PSY 1001 Lecture Notes - Barnum Effect, Body Shape, Karen Horney
15 May 2018
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April 18, 2018
PERSONALITY
I. INTRO TO PERSONALITY
A. Personality: relatively stable and distinctive style of adapting to circumstance
i.e. thoughts behavior and emotional Reponses
B. Barnum Effect
1. Refers to the gullibility of people when reading descriptions of
themselves that supposedly are tailored specifically for them but are in fact
vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people
Example: astrology
a) Astrology describes commonly shred characteristics so that
anyone can seem themselves in the descriptions
II. BIOPSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH
A. Influence of biological Factors
1. Historical roots go back to Hippocrates and Galen and their four
humors hypothesis of the origins of personality
B. Constitutional Theory
1. Body shape influence personality
a) Ectomorphs (skinny)
→
shy
b) Mesomorphs (muscular)
→
confident
c) Endomorphs (round)
→
easy going
2. Hard versions of the theory held that body type determines
personality while soft versions of the theory held that personality resulted
from the interaction between body type with the environment
C. Prenatal Factors
1. Testosterone Concentration
a) May be able to influence personality include
concentrations of testosterone in mother’s blood during
development
Example: rat pups, if they are more aggressive turns out the level
is related to the number of brothers they were next to in the
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2
womb, brothers releases small amounts of testosterone into the
amniotic fluid
(1) Thought to have influences the developing brains of
the females
D. Behavioral Genetics: genetic inheritance passes on predispositions
1. Adoption studies
III. PYSCHODYNAMIC THEORIES
Stress influence of unconscious motivations that people have and conflict
resolution people have between opposing motives that must be resolved
A. Freud
1. Ultimate conflict
a) ID VS superego
→
anxiety
→
defense mechanisms by ego so
that the desire can be satisfied in a socially acceptable way
(1) Ego- reality principle (reason)
(2) ID- pleasure principle (libido- instinct)
(3) Superego- morality (conscience)
2. Psychosexual Stages
(1) Personality develops as people pass through five
stages of development
(2) How child deals with sexual urges at each stage
determines adult personality
3. Inability to resolve conflict → fixation
a) If you stay to long at this stage, fixate on anal stage causes
compulsive personality
4. Post Freudians
a) Differ from Freud
(1) Increase importance of ego decrease importance of
ID
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