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• Personality


  A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics
• Traits


  Individual differences in behavior
• Characteristics


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


  A set of related assumptions
• Logical deductive reasoning


  Used by researchers to formulate hypotheses
• Theory and its relatives

  • Philosophy
  • Epistemology
  • Speculation
  • Hypothesis
  • Taxonomy
• Hypothesis


  An educated guess or prediction
• Hypothesis


  • "If I eat more vegetables, then I will lose weight faster"
• Perspectives in Theories of Personality

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


  • Nail-biting may be caused by an anxiety inducing childhood event
• Humanistic-existential theories


  • When our classmate feels worried about his/her life and we encourage him/her to do some soul-searching and determine what is missing like a hobby or a romantic relationship or pursue his/her dreams to find happiness
• Dispositional theories


  • Jennie has been my best friend since elementary, and now we are in college, she has always been cheerful and friendly since we were kids
• Learning (social) cognitive theories

  • You asked your younger brother why he says bad words on his Facebook page, and he replied "because I saw a movie of my favorite action hero and said it was cool"
• What makes a theory useful?

  • Generates research
  • Is falsifiable
  • Organizes data
  • Guides action
  • Is internally consistent
  • Is parsimonious
• Neurochemicals


  The foundation for thought and behavior is biological and genetic forces
• Freud


  Father of Psychoanalysis
• Structures of the mind

  • Unconscious
  • Preconscious
  • Conscious
• Unconscious


  Contains unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. Its existence can only be proved indirectly through dreams, slips of the tongue, and repression. Repression is triggered because childhood experiences are often punished or suppressed. Phylogenetic endowment is inherited unconscious images from our ancestors.
• Preconscious


  Contains all those elements that are not conscious but can become conscious with some difficulty. Conscious perception: images that are largely free from anxiety can be easily retrieved from the preconscious. Unconscious: ideas can slip past the first sensor and enter the preconscious.
• Conscious


  Contains all the thoughts, memories, feelings, and wishes of which we are aware at any given moment
• Province of the mind

  • Id
  • Superego
  • Ego
• Id


  The most basic, primal part of our personalities and DOES NOT CONSIDER things such as social appropriateness, morality, or even the reality of fulfilling our wants and needs. (pleasure)
• Superego


  The aspect or structure of one's personality that is most responsible for feelings of guilt or blame. (moralistic and idealistic)
• Ego


  According to Freud, this aspect of personality balances one's sexual urges, aggressive drives, and physical needs with one's sense of right and wrong. (reality)
• Drives


  • Eros or sex
  • Thanatos or aggression
• Characteristics of drives


  • Impetus - the amount of force it exerts
  • Source - the region of the body in a state of excitation or tension
  • Aim - to seek pleasure by removing that excitation or reducing the tension
  • Object - the person/thing that serves as the means through which the aim is satisfied
• Sex


  The aim of sexual drive is pleasure (reduction of sexual tension), but this pleasure is not limited to genital satisfaction
• Narcissism


  Primary Narcissism - Infants are primarily self-centered, with their libido invested almost exclusively on their own ego. Secondary Narcissism - Adolescents redirect their libido back to their ego and become preoccupied with self-appearance and other self-interests.
• Love


  Develops when people invest their libido on an object or person other than themselves
• Sadism


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


  Experience sexual pleasure from suffering pain and humiliation inflicted either by themselves or by others
• Defense mechanisms

  • Denial
  • Repression
  • Reaction formation
  • Displacement
  • Projection
  • Introjection
  • Regression
  • Sublimation
• Denial


  Entails refusing to acknowledge an unpleasant reality or fact of life
• Repression


  Whenever the ego is threatened by undesirable id impulses, it protects itself by repressing those impulses it forces threatening impulses into the unconscious
• Reaction formation

  A repressed impulse may become conscious by adopting a disguise that is directly opposite its original form
• Displacement


  Direct their unacceptable urges into a variety of people or objects so that the original impulse is disguised or concealed
• Projection


  Attributing an internal impulse to an external object, usually another person
• Introjection


  Incorporating positive qualities of another person into their own ego. (oedipus complex)
• Regression


  Reverting back to earlier stages of development. Common in children and adults
• Sublimation


  Redirects energy from an unacceptable impulse or emotion into a more socially acceptable