HBSE: Theories of Personality

• Personality


  A dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person who uniquely influences his or her cognitions, emotions (motivations) and behaviours in various situations
• Personality


  The pattern of thoughts, feelings, social adjustments, and behaviours consistently exhibited over time that strongly influence one's expectations, self-perceptions, values, and attitudes
• Human behaviour


  The range of behaviours exhibited by humans as they adapt to their environment, which are influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions values ethics, authority rapport, hypnosis persuasion coercion and/or genetics
• Theory


  Interrelated sets of concepts and propositions, organized into a deductive system to explain relationships about certain aspects of the world
• Theory


  A way to make sense out of the complexity of the human condition, explaining intricacies of human existence and human behaviour of how people are affected
• Perspective


  An emphasis or point of view; concepts at an earlier level of development or at a broader and higher level of abstraction
• Psychodynamic Theory


  • Primarily concerned with internal psychological processes
  • Importance of early childhood experiences
  • Existence of unconscious motivation
  • Existence of ego (rationality) and superego (morality)
  • Existence of defense mechanisms
• Psychodynamic Perspective


  A wide group of theories that emphasize the overriding influence of instinctive drives and forces, and the importance of developmental experiences in shaping personality
• Most recent psychodynamic theory places greater emphasis on conscious experience and its interaction with the unconscious, in addition to the role that social factors play in development
• Psychodynamic theories are in basic agreement that the study of human behaviour should include factors such as internal processes, personality, motivation and drives, and the importance of childhood experiences
• Classic theories about the role of the unconscious sexual and aggressive drives have been re-evaluated to focus on conscious experience, resulting in, for example, the birth of ego psychology
• Psychodynamic treatment


  Pioneers were Joseph Breuer (proponent of hypnosis) and Sigmund Freud (talk therapy/free association)
• Insight


  Reached through the tool of interpretation, where the analyst brings hidden meaning to past events to enlighten the patient but must face resistance produced by the defense mechanism of the individual
• Catharsis


  Release and relief of strong or repressed emotions
• Psychodynamic Theory has many forms which are beyond those discussed, including neo-Freudians, the Ego psychology school, Object relations school, and theorists like Karen Horney, Erik Erikson and Erich Fromm
• Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory


  Personality consists of three different elements: the id, the ego, the superego
• ID


  Driven by internal and basic drives and needs, typically instinctual such as hunger, thirsts, and the drive for sex, or libido; pleasure principle- in that it avoids pain and seeks pleasure; it is impulsive and often unaware of implications of actions
• EGO


  Arising from the id, driven by reality principle, works to balance both the id and superego by working to achieve the id's drive in the most realistic ways; helps to have realistic drives by the id and standards set by the superego
• SUPEREGO


  Arising from the ego, driven by morality principle, works to act in socially acceptable ways; judging our sense of wrong and right and using guilt to encourage socially acceptable behaviour
• ID, EGO, SUPEREGO

  • ID represents biological aspects, EGO represents psychological aspects, SUPEREGO represents social aspects
  • ID is immediate, present, and unconscious, EGO is past, present, and conscious/unconscious, SUPEREGO is past and unconscious
  • ID seeks pleasure, EGO adapts reality, SUPEREGO represents morality
  • ID is irrational, EGO is rational, SUPEREGO is illogical
• Unconscious


  The portion of the mind which the person is not aware of, exposing the true emotion, feelings and thoughts of the individual
• Dreams


  Allow us to explore the unconscious, composed of latent content (underlying meaning) and manifest content (remembered content)
• Freudian slips


  Mistakes revealing the unconscious, when the ego and superego do not work properly, exposing the id and internal drives or wants
• Anxiety


  The most overwhelming experiences occur when we are separated from our mother at birth (birth trauma), the basis of all subsequent feelings of anxiety
• Function of anxiety


  To warn us that if we continue thinking or behaving in a certain way, we will be in danger, causing us to terminate those thoughts or actions that will cause anxiety
• Types of anxiety

  • Moral anxiety (fear of internal punishment)
  • Objective/Reality anxiety (fear of real external danger)
  • Neurotic anxiety (fear of external punishment for impulsive actions)
• Defense mechanisms


  Reactions of the ego to protect individuals from any stressors and anxiety by distorting reality, preventing threatening unconscious thought and material from entering the consciousness
• Anger


  Bottled up aggression that can lead to quarrels, fights, and indiscriminate killing
• Suicide


  Hostility directed towards oneself when aggression cannot be expressed towards the frustrating person
• Substitution


  Expression of frustrated impulses indirectly with no change in the conscious quality of desires, often involving socially unacceptable activities and guilt feelings
• Compensation


  Attempt to disguise the presence of a weak or undesirable trait by emphasizing a desirable one, involving socially desirable or acceptable behavior
• Overcompensation


  Extreme or socially unacceptable attempt to counterbalance actual or imagined inferiority
• Rationalization


  Defense mechanism by which seemingly logical explanations are devised to justify behavior that might result in loss of social approval and self-esteem
• Rationalization


  • Sour grapes mechanism
  • Sweet lemon attitude
• Isolation


  Defense mechanism of keeping opposed desires or attitudes in separate logical compartments in consciousness
• Undoing


  Divesting oneself of painful feelings through cleansing rituals after doing something that causes guilt
• Dissociation


  Psychological separation or splitting off of emotional significance and affect from an idea, situation or object
• Fixation


  Arrest of psychosexual development, with persistence of certain incompletely matured elements
• Resistance


  Opposition to bringing repressed data into awareness, helping avoid memories and insights
• Restitution


  Mechanism of relieving guilt through substitutive acts