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• Personality


  Pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior
• Traits


  • Contribute to individual differences in behavior, consistency of behavior over time, and stability of behavior across situations
• Characteristics


  • Unique qualities of an individual that include such attributes as temperament, physique, and intelligence
• Theory


  Set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
• Philosophy


  Theory is related to philosophy, but it is a much narrower term. Theory relates most closely to the branch of philosophy called epistemology, or the nature of knowledge. Philosophy deals with what ought to be or what should be; theory does not. Theory deals with broad sets of if-then statements.
• Speculation


  Theories rely on speculation, but they are much more than mere armchair speculation. They are closely tied to empirically gathered data and to science.
• Hypothesis


  An educated guess or prediction specific enough for its validity to be tested through the use of the scientific method. Theory is a broader term than hypothesis but hypothesis is more specific than the theories that give them birth. A good theory is capable of generating many hypotheses.
• Taxonomy


  A classification of things according to their natural relationships. It is essential to the development of a science because without classification of data science could not grow. Taxonomies can evolve into theories when they begin to generate testable hypotheses and to explain research findings.
• Alternate theories exist because the very nature of a theory allows the theorist to make speculations from a particular point of view. Theorists must be as objective as possible when gathering data, but how these data are interpreted are personal ones. Theories are not immutable laws; they are built, not on proven facts. All theories are a reflection of their authors' personal backgrounds, childhood experiences, philosophy of life, interpersonal relationships, and unique manner of looking at the world.
• Perspectives in theories of personality

  • Psychodynamic theory
  • Humanistic-existential theory
  • Dispositional theory
  • Biological-evolutionary theory
  • Learning-(social) cognitive theory
• Psychodynamic theory


  • Importance of early childhood experience and relationships with parents as guiding forces that shape personality development
  • Unconscious mind and motives as much more powerful than the conscious awareness
  • Used dream interpretation to uncover the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and impulses as a main form of treatment of neurosis and mental illness
• Humanistic-existential theory


  • Primary approach is that people strive toward meaning, growth, well-being, happiness, and psychological health
  • Positive emotion and happiness foster psychological health and pro-social behavior
  • Assumes that not only are we driven by a search for meaning, but also that negative experiences such as failure, awareness of death, death of a loved one, and anxiety, are part of the human condition and can foster psychological growth
• Dispositional theory


  • Unique and long-term tendencies to behave in particular ways are the essence of our personality
  • These unique dispositions, such as extraversion or anxiety, are called traits
  • Converged on the understanding that there are five main trait dimensions in human personality
• Biological-evolutionary theory


  • What we think, feel, and do is always an interaction between nature (biological) and nurture (environment)
  • Personality have been shaped by forces of evolution
  • Behavior, thought, feelings, and personality are influenced by differences in basic genetic, epigenetic, and neurological systems between individuals
• Learning-(social) cognitive theory


  • Only on behavior, not on hypothetical and unobservable internal states such as thoughts, feelings, drives, or motives
  • All behaviors are learned through association and/or its consequences
  • Personality is shaped by how we think and perceive the world
• Dimensions for concept of humanity

  • Determinism versus free choice
  • Pessimism versus optimism
  • Causality versus teleology
  • Conscious versus unconscious
  • Biological versus social influences on personality
  • Uniqueness versus similarities
• Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis. He was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg Moravia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. Freud was the first-born child of Jacob and Amalie Nathanson Freud. He entered the University of Vienna Medical School and later abandoned his once-treasured seduction theory. Freud was suffering from self-doubts, depression, and obsession with his own death. In 1896, he came up with the psychoanalytic theory.
• Conscious


  Those mental elements in awareness at any given point in time
• Preconscious


  Level of the mind that contains all those elements that are not conscious but can become conscious
• Unconscious


  Contains all those drivers, urges, or instincts that are beyond our awareness and motivate most of our words, feelings and actions
• Id


  • Pleasure principle
  • Present at birth
  • Core of personality and completely unconscious
  • Sole function is to seek pleasure
  • Has no morality
• Life instinct


  • Helps the individual to survive through respiration, eating and sex
• Death instinct


  • Viewed as a set of destructive forces in all humans that can be expressed as an act of violence or regression
• Ego


  • Develops around 2-3 years old
  • Reality principle
  • In contact with reality
  • The decision-making or the executive branch of personality
  • Partly conscious, partly preconscious, and partly unconscious
• Superego


  • Develops around age 5
  • Moralistic and Idealistic principle
  • Guilt is the result when the ego acts or even intends to act contrary to the moral standards of the superego
• Conscience


  • Results from experiences with punishments for improper behavior and tells us what we should not do
• Ego-ideal


  • Develops from experiences with rewards for proper behavior and tells us what we should do
• Drives


  Refers to a drive or a stimulus within the person that operates as a constant motivational force. Every basic drive is characterized by a source, aim, and object.
• Libido


  Sex drive. Freud believed that the entire body is invested with libido and that sex can take many forms such as narcissism, love, sadism and masochism.
• Narcissism


  Primary narcissism is the self-centered condition that is universal in infants. Secondary narcissism is self-love that occurs later in life when the libido is withdrawn from objects and centered on the self.
• Love


  Develops when people invest their libido on an object or person other than themselves. Children's first sexual interest is the person who cares for them, generally the mother.
• Sadism


  The need for sexual pleasure by inflicting pain or humiliation on another person
• Masochism


  Experiences sexual pleasure from suffering pain and humiliation inflicted either by themselves or by others
• Aggression


  The aim of the drive is to return the organism to an inorganic state, with the ultimate inorganic situation being death.
• Forms of sex


  • Narcissism
  • Love
  • Sadism
  • Masochism
• Primary narcissism


  Infants are primarily self-centered, with their libido invested almost exclusively on their own ego
• Secondary narcissism


  Self-love that occurs later in life and occurs when the libido is withdrawn from objects and centered on the self
• Love


  Develops when people invest their libido on an object or person other than themselves
• Children's first sexual interest


  The person who cares for them, generally the mother
• Aggression


  Aim of the drive is to return the organism to an inorganic state, with the ultimate aim being self-destruction