• Conscientiousness refers to a person’s organization and motivation, with people who score high in this
dimension being those who are careful about being places on time and careful with belongings as well.
Someone scoring low on this dimension, for example, might always be late to important social events or
borrow belongings and fail to return them or return them in poor condition.
• Extraversion is a term first used by Carl Jung (1933), who believed that all people could be divided into
two personality types: extraverts and introverts. Extraverts are outgoing and sociable, whereas introverts
are more solitary and dislike being the center of attention.
• Agreeableness refers to the basic emotional style of a person, who may be easygoing, friendly, and
pleasant (at the high end of the scale) or grumpy, crabby, and hard to get along with (at the low end).
• Neuroticism refers to emotional instability or stability. People who are excessive worriers, overanxious,
and moody would score high on this dimension, whereas those who are more even-tempered and calm
would score low.

15. • Robert McCrae and Paul Costa proposed that these five traits are not interdependent. In
other words, knowing someone’s score on extraversion would not give any information about
scores on the other four dimensions, allowing for a tremendous amount of variety in
personality descriptions.

16. MYER- BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR

17. THE PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY
• Freud entered private medical practice soon after graduating from medical school. A turning
point in his early career came when he won a research grant to travel to Paris to observe the
work of Jean-Martin Charcot, who was then using hypnosis to treat several types of mental
disorders.
• When Freud returned to Vienna, he worked with Joseph Breuer, a colleague who was using
hypnosis in the treatment of hysteria—a condition in which individuals experienced physical
symptoms, such as blindness, deafness, or paralysis of arms or legs, for which there seemed
to be no underlying physical cause.
• Out of these experiences, and out of his growing clinical practice, Freud gradually developed
his theories of human personality and mental illness. His ideas were complex, and touched on
many different issues. With respect to personality, however, four topics are most central:
levels of consciousness, the structure of personality, anxiety and defense mechanisms,
and psychosexual stages of development.

18. LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
• Freud believed that the mind was divided into three parts: the preconscious, conscious, and
unconscious minds (Freud, 1900).
• While no one really disagreed with the idea of a conscious mind in which one’s current
awareness exists, or even of a preconscious mind containing memories, information, and
events of which one can easily become aware, the unconscious mind (also called “the
unconscious”) was the real departure for the professionals of Freud’s day.
• Freud theorized that there is a part of the mind that remains hidden at all times, surfacing only
in symbolic form in dreams and in some of the behavior people engage in without knowing
why they have done so.
• Even when a person makes a determined effort to bring a memory out of the unconscious
mind, it will not appear directly, according to Freud.
• Freud believed that the unconscious mind was the most important determining factor in
human behavior and personality.

19. • Conscious. This includes our current thoughts: whatever we are thinking about or experiencing at a
given moment.
• Beneath this conscious realm is the much larger Preconscious. This contains memories that are not part
of current thoughts but can readily be brought to mind if the need arises.
• Finally, beneath the preconscious, and forming the bulk of the human mind, is the Unconscious:
thoughts, desires, and impulses of which we remain largely unaware. Although some of this material
has always been unconscious, Freud believed that much of it was once conscious but has been actively
repressed— driven from consciousness because it was too anxiety-provoking.
• For example, Freud contended that shameful experiences or unacceptable sexual or aggressive urges are
often driven deep within the unconscious
• One major goal of psychoanalysis—the method of treating psychological disorders devised by Freud—
is to bring repressed material back into consciousness.
• Presumably, once such material is made conscious, it can be dealt with more effectively, and important
causes of mental illness may be removed.
• Freud believed that one way of probing the unconscious was through the interpretation of dreams. In
dreams, Freud believed, we give expression to impulses and desires we find unacceptable during our
waking hours. Unfortunately, there is little scientific evidence for this view.

21. Superego: The Moral Watchdog- Freud called the third and final part of the personality, the
moral center of personality, the superego. The superego (also Latin, meaning “over the self ”)
develops as a preschool-aged child learns the rules, customs, and expectations of society.
The super ego contains the conscience, the part of the personality that makes people feel
guilt, or moral anxiety, when they do the wrong thing. It is not until the conscience develops
that children have a sense of right and wrong.
It too seeks to control satisfaction of id impulses; but, in contrast to the ego, it is concerned with
morality—with whether various actions that could potentially satisfy id impulses are right or
wrong.
The superego permits us to gratify such impulses only when it is morally correct to do so—not
simply when it is safe or feasible, as required by the ego.
So, for example, it would be the superego, not the ego, that would prevent a stockbroker from
altering a computer program and thereby transferring funds from his clients’ accounts into his
own account, even though he knew he could get away with this action. The superego is acquired
from our parents and through experience, and it represents our internalization of the moral
teachings and norms of our society.

22. The Structure of Personality: Id, Ego, and Superego
• Freud believed, based on observations of his patients, that personality itself could be divided
into three parts, each existing at one or more levels of conscious awareness. The way these
three parts of the personality develop and interact with one another became the heart of his
theory.
Id: If It Feels Good, Do It - The first and most primitive part of the personality, present in the
infant, is the id. Id is a Latin word that means “it.” The id is a completely unconscious, pleasure-
seeking, amoral part of the personality that exists at birth, containing all of the basic biological
drives: hunger, thirst, self-preservation, and sex, for example
The id consists of all our primitive, innate urges. These include various bodily needs, sexual
desire, and aggressive impulses. According to Freud, the id is totally unconscious and operates
in accordance with what he termed the pleasure principle: It wants immediate, total
gratification and is not capable of considering the potential costs of seeking this goal.

23. Ego: The Executive Director - According to Freud, to deal with reality, a second part of the
personality develops called the ego. The ego, from the Latin word for “I,” is mostly conscious
and is far more rational, logical, and cunning than the id.
The ego works on the reality principle, which is the need to satisfy the demands of the id only
in ways that will not lead to negative consequences. This means that sometimes the ego decides
to deny the id its desires because the consequences would be painful or too unpleasant.
For example, while an infant might reach out and take an object despite a parent’s protests, a
toddler with the developing ego will avoid taking the object when the parent says, “No!” to
avoid punishment—but may go back for the object when the parent is not looking. A simpler
way of stating the reality principle, then, is “if it feels good, do it, but only if you can get away
with it.”
The ego’s task is to hold the id in check until conditions allow for satisfaction of its impulses.
It takes into account external conditions and the consequences of various actions and directs
behavior so as to maximize pleasure and minimize pain

25. INSTINCTS: LIFE AND DEATH INSTINCTS
• With the publication of his book Beyond the Pleasure Principle in 1920, Freud concluded that
all instincts fall into one of two major classes: life drives or death drives—later dubbed Eros
or Thanatos.
The Life Drive (Eros)
• The life drive deals with basic survival, pleasure, and reproduction. Freud believed it to be
responsible for the instinctual avoidance of thirst, hunger, pain, and libido—the last of which
refers to the energy created by Eros.
• Positive emotions such as love, affection, prosocial actions, and social cooperation are
associated with them, too. These instincts support both individual well-being and a
harmonious, healthy society, both of which are essential for the continuation of the species.

26. The Death Drive (Thanatos)
• Freud first introduced the concept of the death drive in his essay Beyond the Pleasure
Principle. He theorized that humans are driven toward death and destruction, famously
declaring that “the aim of all life is death.”
• Freud believed that people typically channel this death drive outward, which manifests as
aggression toward others.
• People also can direct this drive inward, however, which can result in self-harm or suicide.

27. Anxiety and Defense Mechanisms: Self-Protection by the Ego
• Anxiety: In Freudian theory, unpleasant feelings of tension or worry experienced by individuals in
reaction to unacceptable wishes or impulses
Not all types of anxiety are created equal. Nor do these anxieties stem from the same sources. Freud
identified three types of anxiety:
Moral anxiety: A fear of violating our own moral principles
Neurotic anxiety: The unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id's urges, resulting in
punishment for inappropriate behavior
Reality anxiety: Fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is usually easily identified. For
example, a person might fear a dog bite when they are near a menacing dog. The most common way of
reducing this anxiety is to avoid the threatening object.

28. • Defense Mechanisms: Techniques used by the ego to keep threatening and
unacceptable material out of consciousness and so to reduce anxiety.
• The psychological defense mechanisms are ways of dealing with anxiety through
unconsciously distorting one’s perception of reality. These defense mechanisms
were mainly outlined and studied by Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud, who was a
psychoanalyst.
• In order for the three parts of the personality to function, the constant conflict among
them must be managed, and Freud assumed that the defense mechanisms were one of
the most important tools for dealing with the anxiety caused by this conflict.

30. Psychosexual Stages of Development
• According to Freud, an innate sequence of stages through which all human beings pass.
At each stage, pleasure is focused on a different region of the body.
• Freud believed that personality development occurs in a series of psychosexual stages that are
determined by the developing sexuality of the child. At each stage, a different erogenous
zone, or area of the body that produces pleasurable feelings, becomes important and can
become the source of conflicts.
• Conflicts that are not fully resolved can result in fixation, or getting “stuck” to some degree in
a stage of development. The child may grow into an adult but will still carry emotional and
psychological “baggage” from that earlier fixated stage.
• Libido: According to Freud, the psychic energy that powers all mental activity.
• Fixation: Excessive investment of psychic energy in a particular stage of psychosexual
development; this results in various types of psychological disorders

31. Oral Stage (first 18 months): The first stage is called the oral stage because the erogenous
zone is the mouth. The conflict that can arise here, according to Freud, will be over weaning
(taking the mother’s breast away from the child, who will now drink from a cup).
Weaning that occurs too soon or too late can result in too little or too much satisfaction of the
child’s oral needs, resulting in the activities and personality traits associated with an orally
fixated adult personality: overeating, drinking too much, chain smoking, talking too much, nail
biting, gum chewing, and a tendency to be either too dependent and optimistic (when the oral
needs are overindulged) or too aggressive and pessimistic (when the oral needs are denied).

32. Anal Stage (18 to 36 months): As the child becomes a toddler, Freud believed that the
erogenous zone moves from the mouth to the anus, because he also believed that children got
a great deal of pleasure from both withholding and releasing their feces at will. This stage is,
therefore, called the anal stage.
• Obviously, Freud thought that the main area of conflict here is toilet training, the demand
that the child use the toilet at a particular time and in a particular way. This invasion of reality
is part of the process that stimulates the development of the ego during this stage. Fixation in
the anal stage, from toilet training that is too harsh, can take one of two forms.
• The child who rebels openly will refuse to go in the toilet and, according to Freud, translate in
the adult as an anal expulsive personality, someone who sees messiness as a statement of
personal control and who is somewhat destructive and hostile.
• Some children, however, are terrified of making a mess and rebel passively—refusing to go at
all or retaining the feces. No mess, no punishment. As adults, they are stingy, stubborn, and
excessively neat. This type is called the anal retentive personality

33. Phallic Stage (3 to 6 years): As the child grows older, the erogenous zone shifts to the
genitals. Children have discovered the differences between the sexes by now, and most have
also engaged in perfectly normal self-stimulation of the genitals, or masturbation.
The awakening of sexual curiosity and interest in the genitals is the beginning of what Freud
termed the phallic stage. (The word phallic comes from the Greek word phallos and means
“penis.”)
Freud believed that when boys realized that the little girl down the street had no penis they
developed a fear of losing the penis called castration anxiety, while girls developed penis envy
because they were missing a penis.
Fortunately, nearly all psychoanalysts have long since abandoned the concept of penis envy
(Horney, 1939, 1973; Slipp, 1993). The conflict in the phallic stage centers on the awakening
sexual feelings of the child. Freud essentially believed that boys develop both sexual
attraction to their mothers and jealousy of their fathers during this stage, a phenomenon
called the Oedipus complex.
Girls go through a similar process called the Electra complex with their father as the target of
their affections and their mother as the rival.

34. Latency Stage (6 years to puberty): Remember that by the end of the phallic stage, children
have pushed their sexual feelings for the opposite sex into the unconscious in another defensive
reaction, repression.
From age 6 to the onset of puberty, children will remain in this stage of hidden, or latent, sexual
feelings, so this stage is called latency. In this stage, children grow and develop intellectually,
physically, and socially but not sexually. This is the age at which boys play only with boys,
girls play only with girls, and each thinks the opposite sex is pretty awful.
Genital Stage (puberty on): When puberty does begin, the sexual feelings that were once
repressed can no longer be ignored. Bodies are changing and sexual urges are once more
allowed into consciousness, but these urges will no longer have the parents as their targets.
Instead, the focus of sexual curiosity and attraction will become other adolescents, celebrities,
and other objects of adoration. Since Freud tied personality development into sexual
development, the genital stage represented the final process in Freud’s personality theory, as
well as the entry into adult social and sexual behavior.

36. CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEO FREUDIANS IN BRIEF…
Neo-Freudians: Personality theorists who accepted basic portions of Freud’s theory but rejected
or modified other portions.

37. CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEO FREUDIAN’S: CARL JUNG
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Carl Gustav Jung (“YOONG”) disagreed with Freud about the nature of the unconscious mind. Jung believed
that the unconscious held much more than personal fears, urges, and memories. He believed that there was not
only a personal unconscious, as described by Freud, but a collective unconscious as well ( Jung, 1933).
• In Jung’s view, the total personality, or psyche, is composed of several distinct systems or structures that can
influence one another. The major systems are the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective
unconscious.
• The Ego: The ego is the center of consciousness, the part of the psyche concerned with perceiving,
thinking, feeling, and remembering. It is our awareness of ourselves and is responsible for carrying out the
normal activities of waking life. The ego acts in a selective way, admitting into conscious awareness only a
portion of the stimuli to which we are exposed.
• Personal Unconscious: The reservoir of material that was once conscious but has been forgotten or
suppressed.
• Complex :To Jung, a core or pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes in the personal
unconscious organized around a common theme, such as power or status

38. • According to Jung, the collective unconscious holds experiences shared by all human
beings—experiences that are, in a sense, part of our biological heritage. The contents of
the collective unconscious, in short, reflect the experiences our species has had since it
originated on earth.
• The collective unconscious finds expression in our minds in several ways, but among these,
archetypes are the most central to Jung’s theory. These are manifestations of the collective
unconscious that express themselves when our conscious mind is distracted or inactive;
for example, during sleep or in dreams or fantasies

39. • The specific expression of archetypes depends in part on our unique experiences as
individuals, but in all cases such images are representations of key aspects of the human
experience—mother, father, wise old man, the sun, the moon, God, death, and the hero.
It is because of these shared innate images, Jung contended, that the folklores of many
different cultures contain similar figures and themes.
• 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 (the mask)
• Finally, there is the self which provides a sense of unity in experience. For Jung, the ultimate
aim of every individual is to achieve a state of selfhood (similar to self-actualisation), and in
this respect, Jung (like Erikson) is moving in the direction of a more humanist orientation.

40. THE ATTITUDES: EXTRAVERSION & INTROVERSION
• Another aspect of Jung’s theory was his suggestion that we are all born with innate tendencies to be
concerned primarily either with ourselves or with the outside world.
• Extraversion : An attitude of the psyche characterized by an orientation toward the external world and
other people.
• Introversion: An attitude of the psyche characterized by an orientation toward one’s own thoughts and
feelings.
• Jung labeled persons in the first category introverts and described them as being hesitant and cautious;
introverts do not make friends easily and prefer to observe the world rather than become involved in it.
• Jung labeled persons in the second category extroverts. Such persons are open and confident, make
friends readily, and enjoy high levels of stimulation and a wide range of activities.
• According to Jung, everyone has the capacity for both attitudes, but only one becomes dominant in the
personality. The dominant attitude then tends to direct the person’s behavior and consciousness. The
non-dominant attitude remains influential, however, and becomes part of the personal unconscious,
where it can affect behavior.
• For example, in certain situations an introverted person may display characteristics of extraversion,
wish to be more outgoing, or be attracted to an extravert.

41. PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS
• As Jung came to recognize that there were different kinds of extraverts and introverts, he
proposed additional distinctions among people based on what he called the psychological
functions.
• These functions refer to different and opposing ways of perceiving or apprehending
both the external real world and our subjective inner world. Jung posited four functions
of the psyche: sensing, intuiting, thinking, and feeling (Jung, 1927).
• Sensing and intuiting are grouped together as non-rational functions; they do not use the
processes of reason. These functions accept experiences and do not evaluate them. Sensing
reproduces an experience through the senses the way a photograph copies an object.
• Intuiting does not arise directly from an external stimulus; for example, if we believe
someone else is with us in a darkened room, our belief may be based on our intuition or a
hunch rather than on actual sensory experience.

42. • The second pair of opposing functions, thinking and feeling, are rational functions that
involve making judgments and evaluations about our experiences. Although thinking and
feeling are opposites, both are concerned with organizing and categorizing experiences.
• The thinking function involves a conscious judgment of whether an experience is true or
false. The kind of evaluation made by the feeling function is expressed in terms of like or
dislike, pleasantness or unpleasantness, stimulation or dullness.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES
To Jung, eight personality types based on interactions of the attitudes (introversion and
extraversion) and the functions (thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting).

43. CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEO FREUDIAN’S: ERICH FROMM
HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS
• Erich Fromm was a Neo-Freudian psychoanalyst who suggested a theory of personality based
on two primary needs: the need for freedom and the need for belonging.
• He suggested that people develop certain personality styles or strategies in order to deal with
the anxiety created by feelings of isolation. Of these character types, he suggested that four
of them are unproductive orientations, while one is a productive orientation.
• Fromm believed that character is something that stems both from our genetic inheritance and
from our learning experiences. Some aspects of our character are hereditary.

44. • Fromm also believed that character is something deeply ingrained and difficult to
change. However, being aware of our tendencies and being committed to change can
help inspire change.
• The different traits that emerge from each of the five character types have both
positive and negative aspects. However, Fromm generally viewed the first four
orientations as unproductive.
• Fromm also believed that people could exhibit the characteristics of more than one
type and that personalities can be made up of a combination of different orientations.

45. The Receptive Character Type
• The receptive type is characterized by a need for constant support from
others. They tend to be passive, needy, and totally dependent upon others.
These people require constant support from family, friends, and others, but
they do not reciprocate this support.
• Receptive types also tend to lack confidence in their own abilities and have a
difficult time making their own decisions. Individuals who grow up in
households that are overbearing and controlling often tend to have this
personality orientation.

46. The Exploitative Character Type
• The exploitative type is willing to lie, cheat, and manipulate others in order to
get what they need. In order to fulfill their need to belong, they might seek out
people who have low self-esteem or lie about loving someone they really
don't care about.
• These types take what they need either through force or deception and exploit
other people to meet their own selfish needs.
The Hoarding Character Type
• The hoarding type copes with insecurity by never parting with anything.
• They often collect a massive amount of possessions and often seem to care
more about their material possessions than they do about people.

47. The Marketing Character Type
• The marketing type looks at relationships in terms of what they can gain from the
exchange. They might focus on marrying someone for money or social status and
tend to have shallow and anxious personalities.
• These types tend to be opportunistic and change their beliefs and values depending
on what they think will get them ahead.
The Productive Character Type
• The productive type is a person who takes their negative feelings and channels the
energy into productive work. They focus on building loving, nurturing, and
meaningful relationships with other people.
• This applies not only to romantic relationships, but also to other familial
relationships, friendships, and social relationships. They are often described as a
good spouse, parent, friend, co-worker, and employee.

49. CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEO FREUDIAN’S: ERIK ERIKSON
PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
• Erik Erikson (1902–1994) recognized Freud’s contributions but believed that Freud
misjudged some important dimensions of human development.
• For one thing, Erikson (1950, 1968) said we develop in psychosocial stages, rather than in
psychosexual stages, as Freud maintained.
• According to Freud, the primary motivation for human behavior is sexual in nature;
according to Erikson, it is social and reflects a desire to affiliate with other people.
• According to Freud, our basic personality is shaped in the first five years of life; according to
Erikson, developmental change occurs throughout the life span.
• Thus, in terms of the early-versus-later-experience issue, Freud viewed early experience as
far more important than later experiences, whereas Erikson emphasized the importance of
both early and later experiences.

50. • Erikson maintained that personality develops in a predetermined order through eight stages of
psychosocial development, from infancy to adulthood. During each stage, the person
experiences a psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative outcome for
personality development
• According to the theory, successful completion of each stage results in a healthy personality
and the acquisition of basic virtues. Basic virtues are characteristic strengths which the ego
can use to resolve subsequent crises.
• Failure to successfully complete a stage can result in a reduced ability to complete further
stages and therefore a more unhealthy personality and sense of self. These stages, however,
can be resolved successfully at a later time

51. • Trust versus mistrust is Erikson’s first psychosocial stage, which is experienced in the first
year of life. Trust in infancy sets the stage for a lifelong expectation that the world will be a
good and pleasant place to live.
• Autonomy versus shame and doubt is Erikson’s second stage. This stage occurs in late
infancy and toddlerhood (1 to 3 years). After gaining trust in their caregivers, infants begin to
discover that their behavior is their own. They start to assert their sense of independence or
autonomy. They realize their will. If infants and toddlers are restrained too much or punished
too harshly, they are likely to develop a sense of shame and doubt.
• Initiative versus guilt, Erikson’s third stage of development, occurs during the preschool
years. As preschool children encounter a widening social world, they face new challenges that
require active, purposeful, responsible behavior. Feelings of guilt may arise, though, if the
child is irresponsible and is made to feel too anxious.

52. • Industry versus inferiority is Erikson’s fourth developmental stage, occurring
approximately in the elementary school years. Children now need to direct their energy
toward mastering knowledge and intellectual skills. The negative outcome is that the child
may develop a sense of inferiority—feeling incompetent and unproductive.
During the adolescent years, individuals face finding out who they are, what they are all about,
and where they are going in life. This is Erikson’s fifth developmental stage;
• Identity versus identity confusion. If adolescents explore roles in a healthy manner and
arrive at a positive path to follow in life, then they achieve a positive identity; if not, then
identity confusion reigns.
• Intimacy versus isolation is Erikson’s sixth developmental stage, which individuals
experience during the early adulthood years. At this time, individuals face the developmental
task of forming intimate relationships. If young adults form healthy friendships and an
intimate relationship with another, intimacy will be achieved; if not, isolation will result.

53. • Generativity versus stagnation, Erikson’s seventh developmental stage occurs during
middle adulthood. By generativity Erikson means primarily a concern for helping the younger
generation to develop and lead useful lives. The feeling of having done nothing to help the
next generation is stagnation.
• Integrity versus despair is Erikson’s eighth and final stage of development, which
individuals experience in late adulthood. During this stage, a person reflects on the past. If the
person’s life review reveals a life well spent, integrity will be achieved; if not, the
retrospective glances likely will yield doubt or gloom—the despair Erikson described.

55. CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEO FREUDIAN’S: KAREN HORNEY
• Karen Horney (1885 - 1952) was a German psychoanalyst who radically countered the views
of the Freudian school. Her views on neurosis, feminist psychology, and the self continue to
influence the fields of cultural psychology, interpersonal psychotherapy, and humanistic
psychology.
• Karen Horney was one of the first women trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst.
• Karen Horney pointed out that the male-centricity of Freudian psychoanalysis derived from
the fact that it was largely developed by men.
• She overturned and reversed the idea of penis envy, stating that it could be overcome by
women through their identification with their mothers, and indeed that men could have
"womb envy" as a result of women's capacity to bear life.

56. • Horney agreed with Freud, in principle, about the importance of the early years of childhood
in shaping the adult personality. However, they differed on the specifics of how personality is
formed.
• Horney believed that social forces in childhood, not biological forces, influence personality
development. There are neither universal developmental stages nor inevitable childhood
conflicts. Instead, the social relationship between the child and his or her parents is the key
factor.
• Horney thought childhood was dominated by the safety need, by which she meant the need
for security and freedom from fear (Horney, 1937).
• Whether the infant experiences a feeling of security and an absence of fear is decisive in
determining the normality of his or her personality development.
• A child’s security depends entirely on how the parents treat the child. The major way parents
weaken or prevent security is by displaying a lack of warmth and affection for the child.
• The state of helplessness in infancy can lead to neurotic behavior.

57. • BASIC ANXIETY: A pervasive feeling of loneliness and helplessness; the foundation of
neurosis.
• NEUROTIC NEEDS: Ten irrational defenses against anxiety that become a permanent part
of personality and that affect behavior.
• 1. Affection and approval
• 2. A dominant partner
• 3. Power
• 4. Exploitation
• 5. Prestige
• 6. Admiration
• 7. Achievement or ambition
• 8. Self-sufficiency
• 9. Perfection
• 10. Narrow limits to life

58. • Horney noted that we all manifest these needs to some degree. For example, at one time or
another, everyone seeks affection or pursues achievement. None of the needs is abnormal or
neurotic in an everyday, transient sense.
• What makes them neurotic is the person’s intensive and compulsive pursuit of their
satisfaction as the only way to resolve basic anxiety.
• Satisfying these needs will not help us feel safe and secure but will aid only in our desire to
escape the discomfort caused by our anxiety. Also, when we pursue gratification of these
needs solely to cope with anxiety, we tend to focus on only one need and compulsively seek
its satisfaction in all situations.
• In her later writings, she reformulated the list of needs (Horney, 1945). From her work with
patients, she concluded that the needs could be presented in three groups, each indicating a
person’s attitudes toward the self and others. She called these three categories of directional
movement the neurotic trends.
• NEUROTIC TRENDS: Three categories of behaviors and attitudes toward oneself and
others that express a person’s needs; Horney’s revision of the concept of neurotic needs.

60. The compliant personality displays attitudes and behaviors that reflect a desire to move toward other
people: an intense and continuous need for affection and approval, an urge to be loved, wanted, and
protected.
• Compliant personalities display these needs toward everyone, although they usually have a need for one
dominant person, such as a friend or spouse, who will take charge of their lives and offer protection and
guidance.
• Compliant personalities manipulate other people, particularly their partners, to achieve their goals. They
often behave in ways others find attractive or endearing. For example, they may seem unusually
considerate, appreciative, responsive, understanding, and sensitive to the needs of others.
• Compliant people are concerned with living up to others’ ideals and expectations, and they act in ways
others perceive as unselfish and generous. In dealing with other people, compliant personalities are
conciliatory and subordinate their personal desires to those of other people.
• They are willing to assume blame and to defer to others, never being assertive, critical, or demanding.
They do whatever the situation requires, as they interpret it, to gain affection, approval, and love. Their
attitude toward themselves is consistently one of helplessness and weakness.
• Horney suggested that compliant people are saying, “Look at me. I am so weak and helpless that you
must protect and love me.” Consequently, they regard other people as superior, and even in situations
in which they are notably competent, they see themselves as inferior.

61. Aggressive personalities move against other people. In their world, everyone is hostile; only the
fittest and most cunning survive. Life is a jungle in which supremacy, strength, and ferocity are
the paramount virtues. Although their motivation is the same as that of the compliant type, to
alleviate basic anxiety, aggressive personalities never display fear of rejection.
• They act tough and domineering and have no regard for others. To achieve the control
and superiority so vital to their lives, they must consistently perform at a high level.
• By excelling and receiving recognition, they find satisfaction in having their superiority
affirmed by others. Because aggressive personalities are driven to surpass others, they judge
everyone in terms of the benefit they will receive from the relationship.
• They make no effort to appease others but will argue, criticize, demand, and do whatever is
necessary to achieve and retain superiority and power. They drive themselves hard to become
the best; therefore, they may actually be highly successful in their careers, although the work
itself will not provide intrinsic satisfaction.
• Like everything else in life, work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Aggressive
personalities may appear confident of their abilities and uninhibited in asserting and
defending themselves.

62. People described as Detached personalities are driven to move away from other people and to maintain an
emotional distance. They must not love, hate, or cooperate with others or become involved in any way.
• To achieve this total detachment, they strive to become self-sufficient. If they are to function as
detached personalities, they must rely on their own resources, which must be well developed.
• Detached personalities have an almost desperate desire for privacy. They need to spend as much time as
possible alone, and it disturbs them to share even such an experience as listening to music.
• Their need for independence makes them sensitive to any attempt to influence, coerce, or obligate them.
Detached personalities must avoid all constraints, including timetables and schedules, long-term
commitments such as marriages or mortgages, and sometimes even the pressure of a belt or necktie.
• They need to feel superior, but not in the same way aggressive personalities do. Because detached
people cannot actively compete with other people for superiority—that would mean becoming involved
with others—they believe their greatness should be recognized automatically, without struggle or effort
on their part.
• One manifestation of this sense of superiority is the feeling that one is unique, that one is different and
apart from everyone else.

63. CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEO FREUDIAN’S: ALFRED ADLER
INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Alfred Adler was also in disagreement with Freud over the importance of sexuality in
personality development. Adler (1954) developed the theory that as young, helpless children,
people all develop feelings of inferiority when comparing themselves to the more powerful,
superior adults in their world.
• The driving force behind all human endeavors, emotions, and thoughts for Adler was not the
seeking of pleasure but the seeking of superiority.
• The defense mechanism of compensation, in which people try to overcome feelings of
inferiority in one area of life by striving to be superior in another area, figured prominently in
Adler’s theory
• Inferiority feelings: The normal condition of all people; the source of all human striving.
• Compensation: A motivation to overcome inferiority, to strive for higher levels of
development.

64. • Inferiority complex: A condition that develops when a person is unable to compensate for normal
inferiority feelings.
• Superiority complex: A condition that develops when a person overcompensates for normal
inferiority feelings.
• Striving for Superiority The urge toward perfection or completion that motivates each of us
• Style of Life: A unique character structure or pattern of personal behaviors and characteristics by which
each of us strives for perfection. Basic styles of life include the dominant, getting, avoiding, and
socially useful types
Adler described several universal problems and grouped them in three categories:
1. Problems involving our behavior toward others
2. Problems of occupation
3. Problems of love
He proposed four basic styles of life for dealing with these problems:
1. The dominant type
2. The getting type
3. The avoiding type
4. The socially useful type

65. • The first type displays a dominant or ruling attitude with little social awareness. Such a person
behaves without regard for others. The more extreme of this type attack others and become sadists,
delinquents, or sociopaths. The less virulent become alcoholics, drug addicts, or suicides; they believe
they hurt others by attacking themselves.
• The getting type (to Adler, the most common human type) expects to receive satisfaction from other
people and so becomes dependent on them.
• The avoiding type makes no attempt to face life’s problems. By avoiding difficulties, the person avoids
any possibility of failure.
• These three types are not prepared to cope with the problems of everyday life. They are unable to
cooperate with other people and the clash between their style of life and the real world results in
abnormal behavior, which is manifested in neuroses and psychoses. They lack what Adler came to call
social interest.
• The socially useful type cooperates with others and acts in accordance with their needs. Such persons
cope with problems within a well-developed framework of social interest.
• Adler was generally opposed to rigidly classifying or typing people in this way, stating that he proposed
these four styles of life solely for teaching purposes. He cautioned therapists to avoid the mistake of
assigning people to mutually exclusive categories

67. • Adler (1954) also developed a theory that the birth order of a child affected personality.
• Firstborn children with younger siblings feel inferior once those younger siblings get all the attention
and often overcompensate by becoming overachievers.
• Middle children have it slightly easier, getting to feel superior over the dethroned older child while
dominating younger siblings. They tend to be very competitive.
• Younger children are supposedly pampered and protected but feel inferior because they are not allowed
the freedom and responsibility of the older children.

68. HUMANISTIC THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
THE THIRD FORCE: HUMANISM AND PERSONALITY
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.

69. CARL ROGERS AND SELF-CONCEPT
• Both Maslow and Rogers (1961) believed that human beings are always striving to fulfill their innate
capacities and capabilities and to become everything that their genetic potential will allow them to
become. This striving for fulfillment is called the self-actualizing tendency.
• An important tool in human self-actualization is the development of an image of oneself, or the self-
concept. The self concept is based on what people are told by others and how the sense of self is
reflected in the words and actions of important people in one’s life, such as parents, siblings,
coworkers, friends, and teachers.
Real and Ideal Self
• Two important components of the self-concept are the real self (one’s actual perception of
characteristics, traits, and abilities that form the basis of the striving for self-actualization) and the
ideal self (the perception of what one should be or would like to be). The ideal self primarily comes
from important, significant others in a person’s life, especially our parents when we are children.
• Rogers believed that when the real self and the ideal self are very close or similar to each other, people feel
competent and capable, but when there is a mismatch between the real self and ideal self, anxiety and
neurotic behavior can be the result.

70. • The two halves of the self are more likely to
match if they aren’t that far apart at the start.
• When a person has a realistic view of the real
self, and the ideal self is something that is
actually attainable, there usually isn’t a problem
of a mismatch.
• It is when a person’s view of self is distorted or
the ideal self is impossible to attain that
problems arise.
• Once again, how the important people (who can
be either good or bad influences) in a person’s
life react to the person can greatly impact the
degree of agreement, or congruence, between
real and ideal selves.
• However, as an individual develops, they look
less to others for approval and disapproval, and
more within themselves to decide if they are
living in a way that is satisfying to them

71. Conditional and Unconditional Positive Regard
• 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.
• For Rogers, a person who is in the process of self-actualizing, actively exploring potentials
and abilities and experiencing a match between the real self and ideal self, is a fully
functioning person.
• Fully functioning people are in touch with their own feelings and abilities and are able to trust
their innermost urges and intuitions (Rogers, 1961). To become fully functioning, a person
needs unconditional positive regard.

72. FIELD OF EXPERIENCE
• Rogers believed that each of us lives in a constantly changing private world, which he called
the experiential field. Everyone exists at the center of their own experiential field, and that
field can only be fully understood from the perspective of the individual. This concept has a
number of important implications.
• The individual’s behavior must be understood as a reaction to their experience and
perception of the field. They react to it as an organized whole, and it is their reality. The
problem this presents for the therapist is that only the individual can really understand their
experiential field.
• This is quite different than the Freudian perspective, in which only the trained and objective
psychoanalyst can break through the defense mechanisms and understand the basis of the
patient’s unconscious impulses.
• One’s perception of the experiential field is limited, however. Rogers believed that certain
impulses, or sensations, can only enter into the conscious field of experience under certain
circumstances. Thus, the experiential field is not a true reality, but rather an individual’s
potential reality

73. • The ability of individuals to make the choices necessary for actualizing their self-structure
and to then fulfill those choices is what Rogers called Personal Power (Rogers, 1977).
• He believed there are many self-actualized individuals revolutionizing the world by trusting their
own power without feeling a need to have “power over” others. They are also willing to foster the
latent actualizing tendency in others.
• We can easily see the influence of Alfred Adler here, both in terms of the creative power of the
individual and seeking superiority within a healthy context of social interest.
• Client-centered therapy was based on making the context of personal power a clear strategy in
the therapeutic relationship.

75. • Another influential humanistic theory of personality was proposed by Abraham Maslow
(1970). As you may recall, this concept suggests that human needs exist in a hierarchy
ranging from physiological needs on the bottom through self-actualization needs at the
top.
• According to Maslow, lower-order needs must be satisfied before we can turn to more
complex, higher-order needs (Neher, 1991). The needs hierarchy, however, is only part of
Maslow’s theory of personality. Maslow has also devoted much attention to the study of
people who, in his terms, are psychologically healthy.
• These are individuals who have attained high levels of self-actualization—a state in
which people reach their fullest true potential.
• What are such persons like? In essence, much like the fully functioning persons described by
Rogers. Self-actualized people accept themselves for what they are; they recognize their
shortcomings as well as their strengths.
• Being in touch with their own personalities, they are less inhibited and less likely to conform
than most of us. Self-actualized people are well aware of the rules imposed by society, but
feel greater freedom to ignore them than most persons. Unlike most of us, they seem to retain
their childhood wonder and amazement with the world.

76. • For them, life continues to be an exciting adventure rather than a boring routine. Finally, self-
actualized persons sometimes have what Maslow describes as peak experiences— instances
in which they have powerful feelings of unity with the universe and feel tremendous
waves of power and wonder.
• Such experiences appear to be linked to personal growth, for after them, people report feeling
more spontaneous, more appreciative of life, and less concerned with the problems of
everyday life. Examples of people Maslow describes as fully self-actualized are Thomas
Jefferson, Albert Einstein, and Eleanor Roosevelt.