Midterm_Theories of Personality

• Personality


  A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give consistency and individuality to human behavior
• Theory


  A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
• Theory


  Narrower than Philosophy, relates to Epistemology, broader than Hypothesis, not the same as Speculation or Taxonomy
• Psychologists and other scientists have developed a variety of personality theories because they have differed in their opinions, philosophical orientation, and the data they chose to observe
• Personality theories evolve from a theorist's personality, psychologists interested in the psychology of science have begun to study the personal traits of leading personality theorists and possibly impact their scientific theories and research
• What makes a theory worthwhile

  • Generates research, both descriptive and hypothesis testing
  • Falsifiable: must generate research that can either confirm or disconfirm central tenets
  • Organizes and explains data into some intelligible framework
  • Guides actions: provides the practitioner with a road map for making day-to-day decisions
  • Internally consistent and relies on operational definitions that define concepts in terms of specific operations
  • Economical, or simple
• Dimensions for a concept of humanity

  • Determinism vs. free choice
  • Pessimism vs. optimism
  • Causality vs. teleology
  • Conscious vs. unconscious determinants of behavior
  • Biological vs. social influence on personality
  • Uniqueness vs. similarities among people
• Reliability


  A measuring instrument's consistency, including test-retest reliability and internal consistency
• Validity


  The accuracy or truthfulness of a test, including predictive and construct validity
• Unconscious


  Includes drives and instincts beyond awareness, motivating most human behavior
• Preconscious


  Contains images that are not aware in awareness, but that can become conscious either easily or with some difficulty
• Conscious


  Plays a relatively minor role in Freudian theory, stems from either the perception of external stimuli or from the unconscious and preconscious after terms have evaded censorship
• Id


  Entirely unconscious and serves the pleasure principle, contains our basic instincts, operates through the primary process
• Ego


  Governed by the reality principle and responsible for reconciling the unrealistic demands of the id and the superego
• Superego


  Serves the idealistic principle, has two subsystems - the conscience and the ego-ideal
• Instincts


  Freud grouped all human drives or urges under two primary instincts - Sex (eros or life instinct) and Aggression (the death or destructive instinct)
• Anxiety


  A felt, affective, unpleasant state accompanied by a physical sensation that warns the person against impending danger
• Types of Anxiety


  • Neurotic Anxiety (fear of punishment)
  • Moral Anxiety (similar to guilt)
  • Realistic Anxiety (similar to fear)
• Defense Mechanisms

  • Repression
  • Reaction formation
  • Sublimation
  • Displacement
  • Fixation
  • Regression
  • Projection
  • Introjection
• Stages of Psychosexual Development


  1. Oral phase

  2. Anal phase

  3. Phallic phase

  4. Latency period

  5. Genital period

  6. Maturity
• Freud erected his theory on the dreams, free associations, slips of the tongue, and neurotic symptoms of his patients during therapy, but he also gathered information from history, literature, and works of art
• Freud's Early Therapeutic Technique


  Strongly suggested to patients that they had been sexually seduced as children
• Freud's Later Therapeutic Technique


  1. Relied heavily on free association, dream interpretation, and transference

  2. Goal was to uncover repressed memories
• Patients' resistance to change can be seen as progress because it indicates that therapy has advanced beyond superficial conversation
• Freud believed that parapraxes, or so-called Freudian slips, are not chance accidents but reveal a person's true but unconscious intentions
• Dream Analysis

  Interpreting dreams, differentiating the manifest content (conscious) from the latent content (unconscious)
• Freud's Later Therapeutic Technique

  Beginning in the late 1890s, Freud adopted a much more passive type of psychotherapy, one that relied heavily on Free association, dream interpretation, and transference
• Goal of Freud's later psychotherapy

  To uncover repressed memories, and the therapist used dream analysis and free association to do so
• Free association


  Patients must say whatever comes to mind, whether irrelevant or distasteful
• Transference


  Successful therapy rests on the patient's transference of childhood sexual or aggressive feelings onto the therapist and away from symptom formation
• Resistance to change


  Can be seen as progress because it indicates that therapy has advanced beyond superficial conversation
• Parapraxes (Freudian slips)


  Are not chance accidents but reveal a person's true but unconscious intentions
• Masochism


  Sexual enjoyment derived from suffering
• Sadism


  The infliction of physical or psychological pain upon another person to achieve sexual excitement
• After Adler broke from Freud's psychoanalytic group, it developed a theory of personality that was nearly opposed to that of Freud
• Adler's view of humanity

  Optimistic, romantic, and rooted in family experiences (opposed to Freud's view which is aromatic and rooted in biology)
• Central Tenets of Adlerian Theory

  • The one dynamic force behind people's behavior is the striving for success or superiority
  • People's subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality
  • Personality is unified and self-consistent
  • The value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest
  • People's creative power molds style of life
• Striving for Success or Superiority


  The sole dynamic force behind people's actions is the striving for success or superiority
• The Final Goal

  The final goal of success or superiority toward which all people strive unifies personality and makes all behavior meaningful
• The Striving Force as Compensation


  • People are born with small, inferior bodies; they feel inferior and attempt to overcome these feelings through their natural tendency to move toward completion
  • The striving force can take one of two courses - personal gain (superiority) or community benefit (success)