PSYC104 Chapter 15: Week 6 and 7 Readings - Personality
13 Jun 2018
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Week Si and Seven Readings –
Personalit
Chapter 15
Case of Jack and Oskar - identical twins who never met, only once briefly, they had similar
personalities but that was it, different political ideologies etc. They were raised in very different
environments.
-Traits:
• Relatively enduring predispositions that influence our behaviour across many situations.
-Nomothetic approach:
• Strives to understand personality by identifying general laws that govern behaviour of all
individuals.
• Approach to personality that focuses on identifying general laws the govern the behaviour of
all individuals.
-Idiographic approach:
• Strives to understand personality by identifying the unique configuration of characteristics and
life history experiences within a person.
• Most case studies are idiographic.
• Approach to personality that focuses on identifying the unique configuration of characteristics
and life history experiences within a person.
-Causes of personality differences:
1. Genetic factors
2. Shared environmental factors
3. Non-shared environmental factors
-Identical twins reared apart are quite similar, some say that because of this the environment has
little to no role in personality, some say that by the time we reach adulthood the impact of a shared
environment on our personalities is weak.
-Adoption studies show that personality traits are similar to that of their biological parents.
SIGMUND FREUD
Psychoanalytic theory:
• Mind over body - mental disorders though to be physiologically caused. This view changed
after Jean Charcot, pseudocyesis were symptoms with no physical causes.
• Hypnosis - when they hypnotised their patients, they would report traumatic experiences such
as sexual abuse.
• Catharsis - feeling or relief following a dramatic outpouring of emotion. Freud found his
patients would experience this after recollecting their past traumatic experiences.
• CORE ASSUMPTIONS:
1. Psychic determinism - all psychological events have a cause. We are not free to choose our
actions because we are at mercy of powerful forces that lie outside of our awareness ->
Freudian slips.
2. Symbolic meaning - no action is meaningless. Usually sexual in nature.
3. Unconscious motivations - we rarely understand what we do, we are unconsciously
motivated. The conscious part is the tip of the ice berg, the pre conscious and unconscious are
under the water and the larger portion.
THE ID
-Reservoir of our most primitive impulses, including sex and aggression.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
-The id operates by the pleasure principle - tendency of the id to strive for immediate gratification.
EGO
-Psyche's executive and principal decision-maker.
-The ego is governed by the reality principle - tendency of the ego to postpone gratification until it
can find an appropriate outlet.
SUPEREGO
-Our sense of morality.
-Freud conceptualises this much like a judgmental parent.
HOW THEY INTERACT
-Freud hypothesises that distress results from the three agencies conflicting.
-Sometimes they can act harmoniously.
DREAMING
-Dreams illustrate the ego and superego cooperating to keep the id's wishes in check.
-All dreams are wish fulfilments.
ANXIETY AND DEFENCE MECHANISMS
-Unconscious manoeuvres intended to minimise anxiety (DM).
-Principle function of the ego.
-Repression - motivated inhibition of emotionally threatening memories or impulses.
Defence
Mechanism
Example
Repression
A person who witnesses something traumatic and finds him/herself
unable to remember it.
Motivated inhibition of emotionally threatening memories or impulses.
Denial
A mother who loses a child in a car accident and insists that her child is
alive.
Motivated failure to acknowledge distressing external experiences.
Regression
A uni student starts sucking his thumb during a difficult exam.
The act of returning psychologically to a younger, and typically safer and
simpler, age.
Reaction-
formation
A married woman who is sexually attracted to a colleague experiences
hatred and revulsion towards him.
Transformation of an anxiety-provoking emotion into its opposite.
Projection
A man with powerful unconscious sexual impulses towards females
complains that women are always 'after him'.
Unconscious attribution of our negative characteristics to others.
Displacement
A tennis player throws her racquet to the ground in anger after missing
an easy volley.
Directing an impulse from a socially unacceptable target onto a safer
and more socially acceptable target.
Rationalisation
A political candidate who loses an election convinces herself that she
did not really want the position after all.
Providing a reasonable-sounding explanation for unreasonable
behaviours or failures.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Case of jack and oskar - identical twins who never met, only once briefly, they had similar personalities but that was it, different political ideologies etc. Traits: relatively enduring predispositions that influence our behaviour across many situations. Strives to understand personality by identifying general laws that govern behaviour of all individuals: approach to personality that focuses on identifying general laws the govern the behaviour of all individuals. Causes of personality differences: genetic factors, shared environmental factors, non-shared environmental factors. Adoption studies show that personality traits are similar to that of their biological parents. Psychoanalytic theory: mind over body - mental disorders though to be physiologically caused. Freud found his patients would experience this after recollecting their past traumatic experiences: core assumptions, psychic determinism - all psychological events have a cause. We are not free to choose our actions because we are at mercy of powerful forces that lie outside of our awareness ->
